Experts Cast Doubt on 'Alien Alloys' in the New York Times' UFO Story (scientificamerican.com)

What to make of a Las Vegas building full of unidentified alloys? The New York Times published a stunning story last week revealing that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) had, between 2007 and 2012, funded a $22 million program for investigating UFOs (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). The story included three revelations that were tailored to blow readers' minds: 1. Many high-ranking people in the federal government believe aliens have visited planet Earth. 2. Military pilots have recorded videos of UFOs with capabilities that seem to outstrip all known human aircraft, changing direction and accelerating in ways no fighter jet or helicopter could ever accomplish. 3. In a group of buildings in Las Vegas, the government stockpiles alloys and other materials believed to be associated with UFOs. From a Scientific American report: Points one and two are weird, but not all that compelling on their own: The world already knew that plenty of smart folks believe in alien visitors, and that pilots sometimes encounter strange phenomena in the upper atmosphere. Point No. 3, though -- those buildings full of alloys and other materials -- that's a little harder to hand wave away. Is there really a DOD cache full of materials from out of this world? Here's the thing, though: The chemists and metallurgists Live Science spoke to -- experts in identifying unusual alloys -- don't buy it. "I don't think it's plausible that there's any alloys that we can't identify," Richard Sachleben, a retired chemist and member of the American Chemical Society's panel of experts, told Live Science. "My opinion? That's quite impossible." Alloys are mixtures of different kinds of elemental metals. They're very common -- in fact, Sachleben said, they're more common on Earth than pure elemental metals are -- and very well understood.

Comments

Never seen one

[tsa]

I've worked as a research scientist in research groups that belonged to the absolute top of the field for over 15 years and I never saw any influence of aliens into our field. I worked for many years in nanotechnology, a field in which if the story about those alloys is true you would expect aliens to meddle. I am very sure that every high-tech thing on this planet is conceived and built by people, whether in the past (pyramids, the tomb of Tutanchamon) or now.

The thing you have to understand about alloys

[Solandri]

It's not just the elements you combine which matters. The amount of each element you add can change the final alloy's characteristics. For example, steel (alloy of iron and carbon) becomes stronger as you add carbon. The carbon atoms wedge themselves in between the crystalline iron grains, making it harder for them to slide around (sliding is what gives metals their malleability), thus making the steel stronger (less bendy) than iron. But if you add too much carbon, you reduce the malleability so much that it becomes brittle. The microscopic structure continues to become stronger (the iron atoms don't slide against each other making it almost diamond-like in toughness), but the macroscopic structure now fractures - the crystalline metal grains which used to absorb energy by sliding around now absorb it by separating. And the combined result is weaker than iron in practical applications. Where the steel falls along this spectrum depends on the amount of carbon you add.

If it were just a simple combination of elements, then there would be a limited number of alloys, and an "unidentifiable" alloy would imply an unknown/undiscovered element. But because the amount of each element matters, there are literally an infinite number of possible alloys. And some of them may have a "sweet spot" in their desirable characteristics (like carbon does with iron to create strong steel). Not enough or too much of the alloying material and you've completely missed the sweet spot. (And there may even be multiple sweet spots - it all depends on how the half dozen elements you're alloying together interact with each other.)

So of course the DoD is going to be running experiments combining all sorts of different materials in different combinations and concentrations in search of possible alloys we've overlooked or haven't stumbled upon yet. And if they're smart they'd be cataloging their findings and storing the resulting alloys in a warehouse in case it's ever needed for future testing (so they don't have to create it again). And if they've got a particular combination and concentration of elements nobody has tried before, that would make it an "unkonwn" or "unidentified" alloy. Unknown until they make it and test it, that is.