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Source:
Billy Booth, About.com
Summary: On
September 14, 1957, Ibrahim Sued, a columnist for the
Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Globo, printed a letter which
he had received, concerning a UFO incident. Accompanying
the letter were three small pieces of white metal. Thus
was ushered in one of the most controversial of all
physical-evidence cases. The writer of the letter
described an event in which a "flying disk" exploded
over the beach at Ubatuba, in Sao Paulo Province.
"Rained Down" from Exploding Disc: Some of the
metal, which had "rained down" from the exploding disk,
was collected, and three small pieces were included in
the letter to Sued. Unfortunately, the signature on the
letter was illegible. Furthermore, the identity of all
witnesses to the original seaside event at Ubatuba
remains unknown, despite extensive searches by the
Brazilian representative of APRO, Dr. Olavo FONTES. This
lack of witnesses is one of the greatest weaknesses of
the Ubatuba case.
Two Separate Incidents: This
piece of metal was picked up after a UFO explosion over
Toninha's Beach, in Ubatuba, Sao Paula State, Brazil, in
1957. This sample was analyzed and the results showed a
99.99% pure magnesium. This other piece fell down from
one of the three UFO's that had flown over the city of
Caminas, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on December, 1954.
Tests proved the material to be 88.91% pure tin.
Analysis of Fragments: Mr. Sued gave all three
pieces of metal to Dr. Fontes, who in turn had one of
them analyzed at the Mineral Production Laboratory of
the Department of Mineral Production in the Brazilian
Ministry of Agriculture. Dr. Fontes personally delivered
the samples to the chief chemist, Dr. Fiegl, an
internationally known specialist. A qualitative, acid
test was first made on a small chip, which showed that
the fragments were truly metallic.
Only
Magnesium: One of the original fragments, designated
Sample No.1 by Dr. Fontes, was subdivided into several
pieces and two of the pieces were submitted to the
Spectrographic Section of the Mineral Production
Laboratory Semi-Quantitative Emmission Spectrochemical
Analysis. One of the pieces was analyzed by Dr. Luisa
Maria A. Barbosa. The analysis surprisingly revealed
that the sample contained only the element magnesium.
First Test Validated: A second fragment of
Sample No.1 was submitted to a separate spectrographic
analysis by Mr. Elson Teixeira of the Mineral Production
Laboratory. Mr. Teixeira confirmed Dr. Barbosa's finding
that Sample No.1 was pure magnesium. Further tests were
run on fragments of Sample No. 1. These included
Debye-Scherrer-Hull powder pattern X-ray diffraction
analysis, density measurement, and radiation tests.
Not Made on Earth: The significance of Dr.
Barbosa's and Mr. Teixeira's findings is that it is
impossible to produce any element, terrestrially, that
is absolutely spectrographically pure. These results,
therefore, are often cited by proponents of UFO
extraterrestrial existence as proof that the Ubatuba
material must be EXTRATERRESTRIAL. Unfortunately, this
supposition cannot be proven, due to the lack of any
further Sample No.1 fragments for verification analysis.
More Witnesses Needed: The Ubatuba incident is
certainly in need of futher verification, especially the
details of the UFO incident itself. All we have is the
word of one anonymous person who wrote the letter
received by a newspaper. The case itself is dated by the
receipt of the letter, and not the incident of the
crash, so there are no first hand witnesses to the UFO
incident itself.
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