Secrets of Roswell memory metal revealed

Was the Roswell memory metal secretly "seeded" to industry and to others who could exploit its potential benefits? How was the technology transferred while keeping its origin disguised? Why were bizarre "mind-over-matter" tests performed by government psychics on the shape-recovery metal Nitinol? What is the hidden meaning of the morphing metal? Newly developed information provides the stunning answers to these questions.

Prior articles in this series showed that Wright Patterson Air Force Base contracted Battelle Memorial Institute -in the months immediately following the Roswell crash in 1947- to conduct studies on memory metal based on a Nickel and Titanium alloy. Similar material that could "remember" its original shape when crumpled or deformed was reported at the Roswell crash debris site. Wright Patterson -the base that contracted Battelle- was the very base to which the Roswell debris was flown after the crash.

Evidence for the Roswell-Battelle Connection was drawn from:

Footnotes that were located within military studies to a Battelle report on memory metal conducted by the Institute for Wright Patterson in the late 1940s

The fact that -although footnotes citing these reports have been found- the actual reports are "missing" despite repeated efforts

Supporting information provided by two USAF Generals (including one from Wright Patterson) on the composition of the debris and the existence of the analysis reports

A senior-level Battelle scientist's confession that he had analyzed the UFO crash debris when employed at the Institute

A historical "backtracking" of the technical literature on the development of shape-recovery metals- leading back to the doors of Battelle and Wright Patterson, to late 1940s exotic metal reports and to the Roswell Incident

A telling examination of the life of Battelle's Dr. Howard Cross as both metallurgist and UFO researcher- showing his likely involvement in the debris analysis

In this last installment, the memory metal's secret history is further exposed- and the hidden meaning of the metal is finally revealed:



MEMORY METAL'S "OFFICIAL HISTORY" IS FALSE

Europeans in the 1930s conducting metal "bendability" and stress tests noted that some alloys (containing Aluminum) could exhibit a type of "pseudo-elasticity." In fact -since man began forging metal by fire- the "state of metal" was known to be "changeable."

But the Battelle studies conducted for Wright Patterson in the late 1940s represent something entirely different. They show that this was the very first time that a metal system that had the potential for genuine "shape recovery" was ever examined by the U.S. military. And these studies began immediately following the Roswell crash where similar material was reported to have been found. Importantly, even after decades, the Nickel-Titanium metal system (Nitinol) remains the material that defines "morphing metal." Any earlier observation of "pseudo-elasticity" was with a metal alloy that did not utilize Nickel and Titanium- and that was not developed for that property. Nitinol, however, has gone on to be used in a variety of things from eyeglass frames to aircraft to medical implants.

It is traditionally held that the Nickel-Titanium memory alloy (known as Nitinol) was "discovered by accident" in the early 1960s at the U.S. Naval Ordnance Lab in Maryland, by co-inventors Drs. Wang and Buehler. But the true history of Nitinol is purposely obscured- and it is riddled with holes and discrepancies.

The truth is that the first efforts at examining this remarkable Nickel-Titanium alloy had ocurred years previously, in the late 1940s after the Roswell crash. And the work was performed by someone else- Battelle Memorial Institute in Ohio. This work was contracted by Wright Patterson- the very base where the crash material was taken.

YEAR OF DISCOVERY UNCLEAR

One of the problems immediately evident with the "official" history of Nitinol is the exact year offered for its discovery. Simply "Google" the word Nitinol with any of the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 or 1963. Search results will show links to sites that give each of those years as the "year of discovery" for Nitinol. Even Nitinol's "official" co-inventors Buehler and Wang have offered different years of discovery when at the Naval Lab. Scientific journals and articles found in the popular press give different years. When reached by this author and asked what was the exact year he "co-invented" the material, Wang gave a strange laugh and admitted that he wasn't exactly sure and that he would have to look it up!

DIFFERENT REASONS OFFERED FOR WHY IT WAS DEVELOPED

We are given at least three completely different reasons on why Nitinol was being investigated in the first place. In an oral history, Buehler said that he was conducting studies on intermetallic alloys for use in re-entry aeronautic nose cones. But a 1968 Time Magazine article quotes him that they were trying to find a non-magnetic, non-corrosive material for use as a tool in mine dismantling. Recently, a former Lawrence Berkeley scientist has related that to this author that he examined Nitinol while at that National Lab. He was told that the material was developed when trying to create new submarine ship hull material.

DIFFERENT EXPLANATIONS GIVEN FOR THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING ITS DISCOVERY
In most re-tellings, the explanation for how Nitinol was "accidentally" discovered is something to the effect that "someone was bored and decided to take a match to it to see what heating would do." Nitinol requires energy -like heat- to morph.

But in another recounting, a researcher "RCW Wiley" had placed a Nickel-Titanium alloy into a hardness testing machine and a dent was made. Wiley then decided to warm up the block to see the effect of heat treatment- and to his surprise- the dent vanished. No mention is made if the Titanium was purified to the ultra-high levels required to make Nitinol.

Yet another reason is given in an oral history by Nitinol co-inventor Buehler. He says that for some reason he took a strip of the alloy into a managment meeting at the Naval Lab one day. He was "fidgeting" with the material and an associate named David Muzzey (of whom no record as ever been found) was compelled to take a pipe lighter (in some versions a cigarette match) to the material to see what would happen...and Voila, Nitinol!

Buehler is conflicted and offers two diametrically opposed explanations about the material. He at one time refers to it as a "planned discovery" and yet to another reporter he said that it came about as a result of "serendipity" or an accidental discovery. In an historical retelling late in life, Buehler exclaimed almost metaphysically that he was "drawn" to the alloy. When he struck it, Buehler says, "it rang out brilliantly" and he states that the "equiatomic Nickel Titanium was acoustically signalling that it was unusual or unique." Just how he knew that the Titanium must be of nearly 100% purity- or that the temperature, pressure and other dynamics must be precisely in place to create Nitinol and energy then introduced into the metal is a specific way- is never made clear.

BATTELLE PROVIDED THE U.S. NAVY WITH ROSWELL MEMORY METAL TECHNOLOGY

As described in a previous article, Battelle's Dr. Howard Cross -a metallurgist and secret Project Blue Book UFO researcher- was likely directing the Roswell debris analysis. Cross was "feeding" technical information on specially-processed Titanium (which is required to make Nitinol) as early as 1948. Cross is the author of a technical summary report entitled, "Titanium Base Alloys." It was presented by him to the Office of Naval Research in December of 1948. The Naval Lab is the very lab where Nitinol was "officially" discovered many years later.

In fact, a research paper from Nitinol's "official" co-inventor, Dr. Wang, gives us confirmation that he was "fed" needed information on the alloy from the early Battelle report on memory metal done after Roswell. In footnote No. 6 in his "On the NiTi (Nitinol) Martensitic Transition, Part 1 1972 Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, MD" Wang cites the Battelle 1949 "Second Progress Report" on Nickel-Titanium system authored by Battelle scientists Craighead, Fawn and Eastwood.

This author reached Dr. Wang to ask him some questions about his research. When I eventually brought up the subject of the 1949 Battelle report that he had footnoted in his study on Nitinol, Wang got very "cagey" and appeared to not want to answer. When pressed, he said that "it must have related to a Phase Diagram on Nickel and Titanium." A phase diagram provides information on the "mixability" of metals that is needed to create an alloy. It details the individual metal's "boundaries" when attempting to combine them. Temperature, pressure and other dynamics are measured to determine the successful combination to create an alloy. Such information would absolutely have been required to create the memory metal Nitinol.

When I asked Wang who it was that had provided him with the Battelle report, he would only answer that he got it "from my superior, who may have gotten it from another agency." When I told Wang that this Battelle report was "missing" despite all attempts to locate it, he offered weakly, "well, I wouldn't know anything about that." When I asked if Wang knew one of the Battelle report scientists (Craighead.) Wang admitted, " I knew of Craighead."

I then "eased in" to telling the elderly scientist that his Nitinol seemed very much like the morphing metal that was reported by many people to have been recovered from the crash of an unidentified object at Roswell, NM in 1947. The scientist did not reply to me that he he was unfamiliar with the Roswell crash -or that he did not know to whIch event I was referring. Nor did he say that the idea of such a scenario was ridiculous or misguided. Instead, Wang was stunned silent. After a long pause he said, "I don't have any comment on that." With nothing to loose, I then quickly outlined my findings on the Battelle-Roswell connection. He only reiterated, "I told you that I am not going to discuss that." .



KEEPING THE SECRET WHILE TRANSFERING THE TECHNOLOGY KEEP THEM IN THE DARK

The key to keeping the origin of such a technology secret is "compartmentalization." You only give out pieces or parts -never the whole thing. And sometimes you provide only the technical information that was gained by others on the parts- not the parts themselves. You release these to different places. This is not done at once, but rather over periods of time. You give it to those holding high-security clearance, and then only to those with a "Need to Know." But most importantly, you never tell any of them the "backstory" about where it came from. "Blend" this technology so that it does not appear to be anything other than part of existing areas of research. Over the passage of decades, the truth remains even further and more easily buried. It is in this way that scientists today working on shape-recovery alloys are prevented from realizing the hidden history of their work. It is likely that even the Naval Lab's "official" inventors of Nitinol did not know the "Roswell impetus" of their research (though they may well have wondered.)

A report that bluntly and openly states "this is material that was recovered at Roswell" will never be found. It is only through carefully reviewing the "history of science" many decades later that these connections about the Roswell metal's history would be made. Only obscure footnotes found buried in military studies -coupled with sleuth work- would lead to the truth about the study of the Roswell metal.

It now appears that much of the work on the Roswell debris was skillfully and conveniently "folded into" military contracted work on "traditional" aeronautical or naval metals engineering projects of the time. It was the perfect guise. Nobody would put "two and two" together that this advanced materials work -actually inspired by Roswell- was anything "special." It would be seen as just "part of the program." Selectively "farming out" portions of this work assured that nobody would make any "connections." The "paper trail" on the study of the material could also be confused as "normal military work" that they were "already conducting."

MOVING THE METAL TO NASA AND INTO SPACE

One of the ultimate goals of the work on the memory metal was to return it to Outer Space. It came from a spacecraft at Roswell- and it would ultimately be used for this very purpose by us- through NASA.

This is confirmed by:

- Nitinol's "official" co-inventor William Buehler tellingly states in an oral history that after his "discovery" it was NASA that "independently retained Battelle to conduct further "characterization studies" on Nitinol. Buehler reveals two things as an elderly man recollecting his past: Battelle was still involved in directing the study of the material in the 1960s and that it was NASA that was "pulling the strings" about the direction of research on the material.

- An individual who was contracted by the U.S. Naval Lab to perform "mental influence" tests to attempt to bend Nitinol with the mind's energy said that NASA was there. He told me in a recent interview that "People in plainclothes from NASA were present at all times during these tests. I couldn't understand why." Why would NASA be at the US Naval Lab overseeing psychic tests on a metal? See this article's next section for details on these bizarre Mind-Over-Matter tests conducted on Nitinol.

- NASA sought to develop shape-recovery material for use in their own spacecraft. A "self-healing" material, or a material that can "remember" itself for future function would be very valuable. If the metal could morph, the shape of the craft could be changed to best suit the environment it is traversing. If the metal responds to direction given by the mind's energy, new control and navigation systems could be developed. This would be the ultimate in Mind-Machine interface.

- An extraordinarily telling video that can now be viewed online proves that NASA is perfecting such shape-recovery metals as "intelligent," adaptive materials of construction for spacecraft. This (short) video can be seen by "Googling" the phrase (in quotes) "NASA Morphing Metal." Any of the seven search results that appear will link to sites that show this technology-transfer film from NASA's Center for Excellence in Materials. You can then visually grasp just how amazing memory material can be: It can absorb the impact of a crash, like at Roswell. It can function as a novel actuator. It can even be used to create advanced craft with "flappable" or adaptable wings! And a craft that appears small when seen from the outside -once entered- can then appear very large when inside. Actuators and panels made of memory metal can create this effect by expanding the interior walls and floors and extending the craft's frame. Interestingly, this very effect has been reported by some who claim to have entered "flying saucers."


MIND, MATTER AND MORPHING
This unique metal combination holds a significance so special that it was tested by the U.S. Government to see if it could be altered by the human mind! This is revealed in a decades-old technical summary report found completed by the U.S. Naval Lab. In the early 1970's the U.S. government tested Nitinol to see if it could "morph" using only the mind's energy. Could "psychokinesis" affect this shape-recovery material? Would an "intelligent metal" like Nitinol respond to the energy generated by the intelligent mind?

Physical scientist Eldon Byrd was employed by the U.S. Naval Lab and other government agencies for decades. In his paper "Influence on Metal Alloy Nitinol" (1973 Naval Surface Weapons Center, White Oak Laboratory, Silver Spring, MD) Byrd outlines tests that were performed that year using "psychics" to try to change the hardness of the material, deform it in some distinct way or to alter its magnetic properties. The tests were in part successful. A permanent "knot" was induced in the material preventing its famous "snap back." Within this knotted section, unusual microscopic changes in its the material's structure were observed. The introduction of energy is required to create a morphing change in the metal. Typically this "introduced energy" is heat. But it appeared that the mind's "energy" could also create the morph.

Incredibly, it was none other than Dr. Fred Wang, Nitinol's "official" co-inventor who conducted these Mind-Over-Memory Metal tests, according to Wang's colleague Eldon Byrd! As mentioned earlier, it is also this very Dr. Wang who cites by footnote the (now missing) 1949 Battelle report on Nickel and Titanium in one of his own Nitinol studies! The scientist who conducted psychic influence tests on the material is the same scientist who had access to the "missing" late 1940's Battelle reports on memory metal likely inspired by the Roswell crash debris!

Some years ago in talking to skeptic Martin Gardner, Wang denied being present at the Naval Lab when these strange tests were conducted. But Eldon Byrd begs to differ. In a 2001 interview Byrd says that the scientist is lying. Byrd charges that Wang "yielded to the pressure put on him" and adds "he did the tests. I had the results in the form of photos and X-rays." When I asked of Wang what he thought of Byrd's assertation, Wang this time did not deny his presence at the tests but instead replied, "Byrd says a lot of things."

THE HIDDEN MEANING OF MEMORY METAL

Morphing metal may well be the stuff from which today's often-seen "morphing UFOs" are made. Such materials of construction may help to explain the "shape-shifting" craft. And it is likely that similar material accounts for some of the debris that was found at the crash at Roswell.

But there is an even deeper meaning to memory metal. It is found within the Morph. It represents "the potential for change." Such material reflects the value of adaptation. Without it, life ceases. The best material adapts itself to best suit its environment. The shape-memory qualities of the Roswell debris speak to the metal's "rememberance" of a malleable and ever-changing Universe. It reveals the Universe as Infinite Potential. And this Change is created by the unique and eternal interplay of Matter, Energy and Mind.

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Giant Skeletons

The mystery surrounding reports of “giant skeletons” has always intrigued and fascinated me. Specifically, how it seemed to be a common ocurrence that human-like bone remains, often of giant proportions, were known for popping up everywhere in the mid-to-late 1800s, as featured in reports like these:

During an 1879 excavation of an Indian mound near Brewersville, Indiana, a nine-foot eight inch skeleton was found buried within. Around the same time, George W. Hill, M.D., also unearthed a skeleton said to be “of unusual size” while excavating a mound in Ashland County, Ohio. In 1880, American Antiquarian, volume three, reported that a Doctor Everhart allegedly found another large skeleton “reported to have been of enormous dimensions” in a strange clay coffin along with a sandstone slab marked with unidentified hieroglyphics near Zanesville Ohio. In 1881 in Medina County, Ohio, a succession of nine bodies were found below the cellar of a house, buried as though the corpses had been “dumped into a ditch.” Albert Harris, one of the residents, was twenty years old at the time of the grave’s discovery, and removing one of the large skeletons, said that he could literally fit the piece over his entire head and allow it to rest on his shoulders like a large helmet, even while wearing a cap underneath! Still, we’ve all heard of how even well known authors of the era, including Mark Twain, contributed to the telling of “whoppers” in their day; that is, many writers who got their feet wet as newspaper writers for dailies would occasionally cook up tall tales when local news just wasn’t doing it (see a great example of this here). Eventually, I decided to try and find out if there might be any reports that could be verified with more certainty, and after some digging around in public domain archives, I found a couple.

In their 1894 report to the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, Cyrus Thomas and Thomas Powell of the Bureau of Ethnology wrote of several discoveries where large human skeletal remains were found, the first ocurring in Roane County, Tennessee:

“Underneath the layer of shells the earth was very dark and appeared to be mixed with vegetable mold to the depth of 1 foot. At the bottom of this, resting on the original surface of the ground, was a very large skeleton lying horizontally at full length. Although very soft, the bones were sufficiently distinct to allow of careful measurement before attempting to remove them. The length from the base of the skull to the bones of the toes was found to be 7 feet 3 inches. It is probable, therefore, that this individual when living was fully 7½ feet high.”

And yet another instance, this time in presumed Indian burial mounds at Dunlieth, Illinois:

“Near the original surface, 10 or 12 feet from the center, on the lower side, lying at full length on its back, was one of the largest skeletons discovered by the Bureau agents, the length as proved by actual measurement being between 7 and 8 feet. It was clearly traceable, but crumbled to pieces immediately after removal from the hard earth in which it was encased….”

Indeed, it seems that the Smithsonian at one time reported oddities like these which they uncovered, especially during the “giant boom” of the late nineteenth century. Still, I can’t help but ask; if these kinds of discoveries were ever at all commonplace, why aren’t skeletons and other anomalies like this found more frequently in modern times… or are they?

During an email exchange I had last year with my good friend and mentor, Brad Steiger, we began discussing a few similar reports which he had included in his book Worlds Before Our Own, where a few such skeletons were said to exist in private museums. ”After the book was published, I learned of even more and included photos of them in my lectures,” he told me. ”Soon, individuals beseeched me to cease; the private museums were mysteriously suffering unexplained fires.” One is left to ask; what about anomalous relics of this (or any) sort could be so worthy of censorship on such a level?

Further complicating the mystery of missing giant bones is the following exerpt from an article I wrote which included the inquiries of the late zoologist Ivan T. Sanderson, best known for his interest in the legends regarding America’s Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowmen alleged to reside in the Himalayas:

“Sometime in the 1960s, Sanderson wrote about an odd letter he received regarding an engineer who, during World War II, had been stationed on the Aleutian island of Shemya. While building an airstrip, the bulldozing of a group of hills in the area led the engineer and his crew to unearth several sedimentary layers of human remains. They noted the extraordinary length of the crania and leg bones at the site, having apparently belonged to people of gigantic proportions. The skulls were said to have measured up to 24 inches from base to crown, far greater than the length of an average human skull. Also of interest was that each was said to have been trepanned, the strange process of drilling or cutting a hole and removing a top center portion of the skull, thought by some ancient cultures to enable a variety of alleged “benefits”, including psychic abilities, etc. Sanderson actively began to search for more proof of this incident, and later was able to contact another member of the unit who also confirmed the bizarre story. By all accounts, the remains were said to have been gathered by the Smithsonian Institution, but no record of where they were taken was ever issued. Sanderson seemed convinced that the institute did indeed retrieve them however, going so far as to ask ‘is it that these people cannot face rewriting all the textbooks?’ “

Do I honestly think that there are MIBs out there spiriting away giant skeletons into an unmarked warehouse someplace? Not at all… but I think it’s safe to suppose (at least for the sake of a good pun) that someone may have a few “skeletons in their closet” that they just aren’t talking about!

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Man-eating Plants

The twin fields of cryptozoology and cryptobotany are bursting with tales of strange and unusual plants and animals. While the public at large is generally aware of such cryptid superstars as the Loch Ness Monster and the Sasquatch, few have ever heard of the Man-Eating Trees of Madagascar, or the Mongolian Death worms.

In 1881 a magazine called the South Australian Register ran a story by a traveler called Carle Liche. He tells us that while travelling through Madagascar, he was horrified to watch the native Mdoko tribe sacrifice a woman to a man-eating tree.

He stated that the places the woman near the tree, and after laying there for a few seconds, the tree's tendrils took the woman by the neck and strangled her, before apparently engulfing the body. In his 1924 book "Madagascar, land of the man-eating tree" former Michigan Governor Chase Osborn recounted Liche's tale, and mentioned that missionaries and locals in Madagascar all knew of the deadly tree. Unfortunately, Liche's accounts may have been an exaggeration, as both the Mdoko tribe nor the man-eating tree have ever been found, and the governor may simply have been embellishing a little bit more to make for good reading.

From the steppes of Mongolia comes another type of creature that is particularly memorable by its rather disgusting appearance. The Mongolian Death Worm is a supposedly poisonous worm that has the appearance of a bright red bloody cow intestine. That's right, a deadly cow intestine. Said to be about four feet long, the animal is said to spit a yellow substance when threatened that is deadly on contact with human skin, and is even claimed to be able to kill with electricity in a manner similar to the electric eel. Shocking, but does it really exist? Expeditions to Mongolia to find the creature haven't been particularly fruitful, however the story is so wide-spread that there may well be truth to it. With new species of animal, even large ones, seemingly being found all the time in such places as the jungles of Vietnam, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suspect that the same may be found under the earth in the extremely desolate Gobi desert.

Madagascar and Mongolia aren't the only places where one finds man-eating trees and deadly worms. South America is also a fruitful land for stories of deadly trees, and even more amazing are the stories of the enormous Minhocao. This giant cryptic has been reported to live in the forests of South America and has been claimed to reach astonishing lengths of up to 75 feet. Old accounts tell of a huge tunnel digging worm with two appendages on its head, perhaps similar to those of a snail or slug. Unfortunately, no one has seen the Minhocao in over a century, suggesting that it has either gone extinct or may never have existed at all.

Often cryptids are misidentified known animals, sometimes they defy explanation. In any of the cases detailed in this article, there would be few animals with appearances close enough to be mistaken. It might be that the man-eating trees simply stem from exaggerated accounts of venus fly traps, but the worms are more difficult to dismiss. Slimy worms aren't particularly scary, nor do they make good fodder to make up legends about. They are simply worms, and stories of 75 foot long docile giants and blood red disgusting-but-deadly creatures are not something that cultures would normally invent out of thin air. They probably have a grain of truth somewhere, hidden along with the animals themselves in the least explored places on planet earth.

The jungle seems a tangle of vines and stalks and leaves. The only way you move through the impenetrable wall of green is with a machete. Hacking with the knife, you can slowly make some progress, but the work is exhausting. Finally, you seem to be reaching the jungle's edge. Only a few heavy vines block your way. You bring back the knife to swing at one, but your native guide stays your hand.

"No sir! Do not touch that one! Go around! It is dangerous!"

You scoff at him. "Go around? What for? We're almost out. It's just a vine!"

You swing your machete and it strikes the three-inch-thick vine, slicing it neatly in two. Suddenly the jungle around you comes alive. The vines in the nearby trees start moving. You step back, but it's too late. One wraps around your ankle. You raise your knife to cut through it, but before you can swing, another vine twists around your arm, stopping it. A third vine, as thick as a fire hose, curls around your waist and you are knocked off your feet. It drags you into the thick underbrush. Suddenly the jungle parts up ahead and you see an orange pod as tall as a man. It opens and you are thrust into its dark interior. You find yourself waist deep in a sticky liquid that burns your skin. As the leaves close up behind you, trapping you, your guide's voice can be heard...

"Sir, you should have listened!"

A strange tale, but could it be true? Is there flora that traps animals and consumes meat? Are there really man-eating plants?
Well, the former is certainly true. There are many plants in the world that eat meat. The great biologist, Charles Darwin, was fascinated by them and spent fifteen years of his life studying them.

Carnivorous Plants

All plants, unlike animals, are capable of producing their own food. They take carbon dioxide out of the air, water from the ground, light from the sun and make food through a process called photosynthesis. In addition to sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, the plants also need certain minerals to survive. These they usually take out of the soil though their roots.

Plants living in wet areas, such as bogs, have a problem, though. The water in these areas carry away many of the nutrients the plants need to grow. Some plants have found a solution to this problem by becoming carnivorous, which means "meat-eating." Rather than get the minerals they need from the soil, they trap animals, mostly insects, and take the nutrients out of the unfortunate victim's body.

Darwin originally called these flora insectivores. Later scientists decided that the plants ate enough animals (other than insects) that the term carnivore should be used.

Meat-eating plants use several different mechanisms to trap their prey. Pitcher plants have leaves that grow into a vase-like container with a hood that overhangs the opening. The edge of the hood is covered with a sweet-smelling nectar that attracts insects. Inside this lid are downward-pointing hairs that lead the insects further into the plant and slippery wax surfaces that are difficult for the victims to crawl on. At the bottom of the vase-like structure is a pool of chemicals that will digest insects if they fall in. Various versions of the plants use different methods to get the victims into their pools. For example, the yellow trumpet has a substance in its nectar that paralyzes any insect that eats it. Once the victim takes a sip, he soon tumbles into the pool and is digested.

Other plants, like the sundew, use nectar to get insects to land on a leaf covered with sensitive hairs. Each hair has a tiny bead of sticky liquid on top. When the insect lands, it sticks to the hairs it is touching. As the victim struggles, other hairs bend over and attach themselves to secure the meal even further. The sticky liquid soon enters the insect's breathing holes and it suffocates. Digestive juices soon follow and the sticky liquid and the soft parts of the victim's body are soon dissolved away to be recovered and used by the plant.

Perhaps the strangest and most well-known carnivorous plant is the Venus flytrap. The flytrap, whose scientific name is Dionaea muscipula ("mousetrap of Venus") looks like a small circle of strange leaves sitting close to the ground. Sometimes it is topped by a long stem with small white flowers. These plants are so strange that folklore has it that they come from outer space and only grow near the sites of meteor impact craters.

The truth is that the flytrap comes not from the second planet from the sun, but from North and South Carolina. Its strange leaves have a lob at the end that looks like a small, green clamshell with teeth. Inside the clam shell are two sensitive hairs. If an insect lands on the lob and touches both of the hairs, or touches one of the hairs twice in a short amount of time, the trap is sprung. The two sides of the clamshell leaf close quickly on the insect. The "teeth" intermesh, making sure the animal cannot escape. After the trap closes, glands on the inner surfaces of the shell release digestive juices.
Man-Eating Plants

Are any of these carnivorous plants capable of posing a threat to humans? Not really. The largest of the meat-eating plants is a relative of the pitcher plant named Nepenthes. It grows in the rain forests of Southeast Asia as a vine up to 50 feet in length. The pitchers sometimes grow to be a foot in length. Nepenthes traps mostly insects and small frogs, though animals as large as a rat have been found dead digesting in its juices. Some Nepenthes pitchers that have been found are large enough to hold four quarts of liquid.

The Nepenthes is not a threat to humans, however. In fact the local people have found ways to make them useful. The pitchers can be cleaned out and used to cook rice, while its long, strong vines serve as ropes.

If no carnivorous plant known is large enough to consume a human, where did the idea of man-eating plants come from?

The Corpse Flower

The plant responsible for starting these rumors might be Amorphophallus titanum otherwise known as the "corpse flower." Amorphophallus titanum, which is said to be the biggest, smelliest flower in the world, looks like something that could eat a human being. When it blooms it can reach at height over nine feet in height and smells like a mixture of rotting flesh and excrement. The pungent odor attracts bees which are trapped in the flower until they are covered with pollen. Then they are released to fertilize other plants.

The Amorphophallus titanum, or "Corpse Flower" has been known to grow as high as nine feet.

A blooming Amorphophallus titanum's "flower" (actually it is technically a leaf or spathe) can be three feet across. It is notoriously difficult to get a titanum to bloom outside of its native Indonesia, and botanical gardens around the world often try for decades without success. Bloomings of the Amorphophallus titanum have happened only about a dozen times in the United States since the first success at the New York Botanical Gardens in 1937.

When the plant does bloom it moves quickly. It can grow as fast as 4 inches per day. The period when the "flower" is open lasts only about two days.

Although the Amorphophallus titanum looks a lot like you would imagine a man-eating plant to look like, and it even smells like somebody is dead inside, it is not carnivorous.

Ironically, people are a lot more dangerous to carnivorous plants than the plants are to people. The pitcher plant and the venus flytrap live in wetland areas which are being destroyed by human development. Also the popularity of these plants is also working against them. Commercial plant collectors have stripped areas of the venus flytrap in an effort to provide them to consumers. Also many species of North American pitchers, whose leaves are in demand by florists, have been so decimated by collectors that they may disappear from the wild completely.

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The Philadelphia Experiment

The Philadelphia Experiment has been a subject of long controversy, debate and blurry vision. The basis is, it was an experiment conducted by the Navy to create a ship that couldn't be detected by magnetic mines and radar. In other words, they wanted to render a ship invisible.

The Philadelphia Experiment has also been associated with several invisibility projects and mind-control experiments. While the actual truth behind the experiment can never be known, we rely on what little information was leaked out or given out by people claiming to be witnesses to the project, or otherwise members of the project itself.

• Prelude

Now, the alleged results of these experiments are extremely bizarre, yet a string of coincidences and events that centered around the Philadelphia Experiment have lent these some credibility. The results include things such as the whispers of men "freezing" in time for months, men traveling through time, and even some of the men becoming embedded into the bulkheads and floor of the ship.

The idea for the experiment came from investigations and experiments by a group involving Tesla for the possibility of invisibility through the use of electricity. The experiments succeeded for small objects, and around 1939, it was presented to the government. The military was particularly interested in this, possibly due to the fact that there was a war going on at the time, and technology like this would be monumental.

In 1943, the government decided to perform a test on domestic animals on a ship. It was the USS Eldridge on which the animals were placed in metal cages. The ship did indeed go invisible, but when the animals were observed again, several of them bore radiation and burn marks, and several were missing. They had decided that humans were not to be tested.

Despite this decision, on August 12 of the same year, the USS Eldridge, with a full capacity human crew on board, underwent this experiment. The crew did not know that an experiment was about to happen. The generators started, the switch was thrown, and the ship disappeared, as was expected. However, the date of August 12 is disputed, with some claiming that October 28, 1943 would have been a more accurate date, because according to the Eldridge's deck log and war diary, it wasn't in Philadelphia at the time. However, the logs could easily have been changed for the sake of national security.

Although the logs stated the ship had been gone for a few minutes, witnesses testified that it was gone for at least 4 hours, and had been transported through space and time.

What was observed when the ship returned was rather disturbing: When it returned to its original place, there was a greenish haze on deck and around the ship. Some sailors were on fire. Some had gone insane. All of them were sick, some suffering from heart attacks, and some were simply dead. Most astounding of all, was that some of the sailors had become part of the structure of the ship itself, buried in the walls or deck of the ship. Additionally, some of the men were missing.

Where the ship had gone, can only be speculated. Some witnessed claimed it went to Norfolk Harbor, and others say it went 40 years into the future and wound up at Montauk, New York.

The Navy, of course, denied everything and claimed that the men were lost at sea. You can read their current rebuttal of the Philadelphia Experiment here.

There is even an elaborate story that combines the Philadelphia Experiment with the Montauk Experiment, a time loop linking the sailors of the Eldridge to Montauk, New York, with a time loop to 1983.

• Afterwards...

But wait, there's more! As the story continues, the sailors went crazy after the ship materialized, and they raided a bar. They told the bar maid their story and completely terrified her. A newspaper article had been written about the raid, but no date was named, so the article couldn't be found. Most of the crew members eventually went insane, but a few retained their sanity, only to face further situations. One man sat down to dinner with his wife and child, but then got up from the table, walked through the wall, and was never seen again. Two other sailors were also said to have simply disappeared into thin air and never seen again. Another crew member vanished in the middle of a fight, surprising his opponent to the extent of shocking him. All three of these incidents are said to have had witnesses.

Another side effect was of the men getting 'stuck'. Getting 'stuck' basically consisted of becoming unable to move or interact with anyone for long periods of time. The crew members called this phenomenon as "Hell Incorporated". Another name for this was the "Freeze". A common freeze would last from a few minutes to a few hours and damaged the person psychologically, but wouldn't cause madness. A man would come out of the Freeze if the other crew members laid their hands upon him to "give him strength." This usually worked, except in one case, two men attempted to lay their hands upon a frozen crew member, and he burst into flames and burned for eighteen days. The fires could not be stopped, nor did they spread to the surrounding locations.

As if that weren't enough, some of the men started going into "Deep Freeze." Deep Freeze was something similar to getting stuck, except they would be visible only to the crew members, and they would be completely aware of others and their actions but was unable to communicate with them or interact with them. It was said that it took only two days for a man to go insane in the Deep Freeze. It is also said that the first Deep Freeze took six months and five million dollars of research and equipment to correct.

The man who got out from the six-month Deep Freeze was insane by the time he got out. Some have attributed that the disappearance or freezing of people to the Zeeman Effect - "the spreading out of the spectral lines of atoms under the influence of a strong magnetic field." The rest of the sailors were discharged from the Navy as mentally unfit.

• Technical Details, perhaps

I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the following details, but I include them here due to relevance to this article.

Two crewmen had been walking in a park when a haggard looking man approached them. The man told them a fantastic story about an experiment done in which most of the crew died or suffered terrible side effects. He said that the government then claimed the entire crew was insane so that when they came forward, they would merely be dismissed as a group of crazy people who had merely concocted some fantastic story. After the conversation, one crew member was convinced while the other was not. Eventually, the member that had been convinced contacted Dr. Jessup and told him the story. Although this was a substantial lead, Dr. Jessup was not getting very far and he found that his reputation in the scientific community was worsening. Faced with overwhelming odds, Dr. Jessup eventually committed suicide on April 20, 1959, believing "another existence of universe being better than this miserable world." (The Philadelphia Experiment, 79). Some believe that his suicide was actually an assassination by government agencies to keep the experiment quiet.

Unfortunately for Dr. Jessup, a major clue in the puzzle turned up shortly after his death. This clue was a man by the name of Alfred D. Bielek.

Bielek's story is even more bizarre than Allende's. He claims that he was transported in time to the future and that here in the future he was brainwashed by the Navy. This brainwashing led him to believe that his name was Alfred Bielek, rather than his true name, Edward Cameron. Upon discovering his true identity, he tracked down his brother who had also participated in the experiment. Bielek claims that his brother time traveled to 1983 and lost his 'time-lock'. As a result, his brother aged one year every hour and eventually died. Bielek then claims that his brother was reborn. Needless to say, only a small group of people believe Bielek and nearly everyone thinks that his stories are based on some truth, but he's exaggerating the truth for personal reasons. This popular opinion seems to be reinforced when Bielek starts remembering things only after having seen the movie "The Philadelphia Experiment". Bielek has a Ph.D. in Physics, so he does have some technical experience. He is also a retired electrical engineer with thirty years of experience. Because of his obvious intelligence and skill, he cannot be discounted entirely. Bielek stated that the technology used in the Philadelphia Experiment was given to us by aliens. However, the germanium transistor, which was what Bielek said had been used, was invented by Thomas Henry Moray.

Bielek also stated that Dr. Albert Einstein, Dr. John von Neumann, and Dr. Nikola Tesla were involved in the project. Some controversy has arisen as to the participation of Tesla because he died in New York city on January 7, 1943, which was only a two month period of time after the project took place. Einstein, on the other hand, suggested such a project as this to the Navy on several occasions. Because of this, he was probably involved in the project. As for von Neumann, there is no evidence to refute or promote his active participation in the matter. There is evidence that supports the fact that he later continued on the experiment at a different time.

The principle that lay behind the Philadelphia Experiment was the Unified Field Theory. This theory states that gravity and magnetism are connected, just as mass and energy are connected through the formula E=mc2. Einstein never solved the Unified Field Theory, but the very nature of the Philadelphia Experiment suggests otherwise. It is probably that this theory has become a government secret because it is capable of doing many things, possibly even space travel without the assistance of rockets.

In a search for actual technical data on the experiment, not much information can be found that isn't tainted with doubt and speculation. The basic design has two large Tesla coils (electromagnets) placed on each hull of the ship. The coils are turned on in a special sequence and their magnetic force is so powerful that they warp gravity itself. Bielek also says that on August 12 every twenty years, the magnetic field of the Earth reaches a peak and allows the synchronization between the Tesla coils. The oscillator which Bielek claims to have run the coils in a special pattern looks more like an Army field kitchen refrigeration unit than anything else. Many believe that's exactly what it is and Bielek's story is just a hoax. Bielek gave it a technical name however: the "Zero Time Reference Generator". The oscillators would synchronize with the adjustable phase angle and created a scaler type wave (Anderson). Several scientists today have attacked Bielek's testimony on this, as they believe a vector wave would have been more efficient and probable. Bielek also does not make clear if the power used is AC or DC, pulsed or rotating, and what the Microwave and Radar frequencies are. In other words, Bielek provides almost no accurate technical information that can be used.

Rick Anderson however, may be able to shed some light upon the subject. He states that four RF transmitters were phased to produce a rotating field. This field was pulsed at a 10% duty cycle. Instead of two coils, he says that four coils would have been set upon the deck of the ship and would be run by two generators that were pulsed in a counter-clockwise motion. Anderson states that the Tesla coils use a total of 7,500 feet, or 1.42 miles of #16 magnet wire. Because of this enormous quantity, no one has privately undertaken the experiment; the wire would be too expensive and also must to be wound in a special way (Anderson). Other scientists believe that Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and the science of the Philadelphia Experiment are connected.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance is also known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI. Yet another scientist named Alexander S. Fraser believes that everyone is wrong about the electromagnetic qualities of the experiment. He believes that it was never done with electromagnetism, but with thermal fields. This thermal field could have caused the optical mirage effect which several witnesses reported. Fraser says that Allende had spoken of a 'scorch' field, fire, and optical wavering, all of which are products of a thermal field. As for the part about the Eldridge disappearing in front of their very eyes, certain weather conditions have been known in the ocean to cause islands to disappear as well. These weather conditions were taking place the day of the experiment. Yet another scientist believes that sonic and ultrasonic waves were used.

The sonic waves could have been used to create an 'air blanket' around the ship, which is consistent with reports. There were many experiments done in the 1940's with high power ultrasonic waves, which indicates a high probability of the Philadelphia Experiment being one of them. Strong sonic fields are known for having bad side effects upon humans, which is also consistent with reports. The green haze which was presumably around the ship was caused by "exciting the surrounding sea water with powerful ultrasonics - 'sonoluminescense' and related phenomena." (Anderson) The ultrasonic field would have caused the crew to pass out and make the journey from Philadelphia to Norfolk seem to last only a couple minutes. Needless to say, the technicalities of the Philadelphia Experiment are a matter of hot debate among scientists and no one seems to be able to provide any solid evidence. As Rick Anderson aptly puts it: "An electronics person knows that, without a DETAILED, comprehensive THEORY behind bench set-up, he is not going to know how to set up voltages and currents, power levels, frequencies, wave forms, pulse widths or duty cycles. If there's a chance a circuit won't work, Murphy's Law dictates that it WON'T more often than not."

If the technicalities of the experiment are vague and a matter of controversy, the results of the experiment are just as foggy. One fact which everyone seem to agree on is that a field was extended many yards, up to perhaps one hundred, outside of the ship and into the water (Anonymous). Everything inside of this sphere was vague in form and the only visible shape was the hull of the Eldridge in the water. This field seemed to have a greenish color and was misty. Another fact everyone agrees was that the Eldridge did not function properly after the experiment and became a source of trouble.

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Dyatlov Pass Accident

During the night of the 1st of February 1959 a team of nine experienced cross country skiers abandoned their tent in the Russian Ural Mountains and fled to a nearby forrest. They were in such a hurry that they were only partially clothed and cut though the sides of their tent to save time. The temperature outside was minus 15 degrees. Within hours they were all dead. Rescuers recovered their bodies at two seperate times and discovered that whle some had frozen to death others had sustained injuries. Reports have made claims of high levels of radiation, strange lights in the sky, missing body parts, strange orange skin tones and even the possiblity of UFO involvement. Now Aquiziam seeks to understand the truth about what really happened.

• AN OVERVIEW

In brief, the rescuers and later investigators discovered that during the night, and for an unknown reason, the ski-team had apparently ripped or cut open their tent from the inside and fled from it into the snow in temperatures of approximately -15 to -18 degrees Celsius where there was a cross wind of approximately 10 – 15 kilometres per hour (20 – 30 knots). While not as cold as the -30 degrees often reported these were still very harsh conditions and survival would be limited to between three to eight hours depending on whether those involved could keep moving. At least five of the team had fewer cloths on than would have been expected and some may even have been barefooted. Within six to eight hours every member of the ski-team was dead.

The corpses were discovered at various distances from the camp site and showed little immediate outward sign of injury but on investigation it was discovered that two victims had a fractured skull (one severe), two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue. In addition, two of the victims' clothes were discovered to contain trace levels of radiation. Russian investigators finally closed the case stating only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths. Again, this is a mistranslation that has added to the misunderstanding. In actual fact the correct term is “Force Majeure” and is an expression that is simply used to describe something significant that cannot be easily explained. It is also often reported that after the event the area, now loosely known as Dyatlov Pass, was immediately sealed off by the authorities and access forbidden for at least three years. Again, this implies much more than actually happened. The area was restricted but only to amateur ski-sports enthusiasts and only for reasons of safety.

This is a little known mystery and truly deserves much more attention as it is well documented and was formally investigated. Once much of the “exaggeration” and “journalistic hype” has been explained it is possible to understand that there is only really one incredible mystery and it is this. Why did nine people flee from their tent in conditions that were almost certain to result in their deaths?

Later in this review we will examine the allegedly bizarre evidence and accusations and provide some answers. With the assistance of some of the actual original investigators the Aquiziam team has done its best to piece together the story from the information available – some of it in Russian. This is what seems to have happened…

• PURPOSE OF THE TRIP

According to Dr Vladimir B. group ski activities of this type were fairly common although each had their own somewhat different purpose. In his experience of Russia at the time the usual reasons were Sporting, Sightseeing (Aesthetic Appreciation) Social and Exploratory. The various teams would be made of people with varying degrees of appreciation for these interests. In the case of the Dyatlov Team their focus was on the Sporting Challenge of trip and in particular they aspired to undertake an excursion of the highest level of difficulty (complexity).

It is often stated that the purpose of this particular trip was to reach the mountain “Gora Otorten” but, in fact, the proposed route was much further. After Otorten the team planned to travel 100 kilometres southwards along the main ridge of the Ural Mountains up to Ojkachahl Peak. From this point they intended to follow the (Northern) Toshemka river thus passing 100 miles to east of the town of Vishay (Vizhaj). Today, with the availability of advanced equipment such a route would only be considered “average” in difficulty but in 1959 is was one of the hardest that could be undertaken. As more becomes clear it seems that Igor Dyatlov had intended this trip as "training" for a future expidition possibly to the the sub polar or even polar / Artic regions. According to B. E. Slobtsova formal training did not exist at this time for such ventures and depended on experience gained during trips such as the Dyatlov team were undertaking.

• THE SKI TEAM

The Dyatlov ski team was made up of eight men and two women who, except for Alexander Zolotarev, were mostly students or graduates from the Ural Polytechnic Institute located in Ekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, and now renamed the Yeltsin Ural State Technical University. Georgyi Krivonischenko, Rustem Slobodin, and Nicolas Thibeaux-Brignollel were engineers. Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova were students of the Radio Faculty, Lyudmila Dubinina and Yuri Yudin were studying Economics, Yuri Doroshenko was studying Power Economics and Alexander Kolevatov was a student of the Geo-Technical Faculty.

Alexander Zolotarev was a ski / tour instructor (a professional travel guide) and wanted to go together with Dyatlov’s team to add performance points to his degree and so achieve promotion to the rank of “Master” or Expert instructor. This was and still is the practice in Russia.


Zolotarev did not know the other team members but was recommended by friends of the team from the sports club. He was accepted into the team and according to the diaries he co-operated and worked well with all of them. It is worth noting that Sports Associations were common at this time as was the willingness for people, who shared an interest such as skiing, to cooperate with each other where possible.The original mystery was reported in Russian. By looking at these and comparing them to English versions we have identified quite a number of components that seem to have been lost in translation. These “facts” may-or-may not be true but are as follows:
1.Yuri Yarovoi (a Sverdlovsk writer and journalist who was the photographer for the original rescue mission and later involved in the inquest) wrote a fictional book entitled “of the highest Rank of complexity” (strange title). Although he clearly had knowledge and insights not available to the average person his book was a romanticised version of the event with a significantly happier ending. He was allegedly made to rewrite it twice before the authorities permitted its publication. In this version only the team leader dies. Now this is the interesting part: Yuri and his wife were killed in a car crash in the mid 1980’s a few short years before the partial declassification of the Dyatlov papers. According to this source all his papers, records and private notes of the Dyatlov Pass Incident have gone missing.

2. Some details of the tragedy became publicly available in 1990 due to publications and discussions in Sverdlovsk's regional press. One of the first authors was Sverdlovsk journalist Anatoly Guschin (Анатолий Гущин). Guschin reported that police officials gave him special permission to study the original files of the inquest and use these materials in his publications. He noticed, however, that a number of pages were excluded from the files, as was a mysterious "envelope" mentioned in the case materials list. At the same time, unofficial photocopies of the case parts started to circulate among other enthusiastic researchers. (Wikipedia 2008)

3. A chance meeting between on a train with a medical assistant at the accident site – Maria Ivanovna – revealed that she recalled 11 bodies being discovered and not nine. Two were hurriedly removed to a destination unknown to her.

4. Apparently the Dyatlov Foundation has been established in Ekaterinburg, with the help of Ural State Technical University and is led by Yuri Kuntsevitch (Юрий Кунцевич), a close friend of Igor Dyatlov and a member of the search team. We would very much like to make contact with them and would appreciate any address available.

5. Evidence of metal fragments and rocket parts indicate that the area had once been used for weapon trials. However, this have may predate or post-date the Dyatlov pass Incident.

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