My father's proposed electrostatic flying machine.

My Father’s UFO – a One Shot Story

By Dave Powell

Shortly after my 35mmc article about “Understanding Life Backwards” went online, another fascinating example dropped on me. I was working at my computer — with a cable-TV documentary about UFOs blaring in the background — when I heard something that whip-lashed my attention away from the keyboard. Something that may have answered a question that has long bugged me about my father: Why did he try to convince his employer (Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus, Ohio) to build an electrostatically powered flying machine during the Vietnam War?

Dad may have been an international expert in “metal vapor deposition” — but NOT in designing flying machines that could hover silently in place, glide in any direction, and look a bit like UFOs. And they would do this with only an electrostatic generator as engine. No propellers, jets, wings or rockets.

A Cable Revelation

The cable show that grabbed my attention was Season 1, Episode 3 (“Alien High Tech”) of the Travel Channel series “UFO Witness.” The series follows a former FBI agent who tries to unearth new information about classic and modern UFO cases. [The story is also discussed in one of the History Channel’s somewhat believable “Ancient Aliens” episodes (Season 11, Episode 13).]

They featured interviews with Colonel Philip J. Corso, who was taped just after he’d published his controversial book “The Day After Roswell,” and only a year before his death. Many people who witness or investigate UFOs are warned to never discuss what they’ve seen, on pain of experiencing things they’d rather not know. But many of them still choose to tell “what needs to be known” in death-bed confessions.

Corso’s book may have been his confession.

Colonel Corso’s Claims

In the early 1970s, Corso manned the U.S. Pentagon’s “Foreign Technology Desk.” For decades, it had collected samples of nearly every Russian MiG jet ever made. And he claimed a major goal of his tenure was to give artifacts from the 1947 Roswell UFO crash to private R&D labs and universities for reverse-engineering. They’d be free to patent and sell what they developed. The only requirement was that they feed their results back to the U.S. military and other commercial developers. This novel plan reportedly accomplished four things:

  • It moved the reverse-engineering efforts into the private sector, where the Freedom of Information Act couldn’t extract information about them.
  • It (in Corso’s words) “made the history of the patents the history of the inventions.”
  • It distanced subsequent patents and inventions from UFOs and the Roswell event.
  • And it either launched or accelerated research in fields like integrated circuitry, fiber optics, night-vision systems, bullet-proof vests and even medical devices.

And what had yanked my attention to the TV was Corso’s claim that he sent one of the Roswell artifacts — a swatch of indestructible metallic fabric found around the UFO’s hull and in its occupants’ flight suits — to my father’s Metallurgy Division at Battelle! Though as light as silk, the metallic fabric could not be cut, torn or burned. And if crushed and released, it sprang back to its original shape. For this reason, the U.S. Army called it “memory foil.”

Why Dad’s Group?

In one of his last interviews before he died, Corso explained that he sent the artifact to dad’s group because they were “The best people we knew of to try to recreate it.” He also said that the fabric seemed to be made of an exceedingly pure nickel-titanium alloy with “special internal structures that may have formed during fabrication.” In addition, Battelle was supposedly “the only place in the country at the time with an arc furnace hot enough to do the alloying.”

Dad and his colleagues did know a lot about fabricating exotic alloy structures. They’d published articles and books about them — including flexible nickel-titanium ones. And dad once told me that his office was right beside Battelle’s “special furnace.”

But though he never discussed his metallurgical projects with us, dad wasn’t nearly as hesitant about other projects, which helped to:

  • Perfect the process that became Xerography,
  • Grow the first ruby crystal pure enough for laser applications,
  • Create the carbonless carbon paper we still use in multi-part business forms, and
  • Formulate the Space Shuttle’s heat-shield coatings.

But as far as I know, dad’s group never completely recreated the flexible, electrically conductive, and almost indestructible “fabric” that was found at Roswell and nearby Corona. They did come close, though, with a recipe for fabricating something called “memory metal” (AKA “metal that remembers its shape”).

And per Battelle’s founding charter (their standard operating procedure) they then transferred their work to other organizations — specifically, the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and NASA — for further development. The Navy eventually patented and sold their “memory metal” under the brand name “NITINOL” — short for “Nickel-Titanium Naval Ordnance Laboratory.” And today, if you wear glasses whose wire frames can be bent, twisted and even folded… only to instantly spring back to their original shape — or if an aortic stent is implanted in your body — you may well own an offshoot of the Roswell crash!

And NASA is reportedly using its unique “memory metal” to build jets and rockets whose wings can “morph” in flight without needing mechanical hinges. Pretty wild stuff!

A Sad Possibility

So this history may have addressed my nagging question about why — near the end of the Vietnam War — dad felt safe to suggest that Battelle build his UFO-like machine. He thought the vehicles would be great “stealth” alternatives to helicopters in battlefield surveillance applications. Also, they could “stack like pancakes” for efficient shipping on planes, trains, trucks and boats. But their electrostatic motors would never move them at the incredible speeds of “real” UFOs. However, they could cruise silently through the air, glow faintly blue in the dark, and remain airborne even when shot.

Battelle reportedly studied dad’s proposal and concluded that the machine “wouldn’t fly.” But he corrected their calculations and Battelle conceded that “it might” (but still declined). Personally, I think the thing would have had to be extremely large to carry just one occupant (to say nothing of military cargo). But today, a small version would be a very cool propeller-less drone!

I still wonder, though, why dad considered proposing the project in the first place. Even today, anything that smacks of UFOs could be the kiss-of-death for a scientist or research firm. The project also seemed to fall way outside his group’s purview. But conversely, why would Battelle even study the proposal, as dad claimed? Could they have felt safer about it because they both knew his group had tried to reverse-engineer a Roswell artifact?

Maybe dad knew, and maybe he didn’t. For Colonel Corso said he gave the artifact to the head of dad’s division, and the usual requirement for these donations was to keep everyone except the top recipient in the dark about their history. So it’s sadly possible that dad may never have known where the most exciting project of his entire career actually originated.

About the Opening Image(s)

If you’ve heard of the “virtual world” known as Second Life (SL), then you know where I photographed this article’s featured “image.” I’ve always loved architecture and after learning how to use SL’s building tools, I soon found myself teaching “in-world” architectural-design classes for international groups of real-world students!

But if you haven’t heard of SL, it isn’t actually a “computer game” (as some people claim). It’s a simulated 3D world with its own physical laws and building tools. And it was an ideal place to quickly create a 3D structural model of what I thought dad’s UFO would have looked like. The featured image offers two views of my mock-up (with its side open to expose the interior). I could have moved around, and even into, it to take more photos. SL can be a great place to build such models without having to worry too much about 3D-CAD-maths!

And in fact, Second Life also can be an excellent venue for doing all kinds of research, photography and even photo sales. For instance, before Kate and I took a tour of Ireland, we visited an exact SL recreation of Dublin’s central city to familiarize ourselves with various site locations. (Even dropped into a couple pubs along the way, but their virtual beer was rather bland.)

Similarly, before our first trip to Rome, we visited an exact SL recreation of the Sistine Chapel. So exact in fact, that the super-high-res photos used to create it allowed us to “fly” up to the ceiling and view Michelangelo’s work up close and in detail. (When we toured the place in person, we weren’t even allowed to take non-flash photos from the chapel floor!)

There are also in-world recreations of:

  • Paris (where it’s hoot to fly to the top of the Eiffel Tower and lord it over the city below)
  • Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house
  • Many other well-known locations
  • And different scenic environments, like deserts, arctic plains and tropical islands (great for photo backdrops)

If any readers would like to hear more about Second Life as a photography venue and place to sell one’s real-world photos, let me know in your comments, and I’ll do a piece about it.

A Final Note

While writing this piece, I stumbled across an energetic independent researcher named Anthony Bragalia, who has apparently made investigating the Roswell-Battelle connection his major life’s work. Most pertinent to this article is his website’s claims that Battelle may have had more involvement with UFOs than the work of my father’s metallurgy group.

–Dave Powell is a Westford, Mass., writer and avid amateur photographer.

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About The Author

By Dave Powell
Trained in mathematics, physics, cosmology, computer programming and science journalism. Retired mathematician, award-winning technical and journalistic writer. Past winner of an international business-journalism equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. And past author and editorial advisor for Sesame Street... where I regularly worked with Jim Henson and Kermit!
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murray leshner on My Father’s UFO – a One Shot Story

Comment posted: 29/09/2024

Very interesting. Nickel alloys are fascinating.

I worked with an older guy who was allegedly at Area 51 when he was in the USAF. He would deflect questions about this, typically something like "Oh, man, I saw some @%^# you don't want to know about", then change the subject to his experience at Woodstock that took him a month to recover from. He never retired, working into his 80's, but EXpired...went home one weekend & didn't return Monday. He took his secrets with him.

...and this reminds me of a local college art professor who would assign a project to incoming freshmen that he hoped was outside their comfort zone...many already had an idea they were pretty good with some particular art skill & focused on that.

He would have them make a UFO-like object from whatever materials that inspired them. They learned and did other things during the semester, but at the end, the IFO's were taken outside, and those deemed sturdy enough to withstand propulsion forces would be launched skyward by what means seemed to fit each one. He would take a photo with a Polaroid camera (not Fuji, yet). He would take favorites to Kinko's for magnified b&w reproduction beyond clarity, to poster size. Think "I Want To Believe".

He'd occasionally bring a special favorite enlargement to our gallery/frame shop for custom framing. I arrived one afternoon as he was picking up a finished one. I blurted out "Hey, that looks like a dog bowl with LED's...sorry, just came to mind". He replied 'That's exactly what it was...good eye!' & explained the assignment. There really were some cool results after the reproduction image degradation.
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Dave Powell replied:

Comment posted: 29/09/2024

Fascinating Murray! As a tech journalist back in the '80s, I attended a trade show in Las Vegas. Stayed at Caesar's Palace. And one evening at their bar, another journalist who lived in town, said something VERY similar about Area 51. And your last paragraph reminds me of a fake UFO photo that I created at the same time as the one featured in my 35mmc article "A Tale of Two UFOs." As you'll remember, that image included an aluminum fruit bowl illuminated by a flood light... and double-exposed in the air above a fleeing car. But at the same time, I shot another photo of a metal applesauce-strainer cone illuminated from within by a bare bulb. And I then double-exposed it hovering over our neighbor's house! Unfortunately, I showed it to them and scared them half to death. Never tried THAT stunt again!

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Tony Warren on My Father’s UFO – a One Shot Story

Comment posted: 29/09/2024

What a fascinating story Dave. It certainly throws up a lot of questions. As an avid sci-fi reader since the 1950s, I think your Dad maybe had read about James Blish's spindizzy field in his Okie novels.
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Dave Powell on My Father’s UFO – a One Shot Story

Comment posted: 29/09/2024

Thanks Tony! I'm pretty sure dad never did. We had no sci-fi books or magazines at home (just dad's Scientific Americans). But now, I want to check into Blish... you've sparked my curiosity!
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Chris DellaCorte on My Father’s UFO – a One Shot Story

Comment posted: 30/09/2024

Dave:

Great article! I loved hearing about your Dad's metallurgical explorations and that he instilled a deep curiosity in you that has persisted. However, I can offer a more "down to earth" explanation of the source of NiTi technology. You can find a good article on its early history here:

https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/metal-memory-1

In the article, we learn that W.J. Buehler discovered the shape memory effects in NiTi much by accident. He had been searching for a structural alloy to replace NiCu (the high performance alloy of the day) for missile applications. NiTi alloys were among the binary alloys Buehler investigated after visiting the Library of Congress to read the metallurgy literature on their shelves. He has never mentioned getting "inspiration" from other sources.

I had the pleasure of working on NiTi technology for about 15 years and that work continues today. In my early days, I directly communicated (via snail mail) with W.J. Buehler and I had a chance to learn from him that he stumbled upon the shape memory effect as described by the article. While I suppose it is possible that he got the ideas and materials from a darker government entity, it is not supported by any evidence.

Nonetheless, NiTi, like many technological discoveries, is fascinating and contributing to improvements in medicine, aerospace and industry!

Keep up the good writing!

CDC
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Dave Powell replied:

Comment posted: 30/09/2024

Thank you so very much for the expansion, Chris... and for the FASCINATING link! As you suggest, as a writer, mathematician and science journalist, I am interested in many subjects. And your comment sent me to see if Buehler was mentioned in the books my father published about exotic-metal alloys. He wasn't, since dad's first book to mention nickel and titanium alloys was published in 1955-- three years before Buehler's work apparently began.----- And none of this conflicts with Colonel Corso's post-1972 claims. Many of the technologies that he "gave" to U.S. research organizations were already under development in a variety of locations... including Buehler's. Memory metal was being examined at Battelle in 1955 and maybe before. But the biggest technical hurdle mentioned in dad's writings was how to make it flexible. Dad's group specialized in assembling metallic materials at the atomic level (which Buehler cleverly confirmed was critical). And in the '70s, they gave their recipe for doing so to NASA and the Naval Ordnance Lab. Coincidentally perhaps, Buehler in fact confirms that "With improvements in nitinol manufacturing techniques during the 1970s, commercial products have begun to enter the market" at about the same time!----- It's also worth remembering that the supposed Roswell crash didn't actually jump-start all of the technologies that Corso listed. As of 1972, fiber optics, integrated circuits, night-vision systems and memory metal were already being investigated around the world... including by Buehler. But if Corso found someone working on something that the Pentagon thought would benefit from a Roswell artifact-- and who had the equipment and expertise to potentially reverse-engineer it-- they received a surprise visit and a "celestial" gift! And the idea of letting firms patent and sell their results was a clever way of removing any hint of those gifts' specific origins.----- In this case, both NASA and NOL were free to take their research in any directions they chose. And one can never know how much dad and Buehler knew about the Roswell-related artifact and recipe that their respective firms received. Or how much those gifts figured into the eventual results they achieved (it also appears that Buehler left NOL at about the same time that the organization received Battelle's recipe).----- And per Pentagon requirements, Roswell artifacts went to the people at the top... the only ones who would know their origin. So it's also impossible now to say for sure how much any individual or company contributed to any of today's products... or even who truly originated them. But I gotta tell you, your link's descriptions of current applications is quite fascinating... and might even touch on what NASA's doing tolday. Thanks so much for the additional info, Chris!

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Jeffery Luhn on My Father’s UFO – a One Shot Story

Comment posted: 01/10/2024

An interesting story, but not related to photography.
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Gary Smith replied:

Comment posted: 01/10/2024

I agree.

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Dave Powell replied:

Comment posted: 01/10/2024

I did kind of bury the "photographic" aspect a bit at the very end. It was about an online tool that offers a useful "venue" for both taking and selling photos. I've earned a bit of money doing the latter virtually! But since nobody has expressed interest in virtual photography, I won't expand on it!

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