When a businessman sends a specimen to a commercial chemist for analysis, he expects to receive a specific list of exactly what elements it contains and in what percentages. If he received, instead, results such as those of the silver-rain analysis, plus the chemist’s opinion that the specimen used to consist of something else in different proportions, the businessman would very properly refuse to pay.
No competent chemist would use the meager data available to assert that the 1954 and 1956 fragments had an identical origin, or that they were originally composed only of pure tin. A quantitative analysis theoretically could show that a given sample is composed entirely of a certain element such as tin, but if the sample contains only 90 per cent tin, 10 per cent obviously consists of other elements, and the specimen is not 100 per cent pure tin.
With so few facts available, the actual identity of the silver rain can only be guessed at, but overwhelming evidence indicates that it was made right here on earth.
The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics lists a large number of possibilities. At least 5 alloys of tin and lead, without antimony, have densities between 9.43 and 10.33, like the 1956 fragments. Ordinary “plumber’s solder” is 67 per cent lead, 33 per cent tin, and has a density of 9.4. “Tinman’s solder” is 67 per cent tin and 33 per cent lead. Many aluminum solders have neither antimony nor lead, but contain tin in percentages ranging from 50 to 97 per cent, combined with varying proportions of zinc, aluminum, copper, cadmium, or phosphorus.
One judicial-minded investigator of flying saucers gently pointed out to the editor of the UFO Critical Bulletin that the use of the word “proved” for the extraterrestrial origin of the silver rain was premature, and suggested the need for obtaining and publishing a complete analysis before drawing any conclusions. The editor responded with the peculiar logic of the xenochemist:
“What more is necessary to convince so severe and thickheaded person as Dr. ——? Would be necessary a statement in conjunction with some highly worldly considered scientist? ... Would be necessary a statement in conjunction from Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the Pope?—This he’ll never get of course. Would be necessary a UFO landing on his private garden?”[[XI-17]]
Another type of colored substance is the “blue rain” that sprinkled a thirty-mile stretch of countryside near London on September 9, 1962. Falling without warning from clear skies, it left a blue stain that wouldn’t wash off. Investigation showed that the substance came from jet planes taking part in Britain’s annual giant air show at Farnborough. The jets were using the blue dye to color their vapor trails and make a more spectacular display.
Other Mysterious Fragments
In the spring of 1960 Mrs. Coral Lorenzen, director of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization, publicly challenged the truth of the Air Force statement that “no physical or material evidence, not even a minute fragment of so-called ‘flying saucer’ has ever been found.”[[XI-20]] Mrs. Lorenzen announced that she had in her possession two fragments of an extraterrestrial vehicle that had met with disaster in the earth’s atmosphere. Without specifying the date and location of the event, the identity of the witnesses, or any corroborative details of the alleged disaster, she merely said that several persons had witnessed the catastrophe. She went on to assert, somewhat astonishingly, that “the gratifying aspect of this case, however, is that we do not have to depend on the testimony of witnesses to establish the reality of the incident for the most advanced laboratory tests indicate that the residual material could not have been produced through the application of any known terrestrial techniques.”[[XI-21]]
Sending a letter and two photographs of the fragments to Colonel Lawrence J. Tacker, then in the Office of Information, United States Air Force, she simultaneously released to the press copies of both letter and photographs, and suggested that the Air Force could “vindicate” itself by analyzing the material. The newspaper photographs showed one fragment about four inches long and two inches wide resembling petrified wood in appearance, and a smaller piece shaped roughly like a flattened cupcake, whose surface showed pits and whorls like those on the trailing end of a meteorite.