Catalog of Extraterrestrial Objects

Objects 6-10

February 14, 2022

Object 6

I was searching through historical records for evidence of possible extraterrestrial contact in the past 100 years, and I came across several newspaper articles from around the country, all published on June 12, 1973. These articles shared eerie similarities, and seemed to all be referencing a common event. They mentioned a bright fireball appearing in the western sky and moving overhead, before splitting into multiple pieces. After a time, observers had reported hearing a deafening blast. The description appeared to describe a meteorite entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle and breaking up in the air. However, from the times mentioned in the articles, the object had been moving too fast to be a meteorite. I decided to review the articles individually to try and deduce the object's path. I began by determining where the object had remained below the horizon, and only the explosion was heard. After pinpointing the location of each article's newspaper on a map, it became clear that no one to the east of Denver saw the fireball directly. Because of Denver's high elevation, and assuming the maximum distance to the horizon from eye level to be 5-7 miles, I was able to construct a triangular region where the fireball could have occured. Next, I tried to figure out the fireball's altitude when it fragmented. To achieve this, I located an article in which a witness mentioned that the fireball had fragmented when directly overhead, in Morrisville, a tiny town in northwest Nevada. Luckily, the time between fragmentation and arrival of the blast wave was also mentioned: 35 seconds. Assuming the average speed of the shockwave to be around 2000 feet per second, I estimated the fragmentation altitude at 60,000-80,000 feet. This was consistent with an ideal impacting body of 40-70 feet in diameter, and also provided me with the information needed to reconstruct the 3-dimensional path of the object:

The object entered the atmosphere off the coast of northern California at an angle of approximately 6 degrees and a velocity of approximately 80 miles per second. It was traveling almost exactly due east, and broke up at 70,000 feet. Some of the fragments traveled several hundred more miles before landing.

Due to the object's alarming velocity, it could only have come from outside the Solar system. Likely, it was an interstellar asteroid, but there was also the possibility that it could have been an extraterrestrial spacecraft. To determine which it was, I traveled to Colorado in hopes of finding a piece of it.

During the search, I frequently checked old newspaper articles from the immediate area, in case someone had actually seen a fragment land. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any information. I therefore decided to survey the area in 1-square-mile sections by helicopter. I searched for days, covering a total of 18 square miles before I saw a glinting object laying on the ground below. I landed the helicopter and walked over to investigate. The object was a twisted fragment of metal with shredded edges, about 15 inches long. At first sight, it appeared to simply be a piece of fallen space junk, but the appearance of the metal was unlike any manmade alloy I had ever seen. This was an opportunity to test out my portable spectrometer. If it worked, it would tell me exactly what this metal was made of. I held the business end close to the object, and hit the trigger. It emitted a blinding flash, and sucked up the vapors yielded from the metal. Analysis took a few seconds, but I noticed something strange when the results were displayed: the composition was 40% titanium, 12% tungsten, and 48% unknown. Apparently, some component of the alloy could not be identified by the spectrometer. The only explanation I can think of is that the alloy contains a combination of metals with a boiling point higher than 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the spectrometer laser's maximum achievable temperature. No manmade material has a boiling point that high, so the object was either part of a classified government project, or of extraterrestrial origin. But the first option seems the least likely, as the technology to create alloys like this does not yet exist on Earth. I'm going to continue searching the area below the fireball's path, to see if I can locate a larger piece of the object. If the alloy I found is what composes the majority of it, it seems quite possible that it actually reached the ground mostly intact. The debris field should be denser in the object's immediate vicinity, with smaller fragments scattered more sparsely at greater distances.

February 26, 2022

Object 7

I believe I have located another piece of the fragmented object. This one is extremely intriguing, as it gives some insight into the technological capabilities of the species that constructed it. The fragment is a largely intact piece of machinery, about 12 feet long and 3 feet wide. When it impacted the ground, it buried itself about halfway, but with surprisingly little damage.

The fragment itself is composed of a cylindrical portion joined to another, shorter cylinder on one end. This shorter cylinder is topped with a cone. It's covered with pipes and heat shielding, and kind of resembles a turbojet engine, but with no visible intake or exhaust. I pulled it from the ground with a winch, and examined it in its entirety. I soon made the following observations:

The device has what appear to be sheared-off mounting points, suggesting it was some kind of spacecraft component.

The outer shells of the device are held together with screw-like fasteners, threaded such that they tighten when turned left, opposite from most screws on Earth. The screw heads are made for a bit not made by any Earth manufacturers, being shaped like a seven-pointed asterisk.

The interior machinery of the device is extremely intricate, resembling the detectors in the Large Hadron Collider. The top portion contains a massive coil, wound with extremely fine wire. The bottom portion contains a spherical metal cavity with an extremely thick shell. It has what appear to be lasers pointing inwards through tiny holes in the shell, as well as more large electromagnetic coils.

The coils are likely superconducting, as there is a small tank on the side of the device, unmistakably built to contain liquid helium. A pipe runs from the tank to a pump, then to the coils.

At the end of the bottom portion, there is a hexagonal pyramid-shaped arrangement of six unknown components. They appear to be for focusing something on a central point.

The device is apparently some kind of reaction-based energy generator. The spherical cavity with the lasers suggests that the reaction used was fusion-based. Deuterium-tritium fusion or lithium fusion seem the most likely. However, there is another possibility, which seems more likely due to the device seeming too small to be able to sustain fusion with a net generation of power. That possibility is that the device may be fueled by antimatter. The fireball's velocity suggests that the object came from outside the Solar system. A civilization capable of interstellar travel would likely have figured out how to efficiently acquire and use antimatter for energy generation.

March 5, 2022

Object 8

Following the discovery of the energy generator, I searched within a 3-mile radius of where it had landed. 2 miles to the east, I found another component. It's a circular glass object set in a metal plate, the edges of which are shredded. On the back there are several wires, the ends melted by the heat of atmospheric entry. It resembles an aircraft gauge torn from its instrument panel, but with no needle or indicators. The glass part looks like an old oscilloscope's cathode ray tube, being slightly convex, but the back is metal, not glass. It could therefore be some kind of digital screen, or maybe a touchscreen. The glass is cracked but not melted, suggesting it isn't actually glass. A quick sample proved this. It's partially borosilicate glass, but impregnated with carbon nanotube fibers and long, thin sapphire crystals.

March 22, 2022

Object 9

I found another structural fragment. This one is interesting due to the fact that it's composed of two pieces of metal welded at a right angle. The weld is incredibly clean, but still doesn't offer any information on the missing 48% of the unknown alloy.

March 26, 2022

Object 10

I may have found a piece of the object's windscreen, if it had one. It's a fragment of the same type of glass used in the display/interface I found, but this glass is sapphire-coated on both sides. The edges are melted, suggesting it broke off at a higher altitude.