Was Roswell Crash Debris the Genesis of Memory Metal Technology?

In his recent post Roswell’s Memory Metal: The Air Force Comments; NASA Gets Involved & New Clues Are Found, Anthony Bragalia states:

The Roswell memory metal revelations have been met with the gamut of responses from far and wide. But it is one, simple, small post that was made on an online discussion group related to unexplained mysteries that gave me pause. This individual made an extraordinarily perceptive comment on that site and it has stuck with me. Its beauty is in its simplicity:

“When you have a number of people from different locations of the country identifying the exact same exotic properties of the materials recovered from New Mexico, then there is no room left for claims of ‘active imaginations’ because these folks were all singing to the same tune of the exotic nature of the materials, which were not known at the time, and were alien to mankind.”

In other words, they described a material with such unusual properties years before such material became known to the general public (or would even have been invented!) The very fact that many credible first-hand witnesses recounted a remarkable metal that would “remember itself” is in and of itself remarkable. Not only was such a material never even speculated on (even in cartoons) in 1947- most people today in 2011 would have no idea what you were talking about! Remember that even Colonel Richard Weaver of the USAF himself told me that he had never even heard of Nitinol or Shape Memory alloys in his life before my articles! Well then how would 80+ year old Roswell witnesses know about Nitinol? Even if they were recounting it in 1980? What would even possess such elderly and rural people in the first place to conceive of such an idea as “morphing metal”? What would even make them think of such a thing unless it did not actually happen? What would instill such a novel idea as “moving metal” into so many different people –separated now by time, years and distance- had they not seen it? It simply makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, I strongly suspect that if one were to conduct a national poll of US adults, far less than a half-percent would have ever heard of Nitinol- or be able to in any way define “shape recovery.”

In May 2009, Billy Cox interviewed Bragalia for Memory-metal files are missing:

With a boost from Sarasota resident Tony Bragalia, the enduring Roswell UFO controversy is about to swing the spotlight onto one of the most successful research and development entities in America — Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, OH.

At issue are some missing reports from Battelle’s study of a nickel/titanium alloy called Nitinol, renowed for its resilience as a “memory metal.” Contracted by the U.S. Air Force to assess and exploit its compelling properties in the late 1940s, Battelle participates in or manages six national laboratories for the U.S. Department of Energy, including Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, and Brookhaven.

The problem is, neither Battelle nor the USAF can produce copies of what the scientific literature refers to as the “Second Progress Report on Contract AF33 (038)-3736.” Bragalia suspects that’s because the data is still highly classified due to its source — a flying disc that crashed outside Roswell, N.M., in 1947.

“Personal testimony is one thing,” says Bragalia, whose research skills have been polished by his business as an executive-search consultant. “But when you start talking about documents and the history of science, unlike testimonials, their provenance is not questioned.”

Bragalia says his curiosity about the Roswell debris began accelerating in 2007, shortly after a retired Army Air Force veteran from Ellenton named Ben Games told De Void a tale that no one had ever heard before — in July of 1947, he flew Gen. Laurence Craigie to Roswell during the furor over the alleged UFO recovery.

As chief of the Research and Engineering Division at AAF headquarters, Craigie had offices at the Pentagon and at present-day Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. In October 1947, he became Director of Research and Development for the U.S. Air Force. At the end of the year, he authorized the first-ever USAF study of flying saucers. From 1948-50, he served as commandant of the USAF Institute of Technology at Wright-Pat.

In 1991, retired brigadier general Arthur Exon confirmed for author/investigators Schmitt and Kevin Randle that the Roswell debris was transferred to Wright Field in ‘47. Civilians and military personnel who handled the stuff compared some components to aluminum foil, except that it would conform to its original shape after being crumpled.

Exon, a lieutenant colonel on base at the time, said lab chiefs in charge of testing the material “knew they had something new in their hands. The metal and material was unknown to anyone I talked to.” However, Exon, who was promoted to Wright-Pat base commander in 1964, never had access to the debris.

But who did? And if, as skeptics contend, the thing that went down in Roswell was simply a classified but hardly exotic balloon project, why did Craigie make a hurried flight to New Mexico from Washington?

Enter Nitinol, which made its debut in 1939. The nickel/titanium metal was created as a byproduct of another project and initially studied for its crystalline structures. Bragalia was unable to find any research on its shape-recovery properties until encountering references to a WPAFB contract with Battelle produced in 1949.

Its “Second Progress Report” — authored by Battelle employees listed only as C.M. Craighead, F. Fawn, and L.W. Eastwood — implies a first progress report, for which Bragalia could find no references at all. Although unable to get his hands on the “Second Progress Report,” Bragalia lists four references to its existence in 1952, 1965, 1972, and 1984.

Bragalia didn’t read the “Second Progress Report” because nobody appears to know where it is. Kemberly Lang, manager of the Battelle Library, couldn’t find a copy, and neither could Annette Sheppard, special collection librarian at WPAFB. Lang reconfirmed to De Void her futility at learning anything about the 60-year-old project beyond published references to it.

“There’s something strange going on here, but there is no copy of the contract. And Wright-Patterson doesn’t have it, either. Evidently it was never submitted for retention,” says Lang, who coordinated her search efforts with WPAFB. “Both sides have miraculously lost their copies of it.

“I don’t know what’s in it, I don’t have a clue. I don’t think there’s anything malicious going on, but it’s kind of in my ‘open’ file now. It’s a mystery.”

Bragalia doubts the USAF farmed out the actual Roswell debris to Battelle. More likely, he suspects its scientists were tasked to simulate its morphing abilities through Nitinol, which requires 99.99 percent purity and the application of heat.

Curiously, Braglia says military reports announcing the unveiling of Nitinol as a memory metal cite every year from 1959 to 1963 as its point of discovery. The last word from the U.S. Naval Ordnance Lab lists its debut as 1962 or 1963.

Today, Nitinol has blossomed into the commercial sector, finding its way into everything from medical hardware to bendable eyeglass frames. Among the most ambitious firms incorporating the latest generation of metallic elasticity into a vast array of products is LiquidMetal Technologies, a publicly traded R&D company headquartered in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.

Attributing its “amorphous alloys” to researchers from California Institute of Technology — managed by Battelle in cooperation with Lawrence-Livermore — LiquidMetal’s Web site says it has collaborated on “numerous shuttle missions for NASA scientists to study its technology in space first hand.”

“The NASA connection is huge,” says Bragalia. “When you begin taking stuff into space and testing it under microgravity conditions, it allows you to develop material of exceptional purity.”

Battelle, listed as a charitable trust exempt from taxation, is most famously known in UFO circles for producing a 1954 Air Force Project Blue Book study called Special Report No. 14. Concluding that 21.5 percent of UFOs in the military database were unknowns, Battelle directly contradicted then USAF Secretary Donald Quarles’ assertion that only 3 percent of its sightings were unknown.

“Battelle is very artful at concealing its connections,” says Bragalia. “When people say ‘the government’ knows about UFOs, I wonder. Especially when you consider that Battelle has more or less privatized six of our national laboratories.”

After these revelations, the following was made public:



A research study that has recently been obtained through FOIA offers stunning confirmation that Wright-Patterson Air Force base contracted Battelle Memorial Institute to analyze material from a crashed UFO at Roswell in 1947. Remarkably, the co-author of this very metals study is the same scientist who decades ago had confessed that he had examined extraterrestrial metal from a crashed UFO while he was a research scientist at Battelle! This just-received document also reveals that another one of its metallurgist authors reported directly to a Battelle scientist who was conducting secret UFO studies for the USAF. It appears that the study represents first-ever attempts in creating highly novel and advanced Titanium alloys. Some of these alloys were later associated with the development of "memory metal" of the type reported as crash debris at Roswell.

The following links provide greater detail:

USAF Docs No Longer Missing

Scientist Admits To Study Of Roswell Crash Debris! (Confirmed by FOIA Document)

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The Roswell Incident: Ohio Truck Driver's Close Encounter

cantonrep - Ralph A. Multer was a wounded World War II veteran who walked with a limp and exhibited a gruff exterior. He liked to spin stories about his days as a gunner’s mate on a Navy warship, including ones about the Battle of Iwo Jima. Multer worked on cars and rode a motorcycle. His nickname was “Bear,” a reference to his large frame. And on occasion, he enjoyed a few swallows of vodka.

At 22 and married, Multer worked hard to support his wife, driving a truck for the Timken Co.

He wasn’t normally given to far-flung tales of flying saucers and little green men. Until, that is, the summer of 1947.

Multer is said to be a local connection to the most famous UFO story in world history: The alleged crash of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, N.M., in July 1947.

He told loved ones he hauled material from the crashed spaceship to one of the Timken plants in Canton, OH that summer. A Timken furnace could not dent, damage or melt the UFO wreckage. Not even slightly.

An FBI agent made it very clear. Don’t tell anybody about the covert operation. Keep it hush-hush.

That’s a fascinating story. A whopper. Is it true? Can it be verified? Especially when you consider Multer died in 1982. Could a company of Timken’s iconic stature be complicit in perhaps the greatest government cover-up of all time?

SUMMER OF ’47

July 8, 1947. UFO historians consider that a monumental date. It is when the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release that a crashed flying disk had been recovered in the New Mexico desert.

The military quickly changed its story. A second press release stated the 509th Bomb Group at the Roswell base mistakenly had identified a weather balloon as flying saucer wreckage.

Legions of UFO buffs believe the Roswell story. Researchers and authors have interviewed hundreds of people on the subject, including former military officers. Some believers have obtained once-classified documents, connecting the dots to conclude that the government concealed the crash and stashed away dead aliens with balloon-shaped heads, large eyes and child-like bodies.

Others declare the Roswell story to be a ridiculous myth borne out of wild imaginations. They contend it’s utter nonsense concocted by nuts who are loose with the facts and heavy on speculation. They argue the UFO crowd has yet to produce hard evidence, such as a hunk of the damaged flying saucer.

Multer was a believer. He became one 63 years ago while working a four-hour shift for Timken.

Multer told his wife the story. Years later, he shared it with his daughter.

It was August or September. Multer had hoped to finish the shift and meet his wife for lunch. But the normalcy of the day quickly faded.

Multer said he and two other drivers were asked to pick up loads at a railroad yard. Three flatbed trucks, covered with canvas, carried the loads.

The load on Multer’s truck was the largest. The convoy of trucks was escorted by officials of some type. Multer had some level of security clearance at the company.

FBI agents had met the trio of truck drivers. Multer asked about the loads. An agent told him they were parts of a flying saucer recovered in New Mexico. The strength and durability of the material would be tested in a super-hot Timken furnace.

“They talked to a person later who was there that night (at one of the Timken plants), and they said they couldn’t cut it, they couldn’t even heat it,” said Sundi Multer-Lingle, Multer’s daughter. “The piece of metal, well I don’t know if you can call it metal, the object was absolutely impenetrable.”

Metallic. Lightweight. Silver or dark gray. That’s how her father described the mysterious material.

“We grew up with the story,” said Multer-Lingle, 58, who was born in Canton and lives in Knoxville, Tenn. “Dad would put us up on his lap, and he would tell us the story.”

He never changed his story. Or added details, she said.

“Dad wasn’t a liar at all,” Multer-Lingle said. “I mean, if he told you something, you believed it because that’s just how he was, and I heard this so many times and so much that we never doubted it.”

Multer’s late wife told UFO researchers the experience left a lasting impression on her husband. It “never left his mind from then on,” she said in an interview in the 1990s.

RALPH AND ROSWELL

Roswell-related stories inundate the Internet. Books, movies and television documentaries transformed the Roswell story into a pop culture phenomenon. A museum in Roswell is dedicated to the topic. The Roswell UFO Festival takes place each July. A website for the Roswell newspaper features UFO-themed merchandise for sale.

Tucked away on a handful of websites, the Multer story keeps a low profile in the world of sensational UFO accounts. Multer’s Roswell story apparently is not mentioned in any book.

At the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, a search through the library’s database and archives turned up nothing about Multer and Timken as they relate to the UFO crash story, a museum employee said.

In the mid-1990s, William E. Jones and Irena McCammon Scott uncovered Multer’s story. That’s when Multer’s wife was interviewed. The duo co-authored an article about Multer in the Ohio UFO Notebook in 1994 as part of a compilation of pieces titled, “The Ohio UFO Crash Connection and Other Stories.”

Up until then, Ralph’s story had been a well-kept family secret, said Multer-Lingle. Outsiders weren’t privy to it. Multer’s wife, Violet M. Brown, died in 2009; at the time of her death, she was known as Vikki May Black.

Stricken with health problems, Ralph had died nearly 20 years earlier.

“I remember we went up to Timken (in Canton) and interviewed some people,” said Scott, 102, the UFO researcher who helped break the Multer story. “But I don’t remember how we got the story to start.”

MULTER’S STORY

Multer’s story is difficult to verify. According to records from the Golden Lodge United Steelworkers Local 1123, Multer left Timken in 1952. His daughter says that is when the family moved to the Portsmouth area in Scioto County, where Multer then worked as a railroad brakeman.

Timken spokeswoman Lorrie Paul Crum said Multer worked with the company in the early 1950s, initially in the steel operations and later as a truck driver. However, a search didn’t turn up all of the company records on Multer, Crum said.

“We didn’t have his beginning employment records,” she said.

“We had partial records. We don’t keep them for all the employees.”

Multer could have worked at Timken in 1947, said Tom Sponhour, editor of the Golden Lodge News, noting records can be sketchy that far back.

“We talked with retirees and executives familiar with all facets of ... Timken’s long-standing relationships with government and scientific organizations serving as one of the world’s foremost experts in metallurgy,” Crum said.

But “no one had any recollection of Multer’s story,” she wrote in an e-mail response.

The Repository contacted several Timken retirees who worked for the company in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Only one recalled hearing about Multer. Dominick T. Rex got a job at Timken in 1946 in the roller bearings plant.

“It was just a rumor about a truck driver (who) did something,” Rex recalled. “He did something, and it was Ralph.”

But the 84-year-old does not recall anything about a crashed UFO.

Scott, one of the UFO investigators who co-authored the original story about Multer, said she and the other researcher visited Timken in the mid-1990s to inquire about the former truck driver and Roswell.

None of the retired management and engineer employees contacted by UFO investigators had heard of the alleged Canton connection to Roswell, said Scott, who worked on satellite photography in the 1960s for the Defense Intelligence Agency. She is a former biology professor at St. Bonaventure University.

“I don’t have a firm conclusion,” she said of the alleged UFO crash.

The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a phone inquiry or e-mail from The Repository seeking comment about Roswell-related events in 1947 and Multer’s story. The agency forwarded the call Thursday to the U.S. Air Force.

As of Friday, the Air Force had not replied. In the mid-1990s, the Air Force issued two in-depth reports, following an inquiry by the General Accounting Office, in an effort to debunk the Roswell story.

UFO RESEARCHERS

Stanton T. Friedman, a well-known researcher and author in the UFO field, said he had not heard of a Canton link to Roswell. Friedman co-authored a book on the topic, “Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident.”

Friedman, however, said he’s well aware of Timken.

“They’re a major company, and they had major responsibilities during the war,” he said.

“Timken probably would have had a reputation for developing very strong materials at very high temperatures,” said Friedman, 76, a nuclear physicist.

After exhaustive research, including interviews and an examination of countless government records, Friedman said he firmly believes that a UFO crashed near Roswell in 1947.

Donald R. Schmitt has been researching Roswell-related events the last 21 years. He has co-authored multiple books on the subject, including, “Witness to Roswell: Unmasking the Government’s Biggest Cover-up.”

“This is the granddaddy of them all,” Schmitt said of the Roswell story. “If we solve this, the entire mystery is solved.”

Schmitt is intrigued by Multer’s account. “This is another piece of the puzzle,” he said. Schmitt said he’s heard “eyewitness accounts” about material being loaded on freight cars near the former Roswell Army Air Field.

“All aftermath, all arrows point directly to Ohio,” Schmitt said of Roswell, referring to other alleged Ohio connections, including Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

"Why would (Multer) lie to his wife about this?,” Schmitt said. “He didn’t profit (from) this, he didn’t gain any notoriety or any publicity, he didn’t do any talk shows or any interviews.”

Schmitt said he’s 99 percent certain a UFO crashed in the Roswell area.

“That remaining 1 percent is the remaining 1 percent of the curiosity until we get a piece of the holy grail,” he added. “I do accept the challenge of the true skeptic, not the scoffer, but the skeptic who would remind us until you come up with the piece of the actual hardware, a piece of the ship, you won’t have 100 percent.”

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Self-Healing Autonomous Material Being Developed

newswise - You've seen it in movies: the human-like, robot assassin quickly regenerates its structure after being damaged beyond recognition. This "Terminator" scenario is becoming less far-fetched as recent advances in structural health monitoring systems have led to a variety of ways to identify damage to a structural system.

Now, in the Journal of Applied Physics, researchers at Arizona State University have created a material that may be able to not only sense damage in structural materials, such as cracking in a fiber-reinforced composite, but to even heal it. The aim of developing "autonomous adaptive structures" is to mimic the ability of biological systems such as bone to sense the presence of damage, halt its progression, and regenerate itself.

The novel autonomous material developed by Henry Sodano and colleagues uses "shape-memory" polymers with an embedded fiber-optic network that functions as both the damage detection sensor and thermal stimulus delivery system to produce a response that mimics the advanced sensory and healing traits shown in biological systems. An infrared laser transmits light through the fiber-optic system to locally heat the material, stimulating the toughening and healing mechanisms.

The material system is capable of increasing the toughness of a specimen by 11 times. After toughening the specimen, the crack can be closed using the shape-memory effect to recover an unprecedented 96 percent of the object's original strength. In fact, after the crack is closed, the new material is nearly five times as tough as the original specimen, even though it has been strained past its original failure strain point by a factor of four. The material and healing process can be applied while the structure is in operation, which has not been possible with existing healing techniques.

From AIP - Journal of Applied Physics: "Biological systems exhibit many advanced sensory and healing traits that can be applied to the design of modern material systems. The foremost goal for the development of future adaptive structures is to provide materials capable of autonomously adapting in order to impede damage progression and, subsequently, heal the damaged region. Here, a novel autonomous material system is devised using shape memory polymers (SMPs), which employ a fiber optic network, functioning both as a damage detection sensor and thermal stimulus delivery system. This system mimics the advanced sensory system as well as toughening and healing mechanisms found in human bones. By incorporating both methods into this material, the resulting autonomous system is able to increase toughness by 11 times over the original material. In addition to toughening, the shape memory effect can be used to close the crack and upon reloading of the toughened SMP specimen to failure, the system demonstrates a 96% strength recovery of the virgin strength. Following crack closure the new material system has 4.9 times more toughness than the un-toughened specimen even through it has been strained four times past its virgin failure strain."

From Unknown Country: "An extraordinary metal was found among the debris that came from the UFO that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in July of 1947--It was so thin, you could bend it and it would spring back into its original shape, but so touch that a bullet couldn't be fired through it. Now we're close to making the same thing ourselves!

Researchers have created a material that may be able to not only sense damage but to even heal it, mimicking the ability of biological systems such as bone to sense the presence of damage, halt its progression, and regenerate itself. The material system is capable of increasing the toughness of a specimen by 11 times. After toughening the specimen, the crack can be closed using the shape-memory effect to recover an unprecedented 96% of the object's original strength. In fact, after the crack is closed, the new material is nearly five times as tough as the original specimen."

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The Chile Chupacabras Attacks - Spring 2000

In Chile, during the year 2000, there were a slew of cryptid sightings and encounters. El chupacabras and humanoid / mothman-like creatures were reported nationwide. In this post, I'm going to concentrate on the chupacabras rampage that occurred during the months of April-June:

Calama, Chile - April 2000 - night

A witness riding his bicycle was passing by the local Lion's Club building, when he heard a groan and stopped to see what had happened. On the side of the building, he saw a dead dog in the grass, and next to it, a pair of large shining eyes. The eyes were so shiny that the witness could not make out any detail of the creature's body. Suddenly the creature lifted the dead dog with its hands, and in the wink of an eye was only 10 meters away from the witness, after being 50 meters away a second before. Shocked the witness quickly pedaled away stunned as to the manner that the creature moved.

Source: Calama UFO Center

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Prat de Calama and Tocopilla, Chile - April 24-26, 2000 - after midnight

Eight young locals looking for the reputed blood predator in the local hills saw a strange short creature apparently covered with hair make a prodigious leap then run into a nearby cave, near the River Loa.

A few nights later, several locals living on the slopes of a hill saw a strange entity quickly climbing up the side of the hill at incredible speed. It moved up on practical vertical cliffs using reptilian like movements, it seemed to expand as if possessing dark wing-like membranes on its back that apparently propelled it up the cliffs. Once it reached the summit, the witnesses began hearing strange growling and screeching sounds coming from the area.

Source: Paranigma Chile

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Tucapel Chile - April 29, 2000 - 8:00pm

Farm worker Jose Ismael Pino was looking for a loose wild bull when he came upon a four-foot tall creature, simian in appearance, with long clawed arms, enormous fangs protruding from its mouth, as well as a pair of wings. Scared he ran to fetch some dogs that attacked the creature. One of the dogs came back with a bloodstained neck.

Source: UFO Roundup Vol. 5

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Maria Elena, Chile - May 6, 2000 - 5:00am

Three men that had been driving a refrigerated truck had stopped at a local truck stop in order to obtain some rest. As the driver turned off the truck's engine and lights, they all noticed that the truck seem to tilt slightly to the right, and its lights began blinking on and off. Stunned they now saw behind the right side passenger window a strange figure, described as having abundant hair; an elongated oval shaped head, with several protruding fangs in his mouth, and with large yellowish slanted eyes. It also had large pointy ears and what appeared to be pig-like whiskers. The creature remained a few moments at the window, then left. The terrified witnesses quickly drove away from the area. Strange marks were found on the truck's cabin.

Source: La Estrella de Loa

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Santa Elena de Codao, Chile - May 7, 2000 - 11:00pm

33-year old, G Alejandro Canales was returning back to his home after guarding his rabbit pens. As he took a short cut through an unlit alley he felt something fall on his back. He struggled with the "thing" and managed to shine a flashlight on it. He was stunned to see a short simian looking creature, with large pointy fangs, black fingernails, large golden luminous eyes, and dark leathery wings on its back. He also felt a strong musty odor during the encounter. The creature quickly scurried away disappearing into the darkness. Others found the witness in a state of shock upon hearing his screams. Deep scratches were found on Canales body.

Source: OVNIS Chile

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Near Calama, Chile - May 8, 2000 - unknown

According to various sources, Chilean military units in an area near the desert captured three strange creatures, reported to be blood predators or the unfortunately named "Chupacabra." On May 12 at 0627A a Boeing 767 arrived from Miami at Arturo Merino Benitez Airport. It was flight number 501, later a Boeing 767 from Air Lan also arrived at the airport. These supposedly brought special containers clearly marked NASA. Both aircraft then left enroute to Calama at 0800A. The captured creatures were then transferred to special flights that left towards an unknown destination.

Source: Patricio Borlone Rojas, Paranigma Chile

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Near Calama Chile - May 10, 2000 - night

A soldier stationed near the city reported seeing a strange creature that was able to make incredible leaps and bounds at times seemingly suspended in mid-air. He described the entity as about 1.20m tall, kind of hairy, and sort of hunchbacked. A patrol was supposedly sent after it. Supposedly the patrol found some strange "eggs" that they brought back to the barracks. Later another patrol reportedly killed two of the creatures and captured a third. It is said that NASA personnel retrieved all three creatures.

Source: Paranigma Chile

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Sierra Gorda, Calama, Chile - May 14 2000 - 5:00am

Several security guards posted at the entrance to La Minera El Tesoro spotted several moving figures in the nearby brush. Upon shining their flashlight at the creatures they could tell that they were simian in appearance and moved using incredible leaps and bounds at very high speed. One of the creatures stood up on two legs and it measured about 1.60m in height. It had large glowing yellow eyes and its body was covered with thick hair. The next day the men found a dead dog, which was missing all its organs.

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Tocopilla and Los Arenales, Sierra Gorda, Chile - May 25-26, 2000 - night

Local residents heard strange howling and screeching noises in the area, at the same time that several domesticated rabbits were found dead and completely bloodless. Another resident in Magallanes street saw a strange humanoid, with large bright yellowish eyes, that seemed to have a kind of hypnotic affect on him. Another resident saw a similar being standing on top of some rocks.

The next night, a young couple was parked in an isolated area making out, when suddenly a humanoid figure, covered with hair and with large luminous reddish yellowish eyes appeared in front of the vehicle. The young woman then received an apparently telepathic message from the creature, telling her to open the car door and step outside. She was about ready to open to door when she suddenly realized what she was doing. The panicked couple attempted to start the vehicle in order to leave, but could no move their legs. Finally they were able to move and drove away from the area.

Source: Paranigma Chile

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Tocopilla, Chile - May 30, 2000 - 2:00am

Local residents living next to the Tocopilla hills were suddenly awaken by strange loud noises. At first they thought it was a person climbing the hill, but after observing it in greater detail, they realized that, whatever they were seeing, not only was not human; it was something they have never seen before. It was a creature that was climbing the hill very rapidly despite the seventy to eighty degrees steep. They described the being as very agile and fast, making reptilian like movements like a small lizard. The creature appeared to be much bigger than a condor, brown in color, with bright red eyes and what appeared to be feathers throughout its body. It emitted loud quack like noises that were heard every night for a couple of weeks, causing dogs to bark and howl at night.

Source: Dr. Virgilio Sanchez Ocejo, Miami UFO Center

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Baquedano, Chile - May 30, 2000 - 6:00am

37-year old Evelyn Esbry woke up early in the morning in order to use the toilet facilities located outside in the terrace. On her way there she heard sounds coming from the patio area. Suddenly an entity jumped on her back, paralyzed with fear she turned around to see a bizarre hairy creature, with a large nozzle, about 4-feet tall, and with large luminous orange, oval shaped eyes. Terrified, Evelyn fainted and did not see the creature depart. She suffered from shock and was treated at the local hospital for deep scratches. The victim told local paramedics that the creature seemed to communicate with her, using telepathy telling her not to scream.

Source: Paranigma Chile

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Quillota, Chile - May 31, 2000 - midnight

A local villager heard a loud commotion on the roof of his house. Upon investigating he was confronted by a strange creature that was standing on the roof. He described it as looking like a centaur without a nose, about 90 cm in height. The creature then jumped to a nearby ravine and vanished. The next day the body of a completely bloodless dog was found.

Source: Paranigma Chile

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Chupacabras Attack More Farms In Chile

by Joseph Trainor
Editor - UFO ROUNDUP
May 11, 2000


Last week saw another rash of Chupacabra attacks in Chile. Eyewitnesses also sighted two weird humanoid creatures, said to be Chupacabras, near the city of Concepcion,located 300 kilometers (180 miles) south of Santiago de Chile, the national capital.

The new round of Chupacabra incidents began Wednesday, April 12, 2000 in the small town of Tucapel, in Bio Bio province just east of Concepcion. Witnesses reported that "a large bunch of dried brambles were crushed by a strange luminous phenomenon."

On Saturday, April 29, 2000, Jose Ismael Pino, 59, a farm worker employed at the Esperance Ranch two kilometers (one mile) east of Huepil, near Tucapel, had a face-to-face meeting with the Chupacabra.

Leaving the barn at 8 p.m., Pino explained, "There was a large bull running wild. I was walking along when I saw something, and I thought that was it. 'Hey, damned bull!' I shouted, and then I saw that it wasn't. It hardly moved. It just stood there, looking at me. It stood about 1.5 meters (four feet) tall, like a big monkey, with long clawed arms, enormous fangs protruding from its mouth, as well as a pair of wings. I was so scared I turned and ran back for the hounds. I set them all loose and let them chase after 'The Bird.' Cachorro (one of the dogs--J.T.) came back with a bloodstained neck."

"Pino's boss, Jorge Venegas, owner of the 75-acre farm, carries a loaded shotgun on his shoulder."

"Venegas, on his part, lets his employees leave early, since they are fearful of walking around at night, and he himself since the night of the luminous phenomena in Tucapel, has slept with his shotgun beside him."

"'We don't know what we're dealing with here. I'm not so concerned about the attacks on the animals, but I have two children, 12 years old and 15 years old, and I'm not going to let anything happen to them. In fact, right now I'm going to get a floodlight to see at night, in case something weird shows up,' explained the planter, hefting the shotgun to his right shoulder."

Farms in the Huepil-Tucapel area "were affected by the alleged predator, which killed four sheep on one farm and a cow on another."

However, not everybody believes that the the Chupacabra is the culprit. The manager of the Raul Perez farm told the newspaper Cronica, "Years ago, we had a (wild) dog problem. They managed to kill 70 sheep one single night, but we gave it no further importance at the time."

On Tuesday night, May 2, 2000, Carabineros (Chile's national police--J.T.) from the cuartel (barracks) in Santa Fe reported that "eight sheep, all of them pregnant, had been attacked by an unknown animal, which had left them half-dead, making it necessary to put them down."

The attacks were "blamed on wild dogs. Subofficer Alviro Valdebenito of the Santa Fe barracks further added that a characteristic of these dogs is that they are barkless."

Lt. Walter Koch of the Huepil Carabineros stated, "No, there were no reports about it (Chupacabra--J.T.) whatever. We don't even have pumas in this sector, and only in the pre-Cordillera ranges will you find foxes. The only predator of the type we've had are Siberian dogs which have feasted on some chickens."

"Carlos Villalobos, a schoolteacher in Huepil, said, 'I think it's linked to some unknown life-form, possibly alien in origin, but the authorities take the position of not acknowledging it, and they are probably very justified, since a collective panic situation could be unleashed.'"

The Chupacabra attacks continued without letup.

On Wednesday, May 3, 2000, "at 1:30 a.m., professor Liliana Romero Castillo slept soundly in her apartment located at Laguna Redonda in Concepcion, when she was awakened by the barking of the five stray puppies she had picked up some time earlier." The Puppies were living "in the building courtyard with Black, her large, fierce mastiff."

"'I crouched and looked through the window. The puppies were whining, and Black had cowered against the wall and was motionless. I could see the back of what appeared to be an immense man, standing more than two meters (6 feet, 8 inches) tall. The shoulder blades were split, as if he had wings. Its attitude (posture--J.T.) recalled that of a person choking another. That was my impression,' said Sra. Romero."

"Concerned that a crime was taking place in her garden, she woke her husband, who gave the matter little attention. 'I'm not getting up,' he said, half-asleep."

Sra. Romero returned to the window to get another look at the creature, but by then it was gone.

"The following day (Thursday, May 4, 2000) Liliana sent her children out to buy groceries at the local store. using a shortcut located behind their building. Upon their return, they told their mother that they had seen 'a dead dog'" in the alleyway.

Liliana asked her husband to check, and he returned saying that a wooly, beige-colored dog was lying on the ground with two puncture marks in the throat."

'I don't know if I might be in a suggestive state,' he said, 'But it had two deep holes in its jugular (vein), about the size of a Bic pen, separated by five centimeters between them. What impressed me the most was the way the body was completely bloodless and was as light as a feather. The dog was incredibly wooly (furry--J.T.) and in fact I had to move the fur to see the puncture marks.'"

Summoned by Liliana, a team of Carabineros arrived at the crime scene and took custody of the dog's body. They loaded the dog into a black plastic garbage bag and "ordered the family to remain silent, so as not to panic the local residents."

"'But I'm scared,' Liliana said, 'Since I have very young children, and I'm afraid that whatever was there will come back.'"

The Carabineros took the dead dog to the First Comissariat in Concepcion so it could be autopsied by pathologists.

The same day, May 4, 2000, "35 dead birds were found on a ranch 12 kilometers (7 miles) from Pucon on the road leading to the village of Caburuga. The animal attacks, attributed to the mythical Chupacabras, presented the same characteristics as the earlier attacks. (See UFO Roundup, volume 5, number 17 for details) since the dead chickens had cuts and scratches on different parts of their bodies.."

Capt. Roberto Saldivia, deputy chief of the Pucon Carabineros, "confirmed that the animals were found dead in a pen, without a single drop of blood in them."

"Cesar Hidalgo, regional director of Servicio Agricola y Ganado (Chile's Agricultural and Livestock Service--J.T.). explained that SAG professionals were at the scene" in Caburuga and would investigate further. (See the Chilean newspapers Cronica of Concepcion for May 2, 2000; El Sur for May 5, 2000, "Mysterious Nocturnal Apparition in Building Courtyard--Dead Dog Found Later" by Carlso Saso Prieto; and Orbe for May 5, 2000, "Further Chupacabras Attacks." Muchas gracias a Scott Corrales, auto de los libros Chupacabras and Other Mysteries y Forbidden Mexico, Gloria Coluchi y Ricardo Concha para esas historias.)

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NASA Experiments Gone Wrong?

Chilean Chupacabra watchers remain suspicious, and the case continues. In June of 2000, Chilean newspapers printed accusations from Chilean "UFOlogists" — people who study unidentified flying objects in the same northern deserts where Calama lies — of Chilean military officials finding three "Chupacabra eggs" and even catching the animal itself. The Chupacabra material was then turned over to NASA, according to Chilean press accounts. Radio programs in Chile have also accused the American space agency of creating the Chupacabra in a lab in the first place, while conducting genetic tests in the Chilean desert on mandrills, an animal similar to the baboon.

NASA denies the charge with more annoyance than amusement. "Before this it was the face on Mars, and before that it was modifying the weather, before that we were beaming radiation from satellites to make people impotent," says a decidedly weary-sounding NASA spokesman, Brian Welch. "Before that they were saying we faked the moon landing." Welch suggests the Chupacabra is blamed on NASA because the space agency is the last place anyone in Chile would think to call and ask about it.

"If you were persuaded to believe that sort of thing, you'd blame the last person you would go to for confirmation of it. I mean, people who believe this sort of thing certainly aren't beating down the door to ask us about it." - animal.discovery.com

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The Chupacabra Rampage

El Chupacabra has been crawling all over Chile in the last few months, raising many new questions about this mysterious creature, and resulting in astonishing claims about its origin.

It stands three to four feet tall, has a flexible row of spines down its back, eyes that glow red and long, sharp fangs... some even say it has wings. This is how eyewitnesses have described the strange, unworldly creature known as El Chupacabra - Spanish for "the goat sucker." The creature, as elusive as Bigfoot and as terrifying as a demon, earned its name from the way it kills its victims (mostly farm animals, including goats) - by sucking the life blood from them.

Chupacabra first made the headlines in 1995, when several attacks were reported in Puerto Rico. The small island still claims the most number of attacks to date, but slaughtered chickens, ducks, goats, cats, dogs and other small animals have been attributed to Chupacabra in Mexico, Central America, South America and even parts of the Southern United States.

During April, May and June of 2000, however, there were reports of a spate of attacks coming out of Chile. The mysterious deaths of farm animals followed the same pattern as those in Puerto Rico and other countries, and descriptions from eyewitnesses who claim to have actually seen the creature in Chile match the hideous features detailed in previous accounts.

The animal victims had incisions in their throats and their blood had been sucked out... blood-curdling sounds were heard in the dark.

The stories that came out of Chile - many reported in Chilean newspapers - had an incredible twist. A few of the dreaded creatures, they said, were actually caught and killed... and then their bodies were taken away by representatives of U.S. government agencies. That was the claim, anyway.

The Attack Begins

The recent attacks began in April, and newspapers carried stories of the mysterious deaths of close to 200 goats, sheep, chickens and rabbits in northern Chile. At first the deaths were blamed on packs of wild dogs, but one trademark feature of the killings turned the suspicion on the legendary Chupacabra. The respected Reuters news agency reported that some of the animal victims "had incisions in their throats and their blood had been sucked out." The report also said that "detectives swept the zone with night vision equipment and that blood-curdling sounds were heard in the dark, causing residents not to venture outside."

Victor Espinosa, an investigator for Chile's Ecology Department, was said to take hair samples and footprint castings for examination. "The paw prints do not match those of horses, cows, goats, pigs, felines or wild dogs," Espinosa said. And, according to Dr. Virgilia Sanches-Ocejo of the Miami UFO Center, Espinosa also said that evidence shows that the animal walks on two legs and only attacks hot-blooded animals and not snakes or lizards of the region.

The Capture

In late May / early June, rumors surfaced that three of the creatures had actually been captured. Reported chiefly by Marcial Campos Maza of the Chile's EFE news service and by Joseph Trainor of UFO Roundup in the U.S. among others, the stories claimed that three of the creatures had been caught in the desert near a mine just north of the town of Calama. In the struggle to capture the Chupacabras, they said, one Chilean soldier had been killed. The Chilean military allegedly would not discuss the matter.

More bizarrely, after the little monsters had been held in an army barracks for several hours, a team of NASA representatives arrived by helicopter from the U.S. (closing the local airport, according to one story) and took them away. How it was assumed that these people were from NASA is unclear, as is where the notion came from that NASA - the U.S. space agency - would have jurisdiction over such a matter, if it were a fact.

"Residents of Calama and nearby communities continued to blame NASA for the apparitions and attacks of the mysterious Chupacabras," Maza reported, "which has killed many farm animals in the region and other parts of Chile... their bodies completely exsanguinated and undevoured by the mysterious predator. It was said that the captured animal was kept all day at the regiment's barracks until NASA experts arrived to take it away."

Why NASA? Some residents believe that the deadly Chupacabras are the result of some diabolical genetic experiments gone awry by NASA, or some other U.S. agency. "The gringos had at least three genetic experiments run away from them," one respected Chilean architect was quoted as saying, but it was not disclosed how he came upon such information.

The Chupacabra Strikes Back

It seemed El Chupacabra was not pleased with having a few of its kind carted away. A new rash of animal killings started to occur in early June. In the backyard of a home in the port city of Talcahuano, 14 chickens were mysteriously slaughtered on June 4 - and Chupacabra was blamed. A few days later, the newspaper Diario El Sur ran a story about another attack in the city of Concepcion:

The strange case took place around 4 a.m. while Julio Reyes and his wife, Carmen Andrade, were still asleep. They suddenly heard a loud noise coming from their home's back yard, a kind of small farm in which they have a henhouse and a garden containing tomato, potato, chocla and pepper plants. "The light outside the henhouse was on. I saw the monster flapping his wings fiercely while the hens were crowing - something they never do at this time. That's when I saw the white one running toward the back. At this time, Bobby [the family's dog] came out to take a look, but when he saw the back gate, through which the hens had fled, he refused to follow and remained standing still. He then ran toward the street gate and began barking," explained Carmen, who did not witness the events herself out of fear that the intruder might be a burglar. "Bobby became sort of dopey and turned back. He didn't dare go forward," Julio said. Around 7 a.m., the couple discovered what had transpired. In the very rear of the backyard - which can only be reached by crossing two gates - their three hens and one rooster were found dead, completely torn to shreds, as if they had been ripped open at the chest cavity and scattered in a 10-meter (33-foot) radius. It is worth noting that the house's entrance is a gate covered with chicken wire."

Chile's national police blamed the attack on wild dogs, but Reyes did not accept that explanation. "Based on several paw prints found on the site," the newspaper article continued, "twice the size of Bobby's, the owner was not satisfied with the explanation, given the difficulty a dog would have had in getting into the area." Also, Reyes said he had previous experiences with dogs attacking his chickens, and they took the chickens away one by one to eat them, they did not slaughter them in this manner.

Two days later, another report was called in to a local radio station. The caller, from the city of Antofagasta, claimed to have actually seen the Chupacabra. He said he was awakened by strange noises his cat was making. When he got up to investigate, the creature saw him and "took off at high speed." He claimed that the Chupacabra had virtually destroyed his car by making deep scratches in it with its claws. And it killed the cat.

Certainly, this is not the last we'll hear of Chupacabra. The attacks might die down in Chile, but the nasty little creature will surface again somewhere else. It might be a good idea to keep all your goats and chickens securely locked up. - paranormal.about.com

Giant Green Cosmic Blob Identified As Gaseous Star Nursery

HP - The Hubble Space Telescope got its first peek at a mysterious giant green blob in outer space and found that it's strangely alive. The bizarre glowing blob is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars don't normally form.

The blob of gas was first discovered by a Dutch school teacher in 2007 and is named Hanny's Voorwerp (HAN'-nee's-FOR'-vehrp). Voorwerp is Dutch for object.

NASA released the new Hubble photo Monday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.

Parts of the green blob are collapsing and the resulting pressure from that is creating the stars. The stellar nurseries are outside of a normal galaxy, which is usually where stars live.

That makes these "very lonely newborn stars" that are "in the middle of nowhere," said Bill Keel, the University of Alabama astronomer who examined the blob.

The blob is the size of our own Milky Way galaxy and it is 650 million light years away. Each light year is about 6 trillion miles.

The blob is mostly hydrogen gas swirling from a close encounter of two galaxies and it glows because it is illuminated by a quasar in one of the galaxies. A quasar is a bright object full of energy powered by a black hole.

The blob was discovered by elementary school teacher Hanny van Arkel, who was 24 at the time, as part of a worldwide Galaxy Zoo project where everyday people can look at archived star photographs to catalog new objects.

Van Arkel said when she first saw the odd object in 2007 it appeared blue and smaller. The Hubble photo provides a clear picture and better explanation for what is happening around the blob.

"It actually looked like a blue smudge," van Arkel told The Associated Press. "Now it looks like dancing frog in the sky because it's green." She says she can even see what passes for arms and eyes.

Since van Arkel's discovery, astronomers have looked for similar gas blobs and found 18 of them. But all of them are about half the size of Hanny's Voorwerp, Keel said.

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Hubble Telescope Sheds Light On Mysterious, Green Space Blob

NPR - Back in 2007, as part of a crowd-sourced study program called Galaxy Zoo, a Dutch school teacher discovered a very odd celestial object: It looked like a great, green blob floating in space and at the time it was inexplicable.

Today, thanks to the Hubble telescope, we have an unbelievable picture of Hanny's Voorwerp, or Hanny's Object, as it is now known. And we also have a better idea of what it is: Researchers said the blob is not a galaxy but a "twisting rope of gas, or tidal tail, about 300,000 light-years long that wraps around the galaxy [IC 2497]."

In a press release from the University of Alabama, Dr. Bill Keel, professor of astronomy and leader of Hubble's Hanny's Voorep study, presented two surprising findings:

First, that very young stars are forming inside the tidal tail. "The region may have been churning out stars for several million years," said Keel. "They are so dim that they have previously been lost in the brilliant light of the surrounding gas."

Keel told us that this is remarkable because this is not the kind of environment in which you would usually find star formation.

Second, Hanny's Voorwerp was lit up by a powerful beacon of light called a quasar, which formed as a byproduct of the harsh conditions created by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Keel said the tail likely formed as the result of energy from two merging galaxies. That green light we see is glowing oxygen.

"We just missed catching the quasar because it turned off no more than 200,000 years ago, so what we’re seeing is the afterglow from the quasar," said Keel. "This implies that it might flicker on and off, which is typical of quasars, but we’ve never seen such a dramatic change happen so rapidly."

Update at 2:56 p.m. ET: We just spoke to Dr. Keel. He notes that one of the things this study might prove is that these kinds of objects and this kind process may be "pretty common."

"We were working under the assumption that this would've have been the closest quasar to us," he said. "But it's weird that it would doing something so unusual."

Keel said beyond the science, this is also an illustration of how important a project like Galaxy Zoo is. Essentially, Galaxy Zoo allows hundreds or thousands of volunteers to sift through images after taking a quick tutorial of what to look for.

Keel is looking for more green blobs, and he's using volunteers to find them. Galaxy Zoo users looked through images of 15,000 galaxies. They narrowed that down to 100 galaxies of interest and then scientists further winnowed it down to 18, which they will look at using high-powered telescopes.

NASA's Extraterrestrial Life News Wasn't Necessarily About Aliens

NASA - NASA-funded astrobiology research has changed the fundamental knowledge about what comprises all known life on Earth.

Researchers conducting tests in the harsh environment of Mono Lake in California have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in its cell components.

"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth. The research is published in this week's edition of Science Express.

Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur are the six basic building blocks of all known forms of life on Earth. Phosphorus is part of the chemical backbone of DNA and RNA, the structures that carry genetic instructions for life, and is considered an essential element for all living cells.

Phosphorus is a central component of the energy-carrying molecule in all cells (adenosine triphosphate) and also the phospholipids that form all cell membranes. Arsenic, which is chemically similar to phosphorus, is poisonous for most life on Earth. Arsenic disrupts metabolic pathways because chemically it behaves similarly to phosphate.

"We know that some microbes can breathe arsenic, but what we've found is a microbe doing something new -- building parts of itself out of arsenic," said Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a NASA Astrobiology Research Fellow in residence at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., and the research team's lead scientist. "If something here on Earth can do something so unexpected, what else can life do that we haven't seen yet?"

The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.

The key issue the researchers investigated was when the microbe was grown on arsenic did the arsenic actually became incorporated into the organisms' vital biochemical machinery, such as DNA, proteins and the cell membranes. A variety of sophisticated laboratory techniques was used to determine where the arsenic was incorporated.

The team chose to explore Mono Lake because of its unusual chemistry, especially its high salinity, high alkalinity, and high levels of arsenic. This chemistry is in part a result of Mono Lake's isolation from its sources of fresh water for 50 years.

The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth's evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

"The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake."

The research team included scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Penn., and the Stanford Synchroton Radiation Lightsource in Menlo Park, Calif.

NASA's Astrobiology Program in Washington contributed funding for the research through its Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute. NASA's Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life on Earth.


Click for video

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Mono Lake bacteria build their DNA using arsenic

discovermagazine - Arsenic isn’t exactly something you want to eat. It has a deserved reputation as a powerful poison. It has been used as a murder weapon and it contaminates the drinking water of millions of people. It’s about as antagonistic to life as a chemical can get. But in California’s Mono Lake, Felisa Wolfe-Simon has discovered bacteria that not only shrug off arsenic’s toxic effects, but positively thrive on it. They can even incorporate the poisonous element into their proteins and DNA, using it in place of phosphorus.

Out of the hundred-plus elements in existence, life is mostly made up of just six: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus. This elite clique is meant to be irreplaceable. But the Mono Lake bacteria may have broken their dependence on one of the group – phosphorus – by swapping it for arsenic. If that’s right, they would be the only known living things to do this.

The discovery is amazing, but it’s easy to go overboard with it. For example, this breathlessly hyperbolic piece, published last year, suggests that finding such bacteria would be “one of the most significant scientific discoveries of all time”. It would imply that “Mono Lake was home to a form of life biologically distinct from all other known life on Earth” and “strongly suggest that life got started on our planet not once, but at least twice”.

The results do nothing of the sort. For a start, the bacteria – a strain known as GFAJ-1 – don’t depend on arsenic. They still contain detectable levels of phosphorus in their molecules and they actually grow better on phosphorus if given the chance. It’s just that they might be able to do without this typically essential element – an extreme and impressive ability in itself.

Nor do the bacteria belong to a second branch of life on Earth – the so-called “shadow biosphere” that Wolfe-Simon talked about a year ago. When she studied the genes of these arsenic-lovers, she found that they belong to a group called the Oceanospirillales. They are no stranger to difficult diets. Bacteria from the same order are munching away at the oil that was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year. The arsenic-based bacteria aren’t a parallel branch of life; they’re very much part of the same tree that the rest of us belong to.

That doesn’t, however, make them any less extraordinary.

Phosphorus helps to form the backbone of DNA and it’s a crucial part of ATP, the molecule that acts as a cell’s energy currency. Arsenic sits just below phosphorus in the periodic table. The two elements have such similar properties that arsenic can usurp the place of phosphorus in many chemical reactions. But arsenic is a poor understudy – when it stands in for phosphorus, it produces similar but less stable products. This partially explains why the element is so toxic. But the bacteria of Mono Lake have clearly found a way to cope with this.

They have every reason to do so. Mono Lake sits in a sealed basin close to California’s Yosemite National Park. With no outlet connecting it to other bodies of water, any chemicals flowing into the lake tend to stay there. As a result, the lake has built up some of the highest concentrations of arsenic on the planet. To survive here, bacteria have to be able to cope with the poison.

In 2008, Ronald Oremland (who was also involved in the latest study) discovered bacteria in Mono Lake that can fuel themselves on arsenic. Like plants, they can photosynthesise, creating their own food using the power of the sun. But where plants use water in this reaction, the bacteria used arsenic. Wolfe-Simon has taken these discoveries a step further, by showing that the bacteria are actually incorporating arsenic into their most important of molecules.

She took sediment from Mono Lake and added it to Petri dishes containing a soup of vitamins and other nutrients, but not a trace of phosphorus. She took samples from these dishes and added them to fresh ones, gradually diluting them to remove any phosphorus that might have stowed away onboard. And all the while, she added more and more arsenic.

Amazingly, bacteria still grew in the dishes. Wolfe-Simon isolated one of these arsenic-lovers – a strain called GFAJ-1. Using an extremely sensitive technique called ICP-MS that measures the concentrations of different elements, she showed that the cells of these bacteria did indeed contain large amounts of arsenic.

By giving the bacteria a mildly radioactive form of arsenic, Wolfe-Simon could also track where the element ended up in the cells. The answer: everywhere. There was arsenic in the bacteria’s proteins and in their fat molecules. It had replaced phosphorus in many important molecules including ATP and glucose (a sugar). It was even in their DNA, a conclusion that Wolfe-Simon backed up with a number of other techniques. All other life uses phosphorus to create the backbone of the famous double helix, but GFAJ-1’s DNA had a spine of arsenic.

It’s an amazing result, but even here, there is room for doubt. As mentioned, Wolfe-Simon still found a smidgen of phosphorus in the bacteria by the end of the experiment. The levels were so low that the bacteria shouldn’t have been able to grow but it’s still not clear how important this phosphorus fraction is. Would the bacteria have genuinely been able to survive if there was no phosphorus at all?

Nor is it clear if the arsenic-based molecules are part of the bacteria’s natural portfolio. Bear in mind that Wolfe-Simon cultured these extreme microbes using ever-increasing levels of arsenic. In doing so, she might have artificially selected for bacteria that can use arsenic in place of phosphorus, causing the denizens of Mono Lake to evolve new abilities (or overplay existing ones) under the extreme conditions of the experiment.

Other species can cope with arsenic too. Some switch on genes that give them resistance to arsenic poisoning, while others can even “breathe” using arsenate. But GFAJ-1 uses the element to an even greater extent. How does it manage?

Under the microscope, the bacteria become around 50% larger if they grow on arsenic compared to phosphorus, and they develop large internal compartments called vacuoles. These might be the key to their success. Wolfe-Simon thinks that the vacuoles could act as a safe haven for unstable arsenic-based molecules – they might contain chemicals that steady the molecules, and they might keep out water that would hasten their breakdown.

These are questions for future research. In the mean time, the angle being used to sell the story is that this might have implications for alien life. Of course, the results have nothing to do with aliens. If anything, they expand the possibilities of what alien life might look like. If bacteria on Earth can exist using a biochemistry that’s very different to that of other microbes, it stands to reason that aliens could do the same.

That hasn’t stopped the hype machine from rolling forward, fuelled by a public announcement from NASA, teasing a press conference about an “astrobiology discovery”. It’s a shame. In teasing their own press conference two days ahead of time, and refusing to budge on the embargo when the first information trickled in, NASA effectively muzzled everyone who knew about the actual story while allowing speculation to build to fever pitch.

That may, of course, be their intention. However, I can’t help but feel that the result will be a lot of disappointed people, who’ve been robbed of an opportunity to be excited about a genuinely interesting discovery.

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Arsenic-loving bacteria may help in hunt for alien life

BBC - The first organism able to substitute one of the six chemical elements crucial to life has been found.

The bacterium, found in a California lake, uses the usually poisonous element arsenic in place of phosphorus.

The find, described in Science, gives weight to the long-standing idea that life on other planets may have a radically different chemical makeup.

It also has implications for the way life arose on Earth - and how many times it may have done so.

The "extremophile" bacteria were found in a briny lake in eastern California in the US.

While bacteria have been found in inhospitable environments and can consume what other life finds poisonous, this bacterial strain has actually taken arsenic on board in its cellular machinery.

Until now, the idea has been that life on Earth must be composed of at least the six elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus - no example had ever been found that violates this golden rule of biochemistry.

The bacteria were found as part of a hunt for life forms radically different from those we know.

"At the moment we have no idea if life is just a freak, bizarre accident which is confined to Earth or whether it is a natural part of a fundamentally biofriendly universe in which life pops up wherever there are Earth-like conditions," explained Paul Davies, the Arizona State University and Nasa Astrobiology Institute researcher who co-authored the research.

"Although it is fashionable to support the latter view, we have zero evidence in favour of it," he told BBC News.

"If that is the case then life should've started many times on Earth - so perhaps there's a 'shadow biosphere' all around us and we've overlooked it because it doesn't look terribly remarkable."

Proof of that idea could come in the form of organisms on Earth that break the "golden rules" of biochemistry - in effect, finding life that evolved separately from our own lineage.

Study lead author Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues Professor Davies and Ariel Anbar of Arizona State University initially suggested in a paper an alternative scheme to life as we know it.

Their idea was that there might be life in which the normally poisonous element arsenic (in particular as chemical groups known as arsenates) could work in place of phosphorus and phosphates.

Putting it to the test, the three authors teamed up with a number of collaborators and began to study the bacteria that live in Mono Lake in California, home to arsenic-rich waters.

The researchers began to grow the bacteria in a laboratory on a diet of increasing levels of arsenic, finding to their surprise that the microbes eventually fully took up the element, even incorporating it into the phosphate groups that cling to the bacteria's DNA.

Notably, the research found that the bacteria thrived best in a phosphorus environment.

That probably means that the bacteria, while a striking first for science, are not a sign of a "second genesis" of life on Earth, adapted specifically to work best with arsenic in place of phosphorus.

However, Professor Davies said, the fact that an organism that breaks such a perceived cardinal rule of life makes it is a promising step forward.

"This is just a weird branch on the known tree of life," said Professor Davies. "We're interested ultimately in finding a different tree of life... that will be the thing that will have massive implications in the search for life in the Universe.

"The take-home message is: who knows what else is there? We've only scratched the surface of the microbial realm."

John Elliott, a Leeds Metropolitan University researcher who is a veteran of the UK's search for extraterestrial life, called the find a "major discovery".

"It starts to show life can survive outside the traditional truths and universals that we thought you have to use... this is knocking one brick out of that wall," he said.

"The general consensus is that this really could still be an evolutionary adapatation rather than a second genesis. But it's early days, within about the first year of this project; it's certainly one to think on and keep looking for that second genesis, because you've almost immediately found an example of something that's new."

Simon Conway Morris of the University of Cambridge agreed that, whatever its implications for extraterrestrial life, the find was significant for what we understand about life on Earth.

"The bacteria is effectively painted by the investigators into an 'arsenic corner', so what it certainly shows is the astonishing and perhaps under-appreciated versatility of life," he told BBC News.

"It opens some really exciting prospects as to both un-appreciated metabolic versatility... and prompting the questions as to the possible element inventory of remote Earth-like planets".


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Fortean / Oddball News: NASA Finds ET, Bizarre Medication Reaction and Godzilla Attacks Whalers

NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery - Dec. 2nd

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Cathy Weselby
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-2791
cathy.weselby@nasa.gov
Nov. 29, 2010

MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-110

NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery
Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 11 a.m. PST On Dec. 2

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. PST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Reporters may view the televised press conference at NASA Ames Research Center in the main auditorium, Bldg. 201 or ask questions by phone. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov or call 202-358-0918 by 9 a.m. PST Dec. 2, 2010.

Participants are:

* Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
* Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
* Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
* Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
* James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe

To reach NASA Ames, take U.S. Highway 101 to the Moffett Field, NASA Parkway exit and drive east on Moffett Boulevard towards the main gate. The briefing will be held in the main auditorium, Building N-201, at NASA Ames. Building N-201 is located behind the administration building, N-200.

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OUCH!

A chicken was left shell-shocked after laying an enormous four inch tall egg, with her surprised owner describing the poor hen as 'bow-legged.'

The monster egg measures a whopping 9cm by 5.7cm (2.2ins) and is more than twice the size of a normal egg. It was laid by Bolt, a 20-week-old chicken from Christchurch, Dorset, who has only been laying for three weeks.

Owner Denise Sloan, a 52-year-old gardener, said she has never seen such a large egg despite owning chickens for 15 years. The egg, which has not been fertilised, is now destined for the dinner plate.

She said of Bolt’s impressive achievement: ‘I don't know what the world record is, but all I can say is she is pretty bow-legged now. It's enormous, bigger than a duck egg.’

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Man's Bizarre Reaction to Parkinson’s Medication

swns - Town councillor Pete Shepherd, 60, was given a new drug called Cabergoline by his GP after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

The pills relieved the symptoms of the debilitating illness but turned Pete into a high-living, violent, attention-seeking, sex-addicted gambler with delusions of grandeur.

He maxed-out 15 credit cards, exceeded two bank overdraft limits, ran up £400,000 debts and lost his wife, £50,000-a-year IT job and home.

Pete claims he was sent ”mad” by the drugs which twisted his mind so badly he suffered ”compulsions” which made him a sex-addicted gambler.

He received a conditional discharge at Hull Crown Court in November last year when a Judge accepted medication caused him to commit a £45,000 eBay fraud.

Cabergoline is a new form of drug called Dopamine Agent (DA) and can also be used to increase sex drive.

Peter, from Hull, Yorks., said: ”I started to develop a range of strange obsessions, compulsions and interests.

”I became obsessed with gambling, spending, sexual excess and various fetishes.

”I suffered from delusions of grandeur, exhibitionism, paranoia and hallucinations and became violent and suicidal.

”I was out day and night at racecourses, betting shops, casinos and brothels.

”I developed a transvestite tendency and spent tens of thousands of pounds on ladies’ clothing for myself.

”None of this high-living, gambling, hypersexuality, fetishism, violence or attention-seeking made any sense at the time.

”I knew I was behaving oddly but I was totally driven down these paths and unable to control the compulsions whatsoever.

”It went on and on, and I found myself in police stations several times.”

Peter was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2001 but believes he may have suffered from the disease since 1970.

Over the next seven years he ran up £400,000 debts living the high-life including enormous credit card bills at casinos, horse racing, brothels, sex lines and porn websites.

He posed as millionaire on a Caribbean cruise on the QEII and travelled to luxury resorts in New York, Florida, Tenerife, Tunisia, Morocco and Dominican Republic.

Pete hired a helicopter to go to the Grand Canyon and rented Bentleys, Ferraris, Porsches, TVRs and Jaguars and toured Scotland staying in luxury hotels for Hogmanay.

He bought flash cars with personalised number plates got tickets to boxing matches, concerts, Wimbledon tennis finals, and owned executive boxes at two football clubs.

During one week in Las Vegas Pete blew £10,000 on gambling, hotels and flights.

Pete also developed a transvestite tendancy and dressed up in stilettos and tights and hung out in car parks looking for sex.

He finally discovered a link between his compulsions and Cabergoline after searching the internet in 2008 and his life went back to normal when he stopped taking the drugs.

Pete admitted six charges of fraud and one count money laundering in October last year after conning 172 people out of £45,718 for concert tickets which did not exist in an eBay scam.

Two Professors of Neurology spoke on his behalf testifying the drugs had taken over his mind making him unable to know right from wrong.

Recorder Henry Prosser described Peter’s situation as a ”wholly unusual and exceptional case’ which would normally have attracted an immediate prison sentence.

He told Pete that responsibility for his actions was ”very substantially” reduced by the side effects of the drug and gave him a conditional discharge.

Pete now takes different medication to treat his Parkinson’s Disease and has no savings or house.

Dr Kieran Breen, Director of Research & development at Parkinson’s UK, said it was aware of the link between some dopamine agents and compulsive behaviours.

He added: ”Many people with Parkinson’s in the UK are prescribed dopamine agonists, often in conjunction with other drugs, including levodopa, as their standard therapy.

”Research suggests that at least 14 per cent of people on these medications may experience problems with compulsive behaviours, which appear to subside if the drug is withdrawn or changed.

”Some studies have suggested that other types of anti-Parkinson’s medication may also produce similar side effects.

”Parkinson’s UK is currently funding research to identify why these behaviours may occur and how best to treat them.

”We are also working to raise awareness of these issues through our professional education activities and information for people affected by Parkinson’s.

”If people with Parkinson’s think they may be experiencing compulsive behaviours, they should speak to their neurologist or Parkinson’s nurse, rather than suddenly stopping their medication.

”We urge all medical professionals to discuss this side effect with their patients, and to monitor it on an ongoing basis.”

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FTC 'Gone Wild'

UPI - Consumer advocates say the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has asked for trouble by revising rules for collectors chasing debt from people who have died.

The new rules allow for a wider circle of people to be contacted, beyond family members and the legal executor of the estate. There is also the term "spouse" that some advocates say is inaccurate as a marriage ends when one of the partners dies. The Washington Post reported Monday.

Some advocates warn that some debt collectors will press even friends to pay the debts of someone who has died, using a "moral obligation" argument, the Post said.

Robert Hobbs, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center said the FTC should "strengthen protections for grieving families and friends, not open the door to debt-collection efforts."

"Presumably we're dealing with elderly people at the most vulnerable time that you could imagine," said attorney Richard Rubin, a consumer rights advocate in New Mexico.

"The debt doesn't disappear when the person dies. It's still a valid debt, and the collector can still collect it," said Joel Winston, FTC associate director of financial practices, the Post reported.

"We are determined to ensure that the collectors play by the rules," he said.

The FTC has extended the deadline to Dec. 1 for the public to comment on proposed rule changes.

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Japanese Whalers to be Chased by Sea Shepherd's 'Godzilla'

news.com.au - The Australian Federal Government's willingness to crack down on illegal whaling will be tested if Sea Shepherd's newest and only Australian registered vessel is rammed or attacked by Japanese whalers.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society today launched its new interceptor vessel Gojira, named after the widely-feared monster of Japanese film known in English as Godzilla.

The non-for-profit organisation's director Jeff Hansen said the Gojira will be a game-changer in this year's fight against illegal Japanese whaling as it can out-run harpoon vessels.

"This vessel can out-run any Japanese vessel, so it means we'll have the element of surprise and we can find the factory ship," Mr Hansen said.

"The factory ship is the one we're after and if we can find it, we can shut down whaling.

"We save 10 to 12 whales a day by blocking the slipway on the factory ship so really this vessel is going to play a huge part in shutting down the Japanese whaling fleet for the entire summer."

The Gojira set off from Fremantle today to join the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker in Hobart before leaving on December 2 to defend the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. Its captain, Locky MacLean, said having the fast, new vessel combined with Japanese whalers still to leave port, it was anticipated Sea Shepherd would be able to stop all whales from being slaughtered this year.

"If we can get down there before they do we can stop them straight off the bat which would be a big blow to the whaling industry down there," Mr McLean said.

"Last year we followed them for 45 days and during the 45 days they didn't kill a single whale. If we can do that again this year and be there right when they get there, we've got a full quota on our side."

The Gojira is Sea Shepherd's first Australian registered vessel, with Fremantle as designated as home port, and will have Australian citizens on board.

In January the crew of Sea Shepherd's protest boat the Ady Gil claimed they were rammed by a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean but New Zealand authorities found both vessels were at fault.

Mr Hansen said the Federal Government would be tested in its response if a similar incident occurred with the Gojira.

"We hope the Australian Government, if there's any issues down there, that they will step up and defend a vessel that's named and birthed as a home port in Australia and has Australian citizens on board," he said.

"We hope the Australian Government will have the guts to take on the whalers."