In 2001 Popular Mechanics had an article written by Jim Wilson who claims recently declassified documents may help explain the molten metal discharge from a 1957 UFO event in Ubatuba, Brazil. He also reports that samples were sent to the Air Force where it was “accidentally” destroyed. The article also recounts a UFO case in Delgado, France in 1981 that also had evidence of a metallic discharge as well as a 1977 incident in Council Bluffs, Iowa where 40 pounds of molten metal was ejected onto the ground. The sample was given to the Air Force for analysis but it was never made public. Jaque Vallee says there are at least 9 other cases like this.

Here is a link to the entire article. (It starts on page 66 and has a good artist depiction of the proposed explanation.)

Who is Jim Wilson?

He has many articles on the Popular Mechanics website and multiple books published. “As science editor of Popular Mechanics, Jim Wilson directs the magazine’s coverage of aviation, aerospace, and military news. He has written extensively about combat aircraft for assignments that have taken him from the flight decks of Navy carriers to the cockpits of Air Force fighters.” He also has a Muck Rack profile and appears very active. Most of his books are about aviation or war history and he has one about a nazi female spy pieced together by declassified MI5 files and FBI memos.

The proposed explanation by Jim Wilson:

“Recently declassified documents explain what it might have been. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the U.S. Air Force experimented with electrostatic drives. In theory, lift and propulsion can be created by imparting airframes with an electric charge that matches, and therefore repels, the surrounding air. Such an aircraft would require enormous amounts of electric power, and the Air Force seemed to know how to create it. Other declassified documents reveal that the Air Force had built compact nuclear reactors small enough to fly on an aircraft. It had also experimented with a device known as a magnetohydrodynamic generator (MHD) to extract large amounts of electricity from a fast-moving stream of molten metal. Engineers familiar with such systems say that if MHD units were to become unstable, some of the metal circulating in the unit would have to be ejected.”

I’ve proposed very similar concepts and explanations for UFO energy and propulsion systems. I was never aware of this article, but decided to try to hunt down the declassified documents Wilson claims supports this argument. I’m not sure I’ve found them specifically as a lot of declassified material is only accessible if you physically go to the archives, but I have found sources online that essentially corroborate what Wilson is reporting.

​

The Air Force’s own website has a very detailed history of how it studied compact nuclear reactors specifically for powered flight in the 1950’s and 60’s published by Jack Waid in 2021.

​

“The U.S. Nuclear Propulsion Program (or Manned Nuclear Aircraft Program) began in May 1946. This after Fairchild Engine and Aircraft Corporation, received the first formal study contract. The objective, to determine the feasibility of nuclear energy for the propulsion of aircraft. The Fairchild project known as the Nuclear Energy for Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) began at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN.

Work at Oak Ridge proved building a nuclear aircraft was feasible and defined the major approaches to the program. As a result, the Air Force and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) joined forces in the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) Program. In 1951, they contracted with the General Electric (GE) Company at Evendale, Ohio to, “…develop a nuclear aircraft propulsion system through an exacting research, development, design and component-test program on reactors, materials, shielding and an over-all nuclear power plant.”

​

In 2004, Edgar Y. Choueiri of Princeton University published “A Critical History of Electric Propulsion: The First Fifty Years (1906-1956)” in which he very thoroughly recounts the history of the field of electric propulsion. He makes it clear from an academic point of view that electrostatic propulsion concepts were pioneered in the 40’s and 50’s including by Dr. Robert Goddard (considered the father of modern rocketry) and nazi scientist Ernst Stuhlinger (who was brought to NASA by Operation Paperclip.)

Interestingly, Goddard did secretive private research into this propulsion at Roswell, New Mexico. Even more interesting is Stuhlinger states in a 1967 journal publication about electric propulsion that, “during 1958, competent and active work teams developed at a number of companies. They were sponsored by study contracts by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Lewis Flight Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics initiated a theoretical and experimental research program for electric propulsion in 1957.”

That covers compact nuclear reactors and electrostatic drives. As for MHD generator research, a have one sources from the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) and one from NASA supporting Wilson’s claims.

From the DTIC source, this is a RAND Corp. document titled, U.S. AND SOVIET MHD TECHNOLOGY: A COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW

“The first recorded attempt to develop an MHD generator was conducted at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories before and during World War II. After World War II, MHD emerged as one component of developing interests in the understanding and utilization of ionized gases or plasmas under high-temperature conditions. Several preliminary studies of the MHD-power-generation process were made in the United Sates in the late 1950s, and interest was expressed by both commercial electric-power systems organizations and the Department of Defense. The advent of the space program quickly established NASA interest.”

The NASA technical paper is simply called Magnetohydrodynamic Power Generation.

​

“In the 1940’s a large, sophisticated MHD generator was built at Westinghouse Electric; it failed because sufficient knowledge of the properties of ionized gases was still not available.

In 1959, an experimental MHD generator was built at AVCO that produced 11.5 kW of power and obtained a sufficiently strong interaction between the gases and the magnetic field to cause an appreciable pressure drop. The plasma was argon at a temperature of 3000OK [2:5].

Calculations in the 1950’s and 1960’s indicated quick success. An ambitious, large scale program was undertaken in America. Although progress was made, these large scale programs were not successful. Scientists turned to small experimental setups in which many problems were solved [3:1 ].

In 1964 work began on a generator to supply power for a high-enthalpy wind tunnel at the Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tennessee. This project is still operating [2:8].

The MHD generator for the wind tunnel at Arnold Engineering is known as LORHO. It was designed to produce 20 MW peak, and actually achieved 18 MW for ten seconds [3:4].

In 1963, Avco-Everett Research Laboratory designed, built, and put into operation the first large MHD generator that worked. It produced 32 MW for a few seconds. It was called the Avco Mark V [3:4].”

​

It would be nice to see the declassified documents Wilson is referring to, but I think the above sources are enough to corroborate that they likely exist. Perhaps somebody could try to contact him to share them with us or search the archives for them and post them on the internet.