UFO investigators held a press conference at the Roswell Civic and Convention Center on Thursday to announce that they found ... something.
"At this point, we don't know what it was or why it was there," said UFO investigator Chuck Zukowski. "I don't want to speculate."
"We want to announce to the world that this stuff needs further analysis," explained Dr. Bill Doleman, a retired archaeologist who supervised the dig where the items were found.
The artifacts were discovered in 2002 during a dig sponsored by the Sci Fi Channel, at a site where some eyewitnesses say a mysterious craft ricocheted off the ground in 1947.
Zukowski and his sister Debbie Ziegelmeyer, state director of the Mutual UFO Network in Missouri, volunteered to help with the excavation, and found the object that has been most thoroughly analyzed. The tiny piece of silvery material came from a site where water tended to gather. Ziegelmeyer was sifting through buckets of dirt when the object emerged, and she quickly clutched it to keep it from blowing away. The material began to curl up after it was exposed to sunlight. Ziegelmeyer speculated that it might have been sensitive to light or heat, although Doleman suggested it may have started to dry out after it was taken out of the ground.
The item, along with other specimens found by the team, was stored at the University of New Mexico's Office of Contract Archaeology.
Zukowski said it took years for them to figure out whether they could run tests on the items.
"We didn't really know who had responsibility for these things," he said. "After reams of paperwork I was able to get a hold of it."
Zukowski examined the item using an electron microscope. He said that the microscope belonged to a microchip manufacturer in Albuquerque, and a recently-retired technician helped him use it, but he declined to identify either the company or the assistant, saying it might be unseemly for them to be involved.
Zukowski said he determined that the artifact was mostly aluminum silicate. Other elements showed up in the sample, but he believes they are mostly from the microscope's surroundings or dirt that clung to the object.
Doleman said that aluminum silicate is not uncommon in nature, but the item was found on a limestone plateau, which is mostly calcium carbonate. There seemed to be nothing around that would contain or produce the compound.
Zukowski also took extremely close-up pictures of the artifact, capturing some features only a few microns long.
"We see some damage in here," he said, "and it's interesting that when you get down that small, you can see holes."
He also displayed an image of what looked like a tiny metallic whisker.
Zukowski, who designs microchips for a living, said that the features struck him as unusual.
"We know this thing definitely is not organic, number one," he concluded. "Number two, we know it's not indigenous."
The small silvery object was one of many that turned up during the dig. Doleman presented slides of what looked like a piece of PVC pipe and fragments of plastic, as well as what seemed to be leather and rubber from a shoe. Doleman said that they had not been analyzed, and he would like to confirm that they are what they seem to be.
"We want to figure out that they are using the best scientific methods available," he said.
The excavation also unearthed pieces of igneous rock that seemed out of place on the limestone plateau.
"They look like they may have been burned," noted Doleman. "Who knows what kind of burning a UFO creates when it smacks into the earth and then goes bouncing back up into the sky?"
The items that Doleman found most interesting were some orange blobs of material. Assaigai Analytical Laboratories Inc. in Albuquerque found that they were modacrylic adhesive, a heat-resistant synthetic copolymer. The Union Carbide Corporation was the first to produce modacrylic fiber in 1949.
Zukowski said the modacrylic adhesive might tie into an eyewitness account. One of the volunteer excavators was Nancy Easly Johnson, daughter of Maj. Edwin Easly, who was allegedly at the crash site. Easly told Johnson little about the incident, but mentioned orange debris.
"We'd like to get (the objects) identified, and see if they can shed light on what happened in that broad in-the-middle-of-nowhere pasture on the Foster Ranch in 1947," said Doleman. "We're looking for funding, and/or professional laboratories who would be able to take this stuff and try and identify it."
He said that there would be benefits for any lab willing to do pro-bono work, including publicity, possible information about useful alien technology, and "everybody in the UFO community will think they're really cool."
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