Introduction

"Walter Stender first learned about the occurrence and the interesting metal object found at Vaddo in 1974...

"Stig Ekberg and Harry Sjoberg. both residents of Stockholm, were building a house on the Isle of Vaddo located about 90 km N of Stockholm. In the evening of Sunday, November 11, 1956, after spending the weekend with their families, the two carpenters were driving back to the building site on the Island. Ekberg was driving his Ford V8 Pickup with Sjoberg sitting on the passenger side. The truck was running well, it was still new with only 20.000 km on the clock.

"They were already on the Isle of Vaddo traveling in a northerly direction, when Sjoberg. noticed a very bright flying object, approaching from the right, against the clear night sky. Making Ekberg aware of the object they both watched as it flew in front of them, about 1 km, at an altitude of about 100 m. Suddenly the object made a sharp turn towards them and started slowly gliding down. It seemed to rock back and forth until it came to a stop in the middle of the road, about a 100 m in front of them. Sjoberg. remembered that the object turned at the point in the sky were the moon was standing at the time of the incident. This was about 10 p.m. Central European Time.

"The shape of the object appeared to be an elliptical flattened sphere. It was illuminating the surrounding landscape with such a tremendous amount of light, that even a barn, a half kilometer away, was visible as though the sun where shining. The witnesses noticed that the object was brighter during flight than after landing, and both were surprised that they were not blinded by the bright unusual light.

"Just after the object turned and started to descend, Ekberg noticed that his engine started to sputter and died. At the same time the headlights went out. The vehicle came to a stop before the object landed. The witnesses stayed in the car initially talking about what the unusual flying object in front of them could be. Ekberg thought perhaps it could be some sort of secret air force machinery. Sjoberg on the other hand believed that it was some kind of ball lightening phenomena.

"The object had dull coloring that appeared to be steel gray in the middle. On top and underneath it appeared to be yellow, while it turned into red-orange, towards the front and the back. The object appeared to stand about I meter above the ground. But, no landing gear or supports could be observed, because the space between the object and the road was covered with fog or smoke. Under the middle of the object the light seemed to be very intense like a fire or a very strong light.

"The elliptical outline of the object appeared to glimmer - like a road in the desert sun. No distinct characteristics could be observed, but it seemed to slowly turn on a vertical axis from left to right every 20 seconds.

"The object was totally silent, in flight and on the ground. Ekberg noticed an uncomfortable atmospheric change, especially after they stepped out of their vehicle. The air seemed to lack oxygen and breathing was difficult. It smelled like ozone and smoldering insulation. Sjoberg did not think much of this at the time, he thought it was just the change from the city air that was different.

"Both remembered that the object was wider than the road, which was about 5 meters wide. They approximated the size of the object to be about 8 meters wide and 3 meters high.

"After about 10 minutes on the ground, the light of the object intensified and it lifted off the ground. It moved to the left and up about 10 meters before it made a sudden turn and accelerated amazingly fast, flying away in the direction where it came from.

The Find at the Landing Site

"Ekberg took his flashlight after the object disappeared to the east, opened the hood of his truck and checked the wiring. Nothing seemed out of place, so he asked Sjoberg to try the starter. Surprisingly, the vehicle started right up and idled normally. Also, the headlights came on without any problem. It appeared that everything was back to normal.

"Ekberg was in a hurry to continue their journey, but Sjoberg insisted on stopping at the landing site. Sjoberg got out of the truck with a flashlight. He noticed segments of the tall grass next to the road had been pushed down on both sides. This induced Ekberg to get out of the truck as well. They both started to look around for more evidence.

"In the middle of the landing circle, which was marked by the flattened grass, Ekberg saw what appeared to be a shiny rock on the dusty road. He picked up the shimmering object. The object was so hot he had to toss it back and forth between his hands to keep from burning himself. The shiny rock turned out to be a three sided piece of metal, approximately the size of a matchbox. Because of the unusual heavy weight, Ekberg decided to keep the piece and placed it in the glove compartment of his truck before continuing their journey back to their building site."[footnote 1]

The Artifact

The following images display the artifact as reconstructed by this author (Cashman). The reconstructions differ from those shown in the reference (von Ludwiger). In the reference, Piece II Side A is Piece II Side B and vice versa. However, in the process of matching the photos from the book, it seemed that contours, finish, and wear patterns matched better in the configuration shown below. The possibility of this configuration is acknoweledged where von Ludwiger writes... "When, however, comparing the appearance of the plane and edge surfaces of Side A Piece II with Side B Piece I, some doubts arise, so that [a] mistake cannot be excluded [when relying on the witness' recollection]."

Side A, polished and reflective Note: The groove at the top of Piece 1 is a mark left by sampling when the piece was analysed and is not as found
Side B, more scratched and textured
Top / Side
Front / Back, Piece I, Different Lighting

The reconstruction of the geometry by von Illobrand is... (click for full size)

Composition

"Ekberg was introduced to Sven Schalin during the first contact with the UFO organization. Schalin was in charge of laboratories at the SAAB Airline manufacturing company, as well as a member of [a] UFO organization. This initial introduction led to a variety of tests on the metal object... Tests were run in various laboratories in Sweden and even in Denmark.

"The first test was done by Schalin himself in his laboratories at SAAB. A few days after returning the pieces to Ekberg, Schalin came to visit him again, only this time accompanied by a high-ranking officer of the US Air Force... Ekberg loaned one of the pieces to the American but never got it back.

"This incident made Ekberg cautious, he put the most interesting of the two remaining pieces into a safety deposit box. He only loaned the second piece to people who agreed to take out a 50.000 Swedish Crown insurance policy for collateral...

[During the second set of tests, the object resisted all mechanical, chemical and thermal tests, but shattered into three pieces under the influence of ultrasound. Of interest is a glass-like, conchoidal fracture on the left edge of Piece II, Side A. The reference mentions that Piece II Side A (our numbering) was ground and polished during some tests and partially darkened by the application of hydroflouric acid. It is not known if the photos are prior to or after this part of the testing.]

"Although the first few tests left room for discussions and speculations, later investigations, from some of the best laboratories and universities, concluded with certainty that the object consisted of pulverized wolfram (tungsten) carbide and cobalt. All industrial countries have companies which produce such hard metals and the manufacturing methodology is in principle the same everywhere. The mixed components are placed into a mold and with moderate heat, very high pressure is applied. Right angled edges on the formed pieces can not be avoided, because the pressure is applied through a piston into the mold. The pieces at this point can still be worked on with files, while after the final sinter process with about 1500 degrees Celsius, the material reaches such hardness that only diamond tools can be used to apply a final touch.

"The following institutions tested and analyzed the metal object:

• Hoganas AB, Halsingborg, Sweden (This was the place where the first tests were conducted and were the original piece was [inadvertently] split into three parts through ultra sound waves.)
• Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research, Stuttgart, Germany Pulvermetalurgig Laboratory, Prof. Dr. Gunter Petzow
• Metallwerk Plansee, Reute, Tirol, Austria Dr. Wolfgang Schedler, Director Hard Metal Division
• Oxelosund Jarnverk AB, Oxelosund, Sweden Stanford University, California, Institute for Plasma Research, USA Prof. Peter A. Sturrock, Space Science and Astrophysics
• Svenska Aeroplan AB (SAAB), Linkoping, Sweden Ingenier Sven Schalin
• Swedish Federal Research Institute (FOA), Stockholm, Sweden Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany Dr. Ing. H. Meisel, Dipl. Ing. Bausch, Dipl. Ing. Stadler
• University of California, Berkeley, California, USA College of Engineering, Professor James A. Harder
• University of Kansas, Space Technology Center, Kansas, USA Dr. Edward J. Zeller

"The authorities above concluded that the object consisted of approximately 94.86 % W, 4.09 % Co, 0.59 % Zr, 0.28 % Fe, 0.06 % Ti, 0.05 Zn, 0.04 % Cr, 0.03 % Cu, with a specific weight of 14.836 and a hardness of about 1650, which is about 100 units higher than normal. The kernel size was described as remarkably small for the time of manufacturing. The overall quality of the material was outstanding but not unusual for the early 1950s."

It seems that some parts of the object are quite smooth and even polished, while others are textured, scratched, and exhibit grooves. The deepest groove is marked (a) in the original reference and is 3 mm deep. The remaining grooves are smaller and shorter, and range from 0.1 mm to 0.5mm deep. The method of depth measurement is not specified.

Comments

Attempts continue to be made to identify this artifact as a man-made object but remain unsuccessful. If man-made, the object could have been created any time before 1956 through 1974 when the first certain provenance begins.

Tungsten carbide, as one of the hardest materials short of diamond has numerous industrial and scientific uses. In conjunction with silver, it is used to create refractory conductors. However, most of these have a specific gravity significantly less than the sample, and no silver was found in the sample.

The substance is used in high pressure research as an "anvil" which is used to compress other materials by impact (for instance, the CHiPR project). The unusual reaction of the sample to ultrasound may suggest the sample underwent a similar use. Such a use might induce fatigue cracking which could then react with catastophic failure under the influence of ultrasound. Perhaps of relevance in this connection is this comment from the above reference... "Owing to the expense of failed anvils, we subsequently focused our technical efforts on improving the performance of the tungsten carbide anvils. We found that a slight taper on the anvil tip allowed the tungsten carbide anvil to perform at nearly the same pressure as the sintered diamond anvil with the same sized sample chamber. In fact, this modification greatly extended the life of thermocouples, allowing a single experiment to cycle many pressure-temperature paths, thus greatly improving the efficiency of a single run." A document at Lawrence Livermore indicates the structure of such an apparatus, however, and the cubic shapes used do not seem to correspond to the artifact. A somewhat different design, established to allow for the study of in situ specimens under high pressure by x-ray, may, however, have some similar surfaces (trapezoidal with at least one curved or cup like side). The rarity of these research tools, however, argues against them as a source for the artifact.

Tool makers also use tungsten carbide anvils for die cutting and wire and pipe drawing. Images of these objects do not suggest anything similar to the artifact, nor do other images of tungsten carbide objects.

Tungsten carbide is also a natural for drilling equipment. I have been unable to find images of large drills (such as those used in oil drilling or tunnel drilling) to determine whether or not the teeth of such drills might have a resemblance to the artifact.

Discussion

If the artifact was actually left behind by a UFO, we must consider the following applications for tungsten carbide (TC)...

• The refractory characteristics of TC make it a natural for high temperature applications.
• TC is electrically resistant and is used in applications where high-temperature conductivity is needed.
• TC is nearly as hard as diamond and much less rare. It might be used for high impact applications.

The size of the artifact make it unlikely to be something such as a "landing leg pad" (it is "about the size of a matchbox - i.e. 1-2 inches in length). Thus, one must consider the possibility that it represents a normally internal component, ejected due to wear or malfunction.

Nevertheless, an exhaustive search for a mundane source remains underway, and until we are sure the artifact is unidentified, we must be cautious in regard to speculations.

New Information

Hi Mark -

I think I wrote you some time ago about the metal artifact retrieved after the November 11th, 1956 sighting of a UFO on the Isle Of Vaddo. At the time, I suggested that it might be a tool bit for an industrial metal lathe. I found pictures of some examples on-line. The bits come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Of particular interest are the triangular bits seen in the photos here:

http://www.wwid.com/products/dijet/cbn_pcd_insets.htm

Maybe this has some bearing on the Vaddo case.
- Russ Meyer

Footnotes

1. All quotes from "Best UFO Cases - Europe", Illobrand von Ludwiger, ISBN 0-9666077-0-8, Available from Ufomind; highly recommended