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Planes, Missiles, And High Altitude Physics

With the railroad theory invalidated, experts shifted their gaze to the skies. One metallurgist speculated that the fragments could be components from a jet turbo plane. Yet, another scientist voiced skepticism, noting that if these items had fallen from a high altitude, the extreme heat would have dissipated long before they reached the ground, making it unlikely they could have started fires in the grass.

However, if the fragments were originally part of a much larger structure that broke apart at high speed, that object could have potentially retained enough heat to remain volatile upon impact. The scientists attempted to reverse engineer the hypothetical structure from the scattered pieces. They concluded that the debris likely originated from a single, machine-made hollow cylinder that was 8 inches in diameter and 3/16th of an inch thick.

Professor J. Francis Reintjes, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at MIT, noted that the fragments bore a striking resemblance to the internal linings of V 2 missiles he had previously examined in New Mexico. In the late 1940s, the United States was actively testing captured German V 2 technology to explore the upper atmosphere. While the scientists hypothesized that these fragments might have been part of that research, they could not definitively rule out other possibilities.

The Shadow Of Extraterrestrial Theory

The timing of the West Rindge incident could not have been more suspicious. Only weeks earlier, on June 24, 1947, the modern American UFO craze had ignited following reports in the Pacific Northwest. By the time the Boston FBI office was receiving reports from West Rindge, the press was saturated with stories about flying saucers and mysterious aerial discs.

The declassified FBI memos from that time contain handwritten notes explicitly mentioning flying discs. But how does this theory hold up in the modern era? Michael Panicello, the New England regional director of the Mutual UFO Network, suggests that while these documents are a welcome addition to the public record, they may not be the definitive smoking gun researchers often seek. Panicello admits that while he believes in the existence of extraterrestrial life, it is difficult to immediately jump to an alien connection when human made debris cannot be entirely excluded from the investigation.

Analyzing The Material Composition

The theory that the debris came from man made space rockets faces significant hurdles, specifically regarding the material used. James Clemmons, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire, argues that iron is an illogical choice for aerospace construction. Aluminum is favored for its strength to weight ratio, whereas cast iron is considered crude and heavy.

Furthermore, geography poses a major problem for the rocket theory. V 2 launches were conducted at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Officials from that facility have confirmed that even in the event of an erratic flight, debris typically landed within a 100 mile radius of the range. New Hampshire is thousands of miles away from New Mexico, making a debris field from a controlled launch virtually impossible. Additionally, standard V 2 rockets were constructed primarily of steel, a material that the MIT scientists would have easily distinguished from the cast iron found at the scene.