WHAT WAS THE ‘ANOMALOUS MATERIAL’ AT WOODBRIDGE, CT IN 1960?

WOODBRIDGE, a suburb of New Haven area of Connecticut in 1960/

An object fell to earth on 4 September 1960, and set a wooden shed ablaze. 

The object was turned over to local police. In turn, the Air Force sent a memo that they wanted the sample.  Dr. Robert L. Brown, Dept. of Earth Sciences, Connecticut State College, ran initial tests on the samples and noted some “peculiar metallic coating” encrusting a large particle.  There were several strange readings, “anomalies” that were “intriguing” such as an apparent ability to change mass. 

In a letter from Dr. T. Townsend Brown of Whitehall-Rand, Inc. to Dr. Brown, Oct. 26, 1960, he wrote, “a most surprising recent finding is that the material appears to have the power (perhaps by virtue of it [unclear] radiation] to induce weight change in certain receptors with which it is associated. We now have an example of ten-fold leverage in the gross weight change of a large volume of material, induced merely by contact or close proximity with the sample.” [Letter. Oct. 26, 1960. “Woodbridge” Fall of Suspected Gravitationally Anomalous Materials.”]

The chemical composition of Iron and Steel slag is usually  Limestone (CaO), Silica (SiOz), Blast furnace slag contains Alumina, Magnesium and small elements of Sulfur while Steel slag will have  oxidized iron in it.

The "Woodbridge" Fall had 11 samples collected. These were photographed and labeled.
1. Angular "coal" with brown surface
2. Aluminum granules (3 of them)
3. Stone like objects (6)
4. NO IMAGE OR INFORMATION
5. "Coal" with white powdery surface
6. Light, striated material
7. Magnetic "slag"
8. "Coke" and Dust (2)
9. NO PHOTO OR INFORMATION
10. NO PHOTO OR INFORMATION
11. NO PHOTO OR INFORMATION (There was a notation #11 had high levels of Sr or Strontium)

One has to wonder what was on cards # 4,9,10, and 11?

Additional samplings, detailed and complex, fill the pages of the Blue Book file on this incident but the papers stop – abruptly.   

The conclusion reached and recorded on the initial cover sheet was that the object was “FURNACE SLAG.”




Check out the 1960 September file for Hartford, CT in Project Blue Book.
Read here about the composition of slag