CONSPIRACY THEORIES

I WAS PLEASANTLY surprised to read Bronwen Dickey’s account of her exploits aboard the Ruby Princess in January as published in your October issue. She effectively lifts the tail of the tiger to discover mind-bending paradigms that many of us dare not contemplate or speak about for a variety of reasons. As a new-born retiree with time on my hands, I was comfortable with the article, having trawled the Internet for months looking for interesting things to discover.

I think Matilda O’donnell Macelroy’s papers on an interview with the pilot engineer-officer who allegedly survived the 8 July 1947 Roswell crash, as handed over to her publisher, Lawrence R Spencer, in September 2007, makes interesting reading if one wants to look into some of the many dimensions of the subject. Lawrence Spencer edited Macelroy’s notes and published the signature-copy of the original statement taken down in a telepathic interview with the pilot. The pilot defined herself as a Mother Creator and her body a soul-inhabited robot designed for space travel. Knowing only Sanskrit from an earlier mission, she was given an opportunity to learn the English language, a feat that took a mere 16 days, and, she claims she was given additional information on the Earth’s history as trans- mitted from her home base somewhere in the asteroid belt. The book is titled Alien Interview and was published in 2008 (ISBN 78-0-6152-0460-4).

Of course, according to the US Air Force document FM AFD 101 027 030 published circa 1995, endorsed by Sheila E Widnall, then Secretary of the Air Force, page 125 concludes with: “… the socalled Roswell Incident found no evidence whatsoever of flying saucers, space aliens or sinister government cover-ups”. So, officially, we can take it that the papers are a figment of some poor woman’s imagination, or can we? After all, Santa Claus is real and the Moon is not made of cream cheese. Oh, and there are no lights, towers or mining operations on the Moon. Go figure.

If we are not alone in this corner of the Galaxy, then we should open up our minds and reset our spiritual compasses. To my mind, and that of many others, the greatest threat facing humankind is political, religious and scientific dogma.

Ronald Reagan said in a speech with President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988: “I occasionally think how quickly our differences, worldwide, would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” ponent is of course, iron. But to further strengthen, harden or otherwise improve the plethora of other properties of the steel, the iron is alloyed with other materials, most notably carbon (by definition of steel), chromium, nickel and molybdenum. Strengthening properties come from the atomic stresses induced by the misfit of the carbon atoms in interstitial spaces between iron atoms, and larger alloying atoms in substitutional spaces.

Generally, more carbon leads to higher hardness, up until a carbon proportion of

Please keep it short and to the point. Regrettably, prizes can be awarded only to South African residents.

just around 3 per cent, after which the steel is too brittle for engineering purposes.

Other alloying elements such as nickel will improve toughness, which means the material can absorb more energy at impact before breaking. In a train wheel, for instance, sought-after properties would be hardness, compressive strength and wear resistance.

Pearlitic microstructures are very popular because of their high wear resistance and toughness. Pearlite is a form of steel that consists of alternating layers of iron carbide and ferrite, which are respectively relatively rich and poor in carbon.

To form different microstructures in steel, the controlling mechanism is the cooling rate from the near-liquid austenitic state to room temperature. A high cooling rate will form martensite, which is very hard and strong, but very brittle. Moderate cooling rates form bainite, with moderate hardness and ductility.

Slow cooling rates form pearlitic struc-