The Bob White "UFO Artifact"

The Bob White UFO Artifact

The so-called Bob White UFO Artifact was first seen at the annual Ozark UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, AR, in the late 1990s.  The metal object is about 7½ inches long and looks somewhat like a metalized pine cone or something that grew organically and somehow turned into a metallic fossil. It certainly looked odd and back then no one could really say what it was.

Except, of course, Bob White, who was presenting the artifact in the vendors’ room at the Conference Center.  With a colleague he would show the strange object to the punters behind a curtain which screened it from plain view and gave the performance an air of mystery and secrecy.  At later UFO conferences in Eureka Springs the artifact was put on display again, sometimes in a room at the Joy Motel across the road from the Inn of the Ozarks where the conference is held.  To view it, conference goers and members of the public had to pay $5.  Then they were ushered in and were regaled with Bob White’s story of how he supposedly acquired this thing.

The first time that I saw the artifact at Eureka Springs I listened to White’s story of how he had been driving through the desert with a friend near Las Vegas at about 2 am one night and how they had seen a huge spherical UFO.  They had seen the UFO in the distance and had then driven for miles before seeing it much closer and low down, not far from the road.  They turned off the highway and drove towards what appeared to them to be a vast glowing spaceship.  Suddenly, as they approached, it shot up into the sky.  From high above them they saw a glowing object arc outwards from the UFO and fall down to the ground making a long groove in the desert sand (which seems highly unlikely!).  They rushed to find the piece that had detached from the UFO but had to wait for it to cool sufficiently before it could be picked up. White put it in the trunk of his car and they resumed their journey.

I listened to this tale with a growing conviction that it was completely false.  I am certainly open to the idea of extraterrestrial UFOs and, indeed, I am aware of the reality of the UFO phenomenon.  But Bob White was not a very convincing liar and his story simply didn’t ring true.  Intuitively I knew the tale was false.  Having listened to what he had to say, I asked him to let me have the name and contact details of his companion who had also seen the UFO and supposedly helped him recover the “artifact”.  He hesitated for a moment and then said “I’m afraid I can’t tell you her name. We were driving to Las Vegas and, since she was married to another man at the time, I am honor bound to keep her name secret.”  If there was any truth to the UFO story at all, this prevarication seemed a lame excuse.

A friend of mine who handled the Bob White object told me that a small bit of it had broken off and he’d put it in his pocket. A genuine piece of UFO!  We laughed at that, especially as White claimed the object was heavily insured and that he would not sell it for less than $10,000,000.  Nevertheless, I still hadn’t the slightest clue then what Bob White’s artifact really was.

His story of recovering the object –an event which he said changed his life for ever-- supposedly took place in 1985 but he didn’t tell anyone about it until 1996. Really?  And how about his secret companion at the time from whom no word was ever heard?  Apparently his career as a musical entertainer under the name Frank James might have suffered if he had revealed the UFO story and so nothing was ever said about it until after his retirement in 1996. 

In 1998 he swore an affidavit about how he had come by the “UFO artifact” and allegedly he passed polygraph tests that showed he was not lying though the value of such a test is highly questionable.  His sworn statement now put his encounter with the UFO somewhere off Interstate 70 between Grand Junction, CO, and Cisco, UT, rather than near Las Vegas which is what he had told me. His female companion in the car at the time had now acquired a name, Jan, but that was all we were told about her if indeed she ever existed.

In September 2000 Bob White and best friend and partner Larry Cekander opened the “Museum of the Unexplained” in the small town of Reeds Spring, MO, which is about 13 miles north of the glitzy Branson strip.  The “UFO artifact” was centerpiece of their exhibition in a converted video-rental store sandwiched between the Humane Society Thrift Shop and the Sunrise Cafe on Main Street.  The other exhibits were mostly newspaper articles or print-outs from the internet about the supposed UFO artifact and these were fixed to the walls with thumbtacks.  The museum closed in 2004.

Unfortunately for the proprietors of the museum they had been unable to draw the Branson spin-off crowd or promote it as a must-see visit for connoisseurs of the bizarre and paranormal. Cekander even purchased a special bus to take the “UFO artifact” on tour to more promising places like Las Vegas where it might be better appreciated by the average punter.  Despite the $10,000,000 price tag that Bob White placed on his prized artifact there were few paying visitors to the museum and none at all prepared to make an offer for the object at anything like the asking price.

The fact that very few people took it seriously gives a clear idea of what this exhibition really was: it was simply a sideshow of the type found at carnivals or circuses during much of the last century.  Some will remember the “Bonnie & Clyde Death Car”, a battered Ford V-8 riddled with bullet holes and with a blood-spattered interior that appeared in sideshows all over the United States.  Then there was the Fiji Mermaid, a dead but nevertheless grotesque monstrosity presented by P T Barnum; also Congo, the Killer Ape, alive but not quite what it purported to be. There were living freaks and dead ones known as pickled punks, preserved in jars of formaldehyde. Hucksters and carnies would present these prodigies to paying punters often with the ludicrous claim “$1,000 REWARD IF NOT ABSOLUTELY REAL”.

My favorite sideshow was a Spanish one billed as “Wilma –La Mujer sin Cuerpo”: Wilma --the woman without a body.  Having paid one’s money one was ushered into a tent where an ornate box sat on a table surrounded by curtains.  With a roll of drums one of the carnies would open the lid of the box inside which was the head of a young woman –quite clearly a living girl whose eyes moved and who spoke softly to the amazed audience. It looked as if Wilma was just a head with no body and some onlookers were visibly moved by the poor girl’s plight.  Few people could ever see the inclined mirror in the box that was used to produce this spectacular illusion.

These sideshow exhibits frequently displayed certificates of authenticity signed by doctors, law enforcement officers, or supposedly highly qualified scientists.  The Bonnie and Clyde Death Car exhibit included countless letters vouching for its authenticity but at one time there were half a dozen such Bonnie and Clyde Death Cars touring the country.  Which --if any-- was the real McCoy?  In general, sideshow certificates of authenticity were not worth the paper they were written on.

In similar fashion it was claimed that Bob White’s “UFO Artifact” had been tested at ten or more top scientific laboratories in various parts of the US and it was “proved beyond doubt to be of extraterrestrial origin”. Larry Cekander trumpeted this claim on a website called ‘UFO Hard Evidence’ saying “This isn’t the smoking gun –this is the bullet!”  However a closer look at the supposed test results from unnamed scientists at labs like Los Alamos gave no such indication of extraterrestrial origin.  Bob White said these scientists had examined the object and found it had extraordinary properties but he claimed they were not prepared to let their names be used.  In a 2008 episode of Bill Birnes’s program ‘UFO Hunters’ on the History Channel (see “Bob White Object Story, (Supposed Artifact from UFO) 1/2" on YouTube) the names of these alleged scientists at Los Alamos are bleeped out.  If you believe what White says, their findings had been suppressed and they were afraid to talk or else they now denied what they’d told him previously.  But in fact bleeps were used because the scientists had found no such indication and did not wish their names to be used to promote this fake UFO artifact.

The one thorough testing of a small sample from this object that we do know about was commissioned by Robert Bigelow’s National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) in 1996.  Testing was carried out at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NM Tech) under the direction of Professor Paul Fuierer. This showed that the metal sample was about 85% aluminum, 9% silicon, 2% iron with various other trace elements like Ca, S, Na and Cl.  It seemed to be an aluminum alloy and very similar to what is known as ‘360 Aluminum Casting Alloy’.  Many other tests were run on it and the analysis was double blinded but showed that the sample was not remarkable or unusual in any way despite the claims of Cekander and White. "The metallurgical analysis was pretty mundane," said Colm Kelleher, a scientist at NIDS. “We didn't find any evidence that it was extraterrestrial.”  Had there been anything to indicate that it really did come from a flying saucer, it is very likely that Robert Bigelow would have purchased it, even at the absurd price of $10,000,000.  Needless to say Cekander and White dismissed the NIDS test results as being unsound and insufficient.    

In November 2009 Bob White died from heart-related problems and injuries suffered in a recent one-car accident. He was 78. One effusive obituary in the MUFON UFO Journal, described him as a tireless “truthseeker” but I hardly think that’s an appropriate description.  Maybe an old rogue would be nearer the mark since he and his partner Larry Cekander must have known only too well what the alleged “UFO artifact” really was and it certainly wasn’t a piece off a flying saucer!

In May of that year on the Internet forum www.abovetopsecret.com a man who had spent many years as a metalworker and called himself darkprinc revealed what the Bob White object really was.  He said “I’m sorry for this post but you have all been duped.” The object was quite plainly accreted metal residue from an industrial metal-grinding machine that builds up during the grinding process.  He had seen hundreds of such build-ups when working with a table mounted disk-cutter and some of these accretions were larger than White’s object and, like it, had been hacked off from the grinder at one end.  

Tiny sparks which fly from a grinding disk are molten particles of metal that gradually accrete as a residue. It happens with aluminum alloys as well as steel and even with softer metals such as zinc. darkprinc later photographed a number of these metal accretion residues and posted the photos online for comparison. Few who saw them could have any doubt that this was the true solution but nevertheless he was fiercely attacked online by Larry Cekander who denied everything he had said.  It should be noted that darkprinc stated too that he knew UFOs of extraterrestrial origin exist “because I’ve seen them”.  But he was adamant the BW object was simply metal residue waste.

Then, in October 2011, Skeptic magazine ran an article exposing what the Bob White “UFO Artifact” was, but omitted to give any credit to darkprinc who had been first to reveal the scam.   Retired foundryman Ean Harrison from Seattle explained how these metal accretion stalagmites (as he called them) form when metal castings are “cleaned” on large stationary grinders.  The grinding dust is spewed downward into the wheel guard at temperatures near the melting point of the parent metal. When the metal dust and grinding wheel abrasive hit the bottom of the guard, melted epoxy wheel binder glues the mixture together. Over time a metal stalagmite is slowly created from the bottom up, fusing the parent metals into the characteristic form. Also, depending on the castings being ground, the composition of any stalagmite could be an exotic mix of steel, iron, manganese, aluminum, etc.—in other words, a puzzling metallurgical mix all combined in a seemingly impossible compound.  But in reality it is merely a product of the melted grinding wheel binder. If the final grindings were made with an aluminum alloy before the stalagmite was removed, it could show a higher proportion of aluminum on the outside than in samples taken from its core. The magazine had some custom-made carbide steel stalagmites (such as that in the photo below) made to show their undoubted similarity to the Bob White object.    

This article also elicited a furious response online from Larry Cekander. In attempting to refute the Skeptic article, he disclosed he was a metalworker himself with a metalworking shop of his own in Missouri.  A master mechanic with expertise in metal fabrication, welding, and casting of parts for racing motors, he even admitted to having some steel or iron accretion stalagmites that he had made himself.  This in itself was an eye-opener.

With these revelations from him it became very hard not to conclude that it was Cekander who produced the Bob White object in the first place. His friend Bob White with his UFO story was just the front man for this side-show.  This would explain Cekander’s furious denials that such stalagmites could form from aluminum (alloy) and his abusive online rants in which he disputed everything darkprinc and Skeptic magazine had separately averred.

By the end of 2011 one could see from the online UFO discussion forums that there was hardly anyone out there who gave any further credence to the Bob White “UFO Artifact” and most folk acknowledged that it was simply a piece of grinding residue scrap metal.  Nevertheless Cekander kept up his foul-mouthed rants against Skeptic magazine and anyone else who dared to question online his piece of “UFO hard evidence” whose attraction value as a sideshow exhibit had by now pretty well dropped to zero.

I would not have bothered to write this article to inform people about the scam were it not for the fact that I see Cekander has been invited to present his “UFO artifact” and to be a speaker at the annual Ozark UFO conference in Eureka Springs, AR, on April 12-14, 2013.  Either the Ozark conference organizers are not aware that the alleged artifact has been totally discredited or else they are showing remarkably poor judgment.  I won’t pretend that this UFO Conference --and indeed other UFO conferences-- haven’t hosted transparently false claims of alien contact and bogus UFO cases in the past, but this particular claim seriously devalues the whole subject of ufology.  If anyone in the UFO community wonders why most scientists and the media do not take our subject seriously, here is one very good reason why. It brings the whole UFO subject into disrepute.  There are of course many honest UFO researchers and to accept falsehoods like this does them no favors.

Do I expect Mr Cekander to withdraw from the conference and admit that his “UFO artifact” is bogus?  Not a bit, since he is far too brazen for that. So long as there are still a few gullible takers I’ve no doubt that he will continue to present the “UFO Artifact” and claim its “proven extraterrestrial origin”.  I suggest that he’s flogging a dead horse and his best bet would be to sell it to ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ in Branson. They might give him $50 for it.

George Wingfield,  March 2013

The Bob White “UFO Artifact” –postscript for 2013/2014.

As had been announced, the Bob White “UFO Artifact” was the subject of a presentation by Larry Cekander at the April 2013 Ozark Mountain UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, AR.  Before the presentation I spoke to conference organizer, the late Dolores Cannon, and asked her why Cekander had been invited as a speaker when almost everyone knew his “UFO Artifact” was a fake and, indeed, that Cekander himself had made it. 

Dolores Cannon was a past-life regressionist and hypnotherapist who worked with those who claimed they were UFO contactees and abductees.  She specialized in recovery and cataloging of past knowledge and was best known for revelations she supposedly received psychically from the prophet Nostradamus (died 1566).   She told me that she felt certain Cekander’s claims were true and his UFO artifact was a piece off a flying saucer.  In my opinion this didn’t say too much for her intuitive and psychic abilities.

Cekander’s presentation was mainly taken up with the showing of a video featuring the late Bob White and his story about the alleged UFO artifact. In the video White pleaded –almost to the point of tears– that his story was true and added a little more to what we had been told previously.  He and his female companion (“Jan”) after supposedly encountering the huge UFO somewhere off the road between Grand Junction, CO, and Cisco, UT,  --and recovering the UFO artifact which fell from it-- drove to a late night filling station with a bar/restaurant beside the road near Cisco.

Cisco is a ghost town (that I’ve visited) a few miles off Interstate 70 in Utah.  Some of its abandoned and derelict buildings were used as a filming backdrop in such movies as Vanishing Point (1971), Thelma and Louise (1991) and Don’t Come Knocking (2005).  It featured too in Johnny Cash’s 1967 song Cisco Clifton’s Filling Station. Whether or not the old filling station and combined roadhouse on US Hwy 6 were still in business in 1985 at the time of White’s alleged encounter with that huge UFO is dubious.  Now closed for very many years and completely derelict, it had a colorful history and its proprietor was once jailed for shooting a biker who took off without paying for gas.  Bob White may have visited it during his time on the road working as a musician but embellishing his UFO story by including that old Cisco roadhouse in it didn’t make the tale any the more believable.

When Bob White and Jan arrived there at a very late hour and ordered a meal the improved story claimed that the roadhouse phone had rung and a military man had demanded to speak to Bob White (although his name at the time was Frank James).  We were told this officer was calling from a nearby secret base from which the military had supposedly tracked the flying saucer and that they were fully aware of White’s UFO encounter and his recovery of the artifact.  Bob White was, predictably, threatened with dire penalties and told that he must give the artifact back.  He claimed that he and his companion left rapidly and continued on their road trip to Las Vegas.  The alleged UFO artifact stayed hidden in the trunk of White’s car.

Apart from this extended version of his UFO encounter Bob White was shown in the video undergoing a polygraph test by an alleged polygraph examiner who was said to be a MUFON member.  The test appeared to be being carried out in a motel room and, predictably, we were told that White passed the test with flying colors thus confirming that his story must be true.

Larry Cekander’s presentation ended with further assurances that the UFO artifact had been tested at various unnamed “top scientific laboratories” and had been found to be of definite extraterrestrial origin.  The 7½ inch metal shard which was lying on a table during the lecture looked even less impressive now but Cekander had a further trick which may have fooled some of the more credulous members of the audience. 

He turned on an instrument which he said was a subatomic particle or gamma ray detector of some kind and held the UFO artifact near it on the other side of a small screen.  When the object was brought near an aperture in the screen the instrument began to click sounding rather like a Geiger counter.  One might have thought that the NIDS scientists who tested a piece of the alleged UFO artifact would have noticed this property if it had really been radioactive but there was never any mention of that.  A more likely explanation is that Cekander’s shielded detector device was merely a small metal detector which clicked --as a result of electromagnetic induction-- when any lump of metal was held near it.

Some people will ask me why I have bothered to describe the Bob White UFO Artifact case in such detail when it is so transparently false and adds absolutely zero to our understanding of the UFO phenomenon.  The reason for this is that I am very familiar with this fraudulent case and it is a good example of UFO fakery where the promoters of the scam, Larry Cekander and Bob White, were also the primary creators of the “UFO Artifact” plus its bogus background story.  There are many other cases --as with all sorts of stories of alien contact-- where the chief promoter of a scam is also primary creator of the falsehood.  Good examples of this would be such fraudsters as George Adamski and Billy Meier.    In addition, there are some UFO celebrities --such as Jaime Maussan and Linda Howe-- who promote various false claims although they are not creators of the falsehoods in the first place.

UFO conferences in the US and some radio shows like Coast-to-Coast AM have always been a magnet for UFO fraudsters. Their scams have often become completely accepted at such events, together with associated sideshows or their vendors’ tables dedicated to their own particular UFO story or myth.   At the 2013 Ozark (Mountain) UFO Conference I asked one speaker who had attended the conference many times what he thought about Cekander’s “UFO Artifact”.  Clearly embarrassed, he replied that he had no opinion one way or the other.  Yet again I was reminded that there is an unwritten rule that speakers at UFO conferences should not criticize each other, however false they may think a fellow speaker’s story.  UFO skeptics and those who question the authenticity of what some speakers are presenting are seldom given a hearing and are made to feel unwelcome.

Larry Cekander was at the Ozark (Mountain) UFO conference in April 2014 with a table in the vendors’ room.  On sale were photos of his “UFO Artifact” plus other such UFO merchandise. He had done this in previous years but he now added an opportunistic wrinkle.  It related to a well known account of a UFO maneuvering through the trees in Rendlesham Forest (UK) on the night of December 27/28, 1980, where it was witnessed by RAF Bentwaters Deputy Base Commander Col. Charles Halt, Bruce Englund, and a few other USAF personnel.

The strange flashing UFO observed in a forest clearing seemed to be spewing out spark-like bits of molten metal that fell to the ground. An account of this is related in Nick Pope’s book Encounter in Rendlesham Forest (published April 2014).  Nick was a speaker at the April 2014 conference and the Rendlesham UFOs were the subject of his presentation. Larry Cekander at his table in the vendors’ room told a friend of mine that some metal fragments from Rendlesham Forest had been brought to the conference.  “Nick Pope knows all about these fragments, so ask him for verification”, my friend was told.

There was no suggestion in his book that any metal fragments from the UFO had been recovered from the forest floor in 1980 but I asked Nick Pope nevertheless.  He said that he certainly hadn’t brought any such fragments to the conference himself but said that Cekander had cornered him and showed him various pieces of metal.  I suggest this was yet further scrap metal which probably came from the floor of Cekander’s workshop in Missouri.

George Wingfield,   November 2015