One of the most publicized substances to be analyzed in this way was the “silver rain” that allegedly fell from an unidentified flying object in Brazil. The incident occurred on December 13, 1954, in the city of Campinas and the witness was a housewife but, as in many UFO sightings, exactly what happened is not easy to find out[XI-17]. UFO publications in England, New Zealand, and the United States reported that the sighting had occurred at night but, in spite of the darkness, the witness had observed the objects in detail. She described three gray-colored, circular flying saucers; each was made up of two sections or plates, one placed on top of the other; the top plate rotated continuously and sent out a strong light. Moving soundlessly and in close formation, the three saucers had performed fantastic acrobatics over the city, apparently unnoticed by the other residents. Suddenly one of them had peeled off and dived low over the roof of the woman’s house, lighting up the whole neighborhood with the brilliant glare of its rotating section; then, going into a high-speed climb, it dropped at her feet a liquid substance that fell “like silver rain.” According to the more generally accepted and more probable version, the incident occurred in the morning in full daylight. The housewife was feeding her poultry when she heard a noise on the ground near her feet. Stooping down, she observed a pool of shiny liquid, like silver rain, which solidified within a few seconds. Looking up, she saw three large objects moving rapidly high in the sky and they looked to her like flying saucers. A reporter on the Campinas _Correio Popular_, hearing rumors that a flying saucer had dropped strange material “something like lead,” interviewed the woman, collected some fragments that a neighbor had picked up, and took them to a local chemist for analysis. The newspaper then reported that the stuff was absolutely pure tin--that is, it was about 90 per cent pure tin and the rest was either oxidation or metal alloys that were unknown on earth[XI-17, XI-18, XI-19]. Understandably interested in this report, members of the Brazilian Air Force also interviewed the witness and collected some of the fragments she showed them, as well as other fragments that had fallen about the same time in other parts of the city. Laboratory analysis showed the material to be merely solder. Several large airports not far from Campinas might well have had large planes in the air; they could have dropped the solder. The Air Force obviously saw no need to invoke the presence of extraterrestrial vehicles to account for the incident and considered the problem solved, but Brazilian saucer enthusiasts refused to accept this explanation. In their opinion the Air Force had either gotten hold of the wrong material or was covering up the true facts.