From "On This Day - Encounters with Aliens on this Day" Compiled by Dr. Donald A. Johnsonhttp://www.ufoinfo.com/onthisday/{my additions} "I did not witness this event. "Three gray disc performed aerobatics over the city of Campinas, Sao Paulo state, Brazil {70 kilometers NW of Sao Paulo} on this afternoon in 1954 {December 14}. One of the UFOs peeled off, dove low over the roof of a local woman's house, and dropped a liquid substance "like silver rain." Chemical analysis revealed that the solidified material was 90% tin with other alloys. (Source: Jacques Vallee, Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact, p. 49)." Tin " from Wikipedia#Isotopes Tin is the element with the greatest number of stable isotopes (ten), which is probably related to the fact that 50 is a "magic number" of protons. 28 additional unstable isotopes are known, including the "doubly magic" tin-100 (100Sn).Applications Tin becomes a superconductor below 3.72 K {-452.974 F}. In fact, tin was one of the first superconductors to be studied; the Meissner effect, one of the characteristic features of superconductors, was first discovered in superconducting tin crystals {see superdiamagnetism}. The niobium-tin compound Nb3Sn is commercially used as wires for superconducting magnets, due to the material's high critical temperature (18 K, {-427.27 F}) and critical magnetic field (25 T). A superconducting magnet weighing only a couple of kilograms {about 4.5 pounds} is capable of producing magnetic fields comparable to a conventional electromagnet weighing tons.{1991} . . . the burning oil-wells in Kuwait, where firefighters used "Corrugated Tin Heat Shields". . . . seem to reflect heat the best . . .."It is estimated that, at current consumption rates and technologies, the Earth will run out of tin that can be mined in 40 years. However Lester Brown has suggested tin could run out within 20 years based on an extremely conservative extrapolation of 2% growth per year." The recovery of tin through secondary production, or recycling of scrap tin, is increasing rapidly. While the United States has neither mined since 1993 nor smelted tin since 1989, it was the largest secondary producer, recycling nearly 14,000 tons in 2006. "In 2007, the People's Republic of China was the largest producer of tin . . . with 43% of the world's share, followed by Indonesia, with an almost equal share, and Peru at a distant third, reports the USGS." After the discovery of tin in what is now Bisie, North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, illegal production has increased there to around 15,000 tons. This is largely fueling the ongoing and recent conflicts there, as well as affecting international markets.