United States gravity control propulsion research facts for kids

American interest in "gravity control propulsion research" grew a lot in the early 1950s. People used many names for it, like anti-gravity, electrogravitics, and gravity propulsion. The main goal was to find ways to control or change gravity to make things fly. Even though general relativity theory seemed to say anti-gravity wasn't possible, some projects got money to research it from 1955 to 1974. Many famous scientists who worked on general relativity were involved. Since the 1950s, the idea of gravity control research has not been a secret. But people still argue about how well it worked and how long it lasted.

Was it Real?

Newspapers, popular magazines, and official papers all reported that gravity control research was happening. For example, a magazine called Aero Digest wrote in 1956 that "Anti-gravity Booming." A writer named A. V. Cleaver said that Americans were looking into the science-fiction idea of gravity control. They wanted to study how gravity works and how it connects to other forces like electricity. He also said that someone (they didn't know who) was funding this effort, calling it "electro-gravitics."

These gravity programs didn't create new flying machines like the nuclear ramjet called Project Pluto Tory IIA. But the Gravity Research Foundation put up monuments. These monuments showed that people were serious about finding ways to control gravity. One writer, Gladych, said:

At least 14 United States universities and other research centers are hard at work cracking the gravity barrier. And backing the basic research with multi-million dollar secret projects is our aircraft industry.

Writings about this research talked about the people and money involved. But they kept the details of the research and who was in charge a secret. Some conspiracy theory stories have suggested these projects were much more successful than mainstream science says.

Past Studies

Recent studies and reports have highlighted the groups and companies involved in gravity control research. James E. Allen, an engineering professor, mentioned these programs in his history of new ways to make things fly. Dr. David Kaiser, a history of science professor, showed how the Gravity Research Foundation helped teach about general relativity. Dr. Joshua Goldberg described how the Air Force supported relativity research back then.

Nick Cook, a former aviation editor, brought attention to anti-gravity programs with his book The Hunt for Zero Point. This book led to TV shows around the world. Mainstream historical accounts of these projects have also been joined by conspiracy theory stories.

Old Writings

During the early years of gravity control research, five important works were published. They listed research centers, companies, and statements from famous physicists. A group called Aviation Studies (International) Limited published a detailed report that was later made public. The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society and The Aeroplane published a review of American gravity research by A. V. Cleaver.

The New York Herald Tribune and Miami Herald published articles by Ansel Talbert, a famous aviation journalist. These articles came out when it was common for policies to be announced through press releases. None of these writings were ever denied or taken back.

UFO and Secret Stories

Gravity control research has also been a big topic in UFO literature. People like Dr. Steven Greer (from the Disclosure Project), Mark McCandlish, and Milton William Cooper have shared stories and drawings. They claim that recovered alien vehicles were reverse-engineered (taken apart to see how they work) to build anti-gravity vehicles. They say these projects continued successfully past 1973. However, the military and defense agencies have said these claims are not true.

Research Centers

Ansel Talbert said that the strong interest in gravity control research came from the work of three physicists. These were Bryce DeWitt's award-winning essay, the book Gravity and the Universe by Pascual Jordan, and presentations by Dr. Burkhard Heim. DeWitt's essay said it was not good to look for materials that could block gravity. Instead, he wanted young physicists to study gravity more. He started his essay by saying:

Before anyone can have the audacity to formulate even the most rudimentary plan of attack on the problem of harnessing the force of gravitation, he must understand the nature of his adversary. I take it as most axiomatic that the phenomenon of gravitation is poorly understood even by the best of minds, and the last word on it is very far indeed from having been spoken.

Several articles mentioned his essay during and after the gravity control research period. Soon, places were created to encourage more gravity research, just as DeWitt had suggested.

Some experts like Cleaver and Weyl said that anti-gravity research wasn't based on any new scientific breakthroughs. Cleaver thought the research might have been inspired by a science fiction novel. Weyl criticized publishers for bad journalism and the terms they used. He thought Burkhard Heim's work had the best ideas for gravity control. Talbert and others listed three main places that did this theoretical research:

Gravity Research Foundation

Many articles thanked the Gravity Research Foundation for supporting gravity control efforts. This Foundation was a small, non-profit group. But its founder, Roger Babson, used his money and power to get industries involved. He also raised private and government money and encouraged engineers and physicists to research gravity shielding and control. He wrote in his autobiography: "The purpose of the Foundation is to encourage others to work on gravity problems and aid others in obtaining rewards for their efforts."

While Babson was alive, the Foundation held Gravity Day Conferences every summer. It also created a library about gravity. It asked for essays about ways to shield gravity, materials that could turn gravity into heat, or methods to control gravity. It even put up monuments at different universities that talked about its anti-gravity focus.

Aerospace Research Laboratories

In September 1956, the Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, started a big program. They hired Joshua N. Goldberg to coordinate research into gravity and unified field theories. It's not clear if this program started because of Talbert's reports about gravity control research. The exact reason for creating the program and its funding is still unknown. Neither Goldberg nor the Air Force could find the original documents.

Roy Kerr, a former ARL scientist, said the idea that ARL was for anti-gravity propulsion was "rubbish." He said the Air Force only used them when someone sent a crazy idea for anti-gravity. However, a report in Product Engineering in 1957 said:

Nevertheless, the Air Force is encouraging research in electrogravitics, and many companies and individuals are working on the problem. It could be that one of them will confound the experts.

Over the next 16 years, ARL changed its name to Aerospace Research Laboratories. Its scientists wrote 19 technical reports and over 70 articles for science journals. The Air Force also looked into stories about Soviet attempts to understand gravity. This was part of the Cold War's paranoia.

Funding for the military parts of gravity control research ended in 1973 because of the Mansfield Amendment. But some secret project experts, conspiracy theorists, and whistleblowers have suggested that these efforts succeeded and continued for decades after 1973.

Research Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS)

The Research Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS) was an idea from George S. Trimble, a vice president at the Glenn L. Martin Company. Welcome Bender was put in charge. Bender first hired Louis Witten, an expert in gravity physics. Talbert's article announced that Trimble had made deals with Pascual Jordan and Burkhard Heim for RIAS. Later, they hired more gravity researchers, forming a "field theory group." Arthur C. Clarke and others said that RIAS had enough smart people to discover new ways to create gravity control propulsion systems.

The goal of propulsion through gravity control was hinted at in various publications. Books by Cook and Cleaver summarized what RIAS brochures said. Cook compared RIAS's wide range of goals to those of Skunk Works, a famous secret project division. In 1958, Mallan reported that "the control of the force of gravity itself for propulsion" was one of the unusual goals Trimble set for RIAS.

RIAS was renamed the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in the 1960s. This happened when the American-Marietta Company joined with Martin to become the Martin Marietta Company. In 1995, another merger created the Lockheed Martin Company, which changed RIAS's goals but not its name.

Aerospace Companies

Talbert's newspaper articles and later technical magazines listed the aerospace companies doing gravity control propulsion research.

The Gravity Research Group said these companies built "rigs" to make Thomas Townsend Brown's gravitators work better. They tried to develop materials that could store a lot of electrical energy. Gravity Rand Limited gave advice to help companies do research and be creative. Articles about gravity propulsion research by aerospace companies stopped after 1974. None of the companies mentioned ever said the reports were false. The following aerospace companies were named in writings from 1955 to 1974:

• Bell Aircraft, Buffalo, New York.
• Boeing Aircraft.
• Clarke Electronics, Palm Springs, California.
• Convair, San Diego.
• Douglas Aircraft.
• Electronics Division, Ryan Aeronautical Company, San Diego.
• General Electric.
• Glenn L. Martin Company, Baltimore, Maryland.
• Gluhareff Helicopter & Airplane Corporation, Manhattan Beach, California.
• Grumman Aircraft.
• Hiller Aircraft.
• Hughes Aircraft.
• Lear Incorporated, Santa Monica, California.
• Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.
• Radio Corporation.
• Sikorsky Division of United Aircraft.
• Sperry Gyroscope Division of Sperry Rand Corporation, Great Neck, Long Island.

Claimed Discoveries

None of the experimental discoveries reported in the 1950s and 1960s have been accepted by the aerospace community.

Experiments

Brown's Gravitator

Many reports said that Brown's gravitators were the main focus of gravity control research. According to G. Harry Stine, research on Brown's gravitators became secret after they showed a 30% reduction in weight. Thomas Townsend Brown got a British patent in 1928 for his "gravitators." These were high-voltage, flat, parallel plates. Brown claimed they would produce a push in one direction, which changed slightly with the Moon's position. Scientists said these claims were not real science or were just misunderstandings of ion wind effects.

Independent research found that Brown's gravitators could produce a small amount of lift. This was due to an inefficient use of ionic propulsion. These devices were called Ion Lifters or Ionocraft. They could lift an empty vehicle shell in perfect conditions, but not the heavy equipment needed to create the electric field. No gravity effects were found in this independent research.

Kaplan's Gravity-like Impulses

In July 1960, Missiles and Rockets reported that Martin N. Kaplan, a Senior Research Engineer at Ryan Aeronautical Company, had done anti-gravity experiments. He claimed to get pushes, accelerations, and decelerations 100 times stronger than gravity. No one commented on or criticized this report in later articles during the period of intense gravity control research.

Theories

Forward's Rotational Field

Robert L. Forward from Hughes Research Laboratories described a theoretical way to create special gravitational fields. This involved moving a super-dense liquid very fast through pipes wound around a donut shape (torus). This idea suggested using a supercooled liquid like mercury, spinning it quickly inside a circular tube while a strong electric current was applied. This was believed to create a powerful electromagnetic force, like a torus field, around a craft. This would reduce its weight and G-forces to almost zero, allowing for very fast acceleration and deceleration.

What Lasted?

Many scientists who helped develop general relativity were supported by or connected to ARL, RIAS, or the Gravity Research Foundation. The decades before 1955 were a quiet time for general relativity. Here's how this research helped bring general relativity back into focus:

Gravity Research Foundation

Some physicists who went to the Gravity Day Conferences quietly made fun of the Foundation's anti-gravity mission. But it still helped mainstream physics a lot. The International Journal of Modern Physics D has published selected papers from the Gravity Research Foundation essay competition. Many of these are now in the Niels Bohr Library. A few winners of the Foundation's essay contest even won Nobel Prizes (like Ilya Prigogine, Maurice Allais, and George F. Smoot). Students still look at Foundation essays for new ideas. Kaiser summarized the Foundation's impact:

Despite the vast conceptual gulf separating Babson from the new generation of relativists, we are left with intriguing, and perhaps ironic associations: by organizing conferences, sponsoring the annual essay contests, and making money and enthusiasm widely available for people interested in gravity, the eccentric Gravity Research Foundation may claim at least some small amount of the credit for helping to stimulate the postwar resurgence of interest in gravitation and general relativity.

Agnew Bahnson, a Foundation trustee, offered to fund a gravity research institute with Dr. Bryce DeWitt. DeWitt had won first prize in the 1953 essay contest. The institute was named the Institute for Field Physics and was set up in 1956 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Bryce and his wife, Cécile DeWitt-Morette, led it.

The science journal Physica C published a report by Eugene Podkletnov and Nieminen about gravity-like shielding. Even though their work got international attention, other researchers could not repeat Podkletnov's experiment exactly. But, studies by Giovanni Modanese and Ning Wu suggested that different ideas from quantum gravity theory could allow gravity shielding. The scientific community has not continued to pursue these achievements.

Aerospace Research Laboratories (ARL)

The list of important scientists from the "golden age of general relativity" includes several who wrote the 19 ARL Technical Reports and/or 70 papers. The papers sponsored by ARL were published in major science journals. Some ARL papers were written with RIAS, the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory, and the Office of Naval Research. ARL greatly improved general relativity theory. For example, Roy Kerr's description of how space-time behaves near a spinning mass was one of these works. Goldberg concluded: "However, it should be recognized that, in the United States, the Department of Defense played an essential role in building a strong scientific community without widespread encroachment on academic values."

Research Institute for Advanced Studies (RIAS)

RIAS helped the growth of nonlinear differential equations in the 1950s. The Lefschetz Center for Dynamical Systems, a leading group in dynamic systems and control theory, came from RIAS. After the launch of Sputnik, the famous mathematician Solomon Lefschetz came out of retirement to join RIAS in 1958. He formed the world's largest group of mathematicians studying nonlinear differential equations. The RIAS mathematics group encouraged the growth of this field through conferences and publications. It left RIAS in 1964 to form the Lefschetz Center for Dynamical Systems at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

UFO and Secret Stories

On May 9, 2001, Mark McCandlish spoke at a news conference held by the Disclosure Project in Washington, D.C. He said that gravity control propulsion research started in the 1950s. He claimed that by 1981, they had successfully reverse-engineered the vehicle found at the Roswell crash site. This led to building three "Alien Reproduction Vehicles" (ARVs). McCandlish described their propulsion systems using ideas from Thomas Townsend Brown's gravitators. He even provided a drawing of the inside, which looked a lot like a drawing in Milton William Cooper's book. Another Disclosure Project whistleblower, Philip J. Corso, also said in his book that the craft from the second Roswell crash site had a propulsion system similar to Brown's gravitators. Corso's book also included several statements about gravity control propulsion made by Hermann Oberth.

After the Cold War ended, some scientists and engineers wanted to use technologies from black projects (secret government projects) for everyday uses. Steven Greer started the Disclosure Project in 1995 to help these and other whistleblowers share their information and ask Congress for action. By 2001, the project had given reports to two Congressional hearings and had over 400 members from the military and aerospace industry.

In the early 1960s, Donald Keyhoe, a famous UFO researcher, published parts of a letter from Hermann Oberth. This letter explained how UFOs flew using gravity control propulsion. Before Oberth's letter, Keyhoe thought magnetic forces powered UFOs. The letter made him look for gravity control research programs. Here's what he found and released in his 1966 and 1974 publications:

When AF [air force] researchers fully realized the astounding possibilities, headquarters persuaded scientists, aerospace companies and technical laboratories to set up anti-gravity projects, many of them under secret contracts. Every year, the number of projects increased. In 1965, forty-six unclassified G-projects were confirmed to me by the Scientific Information Exchange of the Smithsonian Institution. Of the forty-six, thirty-three were AF-controlled.

During his press conferences in February 1955, aviation pioneer William Lear said one reason he believed in flying saucers was that America was researching anti-gravity. Talbert's newspaper articles about the increased interest in gravity control propulsion research were published later that year.