Possible Methods of UFO Propulsion Examined - Part XIII
By Dr. Raymond A. Keller, author of the international awards-winning Venus Rising series of books:
Venus Rising: A Concise History of the Second Planet
Final Countdown: Rockets to Venus
Cosmic Ray's Excellent Venus Adventure
Lady Columba Venus Revelations
William P. Lear (26 June 1902-14 May 1978), points out key features in revolutionary turbine engine for jet fighter craft.
William P. Lear Joins the Fray
Insofar as the top American scientists in the fields of engineering and physics had joined in various corporate, government funded programs at the end of 1955 to develop an anti-gravitational propulsion system that could duplicate the power and maneuverability of the flying saucers, William P. Lear, the inventor and chairman of the board of Lear, Inc., one of the nation’s largest electronics firms specializing in aviation, decided that it was time for him and his corporation to enter the fray. It seems that all along Lear had been monitoring new developments and theories relating to gravity with his own chief engineers and scientists of varied other specialties.
In 1949, Lear received the Robert J. Collier Trophy from United States President Harry S. Truman on behalf of the National Aeronautic Association, for “the greatest achievement in aviation in America,” through his development of a lightweight, automatic pilot and approach control system for jet fighter planes. As far as the anti-gravity investigations then underway in late 1955, in an interview with Ansel E. Talbert, the Military and Aviation Editor of the New York Herald Tribune, that was published in the 21 November 1955 edition of that newspaper, Lear declared, “I am convinced that it will be possible to create artificial electro-gravitational fields whose polarity can be controlled to cancel out gravity.” He added that, “All the mass materials and human beings within these fields will be part of them. They will be adjustable so as to increase or decrease the weight of any object in its surroundings. They won’t be affected by the Earth’s gravity or that of any other celestial object. This means that if any person was in an anti-gravitational airplane or spaceship that carried along its own gravitational field- no matter how fast you accelerated or changed course- your body wouldn’t any more feel it than it now feels the speed of the Earth.”
Michael Faraday “Living the Life Electric”
Back in merry old nineteenth century England, creative scientist Michael Faraday (22 September 1791-25 August 1867), contributed greatly to our overall study and understanding of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discovery came in revealing the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis. There is no doubt that Faraday’s pioneering research into all facets of electricity and magnetism paved the way for the construction of artificial “electro-magnets,” in which magnetism is produced by means of electric currents. These electromagnets retain the property of magnetism so long as the current is flowing, ergo an electromagnet can be made by winding around a soft iron core a coil of insulated wire carrying electrical current. The strength of the electromagnet will, therefore, depend primarily on the number of turns in the coil rather than the strength of the current.
Faraday’s Discoveries Still “Sparking” Consciousness
In October 1954, engineer Jack Fletcher demonstrates revolutionary lamp in his West Covina, California, “Twenty-First Century Home.” Source: Popular Mechanics magazine.
Building on Michael Faraday’s research and discoveries, Talbert noted that, “Even today America’s rapidly expanding electronics industry is constantly finding new uses for electromagnets. For example, Jack Fletcher, a young electronics and aeronautical engineer of West Covina, California, has just built a ‘Twenty-First Century Home’ containing an electronic stove functioning by magnetic repulsion,” among other appliances, such as the lamp illustrated above.
Floating Pan Inspires Further Research
Fletcher’s stove contained seven coils of wire mounted on laminated iron cores and contained inside a plywood cabinet. The magnetic field from these coils induced “eddy currents” in an aluminum cooking pan nineteen inches in diameter. These currents interact with and lift the pan into space like a “miniature flying saucer.” The cooking pan literally floats about two inches in the air above the stove in a stabilized condition. The eddy currents generate the heat that warms the pan while the stovetop literally remains cold. The aluminum pan can also hold pots and be used as a griddle. Basically, the Fletcher stove was but one of several types of more familiar magnetic repulsion gadgets in use back in 1955, to the include the mysterious “floating metal ball” then seen in many science-hall exhibits.
4 January 1955: Mrs. Joan Fletcher demonstrates cooking skills with the floating pan electromagnetically suspended over her husband Jack’s magnetic repulsion stove. Source: Popular Mechanics magazine.
While no type of electromagnet known to science or industry back in 1955 could have any application toward building a real flying vehicle, Eugene M. Gluhareff, the president of the Gluhareff Helicopter and Airplane Corporation of Manhattan Beach, California, had made several theoretical design studies of saucer-shaped vehicles for travel into outer space, having atomic generators of electric power as their basic engines. Gluhareff was in agreement with Lear, that adding atomic power to the equation was a “sure fire” way to get an anti-gravity spaceship “off the ground,” so to speak.
Eugene Gluhareff was the son of Michael E. Gluhareff, the chief designer for Dr. Igor I. Sikorsky, the helicopter and multi-engine aircraft pioneer. Dr. Sikorsky and Michael Gluhareff won the Alexander Klemin award, one of the highest honors in the field of aviation, and are, themselves, deeply interested in the problem of overcoming gravitation. The younger Gluhareff has also proven himself quite an aviation engineer, having advanced the designs for many conventional aircraft then in common use. With an eye to the future of aircraft development, however, Eugene Gluhareff noted that, “I envision the electric power obtained from the atomic generators operating electronic reactors- that is, obtaining propulsion by the acceleration of electrons to a very high velocity and expelling them into space in the same manner that hot gases are expelled from jet engines. Such an arrangement would not pollute the atmosphere with radioactive vapors.”
The younger Gluhareff continued: “Because of its long-lasting fuel, an atomic-electronic flying disk would be able to control its acceleration to any speed desired and there would be no need for being ‘shot into space.’” He further explained this process to the New York Herald-Tribune correspondent, noting that radial electronic beams around the saucer’s rim would be operating constantly and would sustain flight by essentially “acting against gravity.” Such control can be achieved by a slight differentiation of the deflection of electronic beams in either direction. Basically, what it comes down to is that the beams would act in much the same way that an orthodox airplane’s ailerons and elevator function.
Eugene Gluhareff finds himself in good company. Dr. Pascual Jordan of Hamburg University in Germany, one of the world’s leading authorities on gravitation who proved many parts of Dr. Max Planck’s quantum theory, concurs that, “It will be possible to induce sustainable changes in the gravitational fields of rotating masses through electro-magnetic research.” Dr. Jordan, at the time he made this statement, was working on an anti-gravitational research project for the Martin Aircraft Company of Baltimore, Maryland.
Also jumping on the bandwagon was Normal V. Petersen of the Sperry Gyroscope Division of the Sperry-Rand Corporation of Great Neck, Long Island, New York. As president of the American Astronautical Society, Petersen attended a TOP SECRET meeting with newly-elected president Dwight D. Eisenhower and other leaders of countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1955, to discuss the possibility of launching an “Earth satellite” to monitor military activities of the Soviet Union from a position in outer space. Apparently, he and other scientists briefing the presidents and prime ministers of the NATO nations, were of the same mind in corroborating the theory that “nuclear-powered- or solar powered- ion-electron beam reactors will give impetus to the conquest of space.”
Back to the Future, for real. Here Jack and Joan Fletcher of West Covina, California, are seen driving their children, left to right in back seat: Johnny, 21 months, Janie, 3 yrs., and Ricky, 21 months.
Where they were going, they didn’t need roads!
*****
Keep checking out this website for Part XIV in this series, where the “Cosmic Ray” looks at the involvement of world-class scientists working under the direction of corporate and government leaders in developing plans for anti-gravity spaceships to explore the Moon and other planets of our solar system.
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