Possible Methods of UFO Propulsion Examined - Part XIV
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
From Keller Venus Files: Lawrence D. Bell, founder and president of Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo, New York, uses a Japanese ivory ball to illustrate his view that humans before long will operate planes outside the Earth’s atmosphere, then outside the gravity field of the Earth. The Air Force test pilots with him are Lt. Col. Frank J. Everest (left), Maj. Charles Yeager (in light suit, center), and in uniform next to President Bell, Major Arthur Murray.
Optimism About Anti-Gravity Spaceships
In late 1955, the interest in finding out whether gravity could be controlled or “cancelled out” was not confined to the imaginative young graduates of engineering and scientific schools, as it was at the beginning of the decade. Rather, the corporate leaders of America’s largest aviation and electronics companies were taking an active role in securing government contracts to actually develop advanced aircraft propelled by anti-gravity drives. Some of these two industries’ most experienced and highly regarded executives were already engaged directly in financing the theoretical research and experimentation necessary to eventually build “hardware” in the configurations of planes, Earth satellites and interplanetary spaceships which, in the words of Lawrence D. Bell, founder and president of Bell Aircraft Corporation in Buffalo, New York, “can go where we want and do what we want without interference from gravity’s mysterious trans-spatial pull.”
When business leaders like Bell put such credence in new propulsion theories, others in the aviation and electronics communities begin to take these ideas seriously as well. Bell Aircraft built the first piloted aircraft in history to fly faster than the speed of sound. President Bell was sure that practical results would come out of all the then extant anti-gravity research. Of this, he told Ansel E. Talbert, the Military and Aviation Editor of the New York Herald Tribune (22 November 1955, European edition), that, “Aviation as we know it is on the threshold of amazing new concepts. The United States aircraft industry already is working with nuclear fuels and equipment to cancel out gravity instead of fighting it.”
He also noted that, “The Wright Brothers proved that man does not have to be Earth-bound. Our next step will be to prove that we can operate outside the Earth’s atmosphere and the third will be to operate outside the gravity of the Earth.”
Within the week prior to his interview with Talbert, President Bell announced that Bell Aircraft made the first powered flights with its X-2 rocket plane. This revolutionary aircraft was designed to, “penetrate deep into the thermal and heat barrier encountered due to atmospheric friction at a speed above 2,000 miles per hour.” Bell Aircraft was also testing out a new vertical-rising-and-landing “magic carpet” airplane, that was yet to revealed to the general public.
Lt. Col. Frank J. "Pete" Everest was at the controls for many of the X-2 rocket plane’s record-setting flights. Everest, who flew over 150 combat missions during World War II, became a test pilot after the war, setting several speed marks and establishing an unofficial altitude record of 73,000 feet in a Bell X-1 at a speed of nearly 2,000 miles per hour. Lawrence D. Bell was President of the Bell Aircraft Company, headquartered in Buffalo, New York, that designed and built the rocket plane. President Bell believed that his company could also build an interplanetary spaceship based on the principles of anti-gravitation.
Veteran Aeronautics Scientist Concurs
Grover Loening, the first graduate in aeronautics of an American university and the first engineer hired by the Wright Brothers, was also optimistic about the development of an anti-gravity drive to propel planes and even spaceships. From 1910 through 1955, Loening had a distinguished career as an aircraft designer and builder. At the end of 1955, he was decorated by the United States Air Force for his work as a special scientific consultant.
In the interview conducted by Talbert with aviation leaders and published in the 22 November 1955 edition of the New York Herald Tribune, Loening was quoted as saying that, “I firmly believe that before long man will acquire the ability to build an electromagnetic contra-gravity mechanism that works. Much the same line of reasoning that enabled scientists to split up atomic structures also will enable them to learn the nature of gravitational attraction and ways to counter it.”
The spaceship from the beleaguered planet Metaluna in the 1955 science fiction movie classic, This Island Earth (Universal-International Pictures), incorporated then many of the extant theories of anti-gravity propulsion.
Anti-Gravity Project Timetable
Among the scientists, technicians and corporate leaders engaged in anti-gravity research, there was some dispute about the timetable for the construction of a workable anti-gravity aircraft. George S. Trimble, the brilliant young scientist in charge of the then newly created Advanced Design Division of Martin Aircraft in Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of the Subcommittee on High Speed Aerodynamics, a forerunner organization that would one day become absorbed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), thought that such an anti-gravitation aircraft could be built rather quickly, provided that sufficient resources and momentum were put behind such a program.
Declared Trimble, “I think we could do the job in about the time that it actually required to build the first atom bomb if enough trained scientific brain-power simultaneously began thinking about and working towards a solution. Actually, the biggest deterrent to scientific progress is a refusal of some people, including scientists, to believe that things which seem amazing can really happen.”
The visionary scientist added that, “I know that if Washington decides it will be vital to our national survival to go where we want and to do what we want without having to worry about gravity, we’d find the answer rapidly.”
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Stay tuned to this website for Part XV of Possible Methods of UFO Propulsion Examined, where Dr. Raymond A. Keller looks at various notes of caution with regard to anti-gravity research and experimentation issued by other corporate executives and scientists worldwide. We’ll also peruse some of the interesting speculations emanating from the directors of cutting-edge UFO groups of the mid-1950s.
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