Possible Methods of UFO Propulsion Examined - Part XVII
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
Just in time for the dawn of the Space Age, Captain Quick’s Large Punch-Out Book was popular with children in the 1950s.
Anti-Gravity Spaceships vs. Conventional Rockets
G. Harry Stine, Chief of Navy Range Operations at the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico, was among the first to admit back in 1957 that the idea of electromagnetic, anti-gravity spaceships certainly sounded incredible to most Americans, something way beyond the technology of the age. But for him Stine, an insider in the defense establishment and scientific community, it was a matter certainly within the scope of possibilities. The administrator and acknowledged rocket pioneer wrote the following in the June 1957 issue of Mechanix Illustrated (New York City, New York):
“The information comes from reliable sources. We are licking the problems of gravity. Indications are that we are on the verge of tapping a brand-new group of electrical waves similar to radio waves which link electricity and gravity. Electronic engineers have taken the electrical coil and used it as the link between electricity and magnetism, thus giving us a science of electro-magnetics which, in turn, has given us such things as radio, television, radar and the like. Now, gravity researchers seem to think that the condenser will open up the science of electro-gravitics. Soon we may be able to eliminate gravity as a structural, aerodynamic and medical problem.”
Rockets Obsolete
Although Stine had been designing and developing actual rockets for the American military, and was among the first to grasp the peaceful use of these for the exploration of outer space, the missile scientist recognized the built-in obsolescence of going down this avenue of technological research and development. In the Mechanix Illustrated article, Stine explained that, “Although we will probably use rocket power to make our first explorations into space, the chances are now pretty good that this will not always be the case. In 50 years, we may travel to the Moon, the planets or even the stars propelled by the harnessed forces of gravity. If this seems fantastic, remember that the rocket and the idea of a trip to the Moon was fantastic 20 years ago. Fifty years ago, the idea of commercial air travel was utter nonsense.
“With gravitic spaceships,” he added, “we may travel to the Moon in less than an hour, to the planets in less than a day or to the stars themselves in a matter of months. We may be able to do it in absolute comfort without the problems of zero-gravity or high accelerations.”
Of course, while Stine did take note that, “The idea of the rocket becoming obsolete is not a happy idea, particularly when so much work has been done on rockets,” that was because, “We (the scientists working on missile and rocket development) believed they were the only type of power plant capable of working in outer space. If a better method comes along, why shed tears?” And since the basic goal was to travel and explore outer space, before the Soviets could get there, of course, then it should not “make much difference how we do it,” he emphatically concluded. Keep in mind that Stine’s prophetic article appeared in print just five months before the Soviet Union’s launch of its Sputnik satellite.
Illustration from Michael Gladych article in the November 1956 issue of American Modeler (New York City, New York), gave a hint to his blockbuster revelations in Mechanix Illustrated, one year later.
Rocket to Venus and Back in 30 Minutes
The reader response to the June 1957 issue of Mechanix Illustrated was so great, that the editors decided to run a follow-up article in its July 1957 issue. Titled, “Spaceship That Conquers Gravity,” aviation and space research writer Michael Gladych, describes a vehicle that will “fly at the speed of light-making a round-trip to Venus in about 30 minutes!”
Gladych, an allied ace fighter pilot from Poland in World War II who served in the Polish Air Force, the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force, became an immigrant to the United States after the conflict, settling with his Canadian wife in the Seattle, Washington, area. In the July 1957 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, Gladych revealed that, “Since 1953 the Canadian government’s Project Magnet has been working on a gravity-defying vehicle powered by electromagnetic forces.” He also declared that, “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,” adding that, “Convair on the west coast, Glenn L. Martin Aircraft of Baltimore, Maryland, Bell Aircraft Company of Buffalo, New York, and Sperry Gyroscope Company of Great Neck, Long Island, maintain teams of researchers and engineers prying into nature’s most jealously guarded secret- gravity.”
Gladych, of course, was restrained from saying too much more about these matters as the United States was then in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, as well as being at the beginnings of closing the missile gap and entering the Space Age and the race with the Soviets to develop the first “artificial moon” or satellite. But he did describe the rumors of a potential anti-gravity spaceship as follows:
“The spherical craft squatting on a concrete strip emitting a faint hum. A ghostly glow surrounding its shell. The strange craft rose and hovered momentarily while its landing gear retracted. Then the hum increased and the craft shot eastward and vanished beyond the horizon before the witnessing scientists could click their stop watches.
“Jet-powered missile? No. Made weightless and propelled by its anti-gravity engine, the round ship was a research vehicle able to travel at almost the speed of light- 600,000,000 miles per hour.”
The origins of the secret program to develop this advanced spaceship Gladych attributed to Canada’s Project Magnet and the early groundbreaking research accomplished by the Gravity Research Foundation in New Boston, New Hampshire. A clue to the big breakthrough on this project comes from a salient quote from Lawrence D. Bell, the level-headed builder of the Bell rocket research planes: “We are already working with nuclear fuels and equipment to cancel out gravity instead of fighting it.”
The infusion of nuclear fuels to create an anti-gravity, ion propulsion space vehicle was already underway in mid-1957.
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You can read all about the mysterious Project Magnet in Dr. Keller’s third book in the Venus Rising trilogy, Cosmic Ray’s Excellent Venus Adventure (Terra Alta, West Virginia: Headline Books, 2017). Stay tuned to Part XVIII of “Possible Methods of UFO Propulsion,” where the Cosmic Ray takes us onboard the Venus-bound spaceship for a travel back in time that was taken to our cloud-shrouded sister planet.
