NASA, MIT and DARPA Researchers Meet to Discuss 'Antigravity' Technologies

Antigravity is the idea of ​​a technology, applied to an object or to a space, making it possible to “cancel” gravity - and not to compensate for it as is the case with an airplane for example. Since November 2020, a number of scientists from NASA, DARPA, MIT and the Air Force have been meeting regularly on Zoom to discuss propulsion technologies of the future, including the hypothetical “antigravity”. An astonishing event given that for the moment this technology remains only in the world of science fiction or in the minds of a few dreamy theorists.

The event, dubbed the Alternative Propulsion Engineering Conference ( APEC ), was created to give scientists the opportunity to discuss taboo (even wacky) ideas that go beyond the confines of current modern science.

According to information gathered by The Debrief, 22 meetings have taken place since then, during which scientists addressed topics ranging from non-Newtonian propulsion ( Em Drive ) to the observation of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). In other words, in the words of Ron Kita, founder of Chiralex - a company that develops "gravity shielding" materials, this is the "Woodstock of gravity manipulation research".

Recreation course for engineers or a serious scientific conference?

“The alternative propulsion community is highly cross-sectoral, and we are sandwiched between the cultures of aerospace, defense, electrical engineering, physics, UFOs and advanced science,” said Tim Ventura, moderator and conference organizer, at The Debrief.

“People from all these cultures come to the conference and make presentations, despite the fact that these different communities do not always agree on certain topics. We have managed to avoid conflicts,” he added. Reading these words, one can understand that the conference serves above all as a place for the exchange of ideas or personal work on one or another of the technologies discussed.

But it should still be noted that 16 of the 71 participants in the November event were current or former NASA scientists and engineers, according to The Debrief , and 14 others were affiliated with reputable institutions, including MIT and the 'Harvard University. Among these marginal theorists, it is therefore very likely that one can find brilliant and realistic ideas.

The dream of defying gravity

As might be expected, this environment has created a sort of "virtual club" where highly skilled physicists and engineers can discuss their theories and experiences of antigravity without risking exposure to scientific skepticism. public. “Originally it was to be called the 'Antigravity Conference',” says Mark Sokol, founder of APEC, of ​​the name of the conference, “but we thought antigravity had a too negative connotation”.

The possibility of creating antigravity technology depends on the full understanding and description of gravity, as well as its interactions with other physical theories, such as general relativity and quantum mechanics. In 2021, physicists have yet to develop a quantum theory of gravity. Theoretical quantum physicists have postulated the existence of a particle of quantum gravity, the graviton. Various theoretical explanations of quantum gravity have been created, including superstring theory, loop quantum gravity, E8 theory, and asymptotic security theory, among others.

Mark Sokol is also the founder of Falcon Space, based in New Jersey (United States). He had in particular launched, with his company, in the development of a "gravitational distortion detector" (the "Warp Drive Detector") and of the first "antigravity plane in the world". “The Warp Drive Detector was designed by Jeremiah Popp [also active in Falcon Space] and myself,” Sokol said. "The idea is to determine if a distortion field is created, to see if something changes the speed of light near an experiment." The theoretical device would therefore serve to help the Falcon Space team in its experiments on gravity.

Sokol and his colleague Jeremiah Popp's painstaking analysis of the scientific literature guided them to a series of previously published antigravity experiments by Frederick Alzofon, the man who theorized the idea in 1981, when he worked for Boeing, then which allegedly performed tests in the 1990s.

Sokol is convinced that Alzofon was on an interesting lead, at least on something he could try to verify in his lab. Together with Popp, they then tested their own drafts of Alzofon's antigravity experiment. In a video posted on YouTube , they claim to have achieved promising results. "One experiment showed 17.8% weight loss, but it was within the margin of error for this type of experiment, due to 'background noise'."

Hoping to improve on this questionable but nonetheless encouraging first trial, Sokol said he plans to improve the equipment, including a recently purchased magnetic resonance generator which he says "looks like an MRI machine." and whose retail price can reach $ 60,000. Thanks to this newer and more powerful generator, he hopes to be able to repeat his experiments with results "two to three times" better than the background noise.

In an experiment conducted by Alzofon, a sample would have lost 80% of its weight in one second, according to Sokol. However, these experiments did not convince other scientists, and one engineer in particular, David Prutchi pointed out that the experiments were flawed and that Alzofon's results were "invalid." “Any physicist or engineer would immediately understand that the experimental data shows absolutely no effect on the gravitational force experienced by the sample,” Prutchi said in the paper. “I congratulate David Alzofon (the son of Frederick Alzofon)for its honesty by including the AF2004 graph, because not only does it invalidate the purported experimental demonstration of the effect, but it actually provides negative evidence against it,” he added.

More recently, the Gravity Research Institute of the Göde Scientific Foundation attempted to replicate experiments believed to generate an antigravity effect. However, all attempts to observe anti-gravity effects have been unsuccessful. The foundation offered a reward of one million euros for a reproducible anti-gravity experiment. In 1989, the team of Professor Hayakawa of Tohoku University of Technology in Japan, identified an abnormal reduction in the weight of a gyroscopically rotating mass to the right of the vertical axis of the Earth. This discovery was the subject of a publication in the journal Physical Review Letters. However, "left rotations do not cause any change in weight", Concluded the researchers.

To sum up, despite obvious efforts within the scientific community, gravity remains undefeated for the time being. But who knows, maybe that might change someday, when we get a better understanding of exactly what gravity is and what it involves. Answers will undoubtedly be provided by new theories and experiments in quantum physics. And for that, the fact that qualified researchers from different backgrounds discuss it openly and regularly, is a good thing.

UFOs: a recurring subject

The subject of UFOs (or PANs) apparently caused a stir at the November conference. The topic made a significant resurgence in pop culture this year, with military pilots speaking openly about unexplained encounters and the Pentagon teasing a long-awaited report on the matter, which was finally released in June.

"In the past, everyone was aware of UFOs, but they weren't very relevant because they weren't well understood," Ventura told The Debrief, adding that the scientific community is exploring the subject more seriously than ever.