Antigravity - Empirical Claims and Commercial Efforts - Thomas Townsend Brown's Gravitator

Thomas Townsend Brown's Gravitator

During the 1920s Thomas Townsend Brown, a high-voltage experimenter, produced a device he called the "gravitator" which he claimed used an unknown force to produce anti-gravity effects by applying high voltages to materials with high dielectric constants. Although it was claimed that the device operated independently of working mass, and was denounced by critics on those grounds, Brown continued his work and produced a series of ever more successful high-voltage devices in the following years.

Regardless of those earlier criticisms, today the idea of field propulsion independent of reaction mass is gaining credibility. The Biefeld–Brown effect continues to fascinate those interested in better space propulsion technologies. A 1956 analysis by the Gravity Research Group and by an anonymous writer, under the pen name of Intel (1956), in the magazine Interavia, claimed the Biefeld–Brown effect, then being referred to as electrogravitics, was the primary theory tested by the many aerospace firms studying gravity in the 1950s. However it should be noted that "Intel" was a pseudonym, and therefore may not be a reliable witness.

Electrogravitics and lifters are popular topics in ufology. Lifters require air (ion wind) and do not demonstrate new physics, however Brown specifically tested his asymmetrical capacitor devices in a vacuum and reported positive results.Template:Montgolfier project Moreover, experimenters with lifters generally try to minimize the mass, whereas Brown noted that both high mass density and high dielectric constant were factors in achieving higher performance from his "gravitators".Template:Montgolfier lab report translated