Paranormal Science – The Black Vault – Stanton Friedman Collection [Part 3]

UFO Propulsion Systems

The following was written by Stanton Friedman in circa 2021. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.

If we deduce from the mountain of evidence that some flying saucers come to earth from nearby solar systems (there are one thousand stars within fifty-five light-years, forty-six of which are like the sun), we are immediately faced with two questions:

(1) How can a spaceship travel from a nearby solar system to earth in a reasonable time?

(2) Once here, how can flying saucers behave the way they are observed to behave? How do they achieve their reported high speed flight in the atmosphere (thousands of miles per hour), their ability to stop and start abruptly, to move up and down and back and forth seemingly with none of the limitations of conventional aircraft?

Typically there are no visible external engines, wings, or tails. Usually the objects are relatively silent compared to conventional craft. Often unusual colored glows are seen adjacent to the craft, and a variety of physical and physiological effects are produced on living and inanimate objects in the vicinity. These are the truly technological challenges we face.

The problem must be divided into two parts because there is no good reason to assume that the same propulsion system is used for both the long haul and local portions of the trip. It seems reasonable to assume that the huge cigar-shaped “mother ships,” into and out of which the smaller disc-shaped craft fly, are the interstellar vehicles and the others are Earth Excursion Modules for local travel only. Mother ships are rarely observed cavorting or flying close to ground level. In Ted Phillips’s huge collection of trace cases more than 90 percent of the low-level vehicles are disc-shaped. A useful analogy here is the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which is nuclear-powered and operates at low speed for many months or years on the surface of the ocean. The much smaller aircraft it carries cannot operate on the ocean but can fly at high speed and altitude for short periods and are highly maneuverable. But they are not nuclear-powered. Neither craft could replace the other.

The problem of traveling to the stars must also be viewed from an entirely different perspective than is useful for understanding our recent flights to the moon and flights of instrument packages to other planets. Distances within the solar system can be measured in light-seconds, light-minutes, or at most in a few light-hours. Stars are at least several light-years away. Our chemical rockets carry astronauts to the moon in about sixty-nine hours, and the Viking spacecraft to Mars took about ten months to reach its destination. But they are propelled by forces other than gravity for only seventeen minutes or one hour respectively. The rockets are coasting and slowing down until they are close to the target for almost the entire trip. The Apollo spacecraft, at an altitude of two hundred thousand miles, is going only two thousand mph although it left the vicinity of earth at twenty-five thousand mph. If it had been able to accelerate at just one G (a twenty-one-mph increase every second) for just one hour, the final velocity would have been 79,000 mph; for just one day it would have been 1.9 million mph! Peak acceleration during an Apollo launch is actually close to eight Gs (a 168-mph increase every second). To understand the foregoing a bit better, note that an acceleration of one G at the surface of the earth equals 32.17 feet per second, which in turn means that as each second passes velocity is increasing by an additional 32.17 feet. Translated into miles per hour one-G acceleration means that velocity is increasing at the rate of 21.9 mph every second! At the end of two seconds it is 21.9 mph plus 21.9 mph, or 43.8 mph, and at the end of three seconds it is 64.7 mph, and so on.

In just one day at one-G acceleration a velocity of almost two million mph would be reached and the craft would be far out of the earth’s gravitational field. For each minute of operation near the earth, gravity effectively pulls the craft at 1260 mph. While in space there is practically no gravitational or atmospheric friction. It is extremely important to recognize that it takes only approximately one year at one G to approach the speed of light—about 670,000,000 mph—-and we can speculate that any space travelers may have refuelling or rest and relaxation centers at locations between the stars, so that our earth visitors need not have come directly from their home planet.

Unfortunately, chemical rockets such as we have been using are by their very nature extremely limited in their ability to provide high velocities in their limited operating times because of their great inefficiency.

Starship and Earth Excursion Module designers thus face two obvious questions: (1)How much acceleration can people stand for how long? (2)What method can provide more miles per hour than chemical rockets, either by operating for longer times or at higher accelerations?

The amount of acceleration a person can stand depends on many factors. The three most important are the duration of the acceleration (the greater the force, the shorter the time it can be tolerated), the direction of the force in relation to the body (back to front acceleration is much easier to handle than head to foot acceleration, and for this reason Apollo astronauts have their backs perpendicular to the direction of thrust, rather than along it, as in an elevator), and body environment is important (a person immersed in a fluid can withstand greater acceleration than one not so immersed).

Let’s consider some of the variables. A trained and highly motivated pilot can perform a tracking task while being accelerated at fourteen Gs (about three hundred mph increase every second) for two minutes. Starting from rest he would be moving at three hundred mph in one second, at three thousand mph in ten seconds and at thirty-six thousand mph at the end of two minutes! Obviously conventional propulsion systems such as airplanes, trains, buses, and cars cannot provide fourteen Gs. A drag racer achieving 210 mph in ten seconds would have an average acceleration of only one G. A trained person properly constrained can stand thirty Gs for one second without damage. Data suggest that much higher accelerations could be withstood for shorter times. Reports of EEM (Earth Excursion Module) flight often indicate that the high acceleration—as when making a nearly right-angle turn or changing altitude—takes place in an extremely short period of time. In modern physics and technology the primary method for providing very high forces for relatively short periods of time is the use of electromagnetic forces such as with lasers, magnetoforming of complex shapes, and the acceleration of nuclear particles to velocities close to that of light.

Read More – UFO Propulsion Systems

My Letter to the New York Times

The following was written by Stanton Friedman on May 1, 2002. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.

The following article was published in the New York Times weekly Science section.
The author is head of the physics department at Case Western University.

Odds Are Stacked When Science Tries to Debate Pseudoscience

By LAWRENCE M. KRAUSS

I vividly remember the first time I was hijacked on the radio. I had agreed to participate in a debate for a Florida radio program that specialized in alien visits and U.F.O. sightings. My better judgment suggested that I should be wary. But I thought if I kept my focus purely on the physics challenges involved in space travel, I might be able to persuade some listeners to be skeptical of the claims that aliens were regularly visiting, abducting and experimenting with our fellow earthlings.

I should have known better. After 45 minutes defending myself against the claim that I was close-minded, when I argued that science did in fact impose constraints on what is possible, and politely responding to demands that I must first scrupulously review all the specific claims of alien sightings before I could possibly have the temerity to make general statements about plausibility or implausibility, I felt that any uninformed listeners who might have been waiting to be swayed probably found themselves merely confused at the end of the show.

In a debate that confronts the results of science with pseudoscience, from alien abductions and crop circles on one hand to the health benefits of weak magnetic fields or young earth creationism on the other, the odds are stacked against science.

Part of the problem is uniquely American. We in the United States are constantly regaled by stories about the limitless possibilities open to those with know-how and a spirit of enterprise. Combine that with a public that perceives the limits of science as targets that are constantly being overcome, and the suggestion that anything is absolutely impossible seems like an affront. Indeed, modern technology has made the seemingly impossible almost ordinary. How often have I heard the cry from an audience, “Yeah, but 300 years ago people would have said it would be impossible to fly!”

Although true, the problem with that assertion is that 300 years ago people did not know enough about the laws of physics to make the assertion, so the claim would have been improper. Had they made a simpler claim like, “Three hundred years from now, if you drop this cannonball off the Tower of Pisa, it will fall down,” they would have been right.

Although it is probably true that there is far more that we do not know about nature than that we do know, we do know something! We know that balls, when dropped, fall down. We do know that the earth is round and not flat. We do know how electromagnetism works, and we do know that the earth is billions of years old, not thousands.

We may not know how spacecraft of the future will be propelled, whether matter-antimatter drives will be built or even if time travel is possible. But we do know, absolutely, how much on-board fuel will be needed to speed up a substantial spacecraft to near the speed of light — an enormous amount, probably enough to power all of human civilization at the present time for perhaps a decade. That means that aliens who want to come here from a distant star will probably have to have some better reason than merely performing secret kinky experiments on the patients of a Harvard psychiatrist.

As difficult as debating ultimate limits of the possible may be, there is another debate that is even harder to win. But it is a debate that may be even more important. It is a debate on the “fairness” of science. The reason for the difficulty is simple. Science is not fair. All ideas are not treated equally. Only those that have satisfied the test of experiment or can be tested by experiment have any currency. Beautiful ideas, elegant ideas and even sacrosanct notions are not immune from termination by the chilling knife edge of experimental data. In Ohio, a debate is raging over whether to teach “intelligent design” alongside evolution in high school biology classes. Intelligent design is based on the belief that life is too complicated to explain by natural causes alone and that some intelligence, ultimately some divine intelligence, must have created the original life forms on earth or guided their development.

Proponents of that idea suggest that including it in the curriculum is simply a question of fairness. If a significant number of people do not believe that evolution provides an adequate explanation of the origin of species, they argue, then it is only fair to present both sides of the argument in a high school science class.

Read More – My Letter to the New York Times

Debunkers At It Again

The following was written by Stanton Friedman on February 3, 2009. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.

I hated wasting the money to buy the January/February 2009 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer (Vol. 33, Issue 1) which has for years been trying to debunk all sorts of so-called paranormal phenomena. But the cover said: Special Issue “The New UFO Interest: Scientific Appraisals.” This is an excellent example of false advertising since the appraisals are anything but scientific. SI is published by what is now labeled “The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry” (CSI Lite??). In actuality, the active writers and “investigators” aren’t skeptics. They are Debunkers doing their best to pull the wool over the eyes of a curious public. They know the answers, and so don’t really need to investigate. Proclamation is more their style. Deception is the name of the game. For example, inside the front cover is a very impressive list of about 75 scientists, writers, philosophers, etc., including three Nobel Prize winners. Also included on the list is Bill Nye, “The Science Guy,” whose purpose is to Deny… judging by his Larry King appearances. Unfortunately, most of the highly credentialed people aren’t the ones who write the articles or “investigate.” The dirty work in the trenches is normally done by the debunkers in residence. The primary tools are those of the propagandists such as very selective choice of data, positive and negative name calling, and misrepresentation.

Listed under Investigative Files is an article “Return to Roswell” by Dr. Joseph Nickell. Joe’s three degrees are in English and he spent a lot of time as a magician. Not much science there. Of course the stock-in-trade of magicians is intentional deception with another sterling example being the Amazing Randi. Joe’s been attacking Roswell for over a decade. At the 50th Anniversary celebration in Roswell, I was being interviewed there, and he was in California. We couldn’t see each other, but could hear. He explained Roswell by saying the press release was put out by the PR person from the base to attract attention to himself! Joe didn’t even know Walter Haut’s name. I pointed out that I had known Walter from almost twenty years and that the notion that the PR person for the most elite military organization in the world, the 509th Bomb Group, would put out such a press release without his boss’s blessing was completely absurd. Of course in SI Joe never mentions the 509th or that it had dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and set off two more at Operation Crossroads in the Pacific in 1946. It is of some interest that Walter Haut was chosen to drop the instrument package during one of those tests, that he had flown over twenty bombing missions as a bombardier over Japan during WW2 and was quite close to Colonel Blanchard, 509th Commander. Some inexperience!

Col. William Blanchard – U.S. AIR FORCE

Apparently Joe had learned nothing from our exchange and stated “On July 8, 1947, an unauthorized press release from an eager but relatively inexperienced public information officer at New Mexico’s Roswell Army Air Field propelled the Roswell Incident into history.” It has been known for thirty years that Blanchard ordered (authorized) Walter to put out the release. Walter after years in the far east during WW2 was hardly just wet behind the ears. Joe even goes on to claim Kenneth Arnold’s sighting two weeks earlier may well have been nothing more than mirage effects caused by a temperature inversion. That is as sensible as saying the moon may be made of green cheese. This crazy notion was thoroughly destroyed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a physicist. But why let the facts get in the way?

Nickell goes on to say the young officer was reprimanded. He provides no evidence. I and others have asked both Walter and his wife and both denied there was any reprimand. Why would there have been, since Blanchard had ordered the release? Nickell then moves right over to the baseless Project Mogul explanation which has been thoroughly destroyed by Brad Sparks and Dr. David Rudiak and Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr. (Ref.1) despite the assertions of Dr. Charles Moore who worked on the program.

Nickell describes in some detail tests run by Engineer Robert Galganski with the Discovery TV Channel crew and Nickell in attendance. They put up a half size Mogul Balloon Train carrying some radar reflectors and then shot down the balloons showing that the area covered by the debris was much smaller than described by Major Jesse Marcel. Joe was there and doesn’t really buy the test because he notes that Jesse’s estimate, 3/4 of a mile long by hundreds of feet wide, was much greater than described by Rancher Mack Brazel in the July 9 Roswell Daily Record article. He quotes that article at length, but somehow never mentions that Brazel was sure what he had found wasn’t balloons. He also fails to mention that testimony from Brazel’s son Bill, neighbor Loretta Proctor, and others all saying that Brazel was brought back into town on July 9 and given a new story to tell the press. Also not noted is that if all there had been was the “bundle about three feet long and 7 or 8 inches thick and the another rubber bundle 18-20 inches long and 8 inches thick with a total weight of maybe 5 pounds,” it would easily have fit in Brazel’s small truck and there would have been no reason for Marcel and Counter Intelligence Corps Captain Sheridan Cavitt to follow Brazel the long way back to the ranch on July 6 as they did. Joe, of course, never mentions that the July 8 article, carried all over in Evening papers from Chicago West, said the wreckage was found “last week.” The phony July 9 explanation says “found June 14” — hardly last week from July 8.

Joe also notes that though the news story died almost immediately, “but the event continued as the subject of folklore and fakelore [much provided by Roswell Debunkers]… there emerged amateurishly forged government conspiracy documents.” He has a note saying “The ‘MJ-12 Documents’ fooled arch Roswell-conspiracy writer Stanton T. Friedman who has continued to tout the bogus documents (Friedman 1996).” WRONG, Joe. I have done far more detailed investigation (not Nickell-style proclamations) to show that the great majority of the MJ-12 documents are indeed fakes — but that the four major ones are solid. As I recall Joe claimed the “Eisenhower Briefing Document” was an obvious fraud because of the comma in the date “18 November, 1952.” As it happens that was one of many date formats in use at the time. I found seven original documents which were used as a basis for phony emulations and was able to dispose of the other objections to the four good ones in Ref. 2, 2005, and a number of papers — none noted by Nickell, of course. Ref. 3 by myself and Don Berliner is also not noted.

Read More – Debunkers At It Again

The Bob Lazar Fraud

The following was written by Stanton Friedman in December 1997 and updated January 2011. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.

Incredible claims have been made about Bob Lazar for years. He supposedly is a physicist with an MS in Physics from MIT and an MS in Electronics from the California Institute of Technology. He was a “Scientist” for Los Alamos National Laboratory, and obtained a job back-engineering UFOs at a very secret site S-4 near Area 51 in Nevada through noted Physicist, the late Dr. Edward Teller.

Supposedly he figured out how saucers work using Element 115 — matter/anti-matter, etc. He was able to steal a small quantity of 115 from the 500 pounds available, but this was stolen back. There was indeed an announcement in early 2004 about the production of 4 atoms of element 115 by operating a huge European accelerator for many weeks. It has a very short half life so there is no way to accumulate pounds of it. He supposedly came forward with his story despite death threats because he thought the public has a right to know. Videotapes are available with his claims.

It is all BUNK.

Not one shred of evidence has been put forth to support this story: No diplomas, no résumés, no transcripts, no memberships in professional organizations, no papers, no pages from MIT or Caltech yearbooks. He also mentioned, in a phone conversation with me, California State University at Northridge and Pierce Junior College — also in the San Fernando Valley, California. I checked all four schools. Pierce said he had taken electronics courses in the late 1970s. The other three schools never heard of him.

The page from the Los Alamos National Lab phone book with Lazar’s name on it clearly states that it includes employees of the DOE and outside contractor, Kirk Meyer. “K/M” follows Lazar’s name. This proves he worked for K/M, not LANL.

I checked with LANL’s personnel department for Lazar’s name and that of an old colleague. They found my guy, but not Lazar.

He was publicly asked when he got his MS from MIT. He said “Let me see now, I think it was probably 1982.” Nobody getting an MS from MIT would not know the year immediately. He was asked to name some of his profs, He said: “Let’s see now, Bill Duxler will remember me from the physics department at Caltech.” I located Dr. Duxler. He’s a Pierce Junior College physics prof, and never taught at Caltech. Lazar was registered in one of his courses at the same time Lazar was supposedly at MIT! Nobody who can go to MIT goes to Pierce JC, not to mention the rather long commute between LA and Cambridge, Mass.

I checked his High School in New York State. He graduated in August, not with his class. The only science course he took was chemistry. He ranked 261 out of 369, which is in the bottom third. There is no way he would have been admitted by MIT or Caltech. An MS in Physics from MIT requires a thesis. No such thesis exists at MIT, and he is not on a commencement list. The notion that the government wiped his CIVILIAN records clean is absurd. I checked with the Legal Counsel at MIT — no way to wipe all his records clean. The Physics department never heard of him and he is not a member of the American Physical Society.

When he declared bankruptcy in the mid 1980s for almost $300,000.00 he listed his occupation as a self-employed film processor. With MS degrees from MIT and Caltech? Caltech would not have accepted him for an MS program, if he already had one from MIT.

His propulsion scheme sounds good (as do many science fiction stories), but makes no real sense especially in view of how difficult it would be to add protons to #115. Gravity wave amplification sounds great but what does it mean?

He could not have gotten a Compartmentalized Security clearance having operated a brothel. His W-2 form from the Department of Naval Intelligence totals under $1000.00, at most a week’s pay for a scientist. You can’t get a security clearance in a week.

Scientists leave trails. Lazar is NOT a scientist. He couldn’t even answer scientific questions put to him. An excellent review of Bob’s “Physics” can be seen at web.archive.org/web/20061220030435/http://www.serve.com/mahood/lazar/critiq.htm.

I should add that Bob is a bright and talented guy who operated a jet powered car, put on fireworks displays, and apparently helped physics professors working at the Los Alamos Meson accelerator facility.

Editor’s update: Element 115, which lies directly below bismuth in the Periodic Table, does exist as mentioned above. It was first synthesized in a particle accelerator in 2003 by a joint team of Russian and American scientists, and since 2016 has officially carried the name moscovium. Like all superheavy synthetic elements, it’s highly radioactive and short-lived. So far only about a hundred atoms of it have been prepared, with atomic weights ranging from 287 to 290. Moscovium’s half-lives increase directly with atomic weight, however — from 0.0037 seconds for 287Mc to 0.650 seconds for 290Mc. Should some other technology come on line capable of synthesizing these kinds of elements with higher atomic weights, or similar natural cosmic processes be discovered, it’s conceivable heavier moscovium isotopes might turn out to be relatively stable.

Read More – The Bob Lazar Fraud