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Project Greenglow and the battle with gravity

Project Greenglow and the battle with gravity

Dr Ron Evans, the man behind Project Greenglow

From BBC Magazine



A handful of leftfield scientists have been trying to harness the power of gravity. Welcome to the world of Project Greenglow, writes Nic Young.

In science there exists a uniquely potent partnership between theory and engineering. It’s what’s given us atomic energy, the Large Hadron Collider and space-flight, to name a few of the more headline acts.

The theorists say: “This is theoretically possible.” The engineers then figure out how to make it work, confident the maths is correct and the theory stands up.

These camps are not mutually exclusive of course. Theorists understand engineering. Engineers draw on their deep understanding of the theory. It’s normally a pretty harmonious, if competitive, relationship.

Yet occasionally these two worlds collide. The theorists say something is just not possible and the engineers say: “We’re going to try it anyway – it’s worth a shot.”

There is one field of science where just such a contest has been raging for years, perhaps the most contentious field in all science/engineering – gravity control.

When, in the late 1980s, the aerospace engineer Dr Ron Evans went to his bosses at BAE Systems and asked if they’d let him attempt some form of gravity control, they should probably have offered him a cup of tea and a lie down. Gravity control was a notion beloved of science fiction writers that every respectable theoretical physicist said was impossible.

Project Greenglow and the battle with gravity.

Project Greenglow: The Quest For Gravity Control – written and directed by Nic Young – is a Horizon programme, broadcast at 20:00 GMT on BBC Two, 23 March – catch up on BBC iPlayer

As Evans himself admits, it was a tough sell. “Let’s be clear – there were many people in the company who felt we shouldn’t do it because we made aeroplanes and this was highly speculative.” Pushing against gravity with wings and jets was BAE’s multi-billion pound business, why dabble in scientific heresy? Because, as Evans puts it: “The potential was absolutely enormous. It could totally change aerospace.”

If it was possible to make gravity push instead of pull, they would have a potentially infinite – and free – source of propulsion. It would put BAE Systems at the forefront of the greatest technological breakthrough since the invention of powered flight. It might just be worth a small punt.

They asked Evans to go away, consult with his colleagues and come up with some concepts. He brought them a drawing of a vertical take-off plane, powered by an as-yet non-existent “gravity engine”.

He worried it didn’t look visionary enough, so he asked the artist to add some green rays emanating from the plane – a green glow. When Evans’s bosses decided to give him a small budget and an office, Project Greenglow was born. “It was incredible, everyone was captivated by what we were trying to do. We were overwhelmed.”


One of the original sketches for Project Greenglow

Evans soon discovered he was able to call on engineers at leading UK universities to help with the research, and it wasn’t just academic curiosity. Like BAE, everyone was looking for the next propulsion paradigm. Wings and jets had reached their limits.

In the US, Nasa aerospace engineer Marc Millis began a parallel project – the Breakthrough Physics Propulsion Program. Nasa had committed to getting beyond the solar system within a generation, but knew conventional rockets would never get them there.

According to Millis: “If you wanted to go to our nearest neighbouring star, and say you want to do it in 50 years, you’re having to go at a tenth of the speed of light. Well, the amount of propellant you’d need for that journey is about the mass of our entire sun. We needed something radically different.” Like Evans, Millis was told: “To think radical, and think big.”

Out of the blue, a Russian chemist called Dr Eugene Podkletnov claimed he’d stumbled on the answer by accident. By using rapidly spinning superconductors Podkletnov claimed he’d managed to create a “gravity shield”.

Around the world, gravity labs like Greenglow and Nasa jumped on the news and tried to replicate Podkletnov’s “breakthrough”. They failed.

In Dresden, Dr Martin Tajmar was given the funds to thoroughly test every possible avenue. Germany’s space programme was just as hungry as the US’s for a breakthrough. “Anti-gravity is a kind of synonym for saying, ‘I’m trying to do the impossible, yeah’. But always be ready for the surprise,” says Tajmar.

Yet to theorists like Dr John Ellis, at Cern, it was no surprise when nothing came of it: “So this guy had the idea that by messing around with superconductors he could change the strength of the earth’s gravitational field? Crap!”

Martin Tajmar of Dresden University

Further Podkletnov breakthroughs went the way of the first and there was no shortage of theoretical physicists to point out the reasons.

First of all, there was the big, big problem of scale. As Dr Clifford Johnson from the University of Southern California puts it: “We tend to think of gravity as very strong – after all it’s what binds us to the earth. But actually of all the forces we know in nature, gravity’s the weakest.

“Let me give you a number. It’s 10 to the power 40 times weaker than electromagnetism, that’s a one with 40 zeros after it!” It seemed that even if one could manipulate gravity in the lab, there was almost nothing there to create any meaningful effect.

In short, to alter the gravity of a planet, you need the mass of another planet.

USC’s Cliff Johnson: “Of all the forces we know in nature, gravity’s the weakest”

Yet just when it seemed the engineers were running out of ideas, it was theoretical physics which threw them a lifeline.

Recently it was discovered that the universe was not just expanding, but accelerating in its expansion, and suddenly the theorists had some explaining to do. According to Dr Tamara Davis from Queensland University: “Something’s accelerating the galaxies away from each other. Gravity appears to be ‘pushing’.”

Some theorists are now breaking ranks to offer radical explanations, among them Dr Dragan Hajdukovic at Cern, who has developed a theory that gravitational polarity does exist. He says: “So far, we believe that gravity’s only a force of attraction. It may be that gravity can also be a force of repulsion but not between matter and matter but between matter and anti-matter.”

It’s a theory Cern is gearing up to test next year. If Hajdukovic can show that anti-matter particles fall “upwards”, he not only opens the way to some form of demonstrable anti-gravity on earth, he almost certainly wins a Nobel prize into the bargain.

Yet even if he is proved right, harnessing such a phenomenon in any practical sense could be beyond our engineering capability.

What is Gravity

What is gravity

  • Newton’s law of gravitation states that any particle of matter in the universe attracts any other with a force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them (expressed in the equation above)
  • Isaac Newton put forward the law in 1687 and used it to explain the observed motions of the planets and their moons
  • Newton’s law was superseded by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, but it is still considered accurate enough for most small calculations

Other even more outlandish proposals are now on the table. For example one idea championed by Tajmar is to use a purely conceptual substance – “negative mass”. Theoretically when negative mass is brought into proximity with positive mass it would create a powerful repulsive force – an infinitely accelerating drive, or to borrow from Star Trek, a warp drive.

Johnson is quick to point out the theoretical problems – it would effectively invert Einstein’s accepted model of universal space-time and create a runaway physics nightmare. Davis’s objection is more practical: “[You had] better hope the people you want to visit in your warp-drive spacecraft are people you don’t like because you’d annihilate them in the process of getting there.”

Now there are theories of how anti-gravity might work, it’s the engineers who seemingly cannot provide practical ways to bring them to life.

Ron Evans retired when Project Greenglow was finally wound up in 2005, with no practical form of gravity control on offer. Yet the story does not quite end there.

One device survived, almost unnoticed, from the Greenglow days – a propellant-less electromagnetic or EmDrive, created by British aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer.

What sets the EmDrive apart from other concepts? As Shawyer puts it: “We’re no longer looking to control gravity itself. We’re beating gravity the smart way.” Because the EmDrive actually appears to do something. In tests, it seems to move under its own steam.


Roger Shawyer with the EmDrive

Shawyer claims his concept uses a known property of microwave energy called “cut-off” to generate thrust. According to Shawyer, the conical shape of the closed box causes the microwaves to effectively stop at one end of the cavity, while continuing to vibrate against the other, creating a difference in pressure.

With a solar power supply, Shawyer claims he would be able to accelerate the EmDrive in any direction almost continually. “You would suddenly have a lift engine, which simply hovers there, or indeed accelerates upwards. So you can envisage launching large payloads into space on an EmDrive-driven space plane.”

The theorists are deeply sceptical of these claims because the EmDrive seems to defy Newton’s law of conservation of momentum. John Ellis at Cern is particularly scathing: “With the EmDrive, unlike a rocket, nothing comes out of it. So I don’t see how you can generate momentum out of nothing.”

Yet engineers like Ron Evans are predictably unrepentant: “My view is, who cares? It’s the experiment that counts. If the experiment works, it’s up to the theoretical people to put a theory round why it works.”

The experiments and the debates continue. Meanwhile, Boeing has apparently licensed its own version of the EmDrive and the Pentagon has shown a keen interest.

As the saying goes – watch this space.

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Now here’s a strange video of ‘something’ defying gravity. What do you think it is? Alien, apparition, fake?


Animal X Files coming soon

Animal X Files coming soon.


Animal X is the first and premier TV series that looks at cryptozoology, paranormal, supernatural, aliens and UFO.

Its files go back to last century. As well as having files that are full of stories from today.

At last Animal X is opening its files for the first time to the public.

In Animal X Files

For the first time interviews with eyewitnesses, scientists, experts and others are going to be made available UN CUT right here on AnimalX.net, the official website of the TV series.

el Chupacabra

For the first time you will be able to see un-cut interviews with people who have been attacked by el Chupacabra. People who have seen and had a close encounter with Bigfoot.

People who have been abducted by aliens and people who seen lake and sea and river monsters.

People who have seen ghosts and much more.

Also interviews with scientists who try to explain what is going on.

People who believe we are in the ‘End Times’.

Experts who have also investigated these phenomena and have no explanation.

All Un-Cut.

Monsters

Animal X Files will also have uncut actuality from expeditions and hunts for these creatures.

Here’s the 2 trailers that will give you some idea of what you can expect.

Want to know more? want to be informed when these new videos are released?

Sign up on the left to be notified by email every time a new Animal X clip is uploaded.

Click on the RSS feed button.

Or sign up and become a member of Animal X. It’s free.


 

Animal X From the Cutting Room Floor trailer 1 – Looking for Mothman

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Paranormal Filler Radio

Interested in the latest paranormal activity?

You can now listen to Paranormal Filler Radio with Wes Forsythe right here on the Animal X website.

Interviews with paranormal experts, witnesses and other areas of the paranormal.

As Wes says in between science and the paranormal is the filler. Listen to his archive here

Paranormal Filler Radio



Nephilim, Satan, Fallen Angels, Giants, Aliens

Nephilim, Satan, Fallen Angels, Giants, Aliens, Hybrids, Elongated Skulls!

el Chupacabra



Animal X investigates the unknown, the unusual, the mysterious and the unexplainable. In short natural and supernatural mysteries.

We have investigated sightings of mysterious animals, ghostly creatures, chupacabra, bigfoot, mothman, Reptoids – reptilian humanoids, aliens, anything paranormal, the supernatural. Anything that is classed as cryptozoological.

Mothman

There are many possible explanations for the stories we’ve covered. Or rather theories and ideas as to what these sightings are.

Some theories or explanations are scientific based, others are cultural. Some people believe they are hoaxes, drug induced hallucinations. Others claim they are telling the truth. While others say aliens, hybrids, UFOs, and demons, are inter-dimensional creatures; and they are responsible.

There are as many theories and ideas as to the truth, as there are stories of the unknown.

But what is the truth?

Who knows?

Who can tell? We wont find out the truth until we actually die and go to where ever we are going, be it good or evil.

Nephilim, Satan, Fallen Angels, Giants, Aliens and God.

Here’s an interesting video with another take on the whole scene.

This video claims that, what people are seeing are are evil entities. That apparitions like ghosts, aliens, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, Mothman and the like are inter-dimensional demons. The Nephilim, Satan’s demons and fallen angles are masquerading as these things.

From Bigfoot to ghosts. From aliens to Chupacabra. They claim that Satan and his demons are hoodwinking humans into believing anything but the truth. That what we see, whether Bigfoot, Chupacabra or aliens are in fact demons. They claim this as the truth.

It’s a long documentary but worth the watch. It would be good to get your take on what it is saying.

https://youtu.be/-9f6kiZToYg




 

Man catches winged fish with evil eyes!

Man catches winged fish with evil eyes!

A FISH with wings, creepy green eyes and a nose like a wizard’s hat has been branded an alien after being caught by a shocked fisherman. From the Daily Star

Evil eyed alien fish?

 




 

The slimy black creature, which has a ridge of pointed quills on its back, was spotted among the day’s catch and photographed. It’s the latest in a series of strange finds in the world’s oceans and comes after another fish was found with legs.

A terrifying new species of shark – with a pitch black body – has also been discovered in the depths of the sea. The newest find was caught 30 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, by a fishing vessel. When a crew member posted a picture of it online, the fish was described as an alien by Reddit users. “Wow, it looks like an link in evolution,” wrote one person. “What is that birdfish?” Another posted: “We don’t need no stinkin’ aliens – we already got them!”

The truth.

But other eagle-eyed commenters identified the fish as a black long-nosed chimaera. Chimaeras, which are related to sharks, are usually found between 8,500ft and 660ft deep. Reddit user McGuire72, who posted his photo of the creature online, said it was thrown back in the ocean. He wrote: “Unfortunately, from what I’ve read here, he’s a deep-sea fish and likely didn’t survive to get back down to the bottom.” This from National Geographic Kids.




Want more underwater mysteries?

Check this out from the Animal X Natural Mystery Unit.  A one hour special on monsters of the deep. Ever hear of the Bloop? or the Welsh sea monster? What about the Monster of San Francisco Bay?

Monsters of the Deep.

Northern Lights Spectacular

Northern Lights Spectacular

From Visit Norway website



 
The Northern Lights are one of the most spectacular natural phenomena.

The night sky is lit up by the most amazing colours.

WHAT ARE NORTHERN LIGHTS?

The bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth’s atmosphere.

The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as ‘Aurora borealis’ in the north and ‘Aurora Australis’ in the south.

Auroral displays appear in many colours although pale green and pink are the most common. Shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have been reported.

The lights appear in many forms from patches or scattered clouds of light to streamers, arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays that light up the sky with an eerie glow.

WHAT CAUSES THE NORTHERN LIGHTS?

The Northern Lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth’s atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun’s atmosphere. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding.

The most common auroral color, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth. Rare, all-red auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora.

The connection between the Northern Lights and sunspot activity has been suspected since about 1880.

Thanks to research conducted since the 1950’s, we now know that electrons and protons from the sun are blown towards the earth on the ‘solar wind’. (Note: 1957-58 was International Geophysical Year and the atmosphere was studied extensively with balloons, radar, rockets and satellites.

Rocket research is still conducted by scientists at Poker Flats, a facility under the direction of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks – see web page http://www.gi.alaska.edu/

The temperature above the surface of the sun is millions of degrees Celsius. At this temperature, collisions between gas molecules are frequent and explosive.

Free electrons and protons are thrown from the sun’s atmosphere by the rotation of the sun and escape through holes in the magnetic field. Blown towards the earth by the solar wind, the charged particles are largely deflected by the earth’s magnetic field.

However, the earth’s magnetic field is weaker at either pole and therefore some particles enter the earth’s atmosphere and collide with gas particles. These collisions emit light that we perceive as the dancing lights of the north (and the south).

The lights of the Aurora generally extend from 80 kilometres (50 miles) to as high as 640 kilometres (400 miles) above the earth’s surface.

For more information on the North Lights check out Northernlightscentre.ca



 


Amber-trapped lizard fossils reveal ‘lost world’

Scientists say this fossil dates back 90 million years



Amber-trapped lizard fossils reveal ‘lost world’

Lizards locked in amber for 99 million years give a glimpse of a “lost world”, say scientists.

The ancient reptiles are preserved in “superb detail” down to scales of skin, the tip of a tongue and tiny claws.

Two of the fossils are related to modern-day chameleons and geckos, revealing how features such as sticky toe-pads evolved.

The lizards inhabited tropical forests in what is now Myanmar during the Mid-Cretaceous Period.
Researchers in the US have published their assessment of the specimens in the journal Science Advances.

“The fossilised amber provides a view into a lost world, revealing that the tropics of the Mid-Cretaceous contained a diverse lizard fauna,” Dr Edward Stanley of the Florida Museum of Natural History told BBC News.

Claw of lizard

Some of the lizards are representatives of modern groups such as geckos, while others have no modern equivalent and eventually died out.

One of the fossils appears to be a transitional form between the “standard” lizard form and chameleons, said Dr Stanley.

“This ‘missing-link’ is roughly 80 million years older than the next oldest chameleon fossil, and shows that features like the chameleon’s projectile tongue was present deep in its ancestry,” he added.

“But its strange fused toes (adaptations for climbing along branches) evolved later.”

Snapshot of the past

The amber fossils were obtained by private collectors and were acquired by museums in the US. They have now been collated and studied for the first time.

“They provide details of external morphology, which is something that is pretty rare to find,” said Juan Diego Daza, of Sam Houston State University in Texas, who led the research.

“These fossils represent most of the diversity of lizards with a superb amount of detail.”

The whole picture

Soft tissues and internal organs – as well as bones – can persist in amber for millions of years.

“We can pretty much see how the animals looked when they were alive,” explained Prof Daza.

“They provide a really nice snapshot of the past. To me it is like going back in time and doing a lizard collecting trip when we can see what these animals looked like.”

Some of the smaller specimens are whole lizards but others are fragments of animals.

Together, they could resolve some of the gaps in the family tree between ancient reptiles and their modern relatives.

From one of the smallest and oldest to one of the largest

Ever heard of the Megalania?

Megalania is a giant lizard that used to live in Australia. Part of the Mega Fauna that used to roam the continent. In fact it was the largest land-living carnivorous lizard that ever walked the the planet. It was top of the food chain in Australia.

Megalania

Megalania has been extinct for tens of thousands of years.

It’s not the sort of animal you’d like to meet on a dark night, or bright day for that matter.

But one man from Sydney Australia claims to have come across one in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney.

Reg Gilroy, a fossil hunter, claims one day while walking in the bush he came across a megalania. He wasn’t the only one. As this story says.



https://youtu.be/ujkT8izw5jc?t=8m48s


This is really spooky. Alien, apparition, or what?

Reptoid




This clip is from Turkey

This is really spooky. Alien, apparition, ghost or what? It was filmed at about 15 minutes to 2 in the morning on 12 February 2016, on a lonely street in Turkey.

It was captured on a public security camera and then recorded on to a camera phone.

It’s a bit grainy, but it shows something or someone walking down the street.

This someone or something walks around for quite some time, but we have cut that bit off as it’s a bit boring.

But then this someone or something just floats off into the air.

That’s where we pick it up.

It floats slowly up and out of frame. It stays aloft and out of frame for about 30 seconds. Then it suddenly descends to the ground again.

There’s no doubt about it, it’s pretty spooky.

What is it? Who Knows?

It’s difficult to tell what it is. Alien, apparition, ghost or what.

Its size is difficult to determine. Its form is difficult to make out. Some people say a penguin! Penguins in Turkey? Anyway penguins don’t fly.

Others say an alien, a shapeshifter or a dimensional traveller, even a demon.

What do you think. Any guesses?

There is some dialogue towards the end – in the Turkish language if anyone can translate. Though I suspect they are discussing the apparition.

https://youtu.be/zP_s7E_1DnY

Sightings in Mexico

Here’s another. Two strange flying creature this time from Monterey in Mexico.

From Animal X Natural Mystery Unit Mothman and Other Winged Creatures, it was seen by dozens of people including a number of police officers.

There are strange things flying in the sky down Mexico way. Check this out Witchy-woman and Bird Man aka Hombre Pajero.

What do you think these things are.

Put your thoughts in the comments box below.


Emotional Horses



Emotional Horses.

Do animals have emotions. Is there such a thing as emotional horses?

That’s something scientist have been debating for years and for just as long arguing with animal owners and lovers.

If you ask anyone who has a dog, cat, bird, or horse for that matter they will tell you yes their pets do have emotions; and a lot more going on in their tiny brains.

But scientists being scientists want empirical proof of such claims. Well as far as horses are concerned one group of scientist have done just that proven that horses have emotions and in fact can read our emotions.

Here’s a short story about Sussex University who have been experimenting with photographs of angry and happy faces and believe they have proven that horses do have emotions.

What about other animals

If after watching that story there’s another video that looks at the wider question of other animals emotions, like dogs cats and primates.





Lost Predator Thylacoleo – The Marsupial Lion

Marsupial Lion



Bone Diggers: Mystery of a Lost Predator, Thylacoleo – The Marsupial Lion

Australia is known for its cute marsupials, the koala, the kangaroo and the wombat among others. Very few people are aware that there was once a marsupial that was a deadly “creep up and get ya” predator that was more ferocious than a sabre tooth tiger. It was Thylacoleo Carnifex — the Marsupial Lion Australia’s lost predator.

The Nullarbor Plain is a remote treeless desert resting between the Great Australian Bight and the Great Sandy Desert. It is hard, stony country…flat and featureless.

In May of 2002 an group of cavers, in an Indiana Jones style operation, discovered three caves, which had never been entered by man. The entrance to one of the caves was mere shoulder-width, vertical tube that rapidly expanded to cathedral proportions. In the first cave their head torches illuminated a sight that caused scientific wonderment and a world-wide media frenzy.

At the far end of a side tunnel the cavers discovered the pristine and complete skeleton of the fabled marsupial lion, Thylacoleo. It lay there as if it had died only a year ago. The skeleton was bleach white against the red earth and not a speck of dust on it. Their immediate reaction was to take a photo and get out – their main concern was to preserve the site for scientific analysis.

The photo of Thylacoleo and the cave coordinates ended up on the desk of Dr John Long, vertebrate palaeontologist a world renowned Bone Digger with the Western Australian Museum. Within a matter of weeks funding and an expedition to recover the remains had been arranged. It would prove a journey full of surprises both during the expedition and later as the remains were studied. The first surprise to take John and his team by surprise was the age of the remains. He was sure the skeleton could only be about 40,000 years old — several dating techniques later and a shattering date of at least 500,000 years suddenly propelled the find into mega-star status.

Bone Diggers – Mystery of a Lost Predator is the amazing story of the dangerous recovery mission and how the remains of the marsupial lion allowed science a unique opportunity to reconstruct the beast and it’s behaviour.

From recreating its brain to morphological analysis, the life and form of Thylacoleo began to take shape – this is science at its best!

A co-production between Storyteller Media and the Western Australian Museum.

 

Storyteller produce and distribute documentaries and factual programming specialising in animals and nature; from endangered species and what’s being done to save them to mysterious animal and monster stories.

 

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