ELECTRIC FLYING MACHINES: Thomas Townsend Brown
What originally attracted the rancher out into the night air was a stallion who had become spirited by the strange buzzing craft. It was said the Tesla often delighted in soaring through the night air for hours each night. He was dressed in his characteristic garb, sans top hat. Tesla became enthralled with the operation of his flying platform, traveling to great distances. Tapping energy directly from his Magnifying Transmitter, the device had an unlimited range. Others had witnessed these strange midnight journeys across the ranchlands.
Dr. Biefeld was familiar with all of the experimental papers, and many of the legends. The growing electrogravitic effects bibliography provided ample reference material by which it was possible to focus in upon the effect which Tom Brown discovered … the “Brown Effect”.
Einstein utilized the concept of distorted space to explain the appearance of all forces. According to this theory, there should be various means by which to bridge each of the forces. Could this effect, which Tom Brown had discovered, not be the “bridge” between electrical force and gravitational force? Einstein said this bridge must exist. Now Tom had a good theoretical model with which to work. If gravitation was truly the result of a distorted space, then high voltage electric shock was somehow further modifying that distortion.
Through Dr. Biefeld’s kind and generous support, Tom performed hundreds of experiments with various highly charged tubes and capacitors in stringent laboratory conditions. These experiments were intent on measuring the force exerted by high voltage charged tubes, capacitors, and solids in free space. Charged objects, rather than vacuum tubes, were suspended just as Brown had done in his smaller garage experiments. Professional laboratory instruments measuring every aspect of the motional effect and its epiphenomena, it was now possible to document and film the effect for all to see.
With the new instrumentation and enhanced laboratory access, several details in his strange electric force effect now became apparent. In 1924, he mounted two spheres of lead on a glass rod and suspended them by two strong insulating supports, forming a swing-like pendulum. When each sphere was oppositely and highly charged with sudden impulses of 120 Kilovolts the entire pendulum swung sideways to a maximum point … and very slowly came back to rest. The electropositive sphere led the motion once again.
What Tom now saw was truly astonishing. The pendulum literally remained suspended in the space for a long time. There were two clearly observable phases in the whole action. The “excitation phase” took less than five seconds. The “relaxation phase” required thirty to eighty seconds, coming back to rest in a series of “fixed steps”. Astounding! Here was visible proof that a distorted space had power over matter, constraining its movements as if it were solid matter. In fact, Tom now recognized something of his original thoughts concerning the vacuum tube rotor.
As a student so many years before, he had accurately sensed that cathodic expulsions were producing a thrust without mass. Now he understood that the “missing mass” surrounded the device. It was space itself, distorted by electrostatic means. In this condition, space behaved better than any chemical fuel rocket. Space was everywhere available! All one needed to do would be to distort or “warp” that space. Thrust would simply be the result of creating the distorted condition.
GRAVITATORS
Completing university work in 1926, Tom Brown became a staff member of Swasey Observatory (Ohio). There he remained four years. During this time he was married. Maintaining his experimental passions, Tom continued his work on electro gravity while teaching and performing the sundry duties of instructor.
Research never far from his heart, he continued his work privately. His next amazing development came when he replaced his “classical” rod-connected double spheres with a more compact and commercial capacitor stack. This capacitor consisted of alternating layers of aluminum and paraffin-saturated cloth. Unlike conventional electrical capacitors, these aluminum foil layers did not interdigitate. Only the end metal plates were charged during the experiment. The entire stack was coated with asphalt and housed in Bakelite, the end terminals protruding as large binding posts.
He made several of these for continuous laboratory testing. When these capacitors were electrically impulsed, the space distortion effect spread throughout their interior. This spreading effect produced greater pendulum swings than he had ever seen. These capacitors absorbed the applied impulse for a much longer time. They also required a much longer recovery time before reaching their “rest point”. These devices stayed suspended longer during and after their electrifications. Tom Brown observed persistent space distortion with this apparatus. Five minutes were required before these capacitors reached complete relaxation.
The space distortion effect was now clarifying itself. It actually blended both the Coulomb electric force law and Newton’s gravitational force law in a most curious manner. He measured the tantalizing variables, which were required to produce maximum movements. He found that longer impulse durations required longer relaxation times. Greater dielectric mass in the capacitors amplified the thrusts. Increased voltages amplified the thrust. He also verified that electrical current had nothing to do with the distortion of space at all. Tom estimated the current in these gravitator cells at 3.7 microamps: virtually a “zero” value. It was the electrostatic impulse, which effected the space “warp”.
His analysis of the actual effect was quite simple. The high voltage impulse was directed through the body of the entire capacitor stack much like a shock-front, from the electropositive end to the negative end. The dielectric material in which the plates were cast was mildly electro-conductive. The spacewarping effect spreading faster than electrical currents, riding the electrostatic shockfront through the capacitor. The result was a space, which remained distorted for nearly one minute. The entire capacitor mass evidenced the subsequent motional effect in that region of distorted space.
Tom Brown saw the manner in which space distortion effects could actually move matter. The idea that a strong electrostatic shockwave could actually “warp” space was penetrating. Clearly, the space warp effect suffused the entire capacitor, continuing to collapse rigid space for several seconds. In some cases, with the right dielectric mixture, the collapse continued for several minutes.