So, this is a pretty wacky wikipedia article. I wish that the uncertain pseudoscience-y nature of it weren’t quite so uncertain, because then it would either be a “wow neat!” or just not be worth writing about. The article talks about things called “lifters”, which utilize an effect known as an “ion wind”, where charged particles are actually pulled between electrodes due to their charge difference to cause lift. This means that these devices wouldn’t work in a vacuum, and are relatively useless.

But the way the article is written has just enough bait there to make you wonder about this other, crazier explanation being involved. Not as a replacement for ion wind (which is a very real thing), but as an additional effect under the right circumstances. Mythbusters apparently tried to replicate this myth and busted it by showing no lift generated by one of these machines in a vacuum, but the conditions described for the “mysterious effect” to come into play sound very demanding. Dense piezoelectric crystals and incredibly high voltages being pulsed at particular frequencies. This has the earmarks of crappy science: a holy-grail like claim and a billion reasons to explain why the failed tests that falsify the claim aren’t really conclusive.

But then there’s also all this military stuff. The article has a claim that there was a demonstration to the military in the 1950s showing off the mysterious effect, and that the whole thing was immediately classified and spawned 40-50 US military projects lasting over 20 years. The guy who performed the demonstration worked for the military and the precursor to Lockheed Martin and apparently on a secret project in France, and his job through all of this was to “research antigravity propulsion”. So, if it’s just ion wind, were they all just not well enough informed for those 20 years? But then, all of those projects were shut down in the early 70s by a policy intended to get rid of crap that wasn’t helping the military.

And then you read that the guy who reported on this “mysterious force” being shown off is a science fiction writer and model rocketry enthusiast, and start thinking that he could have just fudged some facts. But what isn’t disputed is that a demonstration did take place by a real man whose name is attached to the general ion wind effect, Thomas Townsend Brown, and that he did in fact work and research gravity propulsion systems for the next 20 years, while a large number of military projects surrounding the concepts were going on.

It’s back and forth, back and forth. Each extra bit of research turns up something very legitimate looking, which ends up being the most ridiculous thing yet. These videos (make sure you listen to the music a bit) are where I called it quits due to an outbreak of hysterical laughter. And yet, if they didn’t have the weird music and “gravitec” logo everywhere, they would have seemed to be doing something really credible. It’s kind of like when a spammer sends you a really well crafted, personal-looking email with a spoofed address, but opens with “Dear Sir (Madam) ,” and blows the whole operation.

While reading up on this, I was reminded of (and ran across) things in the same wishy-washy region. Burkhard Heim and Heim Theory and the Hoverbike and the Moller Sky Car. They’d all be so cool, if they were more than just zany nonsense.