Defense Intelligence Reference Document The Role of Superconductors In Gravity Research

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current effects. There was no independent confirmation that this experiment actually
took place. Vuorinen and Levit had disappeared from the scene when this author asked
Podkletnov whether they were available to discuss the experiment. Nevertheless, this
author arranged for Podkletnov to visit the Toronto laboratory for preliminary
consultation on the experimental design to replicate his 1992 Physica C results.
Meanwhile, a 1997 University of South Carolina press announcement declared that
investors were being sought for a "Gravity Generator" technology based on
confirmatory experiments apparently underway at the university involving nonrotating
high-temperature superconductors and RF coils. This machine would "replace the
wheels of a car ... lift and propel aircraft, drive generators more efficiently and produce
gravity-free environments on Earth." Evidently, the work of Douglas Torr, who had
recently taken up a post there, was the basis for the announcement. Unfortunately, the
excitement was short-lived, as a subsequent announcement was issued stating that the
previous announcement was "premature."
In preliminary experiments at NASA, Kaczor, Li, et al. failed to see expected shielding
effect in a Podkletnov-like experiment (Reference 29). However, they were using a
small, commercially available disk levitated above permanent magnets at LN2
temperatures. Undeterred, they pressed on, buoyed by the Internet publication of
Podkletnov's previously rejected paper and discussions with Podkletnov himself. The
following year, Noever and Kaczor (Reference 30) published the results of their
investigations into nonrotating superconductor disks irradiated by radiofrequencies from
1 to 15 MHz and detected a very weak gravity increase. This finding was later shown by
the same authors to be the likely result of an instrumentation artifact (Reference 31).
In 1999, this author was asked to present the state of the Toronto experimental
replication to the assembled physicists and engineers at the April 1999 Turin Politecnico
meeting. Gonnelli and others presented their initial findings of a tiny possible weight
change in test samples suspended above a disk as it passed through Tc. Also
presenting was G. Modanese, who had been formulating his own theoretical
explanations for the Podkletnov results. Podkletnov described how the "gravity
shielding" effect was discovered. Apparently his group had made large sputtering target
disks of YBCO for the aforementioned single-crystal processing, and to ensure the
correct uniformity and porosity, the disk was set into rotation (presumably
mechanically) while being levitated over a "supporting solenoid." This allowed quick and
complete scanning of the target's surface by means of a small, movable test magnet
suspended above the rotating disk and connected to an analytical chemical balance.
When the smoke from a technician's pipe inexplicably appeared to rise above the
apparatus, they considered the possibility of gravitational shielding and substituted a
nonmagnetic, nonconducting test mass for the small suspended magnet. Note that the
normal rotational speeds for magnetron sputtering are in the tens, not thousands, of
rpm.
Podkletnov went on to describe his first experiments with the so-called high-voltage
"gravity beam" apparatus. An array of single-crystal whiskers of YBCO was grown on a
small (few cm 2 in area) substrate using a technique later commercialized by materials
scientists (Professors Kettunen and Tiainen) at the Tampere University of Technology.
This plate was placed upright in a small LN2 dewar and electrically attached to a small
(~200-kilovolt) van de Graaff machine. A grounded metal annular disk was placed a
few centimeters laterally away. The whole assembly was placed in a large bell jar that
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