Jesse Michels is burning up the air these days!

[Jan Lundquist]

Sterling interview with Lou Elizndro at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f16VvXaSSE

This is one of several new releases that will stoke your curiosity. What I notice is that all of the people who can't talk about what they know are trying their best to tell us what some of us already believe:

Gravity is a field variable, and we humans have had the materials science know-how to take advantage of that knowledge for some time now. This is the disclosure that must precede Disclosure.

At the end of this youtube, Jesse provides his Discord address for those who are eager to contribute to the current theorizing on this topic

Jan

[Jan Lundquist]

Another great drop from Jesse. He's still on the Townsend Trail, with cameo mentions of John Wheeler, , Salvadore Pais, Chris Bledsoe, and a whole bunch more.

Bob McGuire describes his world in ways that convince me of the validity of his experiences with three letter agencies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xxmguz0GEQ&t=5131s

Jan

[natecull]

Gravity is a field variable, and we humans have had the materials science know-how to take advantage of that knowledge for some time now.

I would love to know what "gravity is a field variable" means for the community who use that phrase as a term of art. I've been wondering ever since reading "The Antigravity Handbook" and "The Cosmic Conspiracy" as a high-schooler in the 1980s.

The reason I wonder, is because technically speaking it's pretty much an empty statement. Gravity was defined as a field - the original field theory, in fact - by Newton. Electricity and magnetism repurposed the field concept a century later. So what obscure insight is it that is gained by saying that "gravity is a field variable"? In Newtonian physics, yes, of course it is, so making that your mission statement is a bit like saying "water is wet". Okay sure, but why are you saying this? What's the key new insight for your research program here?

The Babson / Bahnson / Brown gravity axis in the 1950s and The Institute of Field Physics at Chapel Hill were all over the "field theory" terminology, so maybe that's how it got into the weird world, but I still don't understand what they specifically meant by that. It's an incredibly vague term - almost a deliberate marketing term, since Quantum Field Theory was at its height right then, and the GR people were trying to boost GR's standing to compete with QFT. The actual (publically available) academic research which resulted from the Babson/Bahnson institutions seems to have led directly via two generations of Wittens (Louis and Edward) to String Theory, which imo is one of the deadest dead ends in the history of physics dead ends.

Einstein's General Relativity, maybe doesn't even actually treat gravity as a "field" (at least not as a time-varying variable over 3 dimensions of Euclidean space) but rather as "curvature of spacetime", in a way that is incredibly mathematically unhelpful. There are however various "linearised" approaches to GR which involve restating it as something that changes over time rather than being curvature *of* time. Are these the "field theories" that the antigrav crowd hint about? Because the linearised gravity theories that we know of in the public literature, even the ones with "gravito-magnetism", don't seem to have any useful engineering properties.

There's always been hints in the weird literature, from about the 1950s on, about pre-Einsteinian, Euclidean/ether/field approaches to gravity and that these might be some kind of "step forward" in a way that they explicitly aren't in the academic world. I've spent decades (intermittently) trying to trace out what these alternative theories might mean, and I haven't managed to find much in the way of insight.

It has been very rewarding, though, to read histories of lots of clever and famous figures in the sci/tech world who each tried to have a go at gravity, in ways that weren't quite standard mainstream GR - sometimes extremely not mainstream GR. And wondering why they all did this. Often these were radio or electrical people, not from the self-selected "gravity physics" world.

I'll listen to Jesse's interview, I guess. Wish I could just read it, would be a lot faster.

Edit: Wait, this is the one with the Masonic temple, right? And randomly hiking near Devil's Tower for no particular reason other than it looks cool? I've watched this. Which part is the one where he references "field theories"? Because that didn't stick in my head last time.

Nate

[Jan Lundquist]

Nate, the field variable idea as I first heard it expressed by Hal Puthoff, is that it may be possible that the gravity field in and around a (seemingly manufactured) object can be shaped or modified, such that it is different from the larger field. But what he seemed to be saying, wink, wink, is that certain aerospace firms have this capability.

Jan

[natecull]

Nate, the field variable idea as I first heard it expressed by Hal Puthoff, is that it may be possible that the gravity field in and around a (seemingly manufactured) object can be shaped or modified, such that it is different from the larger field.

Yes, I understand that that's the connotation of the term as used in the "weird physics" sub-sub-culture. But that connotation is not derivable from the denotation of the term as used in the open academic physics world. There's a social/linguistic pathway between the two that I'm missing.... in other words, some form of secret society involved, or other form of oral subculture that doesn't want to talk about where exactly it got its terms and beliefs from.

In fact there's a bunch of overlapping secret and semi-secret societies in the weird physics/UFO world, each with their own unique linguistic tics. Theosophy, Silver Legion, IAM, AMORC, Radionics, Borderlands, Stelle, Scientology, USPA, Tesla Memorial Society, Lyndon LaRouche, just for starters. The whole MUFON scene is basically built on the back of these groups and their complex, constantly shifting, allegiances and fights.

I'm just wondering which social network it was that came up with this particular usage of words to describe a very particular idea, because as far as I can tell it wasn't MIT or Princeton.

The current "techbro venture capitalist with mystical, sometimes literally worshipful, feelings toward AI" scene in which Jesse Michels is located (with funding from Peter Thiel I believe) -- and in which we also find Diana Walsh Pasulka -- seems to have a similar flavour about it. There are some social connections there which don't seem to be all clear and in the open.

Terms of art used by Puthoff, say in this 2010 paper ( "Engineering the Zero-Point Field and Polarizable Vacuum For Interstellar Flight" - https://arxiv.org/pdf/1012.5264 ) include "field propulsion", "polarizable vacuum" and "metric engineering". These have very specific meanings, and Wikipedia even has an article on Polarizable Vacuum ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizable_vacuum ) which reminds me that it's a very similar concept to what Townsend Brown believed (ie, that gravity was a modification of the permittivity/permeability variables of empty space - suggesting a variable-speed-of-light theory rather than a spacetime-curvature theory). Very interesting then that Robert Dicke of Princeton, in the 1960s, was so bold as to openly work on that - today, that would be a career-ending choice of study. But physics in the 1960s was a lot more permissive than it is now.

But just "field variable" by itself is such a vague term that I wonder what it means (*which* field in particular, and which variables of that field?) It feels like a "cover term": a suitably vague, generalized phrase that people use who are discussing career-limiting ideas that they really don't want to draw attention to. Like, say, "advanced aerospace propulsion physics" when you really mean "UFOs" but you can't say "UFOs" or you'd get fired.

Edit: Puthoff has another paper on Polarizable Vacuum models of GR, I'm not sure which year: https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9909037 . It's quite remarkable. As with Townsend's Vega Notebook, K is seen by Puthoff to be the key variable. There are four data points I have so far on who has worked with it:

1. Harold A Wilson, colleague of J J Thomson ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_A. ... physicist) )in 1921, "An Electromagnetic Theory of Gravitation": https://ia600708.us.archive.org/view_ar ... .17.54.pdf Referenced by Puthoff in 2010 and maybe earlier.

2. Townsend Brown, in his 1942 "Structure of Space" section of his Vega notebook. Had Townsend read Harold Wilson's paper? That paper was 21 years earlier so I'm guessing very probably yes.

3. Robert Dicke in 1957, "Gravitation without a principle of equivalence" (per Puthoff) - I haven't managed to read this paper yet - and then, presumably, an inspiration for the scalar component of his 1960s work on Brans-Dicke theory. But Brans-Dicke theory is still expressed in curved spacetime, so doesn't pose quite the same epistemological challenge to Einsteinian Relativity that variable K theory does.

4. Hal Puthoff, in at least 2010 and presumably earlier.

Who else, I wonder, might be in the chain of idea transmission between Harold Wilson, Townsend Brown, Robert Dicke, and Hal Puthoff?

Nate

[Jan Lundquist]

Nate,

Had Townsend read Harold Wilson's paper? That paper was 21 years earlier so I'm guessing very probably yes

I would guess that he not only read it, he probably discussed it with Meinescz on the Gravity Cruise.

Who else, I wonder, might be in the chain of idea transmission between Harold Wilson, Townsend Brown, Robert Dicke, and Hal Puthoff?

Jesse has said (to me) that Puthoff "only" remembers that Townsend was doing something with piezoelectricity during the overlapping time they were working at Stanford. I believe Townsend was acting as a contract cutout for CIA, with projects housed in the [Materials?} Engineering Building on campus. When the army dropped Rauscher's "psycoustic" frequency work, the Navy directed the CIA or Vice Versa to fund it. I have always wondered if that wasn't done with the 100,000 check Linda recalls seeing written to SRI from the Townsend Brown Foundation.

But just "field variable" by itself is such a vague term that I wonder what it means (*which* field in particular, and which variables of that field?) It feels like a "cover term": a suitably vague, generalized phrase that people use who are discussing career-limiting ideas that they really don't want to draw attention to. Like, say, "advanced aerospace propulsion physics" when you really mean "UFOs" but you can't say "UFOs" or you'd get fired.

Good question. Maybe it dates back to the early days of deep sea exploration. Mineral laden seabeds would have a different gravitational (and magnetic) signature. In the most prosaic sense of the word, the size of the [deposit] field could be mapped by the location of the aberrant variable.


Netflix is currently showing Fly Me to the Moon a very light romcom with Woody Harrelson as Nixon's minion and the bad guy of the tale. His departing line is that government has already captured 8 alien craft from at the bottom of the ocean.

Well, we have a fitting cast of characters to support that plot, though, so far, no evidence that it actually happened. To recount, what you have heard already,from me once or twice:

• Two men in Townsend's circle were devoted deep sea photographers.
  
  Another newly discovered possible acquaintance, Whitehall/Whitehill Rand made his fortune building ships for deep sea exploration.
  
  Beau worked on Project Mohole.
  
  Townsend was ferried by submarine to the CIA's Glomar Explorer when she was undergoing sea trials off Catalina.

Photographer and decorated WWII reconnaissance pilot, Ed(ward Whaley Seabrook)Hull would write, in his introduction to his book on Atomic Energy:

Historians of the future will record that man almost simultaneously unlocked the secret of atomic energy and ventured into new domains beneath the closed doors of the world ocean, in one of the greatest exploration endeavors of all time...

History may also show how these two efforts to benefit mankind became closely interthreaded—how nuclear energy, in its many forms and applications, played a major role in the efforts to explore and exploit

But What exploration endeavor does he have in mind? If he means the Smithsonian Expedition, maybe it was one of the earliest, but does that make it the greatest??? Fen Johnson, designer and builder of underwater cameras, wrote in father Eldridge's biography.

Johnson evolved the_theory that radium being very heavy, heavier than lead, would accumulate on the bottom of the ocean deeps. There are adozen deeps in the oceans of the world, give or take afew. Mr. Johnson's assumption was correct. In a paper published in January of 1942,entitled " Radioactivity of Ocean Sediments IV — The Radium Content of Sediments of the Cayman Trough", by C. S. Piggott and Wm. D. Urry, from the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, No. 1054, the paper confirms the fact that there is radium in the core samples which were brought up from that particular ocean deep. The only trouble is that the amount of radium is so small that it is probably as unprofitable to extract as it is to extract gold from sea water. However, at the time Mr. Johnson conceived of the idea there was nothing to
indicate that scientists were thinking about it and it was not until after World War II that scientists discovered there were actually
nodules of metal of one kind or another on some areas of the ocean floors.

It seems to me that I once saw a photo of a golden nodule, or bead that was, reportedly the UFO material Gary Nolan was given to analyze and wondered if it hadn't come from some seafloor, somewhere. Would his analysis reveal that if it were so?

Jan


Map of the Cayman Trough, courtesy of the CIA:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map ... _379057503

[natecull]

It seems to me that I once saw a photo of a golden nodule, or bead that was, reportedly the UFO material Gary Nolan was given to analyze and wondered if it hadn't come from some seafloor, somewhere. Would his analysis reveal that if it were so?

Interesting thought! Avi Loeb's word is "spherules" for much the same thing, isn't it? And of course "mining the ocean floor for manganese nodules" was allegedly Howard Hughes' Globar Explorer cover story for Azorian/Jennifer. But perhaps the seabed mining wasn't so much just a cover story as a real subject of interest in its own right -- particularly if it was radioactive elements that were expected to be down there because they were heavy. I hadn't realised that, but of course loose radioactive ores would have been a huge topic in the Cold War era. Not just NATO looking for new sources, but also trying to make sure that the Soviet Union was denied access to them.

Nate

[Jan Lundquist]

Wish I could just read it, would be a lot faster.

I know. Listening is like taking the slooow train. Johnny, who reads our threads, but does not post, asks me to tell you that he selects the transcript option and then does a C&P of the text to a Word document.

Jan

[Paul Schatzkin]

I have also noticed that Jesse seems to be posting a lot of new material recently.

And, also, that each new upload presents a serious challenge to my "Short Attention Span Theater."

Alas.

--P

[natecull]

I watched the Jesse Michels interview with Randy Anderson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sct30Qijfv8) and liked where Jesse's head is at about consciousness... but I'm still very skeptical of this current bumper crop of "whistleblowers". "I saw a levitating ball in a room marked Offworld Technologies at NSWC Crane" could be a true story, but it doesn't have to mean what people want it to mean. Magnets and lights are pretty cheap, and tech people do have a sense of humour. Also, "offworld" for people who make missiles doesn't necessarily mean "from offworld". Apparently a couple more stories are dropping tomorrow. I hope there's some more meat there.

NSWC Crane seems like a really fun place, though! Lots of rocket, radar and electronic warfare research there, according to Wikipedia. I imagine Townsend Brown would have been at home there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Sur ... e_Division

It was originally established in 1941 under the Bureau of Ordnance as the Naval Ammunition Depot for the production, testing, and storage of ordnance under the first supplemental Defense Appropriation Act. The base is named after William M. Crane. The base is the third largest naval installation in the world by geographic area and employs approximately 3,300 people.

William Montgomery Crane (February 1, 1776 – March 18, 1846) was an American naval officer. A commodore in the United States Navy, he served during the First Barbary War and the War of 1812. He was the son of General William Crane who was wounded at the Battle of Quebec while serving under Richard Montgomery in honor of whom he was given the middle name of Montgomery. His brother was Colonel Ichabod Crane who also served in the War of 1812 as well as the Mexican War.

Yes, *the* Ichabod Crane! Lol. Do any headless rocketmen haunt the base?

Ichabod Bennet Crane (July 18, 1787 – October 5, 1857) was an American military officer who served for 48 years, reaching the rank of colonel in the United States Army. He is the probable namesake of the protagonist in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Anyway:

As the complexity and sophistication of weapons increased in the 1950s and 1960s, Crane's activities, capabilities, and expertise expanded in scope under the newly formed Bureau of Weapons to include small arms, sonobuoy surveillance, microwave tubes, POLARIS missiles, and other scientific and engineering support to the Bureau.

The Bureau of Naval Weapons (BuWeps) was part of the United States Navy's material organization between 1959 and 1966, with responsibility for procurement and support of naval aircraft and aerial weapons, as well as shipboard and submarine naval weapons.[1] The bureau was established August 18, 1959, by an Act of Congress. The Act merged the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer), which had responsibility for naval aircraft and related systems, and the Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd), which had responsibility for naval weapons.

As aviation technology became increasingly complex after World War II, the Navy increasingly realized the need for better integration between its aircraft and aerial weapons. This was also to end the conflict between bureaus due to technological convergence; BuOrd's work in guided missiles, for example, was overlapping with BuAer's work on unmanned aircraft.

In the 1960s, Crane came under the command of the newly established Naval Ordnance Systems Command and began providing technical support for weapons systems including logistics, in-service engineering, repair, overhaul, and design. In the 1970s, Crane's support began to include batteries, rotating components, electronic components, failure analysis, and standard hardware and new technologies related to night vision systems.

In 1974, Crane came under the Naval Sea Systems Command that was established from the merger of the Naval Ordnance Systems Command and Naval Ship Systems Command. Shortly after in 1975, Crane's name was changed to the Naval Weapons Support Center which more accurately reflected the true function of the installation.

In 1992, Crane's name was changed to the Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center when the warfare centers were established under the related systems commands. Today, grown from its ordnance roots, Crane is recognized worldwide as a modern and sophisticated leader in diverse and highly technical product lines.

https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfar ... hat-We-Do/

With the DoD’s largest concentration of Multi-Spectral, Multi-Domain (air, land, sea) EW Expertise, NSWC Crane is leading the Navy in electromagnetic capability development. Spanning all branches of the military, NSWC Crane has the largest concentration of technical EW expertise, facilities, and equipment. NSWC Crane provides distinct electronic warfare and integrated sensing technology to Control the Electromagnetic Spectrum in order to Control the Fight.

I forget whether Townsend ever found himself in Indiana, though. Seems like maybe not?

Nate

[Jan Lundquist]

I watched the Jesse Michels interview with Randy Anderson (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sct30Qijfv8) and liked where Jesse's head is at about consciousness... but I'm still very skeptical of this current bumper crop of "whistleblowers". "I saw a levitating ball in a room marked Offworld Technologies at NSWC Crane" could be a true story, but it doesn't have to mean what people want it to mean.

Exactly.Somewhere there is a joint training operation intended to "desensitize" special ops troops, ahead of first contact. The idea is to prevent the types of catatonia exhibited by Mario Woods' partner, as told in Jesse's following video.

NSWC Crane seems like a really fun place, though! Lots of rocket, radar and electronic warfare research there, according to Wikipedia. I imagine Townsend Brown would have been at home there.

As Indiana is next door to Ohio, it would have felt like home in his bones.

But, as for NSWC Crane, I seem to remember in Lou Witten's oral inteview, that he talks about a man from Indiana who promoted the idea that a certain bismuth isotope would have special qualities? I believe that was shortly after his mention of a guy named Townsend in France, who had discovered the cyclical impact of the moon on metals. (misquoting,here, but you get the idea.)

As always, with these histories, from people who [most certainly} possessed DOE need-to-know clearance, I ask myself if they are giving out rambling recollections, or, knowing much more than they are able to tell, are they dropping markers for future historians?

Jan

[natecull]

As Indiana is next door to Ohio, it would have felt like home in his bones.

Yes, on that....

It may be a complete red herring, but the first head of the US Navy Bureau of Weapons, 1959-1962, was also a Zanesville boy of Townsend's generation. Sort of. Born but not raised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_D._Stroop

Vice Admiral Paul David Stroop (30 October 1904 – 17 May 1995) was an officer of the United States Navy and a Naval Aviator. He held numerous high-ranking staff positions in aviation from the 1930s onward, including World War II service on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, he held various sea commands. From 1959 to 1962, he oversaw the development of the Navy's aerial weapons, including early guided missiles, as chief of the Bureau of Naval Weapons. During the later 1960s, he commanded Naval air forces in the Pacific.

Stroop was born in Zanesville, Ohio,[1] but grew up in Mobile, Alabama.[2] He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1926, then spent the next two years on board the battleship Arkansas (BB-33).

Just one year older than Townsend and also from Zanesville, one has to wonder if there were any links there. His career is of course much more straightforward and visibly impressive. Stroop's NYT obituary ( https://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/21/obit ... at-90.html ) , presumably the primary source for Wikipedia, says nothing about his family background and social class level.

Ha: is Stroop considered to the be the originator of the phrase "KISS"? Or was he just an enthusiastic user of it?

https://www.kielseapowerseries.com/en/k ... osium.html

The acronym KISS is a deliberate reference to the US Navy’s principle established in the 1960s by the late Rear Admiral (USN) Paul D. Stroop, “Keep it short and simple” (sometimes also as “Keep simple and straightforward”).

Nate

[Jan Lundquist]

I will look up the Zanesville Stroops on Newspapers.com. You never know what hometown connections might turn up. While I am there, I will try to find another Indiana data point that I have read, and may even have linked here, elsewhere.

About the time Townsend Brown is grabbing meteor/ufo debris from under Blue Book's nose, an Indiana paper reported that a similar bit space fall metal was picked up by an Indiana professor. I believe his name may have been Brown, also.

[Jan Lundquist]

Okay, here's what I have found:

This from November, 1943, tells us that Stroop, age 39, will be receiving the Legion of Merit medal for work in the South Pacific. The article says that the family left Zanesville 25 years, prior. Stroop would have been 14 then, it is possible that he and Townsend knew one another from childhood.

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the- ... 163827072/

I have clipped more than the Stroop article, because this presents such a picture of the time, deep into the war, when young Zanesville boys are beginning to make names for themselves in different branches of the service.

As for the tale of Prof Brown and space fall metal, I have conflated two 1960 events. In April of 1960, there was a spectacular meteor explosion over Indiana, observed by a pair of Chicago professors. They spent months searching for fragments. Brown was a professor in Connecticut who, in September, assessed a bit of recovered material as likely from the disintegration of Sputnick IV

Jan