Engineer Devises 'UFO Patents' For US Navy (interestingengineering.com) 78
Paul Ratner writes via Interesting Engineering: Theoretical inventions known as the "UFO patents" have been inflaming worldwide curiosity. A product of the American engineer Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, the patents were filed during his work for the U.S. Navy and are so ambitious in their scope and imagination that they continue to draw interest despite any clear evidence that they are feasible. The patents include designs for a futuristic hybrid vehicle with a radical propulsion system that would work equally well in the air, underwater, and in space, as well as a compact fusion reactor, a gravitational wave generator, and even a "spacetime modification weapon." The technology involved could impact reality itself, claims its inventor, whose maverick audacity rivals that of Nikola Tesla.
How real are these ideas? While you can read the patents for yourself, it's evident that the tech necessary to actually create the devices described is beyond our current capabilities. Yet research into many of these fields has gone on for years, which may explain why the Navy expressed an interest. Another likely influence is the fact that the Chinese government seems to be working to develop similar technology. The fantastical inventions devised by Dr. Pais largely build upon an idea that he calls "The Pais Effect." In his patent write-ups and in an interview with The Drive, he described it as "the generation of extremely high electromagnetic energy fluxes (and hence high local energy densities) generated by controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma states) subjected to accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin, via rapid acceleration transients." This effect amounts to the ability to spin electromagnetic fields to contain a fusion reaction. The electromagnetic energy fields would be so powerful that they could "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," writes Pais. In practical terms, this invention could lead to a veritable revolution in propulsion, quantum communications, and create an abundance of cheaply-produced energy. Certainly, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, as posits the Sagan standard.
Despite the well-founded unease at Dr. Pais's inventions, the Navy took them seriously enough to run experiments for three years and even found some of them "operable," although the extent of that alleged operability is under debate. In the patent documents, two Navy officials seemed to assert the operability of the inventions. Furthermore, in correspondence with The Drive's "War Zone," Timothy Boulay of NAWCAD, stated that Pais's High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator was, in fact, tested from 2016 until 2019, at a cost of $508,000. The team working on the project consisted of at least 10 technicians and engineers and put in some 1,600 hours of work. But upon the conclusion of the testing, the Pais Effect "could not be proven," shared Boulay. What happened subsequently with the tested device and further investigations is not known at this point. There are indications in documents obtained by The Drive's WarZone through the Freedom of Information Act that the inventions could be moved to another research department in the Navy or the Air Force, or possibly even to NASA or DARPA, but whether that really happened is not clear. "One of the most attention-grabbing designs by Dr. Pais is the 2018 patent for a cone-shaped craft of unprecedented range and speed," writes Ratner. "Another futuristic patent with far-reaching ramifications is Pais' Plasma Compression Fusion Device. [...] Notes from researchers who worked on vetting Pais' ideas indicate that a possible outcome of the plasma fusion device and the high energy levels it may generate is the 'Spacetime Modification Weapon' (SMW). Research documents refer to it as 'a weapon that can make the Hydrogen bomb seem more like a firecracker, in comparison.'"
Pais also has a patent for an electromagnetic field generator, which could create "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." Another device conceived by Pais that could deflect asteroids is the high-frequency gravitational wave generator.
How real are these ideas? While you can read the patents for yourself, it's evident that the tech necessary to actually create the devices described is beyond our current capabilities. Yet research into many of these fields has gone on for years, which may explain why the Navy expressed an interest. Another likely influence is the fact that the Chinese government seems to be working to develop similar technology. The fantastical inventions devised by Dr. Pais largely build upon an idea that he calls "The Pais Effect." In his patent write-ups and in an interview with The Drive, he described it as "the generation of extremely high electromagnetic energy fluxes (and hence high local energy densities) generated by controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma states) subjected to accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin, via rapid acceleration transients." This effect amounts to the ability to spin electromagnetic fields to contain a fusion reaction. The electromagnetic energy fields would be so powerful that they could "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," writes Pais. In practical terms, this invention could lead to a veritable revolution in propulsion, quantum communications, and create an abundance of cheaply-produced energy. Certainly, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, as posits the Sagan standard.
Despite the well-founded unease at Dr. Pais's inventions, the Navy took them seriously enough to run experiments for three years and even found some of them "operable," although the extent of that alleged operability is under debate. In the patent documents, two Navy officials seemed to assert the operability of the inventions. Furthermore, in correspondence with The Drive's "War Zone," Timothy Boulay of NAWCAD, stated that Pais's High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator was, in fact, tested from 2016 until 2019, at a cost of $508,000. The team working on the project consisted of at least 10 technicians and engineers and put in some 1,600 hours of work. But upon the conclusion of the testing, the Pais Effect "could not be proven," shared Boulay. What happened subsequently with the tested device and further investigations is not known at this point. There are indications in documents obtained by The Drive's WarZone through the Freedom of Information Act that the inventions could be moved to another research department in the Navy or the Air Force, or possibly even to NASA or DARPA, but whether that really happened is not clear. "One of the most attention-grabbing designs by Dr. Pais is the 2018 patent for a cone-shaped craft of unprecedented range and speed," writes Ratner. "Another futuristic patent with far-reaching ramifications is Pais' Plasma Compression Fusion Device. [...] Notes from researchers who worked on vetting Pais' ideas indicate that a possible outcome of the plasma fusion device and the high energy levels it may generate is the 'Spacetime Modification Weapon' (SMW). Research documents refer to it as 'a weapon that can make the Hydrogen bomb seem more like a firecracker, in comparison.'"
Pais also has a patent for an electromagnetic field generator, which could create "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." Another device conceived by Pais that could deflect asteroids is the high-frequency gravitational wave generator.
The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:5, Insightful)
If nobody even knows if the devices will work, should they be patentable? Magic 8-ball says this is bullshit.
Re: The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sounds more like a red herring to get your enemies to waste money trying to develop something not possible.
All that money wasted on beyond obvious vaporware is what should be the enemy of the people.
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Much like the US "Star Wars" defense program, which apparently drained Soviet military funds trying to match its extravagant promises?
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The difference is that the "Star Wars" stuff was at least vaguely plausible, it wasn't even that far ahead of the time when it was possible (See: Iron Dome)
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Mod up. That was the key. Getting the USSR to believe it actually might be possible, just like they did with the famous "Missile gap"
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The missile gap was a domestic political prop.
The governments of both sides had good estimates of the ability to project strength via nuclear weapons of each side.
Kennedy, ahead of the curve as always, used it as a plank to describe Eisenhower as weak on defense.
Hawks then did what hawks do and found a way to convert that into defense contractor money.
You should read Eisenhower's farewell address.
Re: The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:3)
No. The story that Star Wars was a fake project was created years after it failed as an excuse for wasting all that money.
Teller and Wood really really really believed Excalibur was going to work and render missiles obsolete. Have no doubt of that whatsoever. The other labs were not as sure, especially after their own tests failed, but by that time Reagan was convinced too. And then the money started flowing and that was that. Who was going to say no to free money?
It was only around 1994 or 5 that you find
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Apparently the Russians thought it was all bullshit too.
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Sounds more like a red herring to get your enemies to waste money trying to develop something not possible
Which is basically what the Star War program was. Every body working on the project knew that was no chance we would be zapping ICBM's laser any time soon. It was just a ruse to bankrupt the Solvate Union. An it work really well.
I just hope they are not going to try this with China. The USSR's economy was always teetering on the edge of collapse. A brain dead gibbon can see that China has a very healthy economy, which is whispered in some circles to already surpassed the US.
On a personal note I w
So is the internet. Wayback to the rescue. (Score:2)
Have you heard about Evergrande?
The quoted link was down when I tried it. But the Intenet Archive's "wayback machine" has a snapshot [archive.org]. (Actually two of 'em...)
(Just for your convenience. I haven't looked at it enough to have an opinion on it - other than "That's a LOT of money they're talking about.")
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Are you kidding me? Top down communist controlled economies always end up teetering on the edge of collapse
Wow. I have to admit that I didn't see this coming. I rarely admit when I'm wrong about something, since I rarely am. I honestly didn't think there was any dumber than a brain dead gibbon, but looks like at least one anonymous coward is. I stand corrected.
Virtually every economist that matters says the Chinese economy will surpass the US by 2030, if not sooner. With the mismanagement that is happening in the US I'm willing to bet it will be sooner. Unlike the former USSR, China saw the writing on
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Overall, China is a poor, 3rd world country,
Wildly incorrect. How the fuck do you put your pants on with a brain that defective?
with a per capita income a small fraction of US per capita income.
Completely accurate, but also completely irrelevant.
Individual people don't buy military might.
Their GDP numbers are cooked.
Unlikely. CIA's estimates are equivalent.
India will overtake the Chinese economy.
India has a billion people and the economy of California.
If there is going to be any overtaking, it's going to be so far in the future that I'm not sure it even makes any sense to hypothesize about it, since any trend now simply doesn't apply to then. Furthermore, that trend doesn't even e
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Which is basically what the Star War program was. Every body working on the project knew that was no chance we would be zapping ICBM's laser any time soon. It was just a ruse to bankrupt the Solvate Union. An it work really well.
What a phenomenal load of horse shit.
The effort was in earnest. Many of us have relatives who worked on it.
The Soviets weren't morons. They knew there was a chance it could be made to work (and there is, even today.) and so did we.
Only after the fact, when the entire thing turned into a corrupt-as-fuck entitlement program for pop-up labs and other defense contractors, did we invent the fiction that it was all a ruse.
A ruse against the guys who invented the math for rocketry.
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The effort was in earnest. Many of us have relatives who worked on it.
You are actually partially correct. It was an honest effort to make it work. It had to be because as you said they where not morons. For the ruse to work they had to believe that we thought we could do it. An that is exactly what they thought.
But make no mistake about it, it was a ruse. Once the logistic where laid out, nobody through it could work but they tried it any way.
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But make no mistake about it, it was a ruse. Once the logistic where laid out, nobody through it could work but they tried it any way.
There's no evidence to support that conclusion.
In fact, as more and more organizations in the US said the tech was just too far out, we cut its funding.
As parts of it proved more promising, they were given more funding.
The entire affair was quite public.
What follow is a list of SDI programs that came to fruition:
ERINT: MIM-104 Patriot
ERIS: THAAD, GMD.
DEW: THEL
There are more, those are just the one's I'm familiar with.
For a ruse, it seems to have not gotten the message that the programs underneat
Re:The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:5, Funny)
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TPS Reports?
T - The
P - Patent
S - System
Oohh. I just blew my own mind!
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Where did you get those numbers?
https://www.upcounsel.com/how-... [upcounsel.com]
https://www.patenttrademarkblo... [patenttrademarkblog.com]
https://thervo.com/costs/how-m... [thervo.com]
And the Navy paid for them (I assume).
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That's the American Patent system for you.
In the past, you had to provide a working prototype...
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I filed my business process patent.
Breif: A method of extracting revenue by levering the US Patent office, applicable patent law, and scary letters from staff attorneys.
The implementation will cynically file for design patents based on rough sketches and wild assumptions about current blue sky academic physics topics. Applications will omit key details that would lead patent examiners to potential reject the patent based materials science, energy requirements, and uncertainties about quantum mechanics at ve
Re: The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:4, Funny)
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Unfortunately, in the modern patent system, they're flooded by the software patents. Many of these are equally nonsensical and covered by prior art, and the flooded patent office staff do not have the resources to find prior art, especially among previous patents. So they are granted far, far too often, and the lawyers left to sort it out in court whether there was any intervening art. It's normally the patent filer's obligation to report and distinguish their patent from prior art. The patent office staff
Re: The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:1)
Re: The patent system is fundamentally broken (Score:2)
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What is the problem with granting a patent that obviously doesnâ(TM)t work?
It may be "obvious" to the examiner that it won't work, but what if that assessment is wrong and the concept does work -- just that the Inventor only has done 50% of the work required to address issues preventing it from working?
E.G. Imagine someone applied for and got a patent over the whole machine to the CRT Television back in the early 1920s before this existed, which was a mind-blowing thing, BUT their implementation of
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It encourages fraud, such as Theranos, citing their parents for technologies that do not work.
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Is it possible to patent things that may not work for the forseeable future at the least, and if and when the technology is invented, it can't be patented since there is "prior art" in the form of the previous patent?
Yet more SF ideas... (Score:3)
Isn't there any requirement that, before being granted a patent, the owner must demonstrate that the thing actually works?
Or is the plan to get the patents, persuade the Pentagon that it just might work (and remember, this is the organisation that paid for men to stare at goats)... and PROFIT!
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Strangely, AFAIK the UK patent office will automatically throw out a patent application for a perpetual motion machine just because the laws of physics say it can't be done. It appears the US patent office is far less blinkered in its approach.
Re:Yet more SF ideas... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, they might cooperate with a military disinformation plan to convince our enemies that they are hopelessly behind.
Or, it could be incompetence on the part of the Patent Office.
Not in this Universe (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure the U.S. does the same.
Not based on the evidence before us. The patents read exactly like the ravings I sometimes get emailed from nutters who are convinced that Einstein got it wrong and we can travel faster than light or that quantum physics is wrong etc. I suspect the patents were written by a high-functioning nutter who has some training in physics since they knew some of the technical terms and how to string them together into a semi-plausible - but completely and utterly unproven - argument.
You have to laugh at it though. At one point in his inertial mass patent calmly states that it will obtain an energy flux of 10^33 W/m^2 in the cavity he needs to reduce inertial mass which he calls an "exceptionally high power intensity" which has my vote for understatement of the year. To put this in context the entire power output of the Sun is only 10^26 W. So to reduce the inertial mass of a metre-scale object (remember this is for a craft of some sort) you would need the power output of 10 million suns contained in a metre-sized cavity. I suspect this is going to make it a little impractical for our universe.
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Re:Not in this Universe (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Not in this Universe (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
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Strangely, AFAIK the UK patent office will automatically throw out a patent application for a perpetual motion machine just because the laws of physics say it can't be done. It appears the US patent office is far less blinkered in its approach.
In the '80s a patent attorney told me that, back when they were set up, they required a working model of anything - and were quickly buried in gadgets. So they donated them to what eventually became the Smithsonian Institution (America's Attic) and stopped requiring
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Some of the patents would be very difficult to provide working models for. Arthur C. Clarke proposed communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit in 1945, which was a very patentable idea and, at the time, had no prior art that I'm aware of. A working model for that might be very difficult to ship to the patent office.
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In the US, not since 1870.
They should stick to staring at goats (Score:2)
If the fantastic technology worked, I don't think patent law would matter for the US navy's access to it, much less other countries.
Has the Warp Drive already been patented? (Score:3)
I mean, just because antimatter is basically unobtanium, and storing it is akin to building a unicorn stable, and nobody could build it apparently doesn't mean I can't patent it.
Antimatter Creation and Storage (Score:2)
I mean, just because antimatter is basically unobtanium, and storing it is akin to building a unicorn stable
No it is not. We can create antimatter and we can store it - albeit only a few atoms at a time and not for very long. Look at the ALPHA experiment [web.cern.ch]. While we may not be able to create and store enough to power anything - or even make a hot cup of tea - unlike a unicorn, it is real and most definitely can be obtained.
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Like fusion power and refining gold from seawater, small samples are possible with an extraordinary cost in energy..
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Unobtanium doesn't refer to a substance that doesn't exist or cannot be procured, it refers to a substance that cannot be gained in any usable quantity. Titanium was for a long time unobtanium for the US military because the Soviets had pretty much the thumb on the global supply. Yes, they had some, yes, they could use it, but it was in no way available in the quantity that they would have needed to make a useful application thereof.
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Maybe this is the person responsible for the Philadelphia Experiment [wikipedia.org]?
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5 year old me had some prior art for that.
Just like Pedrick, decades ago (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]
Many of Pedrick's inventions related to his cat, Ginger. His crowning achievement in this respect was patent GB1426698 [espacenet.com] titled "Photon Push-Pull Radiation Detector For Use in Chromatically Selective Cat Flap Control And 1000 Megaton Earth-Orbital Peace-Keeping Bomb".
Re:Just like Pedrick, decades ago (Score:5, Funny)
Whn my eye caught alanw's comment, at first I was convinced it must have been Douglas Adams' work.
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I do like his Tea Strainer patent. Surely the US Government couldn't waste millions of discovering if this patent works.
https://worldwide.espacenet.co... [espacenet.com]
More cat patents (Score:2)
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Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]
Many of Pedrick's inventions related to his cat, Ginger.
That was the tell all along. Ginger was the brains of the outfit and Pedrick was her front man.
Elizabeth Holmes' Latest Venture (Score:2, Offtopic)
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Is it directional? It better be! (Score:2)
A high frequency gravitational wave generator ... so a bomb so effective it doesn't need a medium to transmit shock-waves.
And it can be controlled precisely enough to arbitrarily deflect/destroy a single chosen target.
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My first idea was given an asteroid with an asymmetrical shape and rotation if you were to generate gravitational waves of significant magnitude in anti-phase to the mass this may generate a tiny but cumulative acceleration of the mass from the source of the wave to the mass.
Such waves may work out to be small enough to be almost impossible to detect except by identifying the phase relationship with that particular mass and measuring the otherwise unexpected negative acceleration of the vector to that mass.
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If you're not joking, the critical part is "of significant magnitude". Yes, indeed, if you could manipulate objects the size of a small moon at high enough frequency you might be able to generate some very interesting gravity waves. But if you've the technology to easily manipulate objects the size of a small moon, you probably have much better things to do with your technology.
Psychological Warfare and FUD or Really Cool Stuff (Score:2)
Is the Navy publishing these patents for the purposes of FUD and psychological warfare against non-friendly nations.
1. Leak some IR/FLIR camera footage of strange crafts.
2. Have congress hold hearings on UFOs.
3. Publish patents associated with UFOs.
4. Profit !??!
These patents could have just as easily been published in the US Top Secret Patent System
https://slate.com/technology/2... [slate.com]
S: "Comrade, what new weapons does the USA have?"
V: "Wow, look at these patents. They have UFOs and forcefields."
S: "We had be
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My dad always used to say, "They only tell you want they want you to know. If we already know about the F-22 and F-35, what are they working on they we don't know about?"
The F-22 is a pretty amazing plane, but it consists only of logical developments. The F-35 is less amazing, and it consists only of illogical but predictable developments ;)
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Is the Navy publishing these patents for the purposes of FUD and psychological warfare against non-friendly nations.
Although this guy worked in a Navy lab and assigned the patent to the Navy, such that the Navy owns it by that declaration, it would be inaccurate to say that "The Navy" published or created this patent. Pais did, as a private individual. The role the Navy as he employer would necessarily have had would be to review the patent to see whether it should properly be classified and thus not published, which is quite a different thing from taking action to "publish the patent". Nonsense is not classifiable so of
Patents MUST have an exploitation requirement (Score:2)
I have always advocated for requiring that a patent be exploited as a marketed product within X years of filing, or the patent automatically sunsets. This would eliminate patent trolling, but now we have a new rationale for such a policy. Go ahead and patent a UFO, provided that within a specified time you can build and market the invention.
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Patents (ALL) expire in 20 years after being granted. There's the sunset.
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But there are a lot of patent trolls sitting on technologies that would be highly useful if only someone would produce it. Five years would be a more useful exploitation window.
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I'll patent the business method of satisfying the restriction for non-working inventions by creating a company where Patent holders submit their patent to, And out pops a "commemorative" product in the form of a paperweight containing a representation of their patent design.
This will let the patent holder check off the "have a marketed product" condition, so long as their patent contains a physical design, as the paperweight will contain some 3d-printed expression of their machine (or of the machine logi
So... about a month or work. (Score:2)
I wanna believe! (Score:2)
But I don't.
Reminds me of Star Trek (Score:2)
In some episode of one of the various Star Trek shows they're describing how the transporters work and basically toss their hands up at trying to explain the science, instead making up a "Heisenberg Compensation Module" or some such.
The patent system is just bullshit though. Large companies routinely have sessions where people sit in a conference room and spitball as many ideas as they can, which they then try to patent on the outside chance one day the company may want to produce such a product, or that so
Underwater? (Score:2)
Someone's apparently been re-watching that scene [youtube.com] from "Star Trek: Into Darkness" ... Seriously, "Do you have any idea how ridiculous it is to hide a starship at the bottom of the ocean?" (or so I've heard)
Philadelphia Experiment? (Score:1)
Will we find sailors embedded in some ship's deck?