Strange Magnetic Disc Report

[ion]

 For some fun on a Friday afternoon, I thought I'd post this and see if we could get a lively conversation going.

An FBI field report of a mystery disc.

This was posted on "the other site" a long time back. It has always intrigued me, as the report looks to be authentic. Someone found it during a FOI search. Here is the original (attached), and for clarity of read, I retyped it as close as possible to the original.

I was able to find a fluorescent starter with "Made In USA" stamped into the aluminum cover. Not all have this marking, but since I have a collection accumulated over a lifetime, only about 5% of them have this marking on the top.

FYI A fluorescent starter is an interesting device in itself, basically a two terminal device, consisting of a glow tube with an ionizable gas (like a neon bulb), and a thermo switch insde the glow tube. It basically a little thermal oscillator, as both devices are in parallel. The glow tube incorporates a switch which is normally open. When power is applied a glow discharge takes place which heats a bimetal contact. A second or so later, the contacts close providing current to the fluorescent filaments. Since the glow is extinguished, there is no longer any heating of the bimetal and the contacts open. The inductive kick generated at the instant of opening triggers the main discharge in the fluorescent tube. There is also a small capacitor across the device for noise suppression.

OK starter aside, the two coils  2" dia. x 4" long on a 16 inch aluminum disc is also interesting.

Here is the retyped text: (I left the misspelling "as is" from the original scan. Note the date)
=============================================================

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
COMMUNICATIONS SECTION

                  TELETYPE

FBI NEW ORLEANS                 7-7-47
DIRECTOR FBI               V E R Y   U R G E N T

FLYING DISCS, MISCELLANEOUS.

(blacked out name) SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA ADVISES HE OBSERVED A CIRCULAR DISC AT

SIX FIVE PM THIS DATE COMING FROM NW DIRECTION.   DISC LANDED IN FIFTEEN

HUNDRED BLOCK OF TEXAS AVENUE.  (blacked out name) PICKED UP DISC AT FIFTEEN

FIFTY FOUR TEXAS AVENUE.  DISC WHIRLING WHEN SEEN IN AIR AND FIRE SEEN

SPOUTING FROM SIDES.   FIRE WENT OUT ON LANDING AND SMOKE ISSUED FEW

SECONDS AFTER FIRE WENT OUT.  DISC PICKED UP AND NOT HOT.  (blacked out name)

NOTIFIED G-2 BARKSDALE IMMEDIATLY AND THEY TOOK DISC BEFORE SA ARRIVED.

DISC DESCRIPTION-- THIN ALUMINUM DISC SIXTEEN INCHES IN DIAMETER. HAS

SMALL COILS TWO INCHES IN DIAMETER AND FOUR INCHES LONG AT THE ENDS OF

THE DIAMETER.  COILS CONNECTED BY TWO   COPPER WIRES TO TWO TERMINALS ON

EACH COIL AND THESE WIRES ARE CONNECTED AT THE CROSSING IN THE CENTER OF

THE DISC TO AN OBJECT ONE INCH IN DIAMETER BY TWO INCHES LONG,   SIMILIAR

TO STARTER OF FLOURESCENT LIGHT.  CENTER OBJECT HAD ON UPPER END -

(blacked out) --MADE IN USA--MADE SOUND LIKE A POLICEMAN-S WHISTLE

AND SMOOTH SIDE TOWARD EARTH IN FLIGHT.  BARKSDALE FIELD AGREED IF NOT

HARMFUL WOULD TURN OVER TO FBI IF WE WANT IT SUBJECT TO SUPERIOR

INSTRUCTIONS.    NAMES OF ALL PERSONS WHO HANDLED DISC BEFORE ARRIVAL OF

AGENT SECURED.   (blacked out name) BARKSDALE FIELD MAKING PHOTOS.  WILL SECURE

AND FORWARD PHOTOS TO BUREAU.

BELIEVED PRESS AWARE OF INCIDENT.

==============================================================
Hoax or real?  What are your thoughts?

[giantkiller]

#1:
This is in line with the same type of items used by Podkletnov and TTBrown. Brown propels aluminum, Podkletnov propels a magnetic field projectile.
#2:
Stan Deyo showed the propelled ring test using smoke and air.
#3:
All mentioned here is electrostatic based.
#4:
I had done a test where I placed aluminum disks on the top and bottom of the notched PVC coil and when powered on I got bit by the energy flying off the
sides.

In the FBI report is sounds like the owner powered this thing on and it simply 'left' the premises. Then when the charge dissapated it fell to earth in a random spot. The owner couldn't get to it in time and a stranger picked it up.

[ion]

From the Shreveport Tiimes (abstract)
============================================================
Shreveport has stake in UFO legacies
The Times - Shreveport, La.
Author:    John Andrew Prime
Date:    Jul 2, 2007
Start Page:    A.1
Section:    Front
Text Word Count:    1643
Abstract (Document Summary)

Headlines that screamed at residents in July 1947 tell it all: "MILITARY AIRCRAFT HUNT DISCS" screamed an oversized banner headline in The Times on July 7, 1947 - the same day the famed Roswell saucer supposedly crashed, and a day before that was announced to the media as a saucer and then almost as immediately re-reported as an errant weather balloon. An expert machinist, the late Murff Swor, cobbled together some castoff electrical parts and an aluminum disc, hid on top of a building on then-thriving Texas Avenue, and sent it sailing into rush-hour traffic when the light was fading right and the public appetite for the bizarre was growing.
================================================================

The plot thickens?

[giantkiller]

My idea of the coil placement in this design.
Either way the field gets distorted from the natural shape that is wants to be in.
I see this inherent as the process in any of the over unity devices.
The aluminum can be seen as a resistance pressing against the field.
Also when you stick a plate in running water perpendicular to the flow you can feel the pressure. Should be the same here.

[ion]

An expert machinist, the late Murff Swor, cobbled together some castoff electrical parts and an aluminum disc, hid on top of a building on then-thriving Texas Avenue, and sent it sailing into rush-hour traffic when the light was fading right and the public appetite for the bizarre was growing.

Anyone see anything wrong with this story? Murff Swor did exist as a matter of public record. So he was an machinist with a penchant for practical jokes like sailing some electrical parts off a tall building onto a busy intersection, not caring who they might hit and injure?

Doesn't seem to fit the personality of an expert machinist, who must be very careful, patient and exacting in his work. But lets say the interpretation of the story from 1947 by Mr. J.A. Prime is true.

Then that's the end of this thread. Well, it was started for a little fun to stretch our minds, so be it.

But just for imagination's sake, let's say Murff had an idea he wanted to test because he was fascinated with the flying disc story of the time. Maybe he was the type of garage tinkerer that liked to build things that kept him thinking at night when he should be sleeping. So he followed his intuition and built something like a simple two pole electric motor.

Coils spun up in this manner, horizontally (the rotor), will intercept the earth's fixed magnetic field (the stator), which although very weak might have been enough to ionize the gasses in the starter. What would happen then is anybody's guess, especially if enough heat inside the ignited gasses presented a momentary load by closing the thermal switch. Theoretically, like any heavily loaded generator, Lenz's law would cause a back force on the coils and cause it to wind down, coming eventually to a stop.

But there is another possibility....can anyone guess?

[giantkiller]

Well as an expert machinist he might not have known the properties of the process he was about to link into. He just turned it on and it took off randomly. I didnt know the damage the GK4 would do till I turned it on either. Now I understand.

I look at experimenters in this way: Give them a huge amount of parts and each person in all their tries will have basically the same type of device thinking or modelling. I always saw the potential of this technology but it is so damn easy for me to come up with weapons other than anything else. And I have questioned myself about and still no answer.

Anybody else?

[Grumpy]

Sounds like someone's flight test.  

Dumped some juice to the disc coils through the starter, and off she went.  Maybe the spinning and coils  induced some current across the disc bouncing between opposite coils to keep it going until it ran down from the initial jolt.  Starter is a switch.

However, if you had a power supply on-board,, and gave it another jolt, she would keep on going...spinning and hovering or whatever.

Homopolar mode in earth field...UFO-types have a term for that mode but I forget what it is.  I.E. there is a different high speed flight mode.

[giantkiller]

Like a reflective BEMF. Much like Keely's water pump reproduced by Dale Pond. And the twin LC tank device. Can't remember the device name. Used the basket weave for the coils.
Ringing: build up collapse, build up collapse.

Sounds like someone's flight test.  

Dumped some juice to the disc coils through the starter, and off she went.  Maybe the spinning and coils  induced some current across the disc bouncing between opposite coils to keep it going until it ran down from the initial jolt.  Starter is a switch.

However, if you had a power supply on-board,, and gave it another jolt, she would keep on going...spinning and hovering or whatever.

Homopolar mode in earth field...UFO-types have a term for that mode but I forget what it is.  I.E. there is a different high speed flight mode.

[BEP]

Sorry folks.

You all have it wrong.

It sounds too much like a test I did back in '86.

Hmmm.... I wondered WHEN that went 

[Grumpy]

would the disc have a radial electric field when it is rotating?

[humbugger]

Depends.  Whether it was flying out of a monkey's ass or a horse's ass.   

[Chet K]

Well
All Ass Fetish's aside [Freudian stuff].

These fellows at the highest level of law enforcement would be taking a big career risk with this episode!
Strange stuff ION

Chet

[ion]

All the talk of parametric oscillators got me thinking about the disc again.

Has anyone ever mounted a couple of solenoid coils on the edge of a large disc and spun it up out in a field away from power lines to see what kind of signal the coils produced from the earth magnetic field? Through slip rings perhaps?

[PhysicsProf]

would the disc have a radial electric field when it is rotating?

There would be the homopolar generator effect -- if the B field were perpendicular to a face of the disk, then yes, expect a radial E field.  (And this, whether the magnet was stationary in the lab, or co-rotating with the disk -- either way.)

I've done a lot of playing with the homopolar motor and gen -- lots of fun.

[Paul-R]

I've done a lot of playing with the homopolar motor and gen

Whatever happened to Bruce DePalma's fabled Sunburst (?) machine? And the Paramahansa Tewari variant?

[Grumpy]

A 16-inch aluminum disc sounds like a pizza pan.

Why were flames coming from the edges when in flight?  but the disc wasn't hot...
So, not actual flames, more like a HV corona maybe.

Disc sounds very simple:
Small coils on outside edge, wired to a starter-like device in middle.

My guess is that whoever built it, started it rotating, it took off, and they didn't recover it.

The flames comment does not agree with a machinist throwing it off a building.

What was the orientation of the coils?  Radial or aligned with the pan edge?