32 entries
Energy and force from the vacuum
Casimir devices, the Navy patents, and lighter craft.
04 · Casimir physics and vacuum-force engineering
Charles Chase
founder and chief technology officer, UnLAB; head of its Advanced Propulsion Team
Proponent
He runs the conference where vacuum-fluctuation propulsion gets discussed by people who have to build the hardware, which is a very different conversation from the one held on paper.
- SBIR Phase I: Fluctuation Flow Propulsion (2024) — Principal investigator on the federally funded attempt to get thrust from vacuum fluctuations acting on asymmetric nanostructures.
Jeane Manning
journalist and author covering new-energy research, including zero-point energy
Journalist
She has spent decades actually visiting and interviewing the independent researchers in this field, so her archive preserves names and attempts that appear in no journal.
- The Coming Energy Revolution (1996) — Her survey of independent energy researchers, listed on her own site.
- Hidden Energy (2019) — A co-authored update to the same beat, decades later.
- Aether or… (Substack) (2025) — Her current newsletter, launched March 2025; the subscriber count was not shown on any page opened on 2026-09-04.
Thomas Valone
president and director, Integrity Research Institute; author on zero-point energy
Proponent
He has run the longest-lived newsletter and conference series aimed squarely at zero-point energy, which makes his archive a useful map of who has been working on it and when.
- Integrity Research Institute publication catalogue and Future Energy eNews (2026) — The institute's standing outputs; Zero Point Energy Utilization is one of its named research areas.
- Zero Point Energy: The Fuel of the Future (2007) — The general-reader entry point to vacuum-energy conversion claims and their engineering status.
- Practical Conversion of Zero-Point Energy (2005) — Surveys proposed conversion routes and the thermodynamic objections to each.
All 4 works
- Faster Than Light: Warp Drive and Quantum Vacuum Power (publisher/editor) (2019) — Brought H. David Froning's field-propulsion work into print in one volume.
Hoverr Inc.
NSF SBIR Phase I awardee working on quantum propulsion
Company
A second federally funded company in the same narrow field, which tells a reader that Casimir, Inc. is not a one-off.
- SBIR Phase I: Quantum Propulsion (2023) — $275,000 from 1 October 2023, PI Ankur Bhatt; surfaced by an NSF award search on vacuum fluctuations.
Integrity Research Institute
non-profit publishing and conference organisation for zero-point and emerging-energy research
Proponent
If you want to see the independent-research side of this field in one place, its newsletter and conference proceedings are the front door.
- Company
- YouTube@iri-integrityresearchinsti5050· 1.2K subscribers
- Website
- YouTube@iri-integrityresearchinsti5050· 1.2K subscribers, 30 videos
- Conference on Future Energy (COFE) series (2026) — A recurring meeting where zero-point energy, electrogravitics and low-energy nuclear reactions are presented together.
- Conference on Future Energy (COFE) proceedings (2023) — The recurring meeting where propulsion and vacuum-energy experimenters present to each other.
- Zero-Point Energy Utilization programme page (2005) — The institute's own feasibility survey of ZPE conversion routes.
All 6 works
- Zero Point Energy Extraction from the Quantum Vacuum (lecture) (2004) — Thomas Valone's own statement of the extraction argument; the founding IRI position.
- Zero Point Energy Utilization programme (2026) — One of four standing programmes alongside Future Energy, Bioelectromagnetics and Bioenergetics.
- Tesla Conference and Technology series (2026) — A long-running conference and publishing operation that has kept much of this literature in print.
Jovion Corporation
the company formed to hold and develop the quantum vacuum energy extraction patent
Company
The corporate vehicle behind the best-known vacuum-energy patent, and a reminder to check the assignment record rather than the press release.
- Quantum vacuum energy extraction (2008) — The Google Patents record names the original assignee as 'JOVIAN Corp' with the current assignee being the Regents of the University of Colorado; the company is usually written 'Jovion' in the literature, and this spelling discrepancy is unresolved.
- Quantum vacuum energy extraction (US 7,379,286 B2) (2008) — Inventors Bernard Haisch and Garret Moddel; priority 27 September 2004, filed 26 September 2005; the patent is listed as active with an expiry of 30 November 2026, and the University of Colorado Boulder appears as a current assignee.
05 · Energy from the vacuum
Adam D. Helfer
mathematician, University of Missouri; works on the limits of quantum energy inequalities
Critic
Helfer sharpens exactly where the standard argument against exotic matter has holes, which is the honest place to look for a way through.
- On Quantum Inequalities (1996) — An early challenge to how far the quantum inequalities can really be pushed.
- Spatially Averaged Quantum Inequalities Do Not Exist in Four-Dimensional Spacetime (2002) — With Ford and Roman, shows one natural form of the negative-energy bound simply fails, which is a real gap in the no-go case.
Charles-Maxence Layet
French science journalist and editor covering new-energy and frontier-physics research
Journalist
One of very few French journalists still filing original interviews from inside the new-energy research community.
- "Un milliard pour la fusion froide ?" Jean Paul Biberian (2026) — Two months old at time of check; Biberian on what French LENR would do with real funding.
Ko Sanders
mathematical physicist working on quantum field theory in curved spacetime
Researcher
Sanders co-wrote the single best map of which energy rules are theorems and which are only assumptions.
- Energy conditions in general relativity and quantum field theory (2020) — Co-author of the review that catalogues every energy condition and its current status.
Quantum Wave Mechanics – Larry Reed
Independent researcher publishing on electromagnetic-wave propulsion, gravitics and vacuum engineering
Researcher
Uses the phrase 'vacuum engineering' as an engineering category rather than a metaphor – the fold's own framing.
- Prospects for future technology: EM wave-based propulsion, gravitics and vacuum engineering (2026) — The channel's own stated scope, naming vacuum engineering as a design discipline.
12 · Inertial mass reduction, the Navy patents and transmedium craft
Andrew Neil Aurigema
engineer and named inventor on the Exodus asymmetrical-electrostatic-pressure patents
Proponent
The patents say what the press releases will not: exactly what geometry and voltages the claimed thrust is supposed to come from.
- System and Method for Generating Forces Using Asymmetrical Electrostatic Pressure (2022) — The issued patent behind the Exodus Effect claim - the one document that states the mechanism precisely enough to test.
- System and Method for Generating Forces Using Asymmetrical Electrostatic Pressure (continuation) (2024) — The most recent published application in the family.
Brett Tingley
journalist covering the Navy patent programme through primary documents and FOIA
Journalist
Tingley did the document work, so a reader can start from records rather than from anyone's summary of them.
- The Secretive Inventor Of The Navy's Bizarre 'UFO Patents' Finally Talks (2020) — The only substantial on-record interview with Pais.
- Emails Show Navy's 'UFO' Patents Went Through Significant Internal Review, Resulted In A Demo (2020) — Establishes that the Navy actually reviewed and demonstrated something internally.
- Navy 'UFO Patent' Documents Talk Of 'Spacetime Modification Weapon,' Detail Experimental Testing (2021) — The released testing documents in the Navy's own words.
Charles Buhler
electrostatics physicist, NASA KSC Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory; co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies
Proponent
A career electrostatics specialist arguing electric fields alone can shift a centre of mass - worth following precisely because he knows the conventional explanations.
- The Discovery of Propellantless Propulsion (2024) — The talk that put the Exodus Effect into public circulation.
Friedwardt Winterberg
professor emeritus of physics, University of Nevada Reno; DIRD author on negative-mass propulsion
Researcher
Demonstrates that a serious plasma physicist will engage with the exotic end when asked properly - his fusion-propulsion work belongs to the plasma chapter.
- Negative Mass Propulsion (DIRD #37) (2010) — A conventionally credentialed physicist setting out what negative mass would require to be usable.
- Quarks, magnetic monopoles and negative mass (1975) — Shows the negative-mass thread in his work goes back decades, not to the UAP era.
- The Possibility of Producing a Dense Thermonuclear Plasma by an Intense Field Emission Discharge (1968) — Physical Review - foundational inertial-confinement-fusion work.
All 4 works
- Production of dense thermonuclear plasmas by intense ion beams (1975) — The mainstream fusion side of a career that also produced Planck-aether propulsion papers.
Gregory V. Meholic
propulsion engineer, The Aerospace Corporation; 'three-tier' model of spacetime and faster-than-light travel
Researcher
A working aerospace-corporation engineer publishing a coherent alternative picture of spacetime - useful for readers who want structure rather than slogans.
- A Novel View of Spacetime Permitting Faster-Than-Light Travel (2004) — The three-tier spacetime model that several later propulsion proposals build on.
- Unlabored system motion by specially conditioned electromagnetic fields in higher dimensional realms (2010) — With Froning and Robertson; the field-conditioning idea taken into higher-dimensional geometry.
James Sheehy
Chief Technology Officer, Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAVAIR); signed the letters asserting the Pais patents are operable
Proponent
Sheehy is the named official who told the patent office this was real, which is why the Pais story is a documents story rather than a rumour.
- Navy's Advanced Aerospace Tech Boss Claims Key 'UFO' Patent Is Operable (2019) — The reporting that made Sheehy's assertion of operability public.
- Letter to the USPTO supporting the Pais craft patent (2019) — The Navy's own technology chief formally asserting the invention is enabled - the single fact that makes the Pais patents more than paperwork.
Jeremiah Popp
builder and researcher; APEC co-founder and founder of Join The Technicians
Researcher
Represents the hands-on end of this field: people who build the apparatus and report what the meter said.
- APEC session presentations (2026) — Practical replication work presented to the APEC community.
Kevin H. Knuth
professor of physics, University at Albany (SUNY); former NASA research scientist
Researcher
Insists on measurement and uncertainty where this subject usually offers anecdote - the right model for reading any propulsion claim.
- Estimating Flight Characteristics of Anomalous Unidentified Aerial Vehicles (2019) — With Powell and Reali; puts error bars on the acceleration and power figures instead of quoting them loosely.
- The new science of Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena (UAP) (2025) — A 34-author review in a mainstream aerospace journal - the field's arrival in the ordinary literature.
- The Flight Characteristics and Physics of UAP (2021) — The propulsion-relevant version of the argument: what a craft doing this would have to be doing to inertia.
Nembo Buldrini
research scientist, FOTEC Forschungs- und Technologietransfer GmbH, Wiener Neustadt
Researcher
A professional electric-propulsion metrologist who agreed to test an unorthodox device carefully and publish exactly what the balance did.
- Experimental Results of the Woodward Effect on a µN Thrust Balance (2014) — An independent vacuum test of a device Woodward supplied - a similar force signature an order of magnitude smaller.
- Test of Woodward's MET at the FOTEC (2016) — Presented at the Estes Park Breakthrough Propulsion Workshop.
Paul March
aerospace engineer; Mach-Lorentz thruster experimenter and NASA Eagleworks team member
Proponent
The bench engineer of the Mach-effect line - he has posted more real torsion-balance data in public than almost anyone in this directory.
- Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum (2014) — Co-author of the NASA Eagleworks measurement.
- The Woodward Effect (STAIF) (2006) — With Andrew Palfreyman; an engineer's route into Mach-effect thrust for people who build rather than derive.
Roger Shawyer / Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd (EmDrive)
aerospace engineer; originator of the EmDrive tapered-cavity thruster
Proponent
Whatever the verdict, the EmDrive is why precision thrust balances got built - it forced the field to learn how to measure micronewtons honestly.
- EmDrive: Advances in Spacecraft Thrusters and Propulsion Systems (2023) — The full account of the tapered-cavity design, the flight thruster and the superconducting version, in his own words.
- A Theory of Microwave Propulsion for Spacecraft (2006) — The founding technical paper, still the reference every replication attempt is measured against.
Salvatore Cezar Pais
aerospace engineer and inventor; author of the US Navy "Pais effect" patents
Proponent
Whatever you conclude about them, these patents are the clearest public statement of a working hypothesis that vacuum polarisation, high-frequency gravitational waves and inertia are one engineering problem.
- Craft using an inertial mass reduction device (2018) — Granted 2018-12-04, assignee US Department of Navy: a vibrating, electrically charged resonant cavity said to reduce inertial mass by polarising the vacuum.
- High frequency gravitational wave generator (2019) — Granted 2019-06-18, assignee US Department of Navy: the patent that ties this programme directly to high-frequency gravitational-wave physics.
- Electromagnetic field generator and method to generate an electromagnetic field (2018) — Granted 2018-11-20: the spinning, accelerating charged-shell device the other patents build on.
All 10 works
- Piezoelectricity-induced High Temperature Superconductor (2019) — Application (abandoned): room-temperature superconductivity by mechanical stress, the enabling component for the rest.
- Plasma Compression Fusion Device (2019) — The fusion application that completes the patent family and drew the widest attention.
- The high energy electromagnetic field generator (2015) — The peer-reviewed statement of the 'Pais effect' mechanism.
- A hybrid craft using an inertial mass modification device (2017) — The AIAA version, useful for seeing the claim stated to an aerospace audience.
- Inertial Mass Reduction Device (Navy Case PAX 205, FOIA release) (2021) — The Navy's own released file, including the internal assessment that the effect could not be demonstrated.
- The Plasma Compression Fusion Device - Enabling Nuclear Fusion Ignition (2019) — Peer-reviewed in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science - the least-known and most checkable of the Pais outputs.
- Room Temperature Superconducting System for use on a Hybrid Aerospace-Undersea Craft (2019) — AIAA paper matching the most discussed of the Navy patents.
Tim Ventura
founder of American Antigravity and Alt Propulsion; chair of the APEC conference
Journalist
The field's interviewer of record - the fastest way to hear a researcher explain their own work in their own words.
- Alt Propulsion interview archive (2026) — Sustained, sympathetic but technical interviews with nearly everyone in this directory.
- American Antigravity (2003-present) (2003) — The original archive of lifter, Biefeld-Brown and field-propulsion interviews, now folded into Alt Propulsion.
- APEC 1/17: Quantum Vacuum Engineering, LENR, & the FlameJet Generator (2026) — Session page listing the speakers on vacuum engineering and LENR.
All 5 works
- APEC 3/14: Space-Time, ZPE & Warp-Assisted Hypersonics (2026) — Session pairing zero-point energy with hypersonics work.
- APEC 8/29: Exodus Propellantless Propulsion & Quantized Inertia (2026) — The Exodus and quantised-inertia session, with abstracts.
Tyler Rogoway
editor-in-chief, The War Zone; co-author on the Navy patent investigations
Journalist
Rogoway's outlet is where the primary documents in this story were first published, which makes it a source rather than a commentary.
- Docs Show Navy Got 'UFO' Patent Granted By Warning Of Similar Chinese Tech Advances (2019) — Shows the argument the Navy actually used to get the patent through.
- Scientist Behind The Navy's 'UFO Patents' Has Now Filed One For A Compact Fusion Reactor (2019) — Connects the metric-engineering patents to the fusion patent in the same family.
Exodus Propulsion Technologies
propulsion research firm claiming a patented electrostatic 'Exodus Effect' propellantless thruster
Company
The most concrete current claim that asymmetric electrostatic pressure alone can move a mass - a claim that will be settled by an orbital test, not an argument.
- The Discovery of Propellantless Propulsion: The Direct Conversion of Electrical Energy into Physical Thrust (2024) — The APEC presentation in which Buhler stated the team had exceeded one Earth gravity with no propellant.
- T-Blade Thruster prototype programme (2026) — The current hardware line, described as showing stable repeatable operation in vacuum.
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Germany's national aerospace, energy and transport research centre, and the national space agency, with its own propulsion institutes and funding lines
Researcher
The European counterpart to look at when tracing whether an advanced propulsion idea has any national-agency support outside the United States.
- DLR institutes and facilities across aeronautics, space and energy (2026) — DLR both performs research and administers national space funding, so it appears on both sides of the advanced-propulsion question in Europe.
IVO Limited (Quantum Drive)
satellite-thruster company building a propellantless electric drive on quantised-inertia principles
Company
The first company to put a vacuum-interaction thruster on a real rocket, which is how a physics claim becomes an engineering question.
- IVO Quantum Drive - pure electric satellite thruster (2023) — The first propellantless drive built on quantised inertia to reach a launch manifest.
- Barry-1 orbital demonstration (with Rogue Space Systems) (2023) — The flight ended without a drive test when the host satellite's power system failed - the honest state of the evidence.
Mark Sokol / Falcon Space
independent propulsion laboratory in Hawthorne, New Jersey; APEC co-founder
Researcher
Shows what independent replication actually looks like week to week - the antidote to reading only finished papers.
- Falcon Space replication test series (2026) — Open-lab replications of propulsion claims, including dynamic nuclear polarisation experiments, filmed with the failures left in.
NASA Eagleworks (Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory)
small NASA Johnson Space Center laboratory that tested quantum-vacuum and RF-cavity propulsion concepts
Researcher
A rare case of a national space agency funding this question directly - and publishing results that others could then refute or confirm.
- Eagleworks Laboratories: Advanced Propulsion Physics Research (2011) — The founding prospectus for testing vacuum-interaction propulsion inside NASA.
- Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device (2014) — The measurement that put this whole subject into mainstream aerospace conversation.
- Warp Field Mechanics 101 (2011) — Harold White's reformulation of the Alcubierre metric to cut the required energy, presented as a NASA document.
All 5 works
- Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum (2014) — Brady, White and March - the EmDrive result that started the modern propellantless-thrust argument.
- Human Outer Solar System Exploration via Q-Thruster Technology (2014) — Joosten and White - mission design assuming quantum-vacuum thrusters work.
Rogue Space Systems
in-space logistics company; flew the Barry-1 satellite carrying the IVO Quantum Drive
Company
Shows what it actually takes to fly an unorthodox propulsion test, and what happens when the bus fails before the experiment starts.
- Barry-1 mission (SpaceX Transporter-9) (2023) — The host spacecraft for the first attempted orbital test of a quantised-inertia thruster.
UnLAB / Charles Chase
advanced-propulsion research lab founded by a former Lockheed Skunk Works engineer; coherent matter-wave beams and vacuum-fluctuation propulsion
Company
A Skunk-Works-trained engineer chasing thrust from asymmetric potentials in semiconductor devices - the most hardware-literate version of this idea.
- Systems and Methods for Generating Coherent Matterwave Beams (2016) — With Moe Arman; a laser-analogue for massive particles, filed while both were at Lockheed Martin.
- Advanced Propulsion and Energy IV (2022) proceedings (2022) — The lab's own workshop record on resonant-tunnelling-diode and vacuum-fluctuation propulsion.