Electrogravitics, Electrokinetics & Propellantless Propulsion

November 14, 2026
|In Biefeld-Brown
|By Tim Ventura

Does the B-2 bomber use electrogravitic propulsion? In his APEC presentation, engineer Tom Valone examines Paul LaViolette’s controversial hypothesis that high-voltage electrical fields contribute to the stealth bomber’s performance. From Townsend Brown’s early experiments to ion-driven lifters, pulsed capacitors, and plasma-controlled airflow, Valone traces a century of electrical propulsion research—exploring the engineering behind the claims and what these technologies could mean for future aircraft and spacecraft.

What are Electrogravitics & Electrokinetics?

Valone’s presentation brings together research he’s spent decades collecting and interpreting. His edited volumes, Electrogravitics Systems and Electrogravitics II, assemble historical reports, patents, experimental accounts, and competing explanations for electrically generated forces. His 2012 SPESIF paper, “Electrokinetics as a Propellantless Propulsion Source,” develops the theoretical connections, while his 2015 “Review of Electrogravitics & Electrokinetics Propulsion” expands the discussion. Presented at APEC on May 1, 2021, the talk is less an announcement of one invention than an attempt to connect a collection of observations into a coherent research program.

An important distinction appears near the beginning. Electrogravitics is difficult to define, Valone acknowledges, because many of the devices under discussion don’t demonstrate a clear effect on gravity itself. In his terminology, electrogravitics concerns a proposed relationship between electricity, mass, and gravitational behavior. Electrokinetics is broader: it describes electrically produced motion that needn’t involve changing gravity. That distinction matters because an apparatus can rise from a workbench, deflect a balance, or accelerate through air without demonstrating that its gravitational mass has changed.

“Propellantless” requires similar care. An atmospheric electrical thruster might carry no propellant tank because it uses the surrounding air. A conventional spacecraft ion engine, by contrast, accelerates and expels stored material. A device proposed to operate in vacuum without either process presents a different experimental challenge. Likewise, eliminating propellers or other moving propulsion components doesn’t eliminate the need to account for momentum. A machine can be mechanically simple while its electrical discharge and interaction with the environment remain complicated.

Valone’s presentation therefore spans three distinct engineering possibilities: generating thrust through a surrounding fluid, changing airflow over an aerodynamic surface, and producing a claimed force within a capacitor or other electrically excited assembly. Each demands different evidence. A lifter calls for measurements of force, current, and air motion. A plasma-controlled wing requires aerodynamic measurements. A proposed vacuum thruster requires isolation from external forces and a complete accounting of the apparatus. The question isn’t merely whether something moves, but what moves it.

Townsend Brown’s High-Voltage Experiments

The historical starting point is Thomas Townsend Brown, whose reported observations of a force on an energized Coolidge tube led to increasingly elaborate high-voltage experiments. His British patent 300,311 appeared in 1928, followed by “How I Control Gravitation” in Science and Invention in 1929. One illustration reproduced in Valone’s 2012 paper shows two 44-pound masses separated by a glass insulating rod and suspended for observation. The drawing labels the electrical supply at 120 kilovolts: approximately 20 kilograms at each end of an assembly subjected to an enormous potential difference.

What particularly interests Valone isn’t simply Brown’s report that the apparatus moved toward its positive end. It’s the timing. Brown described experiments using 75–300 kilovolts in which the suspended assembly reached its maximum displacement in less than five seconds, then returned toward its starting position over approximately 30–80 seconds—even while the voltage remained applied. A steady voltage didn’t produce the steady displacement Brown expected. For Valone, that transient response points toward the electrical events occurring during charging, rather than voltage alone, as a possible clue to the mechanism.

By the 1950s, the subject had attracted attention beyond Brown’s laboratory. Valone highlights the 1952 Office of Naval Research inquiry into Brown’s device and the 1956 Aviation Studies reports, Electrogravitics Systems and The Gravitics Situation. Those documents preserve the period’s ambitions, including electrically propelled aircraft and demands for improved dielectric materials. In the presentation, Valone describes interest in relative dielectric constants of roughly 5,000 or higher. From an engineering standpoint, that ambition immediately raises additional questions about insulation thickness, dielectric losses, breakdown strength, and the weight of the required high-voltage equipment.

Brown’s later work, including experiments with Agnew Bahnson, increasingly used the language of electrokinetics. His 1960 “Electrokinetic Apparatus” patent and subsequent designs explored asymmetric electrodes, shaped surfaces, and forces involving a dielectric medium. The hardware moved beyond heavy suspended masses into disc-shaped devices and rotating experimental assemblies. This evolution connects the early gravitational interpretation with a more tangible engineering proposition: electrical fields can produce motion through their interaction with the surrounding medium. Whether a particular device can also operate without that medium remains a separate question.

Building Lifters on the Back Porch

The presentation becomes especially concrete when Valone plays footage from American Antigravity’s early lifter experiments. Lightweight structures rise above a backyard deck, held within a limited operating area by restraints. In the accompanying discussion, APEC host Tim Ventura identifies a three-foot lifter built while he lived in Seattle and describes several four-foot versions. The largest structure he built measured nine feet, but the largest that flew well measured four feet. That distinction captures a familiar experimental reality: increasing dimensions doesn’t automatically preserve performance.

The electrical supply was a major constraint. Ventura recalled using an Information Unlimited power supply rated at 50 kilovolts, with measurements suggesting that the lifters often operated around 30 kilovolts. Their behavior varied with temperature, humidity, and air pressure. These weren’t precision aircraft operating under tightly controlled conditions, but experimental structures whose performance depended on the discharge and available electrical power. The voltage rating alone didn’t establish the power delivered to the device; current, leakage, and the behavior of the load also mattered.

Small construction changes made noticeable differences. Ventura described testing different corona wires before obtaining 50-gauge stainless-steel wire from Bob Iannini. In his experience, the fine stainless wire operated more smoothly than copper, which produced more noise and visible glow. Those observations weren’t presented as a controlled materials comparison, but they identify practical variables that deserve measurement: electrode diameter, surface condition, discharge uniformity, and changes during operation. A lifter may look like little more than foil and wire, yet its electrical behavior depends heavily on the details of that wire.

The restraints were another frequently misunderstood feature. “We weren’t tying it up, we were tying it down,” Ventura explained. Threads, and sometimes fishing line, limited the upward travel; electrical leads approached from the side with enough slack to allow movement. Typical operation was four to six feet above the deck, with occasional greater heights becoming harder to stabilize. The devices demonstrated genuine lift, but the power supply remained external. Turning that demonstration into an independent aircraft would require carrying the energy source, voltage converter, insulation, and controls without exhausting the available lifting capacity.

What Actually Produces the Force?

An atmospheric lifter usually combines a very fine electrode with a much larger collector, often a foil surface. The small radius of the wire concentrates the electric field, allowing a corona discharge to develop near it. Charged particles then move through the surrounding gas and transfer momentum to neutral molecules through collisions. The resulting airflow is commonly called ion wind. Its engineering significance isn’t diminished by the name: the important questions are how much thrust it produces, how much electrical power it requires, and how effectively the geometry directs the momentum.

The Army Research Laboratory’s investigation by Thomas Bahder and Chris Fazi illustrates why explanations of the effect have sometimes appeared contradictory. Their report compared a ballistic ionic-wind estimate with an ionic-drift treatment. The ballistic estimate fell far below the observed force. Read in isolation, that result can sound like a rejection of ion-mediated propulsion. But the report also found that using ionic mobility produced the correct force scale and called for a more complete plasma model.

One numerical example makes the difference clear. Using a current of one milliampere and a four-centimeter electrode separation, the report’s electron-drift calculation produced about 0.00064 newton, equivalent to supporting only 0.064 gram under its rounded gravity assumption. Substituting an ionic mobility gave approximately 0.16 newton, enough for about 16 grams. These are calculated estimates, not payload specifications. Their importance is that the assumed charge transport changes the predicted force by roughly a factor of 250.

A separate 2004 NASA contractor report found its atmospheric measurements consistent with ions undergoing repeated collisions with air and transferring momentum. This supports a distinction that runs throughout the subject: an inadequate model of ion motion doesn’t necessarily imply a new gravitational interaction. The surrounding gas is part of the propulsion system, not merely empty space between electrodes. Atmospheric lifters can therefore be both impressive demonstrations and understandable electrical-fluid devices, without settling the different claims made for pulsed solid-dielectric systems or operation in vacuum.

The B-2 Bomber Story—and Paul LaViolette’s Contribution

The B-2 discussion begins with a documentary trail rather than an exposed propulsion system. On March 9, 1992, William B. Scott reported in Aviation Week & Space Technology on technologies described by people associated with classified research. The article included claims about electrically altering exhaust signatures and electrostatic techniques associated with aircraft leading edges. Paul LaViolette subsequently developed the electrogravitic interpretation that Valone discusses. In his letter to Jesse Michels, Valone explicitly credits LaViolette’s contribution, identifying a 1993 diagram and the B-2 analysis included in his original 1994 collection.

The proposed arrangement treated the aircraft as an electrically active structure. A positively charged leading edge would interact with air ahead of the wing, while negatively charged exhaust would extend the charge separation behind it. Flame-jet generators were proposed as a way of maintaining the electrical conditions, and high-dielectric materials appeared in the interpretation. Depending on the explanation, the anticipated benefits included thrust, altered airflow, reduced signatures, or gravitational effects. Those functions aren’t interchangeable: showing that a field affects air or exhaust wouldn’t, by itself, show that it reduces the aircraft’s weight.

The hypothesis reached a wider aviation audience in January 2000, when Bill Gunston discussed it in Air International. The supplied page depicts positively ionized air around the B-2’s forward surfaces and negatively charged air in its exhaust. Its text names LaViolette, while the magazine illustration is credited to Mike Badrocke/AIR International. Valone’s later letter emphasizes that LaViolette’s work preceded this treatment. The distinction is important: LaViolette developed the interpretation, Valone helped circulate it, and the magazine supplied its own published rendering. That establishes an intellectual history, not an operational demonstration.

Valone also recounts a Department of Energy acquaintance’s report of seeing a blue glow along a B-2’s leading edge at night. He interpreted the observation as evidence of a leading-edge ionizer. But the account supplies no electrical measurements, calibrated optical data, or direct identification of the hardware. The same limitation applies to the claimed uranium-oxide dielectric discussed in the presentation: it isn’t established by a material analysis in the supplied sources. The B-2 story remains compelling as a proposed application, but its technical claims require evidence beyond diagrams, recollections, and repeated reporting.

Shaping Airflow with Plasma

Electrical airflow control provides a more direct connection between the historical ideas and experimental aerospace engineering. Valone shows a comparison between a wing model at zero applied voltage and an energized condition at approximately 17,000 volts. He describes the latter as producing more orderly, laminar airflow and reducing drag. The contrast is visually suggestive, but the supplied material doesn’t identify the original experiment well enough to establish its operating conditions or quantify a drag reduction. It does, however, introduce an important possibility: electricity can influence flight without supplying all of the aircraft’s propulsive force.

Separate NASA-sponsored research explains how such control can work. Surface dielectric-barrier-discharge actuators use electrodes and an insulating layer to produce plasma near an aerodynamic surface. Alan Hoskinson’s research, published as a 2012 NASA report, examined discharges forming and decaying on nanosecond timescales within much longer voltage cycles. The device applies a time-averaged force to nearby air. Rather than lifting an aircraft directly, an actuator can influence the thin region of flow near a surface, where changes may affect separation and the behavior of the larger airflow.

Another 2012 NASA report, by Dmitry Opaits, investigated nanosecond pulses combined with a direct-current bias. The short pulses generated plasma, while the bias primarily drove the gas, allowing the two functions to be adjusted independently. A major limitation was charge accumulating on the dielectric surface. The investigated remedies included reversing the bias, adding a third electrode, and using slightly conductive dielectrics or semiconducting coatings. These are specific engineering problems involving charge management, waveform design, and materials—not evidence that gravity has been altered.

For aircraft applications, the distinction between smoother-looking flow and improved performance is crucial. Reattaching separated flow isn’t necessarily the same as making a turbulent boundary layer laminar. A useful actuator must deliver a measurable benefit in lift, drag, or control authority at a known airspeed, while accounting for electrical input and integration costs. Dielectric durability, heating, environmental sensitivity, and ozone generation also deserve attention. Plasma flow control can be valuable on its own terms; it doesn’t need an antigravity interpretation, nor does its existence establish that a particular system was installed on the B-2.

Why Valone Thinks Pulses Matter

The theoretical center of Valone’s presentation is his connection between Brown’s transient behavior and Oleg Jefimenko’s treatment of electromagnetic induction. In Causality, Electromagnetic Induction and Gravitation, Jefimenko describes an electric-field contribution associated with changing current. Valone sees that description as a possible explanation for why certain reported devices respond strongly when switched on but don’t maintain the same behavior under a steady voltage. The connection is Valone’s interpretation of Jefimenko’s work, rather than an independently demonstrated propulsion result from Jefimenko.

In Valone’s analysis, the apparatus must be described in more detail than a voltage reading can provide. Parallel-plate geometry, plate width and spacing, dielectric properties, and the rate at which current changes all enter the proposed explanation. A rapid surge is expected to produce a stronger transient response than a slowly changing current. “The faster the current surges into those plates, the more force you’re going to get,” he tells the audience. For an experimenter, that makes rise time, pulse width, repetition rate, and the discharge path essential measurements.

Valone also explores waveform shaping, including the sharply rising and more slowly declining pulses discussed in the Schlicher propulsion patent. His 2012 paper proposes arrangements intended to favor one force direction during much of a cycle. The engineering question is whether the complete cycle delivers a net impulse. Duration alone can’t answer it: a short, strong opposing force can cancel a longer, weaker force. Any useful comparison must account for the charging phase, discharge phase, and the return to the starting electrical condition—not just the most favorable portion of the waveform.

There’s a second distinction between calculating a force on charges and demonstrating propulsion of the complete apparatus. Electrodes, dielectric material, connecting wires, the supply, and electromagnetic fields all participate in the interaction. A measured force on one component may be balanced elsewhere. Standard induction physics supplies a real mechanism for transient forces, but it doesn’t by itself establish a new source of whole-system momentum. Valone’s proposal becomes experimentally consequential at precisely that boundary: can a complete, isolated assembly produce a reproducible net force after the entire electrical cycle is accounted for?

Water-Filled Capacitors and Related Experiments

Rudolf Zinsser’s experiments are one reason Valone finds the pulsed approach worth pursuing. Zinsser used conducting electrodes immersed in water and connected to a pulse generator, with a balance employed to detect a reported mechanical response. Valone describes operation around 100 kilohertz, while his paper cites accounts of pulses lasting only a few nanoseconds and notes water’s relative dielectric constant of approximately 80. The reported force persisted after excitation stopped. Valone links that behavior to Brown’s transient observations and cites Walter Peschka’s analysis assigning the device a performance figure of six newtons per watt.

James Woodward’s work represents a different approach. Instead of relying on atmospheric discharge, the experiments discussed by Valone combine capacitors with carefully timed mechanical motion, including piezoelectric elements. His 2012 review describes historical configurations using 0.01-microfarad capacitors, frequencies around 50 kilohertz, and voltages below three kilovolts, with reported forces in the micronewton range. These aren’t specifications for a single current device. They illustrate the timing problem at the heart of the proposed mechanism: coordinating electrical excitation and physical motion in a way intended to produce a net effect.

Takaaki Musha’s experiments add another configuration. Valone describes an oil-insulated arrangement involving thin copper conductors, a metal vessel, a high-voltage supply, and an electronic balance. His paper refers to an 18-kilovolt field-producing supply; the presentation discusses eight trials for each polarity and apparent weight changes amounting to fractions of a gram. Valone is notably cautious about the result, calling the weight loss “very small and possibly debatable.” That caution matters because a change in a balance reading doesn’t, on its own, identify a change in gravitational mass.

The performance comparisons also need careful interpretation. Valone contrasts the reported six newtons per watt for Zinsser’s apparatus with approximately 0.016 newton per watt for a DC-9 jet engine. But newtons per watt is a force-to-power ratio, not a percentage efficiency, and the operating conditions differ fundamentally. A static balance measurement, a brief impulse, and an engine sustaining an aircraft in flight aren’t directly interchangeable. The comparison needs measurement duration, average input power, stored energy, vehicle speed, and total apparatus mass. Those details determine whether an intriguing number represents a useful propulsion advantage.

The Vacuum Test

Moving from atmospheric experiments to spacecraft applications changes the burden of measurement. Valone discusses Jonathan Campbell’s NASA-associated capacitor designs, including patent 6,317,310, and Hector Serrano’s proposed layered capacitor arrangement. The drawings offer alternative electrode geometries and ways of organizing the dielectric. They establish what was proposed, not what was independently demonstrated in space-like conditions. Valone himself acknowledges that he hasn’t seen a report verifying Serrano’s performance. For a vacuum application, the decisive evidence must come from a force measurement that survives removal of the atmospheric interaction.

The 2004 NASA contractor study by Francis Canning, Cory Melcher, and Edwin Winet provides a useful comparison. Tests reached 50 kilovolts, with pressure initially reduced below 0.0001 Torr. Apart from one event, the tested devices showed no rotation below 300 Torr. The authors also stated that their apparatus wasn’t optimized for very small forces and didn’t use a sensitive torsion pendulum. The result therefore constrains those configurations and that measurement approach; it isn’t a measurement of every possible pulsed-capacitor design.

The exception occurred at 44 kilovolts and approximately 0.000055 Torr. A large arc coincided with about one-eighth of a rotation, after which the device stopped. The authors suggested ejected material as the likely cause. Separately, NASA’s barrel-shaped asymmetric-capacitor report recorded no performance in hard vacuum. Together, these results underline why a brief movement during an electrical discharge must be distinguished from sustained propulsion. A vacuum test can still involve expelled electrode material, released contaminants, or electrical interaction with the apparatus around it.

A stronger test of Valone’s specific pulsed hypothesis would record voltage, current, pressure, temperature, and force together, with sufficient bandwidth to resolve the pulse. It would characterize supply-lead forces, electrostatic coupling to the chamber, mechanical vibration, heating, and material loss. Reversing the device’s orientation and comparing it with electrically and thermally matched controls would help separate a directional signal from an artifact. The objective isn’t to demand a spectacular demonstration first. It’s to identify a small effect whose behavior remains consistent when the most plausible alternative explanations are deliberately tested.

From Demonstration to Useful Propulsion

A separate achievement shows how far the atmospheric branch can progress. In 2018, MIT researchers demonstrated sustained flight of an electroaerodynamic aircraft with a five-meter wingspan and a mass of approximately five pounds. It carried lithium-polymer batteries and a lightweight converter supplying 40,000 volts to its electrodes. The team repeated flights across a 60-meter indoor space ten times. Published in Nature, the work went beyond a tethered lifter by carrying the electrical system aboard the aircraft. It accelerated surrounding air; it didn’t demonstrate gravity modification or reactionless flight.

That transition identifies the real system-level challenge. Producing enough force to lift a lightweight electrode structure is one milestone; supporting the equipment that generates that force is another. Batteries, voltage conversion, insulation, wiring, supports, and controls all consume the available mass allowance. Electrode area must also fit into an airframe without imposing unacceptable drag or structural penalties. The practical questions concern thrust density, endurance, reliability, and performance across operating conditions—not simply whether a bare laboratory device can move when connected to an external supply.

The research consequently separates into complementary paths. Atmospheric electrical propulsion and plasma flow control can be developed through measured improvements in aerodynamic performance and electrical efficiency. Pulsed solid-dielectric and vacuum devices first need a repeatable force with a well-characterized origin. Keeping those paths distinct helps both. Researchers can improve useful electrical-fluid technology without claiming gravitational control, while investigating unusual signals without treating every successful ion-wind demonstration as proof of a different mechanism.

Valone closes his presentation by arguing that asymmetric capacitors driven with pulsed current deserve more attention. The most productive response is an experiment precise enough to make that recommendation testable: documented geometry, measured waveforms, a complete power budget, controlled environmental conditions, and force data another laboratory can reproduce. Brown’s early apparatus raised questions that still attract inventors and engineers. Answering them now requires less dependence on persuasive drawings or striking demonstrations and more attention to the complete machine. High voltage can already move air. The next advance depends on showing exactly what else it can do.

References

Tom Valone’s Presentation and Publications

Townsend Brown and the Historical Record

Asymmetric Capacitors, Ion Wind, and Vacuum Testing

  • Force on an Asymmetric Capacitor — Thomas B. Bahder and Chris Fazi. Army Research Laboratory Technical Report ARL-TR-3005, June 2003; preprint first submitted in 2002. Includes experimental observations and comparisons of ballistic ionic-wind and ionic-drift models.
  • Asymmetrical Capacitors for Propulsion — Francis X. Canning, Cory Melcher, and Edwin Winet. NASA/CR-2004-213312, October 2004. Experimental investigation of thrust, electrical behavior, and operation at atmospheric and reduced pressures.
  • NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Barrel-Shaped Asymmetrical Capacitor — Jonathan W. Campbell and colleagues. NASA/TM-2004-213283, June 2004. Testing of a barrel-shaped capacitor propulsion device, including hard-vacuum results.

The B-2 Bomber and Paul LaViolette’s Interpretation

Electromagnetic Theory and Pulsed-Propulsion Patents

Plasma Flow Control and Electroaerodynamic Flight