Anti-Gravity, Aliens, the Spectacle and the Veil

ZERO-POINT
THE STORY OF MARK MCCANDLISH AND THE FLUX LINER
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Film
and Television at The Savannah College of Art and Design

December 2012, James Allen Higgins

The author hereby grants SCAD permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic
thesis copies of document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created.

Signature of Author and Date _________________________________________________________________

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Committee Chair

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Michael Chaney_________________________________________________________/___/_____________
Committee Member

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Anti-Gravity, Aliens, the Spectacle and the Veil

ZERO-POINT
the Story of Mark McCandlish and the Flux Liner

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Film and Television Department

in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Degree of Masters of Fine Arts
Savannah College of Art and Design
by

James Allen Higgins

Savannah, Georgia
December 2012

ii

Table of Contents

List of Figures....................................................................................................................... 1
Abstract ................................................................................................................................ 2
Part I. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 4
Part II. Two Journeys .......................................................................................................... 5
Part III. The Weight of Evidence as Transformative Catalyst ...................................... 16
Part IV. The Spectacle and the Veil .................................................................................. 26
Part V. Perspective and the Boundaries of Reason ........................................................ 31
Part VI. Mechanics and Processes of Translation ........................................................... 40
Part VII. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 46
Works Cited .......................................................................................................................... 48
Appendices ........................................................................................................................... 49

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List of Figures

Page 6:

fig. 1 Two of McCandlishs illustrations for military hardware

Page 7:

fig. 2 McCandlishs illustration of the Flux Liner vehicle

Page 10:

fig. 3 Information text callout on the margin of McCandlishs ARV blueprint

Page 11:

fig. 4 McCandlishs blueprint of the Flux Liner and its display at the 2001 NPC event.

Page 14:

fig. 5 USAF Pilot Harvey Williams 1966 photograph of a (possibly man-made) UFO

Page 20:

fig. 6 A 1967 patent by J.F. King for a Magnetohydrodynamic Propulsion Apparatus

Page 22:

fig. 7 A graphical depiction of Alcubierres warp drive theory

Page 27:

fig. 8 Jesse Venturas Conspiracy Theory featuring a rendition of the ARV

Page 36:

fig. 9 T. Townsend Brown field-testing his electrokinetic disks, Paris 1957

Page 40:

fig. 10 - Brad Sorensens original sketch and McCandlishs finished blueprint

Page 44:

fig. 11 McCandlishs ARV blueprint and the CGI version created for the film.

Anti-Gravity, Aliens, the Spectacle and the Veil

ZERO-POINT
THE STORY OF MARK MCCANDLISH AND THE FLUX LINER

James Allen Higgins

This thesis is an exploration into several extreme and compelling scientific concepts through the
perspective of one mans unusual journey, and an argument for both documentary film work
and technical illustration as potentially dramatic transformative processes for both
documentarian and illustrator. By undertaking a thorough investigative documentary film
about the life and later work of Mark McCandlish, an American illustrator thrust onto the
international stage in 2001, it asks pointed questions about the subscription to various
probabilities in controversial topics such as: the possibility of interstellar travel and associated
technologies (including extraterrestrial UFOs), development of extremely advanced and
heretofore undisclosed applied sciences, and the potential reality of a limitless free energy
source as proven by contemporary discoveries in quantum physics. The work thoroughly
explores the concepts themselves and addresses cultural and psychological aspects of these
phenomena. McCandlishs story, combined with a detailed exploration of the mysterious Flux
Liner anti-gravity vehicle, serves as an armature and perceptual framing device for the films
survey into these disparate but interrelated topics as it chronicles a unique discovery process
from the early 1980s to the present.
It is also a study in the use of the film/video and visual effects mediums to potentially further
the vast research being undertaken in these areas; provide illustration, distillation and
perspective on several unconventional concepts, and perhaps serve as some minor element of
disclosure to the public at large.

James Allen Higgins

December, 2012

Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic? If static our hopes are in vain; if
kinetic and this we know it is, for certain then it is a mere question of time when men will
succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
- Nikola Tesla

the technical development of the electrogravitic reaction would usher in a new age of speed and
power and of revolutionary new methods of transportation and communication. Theoretical
considerations would predict that, because of the privilege of sustained acceleration, top limits of
speed may be raised far beyond those of jet propulsion or rocket drive, with possibilities eventually
of approaching the speed of light in "free space".
- Thomas Townsend Brown

reduced-time interstellar travel, either by advanced extraterrestrial civilizations at present or

ourselves in the future, is not, as naive consideration might hold, fundamentally constrained by
physical principles.
- Dr. Harold Puthoff, Ph.D.

I. Introduction and Authors Note

Maybe

25 years ago (longer than I like to ponder), I had a conversation with a couple of

acquaintances about UFOs. The details are fuzzy but the gist of one of their anecdotes was this:
one night while the young couple was camping in the American southwest, they were stargazing and saw something unusual an odd light above the horizon. They watched as it moved
slowly in the distance and stopped to hover for a few minutes over the desert. Then, as the
young man put it, it shot away in a perfectly straight line as he gestured with his arm. This
description was very matter-of-fact, far from attempting to elicit drama; a simple recounting of
a pivotal moment in his life. His girlfriend then corroborated the event. I believed them
(accepting a guileless, straightforward account of the fantastic at face value) and conjured up a
visual of his story. It was a fascinating, euphoric and compelling image with no precedent in
anything Id ever experienced or imagined. Planes and helicopters dont float around, hover
and shoot off in straight lines at incredible speeds. I figured: theyd probably seen an alien craft.
Why not?
It was at that point I began thinking about extraterrestrial visitation with a bit more openmindedness and, for lack of a better word, belief. That conversation from the dim past has
surfaced in memory many times over the years (especially during the course of this thesis
project) as Ive struggled to illustrate rarefied theories regarding just how that object could
perform such an unbelievable feat of aerobatics. With the help of the interview subject of this
documentary film, I believe I may have found some plausible answers and more. Its been a
fascinating and very challenging learning curve.
Lots of people believe some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. Mark
McCandlish may have found out how their engines work.
Which could be important.

II.

Two Journeys

Mark McCandlishs and my own path crossed in the winter of 2010. At that point, Mark had
been out of the international spotlight for almost a decade and settled into a relatively quiet,
low-key life, though he remained (and remains) a famous individual in some spheres. Id been
pursuing casual research into the areas of UFOs and secret technology for around a year while
working through the MFA program in film. We met through LinkedIn, one of the numerous
networking tubes that make up the Internet, and began a correspondence. What began as an
impromptu collaboration on a screenplay evolved into a long-term partnership between two
artists on either side of the continent, both attempting to further their understanding of several
interrelated realms of science, speculation and mystery, and to translate and communicate these
concepts through the mediums of documentary film and visual effects.
"Zero-Point: the Story of Mark McCandlish and the Flux Liner" is a feature-length documentary
focusing on a radical, newly discovered energy source and associated technology, and an
individual who has researched (and generated detailed renderings of) one particular spacecraft
design utilizing related applied science for many years. Specifically, a vehicle employing a
radically different means of propulsive force: electromagnetic or field propulsion as opposed
to solid or jet fuel, nuclear power, or any other commonly known conventional systems. Using
this example of heretofore-undisclosed technology as a focal point, the film is an exploration of
McCandlish's particular odyssey beginning in the early 1980's, as he pursued a career path as an
aeronautical illustrator with great success before suddenly transitioning, late in the decade, into
a far more radical breed of designer and quantum physics sleuth.
McCandlishs Life-Changing Detour
A native of California, McCandlish demonstrated a passionate creativity in painting, drawing
and design from his childhood. He began pursuing a career in technical illustration at the Art
Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA in the late 1970s. By the early to mid-1980's, after a
brief stint in the Hollywood special effects industry, McCandlish's career as an aeronautical and
technical illustrator gained formidable traction as he accumulated a client list including the US
Air Force, Rockwell International, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and respected periodicals such as
Popular Science and Aviation Week magazines. He became well versed in conceptual design at

the highest levels of the US military/industrial and aerospace programs, and his work appeared
regularly in numerous national publications, trade journals, military contract proposals and
corporate reports. He was commissioned for various projects on the cutting edge of aerospace
design, and often called upon to generate classified and highly proprietary material.
Working solely in traditional media, one of his specialties was extremely detailed cutaway
views of precision technology (fig. 1) a skillset which would become a determining factor in
the strange direction his life would take.

fig. 1 Two of McCandlishs illustrations for military hardware

He had a full slate of high-profile projects and had become a very sought-after and respected
talent in a very crowded field of designers and artists, pulling down an enviable salary as a
freelancer. He was on a first-name professional basis with some of the heaviest hitters in the
aircraft design industry, collaborating with such luminaries as Burt Rutan of Scaled
Composites, jet-fighter test pilots and the editors-in chief of top trade periodicals in the
aerospace industry.

Generally, things were going very well for McCandlish the

artist/illustrator.
Then, in the autumn of 1988, things took a serious turn for the weird.
Following the impassioned recounting of an extraordinary experience by a colleague, he began
researching and delineating the details of the 'Flux Liner' (fig. 2) a bizarre vehicle, still
shrouded in mystery, apparently jointly developed by the US military and Lockheed Martin,
and possibly deployed in some form since the 1960's.

fig. 2

According to McCandlish's source, an old Art Center College friend named Brad Sorensen, this
craft (one of 3 of varying sizes) was on display at a top-secret air show on Saturday, November
12th, 1988, at a Lockheed Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, CA. The peculiar circumstances of
Sorensens admittance to the classified show are detailed in the film, so here suffice to say his
access as a civilian was a major security breach.
Cordoned off from a main viewing area where numerous black-budget prototype aircraft were
on display such as stealth, conceptual hovercrafts and far-supersonic planes, these vehicles
were seen levitating off the floor, nearly silent and without any visible means of support,
apparently the result of their radical propulsion system tapping into the zero-point or scalar
electromagnetic energy field. This was reflected in the vehicles nickname the Flux Liner
connoting its use of quantum background fluctuations as a power source. It was also named the
A.R.V., short for Alien Reproduction Vehicle, suggesting the craft was possibly reverseengineered from extraterrestrial technology (and presumably not, as the name also suggests, a
place for ETs to mate). To reinforce this, Sorensen recalled an Air Force general present at the
show stating the vehicle was capable of light-speed or better, a performance capability
commonly associated with UFOs.

1 Empirical Analysis of Electrogravitics and Electrokinetics and its Potential for Space Travel
Thomas F. Valone*

In a nutshell, the craft was unlike any other vehicle publicly known in both design and function.
A bizarre combination of off-the-shelf Air Force components, a basic life-support system and a
freakishly powerful electromagnetic configuration, it had the appearance of a clumsy diving
bell from the 1950s but could possibly operate at superluminal speeds under complete control.
Its primary power source was nothing less (or more) than the fabric of space-time itself, in that
it could polarize the zero-point quantum background energy field to use as limitless propulsive
force. And apparently, one could pick things up using the on-board robot arm.
Adding to both the apparent veracity as well as the contradictory strangeness of this account,
Sorensen described the aircraft not as a shiny, Jetsons-new futuristic vehicle but a beat-up,
mileage-worn working prototype. As McCandlish recounts: It looked like itd been around for
decades. It had chips in the paint & runs, you could see fingerprints & smudges, boot prints
where somebodyd walked up the side & this kinda thing. It looked like it was slapped together
in somebodys garage.
That description, combined with that of the brutal simplicity of the vehicles configuration,
makes sense in two key ways towards the plausibility of the story. For one, it would stand to
reason that a prototypical, proof-of-concept system would be extremely simple with no frills or
flashy details. The vehicles were stripped-down and ugly exactly what a Skunk Works
experimental tech team might produce before the design moved to more finished production
standards. The goofy inverted Jell-O-mold contours simply reflected minimalistic form
following function. Here was a basic propulsion system (a central core, an asymmetrical
capacitor array and copper windings which together formed a huge, mutant Tesla coil); now
throw in some standard Air Force ejection seats, life support, synthetic vision and navigation
controls, then wrap the whole thing in some composite panels and an airtight ball for the crew.
It doesnt have to be pretty, just function as the eggheads designed it and not kill the occupants.
The second way this battered dune buggy or banged-up hot rod-like appearance makes sense is
the age factor. Contemporary stealth planes werent common knowledge until at least a decade
after theyd been designed, built and flown under complete secrecy (and some aspects of the B-2
are still closely guarded proprietary knowledge). With far more advanced and polished

examples of the ARVs technology back at the shop, the Air Force/Lockheed PR team probably
figured: Why not roll out the prosaic, outdated older model just to give VIPs the general idea.
So the hardware displayed, despite its outward appearance of an almost comical steam-punk
contraption with a Captain Nemo submarine door, still offered a glimpse into the next centurys
unthinkable transportation paradigm: Mars in an hour.
This was describing nothing less than real science fiction. To both McCandlish and Sorensen,
who'd been working professionally for some time within what they thought were the highest
levels of aeronautical design, this odd system was a meme-shattering sucker punch from the
future. It was simply unprecedented, next-level stuff theyd never seen or heard referenced
anywhere.
With this in mind, another factor contributing to the storys possible veracity was Brad Sorensen
himself. According to McCandlish, Sorensen was (and still is) a very confident and outgoing
individual, never at a loss for words or a self-promoting story, certainly not prone to
introspective second-guessing. However in the initial recounting of the event to McCandlish,
Mark described him as being in a state similar to post-traumatic stress, unusually withdrawn
and almost depressed, as if he were still grappling with an experience which had shaken his
worldview to its foundation. This generally isnt the condition of someone telling a tall tale or
trying to impress, and at the time Mark genuinely felt his friend was relieved to unburden his
confused thoughts to a trusted colleague.
But despite its subsequent global impact and notoriety, the whole story could have ended with
Sorensen after a single meeting for lunch and a general, abbreviated version of his account (thus
letting McCandlish off the hook to pursue his conventional career without distraction). How
much Sorensen ended up sharing with Mark lends an aspect of fateful serendipity to the entire
saga. As noted above, Sorensen had seen and/or heard references to zero-point energy and
scalar physics connected with the Flux Liner at the secret presentation. Since these were and
remain pretty rarefied concepts, he probably thought theyd be over Marks head and the two
men would be on such different conceptual levels there wouldnt be much common ground for
an in-depth conversation. However to Sorensens surprise, McCandlish proved he was able to

keep up with some advanced theories hed pursued independently relating to these concepts,
garnered during his numerous communications with renowned physicist Tom Bearden and
others since the early 80s. At this point Sorensen may have realized he had genuine company in
this area (and perhaps his innate competitive instincts surfaced) and he opened up further in a
good-natured game of one-upmanship, sharing many more details about his experience and the
classified craft with Mark.
So for better or worse, McCandlish was exactly the right guy at the right time and place for this
information to make its way out. He not only understood the workings of contemporary hightech aircraft along with advanced, cutting edge scientific principles, but had the skills and talent
to illustrate a vehicle incorporating these in fine detail as well.
After hearing the full account and being convinced of its authenticity, McCandlish was
immediately transformed and inspired, and began digging into the mystery in earnest. Over the
next few years he began passionately applying his formidable skills as a conceptual illustrator
to the pursuit of delineating this system, collaborating with Sorensen and drawing on
numerous other sources to create a highly detailed cutaway blueprint of the purported vehicle.
Not satisfied with the details of a single eyewitness account concerning the craft and its design,
he leveraged his numerous relationships in the military and aerospace industries and
established contact with several other credible individuals who corroborated the existence of
the vehicle, and who provided additional information concerning aspects of this mysterious
scientific advancement. (fig. 3)

fig. 3 information text callout on the margin of McCandlishs ARV blueprint

10

He cultivated relationships with several esteemed quantum physicists (besides Tom Bearden),
notably Dr. Harold Puthoff, Dr. Thomas Valone, and Moray B. King (author of Tapping the Zero
Point Energy) who, after numerous conversations and much correspondence, gave him insights
into the mechanics of engineering the quantum vacuum for ARV-related space flight
applications in particular. While the single story is compelling enough, it is because of this
additional verification that McCandlish continued his pursuit of facts surrounding this vehicle
and the associated technology. 2
As a result of his work and research into this vehicle, McCandlish was a featured witness at the 2001
Disclosure Project Conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The focus of this worldfamous (some might say infamous) conference, put together by Dr. Steven Greer and the Disclosure
Project, was to promote open hearings in Congress dealing with UFO and extraterrestrial phenomena
going back over 50 years. McCandlish's display and explanation of his bizarre technical drawing a
precise cutaway blueprint of a man-made flying saucer was a highlight of the event. (fig. 4)

fig. 4: McCandlishs cutaway blueprint of the Flux Liner and its display at the 2001 NPC event.
The Disclosure event was a major turning point in Marks life, one in which he committed to
this new and thrilling world but unfortunately had to leave the other more earth-bound realms
where reputation, associations and confidential NDAs have the weight of checkbooks behind
them back on planet Earth.

2 Authors note it was also because of this subsequent dogged research by McCandlish, which strongly reinforced the initial account,
that I took on the documentary project in the first place.

11

The Authors Disclosure Epiphany

It was this conference (or rather a 2-hour, full-length YouTube video of it) which destroyed my
own personal worldview in regards to the possible realities and potential of extraterrestrial
contact and man-made advanced technology, and led me down an extended rabbit-hole within
which a pivotal point was my beginning to communicate, and later collaborate, directly with
McCandlish.
In 2009 a friend and I had been talking casually about UFOs for a while, and he recommended
the Disclosure Project website as a source for some interesting interviews. After viewing and
reading several and being intrigued, I ultimately found the astonishing 2001 conference video,
wherein over 20 extremely credible witnesses from all areas of the military and Air Force,
NASA, the scientific community and specialized areas of the private sector, each in turn, gave
impassioned and obviously sincere accounts some of the most bizarre events imaginable. These
included objects under intelligent control, flying around doing impossible maneuvers at
thousands of mile per hour3, 'glowing red orbs' disabling nuclear missiles deep underground4,
alien structures on the moon5, an ET pilot killed on an Air Force runway6 and a score of others.
This was just insane material right out of a Spielberg film. However these witnesses were all
dead serious, highly intelligent professionals of rank and stature, and in fact had been elevated
to these positions because of their rarefied qualities of mind and character. Their presentations
were brief and very matter-of-fact (some were visibly nervous with the subject matter they were
sharing), their bearing was dignified, and all were willing to testify under oath before the US
Congress. The cumulative effect these testimonies had on my state of mind was a mild,
sustained shock. The cognitive disconnect between these individuals obvious distinction and

3 Don Phillips
An advanced top-secret aircraft designer for the military and Lockheed, Philips talks about a CIA plane possibly designed to chase UFO's, then in
1966 witnessing a radar-documented group of UFO's precisely maneuvering, with full stops & direction reversals, at up to 4,000 mph near Area
51 in Nevada.
4 Cpt. Robert Salas
In 1967 while monitoring 10 nuclear-armed Minuteman missiles in Montana, Salas was told of 'strange lights' near the underground facility in the
pre-dawn hours. Later that morning a glowing red object was seen hovering outside the front gate and 6 to 8 missiles inexplicably 'went down'
into inoperable modes. At another nearby launch facility, all 10 weapons were disabled under similar circumstances.
5 Sgt. Karl Wolf
In 1965 Wolf was a top-secret imaging technology expert with the Air Force. He talks about a security breach during an assignment for NASA,
where a co-worker showed him images of an alien 'base' on the moon.
6 Maj. George Filer
Filer talks about chasing UFO's in the 1960's and capturing them on radar, Iranian air force planes having their weapons systems disabled by
unidentified craft, and the aftermath of an alien pilot being shot and killed on a Fort Dix runway as it exited a crashed or landed craft.

12

the surreal nature of what they described was staggering.

For the most part these witnesses seemed to have nothing to gain and everything to lose by
detailing their experiences, and the distinguished and highly articulate manner with which they
presented themselves and their stories eclipsed many of my doubts as far as hoax-mongering. I
was (and still am) convinced of three things:
1. These people truly believed what they were saying.
2. They had very clear, unambiguous and precisely recalled experiences (some bolstering their
claims with hard evidence such as radar data and in McCandlishs case, photographs).
3. Many of the events they described defy almost everything we as humans in the 21st century
trust as normal. Such as: our collective perception of world government at the highest levels,
national security, the military and Air Force, the Disney-esque public image of NASA, space
travel itself and the physics thereof, not to mention our place in the universe as homo sapiens, is
lacking the proper perspective to say the least. Furthermore, we've been lied to about some of
the most important events in human history for over 60 years, and aliens are flying around our
planet all the time. Needless to say, its difficult to get one's brain around that last one.
In McCandlishs case in particular (and by contrast), the material had more to do with an
entirely new, previously unknown level of man-made technology as opposed to that of little
green men. His testimony dealt specifically with bizarre and absurdly futuristic working
hardware jointly developed by the USAF and Lockheed Martin; a concrete proof-of-concept
vehicle as real and tangible as a Chevy SUV yet employing unbelievably advanced physical
concepts. Not only that, but here were photographs of what looked like an earlier prototype
flying at 12,000 feet in the mid-1960s.(fig. 5) He was basically saying, Hey folks, look at this.
Everything you think you know about advanced aircraft, propulsion and space flight is
hopelessly outdated. And by extrapolation, theres a select group of people whove been
secretly developing systems on the next rung of our evolutionary ladder since who-knowswhen.

13

fig. 5: USAF Pilot Harvey Williams 1966 photograph of a (possibly man-made) UFO over Provo, Utah
at 12,000ft. McCandlish displayed this photograph during his Disclosure Conference testimony as
possible evidence of an ARV forerunner.

What this idea constitutes is nothing less than that of a breakaway civilization; a tiny fraction of
the human population playing with real technologies straight out of Star Trek while keeping the
rest of the world in the dark. They have working anti-gravity vehicles and all the associated
capacities for a fundamental change in the global human condition, and nobody knows about it.
To a layperson, this is pretty much on the same level as visitors from outer space or showing an
iPhone to Teddy Roosevelt.
Id been fairly ambivalent on the whole UFO/ET thing up to that point, but after watching the
entire conference with a few rewinds, things were never the same. For me the pivotal moment
in watching the Disclosure video was similar to that of Neo in The Matrix: take the red pill and
believe that at least a few of the witnesses were describing real events (even one was enough).
This, of course, meant throwing away everything Id trusted about related subjects since
childhood and embracing a host of troubling unknowns. Take the blue pill and rationalize away
all that the witnesses said and apparently believed; re-set to familiar reality and get on with
living as a member of a slow-moving species on a very isolated, unique planet in a Milky Way
barren of advanced life.

14

Like McCandlish, I took the red pill.

For him it was giving the benefit of the doubt to a fantastic account from a trusted friend; for me
the same to a video on YouTube. To follow the similarities to Neo and the rabbit-hole of a
parallel reality further, the more research we engaged in, the more unbelievable yet credible
historical and scientific facts, evidence and testimony further supported the stranger path. With
Marks journey the fuel to continue was numerous subsequent witnesses and hard cutting-edge
science, which reinforced and expanded many aspects of Brad Sorensens initial account. For
me, it was dozens of historical cases (yes, including Roswell) wherein the facts and testimony
around very dramatic, inscrutable events didnt seem to add up time and time again, unless you
factored in at least the possibility of something as fantastic as extraterrestrial contact, or a
complete paradigm shift in what human technology has accomplished.
This continuing exploration on my part, combined with my love of screenwriting, led to a
concept for a script about black-budget Air Force technology and possible alien contact, which
led me to meeting McCandlish. This meeting and the subsequent collaboration on our film has
led to a truly mind-bending chapter, in which Ive become aware that UFO technology,
including faster-than-light travel with the option of an in-flight cocktail, perhaps isnt so
mysterious after all.
McCandlishs journey has turned out to be both an inspiring and profoundly thoughtprovoking case study in how new information can expand an individuals consciousness and
intellect, and lead to wondrous new horizons in their worldview. It is also a somewhat tragic
cautionary tale on the dire consequences this fundamental shift in perception and subsequent
behavioral changes can manifest.

15

III.

The Weight of Evidence as Transformative Catalyst

In the middle of the last century, physicists made an astounding discovery. And that is
what we ordinarily consider empty space isnt empty at all. Even if you go to the far
reaches of space it turns out that rather than emptiness what we call the vacuum is
really a seething cauldron of what we call quantum energy, or zero-point energy. Zeropoint simply means that if you froze the entire universe down to absolute zero, froze out all
motion where everything would be as as quiet as you could possibly get it, this energy is
still there.
- Dr. Harold Puthoff, Ph.D.

As

stated above, McCandlish had a very comfortable and successful career from the early

1980s to mid 90s. His was an enviable vector for any professional freelance artist, especially
fortuitous in the fact of his passion for aeronautical subjects combined with great success in that
realm. After finding a niche in illustrating advanced weapon system components and moving
into conceptual design for the latest vehicles at the top of the military/industrial food chain, he
had entered an exclusive inner circle with direct access to the editors, designers, scientists, test
pilots and other distinguished individuals who commissioned, created, flew and documented
the latest in advanced technology.
His work was seen by millions on the covers of Popular Science
and Popular Mechanics magazines (his cover for the February
1989 issue of PS is at left), along with numerous other extremely
high profile and respected periodicals such as Aviation Week
and Space Technology. Add to this his more covert work with
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and others
wherein

he

created

conceptual

designs

under

various

nondisclosure agreements, which became classified material

upon completion and presumably integrated into the design

16

and fabrication pipeline for some very advanced projects. His combination of hard-won skills
and accuracy in traditional media (Mark has never learned modern digital imaging tools), his
passion for the designs and related technology, his keen intellect, and his enthusiastically honed
imagination in the aerospace realm earned him the respect and repeated, lucrative sponsorship
of the top names in the business.
There wouldnt have been any obvious motivation for this disciplined professional to begin
pursuing even more secretive technology at the risk of his reputation and very rewarding
position in the industry. However when Sorensens apparent bombshell from the land of
science fiction arrived at his front door, he grabbed hold of it, ran for the 100-yard line and
never looked back. After hearing those first hesitant words from his friend I just saw a few
man-made flying saucers.- everything was different from then on.
Sorensens account fired up McCandlishs boyhood daydreams of Star Trek hyperspace drives
and Mach-500 interstellar travel, only this time it wasnt just idle flights of fancy it was a firsthand account of an Air Force general talking about a very real vehicle directly behind him
travelling faster than light. From the winter of 1988 through the mid 90s, McCandlish dove into
fleshing out the description of the vehicle into an extremely accurate delineation of it, bringing
all his skills as a technical artist to bear on the task. Here was a talented illustrator at the top of
his game pushing the limits of what he was capable of in the medium, however now it wasnt
for an R&D team from Northrop Grumman. It was to figure out how we could, as Ben Rich,
Lockheed Martins former head of Advanced Development Programs (the Skunk Works) put it:
have the technology to take ET back home.7
Thus began his transformation from a successful conventional illustrator into an entirely
different kind of conceptual artist; from an expert in visualizing contemporary cutting-edge
tech into a vocal and inquisitive proponent and illuminator of fringe science bordering on, and
at times immersed in, what is considered the paranormal. He gradually but irreversibly
transitioned from being a conventional, highly respected but relatively unknown illustrator to
Mark McCandlish, famous Warp Drive evangelist.

7 Ben Rich is quoted as stating We now have the technology to take ET back home on March 23, 1993 at a UCLA School of Engineering
Alumni Association lecture.

17

His insatiable curiosity in this new territory ultimately led him to corroborating accounts from
various credible individuals in the military and private sectors, as well as copious examples of
related inventions from the US Patent Office (what is allowed to be shared publicly is possibly
only a fraction thereof), official documentation in the form of government and corporate
records, and fascinating new developments related to gravity control and propulsion in
contemporary quantum physics as chronicled in numerous scientific publications.
Thus Mark was far from being discouraged by lack of supporting evidence. What could have
been a simple, intriguing random anecdote or prank by an old friend grew into an entire
network of mutually supportive verification for the concept of this strange new device. There
was simply too much apparent evidence, credible testimony and hard science surrounding the
ARV to write it off.
Among the compelling elements of corroboration Mark found were:
Another first-hand witness named Kent Sellen, who had apparently seen either the same
ARV as Sorensen or a very close variant, at Edwards Air Force Base in 1973.
A pair of 1967 photographs from Harvey Williams, a military pilot, of a strange craft for
all appearances like a direct forerunner of the ARV, flying at 12,000 feet over Provo,
Utah.
An employee at a Northrop facility near the Lockheed Skunk Works in 1992, who stated
hed seen a far more advanced anti-gravity vehicle being launched and recovered at a
Skunk Works hangar on two separate occasions.
Numerous scientific patents and other documentation related to gravity control from
current day dating back to the turn of the 20th century and Nikola Tesla, specifically
those of Thomas Townsend Brown and his contemporaries in the mid-century.8
Numerous similarities between the ARV system and historical accounts of esoteric
advanced technology, from the ancient Vimana spacecraft, to purported UFO crash
retrieval documents, to the anti-gravity Nazi Bell from WWII.
Inter-office communications between aerospace defense contractors describing work with
the zero-point field of energy as being, among other things, a fundamental enabling

8 These patents represent only a small fraction of the total number in this field, as many (if not most) patent applications in the area on
electrogravitics and anti-gravity are summarily classified.

18

technology.9
An apparent UFO abductee who described (with no prior knowledge of McCandlishs
story or materials) propulsion system components strikingly similar to those of the ARV
in an alien craft.10
The work of Thomas Bearden, Dr. Harold Puthoff, Dr. Tom Valone and numerous other
highly respected quantum physicists, wherein discoveries related to limitless, highdensity zero-point energy and engineering the quantum vacuum gave credence to
claims of the ARVs ability to travel faster than light.11
Add to this the fact that Brad Sorensen and Kent Sellen, the two primary witnesses who may
have actually seen the vehicle(s) up close, have never recanted or changed their stories. Rather,
they have dropped off the public radar entirely and refuse to speak of the vehicle on the record.
Going all the way back to 1928, Thomas Townsend Brown a great pioneer in the field of antigravity was granted a foreign patent (British Patent # 300,311) rather awkwardly entitled A
Method of & an Apparatus or Machine for Producing Force or Motion, which is generally viewed as
the first recognized patent for applied electrogravitics, or anti-gravity. He sums up his
invention in the introductory abstract:
This invention relates to a method of controlling gravitation and for deriving
power therefrom, and to a method of producing linear force or motion. The
method is fundamentally electrical.

In the next paragraph he goes on to challenge the foundations of known physical science,
perhaps one of the reasons he was compelled to acquire his patent in Britain.
In the United States however, there are plenty of examples supporting a long history of
invention in the anti-gravity realm (listed in Appendice A, beginning with another device from

9 Hercules Aerospace inter-office memo concerning zero-point and scalar energy applications, dated 1989
10 McCandlish shares this investigative technique with the McDonnell Douglass aerospace corporation (during an extended
project in the 1960s) and possibly numerous other organizations including the US military.
11 "Utilizing Scalar Electromagnetics to Tap Vacuum Energy," 26th Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference,
Boston, Massachusetts, Sweet, F. and T. E. Bearden, 1991
The Energetic Vacuum: Implications for Energy Research, Spec. in Science & Technology, Puthoff, H. E. (1990),
Progress in Electrogravitics and Electrokinetics for Aviation and Space Travel, Thomas F. Valone, presented at the Space
Technologies Information Forum (2006)

19

T.T. Brown). In the titles chronicled in Appendice A, one may read the term electrokinetic as a
synonym for electrogravitics or anti-gravity, and many of these patents were granted up to a
decade after their initial application dates in the 1950s. Primarily targeted towards space flight
applications, none of these inventions use conventional propellants in any way and all are
purely electromagnetic in nature. Again, this may only be a fraction of what has actually been
reviewed and granted by the Patent Office, since many advanced technology patents are
immediately classified.

fig. 6: A 1967 patent by J.F. King for a Magnetohydrodynamic Propulsion Apparatus

Along with copious documentation, a primary example of McCandlishs discovery of top-tier

supporting information is in his relationships and ongoing communication with eminent
quantum physicists such as Dr. Harold Puthoff.

Puthoff, his contemporaries such as Dr.

Thomas Valone, Dr. Tom Bearden, and other scientific predecessors in the late 20th century
began to prove inexorably how the quantum zero-point field the pure vacuum of space,
indeed all physical space itself was in fact an unbelievably dense field of energy which, by
rights, should be available for extraction and conversion to facilitate useful work. This energy
density is on the order of 1026 joules per cubic meter, a staggering amount of electromagnetic
energy potential. In laymans terms, this means a shot glasss worth of empty space, if fully
exploited, can power the entire Eastern seaboard for a century. Or as Dr. Puthoff states: Theres

20

enough energy in the volume of a coffee cup to evaporate the worlds oceans.
In other words its been proven the Sun, indeed any star, is in fact a greatly diminished expression
of the potential energy in the raw space it takes up. And a gallon of gasoline or jet fuel is
absurdly inefficient by several billion orders of magnitude.
Furthermore, these discoveries in quantum mechanics dovetailed with new breakthroughs in
the field of space flight propulsion and potentials for interstellar travel, specifically
contemporary theories in agreement with general relativity, positing alternatives to the speedof-light limitation. In particular is the central theory of dynamically engineered local spacetime, in which a vehicle like the ARV and its occupants can travel in a self-contained, massand inertia-independent gravitational environment at arbitrarily large speeds.12
Basically what this means is a given vehicle and its occupants are enclosed in a space-time
bubble with the equivalent potentials of an exploding star behind the craft and a black hole in
front of it. As illustrated in the Zero Point film with the ARV as an example, this field or bubble
can be under the complete control of the pilot in power output, velocity and direction, in a
method similar to helicopter throttle and swash-plate navigation. And since space itself isnt
constrained by speed-of-light limits, Einsteins theory of infinitely increasing mass as you
approach that speed doesnt apply. In many cases this concept is contingent on driving the zeropoint background field out of equilibrium, or polarizing space-time to gain unlimited access to
the energy required for this phenomenon. (fig. 7)
Dr. Puthoff writes:
As an example, one specific approach that has generated considerable commentary in
the technical literature is the so-called Alcubierre Warp Drive, named after its creator,
general relativity theorist Miguel Alcubierre. Alcubierre showed that by distorting the
local space-time metric in the region of a spaceship in a certain prescribed way, it
would be possible in principle to achieve motion faster than the speed of light as
judged by observers outside the disturbed region, without violating the local velocityof-light constraint within the region. Furthermore, the Alcubierre solution showed
that the proper (experienced) acceleration along the spaceships path would be zero,

The Warp Drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity; p. 1
Miguel Alcubierre Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wales
12

21

and that the spaceship would suffer no time dilation, highly desirable features for
interstellar travel.13

fig. 7 a graphical depiction of Alcubierres warp drive theory

Alcubierres revolutionary theory has become a touchstone for the concept of scientifically
vetted superluminal travel, and with some adjustments and improvements may represent a
basic mechanism for interstellar flight. Its been cited in countless papers, presentations and
discussions in all media since its publication, for example in a special report for the US Air
Force in 200414, in the Conclusions section under Future Advanced Propulsion Concepts:
Engineering the Spacetime Metric
Another way to engineer the spacetime metric is by resorting to the solutions provided by
General Relativity Theory (Einstein, 1916). (among) these are:
The Alcubierre Warp Drive Effect: Alcubierre (1994) derived a spacetime metric that
induces a bubble-shaped geometry surrounding a spacecraft, which uniquely allows for
FTL motion through space without violating the Special Theory of Relativity. A thin shell
of negative energy (i.e., exotic energy; referring to forms or states of mass-energy that
violate general relativity energy condition theorems, which are now invalid) must be

13 Engineering the Zero-Point Field and Polarizable Vacuum for Interstellar Flight, p. 141
H.E. PUTHOFF, S.R. LITTLE AND M. IBISON, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin
14 Advanced Propulsion Study by Eric W. Davis, 2004, pp. 63-64, prepared for the Air Force Material Command, Edwards Air
Force Base.

22

distributed around the spacecraft in order to generate the warp-bubble geometry.

Krasnikov (1998) and Van Den Broeck (1999) proposed refinements to this geometry. This
concept will not be considered further in the study because it is best suited for interstellar
flight applications, and the negative energy density required to generate FTL motion is
presently estimated to be on the order of a stellar mass. The concept is presently
undergoing further refinement and technical study.

This plethora of inspirational and fascinating supporting material some admittedly

questionable, some indisputable wasnt about to let McCandlish go. This in turn led to his
being further engrossed in some generally unappreciated (even scorned) areas of research,
which unfortunately then led to a negative impact on his previously laser-focused and stellar
career as an illustrator within the military/industrial complex. Lockheed Martin, for example,
may not have been thrilled with one of their freelance artists making noise about their Skunk
Works flying saucer, whether it existed or not, and they abruptly phased Mark out of their R&D
design pipeline. Other major defense contractors and former regular sources of commissioned
work followed suit, and his illustration career began an inexorable downward turn. When he
began to go public about this material however, it earned him an understandable level of
notoriety within the UFO and black-budget conspiracy-theory communities.
Throughout the 90s his drawing and Sorensens account made the rounds of many closed-door
meetings and discussions between high-level individuals within and beyond the military and
aerospace industries and the scientific community. The notorious conspiracy theorist and
entrepreneur Gordon Novel and his collaborator, a physicist named George Uhlig, were
extremely interested in the account and served as front men for McCandlish in many of these
meetings with corporations such as McDonnell Douglass. At one point Sorensen personally
delivered a copy of the Flux Liner blueprint to the office of Scaled Composites founder and
aeronautical design luminary Burt Rutan, who had never heard of the vehicle, and therefore
pronounced it couldnt possibly exist. This was indicative of the general official response to the
entire affair, and in publicly acknowledged spheres at least, McCandlish and Sorensens
endeavors didnt gain much traction.

23

In February 1994, an ethically impaired Gordon Novel

handed off a preliminary blueprint of the ARV to a potential
backer for one of his financial endeavors centered around
the story. This was without Marks permission, and the
illustration ended up in the pages of a Popular Science
article on Area 51 (cover at left), and the cat was out of the
bag. At this point a certain amount of paranoia had been
building up in Marks previously placid life (possible phone
taps, vehicular pursuits and other surveillance; his girlfriend
receiving a threatening phone call strongly suggesting Mark
keep quiet, etc.), and this breach of trust and containment
spurred Mark to get back on top of the information publicly, in part to protect himself. Besides
other altruistic motivations, he figured if anything unexpectedly bad happened to him, at least
some people might know why.
So in the mid 90s McCandlish began going public with the story of the ARV, his subsequent
findings and the cutaway blueprint. He was a featured guest on Art Bells Coast to Coast radio
program on several occasions and was invited to numerous conferences and presentations to
share his material and conclusions. Along with the above self-preservation angle, he did this as
a means to not only get the word out about the possibilities of the technology (acting to a degree
as a proponent/evangelist), but also to potentially connect with other individuals who could
provide further verification related to his results thus far. To date he seems to have succeeded
on all three fronts.
To Marks credit he has continually asserted and his actions over the last two decades have
bourn out that hes never pursued this story for personal gain, fame, or to breach national
security in any way. Hes simply been enthralled and insatiably curious about the potential
technology, and consistently endeavored to solve the mysteries surrounding it. Unfortunately
the adverse attention he gained through public discourse on the subject (and perhaps other
related factors) has ultimately led to his abandonment of professional illustration altogether. As
Dr. Thomas Valone attests in Empirical Analysis of Electrogravitics and Electrokinetics and its
Potential for Space Travel:

24

Sincere gratitude is given to Mark McCandlish, who has suffered personal trauma for publicizing
this work, (and who) offers us one of the most conclusive renditions of a covert, flat-bottomed
saucer hovercraft seen by dozens of invited eye-witnesses, including a Congressman, at Norton
Air Force Base in 1988.

After his turn at the explosive 2001 Disclosure conference he and the ARV blueprint were
suddenly on the global stage, and the story began showing up all over the Internet and
numerous popular TV shows, usually in a somewhat sensationalist format or in
hyperventilating discussion forums. While in some ways this was beneficial in terms of an
element of possible disclosure to the general public, here is where the detrimental effects of the
storys UFO associations began to arise for McCandlish and Sorensen in quantifiable form. They
both lost a degree of professional credibility and associated valuable clientele, and the pure,
genuinely thrilling scientific concepts at the core of the story became muddled together with an
entire host of fanatical philosophies, the paranormal fringe, tabloid journalism, quasi-science
and baseless speculation.

25

IV.

When

The Spectacle and the Veil

one turns on the television to any number of conspiracy or paranormal-related

contemporary programs, there are generally several very particular sensibilities and
psychologically manipulative factors at work. First and foremost these programs are produced
for entertainment, thus facts are embellished or ignored, testimony is hacked and sculpted to fit
a particular narrative, questionable connections are enhanced, graphics flare and soundtracks
thunder. By necessity the subtleties and grey areas of a given story are flattened out or smashed
into barely recognizable form, and an expansive and convoluted concept will often be
abbreviated into a 3-second sound bite. To serve the spectacle, the sexiest and most sensational
aspects of new information on the Great Pyramids or Mars are juxtaposed with bat-winged
demons and exploding supernovas.
Stories and accounts like that of the ARV are just more grist for the mill in the context of
programs like Ancient Aliens, Unsolved Mysteries and Jesse Venturas Conspiracy Theory (fig. 5). By
2002 the now-iconic image of Marks cutaway blueprint began showing up in various forms on
numerous cable network programs and network news pieces around the globe. The initial
account was exaggerated and distorted by various experts, and garish, inaccurate 3D
renditions of the ARV replaced McCandlishs less flashy original draft on a regular basis. The
crafts odd shape was a central focal point, and the elegant, game-changing concepts of applied
zero-point energy and the polarization of space-time were absurdly distilled into propulsion by
high voltage electrical charges. Despite his best efforts to set the record straight and present a
clear and accurate rendition of the historical and scientific record, the Flux Liner narrative had
taken on a life of its own with McCandlish watching from the sidelines.

26

fig. 8: Jesse Venturas Conspiracy Theory featuring a rendition of the ARV by black-budget aerospace
historian Michael Schratt (right).

The writers and producers of these shows encouraged and/or implied associations between the
ARV and any number of purely speculative, far-fetched concepts related to top-secret aircraft,
classified technology and UFOs in this circus-like environment. In this sense the spectacular
context served (and/or serves) as a smokescreen and stage mirror to obscure the genuinely
thrilling, fundamentally challenging aspects of the story based in hard science and the real
world. A century of documented scientific progress in the realm of gravity modification, along
with many genuine breakthroughs in contemporary quantum engineering, can lose all
credibility when juxtaposed directly with a crude watercolor of a Nazi flying saucer.
For the public in general, these lurid programs are often the only available delivery system for
information related to truly confidential and suppressed technologies (besides copious Internet
web sites and forums teeming with unfounded theories and skewed information), and the selfreferential feedback loop of pure speculation accreted onto real facts can lead to an oftenincomprehensible fog. A classic example of this phenomenon is that of the National Enquirer,
the salacious tabloid famous for outrageous tales of celebrities in trouble, UFO abduction stories
and Bat Boy. Ironically, in many cases the possible ET/UFO stories in those garish pages were
in fact highly accurate reporting of unexplained events with extremely credible witnesses at
their source, for example an Air Force pilot (with better credentials than many sources for frontpage New York Times articles) sharing the experience of witnessing a large metallic ball off the
planes left wing at 17,000 feet. The irony, of course, is the veteran pilots sworn account would
be directly across the fold from a piece on John Travolta vs. the Swamp Monster.

27

Mass media itself, regardless of demographic orientation, is basically an exclusive medium to

the consumer in the sense of a one-way information flow and an inability to dig deeper into and
around the central narrative. Television programs and news articles will seldom provide a
contact number for interview subjects or suppliers of other content, let alone access to extended,
un-cut raw footage or full interview transcripts. What they allow us to see is pretty much all we
can get, and how something is packaged can make all the difference in what is revealed and
how it is perceived. This is changing somewhat with the advent of interactive media but is still
generally the rule. As Guy Debord puts it (italics mine):
The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result
from his own unconscious activity, works like this: The more he contemplates, the
less he lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he
understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacles estrangement from the
acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individuals gestures are no longer his own;
they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him.15

With McCandlish and the ARV story, its been my opportunity and privilege to pull the curtain
back a foot or two. Beginning with direct correspondence via email, followed by lengthy phone
conversations, exchanges of thoughts, ideas and gradually more personal disclosures, Ive
become a close, trusted and trusting friend of Marks. And everything Ive learned from the
many experiences and perceptions hes shared have backed up the general consensus when one
types in a Google search for him: hes a highly intelligent, respected, credible and genuine
individual with no ulterior motives concerning his fantastic decades-long assertions about the
ARV. Hes an illustrator who has gone from second-hand witness to high-profile proselytizer,
telling it exactly how he sees it with no regard for personal gain. Whether you believe his story
or not, Marks quest for veracity, his integrity and his sincerity arent the issue.
Over the course of the last year and Ive been privy to a great deal of off-the-books
information, detailed back-story and personal communication between key players I probably
(in an ethical or need-to-know sense) shouldnt have seen, heard and read. But I did. And the
aggregate conviction I now hold is yes, Marks friend did indeed see an example of man-made
anti-gravity technology back in 1988, and Lockheed Martin probably manufactured it.

15 The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, p. 39. Published by Zone Books, 1994.

28

I contacted Brad Sorensen directly via email roughly a year ago, in a generally cordial message
of introduction and inquiry as to his possible willingness to talk with me about the story. His
response was immediate and unmistakably clear: do not use his name, visual materials or any
concrete references to him in association with McCandlishs narrative and the documentary. He
went on to threaten me with legal action if I continued to do so. I wrote this off as shyness,
consulted a lawyer on fair use and retroactive copyright law, and went ahead with including
any content of his I saw fit into the film (however this is a continuing ethical issue Ive been
grappling with, and have yet to determine exactly how much to include or exclude from the
finished film based on his requests/demands). And there was one thing I still consider very
telling, even thrilling about his otherwise openly hostile and extremely defensive response: in
no way did he deny the story or any aspect of it. He simply didnt (doesnt) want his name
connected to the ARV any more than it already is. But he didnt say it didnt happen. This is a
direct quote from his first response to me (line breaks are his, perhaps for emphasis):

I communicated with Mark under strictest confidentiality.

Mark can not keep a secret.
You better be able to keep a secret.

Later in August 2011 he and McCandlish had been corresponding fairly regularly, and my
name had come up several times with Mark making the case for Sorensens permission to use
his content in the film. In the context of Gordon Novels desired use of Sorensens materials for
another get-rich-quick-with-zero-point-energy scheme, Brad wrote this:

A few rich families own this planet, regardless of country affiliation.

Like sharks, these families are just bumping Gordon to see his reaction before
simply swallowing him whole.
James Allen, you and I are the next meal.

Subsequent private emails (which again werent technically any of my business, but thanks
Mark) between he, McCandlish, Gordon Novel and others convinced me, by their tone and
general content, that here was a group discussing the actual, prolonged and messy aftermath of
Sorensens decades-old experience with ultra-classified hardware contact. My overall

29

impression was one of pervasive sadness, resentment, mistrust and mutual perceived betrayals;
friendship and partnerships stressed beyond repair and the transcendental, white-hot
knowledge gained by Sorensens accidental security breach now overshadowed by ordinary,
banal human dysfunction and misunderstanding. Obviously this scenario is very far from the
fast-paced editing and scorching lens flares on the Discovery Channel.
I had another interesting experience digging into the Lockheed angle of the story. Sorensen and
McCandlish attest the location of the classified air show wasnt at the original, public-access site
at Norton Air Force Base on November 12th, 1988. Apparently Sorensen was flown with his
high-level military/government client (possibly Frank Carlucci) to a second location at a
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, CA. So I looked up the media contact list
at Lockheed and found a number for a Dianne Knippel at the Palmdale facility. After I left a
message saying I was a filmmaker researching alternative energy systems and she called back,
I went for the boneheaded, frontal assault approach and asked her straight up:
What can you tell me about your electrogravitics program?
Dianne: Were not at liberty to discuss those programs.
Me: (again the simple rube) Oh I see. So why not?
Dianne: It might threaten our competitive advantage
And the conversation basically wound down from there. Id gotten very little besides an official
dodge and stonewall but was exhilarated nonetheless: she didnt say they didnt have it. This
exchange and some similar (with a Lockheed recruiter and NASA technical engineer) have
inspired a concept for another documentary: TR-3B and Me. This is of course modeled after
Michael Moores Roger and Me, only instead of attempting to interview a tyrannical CEO, the
protagonist would be seeking proof of an advanced anti-gravity craft rumored to exist since the
early 90s the TR-3B, a far more sophisticated variant of the ARV. Look for the pitch for this
film on Kickstarter.com in the spring of 2013.

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V.

Perspective and the Boundaries of Reason

" you must not wonder that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to
descend to human affairs; for their souls are ever hastening into the upper world where they
desire to dwell.
- Platos Allegory of the Cave

prolonged exploration into the realms of secret technology, UFOs and related global

conspiracies can lead to subscribing to one of two basic views of the world, both troublesome
and deeply unsatisfying:
1 (the blue pill):

In numerous cases involving UFOs, many thousands of otherwise very smart, very
credible individuals (some of which our lives can depend on, such as airline pilots) are
either lying, delusional or mistaken, and often come to laughably inaccurate conclusions
about what theyve witnessed.

In many cases, compelling hard evidence to support the above either never existed, was
of no value, and/or innumerable accounts of such evidence being confiscated and
withheld are false.

The long documented history of bizarre events followed by even more bizarre, covert
behavior and absurd explanations by the government and military is somehow easily
explainable.

Despite the 50-year record of vast research and proven science in alternative means of
propulsion (particularly in electrogravitics), there are no viable alternatives to
conventional solid-fuel rockets and jet engines, nor will there be in the foreseeable
future. Internal combustion engines still make the most sense, and technology dating
back to Chinese fireworks is the best we can do for space travel.

The government and mass media dont keep huge secrets which could benefit and/or
enlighten all mankind.

What we see and hear on CNN and Fox News is pretty much the whole story, aliens

31

exist only in movies, and the gas we buy and jet planes we fly around in will be with us
for a long, long time.
2 (the red pill):

Technology and intelligence of extraterrestrial origin visiting Earth is the most logical
explanation for countless events going back thousands of years.

Great forces are at work secretly developing (while publicly suppressing) advanced
technologies which represent nothing less than the next evolutionary step for mankind.

We can (or will soon be able to) travel to other planets and distant stars quickly and
easily, theres no reason to believe extraterrestrial civilizations havent done the same to
come here (indeed theres overwhelming evidence they have), and those same great
forces are keeping this all under wraps.

Theres a grotesquely powerful cabal of international (as well as politically and

nationally unconstrained) individuals and/or families who maintain control over the
most fundamental aspect of our lives: energy itself, and in their eyes were nothing more
than a world full of consumerslaves.

Most forms of culturally accepted mass media, for example the New York Times,
television

news

programs

and

official

government

statements,

are

virulent

smokescreens and disinformation delivery systems.

The global scientific community is in some ways just as dogmatic and backward as it
was during the Reconstruction.

NASA is a costly and inefficient public relations fiasco while Northrop Grumman pilots
taxpayer-funded, mach-30 field-propulsion vehicles on its own, maybe just for fun.

We have the ability to pull limitless energy from nothing more than the space around us.

Marks notorious drawing represents an accidental window into an inevitable but

currently denied future for us here on Earth. And aliens might have helped.

Obviously, both of these worldviews have their inherent problems. The first, despite being the
prevailing view amongst most of the human population, generally isnt supported by basic
logic. The second view is in some ways far better and worse concurrently; in one sense thrilling
and inspiring (Yay! We have Star Trek space ships!), in another pretty grim (Wow were a
world full of ignorant consumerslaves.)

32

To argue against a primary tenet of this first scenario (and sum up the core dualistic quandary),
in which dramatic, anomalous events are easily explained and seemingly absurd government
reactions make sense, Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, former head of the UK Ministry of Defense
and esteemed researcher, had this to say about the facts surrounding the famous
Woodbridge/Bentwaters UFO incidents at an Air Force nuclear weapons facility in Britain,
December 1980. The official investigation into a 3-night series of UFO events witnessed by
numerous high-ranking military personnel concluded that the events transpired were subject
to straightforward, rational explanation and of no national defense interest16:
There are only two explanations for what happened that night in Suffolk. The first is
that what the people concerned including Colonel Haut, who was at the time the
deputy commander of the base (and a lot of his soldiers or airmen) they claim that
something from outside the earths atmosphere landed at their Air Force base. They
went and stood by it, they inspected it, they photographed it. The following day they
took tests on the ground where it had been and found radioactive traces. That is one
explanation, that it actually happened as Colonel Haut reported.
The other explanation is that it didnt. And in that case one is bound to assume that
Colonel Haut and all his men were hallucinating. My position is perfectly clear:
either of those explanations is of the utmost defense interest. Surely, to any sensible
person, either of those explanations must be, cannot fail to be, of defense interest. That
the colonel of an American Air Force base in Suffolk and his merry men are
hallucinating when there are nuclear-armed aircraft on the base, must be of defense
interest.

The Bentwaters case is, unfortunately, all too common in the UFO field, and is indicative of
many hundreds of documented cases in which an extremely anomalous event transpired,
apparently involving far-advanced technology, and any in-depth public investigation was
discouraged or flatly prohibited. Apparently since the dubious (quite possibly foregone) and
dismissive conclusions of the Condon Report17 and the official close of Project Blue Book in

16 UK Ministry of Defense file DEFE-24/1948 UFO Report of Sighting, Rendlesham Forest December 1980
17 The Condon Committee was a group funded by the United States Air Force from 1966 to 1968 at the University of Colorado to
study unidentified flying objects, under the direction of university physicist Edward Condon. The result of its work, formally titled
Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects and known as the Condon Report, appeared in 1968. Its conclusions were
unilaterally dismissive of ET (or otherwise unconventional) explanations for anomalous and unexplained UFO accounts.

33

196918, reports of manufactured aircraft and/or objects under intelligent control performing
unbelievable feats of maneuverability and speed arent worth investigating. Or if they are, we
arent being told about it.
On the more earth-bound topic of black-budget technology, there was a great deal of publicity
in the early to mid 1950's about every major aerospace company doing frenzied research into
the areas of gravity control and electromagnetic propulsion. Companies at the top of the
military/industrial food chain were throwing huge budgets and top scientists at the concepts
and development of anti-gravity systems. Dr. Paul LaViolette, author of Secrets of Anti-Gravity
Propulsion, quotes a famous British document from 195619 concerning anti-gravity development
in his 1990 paper submitted to NASA ELECTROGRAVITICS: AN ENERGY-EFFICIENT
MEANS OF SPACECRAFT PROPULSION:
By 1956 several major aircraft companies had become involved in electrogravitics
research. The list includes: Glen Martin, Convair, Sperry-Rand, Sikorsky, Bell, Lear, Clark
Electronics, Douglas, Hiller, and General Electric. The electrogravitics report states:
"...in the trade much progress has been made and now most major
companies in the United States are interested in counterbary (anti-gravity).
Groups are being organised to study electrostatic and electromagnetic
phenomena. Most of the industry's leaders have made some reference to it.
Douglas has now stated that it has counterbary on its work agenda but does
not expect results yet awhile. Hiller has referred to new forms of flying
platform, Glenn Martin say gravity control could be achieved in six years,
but they add that it would entail a Manhattan District type of effort to bring
it about. Sikorsky, one of the pioneers, more or less agrees with the Douglas
verdict and says that gravity is tangible and formidable, but there must be a
physical carrier for this immense trans-spatial force. This implies that where
a physical manifestation exists, a physical device can be developed for

18 Project BLUE BOOK was an official US government program from 1947 to 1969. During that time a total of 12, 618 sightings were
reported to project representatives, and of these 701 remain "Unidentified." On December 17, 1969, the Secretary of the Air Force
announced the termination of the project, stating: Further extensive study of UFO sightings is not justified in the expectation that
science will be advanced thereby.
19 ELECTROGRAVITICS SYSTEMS An examination of electrostatic motion, dynamic counterbary and barycentric control.
Prepared by: Gravity Research Group Aviation Studies (International) Limited Special Weapons Study Unit 29-31 Cheval Place, Knightsbridge
London, S.W.7. England
Report GRG-013/56 February 1956.

34

creating a similar force moving in the opposite direction to cancel it.

Clarke Electronics state they have a rig, and add that in their view the source
of gravity's force will be understood sooner than some people think. General
Electric is working on the use of electronic rigs designed to make
adjustments to gravity this line of attack has the advantage of using rigs
already in existence for other defence work. Bell also has an experimental rig
intended, as the company puts it, to cancel out gravity, and Lawrence Bell
has said he is convinced that practical hardware will emerge from current
programs. Grover Leoning is certain that what he referred to as an electromagnetic contra-gravity mechanism will be developed for practical use.
Convair is extensively committed to the work with several rigs. Lear Inc.,
autopilot and electronic engineers have a division of the company working
on gravity research and so also has the Sperry division of Sperry-Rand. This
list embraces most of the U.S. aircraft industry. The remainder, CurtisWright, Lockheed, Boeing and North American have not yet declared
themselves, but all these four are known to be in various stages of study with
and without rigs.

Judging from this report there was pervasive industry-wide attention on anti-gravity or
dynamic counterbary, backed up by actual brick-and-mortar development such as rigs and
practical hardware, by the biggest names in the business. There were dozens of articles in
publications ranging from Aviation Week and Space Technology and Janes Defense Weekly to the
New York Herald Tribune declaring a new, rich, established frontier in conquering gravity. Why
wouldnt there be? The awesome potential for propellant-free engines and cancelling the effects
of gravity for aerospace and military applications (let alone civilian use) cant be overestimated.
Then, towards the end of the decade, all news regarding this phenomenon suddenly
evaporated.
This leaves a couple of options: by 1960 either everybody hit a dead end and all that applied
physics and science from some of the world's smartest people turned out to be frivolous and
useless, or they hit paydirt and didn't feel like talking about or sharing it. While the first option
is definitely possible if you discount the success of Townsend Brown and many others work
(and as a rule discontinued military projects dont make headlines), one could make a strong

35

case for the second alternative: as soon as quantifiable results began to emerge in this
admittedly world-changing field, they went classified or black and stayed that way.

fig. 9: T. Townsend Brown field-testing his electrokinetic disks during Project Montgolfier, now declassified, Paris 1957.

Lockheeds Ben Rich offered an unexpected, startling validation for this scenario in no uncertain
terms (along with his taking ET back home statement) during his 1993 alumni speech at the
UCLA School of Engineering. Keep in mind, Rich was head of the Lockheed Skunk Works in the
late 80s when the ARV demonstration would have taken place at its Palmdale location:
"We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked
up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit
humanity. Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do."

One well-known example of the it works its gone phenomenon is when Thomas Townsend
Brown, the famous anti-gravity scientist and inventor (fig. 9), gave a demonstration to some
military officials in the early 1950s. Apparently the results were so successful, dramatic and
striking they were immediately classified and remain so to this day. Paul LaViolette writes in
The Repression of Nonconventional Energy Technologies (2000):
The Pearl Harbor Demonstration
Around 1953, Brown conducted a demonstration for top brass from the military. He flew
a pair of 3 foot diameter discs around a 50 foot course tethered to a central pole.
Energized with 150,000 volts and emitting ions from their leading edge, they attained
speeds of several hundred miles per hour. The subject was thereafter classified.

36

In its March 9, 1992 issue, Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine made a surprising
disclosure that the B-2 Stealth bomber employs very powerful electrostatic charges in its design
a negative charge on its exhaust stream and trailing surfaces, and a positive charge on the
leading edges of its wing-like body. Those familiar with the electrogravitics research of

T. Townsend Browns diagram from his 1960 Electrokinetic Apparatus patent,

and the B-2 Bomber

Townsend Brown will quickly realize that this is tantamount to stating that the B-2 is able to
function, at least in part, as an anti-gravity aircraft. Theoretically this also means that once in
high-altitude, high-velocity flight, the vehicle could potentially fly without fuel of any kind
indefinitely.
The concept of this entire field mysteriously vanishing, and the ripples of controversy generated
since, is illustrated beautifully in a metaphor by aerospace journalist Nick Cook in The Hunt
for Zero Point20, his doggedly-researched novel about classified anti-gravity technology:
Looking for the black world was like looking for evidence of black holes. You
couldn't see a black hole, no matter how powerful your telescope, because its
pull sucked in everything around it, including the light of neighboring stars. But
astronomers knew that black holes existed because of the intense friction they
generated on their edges. It was this that gave them away.

So if we really have this stuff, why the secrecy? If these technologies are so wondrous and have
so much potential for lifting humanity up out of its dependence on fossil fuels, offering untold

20 The Hunt for Zero Point - Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology, p. 15 by Nick Cook

37

benefits in space exploration and saving the world from a catastrophic environmental collapse,
why wouldnt we and John Q. Sixpack know about it?
First would be the national security angle. Lets say the USAF and Lockheed actually built a
functioning anti-gravity, mass-canceling vehicle back in the 70s or 80s. With the performance
capabilities of the ARV you could fly from Fresno into enemy airspace halfway around the
world, deploy a weapon or surveil a site, and be back in 40 seconds. It would mean an absurd
tactical advantage over every other military force on earth. The US military has a history of
keeping things like that to itself.
Another reason something so huge could be kept secret is personal motivation, something of
which McCandlish can provide a textbook example. As we were finishing up the 3rd day of
interviews in California I asked him a hypothetical question: if he had the choice to work in
black-budget programs, helping design variants of the ARV and other super-secret anti-gravity
crafts, would he forsake his evangelist role, sign and abide by nondisclosure agreements, and
never speak about it in public? His answer was an immediate, unequivocal Yes, absolutely no
doubt in his mind. If hed gone to that airshow with Sorensen in 1988, seen the technology and
subsequently been hired by Lockheed to work in the program, the world at large would have
never heard of the Flux Liner. He wouldve gladly joined that exclusive club with its one-way
membership and never looked back. Chances are good he represents a majority on that side of
the ethical fence, myself included.
"Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the
world's machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas, or any other of the common fuels."
- Nikola Tesla
Another key point: gravity control systems don't use gas from Exxon or coal from Massey
Energy. They apparently tap into a limitless, super-concentrated, free source of power just
hanging around everywhere, which needless to say would disrupt a few trillion dollars in
annual sales if applied to everyday life. This phenomenon is related to the science and research
of over-unity devices (machines which generate more power than it takes to run them) such as
cold fusion, permanent magnet motors and self-sustaining batteries.

38

Going all the way back to J.P. Morgans abrupt cutoff in funding Teslas free energy tower at
Wardenclyffe around 1902 (Morgan was quoted as saying If anyone can tap into this energy at
any point on earth, where do we put the meter?), the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries
would logically rather keep a lid on unlimited, free juice for everybody. And rumor has it the
heads of these global cartels can exert a great deal of control over mass media, geopolitical
power dynamics and even general scientific progress.
Returning to the ET question, if some UFO's are in fact extraterrestrial, that may be one great
reason they're kept secret: their flying saucer engines pose a formidable threat to the world's
most profitable industries. You dont get from Zeta Reticuli to here using premium unleaded.
The same goes for the ARV's simple and elegant system if it actually exists. The ARVs method
of propulsion is clean, free and represents a total game-change in human energy use. Its actual
kick-the-tires paydirt for all that electrogravitic R&D up through and beyond the 1950s, and to
this day no one's been interviewed about it on CNN.
In order to get ones brain around both of the above color-coded scenarios (and maintain a
degree of optimism and sanity), one must accept and foster a degree of cognitive dissonance,
allowing for the minds occupation of an unstable middle ground. Maybe we have the
technology, maybe we dont; no use getting worked up about it. Theres a good chance aliens
are out there but we dont know for sure. Sometimes even highly trained people make errors in
observation and judgment. The government and powers-that-be generally have our best
interests at heart. News about major breakthroughs like the recent discovery of the Higgs boson
is plenty of information about cutting-edge applied science.
Move too far in either direction on the red or blue scale and risk slamming into walls of
uncertainty, paranoia or worse. Surely indisputable proof of aliens, anti-gravity and limitless
free energy would forever change life on this planet and usher in a new epoch for all humanity.
But if pondering these concepts doesnt put food on the table next week, are they really worth
renting space in your head? The answer, of course, is yes and no.

39

VI.

First

Mechanics and Processes of Translation

and foremost, McCandlish is an illustrator. The primary focus of his work and

skillsets have always been in the accurate translation and rendering of other specialists
concepts and ideas, as opposed to making fine art with its inherently personal, emotional and
psychological vectors. His full-throttle immersion into creating an accurate depiction of
something as ephemeral and strange as the ARV might represent a complete break with the
deeply ingrained, impartial discipline of his earlier career and show an entirely different side to
his temperament as a visual creative: artistic passion. He embarked on an intensely personal
quest to make the most accurate representation possible of a goofy-looking and highly
improbable flying saucer. Again, this wasnt for personal gain; he did it just because it might
have been there. He was confronted with an extremely compelling mystery, and above all else
he simply wanted to figure it out, and he did that the way hed approached challenges like this
since art school: by taking pen to paper, leading to a professional draughtsmans precision ink
on vellum.
While there were undoubtedly some heady emotions flying around the process, his inspiration
and subjectivity were anchored in his discipline as a fastidious technical illustrator, and steered
by a thorough, long-term granulation of Sorensens account, hard science, mounting evidence
from other witnesses, and the historical record as a few more years passed. His years of training
were now focused on translating vaporous testimony into concrete line work; on the
clarification, distillation, extrapolation and synthesis of various threads into one, single
blueprint draft.

fig. 10 - Right: Brad Sorensens original sketch from November 1988; left: McCandlishs finished blueprint with
technical callout notations, 1994

40

By meticulously deconstructing Sorensens account in November 1988 and referencing a rough

sketch of the Flux Liner Sorensen provided soon thereafter during a subsequent meeting (fig. 8),
McCandlish brought his analytical skills to bear to flesh out and quantify some ill-defined
details of the vehicles configuration. Extrapolating from Sorensens description of the 24-foot
diameter craft, he determined the approximate relative size of the crew compartment; the width
and circumference of an outer copper coil housing (the Antennae) along with aspects of the
coils themselves; the dimensions, number and distribution of triangular copper plates in the
lower capacitor array; the rail-mounted ejector seats with bizarre navigation controls for the
pilot; the arrangement of cameras in the synthetic vision system; the general size and number of
on-board oxygen tanks, and many more refinements lending cohesion and accuracy to the
design. Sorensen vetted each step as conforming to his recollections of inspecting the craft and
information gathered at the air show. Kent Sellen, the other eyewitness McCandlish discovered
in 1992, provided further details such as a number of explosive bolts designed to separate the
upper crew compartment during an emergency evacuation event.
Every contour and proportion was carefully considered for veracity and plausibility, its
depiction of known material constraints and fabrication tolerances (for example how thick a
pultruded fiberglass barrier would be), and its adherence to established technical parameters.
The overarching motivation and guiding principle was for this thing to make sense as an
example of functioning hardware, no matter how farfetched the concepts it employed.
Compared to many illustrations Mark had generated for military and aerospace clients (such as
cutaway views of advanced weapons systems and next-generation aircraft) it was an absurdly
simple configuration. The challenge was in generating an accurate technical diagram of an
unprecedented vehicle with no publicly known technical specifications whatsoever. There
arent many references in aerospace trade journals for flying disks that generate millions of volts
and bend space-time.
A major irony of the process in this case, not lost on McCandlish, is that of his attempting to reinvent the wheel (or faster-than-light spaceship). As he struggled for years to figure out various
discrepancies and mysteries in his understanding of the ARV, he knew full well that if
Sorensens and Sellens stories were true, there were naturally copious, very real engineering

41

and production blueprints of the vehicle he was laboriously piecing together from incomplete
sources, not to mention photos and video, and of course the vehicles themselves. He was
attempting to make a realistic facsimile of an actual cutaway diagram displayed at the show in
the Skunk Works facility years before, his only reference being the equivalent of reflections in
passing windows. Yet somewhere, stashed in the archives of Lockheed and God knows where
else, there may be a diagram eerily similar to Marks with a different signature at the bottom.

McCandlishs final blueprint signature block with REVISED 7/94 as the finish date.

The final version of the blueprint was finished in 1994 (including technical callouts surrounding
the main image), six years after McCandlish heard the initial account from Sorensen. It was the
product of numerous iterations and revisions (at one point McCandlish integrated, then
discarded the addition of a small nuclear reactor in the core), and while it may not be seen or
accepted as a masterpiece, it is undeniably masterful in its execution. The final 24x36
blueprint has a straightforward boldness, elegance, simplicity, intelligence and restrained
audacity which dare the viewer to question its basis in fact. Theres good reason it has resonated
deeply with so many people, been showcased in such a wide range of media from sensational
television to lofty academic papers, and generated so much controversy.
Mark's blueprint represents a very rare item in the huge and often esoteric fields of blackproject research and UFOlogy: a detailed, concrete depiction of something which may well
exist; an actual 'chunk of stuff' in a vast area where vapor is almost always the coin of the realm.
Sincere eyewitness testimony, shaky video, blurry pictures and countless pages of verbiage are
all too familiar and common in UFO and military/government conspiracy publications, TV
documentaries and Internet sites. A thoroughly researched engineering blueprint is an entirely
different animal. The antithesis of a pulp sci-fi novel cover, it's a powerful delineation of

42

plausible magic; a snapshot of insanely advanced military hardware grounded in real science and
extremely compelling evidence. It's become a kind of cultural beacon, anchor and lightning rod;
a treasure map for believers in this technology and a strong challenge for skeptics.
This could be seen as a mixed blessing. McCandlish recalls that when he finished the basic
design in 1989 to roughly 90% of its final state, Sorensen was so impressed with its accuracy and
precision he issued a clear warning: if Mark was smart, hed tear up the drawing, destroy any
record of it and never talk about it again. McCandlish ended up doing almost the exact
opposite, and its still unclear just how smart that course of action has been.
As stated previously, since its unveiling on the international stage in 2001 the diagram has
become somewhat of a cultural icon, embedded in the mythology, legacy and historical record
of gravity control technology and setting the bar for depictions of this sort which nothing else
has approached in the last two decades.

Making the Zero-Point film has added another layer to the ongoing discovery process.
I knew we primarily wanted to make a documentary focusing on McCandlish, since without
him there would be no ARV story. So as writer and director I drafted a series of basic interview
questions and possible follow-ups, knowing the structure and flow of the film would be
contingent on his answers on camera. We filmed Q&A interviews over the course of 3 days in
his hometown of Redding, CA, and McCandlish proved to be a very articulate and generous
subject, with full and consistent recollections of specific events, at times even going into some
obviously painful details about his experiences within the story. After going through the
roughly 10 hours of footage I formed a basic narrative structure for the now feature-length film:
McCandlish and his background
The pivotal event of Sorensen recounting his experience at the air show
McCandlishs subsequent pursuit of ARV-related information, evidence and witnesses
The process of the drawing itself, and the components of the vehicle and their functions
The concepts and science of zero-point energy and quantum space-time engineering
The ramifications of limitless free energy and plausible motivations for its secrecy

43

 McCandlishs experience with the Disclosure Project and its aftermath

The dark side of nondisclosure and McCandlishs personal challenges within this realm

McCandlish on camera during a series of interviews in Redding CA, March 2011

Concurrently with making a basic rough cut of the film, a colleague and myself began
developing a detailed 3D version of the Flux Liner (fig. 11) to lend further visual detail to the
narrative. Built over the course of many months and aided by periodic vetting of the design by
McCandlish, this may now be the most accurate CGI rendition of the vehicle in the world (save
Lockheed CAD drawings). This process also brought up a number of possible gaps, omissions
and oversights in the now 20-year old blueprint design (and naturally some of Marks
contributing information base and theories have grown and changed), which McCandlish and I
worked through to bring the 3D version up to date.
Here my background in visual effects has served well to flesh out the original 2D representation
(along with the film), and will hopefully enable a deeper, faster and more thorough
understanding of the machine and its inherent concepts for the general public.

fig. 11: McCandlishs blueprint and the CGI version created for the film.

44

Beyond the purely mechanical design-oriented process, my personal extrapolations applied to

the narrative (derived from a broad distillation of research) are apparent in the final segments of
the film in particular. Id come to learn from the more private disclosures from Mark about his
personal challenges, first-hand accounts he shared concerning other individuals, and dozens of
similar (and sometimes far more sinister) case histories on record, that there is strong evidence
for an active suppression of information and public advancement regarding technologies
surrounding the ARV. Along with the official stonewalling and secrecy detailed previously, this
includes the possible silencing of numerous high-profile proponents of free energy technologies
using various methods up to and including murder. To some degree the inclusion of material
supporting this view has possibly meant crossing a line in the objective documentarian sense,
however the historical record lends credence to this interpretation without much need for a bias
towards the darker track. One could make a strong case for either a ruthless global whack-amole machine taking out a number of noisy, successful scientists and inventors, or a long series
of unfortunate coincidences. And as the saying goes - Just because youre paranoid doesnt
mean theyre not out to get you., one could use the variant: Just because theres a conspiracy
theory doesnt mean theres not an actual conspiracy.
The primary goal for this project has been to construct an effective and compelling delivery
system for a number of unusual concepts, using Marks work, experiences and point of view as
springboard and foundation. Despite any personal interpretation and evolving opinions on my
part, Ive consistently strived for accuracy, depth and impartiality throughout the entire
production and post-production process in relaying the many aspects of McCandlishs and the
ARVs story. In this sense it ideally parallels Marks endeavors with the ARV drawing; creating
an in-depth and veracious rendition of the material with a minimum of subjective input.
Its possible (and hoped) the Zero-Point film and this version of McCandlishs story can
eventually reach an audience as broad as that of the Disclosure Project conference through
festivals, television and the Web, thereby offering a new dimension of the ongoing saga for
current and subsequent generations to ponder. A single technical diagram and a feature
documentary biopic with visual effects are very different means of communication. Time will
tell how successful weve been in translating an artists life and his drawing of an odd machine
into the motion picture medium. And of course, assassination by the Illuminati may be in the
cards as well.

45

Conclusions
In the course of the extended research, in-depth communications, numerous discoveries and
various technical processes involved with making this documentary film, it has been my
experience that such an endeavor can lead to profound intellectual growth and great newfound
awareness in a given field, for better or worse. By undertaking extended immersion in the
material for the Zero-Point film in particular, with its focus on liminal subjects and occult
(meaning forbidden and/or secret) knowledge, I as the filmmaker found myself committed to a
headlong odyssey into unknown and mysterious territory; simultaneously fascinating, inspiring
and deeply disconcerting, which in many ways mirrored the path of the documentary subject.
The biggest and most challenging of my discoveries and/or conclusions was this: the weight of
evidence strongly suggests the Flux Liner is a real thing, a fact which carries many vexing
concepts along with it. From everything Ive learned over the past couple years Im convinced
to within .5% that Brad Sorensens story is true, and we probably have functioning anti-gravity
and associated technologies. Whether the ARV is indeed an Alien Reproduction Vehicle, i.e.
reverse-engineered from ET technology, is still a grey area (pun regrettably intended). I believe
Mark McCandlish has created a fairly accurate rendition of what Sorensen saw in 1988, and
despite much personal hardship and many challenges in doing so, has altruistically and
generously shared his most direct and honest account of the story with the world for the past 15
years. I feel the film weve made is an honest, accurate and comprehensive expansion of this
story. And like Mark, Im still genuinely thrilled and fascinated by the implications of what the
story might mean. We hope the film will similarly inspire many others to at least consider these
possibilities and ask some interesting, difficult questions.
The ARV represents many things - interstellar travel including possible extraterrestrial
technology and visitation, a secret military government and 'rogue civilization', the dreams of
Nikola Tesla and the cutting edge of science itself. For many years Mark researched, explored
and depicted something very few people can even comprehend - perhaps one of the coolest
machines in human history. By making and eventually displaying a great drawing of this
vehicle, McCandlish just may have delineated one of the most important technological concepts
ever presented to the public at large.

46

Mark once told me an idea he had for a short story related to all this. He imagined some
humanoid entity on a distant planet, perhaps a million years ago. This being was watching ball
lightning materialize and hover around an active volcano or storm front, and had a eureka
moment similar to the Wright brothers watching seagulls in flight. It thought: Well thats an
interesting way to get around why cant I do that? and began the process of inventing
electromagnetic flight as opposed to the wing-shaped airfoil variety. From that point it was
only a matter of time before his species figured out electrogravitics, zero-point energy and
interstellar faster-thanlight travel.
Why not?

-- James Allen Higgins

November 2012

47

Works Cited / Bibliography:

Empirical Analysis of Electrogravitics and Electrokinetics and its Potential for Space Travel
Thomas F. Valone, Ph.D., 2008
Disclosure Project Briefing Document
Steven M. Greer, M.D. and Theodore C. Loder III, Ph.D., 2001
The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel Within General Relativity
Miguel Alcubierre, 1994
Engineering the Zero-Point Field and Polarizable Vacuum for Interstellar Flight
Harold E. Puthoff, Ph.D., 2002
Electrogravitics Systems An examination of electrostatic motion, dynamic counterbary and
barycentric control
Gravity Research Group Aviation Studies, 1955
The Repression of Nonconventional Energy Technologies
Paul LaViolette, 2000
The Society of the Spectacle
Guy Debord, 1994
Report of Sighting, Rendlesham Forest December 1980
UK Ministry of Defense , 1983
Advanced Propulsion Study for the Air Force Material Command
Eric W. Davis, 2004
The Hunt for Zero Point - Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology
Nick Cook, 2001

48

APPENDICE A: Partial Listing of US Patents Related to Electromagnetic Propulsion

US Patent # 2,949,550 ELECTROKINETIC APPARATUS, granted 1960

US Patent # 2,958,790 ELECTRICAL THRUST PRODUCING DEVICE, granted 1960
US Patent # 2,997,013 IONIC PROPULSION SYSTEM, granted 1961
US Patent # 3,018,394 ELECTROKINETIC TRANSDUCER, granted 1962
US Patent # 3,022,430 ELECTROKINETIC GENERATOR, granted 1962
US Patent # 3,120,363 IONIC FLYING APPARATUS, granted 1964
US Patent # 3,130,945 IONOCRAFT, granted 1964
US Patent # 3,155,858 ION ACCELERATION DEVICE, granted 1964
US Patent # 3,187,206 ELECTROKINETIC APPARATUS, granted 1965
US Patent # 3,223,038 ELECTRICAL THRUST PRODUCING DEVICE, granted 1965
US Patent # 3,227,901 ELECTRICAL THRUST PRODUCING DEVICE, granted 1966
US Patent # 3,263,102 ELECTRICAL THRUST PRODUCING DEVICE, granted 1966
US Patent # 3,279,176 ION ROCKET ENGINE, granted 1966
US Patent # 3,322,374 MAGNETO-HYDRODYNAMIC PROPULSION APPARATUS, granted 1967
Note this design bears a striking resemblance to the ARV in form and function (fig. 6),
something McCandlish has referenced for many years.
US Patent # 3,464,207 QUASI-CORONA-AERODYNAMIC VEHICLE, granted 1969
US Patent # 3,626,605 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING A SECONDARY GRAVITATIONAL
FORCE FIELD, granted 1971
US Patent # 4,663,932 DIPOLAR FORCE FIELD PROPULSION SYSTEM, granted 1987
US Patent # 5,052,638 ELECTROMAGNETIC RAMJET, granted 1991
US Patent # 5,142,861 NONLINEAR ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPULSION SYSTEM AND METHOD,
granted 1992
US Patent # 5,146,742 ION THRUSTER FOR INTERPLANETARY SPACE MISSION, granted 1992
US Patent # 5,211,006 MAGNETO-HYDRODYNAMIC PROPULSION SYSTEM, granted 1993
US Patent # 6,098,924 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR GENERATING PROPULSIVE FORCES WITHOUT
THE EJECTION OF PROPELLANT,

granted 2000

US Patent # 6,193,194 MAGNETIC PROPULSION SYSTEM AND OPERATING METHOD, granted 2001
US Patent #6,317,310 APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR GENERATING THRUST USING A TWO
DIMENSIONAL, ASYMMETRICAL CAPACITOR MODULE , granted 2001

49

APPENDICE B: Reference List for Zero-Point Energy Related Publications Authored or CoAuthored by Dr. Harold E. Puthoff
H. E. Puthoff, Ph.D., Director Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin Austin, Texas 78759
H. E. Puthoff, "Ground State of Hydrogen as a Zero-Point-Fluctuation-Determined State," Phys. Rev. D
35, 3266 (1987).
H. E. Puthoff, "Zero-Point Fluctuations of the Vacuum as the Source of Atomic Stability and the
Gravitational Interaction, "Proc. of the British Soc. for the Philosophy of Science Intern'l Conf. "Physical
Interpretations of Relativity Theory," Imperial College, London, ed. M. C. Duffy (Sunderland Polytechnic,
1988).
H. E. Puthoff, "Gravity as a Zero-Point-Fluctuation Force," Phys. Rev. A 39, 2333 (1989); Phys. Rev A 47,
3454 (1993).
H. E. Puthoff, "On the Source of Vacuum Electromagnetic Zero-Point Energy," Phys. Rev. A 40, 4857
(1989); Errata and Comments, Phys. Rev. A 44, 3382, 3385 (1991).
H. E. Puthoff, "Everything for Nothing," New Sci. 127, 52 (28 July 1990).
H. E. Puthoff, "The Energetic Vacuum: Implications for Energy Research," Spec. in Sci. and Technology
13, 247 (1990).
H. E. Puthoff, "Zero-Point Energy: An Introduction," Fusion Facts 3, No. 3, 1 (1991).
H. E. Puthoff, "On the Feasibility of Converting Vacuum Electromagnetic Energy to Useful Form," Intern'l
Workshop on the Zeropoint Electromagnetic Field," Cuernavaca, Mexico, March 29 - April 2, 1993.
D. C. Cole and H. E. Puthoff, "Extracting Energy and Heat from the Vacuum," Phys. Rev. E 48, 1562
(1993). See also Fusion Facts 5, No. 3, 1 (1993).
B. Haisch, A. Rueda, and H. E. Puthoff, "Inertia as a Zero-Point Field Lorentz Force," Phys. Rev. A 49, 678
(1994). See also Science 263, 612 (1994).
B. Haisch, A. Rueda, and H. E. Puthoff, "Beyond E = mc2," The Sciences (NY Acad. of Sciences) 34, 26
(Nov/Dec 1994).
H. E. Puthoff, "SETI, The Velocity-of-Light Limitation, and the Alcubierre Warp Drive: An Integrating
Overview," Physics Essays 9, 156 (1996).
B. Haisch, A. Rueda, and H. E. Puthoff. "Physics of the Zero-Point Field: Implications for Inertia,
Gravitation and Mass," Spec. in Sci. and Technology 20, 99 (1997).
H. E. Puthoff, "Space Propulsion: Can Empty Space Itself Provide a Solution?" Ad Astra 9 (National Space
Society), 42 (Jan/Feb 1997).
H. E. Puthoff, "The New Vision in Physics and Cosmology," State of the World Forum, San Francisco
(Nov. 4-9, 1997).
M. A. Piestrup, H. E. Puthoff, and P. J. Ebert, "Measurement of Multiple-Electron Emission in Single
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