Sigma-Ro: central claims
Project documents: one book, "Ether-Technology: A Rational Approach to Gravity Control" by Rho Sigma (pen name; generally identified as Rolf Schaffranke [memory, high]), 1977, 108 pp. Text is fully readable; the Searl chapter (pp.72-83) and, after QE, pp.21-58, 59-71 and 84-95 were deep-read, and Seike's 1966 abstracts were read from page images. Most material is second-hand: letters and reports relayed by the author, usually without dates, equations, measurements or citations.
- Electric fields can alter gravity: a charged condenser feels thrust toward its positive pole and loses or gains weight (Biefeld-Brown effect), and a charged pendulum's period depends on charge sign (Saxl). Evidence as the book reports it: Brown's 1973 letters say vacuum tests (better than 10^-6 mm Hg, 70-220 kV; notes unpublished) gave thrust "several orders of magnitude" above residual ionisation, while also saying air-test thrust was "largely" ion momentum transfer; his 1928 gravitors (~10 kg, 100 kilodynes at 150 kV) "never floated"; the "1 percent weight change at 50 kV" is the narrator's wording (p.34), not Brown's. Interavia 1956 gives 2 ft discs, 50 kV, 50 W, 17 ft/s. Brown and Saxl are reporting their own work.
- An ether (a physical space medium) exists; Michelson-Morley did not disprove it; gravity is a pushing or sink flow of ether, so gravity can be controlled by manipulating it (Lodge, Todeschini, Roos, Hilgenberg, Schappeller). The book's one laboratory argument is Lenard's double Plucker-tube experiment (p.65, second-hand, no data); the "inventory of certainties" (pp.21-24: Pasadena light-speed scatter, Allen-Endean, Lippmann's charged-inertia claim) is offered as groundwork.
- John Searl's rotating ring generator produces enormous potentials (10^5 V at first test, 10^9 V and above in the sub-committee report, 10^13-10^14 V at threshold) from centrifugal displacement of electrons plus coil feedback, with no rpm, ring count or measurements given.
- Above a threshold potential the Searl device becomes weightless and inertia-free and produces more energy than it takes in; Searl's first 3 ft generator allegedly rose about 50 ft in 1952 and left the Earth, and further craft (to 30 ft) were said to be built.
- Other private researchers (Seike, Heim, M. Pages, DePalma, Carstoiu) have theories or devices for gravity control (Seike: 3x10^9 kW from NER resonance, which does not appear in his 1966 abstracts; Heim: contrabaric effect), and orthodox science and officials have suppressed or ignored them. The book's suppression evidence: Brown's faculty no-show, Millikan's remark, the NICAP "clanged shut" turn and the Navy rejection (pp.34-37, 46); Saxl's "Nutty!" and colleagues "looking the other way" (pp.50, 53); Heim ridiculed at Innsbruck 1952 and Keyhoe's "official German security" (pp.89-90); Searl's 1982 raid, prosecution and detention (p.108, second-hand letter). Counter-evidence in the same book: the 1956 industry interest (Trimble, Cleaver, Gerardin), Project Outgrowth 1972, Minister Galley's 1974 France-Inter statement and Poher/Petit in France. No data are given for Heim, DePalma or Pages.