2026-10-04 rexresearch.com: George S. Piggott, "Overcoming Gravitation" (Electrical Experimenter, July 1920)

Page: https://www.rexresearch.com/piggott/piggott.htm (copy saved: research/files/rexresearch-piggott-electro-gravitation-1920.htm) Reached from Google: Piggot 1920 silver balls suspended electrostatic 500,000 volts. Other hits: quietwanders.com/docs/EE071920, borderlandresearch.com (Vassilatos "Lost Science"), Academia.edu (Vassilatos "Lost Science" PDF), Scribd "Piggott's Electrostatic Levitation Study", Pinterest scan of the Electrical Experimenter page.

The rexresearch page carries (a) a transcription of Piggott's own article, said to be reprinted in R. A. Ford, "Homemade Lightning" (McGraw-Hill), (b) a copy of the Vassilatos "Lost Science" text, which is the essay's ref [2], and (c) the text of Piggott's US patent 1,006,786. The transcription was not checked against a scan this run. The original issue exists as a 12.5 MB PDF at https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electrical-Experimenter/EE-1920-07.pdf (HTTP 200, not downloaded; next run).

Piggott's own account (as transcribed) [web]

• Apparatus: improved Wimshurst-type generator in an insulating case run "under a pressure of 3 atmospheres" of dried air; motor drive about 1/4 kW; "the machine voltage was in the neighborhood of 500,000 when the electrodes were separated beyond sparking distance".
• Objects: silver balls "11 mm in diameter", weight "1-3/10 gram"; largest object a cork cylinder 10 cm x 4 cm with a copper wire through it, 3/4 g; also water globules and insulators.
• Motion: the object oscillated toward and away from the field centre, then settled "about 25 cm from the field's center where it remained until the power was shut off".
• Ground: "In the lower left hand corner is shown the 'ground contact' ... in fact, when a metallic object is in suspension, this ground can be entirely eliminated."
• After switch-off: "retained the average object in space for a short length of time, about 1-1/4 seconds after the machine ceased rotating"; copper/silver balls falling "hovered about 2 cm above contact for approximately 1 second".
• Observations: a dark belt about 1/2 cm round the object; a bluish aura about 1 cm made of "numerous infinitesimal dots or darting particle"; heated silver ball sat farther from the centre and moved back as it cooled.
• Earlier work dated by Piggott to 1904; theory of a counteracting solar "belt" and comet polarity.
• Patent: US 1,006,786, "Space Telegraphy", 24 Oct 1911, George S. Piggott, "a resident of Chicago, county of Cook, and State of Illinois": a pressurised, dried-air static machine used as a spark transmitter.

Vassilatos version (essay ref [2]) as copied on the same page [web]

• "heavy silver beads (1/2 inch in diameter) ... when his generator was fully charged at 500,000 electrostatic volts. The levitational feat was only observed when the charged sphere was electropositive."
• "without the ground counterpoise, the levitational effect was not observed."
• "remained in the flotation space for at least 1.25 seconds even after the static generator ceased rotating".
• Says the generator was "dried out with high-pressure carbon dioxide gas" (Piggott: dried air).
• Gives the academic explanation as "charge attraction and gravitational balance" and argues against it.

Points where the three accounts differ (for the reviewers; no verdict)

Bearing on the claims

Claim 3 (gravity locally neutralised by fast positive discharges; Piggot 1920). This gives the primary source behind the essay's secondary citation. It also shows that the details passed from Piggott to Vassilatos to Boyd changed along the way (place, units, ground, duration). Piggott himself presented it as counter-gravitation; the transcription has no measurement of weight change.