Science Forums 2

[nutronjon]

Moderation note: this post originally appeared in the Why do heavenly bodies spin? thread. It was moved because it is about rumored WWII aircraft, not astronomy.

The skaters spin and flying saucer do share physical law in common.

The UnMuseum - Nazi Flying Saucers

Victor Schauberger

Schauberger was born in Austria in 1885 and was considered by many to be a crackpot. Schauberger himself is quoted as saying, "They call me deranged. The hope is they are right..." While his professional training was as a "forester," Cook, after visiting the Schauberger's grandson and examining his papers and the machinery he had constructed, concluded that Schauberger was actually more of an engineer. Schauberger believed that machines could be designed better so that they would be "going with the flow of nature" rather than against it.

One of Schauberger's projects was to produce a flying machine, saucer shaped, that used a "vortex propulsion" system. His theory was that "if water or air is rotated into a twisting form of oscillation, known as a 'colloidal,' a build-up of energy results, which, with immense power, can cause levitation."

According to some accounts, Schauberger built several models, one of which was almost five feet in diameter and was powered by a 1/20 hp electric engine. Some reports indicated that one of the models actually flew. In an echo of the story of the Schriever disc, Schauberger wrote to a friend that a full-sized prototype of one of his designs was constructed using prison labor at the Mauhausen concentration camp. This craft flew on February 19th of 1945 near Prague and obtained an altitude of 45,000 feet in only 3 minutes. The letter goes on to say the prototype was destroyed by the Nazis before it could be captured by the Allies.

After the war Schauberger moved to the United States, where some contend he worked on secret projects for the U.S. government. He died in 1958, apparently claiming his ideas had been stolen.



Schauberger's models.


Cook concluded that if the stories about Schauberger's work were true, his devices must have created an anti-gravity effect. Cook even visited a location in the remote Sudeten Mountains in Poland where antigravity experiments were supposed to have taken place using a bell-shaped device that glowed a pale blue when operating.

Advantages of Disc Aircraft

The "Legend" of German flying saucers is fascinating, but is any of it true? It certainly seems likely that there was some experimentation with the concept within the Reich, as there was in the United States. Disc-shaped aircraft have several advantages, including low stall speed and low drag, even at high speeds. The rounded shape can also lower the craft's radar profile making it "stealthy."

The low stall/drag of the shape would have been particularly interesting to the Germans at the end of the war. Months of bombing had reduced German runways to rubble. A saucer-shaped craft might have been able to lift off the ground with a short runway or even do a vertical-takeoff-and -landing with no runway at all.

In his book Cook concludes that Nazis flying saucer technology was appropriated by the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of the war. This suggestion is not wholly without merit, since it is now clear that US and USSR rocketry development in the 50's and 60's owed a lot to German scientists. These engineers, quietly brought into the United States via operation "Paperclip," assisted the United States in its space program and its Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union. Similarly, according to author Jim Wilson in an article in Popular Mechanics in July 1997, there are records that suggest at least two people, brothers named Walter and Reimar Horten, were sought by the United States after the war because of their participation in German military saucer programs.

UFOs and Antigravity Myths (this is continued at the site)