Do you guys know about that theory where you put toasted bread butter-side up on the back of a cat will result in anti-gravity? Yes, look it up, it's true.

Anyway, Professor Subrata Roy of the University of Florida begs to differ. The secret to flying without wings, he says, is ionized air, otherwise known as plasma. So great is his belief in this that he is drawing up plans to make his own flying saucer that he hopes to have flying by next year.

The principle of the thought is that the flying saucer (yeah, he wants to make it saucer shaped) will be covered with electrodes that will ionize the surrounding air when charged with a current. This will cause the ionized air to repel the non-ionized air, causing (hooray!) lift off.

I don't doubt the principle behind this. The Mythbusters actually made the principle work in Episode 68 (yes, I'm a geek, how many times should I say that?) where they tested an anti-gravity device. They made a small scale device out of tin foil that effectively floated above ground. It wasn't anti-gravity, just a mechanism that floated using plasma.

The essential difference between the two experiments is that Prof Roy wants to make his project large scale, and he wants his power source to be on board the actual device. I applaud the effort, but he'll probably have a tough time looking for an energy source powerful enough to lift the thing yet light enough for the device to lift it. Tilium?

---

More reading:

• Artificial Gravity Gets Closer to Reality
• British Ministry of Defense to open its UFO files to the public
• Convincingly real: UFO caught on camera?