Although anti-gravity research ranks right up there with perpetual motion on the crank-o-meter, the idea of anti-gravity can't be completely dismissed. As recently as 1996 a Finnish scientist announced he could partially "shield" objects from gravity using spinning superconductors. Although most scientists are skeptical, NASA is interested enough that it's trying to replicate the results.
And certainly Nazi Germany was working on a lot of advanced technology by the end of the war, including rockets, jet fighters and nuclear power. The U.S. recruited some German scientists to continue their work in the U.S., most notably Wernher von Braun, the V-2 rocket scientist who later helped make the moon landings possible.
It's also clear that the U.S. military works on secret technology all the time -- about $11 billion worth every year in "deep black" programs that aren't even acknowledged to exist. The stealth fighter and B2 bomber were black programs for years.
So even if Nazi flying saucers sound nutty on the face of it, there's nothing crazy about Cook asking the questions he does. You might even call it courageous. It's the conclusions he reaches that are the problem.
Cook's search begins one day when a photocopy of a 1956 magazine article mysteriously lands on his desk. It's called "The G-Engines Are Coming!" and is illustrated with a drawing of a U.S. airman descending the steps of a floating, wingless aircraft. Cook thinks it's a joke, but gets interested when he sees aerospace industry leaders of the day quoted as saying anti-gravity could be the next big breakthrough.
He decides to call one of them, a now-retired engineer named George S. Trimble. A Lockheed Martin P.R. person, "Daniella Abelman," sets up an interview, then calls back and says Trimble has cancelled.
"I don't mind telling you that he sounded scared and I don't like to hear old men scared. It makes me scared," she tells Cook. "Let me give you some advice. Stick to what you know about; stick to the damned present. It's better that way for all of us.'" (Cook has changed "Abelman's" name, so there's no way to call her and see if she really talks like a character in a Tom Clancy novel.)
Of course Cook's curiosity is inflamed, and he tracks down Trimble in a retirement community in Arizona and -- oh, wait a minute. That's what you expect him to do. But here's what he says. "My great regret was that I couldn't contact George S. Trimble directly. Had I done so, I knew that Abelman would have gone ballistic. She'd told me to stay away from him and she had the power to ensure that I became an outcast if I didn't."
Unwilling to face the wrath of the flack, he retreats to the Internet where "in the silence of the night, I could roam ... and remain anonymous." He finds the story of Thomas Townsend Brown, a former Navy engineer who believed he could negate gravity using electricity and who by 1956 was demonstrating small, electrically charged flying disks. The military was briefly interested, but in the end issued a report that said there was no usable technology there.
But Cook notices something in a 1947 Army Air Force memo (famous among UFO buffs), in which Lt. Gen. Nathan Twining concludes that UFOs are real. Twining adds that it is "within the present U.S. knowledge" to construct similar aircraft, given enough money.
Cook concludes that by 1947 the U.S. must already have had a key component of UFO technology -- anti-gravity. That's why they weren't interested in Brown's technology years later. He suspects the technology came from Nazi Germany, and recounts allegations of German flying saucer programs from a few dubious books, as well as information he admits seems to have "magically appeared out of thin air ... passed down from one researcher to the next, without attribution."
He gets off of the Internet and starts searching through military archives for clues. He finds a few hints in old Army Air Force records on Luftwaffe technology, but nothing substantial. Then he reads that the SS was in charge of the most secret German technology. "I felt a constriction in my throat. I was so keyed, my breath was coming in short, sharp gasps." Don't worry, he's not having a heart attack. He just realizes he's been looking in the wrong place. He starts reading about the SS.
Soon we're off to Poland. A "researcher" named Igor Witkowski shows Cook an old mine, where he claims SS scientists worked on a machine called the Bell, a glowing, rotating contraption that used up a lot of electricity. "Word had it that the tests sought to investigate some kind of antigravitational effect, Witkowski said." Somebody else thinks it might have been a time machine. Then Cook finds yet another SS anti-gravity program, a flying saucer called the "Repulsine."
Cook concludes that an SS official named Hans Kammler had all of this technology boxed up and flown to a safe place, later trading it to the U.S. military for his freedom.
All in all I liked this book alot because it goes in to detail on technology more than "The Reich of the Black Sun" does for exaple. It is definately a "MUST READ"
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