Townsend is somehow at the center of several advanced technology and UAP conspiracies. Think of him like the Aleister Crowley of anti-gravity lore — all roads lead back to him.
Unfortunately, most of the first-party information comes from his family or is poisoned by internet forum gossip. This makes it difficult to sort lore from reality.
Who was he?
Thomas Townsend Brown was an American inventor whose asymmetric-capacitor experiments foreshadowed ion propulsion, drew sporadic military and aerospace attention, and fueled anti-gravity folklore, yet never secured rigorous scientific validation.
Early Promise, Limited Validation
Brown patented "gravitator" devices in the 1920s, linked them to the Biefeld–Brown effect, and courted the U.S. Navy through the 1930s–40s. Laboratory thrust was real — later explained as ion wind — but gravity control remained unproven.
Despite posts at the Naval Research Laboratory and wartime technical roles, official studies like the 1952 ONR Cady report dismissed any new physics, leaving Brown to seek private backers while amassing over forty patents.
Cold War Intrigue, Lasting Myth
Mid-1950s publicity sparked short-lived corporate and Air Force "electrogravitics" projects, European tests, and Brown's brief chairmanship of NICAP, intertwining his work with UFO culture.
A 1957–58 collaboration with Agnew Bahnson produced filmed ionic-thrust levitation, and a 1967 Northrop-linked effort shifted his research behind classified doors. Posthumously, his ion-driven airflow concepts resurfaced in commercial purifiers, and conspiracy circles still cite him as the archetype of the lone inventor who challenged gravity.
Enduring Electrogravitic Conspiracy Web
Brown's asymmetric capacitors and Navy connections fueled legends tying him to everything from the Philadelphia Experiment to secret propulsion projects.
Claims abound — vanished "Project Winterhaven" data, Northrop using his research for the B-2, a 1967 hush-money pension — but no primary evidence supports hidden breakthroughs.
Still, missing lab notes, sudden resignations, and classified contracts keep Brown central to antigravity and UFO conspiracy lore.
Key themes
Inventor Behind the Biefeld–Brown Effect
Thomas Townsend Brown (1905 – 1985) began testing asymmetrical high-voltage capacitors at Denison University in 1921 and patented variants in 1928, 1930, and 1965. The thrust he recorded — later traced to ionised air rather than altered gravity — anticipated later ion-thruster spacecraft engines and today's electrostatic cooling fans.
Relentless Gravity-Control Campaigner
After serving as a Navy physicist during World War II, Brown spent the 1950s pitching "Project Winterhaven" and other ventures to scale his capacitors into full vehicles. He held short posts at the Naval Research Laboratory and at start-ups such as Rand International and Whitehall-Rand, but no working craft emerged.
Catalyst for 1950s Electrogravitics Craze
Declassified Air Force and industry memos confirm that Brown's demonstrations prompted experimental programmes at Martin, Convair, and Avro Canada between 1955 and 1959. Coverage in Life and Mechanix Illustrated folded his claims into the UFO narrative, where they remain a reference point for enthusiasts.
Extensive Primary Record Endures
Brown left more than forty patents, detailed lab notes, and extensive correspondence now housed in the TT Brown Family Collection and U.S. National Archives. Scholars still mine this material when revisiting mid-century efforts to turn high-voltage capacitors into practical propulsion.
Early Life and Education (1905–1920s)
Thomas Townsend Brown was born on March 18, 1905, in Zanesville, Ohio, into a well-to-do family.1 From a young age, he showed intense interest in electronics and radio. During his high school years at the Doane Academy in Zanesville (1921–1923), Brown conducted radio experiments and even met inventor Lee DeForest, who had pioneered the vacuum tube.2
In 1923, Brown enrolled at the California Institute of Technology. There, he became captivated by the idea of a connection between electricity and gravity — an idea he floated to the famous physicist Robert Millikan, who bluntly rejected the notion.2
Brown's formal education was short-lived — by 1924 he had returned to Ohio and attended Denison University. It was at Denison that Brown met Dr. Paul Biefeld, a professor of physics who would profoundly influence his work.2
Under Biefeld's mentorship, Brown refined experiments on the interaction between high-voltage electric fields and gravity, setting the stage for what would later be called the Biefeld–Brown effect.
In the mid-1920s Brown began experimenting with X-ray tubes and capacitors, observing an unusual force on charged objects. He and Biefeld constructed devices known as "gravitators" — basically high-voltage capacitors — which seemed to produce a thrust in the direction of the positive electrode.
Brown became convinced he had discovered a new principle of electrogravity. On November 15, 1928, at just 23 years old, he secured a British patent (No. 300,311) for a Method of Producing Force or Motion, describing his so-called electrostatic propulsion or gravitator device.3
The following year, Brown published an article How I Control Gravitation in the August 1929 issue of Science and Invention magazine, introducing his breakthrough to a broader audience.2 Writing in his own words, Brown asserted an audacious premise: that gravity, electromagnetism, and matter are interrelated manifestations of one underlying phenomenon.
"Matter loses its traditional individuality and becomes merely an ‘electrical condition,'" he wrote, arguing that since matter and gravitation are connected, electricity must likewise be connected to gravitation.4
In this article, Brown described experiments where charged high-voltage capacitors apparently moved toward their positive pole, implying a coupling between electric fields and gravity. This phenomenon, he believed, was evidence of a new force that could be harnessed for propulsion. The popular press of the time portrayed Brown as a bold young inventor — headlines touted that electricity and gravity had found "their Faraday" in him.5
Brown's early work culminated in the so-called Biefeld–Brown effect, named for him and Dr. Biefeld. Brown claimed that a high-voltage asymmetrical capacitor experiences a net thrust toward its positive side when immersed in a dielectric (like air or oil).
In later years, Brown summarized it succinctly: In a highly charged, two-electrode system, the positive electrode will lead the negative electrode... so that there is a net force of the system (dipole) in the negative-to-positive direction. 6
This effect, he argued, was not a mere ion wind but an electrogravitic interaction — a distortion of the gravitational field by electric force. Brown's interpretation was controversial even in his youth, but it became the cornerstone of his life's work.
Early Experiments and "Electrogravity" (1926–1929)
While still in his early twenties, Brown performed numerous experiments to demonstrate his gravity-control ideas. With family financial support and Biefeld's guidance at Denison University, he built large capacitor devices. One early apparatus consisted of heavy lead spheres connected to a high-voltage generator — later he developed "cellular" gravitators made of layered dielectric materials.4
In one publicized experiment, Brown suspended a charged gravitator on a balance and observed a tiny but measurable displacement, as if it lost weight when charged. By 1928–1929, he was staging demonstrations of small "electrogravity" motors and proposing fanciful applications. In August 1929, Science and Invention featured photographs of Brown's equipment and diagrams of how he envisioned future spacecars or "flying jellyfish" propelled by this force.4
Brown even speculated, Perhaps the fantastic ‘space cars' and the promised visit to Mars may be the final outcome of his discovery.5 Though these claims were far ahead of scientific consensus, Brown's youthful optimism attracted attention.
In late 1929, Brown reached out to U.S. military authorities hoping to interest them in his discovery. On December 4, 1929, he wrote to the U.S. Navy, outlining his gravitation-control research and offering his inventions for defense applications.2 This letter was an early sign of Brown's desire to secure government support.
He also courted industry: in June 1930, Brown arranged a private demonstration for scientists at General Motors, likely aiming to obtain research backing.2 Around the same time, Dr. Biefeld provided Brown with an affidavit (dated August 1930) attesting to the strange effect they observed — including a curious finding that the "electro-gravitational" force might vary with the orientation of the device to sidereal (star) time.2
This hinted that Brown was investigating links between his effect and astrophysical phenomena (possibly thinking of gravitational waves or cosmic rays). Such speculation was quite extraordinary for the era. Despite these efforts, mainstream scientific institutions remained skeptical — Brown's notions were too at odds with orthodox physics, which viewed gravity as entirely unrelated to electrostatics.
Naval Career and Research in the 1930s
Frustrated with limited private support, Brown turned to a military career in hopes of pursuing his research. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on September 3, 1930, entering as an apprentice seaman.2 His scientific background quickly earned him postings beyond the average sailor's trajectory. After basic training, Brown was selected for the Navy Radio Training School and then received orders to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C..2
By March 1931, the Navy had Brown working at NRL's Anacostia facility, where he gained access to cutting-edge research equipment.2 Notably, Brown even donated some of his own laboratory apparatus to NRL in 1931 — an indication of how passionately he wanted to continue his gravity-electrical experiments in a Navy setting.2
In early 1932, an unusual opportunity arose: Brown was offered a role on a gravity mapping expedition. Famed Dutch geophysicist Felix Vening Meinesz was conducting gravity measurements aboard the submarine USS S-48 in the Caribbean. Brown joined this Navy-Princeton expedition in February–March 1932 as an instrument specialist, even though he was still a low-ranking seaman.2
During the cruise, a severe earthquake struck Santiago, Cuba, and Brown reportedly rescued Vening Meinesz from falling rubble — a dramatic episode that earned him some distinction.2 The S-48 gravity survey (Feb–Mar 1932) gathered data on Earth's gravitational field — intriguingly, one of Brown's shipmates was a young officer named Hyman G. Rickover (future admiral and "father of the nuclear Navy").2
Brown's involvement in this expedition reflects his dual interests in gravity science and naval service. After the submarine mission, Brown was assigned to NRL's Physical Optics Division in mid-1932.2 He attempted to secure a permanent research role in the Navy and proposed a study on "mechanical reaction on fluids" — essentially the physics of his capacitor thrust in different media.2
Internal Navy correspondence from summer 1932 shows some officers championing Brown's talents, even as personnel bureaus tried to rotate him to regular sea duty. Several U.S. Senators wrote on Brown's behalf, and the Navy's Bureau of Engineering intervened to keep him in a lab role a bit longer.2 This behind-the-scenes paper trail suggests Brown's "electrogravitics" had caught at least some official attention, though likely as a curiosity.
By 1933, as the Great Depression squeezed military budgets, Brown's active duty status was curtailed. He was promoted to Lieutenant (junior grade) on April 18, 1933 2, but soon after, the Navy had to reduce its ranks. In May 1933, Brown was released from active duty due to cutbacks, despite appeals by a sympathetic Senator to retain him.2
The Navy kept Brown nominally on its inactive rolls, with the understanding that if a "Gravity Section" were ever established in the Hydrographic Office, he might be recalled.2 In the meantime, Brown returned to civilian life but remained involved in Navy-connected projects. Officially, between 1933 and 1938 he was listed as inactive Navy Reserve, yet "pending establishment of [a] Gravity Section" he undertook various special projects for the Navy on an ad-hoc basis.2 For instance, Brown did work on harbor defense experiments in Lake Erie and relief efforts during this period (these activities are only sparsely documented). This quasi-military status allowed him to network with prominent scientists and patrons.
One significant event in 1934 hints at Brown's clandestine connections: According to later recollections, Brown traveled to Nassau (Bahamas) to demonstrate his gravitation-related instruments to wealthy industrialist Alfred Loomis and representatives of the British Admiralty.2 Alfred Lee Loomis was a financier and scientist who ran a private laboratory and would later be instrumental in WWII radar development. That Brown had an audience with Loomis suggests high-level interest in his work. Indeed, Loomis reportedly took over development of some instruments after seeing Brown's demo.2 Whether this demonstration involved Brown's "gravity detectors" (sidereal radiation experiments) or his gravitator propulsion devices is unclear, but it underscores the shadowy patronage he sought. Also in 1934, Brown started a family — his son Joseph was born on March 13, 1934.2
Brown's personal life during the 1930s was eventful. He had married Josephine Beale in September 1928 2, but the stresses of financial instability and constant relocation took a toll. The Browns divorced on December 3, 1937.2 Remarkably, they would later reconcile and remarry, but during the late '30s Brown was essentially a lone inventor again. In January 1938, he established the Townsend Brown Foundation, likely as a vehicle to solicit funds for research.2 He attempted to base some activities back at Denison University (his alma mater), requesting space to house his instruments, but the Denison trustees declined in March 1938.2 Despite these setbacks, Brown's Navy ties soon re-emerged as World War II loomed.
World War II Involvement and Experiments (1938–1945)
With global tensions rising in 1938, the U.S. Navy recalled Brown to active service. He rejoined the Navy in mid-1938 (with the rank of full Lieutenant) and was assigned to a series of technical roles.2 In June–September 1938, Brown served aboard the brand-new cruiser USS Nashville during its shakedown cruise. This cruise doubled as a "goodwill tour" of ports in the Caribbean and Europe, and notably included a secret mission to transport $50 million in gold bullion from England to the U.S. (to secure assets before war).2 Brown's participation in that mission hints at his involvement in sensitive operations beyond pure science. By 1939, Brown was reporting to superiors that he had built a "sidereal radiation detector" for the University of Pennsylvania — essentially an instrument to detect cosmic rays or gravitational waves.2 He believed fluctuations in his gravitator devices might be caused by cosmic phenomena and hoped to predict events (even, ambitiously, stock market moves) from cosmic radiation.
When World War II erupted in Europe (Sept 1939), Brown was transferred to defense-related engineering work. In 1940 he took a position as a materials engineer at the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore, helping develop military flying boats.2 That same year, on September 19, 1940, Brown remarried his first wife Josephine — the couple reunited after three years apart.2 As the U.S. entered WWII in Dec 1941, Brown was drawn back into naval technical projects. From late 1940 through 1941 he worked on acoustic and magnetic minesweeping techniques — crucial for countering naval mines.2 By early 1942 (after Pearl Harbor), Lt. Brown was stationed at the Atlantic Fleet Radar School in Norfolk, Virginia, serving as a Radio Officer and instructing radar operation.2
Brown's naval career, however, took a sudden downturn in mid-1942. Navy records indicate that on September 30, 1942, Brown resigned his Navy commission "to avoid court martial".2 The exact circumstances remain murky. One possibility is that Brown ran afoul of Navy regulations — perhaps due to unauthorized research or security violations. There is some speculation that Brown might have been sharing information with British intelligence (given Josephine's work in 1940–41 as a courier for William Stephenson's spy network in Washington 2) or pursuing fringe experiments on Navy time. In any case, facing disciplinary action, Brown chose to quietly resign. This incident effectively ended his formal Navy career, but it did not end his wartime contributions.
After leaving the Navy, Brown moved to southern California in 1943. He obtained an engineering job at the Vega Aircraft Corporation (a division of Lockheed) in Los Angeles, applying his skills to the war effort.2 He settled his family in Los Angeles on Wonderland Drive and worked on projects like high-frequency antennas. Yet even as he labored at Lockheed, Brown kept tinkering with fundamental physics. In a personal lab notebook dated December 1, 1942 (maintained during his Vega days), he jotted down ideas on UHF antennas and musings on the Structure of Space 2 — evidence that his quest for an electrical theory of gravity never stopped.
Alleged Wartime Intelligence Missions (1944–1945)
One of the most intriguing — and controversial — chapters of Brown's life comes from family accounts and later recollections regarding late WWII secret missions. According to narratives preserved by Brown's associates, in April 1945 (immediately after President Roosevelt's death) Brown was tapped for a covert operation in Europe.2
The story goes that Brown, though a civilian, was recruited by Allied intelligence to help recover advanced Nazi technology and scientists in the closing days of the war. He was supposedly flown into newly occupied Germany as part of a special technical unit. One account claims Brown flew on a Halifax bomber (tail number NA337) and operated alongside members of a British commando unit (John Godfrey's 30 Assault Unit) codenamed "Twigsnapper" and an American agent "O'Riley/Boston".2
The mission allegedly involved searching for secret German research facilities in Bavaria (possibly related to exotic propulsion or weaponry). During a confrontation, Brown was shot in the chest and a German scientist they sought was killed.2 Brown was then said to have convalesced in a classified U.S. Army hospital in England, recovering from a lung injury.2
These dramatic claims are difficult to verify and do not appear in official military records. However, they are not entirely implausible: We know that Allied technical teams (like Operation TICOM and others) were actively hunting German radar, cryptographic, and weapons experts in 1945. Indeed, Brown's name does surface adjacent to notable figures — for example, Canadian-American physicist Robert Sarbacher (who later became known for UFO-related statements) was in Europe then with Naval Intelligence — one account has Brown crossing paths with Sarbacher's team and even participating in the extraction of a German engineer named Richard Miethe from Soviet territory.2
Miethe was rumored (in UFO circles) to have worked on Nazi flying discs, though historians dispute those claims. Family sources also suggest British spymaster William Stephenson (the same who employed Brown's wife earlier) was involved in guiding Brown's postwar activities.2 While concrete documentation is lacking, these wartime espionage stories have become part of Townsend Brown's legend. We must treat them cautiously, noting that no declassified government document has confirmed Brown's role in such missions. They may be conflations of real events with later embellishments. Regardless, what is documented is that Brown emerged from WWII with serious health issues (a lung injury that plagued him later) and a network of contacts in both American and British intelligence communities.
Postwar Experiments and Electrogravitics Revival (1945–1950)
After WWII, Brown settled in California to recuperate and resume civilian research. By late 1945, he and Josephine were living in Laguna Beach, where Brown began writing down his reflections on physics and war. Family lore mentions he penned a piece called Rain on the Window around 1944–45, a possibly allegorical essay produced during his recovery.2 On December 11, 1945, the Browns welcomed a second child, daughter Linda.2 The postwar period saw Brown trying to capitalize on both his wartime connections and his pre-war electrogravity ideas. In 1946, he opened a small laboratory in Los Angeles with two close colleagues: Bradford Shank (an engineer who had worked with him at Lockheed) and Dr. Beau Kitselman (a polymath friend). Together, they explored various futuristic technologies. Brown even purchased 10 acres of land in Dana Point, California with the vision of establishing a Sidereal Radiation Laboratory there.2 This lab would continue his pre-war investigations into anomalous radiation and gravity.
In 1947, a series of events pushed "flying discs" — both extraterrestrial and human-made — into the zeitgeist. The famous Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting occurred in June 1947, igniting public fascination with flying saucers.2 Simultaneously, the U.S. Air Force and Navy were initiating research into high-speed flight and potential "novel propulsion" (some small efforts on gravity control were considered at the Air Materiel Command). Brown, attuned to the moment, sought to position himself in this emerging field. In late 1947 he uprooted his family and moved to Hawaii, perhaps to pursue a particular opportunity. On December 5, 1947, Brown, Josephine, their two children, and Brown's mother arrived in Kauai.2 Over the next few years (1947–1950), Brown resided in the Hawaiian islands, where he intermittently worked as a consultant for the Navy at Pearl Harbor. Navy records indicate he was employed in the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard's Electronics Shop in this period.2 He also continued demonstrating his gravitator devices — for example, he gave a demonstration of an electrogravitic device at the Barbers Point NAS to a group of Navy students, showing that a high-voltage capacitor suspended on a beam would move in a particular direction.2
Brown didn't abandon his sidereal radiation research either. He collaborated with the eccentric entrepreneur Roger W. Babson during 1948–49. Babson, a wealthy financier who had a lifelong interest in gravity (he founded the Gravity Research Foundation in 1948), was intrigued by Brown's idea that gravitational or cosmic fluctuations could predict stock market trends.2 There are indications Brown worked on an "electrogravitic stock market predictor" in Hawaii, possibly monitoring cosmic rays or geomagnetic signals and correlating them with markets.2 This sounds like fringe science (and it was), yet Babson's known interests make it plausible.
During Brown's Hawaiian sojourn, his mother, Mary Townsend Brown, fell ill and died (in December 1948) in California. Brown controversially did not return to the mainland for her funeral — a decision that upset his family and was even noted in an FBI report later.2 By 1950, Brown was trying to get the U.S. military to seriously consider electrogravitics for propulsion and communications. In the summer of 1950, he staged a private demonstration on Waikiki Beach for high-ranking Navy officers — and rumor has it, even President Harry Truman might have been present or aware.2 Brown demonstrated both a propulsion device and a novel communication method (possibly using modulated electrogravitic signals). Unfortunately, a security breach occurred during that demo (the details are lost, but perhaps someone leaked information), and Brown's relationship with Navy brass soured temporarily.2 At the same time, Brown's marriage nearly unraveled (Josephine discovered Brown had grown close to another woman during the stresses of this project), but she ultimately chose to stay with him and support his work.2
By late 1951, Brown decided to return to the continental U.S. to pursue larger-scale funding for his ideas. He left Hawaii and re-established himself in Los Angeles, reconstituting the Townsend Brown Foundation with new partners. He gathered a small team including Mason Rose, Ph.D. (a philosopher and academic) and rejoined Bradford Shank. They set up a lab in L.A. and launched what Brown dubbed "Project Winterhaven." Winterhaven was an ambitious research proposal to formally study electrogravitation for aerospace propulsion. Brown's plan was to attract either Air Force or private aerospace backing for a multi-year program investigating the link between electromagnetism and gravity.6 The project documents envisioned everything from ground tests of flying disk prototypes to eventual gravity-powered space vehicles. Brown's team in 1952–53 actively courted major corporations and institutes: names like Stanford Research Institute, the University of Chicago, Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, the Franklin Institute, Lear Incorporated, and General Electric appear in his proposal as potential collaborators.2 He was effectively trying to kickstart the electrogravitics field.
Electrogravitics and Military Interest (1952–1956)
The early 1950s saw a surge of interest — both sincere and speculative — in the idea of anti-gravity technology. Brown became a central figure in this movement. In April 1952, he gave demonstrations of his tethered flying discs to the press in Los Angeles.2 These were small model "saucers" (often two triangular electrodes or circular foil electrodes suspended by a wire, charged to tens of thousands of volts) that would whirl around a central pole when energized. Journalists witnessed the effect but remained skeptical, often attributing the motion to mere ion wind or electrostatic forces. Brown nonetheless garnered publicity as an inventor trying to build a flying saucer, which in the UFO-obsessed climate of 1952 kept him in the headlines.
His claims did attract official scrutiny. The U.S. Air Force's Wright-Patterson base and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) both evaluated Brown's devices. ONR commissioned physicist Willoughby M. Cady in Pasadena to investigate Brown's claims in 1952. Cady's final report dated 15 September 1952, titled Thomas Townsend Brown: Electro-Gravity Device — An Investigation Relative to T.T. Brown, concluded that the observed thrust was "only electric wind" — i.e. an electrohydrodynamic effect caused by ionized air, not anti-gravity.2 The Cady Report went so far as to quantitatively analyze Brown's setups and found no evidence of new physics. Initially the Navy marked the report confidential, but they declassified it almost immediately, indicating they saw no military value worth keeping secret.2 This was a blow to Brown's hopes of classified funding — however, the dismissal did not end military interest entirely. In fact, Project Winterhaven, Brown's proposal, had quietly made its way to the U.S. Air Force by late 1952. In early January 1953, an FBI field office obtained a copy of Brown's Winterhaven prospectus and wrote a summary memo (FBI report, 10 Jan 1953) noting the institutions and companies involved.2 The FBI was monitoring Brown largely because of the potential for fraud (several get-rich-quick "flying saucer" schemes were under watch in that era). The January 1953 FBI report on Brown concluded that while Brown was pitching exotic ideas, there is no information he is engaging in any promotional activity at this time that would defraud investors.2 In other words, the Bureau didn't see Brown as a con man at that moment — he appeared genuinely convinced of his work and not actively swindling anyone.
Despite limited official backing, Brown pressed on. In mid-1953, he moved back to his hometown of Zanesville, Ohio, to regroup.2 Money was tight — one of Brown's grown children later recalled that he left California almost penniless and disillusioned after the Winterhaven push. For a time in 1953, Brown worked as a consultant to the Brush Development Company (Clevite-Brush Corp.) in Cleveland.2 Brush was a company involved in electronics and acoustics, and interestingly, Brush's founder Charles F. Brush had himself written papers on gravitation decades earlier (Brown likely knew of Brush's early 20th-century "kinetic gravity" experiments 6). Brown's consulting stint didn't yield any breakthroughs — however, his mention that "interest in Washington [was] increasing" by late 1953 hints that he was in quiet talks with government contacts again.2
Opportunity knocked in an unexpected form: by early 1954, Brown and his wife moved to Washington, D.C., where they took over management of an Embassy Laundry business.2 The laundry, oddly enough, may have been a front or side-incoming venture while Brown engaged with contacts in the capital. The Browns stayed at the home of Jacques F. Cornillon, a French electronics engineer. Cornillon would become a collaborator of Brown's, helping test electrogravitic devices in France a few years later. Also involved in Brown's D.C. circle was Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher, a prominent electronics expert and Pentagon consultant.2 Sarbacher had been quoted in 1950 about classified UFO material and was generally a high-level insider. The exact nature of Brown's Washington activities in 1954 remains shadowy — phrases like "Russian connections" appear in notes 2, implying the group was wary of Soviet interest in their work. What is documented is that things went awry by mid-1954: On May 29, 1954, two wealthy men from Los Angeles filed a fraud lawsuit naming Brown.2 These disgruntled investors claimed Brown had misrepresented his technology. The suit alleged that Brown's "electro-gravity" project had backing or involvement from big names (the Ford Foundation, Hughes Aircraft, General Electric, RCA, even celebrities like Bing Crosby) which turned out to be untrue.2 Essentially, Brown was accused of promising connections and results that did not materialize, and the investors wanted their money back. The FBI took note — agents Puscheck and Spirito compiled a report on the matter.2 There is no record of the lawsuit's final outcome in the dossier, but it likely fizzled as Brown had no significant assets. The episode damaged Brown's reputation and underscored the precarious line he walked between visionary and promoter.
Seeking a fresh start, Brown relocated to the East Coast later in 1954. In November 1954, he moved his family to a farm near Leesburg, Virginia, just outside Washington.2 This placed him closer to the capital's scientific community while living quietly in the countryside. During 1955, Brown continued his research in relative obscurity, but big events in the outside world suddenly made anti-gravity a hot topic. In November 1955, the New York Herald-Tribune ran a headline story "Conquest of Gravity Aim of Top Scientists in U.S.", announcing that government and industry leaders were convening to crack the gravity barrier.6 This article mentioned prominent physicists and hinted that secret progress was being made. In reality, the article was likely inspired by conversations with defense contractor personnel and possibly Brown's associates who hyped electrogravitics. Brown himself published technical papers around this time: in 1956, the journal Interavia (a Swiss aerospace magazine) published two articles on "Electrogravitics" that drew heavily from Brown's work and claimed that major American aerospace firms were investing in gravity control research. Indeed, a confidential report entitled Electrogravitic Systems was prepared in 1956 by Aviation Studies Intl., cataloging all known gravity research — Brown's experiments featured prominently.6 It suggested that if Brown's effect could be scaled up, disk-shaped craft might achieve incredible speeds with no apparent means of lift.6 Another 1956 summary, The Gravitics Situation, was written for an entity called Gravity Rand, Ltd. (an organization Brown and Mason Rose set up).6 These reports, though optimistic, further raised Brown's profile within certain Air Force circles. They indicate that by the mid-1950s, electrogravitics had gone from fringe curiosity to a subject of classified briefings — however, results were still very uncertain.
From 1955 to 1956, Brown traveled to Europe to collaborate and demonstrate his devices. He made at least two trips to Paris: one in July 1955 and another in spring 1956.2 In France, Brown partnered with the aviation engineer Jean-Jacques Barré and Jacques Cornillon to test large-scale capacitor discs. This effort was nicknamed Project "Montgolfier" (after the hot-air balloon inventors) and was funded in part by the French aerospace research agency. Brown's tests reportedly involved vacuum chambers to see if the effect worked in a near-vacuum (to rule out ion wind). The French tests (1955–1956) produced mixed results — Brown claimed success, but skeptics noted the measured thrust disappeared in vacuum conditions, reinforcing the ion thrust explanation. Nonetheless, Brown's presence in Europe deepened the mystique around him. He was photographed at Parisian cafes with mysterious associates (the timeline notes a photo of Brown with the agent "O'Riley" at Fouquet's in Paris).2 Brown also visited England, where he met with his son Joseph (who was then serving in the U.S. Air Force in Britain).2 Brown hinted to his family that during this trip he also dealt with intelligence matters — references in his notebooks to a "tunnel diode" project, the Berlin Tunnel (a CIA/MI6 operation to tap Soviet communications), and a superior "listening device" suggest he may have consulted on espionage tech while abroad.2 By late 1956, Brown was back in the U.S., just as a civilian UFO research group was forming in Washington.
One footnote to Brown's 1950s activity: in October 1956, he was involved in founding the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), which became a leading civilian UFO organization. The idea for NICAP was conceived in Brown's own kitchen in Leesburg along with friends like Clara John and Helen Towt, who suggested forming a "committee" to study UFOs.2 Brown was a natural choice for NICAP's first director, given his scientific background and flying-saucer credentials. NICAP was incorporated in 1956, and Brown served as its first Chairman. However, this role was short-lived. In January 1957, NICAP's board (which included several retired military officers) forced Brown out, concerned that NICAP's funds might be diverted into Brown's electrogravity research rather than UFO investigations.2 Admiral Delmer Fahrney (former Navy missile chief) replaced him, and later Major Donald Keyhoe took leadership, turning NICAP into a serious UFO lobbying group. Brown's ouster from NICAP illustrates the tension between his electrogravitics agenda and the UFO community's aims. It also marks the end of Brown's semi-public phase. After 1957, he slipped into quieter, more secretive pursuits once again.
Later Career and Classified Projects (1957–1960s)
In mid-1957, with NICAP behind him, Brown relocated to the gentler environs of Umatilla, Florida. In March 1957, he and his family moved to a farm there, and by all accounts Brown seemed more relaxed.2 Outwardly, he led the life of a small-town gentleman, but behind the scenes he was as busy as ever. He maintained a home office in Umatilla outfitted with shortwave radios and continued dividing his time between "intelligence work" and "Winterhaven projects," as his daughter later put it.2 This suggests Brown had ongoing consulting work perhaps for intelligence agencies (though details are scant) while still refining his inventions.
A significant development came in late 1957: Brown was approached by Agnew H. Bahnson Jr., a North Carolina industrialist with an interest in antigravity research. Bahnson invited Brown to Winston-Salem, NC, to collaborate. Starting in November 1957, Brown began consulting for Bahnson Laboratories, which had set up an ambitious private gravity research program funded by Bahnson's fortune.2 At Bahnson's lab, Brown finally had substantial resources at his disposal: high-voltage power supplies, skilled technicians, and a secure facility. During 1958, Brown and a small team (including electrical engineer J. Frank King and others) worked on scaled-up versions of Brown's electrokinetic thrusters. By early 1958 they achieved what they believed was "100% counterbary" — in other words, a device that could fully counteract gravity in air, effectively levitating (albeit while tethered).2 On January 11, 1958, they held a celebratory test where a capacitor-powered apparatus hovered, demonstrating "counterbary" (their term for anti-gravity). This event was even captured on 16mm film.2 The Bahnson lab also explored adjunct technologies — notes mention a flame jet generator and other exotic propulsion concepts being discussed.2
The Bahnson period was perhaps the closest Brown came to a credible scientific validation of his work. Notably, in December 1957, prominent physicists Dr. Bryce DeWitt and Cécile DeWitt-Morette visited the Bahnson lab to observe experiments.2 Bryce DeWitt was a respected relativist (known for quantum gravity work), so his interest in Brown's experiments is remarkable. It's not fully documented what DeWitt concluded, but the visit demonstrates Brown's efforts to engage mainstream scientists. Unfortunately, the Bahnson-funded project did not last long. By late 1958, Agnew Bahnson's personal priorities shifted (Bahnson tragically died in a plane crash in 1964, ending that patronage entirely). According to one of Brown's colleagues, something "major" happened in August 1958 that pulled Brown away from the lab.2 It is hinted that Brown became involved with an "intelligence organization" around that time.2 One retrospective account (by a cryptographer named Charles "Morgan" who befriended Brown's family) claimed that the CRITICOMM secure communication network that went online in 1958 was actually Brown's brainchild.2 This claim is unverified, but it aligns with Brown's deep contacts in military circles. What is clear is that after October 1958, Townsend Brown effectively ceased keeping open lab notebooks.2 His Notebook #2's last entry is September 29, 1958 — he would not resume scientific journaling again until 1967.2 This gap has led many to speculate that from 1958 onward, Brown's work entered a "black" (classified) phase, possibly under government contract.
Between 1958 and 1963, Brown's activities are sparsely documented — these are sometimes called the "missing years" in his biography.2 We do know a few things: In 1960, he briefly resurfaced to help Agnew Bahnson in another way — Bahnson wrote a science fiction novel The Stars Are Too High (published 1960) about anti-gravity, loosely inspired by Brown, and Brown consulted on it.2 Also, famous UFO contactee George Adamski visited Bahnson's lab in September 1960 2 — an odd intersection of the fringe communities. By 1962, Brown reappeared with a new corporate affiliation. He had formed (or joined) a company called Electrokinetics, Inc. and later Whitehall Rand, Inc., to pursue practical applications of his effect. In 1962, Brown quietly moved his family to the outskirts of Philadelphia for a new project.2 He had secured a contract with Martin Decker Company (a Pennsylvania electronics firm) to develop an electrokinetic air purifier and fan — essentially a silent, ion-propelled blower for cooling and ventilation. This was a clever spin-off of his research: even if anti-gravity was elusive, the ion wind was very real and could be harnessed to move air with no moving parts. Brown's "electric ventilation" concept was ahead of its time and would decades later find commercial success. At Decker, Brown worked on a prototype ionic fan and an electrostatic loudspeaker (another application of capacitive force).2 He assigned several of his patents to Electrokinetics Inc. during this period (for example, patents on electrokinetic transducers and generators in 1962).3 However, this partnership was turbulent. By 1963, Brown had a falling-out with Martin Decker's management and left amid legal wrangling — he would later joke that Decker's stock certificates were worthless enough to paper your privy with.2
The early 1960s also brought personal hardship. In 1962, one of Brown's closest friends, Helen Towt (who had helped him with NICAP and whose family hosted the Browns in Virginia), died in a suspicious car accident on her way to meet Brown's colleague.2 And in 1964, Brown's former patron Agnew Bahnson died, which many believe ended any hope of reviving the private anti-gravity lab at Chapel Hill.2
By 1964, Townsend Brown was on the move again — literally. From 1963 to 1964 he and his family lived in suburban Philadelphia (at a property called "Ashlawn" in Great Valley) so that Linda could finish high school.2 Once she graduated, Brown had no reason to stay. In September 1964, he and Josephine left the East Coast and went to Homestead, Florida, near Miami.2 Brown set up a home laboratory in Homestead and began collaborating with an old WWII-era acquaintance: Sir William Stephenson (the famed "Intrepid" of British Security Coordination). Stephenson, retired in the Bahamas, was interested in Brown's work and possibly facilitated some support. In fact, Brown's son-in-law (pseudonymously called "Morgan" in some accounts) claims that Stephenson recruited him in 1964, hinting that Brown's family got intertwined with intelligence via Stephenson.2 Brown also got involved with a shadowy group in Nassau, Bahamas around 1965. He frequently flew to Nassau, meeting contacts at the Coral Gables hotel "Graycliff".2 There was talk of forming a new organization out of Nassau to support Brown's research, with large sums ($100,000) offered to relocate his lab there.2 It seems multiple parties (Martin Decker's group vs. the Nassau group) were vying for Brown's "electrokinetic" technology in the mid-1960s, reflecting potential military or intelligence interest.
In April 1966, Brown made a pivotal choice: he moved back to Philadelphia to work again with Martin Decker Co., hoping to finalize the electrokinetic fan for commercialization.2 The Nassau sponsors embedded two men (Puscheck and Spirito — ironically the same names from the FBI in 1954) at Decker's plant to keep an eye on things.2 By mid-1966 Brown's team had a working high-voltage fan ready for testing.2 This device could silently propel air using ionized particles — a direct application of the Biefeld-Brown effect. However, tensions flared: in September 1966, a security breach at Decker's lab caused Brown's Nassau backers to demand he sever ties with Decker.2 Brown resented this interference because he wanted to see the prototype through.2 Finally, on October 5, 1966, after Decker's company failed to pay his wages, Brown walked out and abandoned the Decker contract.2 He immediately flew to San Francisco to assemble a new "management team" with colleagues Beau Kitselman and Brad Shank, aiming to find big-name investors for his technology.2
Their efforts paid off: by spring 1967, legendary financier Floyd Odlum (head of Atlas Corporation and husband of aviatrix Jackie Cochran) agreed to back Brown. In April 1967, Brown performed a dramatic demonstration of the electrokinetic thrust at Odlum's ranch in Palm Springs, with Air Force General Curtis LeMay and famed test pilot Chuck Yeager in attendance.2 A few weeks later, Brown gave a private demo to Dr. Edward Teller (father of the H-bomb) at Teller's home in Berkeley.2 These presentations astonished the VIP observers — one Guidance Technologies Inc. executive reportedly exclaimed the effect was "so incredible it had to be some kind of fake".2 But it was real: Brown's device produced thrust with no moving parts, just as he claimed. Odlum immediately incorporated a new company, Guidance Technology, Inc. (GTI), to exploit the invention for aerospace applications. In June 1967, Odlum moved the entire Brown family and lab to Santa Monica, California, and put them on GTI's payroll.2 For the next several months, Brown's team worked under tight secrecy rebuilding and refining the "electrokinetic inflator" (essentially a high-voltage fan unit) for military use.
A contract was signed with GTI on August 3, 1967 2, and tests continued through that fall. The project was treated as highly sensitive "black" research. In September 1967, Brown and his associate Charles Miller handed off important documents and a "black application" of the technology to Northrop Corporation, a major defense contractor.2 This suggests the Air Force or Odlum intended Northrop to pursue a classified development (perhaps for aircraft electrostatic boundary layer control or propulsion). Indeed, on January 22, 1968, Aviation Week magazine reported Northrop was studying a new means of reducing aerodynamic drag by ionizing the air at a plane's wing leading edge.2 This was very likely an outgrowth of Brown's work. In November 1967, as GTI prepared to go public with results, something abrupt occurred: Odlum's team demonstrated Brown's device to analysts at the RAND Corporation, and, according to Brown's daughter, "nobody [at RAND] was surprised".2 The next day, Odlum shut the project down without explanation.2 It appears that once the key military players were convinced the tech worked, they moved it fully into classified channels. "It's over, sweetie," Brown told his daughter — meaning the open development was finished.2 Floyd Odlum arranged a generous severance for Brown: GTI (which soon went bankrupt or was absorbed) would pay Brown $1,500 per month for life per a contract Odlum drew up.2 Essentially, Brown got a pension to keep him comfortable and possibly to ensure his silence. This extraordinary arrangement validated Brown's lifelong claims in one sense: he had built something so interesting that powerful people wanted to lock it up in secrecy.
Final Years and Legacy (1970s–1980s)
After 1968, Townsend Brown largely stepped out of the spotlight. Now in his 60s and in declining health, he no longer chased big projects. He and Josephine moved to Catalina Island, California in 1971 for a quieter life.2 Almost immediately upon moving, Brown suffered a severe lung hemorrhage (likely related to his old injury) and had one lung surgically removed at Stanford Medical Center.2 This limited his physical activities, but not his intellectual pursuits.
In the 1970s, Brown continued consulting on a few niche projects. In 1975, he attended a conference at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) and met engineer James Lee, who hired Brown as a consultant for a company developing electrokinetic cooling fans.2 The main challenge was mitigating ozone and nitrogen oxide byproducts from the ionized air — a problem Brown had wrestled with in his own designs.2 Brown also revisited one of his longstanding fascinations: petrovoltaics, the study of electrical potentials in rocks. Since the 1940s he had hypothesized that certain rocks under pressure or geological stress produce usable electrical energy (he once imagined self-powered "pebble" generators). In the late 1970s he led Project "Xerxes investigating these rock electricity phenomena.2 He installed sensitive equipment in underground locations (including a deep mine and in Oahu, Hawaii) attempting to measure tiny voltages tied to gravitational or seismic events. For a while, even the U.S. Department of Energy's DUMAND project (Deep Underwater Muon and Neutrino Detector) in Hawaii engaged Brown to help with sensor design, because his sidereal radiation detector ideas might assist in neutrino detection.2 Ultimately, funding for Brown's petrovoltaic research was cut off after a trip he made to Washington to pitch it.2 One of Brown's old friends, physicist Dr. Everett Palmatier, wrote him an encouraging letter around that time, saying Brown's latest work was the light at the end of a rainbow which has been dark for too long 2 — a touching recognition that even late in life Brown was chasing visionary rainbows.
By 1979, Townsend and Josephine Brown contemplated a final move to Hawaii (a place they loved since the 1940s). At first Josephine was reluctant, but Brown arranged a trip to San Francisco to introduce her to some of the people involved, after which she agreed — an anecdote the family interpreted as Josephine finally being shown the importance of Brown's secret work.2 However, their plans changed, perhaps due to Brown's health. In the early 1980s, the couple moved back to Catalina Island, where their daughter Linda and her family were living.2 There on Catalina, Townsend Brown spent his last years peacefully, occasionally talking physics with whoever would listen and enjoying time with his grandchildren.
On October 27, 1985, Thomas Townsend Brown passed away at age 80.2 Even at the very end, he took measures to secure his files: shortly before his death, he shipped his collected papers and notebooks to a colleague in San Antonio for safekeeping.2 (These archives were later returned to his family and today form the core of the Townsend Brown family collection). Brown's wife Josephine died a few years later in 1988.2
Not long after Brown's death, hints of his influence surfaced in unexpected places. In 1987–88, a small tech company Zokesy (Zatek) obtained a patent on an ionic airflow fan explicitly citing Brown's work, and this technology was soon commercialized as the Sharper Image "Ionic Breeze" air purifier — a popular product that was essentially the electrokinetic fan Brown had built in the 1960s.2 And in 1988 and 1992, Aviation Week reported that the Air Force's new B-2 Stealth Bomber might be using electrogravitic charges on its wing leading edges to enhance lift and stealth.2 These reports fueled conspiracy theories that Townsend Brown's research had been adopted in black projects. While the Air Force officially denied any such "antigravity" system on the B-2, the coincidence was tantalizing: Northrop (manufacturer of the B-2) had indeed taken over Brown's work in 1967 2, and now Northrop's secretive flying wing was rumored to have an exotic electrostatic subsystem.
Townsend Brown's legacy thus straddles the worlds of legitimate science, fringe research, and deep conspiracy. To his credit, he left behind a body of patents and experimental evidence that later researchers have scrutinized and even replicated in part. Hobbyists around the world began building "lifters" in the 1990s — lightweight balsa and foil capacitors that fly when charged at 30+ kilovolts, a direct descendant of Brown's discs. NASA and Air Force labs have tested such devices — all agree the effect is real, but mainstream science attributes it to electrohydrodynamics (ion winds) rather than gravity control.1 Nonetheless, Brown is revered in certain circles as a pioneer who dared to chase a dream of gravity control. His work influenced a generation of electrokinetic tinkerers and kept alive the flame of curiosity about unified field theories. Brown himself maintained to the end that some aspect of the Biefeld-Brown effect was non-conventional. In a 1977 interview, he emphasized that the effect was a "departure from Coulomb's Law" — meaning an asymmetric force not explained by classical electromagnetism alone.6 Critics, of course, were equally adamant that no gravity was involved, only clever electrostatics.2
Analysis of Brown's Scientific Theories and Experiments
The Biefeld-Brown Effect
Brown's primary claim to fame — the force on asymmetrically charged capacitors — is well documented experimentally. Brown and Biefeld first observed it in the 1920s using X-ray tubes, and Brown refined it into various demonstrations over decades. The effect is now understood in conventional terms: a high-voltage electrode ionizes the surrounding fluid (air), and the ions are accelerated toward a second electrode, colliding with neutral air molecules and producing a thrust (Newton's third law in action). Modern terminology calls this an ionocraft or EHD thruster. Brown, however, believed these ionic winds were only part of the picture. He noted that the force was proportional to the dielectric mass between the plates and persisted (though much weaker) even under oil or vacuum conditions in some tests.7 Brown hypothesized a coupling between electric fields and spacetime — essentially an electrogravitic field — that would cause a motion against gravity itself, not just pushing air.
Independent attempts to replicate Brown's experiments under vacuum (for instance, by researchers in the 1990s and 2000s) found that when air is absent, no thrust is produced beyond extremely minute effects. This strongly suggests the effect is due to air ions. The 1952 ONR Cady investigation explicitly concluded the phenomenon is evidence of no new force, only a conventional electric wind.72 Cady's report, after analytical modeling, explained Brown's results without invoking gravitation. In 2003, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center also tested lifter devices in vacuum and detected no thrust once air was removed 2 (a confirmation of Cady's earlier verdict). Thus, mainstream science criticizes Brown's theory as a misinterpretation — the consensus is that Brown did not control gravity but rather built one of the first ion-propulsion devices. Indeed, Brown's 1960 patent acknowledges that the force in air comes from moving ionized atoms, which impart momentum to the apparatus.8 In his patent text, Brown describes how the positive ions are drawn towards the negative plate, and their momentum transfer produces a reaction force on the system, pushing it toward the positive side.8 Ironically, Brown's own patent admits the role of ionized mass, even if he personally believed an additional gravity effect was involved.
Electrogravitics and Unified Field Theories
Brown was influenced by early 20th century ideas of unifying forces. Einstein's attempts at a Unified Field Theory and others' speculations on linkage between electromagnetism and gravity shaped Brown's outlook.5 Throughout his life, Brown posited that a sufficiently strong electric field might "curve spacetime" or produce a local gravity well. He spoke of creating man-made gravity fields that could propel vehicles or communicate instantaneously.
These theories never achieved mathematical or experimental validation by orthodox standards. While intriguing, Brown's notion of "electrogravity" did not gain support in the scientific literature. One indirect legacy is that Brown's work (and others like him) kept alive a subculture of gravity research. Even as mainstream physics moved towards quantum theory and later quantum gravity (with extremely small, not easily engineered effects), Brown's electrogravitics inspired fringe experiments. For example, the Gravity Research Foundation (established by Roger Babson) ran annual contests for gravity essays, and some winners (like forward-thinking physicist Bryce DeWitt, who visited Brown) explored novel gravity ideas — though none confirmed Brown's effect.
Replications and Validations
Apart from the ion-propulsion replication (which validates the effect but with conventional explanation), no experiment has shown a propulsive force in a completely self-contained capacitor system in vacuum that could indicate true anti-gravity. Some researchers have tried rotating superconductors or pulsed high-voltage systems (inspired by Brown) in hopes of seeing weight changes — the results have been inconclusive or negative. On the other hand, Brown's electrokinetic inventions found practical validation: The ionic breeze fan, electrostatic air cleaners, and even high-voltage spray painting techniques are direct extensions of his work in harnessing ion flows.3 In that sense, Brown did discover something useful — just not the gravity control he imagined.
Impact on Scientific and Fringe Communities
In the aerospace industry of the mid-1950s, Brown's claims helped spark a short-lived "antigravity race." Major companies like Martin, Convair, Lear, and Sperry established internal projects to investigate gravity shielding or "electrogravitics," as evidenced by industry reports at the time.6 This fervor died down by 1958 when it became clear no breakthroughs were imminent (and possibly when projects like Brown's went black). For the UFO and fringe science community, Brown became almost a folk hero: he was cited in countless books and magazines as "the man who mastered gravity" or the scientist behind the rumored Philadelphia Experiment (more on that shortly). In the 1970s, William Moore — a UFO researcher — wrote two glowing articles The Wizard of Electro-Gravity about Brown, bolstering his legend.6 Brown himself never claimed any connection to UFOs, but the fact that he built flying discs and headed NICAP briefly made him an enigmatic figure straddling both worlds. To serious scientists, Brown's work remained at best an interesting electrostatic curiosity — to true believers, he was a visionary kept down by government secrecy.
Professional Associations, Collaborators, and Critics
Throughout his career, Townsend Brown crossed paths with an eclectic cast of characters.
Dr. Paul Biefeld
Brown's earliest mentor and collaborator at Denison University. Biefeld provided guidance that led to the discovery of the Biefeld-Brown effect in the 1920s.2 Biefeld's role lent some academic legitimacy to Brown's young work, though Biefeld himself did not publish on it (apart from the affidavit for Brown 2).
Dr. Mason Rose
A philosopher-psychologist who became Brown's partner in the 1950s. Rose was President of the Townsend Brown Foundation and authored a 1956 paper The Application of the Biefeld-Brown Effect to Space Navigation. 6 He helped articulate Brown's vision to potential investors. Rose and Brown eventually parted ways — Rose reportedly felt sidelined when military secrecy increased.
Agnew H. Bahnson Jr.
An aviation entrepreneur who funded Brown's work in 1957–58. Bahnson's financial support allowed for the most credible experimentation on electrogravity.2 Collaborating with Bahnson were engineers like George Pyne and Frank King. The Bahnson Labs results, while still secret at the time, represent perhaps Brown's peak experimental achievements (e.g., the filmed levitation). After Bahnson's death in 1964, Brown lost a major ally.
Robert Sarbacher
A Pentagon consultant and electronics scientist who interacted with Brown in the early 1950s. Sarbacher's interest in Brown's work (and possibly involvement in Winterhaven discussions) suggested some government curiosity.2 Sarbacher later became famous for confirming to UFO researchers that a UFO crash briefing occurred in 1950 — which, interestingly, circles back to the fact that Brown's work was peripherally known to those in high-secret circles.
William P. Lear ("Bill Lear")
The founder of Lear Jet, Lear met Brown around 1951–52 and was fascinated by his ideas.2 Lear visited Brown's Los Angeles lab and reportedly considered funding electrogravity research. Lear's own company later did patent some ion propulsion concepts. Lear stayed interested enough that in late 1967, he personally visited Brown's GTI lab in Santa Monica to witness the ionic thrust demonstrations.2 His presence added industry clout to Brown's efforts.
Floyd Odlum
A wealthy financier who became Brown's benefactor in 1967, providing the final big push. Odlum's backing brought in VIP observers like Gen. Curtis LeMay and Dr. Teller.2 Odlum's motives may have been patriotic (to get the tech into U.S. Air Force hands) as well as profit-oriented. By securing Brown a pension, Odlum effectively retired him from public research — a move many interpret as buying out Brown's work for the government.2
Critics and Skeptics
Key among these was ONR's Willoughby Cady, who wrote the definitive official critique in 1952.7 Also, within the Air Force, skeptics ensured that after initial studies, funds were directed elsewhere. In the civilian realm, electrical engineers pointed out from the 1950s onward that Brown's thrust-to-power ratio was far too low for practical flight (especially given it required high voltage and generated only modest thrust). Some peers even gently suggested Brown was chasing a will-o'-the-wisp. For example, scientist Philordic (P.I.) Wold and A.C. Longden had published in Physical Review in 1930–31 about similar "Brush Researches" and found no new gravitational effects.6 Brown was certainly aware of such publications, but he remained undeterred.
Family Collaborators
Brown's wife Josephine stood by him through most adventures, sometimes even spying on his behalf (as when she carried messages for Stephenson in WWII 2). His daughter Linda Brown became an advocate for preserving his legacy, running a forum in recent years. Son Joseph Brown had a strained relationship — he grew bitter about what he called his father's "flying saucer pipe dreams" and left home in 1953 in frustration.2 However, Joseph later reconciled and even met with his father in London during Brown's 1956 trip.2
The Philadelphia Experiment and Other Legends
No dossier on Townsend Brown would be complete without addressing the mythic Philadelphia Experiment (PX) claims. The Philadelphia Experiment is a famous urban legend alleging that in October 1943 the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Eldridge was rendered invisible — and possibly teleported — in an experiment at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Various accounts tie this to Unified Field Theory tests supposedly conducted by Albert Einstein or Navy engineers. By the 1970s, some theorists (notably Dr. Morris Jessup and later Charles Berlitz & William Moore) speculated that Townsend Brown's work might have been the basis of the Philadelphia Experiment.
Brown's name enters the PX lore mainly through Moore and Berlitz's 1979 book The Philadelphia Experiment — Project Invisibility. They devoted an entire chapter, "The Force Fields of Townsend Brown," to discussing Brown's research and suggesting that Brown could have been involved in wartime Navy invisibility experiments.9 This speculation was influenced by Dr. Rinehart "Riley" Crabb of Borderland Sciences, who fervently believed Brown was in charge of the Philadelphia Experiment.9 The reasoning hinged on Brown's sudden resignation from the Navy in late 1942 (which was near the timeline of when PX might have been planned) and his known work on electromagnetic fields. Crabb and Moore surmised that Brown's gravitators might have been scaled up to bend light around the ship (causing optical invisibility) or to degauss it (magnetic invisibility to torpedoes).
However, careful research has debunked many PX elements, and Townsend Brown's direct involvement is highly doubtful. Brown himself never claimed to have participated in any such experiment, nor is there evidence the Navy entrusted him — a junior officer at the time — with such a fantastical project. In fact, Brown was already out of the Navy by October 1943, working at Vega Aircraft in California.2 The family timeline notes Brown's resignation was to avoid a court martial, not to jump onto a secret project.2 It's also worth noting that Brown's known work dealt with electrostatic fields, not the kind of intense magnetic fields the PX story involves. The Townsend Brown family and archives point out significant errors and unreliable sources in Moore's portrayal.9 For instance, Moore's chapter on Brown contained inaccuracies about Brown's career and exaggerated his role.
Thus, while it is an alluring idea that Townsend Brown was the "wizard behind the curtain" of the Philadelphia Experiment, primary documentation does not support this. It remains a fringe hypothesis. Brown's true contributions — ionic propulsion and perhaps some classified sensor technology — are remarkable enough without the need to invoke teleporting battleships. The Philadelphia Experiment chapter in his legend is best viewed as a colorful footnote reflecting how enigmatic his work appeared to outsiders.
Patents and Technical Documentation
Throughout his life, Brown sought to patent and publish as much as possible (within the bounds of security). He was awarded at least a dozen U.S. patents and several foreign patents related to electrokinetic and electrogravitational devices. Below is a summary of Brown's key patents, illustrating the evolution and scope of his inventions:
Table: Selected patents of T. Townsend Brown. These cover his gravitor/electrokinetic inventions and related applications.
Brown's patents often include detailed technical drawings and schematics. For example, his 1960 Electrokinetic Apparatus patent (US 2,949,550) shows configurations of asymmetrical capacitors: a flat plate electrode paired with a wire electrode, capable of producing thrust in the direction of the plate.10 The patent text explicitly describes the "heretofore unknown electrokinetic phenomenon" Brown discovered — that when a pair of electrodes are immersed in a dielectric and charged with high voltage, a force is produced tending to move the pair of electrodes through the medium. 10 This is essentially a formal statement of the Biefeld-Brown effect. Brown notes in the patent that prior art had no method of directly converting electrical energy to a unidirectional force (aside from trivial electrostatic attraction), highlighting the novelty of using ions to produce thrust.10
The later patents (1960s) indicate how Brown attempted to turn the effect into practical devices — pumps, blowers, and generators. Notably, patent US 3,267,860 (1966) is assigned to Martin Decker Corp., reflecting that work he did under contract became their intellectual property.3 Similarly, his final patent US 3,518,462 (1970) is assigned to GTI, Floyd Odlum's company.3 This patent was for a fluid flow control system, essentially the ion-drive fan implemented for aircraft airflow control. The fact that it was issued in mid-1970, after Brown's project ended, suggests that some aspects were left unclassified enough to patent, but presumably the most interesting uses were kept secret. It's telling that shortly after these patents, open publications on electrogravitics largely disappeared, implying the work either concluded or went entirely underground.
Government Documents and Declassified Material
Through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests and archival research, we have insight into how authorities viewed Townsend Brown.
FBI Files
The FBI opened a file on Brown in the early 1950s when he began seeking large investments for his claims. The FBI was concerned about fraudulent stock schemes in the "flying saucer" craze. A declassified FBI memo from January 1953 on Project Winterhaven noted Brown's proposals and contacts, but concluded there was no evidence of fraud at that time.2 Another FBI report in May 1954 summarized the fraud allegations from California investors, listing the prominent names Brown had dropped and the fact that an investigation was ongoing.2 These files (available through archives and sites like The Black Vault) show the FBI's ambivalence: they did not fully understand Brown's tech, but they kept tabs in case unwitting investors were misled. By 1955, after Brown lay low, the FBI lost interest.
ONR and Air Force Reports
We have the Cady Report (ONR File 24-185) from 1952, which was classified but quickly declassified.2 This primary document, Investigation Relative to T. T. Brown, spans about 12 pages and thoroughly debunks Brown's anti-gravity interpretation.7 Cady's analysis stands as the official Navy position: interesting effect, conventional cause. The Air Force, for its part, commissioned Aviation Studies Intl. to survey gravity research — the resulting Electrogravitics Systems" (1956) report is now declassified and available.6 It reveals that by 1956, 10 of the leading U.S. aerospace companies were researching gravity control in some form, largely spurred by Brown's work and public statements. However, it cautiously states that results were inconclusive and estimated it might take until the year 2000 for true gravity propulsion to be achieved.6 (As of 2025, we can say that prediction, if anything, was optimistic.)
FOIA on Brown's Military Records
Brown's Navy service record (partially released) confirms his enlistment, the special submarine duty in 1932, and his resignation in 1942 "under conditions other than honorable" (essentially an administrative removal). These records align with the timeline given here.2 No mention of classified gravity projects appears in his official service file, which is not surprising if such projects were compartmentalized.
Declassified Correspondence
Among Brown's personal papers (some now public via the family website and archive) are letters that shed light on his relationships. For example, a 1957 letter from Bryce DeWitt, after visiting the lab, politely thanked Brown but offered no endorsement of anti-gravity — indicating the scientific skepticism in private. Another interesting item is a 1966 Naval Ordnance Lab letter regarding his work on the electrokinetic fan for possible submarine ventilation, which ultimately didn't pan out.
In summary, the government documents show a pattern: initial curiosity, followed by official debunking, followed by quiet monitoring — and finally likely classified appropriation of any useful parts of Brown's technology (the ion propulsion aspects). There is no smoking gun in public archives that the U.S. government obtained a working antigravity device from Brown. However, it is evident that intelligence agencies kept him on their radar (literally and figuratively) through the Cold War, given the potential military applications of any breakthrough in propulsion or sensing.
Sources
The information in this dossier is drawn from the Thomas Townsend Brown family archives and library (including the continuously updated timeline of his life) 2, Brown's own writings and patents 410, declassified government reports such as the 1952 ONR investigation 2, FBI memoranda from 1953–54 2, and contemporary newspaper articles from the 1950s that covered antigravity research.6 These primary documents have been cited throughout to provide a factual basis for each aspect of Brown's remarkable story.
Sources
Footnotes
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Timeline, thomastownsendbrown.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17 ↩18 ↩19 ↩20 ↩21 ↩22 ↩23 ↩24 ↩25 ↩26 ↩27 ↩28 ↩29 ↩30 ↩31 ↩32 ↩33 ↩34 ↩35 ↩36 ↩37 ↩38 ↩39 ↩40 ↩41 ↩42 ↩43 ↩44 ↩45 ↩46 ↩47 ↩48 ↩49 ↩50 ↩51 ↩52 ↩53 ↩54 ↩55 ↩56 ↩57 ↩58 ↩59 ↩60 ↩61 ↩62 ↩63 ↩64 ↩65 ↩66 ↩67 ↩68 ↩69 ↩70 ↩71 ↩72 ↩73 ↩74 ↩75 ↩76 ↩77 ↩78 ↩79 ↩80 ↩81 ↩82 ↩83 ↩84 ↩85 ↩86 ↩87 ↩88 ↩89 ↩90 ↩91 ↩92 ↩93 ↩94 ↩95 ↩96 ↩97 ↩98 ↩99 ↩100 ↩101 ↩102 ↩103 ↩104 ↩105 ↩106 ↩107 ↩108 ↩109 ↩110 ↩111 ↩112 ↩113 ↩114 ↩115 ↩116 ↩117 ↩118 ↩119 ↩120 ↩121 ↩122 ↩123 ↩124 ↩125 ↩126 ↩127 ↩128 ↩129 ↩130 ↩131 ↩132 ↩133 ↩134 ↩135 ↩136 ↩137 ↩138 ↩139 ↩140 ↩141 ↩142 ↩143 ↩144 ↩145 ↩146 ↩147 ↩148 ↩149 ↩150 ↩151 ↩152 ↩153 ↩154 ↩155 ↩156 ↩157 ↩158 ↩159 ↩160 ↩161 ↩162
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Patents, thomastownsendbrown.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17
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Stress in Dielectrics, thomastownsendbrown.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15
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US2949550 Patent PDF, patentimages.storage.googleapis.com ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4