Gravitomagnetic Drive Claim

The "Gravitomagnetic Drive" is the name given on Jean-Louis Naudin's site to the claimed propulsion mechanism of the Hamel Flying Saucer (HFS). The claim originates in David Hamel's account of a 1975 abduction, in which beings he called "A," Arkan and "On" reportedly explained how their craft travelled.

The claim as stated

According to the account reproduced in the source archive dossier, the ship floated in an anti-gravity bubble powered by electrically charged vortical airflow between magnetic rings. The motor needed no fuel except the inherent magnetic forces that attracted and repelled its components. By varying the relative position of the magnetic rings, a vortex of charged air could be created intense enough to suck the ship through a surrounding electromagnetic disturbance, escaping gravity, radar and common sense.

The three-stage architecture maps this claim onto atmospheric layers: the first stage ("the motor") is analogous to the ionosphere and is where ions are produced; the second stage is analogous to the stratosphere, where the air is thin; the third stage is analogous to sea level, where passengers would live.

Mechanical basis asserted

The mechanism is asserted to depend on:

• Ceramic magnets in mutual repulsion holding two semi-free floating wings between a fixed top and a fixed base — see Rejection Magnets.
• Granite balls and pinions bounding the wings' travel so they cannot slip into magnetic attraction and lock.
• Air intakes — three horizontal slits in the base rim — and a central return hole (the "1st Stage Vortex Return") through which air returns.
• Varying the relative position of the magnetic rings to create the charged vortex.

What is not provided

The dossier contains no derivation, no mathematical model, no measurement of airflow velocity, charge, field strength, force or lift, and no instrumented test. The claimed mechanism is stated as something Hamel was told, not something demonstrated. Builder Tracy Jones reported "no lift off" after 325 minutes of running a motor, and Dan LaRochelle reported that as many as forty people attempted a forty-five-gallon oil drum device based on the design, all unsuccessfully.

Relationship to other claims

The Gravitomagnetic Drive is one instance of the broader class of fuel-less magnetic motor claims, alongside the Hendershot fuelless motor and the separate Perendev Power claim by Mike Brady mentioned in the same dossier. These are distinct claims by distinct inventors and should not be merged. The dossier also links a separate "scalar generator" device attributed to Hamel, said to use nested spinning rings and unbalanced magnetic fields; that is a different device with a different evidentiary basis.

See Hamel Claims vs. Evidence: The Gravitomagnetic Drive, Forty Failed Replications and the Absence of Measurement for the claim-by-claim assessment.