Rejection Magnets

"Rejection magnets" is the term used in the Hamel Flying Saucer (HFS) dossier for ceramic magnets arranged face-to-face in mutual repulsion, so that like poles oppose and the magnets push apart rather than attract. The arrangement is the mechanical basis of the claim that the saucer's two wings float between a fixed top and a fixed base.

The arrangement as described

The dossier's "rejection magnets" section shows David Hamel holding a ceramic magnet and rod at the top of the motor; there are two magnets, one attached to the rod and one to be lowered down to repel it.

Builder Tracy Jones gives the most concrete description:

• 2 × 4 × 6 inch magnets were installed at Hamel's direction to give the wings more lift — 18 on one side of the wing and 18 on the underside, each in rejection to the other, held by brackets. Hamel marked them all with a large "N" to prevent mixing them up.
• Stainless steel channel holds the magnets in place; all are standard rectangle magnets from AZ Industries, with the indentations facing the opposing magnets face to face.
• On the wing not visible in the photograph is another row of magnets directly underneath the visible row, also indented side facing indented side in rejection.
• There are no perimeter magnets at the very bottom or the very top; the two wings between them carry the perimeter magnets.
• All magnets are pop-riveted with stainless steel pop rivets, with a warning to measure three or four times before riveting because the rivets are hard to grind off.

The stability problem

Jones stresses that a welded pipe holds a long spike that keeps the wings lined up during assembly, and that this must be done exactly "or else the wings magnets will not be in rejection when the top wing is resting above the bottom wing. If the wings go to far from one side to the other the magnets will come into attraction and lock up." The length of this movement is restricted by the pinions.

This is the clearest statement in the source of the design's central mechanical idea: the wings are held in a metastable state of magnetic repulsion, and the granite balls and pinions bound their travel so they cannot slip into attraction and lock. The arrangement is therefore a static magnetic suspension with mechanical travel limits, not a source of net energy in itself.

Reported behaviour

In Jones's September 1999 tests, the bottom wing oscillated about 1/4 inch and the top wing slightly less when driven by a windshield wiper motor; the center floating magnet oscillated about 1/8 to 1/4 inch and did not spin. No lift was reported. See Hamel Claims vs. Evidence: The Gravitomagnetic Drive, Forty Failed Replications and the Absence of Measurement.