Bearden's vacuum energy claim (2013)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Claimant | Thomas E. Bearden, retired U.S. Army officer |
|---|---|
| Date | December 2013 (as dated in the testimony) |
| Claim | Usable energy can be extracted from the vacuum |
| Device cited | Motionless Electromagnetic Generator (MEG) |
| Patent | US 6,362,718, filed 6 September 2000, granted 26 March 2002 |
| Claimed performance | Coefficient of performance 3.44 per output coil (extrapolated) |
| Scientific status | Rejected by mainstream physics; no over-unity result in rigorous independent testing |
| Topics | Propulsion & physics (topic) |
| People | Thomas Bearden |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 178 |
| Year | 2013 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2013 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 5 |
Thomas Bearden was a retired U.S. Army officer and engineer known for promoting "scalar electromagnetics" and free-energy ideas.[4] Into the 2010s he continued to claim that energy could be extracted from the vacuum of space, pointing to his patented "Motionless Electromagnetic Generator" (MEG). The testimony this article draws on dates one statement of this claim to December 2013.[1][2] Mainstream physics rejects the claim. Bearden's ideas are nonetheless popular in free-energy circles and among some UFO-disclosure advocates.[4][5]
Bearden and his theories
Bearden promoted many exotic electromagnetic concepts. Besides the MEG, which he presented as an over-unity device drawing energy from the quantum vacuum through "time-reversed" electromagnetic waves, he wrote about "scalar weapons". He said these used longitudinal electromagnetic waves to control weather, cause earthquakes and produce biological effects, and claimed the Soviet Union had developed "scalar interferometry" weapons responsible for weather anomalies and the loss of submarines.[4] His theories drew on Whittaker potentials, faster-than-light signals and "vacuum engineering".[4]
He collected his physics in the self-published book Energy from the Vacuum. The science writer Martin Gardner said physicists regarded its theories as "howlers", and that Bearden's doctorate came from a diploma mill.[5] Bearden then founded and directed the Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS) to promote his ideas. The group published papers in established journals and books from leading publishers, but one analysis said the texts were "full of misconceptions and misunderstandings" about electromagnetic theory.[5] His prolific writing and military background lent credibility to stories of suppressed technology and exotic weapons.[4]
The MEG
U.S. Patent 6,362,718, "Motionless electromagnetic generator", was filed on 6 September 2000 and granted on 26 March 2002 to Bearden and four co-inventors. A continuation application followed.[2] The patent describes a generator with no moving parts. A permanent magnet's flux is switched alternately between two magnetic paths by pulsed input coils, and the changing field induces current in output coils, in line with Faraday's law. It cites earlier "flux transfer" devices going back to the 1960s.[2] It proposes cores of nanocrystalline alloy, and magnets of samarium cobalt or an iron–neodymium–boron alloy. It also describes the goal of a device that could keep running without an external power source once started.[2]
The patent's performance figures were extrapolated. Tests were limited to 75 volts by the switching circuits. The inventors projected that at 100 volts, an input of 14 watts would produce 48 watts from each of two output coils, at about 12 milliamps and 4,000 volts, giving a "coefficient of performance" of 3.44 per coil.[2] The patent states that the device should not be regarded as a perpetual-motion machine. It compares the device to a nuclear reactor, with the magnet's radiated flux playing the part of the fuel rods.[2] Among its patent classifications is H02K53/00, "alleged dynamo-electric perpetua mobilia".[2]
Patent controversy
When the patent was granted in 2002, the American Physical Society issued a statement against it. The Patent and Trademark Office said it would re-examine the patent, and would change how it recruited examiners and regularly re-certify them, to stop similar patents being issued.[5] New Age publications nonetheless promoted the device. One front-page article announced that production would start the next year and that it would be "the first commercially-available free-energy device in history", supplying 2.5 kilowatts indefinitely without input power.[3]
Criticism
The patent attorney Charles Mirho examined the patent in 2002 for Strange Horizons. He concluded that the MEG was not a free-energy source but a depleting "magnetic battery". If it was not drawing energy from its surroundings, it had to be consuming itself, converting the stored magnetic energy of its permanent magnet into electricity until the magnet went dead.[3] Such a device might even be useful, he wrote, but manufacturing magnets takes energy. Once that was counted, the true performance ratio would probably fall well below one. The prototype also produced only milliamps.[3]
After filing, the inventors posted a 69-page white paper claiming to have overcome depletion. They said the magnet's energy was continually replenished from the "active vacuum". Mirho found it almost free of equations and full of jargon about space-time and gauge theory.[3] He noted the contradiction of disclaiming perpetual motion to win a patent and then explaining the disclaimer away. He used the case to show how dense, unrigorous language can give pseudoscientific claims a life that experts find hard to end.[3]
No MEG has shown over-unity output in rigorous independent testing. "Scalar waves" of the kind Bearden described do not appear in Maxwell's equations.[4] His scalar-wave ideas have not been accepted in mainstream peer-reviewed physics.[4][5] Critics see the MEG as one more perpetual-motion machine with an unscientific explanation attached, in a line of claimed over-unity devices going back centuries.[5]
UFO connection
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Bearden's work links free-energy mythology, scalar-wave speculation and conspiracy theories about electromagnetic warfare. It has stayed influential in alternative physics despite never being validated.[4] UFO-disclosure advocates who argue that breakthrough energy technologies have been suppressed, cite claims like his. Steven Greer has promoted vacuum-energy claims in his "Disclosure Advocates" series.[1][4]
People and topics
- Thomas Bearden — Retired Army officer who promoted "scalar" free-energy claims.
- Zero-point energy — The lowest possible energy of a physical system, which some hope to tap for power.
On the Timeline
- Pentagon accounting plugs (18 November 2013) — A defense accountant says she was told to enter false numbers in Navy budgets.
- Project Pandora and the Moscow Signal (2014) — The Pentagon declassifies files on Projects Pandora and Bizarre, about microwaves and the mind.
See every 2013 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "What if we can harness vacuum energy within known physics?", Disclosure Advocates series, Steven Greer (YouTube) · youtu.be · archived copy
- US Patent 6,362,718, Google Patents · patents.google.com · archived copy
- Charles Mirho, "Perpetual nonsense", Strange Horizons (Aug 2002) · strangehorizons.com · archived copy
- "Bearden MEG and scalar weapons", Envisioning · envisioning.com · archived copy
- History of perpetual motion machines · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “History of perpetual motion machines”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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