Louis Witten and the Martin gravity institute
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | 1955 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic), Propulsion & physics (topic) |
| People | Louis Witten, George Trimble |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 53 |
| Year | 1955 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1955 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 9 |
Louis Witten (born 13 April 1921 in Baltimore), a physicist and the father of string theorist Edward Witten, joined the Glenn L. Martin Company's new Research Institute for Advanced Study (RIAS) in Baltimore in the 1950s, part of a wave of corporate interest in gravity research. He later recalled that the company hoped the work might lead to anti-gravity.[1][2]
Background
Witten earned a civil engineering degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1941 and a doctorate in physics there in 1951, then worked at Princeton, the University of Maryland and MIT's Lincoln Laboratory before joining RIAS, the research laboratory of Martin (later Martin Marietta).[1]
RIAS
RIAS was founded in 1955 by Martin's president, George Bunker. George S. Trimble Jr., Martin's vice-president for advanced design, who was reported in 1955 to be organising the institute to pursue theoretical research on gravity, recruited Witten. Witten later described the effort, at a 2013 symposium, as aiming at "the discovery of anti-gravity", and said he received a contract from Wright Field; he published papers on general relativity listing RIAS as his employer.[2][3]
The gravity boom
Witten was part of a broader 1950s wave of private and corporate interest in gravity, including the Gravity Research Foundation of businessman Roger Babson and the Institute of Field Physics, which backed the landmark 1957 Chapel Hill conference on gravitation. Historians of science, including Dean Rickles, have documented how such patronage helped revive the field. The aviation press ran stories about Martin, Convair, Bell and others investigating "anti-gravity", which UFO researchers later cited as evidence of secret programs.[2][4]
Later career
Witten became a professor of physics at the University of Cincinnati in 1968, retiring in 1991, and has been a vice-president and director of science affairs of the Gravity Research Foundation since 1968. He edited Gravitation: An Introduction to Current Research (1962) and was still publishing in 2025, past the age of 100. His account confirms that the interest was real, while showing that the work produced theoretical physics rather than flying machines.[1][2]
People and topics
- Louis Witten — Physicist who joined the Glenn L. Martin Company's research institute in 1955 to study gravity.
- George Trimble — Glenn L. Martin Company executive who backed gravity research in the 1950s.
- Anti-gravity — The idea of cancelling or controlling gravity for propulsion.
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- Project Silver Bug and the Avrocar (1955) — The Air Force acknowledges a contract with Avro Canada, later known as the flying-saucer project Silverbug.
- Douglas Aircraft unconventional propulsion study (1955) — An aerospace executive claims he worked in a UAP group at Douglas Aircraft from 1955.
See every 1955 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Louis Witten — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "The truth is the military has been researching anti-gravity for nearly 70 years", The War Zone · twz.com · archived copy
- "Conquest of Gravity Aim of Top Scientists in U.S.", New York Herald Tribune (20 Nov 1955), transcribed on the Thomas Townsend Brown family website · thomastownsendbrown.com · archived copy
- Dean Rickles, "The Institute of Field Physics, Inc.: private patronage and the renaissance of gravitational physics" (PDF), Max Planck Institute for the History of Science · mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de · archived copy
- The 1957 Chapel Hill conference in context — Edition Open Sources · edition-open-sources.org · archived copy
- youtu.be · youtu.be · archived copy
- journals.aps.org · journals.aps.org · archived copy
- journals.aps.org · journals.aps.org · archived copy
- journals.aps.org · journals.aps.org · archived copy
Further reading
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Hangar 18 (the legend and 1980 film) — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Skunk Works — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
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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