Bearden's vacuum energy claim (2013)
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 6
| Date | 24 December 2013 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Propulsion & physics (topic) |
| People | Thomas Bearden |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 178 |
| Year | 2013 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 2013 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 4 |
Thomas Bearden, a retired U.S. Army officer and engineer known for promoting "scalar electromagnetics" and free-energy ideas, continued in the 2010s to claim that energy could be extracted from the vacuum, citing his patented "Motionless Electromagnetic Generator" (MEG). The testimony dates a statement of this claim to December 2013.[1][2]
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. It describes a device with no moving parts in which a permanent magnet's flux is switched between two paths by alternately pulsed input coils, inducing current in output coils. The patent reports measured output exceeding input power and extrapolates a "coefficient of performance" of 3.44 per output coil, while stating that the device is not a perpetual-motion machine and that its magnet gradually demagnetises.[2]
Criticism
Patent attorney Charles Mirho, writing in 2002, argued that the MEG is not a free-energy source but a depleting "magnetic battery" converting the magnet's stored energy into electricity, and that the energy cost of making the magnets would push the true ratio below one; the prototype produced only milliamps. He used it to illustrate how jargon can lend credibility to pseudoscientific claims. No MEG has demonstrated over-unity output in rigorous independent testing, and Bearden's scalar-wave ideas have not been published in peer-reviewed physics literature.[3][4]
UFO connection
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Bearden's ideas are popular in free-energy circles and among some UFO disclosure advocates, who argue that breakthrough energy technologies have been suppressed. 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
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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