Joshua Goldberg and Air Force gravity research
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 8
| Date | Late 1956 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Beings & bodies (topic), Propulsion & physics (topic), Bases & Area 51 (topic) |
| People | Joshua Goldberg |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 58 |
| Year | 1956 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1956 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 8 |
Joshua N. Goldberg (1925–2020) was a physicist who, from 1956, spent seven years at the U.S. Air Force's research laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base building a team devoted to general relativity, and managing Air Force funding for relativity research in the United States and Europe.[1][2]
Background
Goldberg was born in Rochester, New York, on 30 May 1925, studied at the University of Rochester and earned his doctorate at Syracuse University in 1952 under Peter Bergmann, a leading relativist. He worked at the Armour Research Foundation in Chicago from 1952 to 1956.[1]
At Wright-Patterson
In 1956 Goldberg moved to the Aeronautical Research Laboratory (later the Aerospace Research Laboratories) at Wright-Patterson, where its general physics laboratory supported researchers working on gravitational waves, the mathematics of relativity and related questions. Some accounts credit the group with dozens of studies in what some historians call the "golden age of relativity".[1][3]
Later career
Goldberg became a professor of physics at Syracuse University in 1963. He published 61 papers, including the Goldberg–Sachs theorem with Rainer Sachs in 1962, a key result in the study of exact solutions of Einstein's equations, and was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1972. He died in Madison, Wisconsin, on 5 October 2020.[1][2]
The anti-gravity question
Historians credit Air Force money, along with private funding, with reviving gravitational physics after decades of neglect. Some researchers have suggested the program was an anti-gravity propulsion effort in disguise, but Goldberg's published work deals with basic theoretical physics, and documents do not support that idea. The Air Force program wound down in the early 1970s, around the time the Mansfield Amendments restricted military funding to research with a direct military purpose.[3][4]
People and topics
- Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — The Ohio air base that housed Project Blue Book and is linked to the Hangar 18 legend.
- Joshua Goldberg — Physicist who managed Air Force funding for general relativity research from 1956 to 1963.
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Anti-gravity — The idea of cancelling or controlling gravity for propulsion.
On the Timeline
- White Sands landing reports (1956) (September 1956) — Unconfirmed reports describe a domed disc landing in front of personnel at White Sands.
- NICAP fed a fake crash story (1957) (May 1957) — Civilian group NICAP is fed a fake UAP crash story by a source with NSA ties.
See every 1956 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Joshua N. Goldberg — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Remembering Joshua Goldberg, professor emeritus of physics", Syracuse University (Oct 2020) · news.syr.edu · archived copy
- "The truth is the military has been researching anti-gravity for nearly 70 years", The War Zone · twz.com · archived copy
- Daniel Kennefick, "Controversies in the history of the radiation reaction problem in general relativity" (1997), arXiv (PDF) · arxiv.org · archived copy
- thecollege.syr.edu · thecollege.syr.edu · archived copy
- journals.aps.org · journals.aps.org · archived copy
- aip.scitation.org · aip.scitation.org · archived copy
- arxiv.org · arxiv.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
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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