MARAUDER
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 7
| Date | 1 August 1993 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Government programs (topic) |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 117 |
| Year | 1993 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1993 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
MARAUDER — "Magnetically Accelerated Ring to Achieve Ultra-high Directed Energy and Radiation" — was a U.S. Air Force research program to build a coaxial plasma gun that would fire rings of magnetised plasma, called compact toroids, at extremely high speeds. It was run by the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, in the late 1980s and early 1990s before disappearing from the public record.[1][2][3]
Background
The program followed computer simulations in 1990 and the Ring Accelerator Experiment (RACE) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1991. It was linked to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Its stated goals included possible "hypervelocity projectiles", the generation of X-rays and the amplification of electrical power.[1][2]
The experiments
MARAUDER used Shiva Star, a large pulsed-power capacitor bank at Kirtland that had grown out of X-ray research begun in 1971 and was expanded into its star shape in 1982. In August 1993 a team led by J. H. Degnan of Phillips Laboratory's High Energy Plasma Division published results in Physics of Fluids B describing the formation, compression and acceleration of compact toroids of one to two milligrams of plasma in a coaxial gun about a metre across. The paper stressed that, unlike most similar research, the work was not aimed at magnetic-confinement fusion. Projections called for the plasma rings to reach 3,000 kilometres per second by 1995 and 10,000 kilometres per second — about three percent of the speed of light — by 2000.[1][2][3]
Classification
Little was published about MARAUDER after 1993, and accounts say the project became classified; no information on it has appeared since about 1995. Shiva Star itself was later used for openly published fusion research, including magnetised target fusion experiments from 2007.[1][2]
UFO connection
The testimony mentions MARAUDER as an example of exotic weapons research at Kirtland, the base at the centre of the Bennewitz affair, and alongside allegations about secret weapons work on tribal land associated with the Cabazon reservation stories. MARAUDER itself is documented in the scientific literature and had no known connection to UFOs.[1][4]
People and topics
- U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
- Kirtland Air Force Base — The Albuquerque air base at the center of the Bennewitz affair.
- Bennewitz affair — Bennewitz affair
- Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
On the Timeline
- FBI MJ-12 espionage file (22 July 1993) — The FBI says it has a closed 'Majestic-12' file labelled espionage.
- Richard Weaver on MJ-12 (1993) (12 October 1993) — An Air Force colonel calls MJ-12 and its documents bogus but can't say how that was decided.
See every 1993 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- MARAUDER — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Shiva Star — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- J. H. Degnan et al., "Compact toroid formation, compression, and acceleration", Physics of Fluids B 5 (1993) · doi.org · archived copy
- Phillips Laboratory MARAUDER study, DTIC · apps.dtic.mil · archived copy
- Phillips Laboratory MARAUDER compact toroid study (1993, PDF) — DTIC · apps.dtic.mil · archived copy
- inis.iaea.org · inis.iaea.org · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.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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