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18 The Hunt for Zero Point
LaViolette had become interested in antigravity during his study for a
Ph.D. in systems science from Portland State University. His curiosity
was aroused further when he realized that the electrogravitics report was
missing from its rightful place in the library's stacks—"like it had been
lifted," he told me later.
When LaViolette asked the librarian if she could try to locate a copy
elsewhere, what began as a simple checking procedure soon developed
into a full-blown search of the interlibrary loan network, all to no avail.
Convinced he would never see a copy, LaViolette gave up, but weeks
later the librarian called to tell him that she had managed to track one
down. It had been buried in the technical library of Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
There were no other copies known to exist across the whole of
America.
"Whatever's in it," she told LaViolette dryly, "it must be pretty
exotic."
When LaViolette finally got the Air Force to release the report, exotic
seemed about right. Electrogravitics Systems, drafted in February 1956,
the same year Trimble and his colleagues began pronouncing publicly on
antigravity, contained details of what appeared to be a Mach 3 antigravity
aerospace vehicle designed as a fighter-interceptor for the U.S. Air
Force.
The fact that the report had been located at the Air Force's premier
research and development facility instantly made Electrogravitics Systems
an intriguing piece of work. That the USAF also appeared to have
sat on it for almost 40 years only served to underscore its importance,
LaViolette and his associates felt.
I had managed to track LaViolette through the Integrity Research
Institute. The institute sat on the edges of a sub-culture of researchers
who relentlessly picked over the antigravity issue. Type "antigravity"
into a Net search engine and an outpouring of conspiracy-based nonsense
on the government suppression of antigravity technology usually
popped up onscreen. In the sober world of defense journalism, I'd
never remotely envisaged a day when I'd have to involve myself in such
matters.
Now, recalling Cross' warnings about professional suicide, I was
reluctant to take the plunge, but realized that I had no choice.
I spoke to a colleague of LaViolette's called Tom Valone who
mercifully never pressed me on the reasons why I was so interested in the
antigravity business. A few days later, a copy of Electrogravitics Systems
duly arrived through the mail.