Alfred Matthew Hubbard
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Alfred Matthew Hubbard (1901–August 31, 1982) became a 'freelance' apostle for the drug LSD in the early 1950s. The controversial "Captain" Al Hubbard is considered to be as important to the history of LSD as Aldous Huxley or Dr. Timothy Leary.
Although he had no medical training, during the 1950s Hubbard worked at the Hollywood Hospital with Ross McLean, psychiatrists Abram Hoffer, Dr. Humphry Osmond, Myron Stolaroff at the International Federation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, and with Willis Harman at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International), running psychedelic sessions with LSD.
At various times over the next twenty years, Hubbard also reportedly worked for the Canadian Special Services, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. It is also rumoured that he was involved with the CIA's MK-ULTRA project. How his government positions interacted with his work with LSD is unknown.
Hubbard is reputed to have introduced more than 6,000 people to LSD, including scientists, politicians, intelligence officials, diplomats, and church figures. He became known as the original "Captain Trips", travelling about with a leather case containing pharmaceutically pure LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin.
In addition to being a major proponent of LSD, earlier in life, Al Hubbard invented a device, also via divine inspiration at the age of 16, which provided enough "free energy" to power a boat around Portage Bay, on Lake Union, in Seattle, Washington. He demonstrated the device for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and potential investors on July 28th, 1920. During the demonstration the boat was said to travel at about 10 knots (ca. 18km/h), and it was silent aside from the sound of the electric motor, which was linked to the boat's prop via a belt. The boat was said to have never slowed during trip around Lake Union.
Hubbard received a patent for his device which he called the "Atmospheric Power Generator," from the United States Patent office, number 1,723,422. Hubbard, when speaking to the press said the device generated 280A at 125V which is 35kW, or roughly equivalent to about 45HP.
While claiming early on that his device drew it's energy from the atmosphere, later, Hubbard recanted, saying the device drew power from radioactive materials, rather from thin air, and that his earlier claims were subterfuge, intended to throw off anyone who might try to usurp his patent rights. If this is the case, Hubbard's device would be the most powerful Nuclear battery ever created, and as early as 1919, easily making it the first. He sold 75% of the rights to his device to investors, who according to Hubbard, tried to re-reveal his device using Lester J. Hendershot as their mock inventor. This has never been substantiated.
After giving up rights to his motor, he turned prohibition agent, and later worked for several organizations, including the BATF, CIA, and FBI. As well as founded the Canadian Uranium Corporation, before becoming interested in LSD. Many have suggested that his interest in the drug was as an agent for the government, and that he was really no prophet of the new age, as others like to think of him. His close association with the Governments of the US and Canada are enough to make this a plausible idea, but as with his generator, these claims cannot be substantiated.
