John Hutchison

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John Hutchison is a Canadian autodidact known for his alleged discovery of a variety of purported natural (or paranormal) phenomena.

1 Hutchison's Discoveries
2 Media coverage
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Hutchison's Discoveries

Hutchison claims that in the 1980s he worked for the American and Canadian military, investigating various alleged phenomena. He refers to several of these phenomena as "the Hutchison effect".

Even the most broad-minded scientists doubt the reality of these phenomena. In a recent posting to sci.physics.research, Marc Millis, who ran the now defunct Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program for NASA, wrote:

This "Hutchison Effect" has been claimed for years, without any independent verification — ever. In fact, its originator can't even replicate it on demand. This has been investigated more than once, been part of documentaries on the discovery channel, but still never seems to pass critical muster. This is in the category of folklore. In general, the "American Antigravity" web site caters to such folklore and its enthusiasts.

—Marc G. Millis

Furthermore, the credit for creating the effect is in dispute, as Mel Winfield claims that it was solely through his theories that the Hutchison effect came into being.

It has been said that researchers at NASA and the Max Planck Institute have attempted to reproduce some of Hutchison's experiments, but that so far none has succeeded. Indeed, Marc Millis remarks that Hutchison appears unable to reproduce his earlier alleged experiments. Hutchison says that this is due to the destruction of his lab by military intelligence, or because he has been otherwise prevented by the government from repeating his experiments.

Hutchison also claims to have invented over-unity batteries which he calls Q Cells or Hiroshima cells and which, he says, obtain energy from the vacuum using the Casimir effect. Mainstream physicists point out that over-unity is just another word for a perpetual-motion machine, and that the Casimir effect, while a genuine physical effect, has often been invoked by people seeking an energetic "free-lunch", in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics.

Hutchison claims that his work "explains the technology behind UFOs".

[edit] Media coverage

Hutchison's claims have been described from time to time in various fringe newsletters (see example cited below). He has been profiled in several documentaries aired on the The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and Nippon Television.

Hutchison claims that "at the end of the cold war" a "military intelligence service" (not otherwise specified) destroyed his lab in Vancouver while he was traveling in Europe. To support this allegation, Hutchison has presented photos of letters allegedly written by various scientific and government organisations, as well as a letter allegedly written by Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein. However, it is far from clear what relevance these letters, whose provenance is unverified, might have.

Hutchison has offered videos (some for sale on his website) showing the levitation effect, but they are widely considered hoaxes. Some show a toy UFO gyrating wildly in the air. When it was pointed out that a wire or string was supporting the toy, Hutchison claimed it was a power supply.^[1] Other videos show objects suddenly flying upwards and never coming back down. These are all consistent with objects falling from an upside-down stage filmed with an upside-down video camera.^[2] See Charges of fakery.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Ventura, Tim. Video Clip Notes. The Hutchison Effect. American Antigravity. Archived from the original on 2005-09-23. Retrieved on December 11, 2006. “I've received a number of messages about the above video-links pointing out that a string is clearly visibly holding up the toy-UFO that Hutchison is experimenting with. I asked John for more information on the purpose of the string, and received the following reply...”
^ Ventura, Tim (September 11, 2005). The Ultimate Hutchison (PDF) p. 18. American Antigravity website. Retrieved on December 10, 2006. “The Hutchison Effect has been documented on a variety of visual media to include the levitation of materials ... which usually take off straight up at high speed. At first glance it might almost appear that this is somehow faked, using a camera-booth that can be flipped upside down to give the impression that gravity has been negated, but this isn’t the case.”