Gasoline pill

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The gasoline pill or gasoline powder is one of several fictitious or fraudulent concoctions that claim to turn water into gasoline, which can be used to run an automobile. The gasoline pill is one of several suppressed inventions that circulate as urban legends. Usually these urban legends allege a conspiracy theory that the oil industry seeks to suppress the technology that turns water to gasoline.

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[edit] Guido Franch

In the United States, the best known claim to have created a gasoline pill was the work of one Guido Franch, who was active from the 1950s through the 1970s. Franch called the resulting liquid Mota fuel, mota being atom spelled backwards.

Guido Franch was a blue collar worker who lived in Livingston, Illinois. His invention was a green powder that was added to water, which he claimed had actually been invented by a fictitious German scientist named Dr. Alexander Kraft. Franch took money from a number of small investors who read about his claims in the National Tattler or a similar publication. In what became a frequent motif, he claimed that the water-into-gasoline powder formula could not be disclosed for fear that the oil industry would have it suppressed. Franch, when pressed into providing samples of his transmutation powder, produced samples of green food coloring.

As a result of his activities, Franch was prosecuted several times for fraud. His first trial in 1954 resulted in his acquittal when a prosecution witness admitted that it might be possible that "mota fuel" worked. His second trial in 1979 resulted in his conviction.[1]

Earlier, Franch had predicted to Suburban Trib newspaper columnist Bill Geist the landing of the spaceship Neptune for 9:30 p.m. November 24, 1978 in an open farm field near Warrenville, Illinois. Over 4,000 people, including newspaper, radio and TV reporters, showed up in near-freezing temperatures to watch the skies for the ship's arrival. The Neptune, with "Cutty Sark" emblazoned on it to take advantage of a contest, would be manned by the Black Eagle Galaxy patrol, of which Franch was admiral. But his ground crew failed to show up and this prompted Neptune to abort touchdown. The commander of the Neptune, according to Franch, was afraid to set the ship down in such a crowded field without the ground crew's help -- to prevent injury to members of the public. Franch said he felt humiliated.

[edit] Other water-to-gasoline "inventors"

In 1916, Louis Enricht claimed to have a water to gasoline pill. Enricht was convicted of fraud in a related case, claiming to have a method for extracting gasoline from peat, and served time in Sing Sing prison. In 1917, John Andrews pitched a water to gasoline powder to the United States Navy. Andrews disappeared after making his pitch, but it turned out that he had returned to Canada, where he was serving in the Canadian Navy.[2]

In 1996, Ramar Pillai claimed to be able to transmute water to gasoline by a herbal formula that he claimed was the result of a miraculous bush. Pillai obtained 20 acres of land to cultivate his bush, but in fact it turned out that he was using sleight of hand to substitute kerosene for the liquid he claimed to have derived from the bush.[3]

[edit] Gasoline pills in fiction

In the 1949 motion picture Free For All, Robert Cummings starred as a scientist who claimed to have invented a pill that turned water into gasoline.[4]

In the television sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, Jethro Bodine claimed to have devised a water to gasoline pill that ran the Clampetts' old truck on water.

In an episode of the 1960s American sitcom The Munsters, Grandpa invents a gasoline pill.

In E.L. Doctorow's historical novel Ragtime, Henry Ford must deal with a man claiming to have invented a water-to-gasoline pill; possibly a reference to Louis Enricht.

In episode 254 of The Simpsons, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes," Homer is trapped on a mysterious island with, among others, a Number 27 who is trapped there because she knows how to turn water into gasoline.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Is there a pill that can turn water into gasoline?" at The Straight Dope
  2. ^ FOCUS, Volume 1, Number 10 (December 31, 1985)
  3. ^ Ramar Pillai admits it was not herbal fuel, Express India.
  4. ^ Free For All entry at the IMDB.

[edit] See also