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Cases of UFO Interference with Automobile Engines
Friday, June 13, 2014 11:09
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By James M. McCampbell
ABSTRACT
Progress in understanding very complex subjects sometimes proceeds upon recognizing a basic structure, or pattern, that is inherent in the problem. Most students of UFOlogy fully appreciate the variety of details relating to vehicle interferences. But most of them fall conveniently into the following categories:
1. Engine Disruption And Failure. A normally operating engine begins to run roughly and loses power, with accompanying reduction in speed. It may shortly resume normal operation. Either following the disruption, or occurring suddenly, the engine simply stops running altogether.
2. Failure To Restart. Efforts of the operator to start the engine are unavailing in the presence of a UFO. Usually, it can be turned over, but does not catch. After the UFO has departed, however, starting is again normal. In a few instances, permanent damage has been suffered.
3. Self-Starts. Without any assistance from the operator, the engine starts by itself at the time the UFO flies away or very shortly thereafter.
The proximate cause of engine interferences in the above categories is ionization of the atmosphere. (Reference 1) (Ionization is the process by which electrons become detached from their parent atoms, leaving as separate particles the electron itself and the positively charged remnant of the atom that is called an ion.
Until recently it has been nearly impossible to deal with engine interference cases properly because the mass of data was so widely scattered throughout the literature. It would have required a monumental effort to collect the cases, summarize them, perform statistical analyses, and publish a reference document. But two such documents have now become available. One by the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) in 1979 (Reference 3) and the other by the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in 1981 (Reference 4). Their respective authors, Geoffrey Falla and Mark Rodeghier, deserve admiration and gratitude for these outstanding contributions. It is now relatively easy to scan the worldwide record of vehicle interferences.
Where was the witness when his engine failed? — In the driver’s seat. What could he see when looking under the hood at a dead engine? — Nothing. Where was he when attempting to re-start the car? — Back in the driver’s seat. These circumstances contrive to prevent the witness from observing anything significant, except in one crucial case. (Reference 5) Relevant details of that case are extracted from the British summary. As a very bright light approached a car it mimicked several series of flashlight signals. “….The car radio started to be affected and the engine faltered, the interior of the car became very hot, then the engine failed completely. The driver got out of the car, noted that the object was directly overhead and felt a prickling sensation like small electric shocks. He lifted the car hood and asked his wife to try to start the engine. The engine turned over, but sparks were seen to jump from the plug leads across the coil to the metal side of the car and back again. The man was a master mechanic and had never seen such an effect before. As another vehicle approached the object moved away at high speed. The car engine could then be started immediately….” (Emphasis supplied by the present author.) It is fortuitous that this event took place at 10 o’clock at night as the sparks may not have been noticed in daylight. So of several hundred cases of engine interference, we have one in which the cause was actually observed. And by a mechanic at that:
What does this mean? Very strong electrical surges of 15,000 to 20,000 volts are delivered to the spark plugs through heavily insulated wires. These wires fan out from the distributor to each plug, lying rather snugly to the engine block and grounded components. In normal operation, rubber insulation plus that provided by spatial separation assures that the electrical surge is delivered to the plugs. The insulating properties of air are impressive. It can sustain an electrical tension without breakdown of about 76,000 volts per inch. For a wire carrying a charge of 15,000 volts only half an inch from the engine block, the electric field strength would be roughly 30,000 volts per inch; so the margin for preventing the charge from shorting out is not great. Now comes a UFO that ionizes the air. Free electrons in such a strong electrical gradient will be accelerated. They will quickly acquire sufficient speed and kinetic energy to knock electrons off of other atoms. These, in turn, produce grandchildren, etc. The net result is an avalanche of charge as the atmosphere breaks down in a spark. By this method, Geiger counters register the passage of a single ionizing particle. Once the charge has been dissipated to ground, the conducting path heals itself. This mechanism would prevent the high-voltage surge from reaching the spark plugs. The onset of this condition would first be observed as a disruption of the engine when one or a few cylinders was starved, because their wires were closer to ground or their insulation had deteriorated. When a sufficient number of cylinders do not receive a spark, the engine will fail.
Rodeghier found a total of 268 engine failures not including, of course, instances of mere rough running or loss of power. Comparing this number with the 27 self starts, one sees that the latter phenomenon is rare, amounting to only about 10% of the time. At any rate, these cases are adequate to establish some essential factors for self starting. The presence of a UFO is obviously required, usually at rather short range. (No mysterious engine failures followed by self starts are known to the author to have been reported apart from a UFO sighting.) Self- starts occur only in conjunction with departure of the UFO, either simultaneously, within seconds, or a few minutes at most. Cars, trucks, vans, and motorcycles are subject to the phenomenon. All are presumed to have had internal combustion engines using spark plugs as none of the available summaries indicated diesel engines. Based upon conditions within the engines that are necessary for self starting, the rarity of these events will become explicable.
Most people have a pretty clear, if not detailed, idea of how car engines work. Electric current from the battery flows through the primary circuit of the coil until it is broken by the opening of the breaker points. The resulting collapse of a magnetic field in the coil induces a high-voltage surge in the secondary windings that is distributed in a certain order to the spark plugs. A fuel-air mixture is then ignited to create high pressure within the cylinder. Not so well known is the fact that the spark is normally timed somewhat early because the propagation of the flame front in the cylinder and the build up of pressure are relatively sluggish. At idling speed, the spark is ignited while the cylinder is still approaching top-dead-center (TDC) on the compression stroke. It is usually set at about 5 degrees of crankshaft rotation ahead of TDC, but automatic devices advance it much farther in proportion to the engine speed.
There is a natural threat of sparking across the opening points that would rapidly erode the point surfaces. To offset this problem, a small condenser is included in the circuit to take up the current temporarily when the points open. Thus sparking is prevented. If the air around the points was ionized, however, an electrical breakdown between the points would be likely. Fairly high electrical field strengths exist at the instant of point separation. With a supply of free electrons and ions around the points, a spark over could easily occur and persist while the points continued to recede to their maximum spacing. Such a current is technically known as an arc discharge. These arcs, having a negative resistance characteristic, produce a runaway current unless it is limited by resistance in the circuit itself. As the current under normal conditions is limited by the resistance in the primary circuit, it will be limited in the arc to exactly the design value. Only when the UFO leaves the scene would the ionization be reduced until the arc could no longer be sustained. It would then extinguish itself instantly. As far as the electrical behavior of the primary circuit is concerned, this event would not be distinguishable from normal opening of the points, that is, a sudden breaking of the circuit. A strong surge must then be induced in the secondary circuit. It could then reach the spark plugs if departure of the UFO has removed the cause of such surges being shorted to ground. So a cylinder in a warm engine, being fully charged with a fuel-air mixture is ignited. If it had come to rest somewhat past TDC, the force due to firing will crank the engine gingerly. One need only remember how push-starts were done in manual shift cars. One cylinder firing and off you went:
Cranking of the engine would be effective from a cylinder position between a few degrees past TDC to 1200 or so. But the crankshaft rotates twice for each power stroke of a cylinder in a 4-cycle engine. So, as a first approximation, one could estimate the favorable circumstances for a given cylinder to be about (120/2×360) x 100 16.4%, if the rest position was purely random. However, it is not. Cylinders act in pairs with one in the compression stroke being balanced by another in the power stroke. If the valves opened and closed at exactly O and 180-degrees, the trapped gases in a non-firing engine would merely act as efficient springs, balancing out the net torque on the shaft. Again, because of the relatively sluggish movement of the gases into and out of the cylinders, valves are timed to operate in anticipation of these two angles. A net torque causes a coasting and stopping engine to approach, then slightly back away from TDC. Its companion would correspondingly approach and slightly back away from its bottom position at 180-degrees, an unfavorable location for self starting. Hence the probability of favorable circumstances for a given cylinder should be much less than 16%. Furthermore, if the engine remained dead for a long time, the fuel-air mixture would leak out past the rings, making self starts impossible. The duration of engine failure is seldom reported, but it must be limited to a matter of minutes, or even to several seconds. While calculating the probability of self starts seems to be impossible, these conditions illustrate why it is so small in the case histories.
One would expect stronger influences upon automobiles from UFOs that are quite close. This question was subjected to statistical analysis by Johnson who found that the distance factor was strongly related to engine disruptions and failures. (Reference 8) Fifty-six cases were subdivided into three groups according to whether the UFO was closer than 30 meters, between 30 and 120 meters, or beyond 120 meters. This corresponded to a grouping of the data and changes in the selected cut offs had no effect. Of a total of 43 failures, the number of events in the three categories were 16, 18, and 9, respectively. In other words, 79% of the failures were produced at distances less than 120 meters. The maximum recorded distance for engine failure was not given.
Additional data on this point is available from Rodeghier in the form of a bar chart. (Reference 9) Distances were broken down generally into increments of 200 feet, but intervals of 50 feet were used in the first 200 feet. By estimating from the scale and suitably combining the first four categories, one obtains the following results:
Many cases in the record do not give information on the distances of the UFO possibly because the size was not known and no distance could be judged, or the event took place at night so reference points were missing, or the investigator didn’t ask. So it is with the record of self starts. Of the 27 such cases under review, estimated distances are available for only 10, but they are instructive. The distance figures are 12, 25, 45, 60, 200, 300, 600, 1000, and greater than 2000 feet. Four cases are within 100 feet, but others range to beyond 2000 feet. It seems that the previous table of general interference and these self starts are consistent; proximity increases the likelihood of the effect. There is no threshold distance within which it takes place, and interference may take place up to a half mile or more.
On the other hand, radiation in the microwave region has long been suspected as contributing to UFO effects. Wavelengths in the range from 0.5 cm. down to 0.5 mm. are resonantly absorbed by oxygen molecules and water vapor. (Reference 10) The absorption throws the absorbing molecules into higher states of rotation, but that energy is instantly transferred to neighboring molecules by collision. The increased kinetic motion of some receiving molecules should become vigorous enough to dislodge electrons. Considering what is suspected about other aspects of such radiation near UFOs, microwave radiation should be considered as a candidate means of ionization.
Concepts discussed here are subject to experimental verification. Although the equipment required may not be available to an independent researcher, it could easily be assembled by a substantial laboratory. A research program is envisioned in three stages:
1. Investigate individual components of the electrical system in a simulated environment to establish the level of ionization required to produce high-voltage sparks and low-voltage arcs.
2. Attempt to disrupt running engines with simulated sources of ionization such as a radioactive source lowered into the engine compartment and, particularly, near the distributor.
3. Measure the ionization produced by microwave radiation over a broad range of wavelengths and intensities. Then flood a running engine with ionizing microwaves, measuring the level of ionization and microwave intensity. Determine the values required to produce engine malfunction and stoppage. Test the present hypothesis concerning selfstarts and measure the relevant factors.
This program, while modest, could go far toward elucidating the observed phenomena and, more importantly, quantifying the radiation that may be emanating from UFOs. Should results prove to be unproductive, then research can be redirected away from microwave radiation in continuing efforts to understand the numerous puzzling details of UFO reports.
Date Time Location Vehicle
Spring 44 or ’45 ???? Auberry, CA car
Dec 8, 1957 1730 Woodward, OK car
Aug 5, 1962 0145 Argentina truck
May 10, 1964 2130 Argentina van
Jan 14, 1965 2200 Enfield, NH car
Oct 8, 1965 0025 England car
Nov ?, 1966 2300 Belgium motorcy
Feb 13, 1967 2200 Bigfork, MT pickup
Apr 10, 1967 1920 Jonestown, PA car
Oct 11, 1967 2000 Canada car
Dec 24, 1967 Evening Tucson, AZ car
Jul 25, 1968 Argentina car
Feb 2, 1969 Night Chile 2 cars
May ?, 1972 U.S.S.R. car
Jul 25, 1972 Evening Australia car
Nov 10, 1972 2300 England motorcyc
Jan 1, 1973 Midnight Chile car
Feb 9, 1973 0300 England car
May 2, 1973 1930 Australia truck
Jul 21, 1973 2100 France car
Oct 24, 1973 2100 Dobson, NC car
Jan 24, 1974 1600 Belgium car
Apr ?, 1974 Evening Belgium car
Dec 23, 1975 2300 Goodridge, MN car
Sep 17, 1976 0330 Australia car
Jun 23?, 1977 0515 South Africa van
Aug 24, 1978 2200 Ottumwa, IA car
__________
APPENDIX B. HISTORICAL MUSING
In the new designs, the 6-volt coil was retained, but a resistor was added to the primary circuit to limit voltage at the points to 6 volts. Various methods were developed to switch this resistor out of the circuit when the engine was dead to allow for easier starts with the full 12 volts across the points. It is then switched into the circuit during operation, since the use of 12 volts for extended periods would erode the points. So automobiles began in 1953 to have 12 volts across the points, whereas prior to that year they all had 6-volt systems. The question is whether the arc discharge herein postulated is substantially easier to generate and sustain in the newer systems. Applying a large voltage across a gap of air produces a weak trickle of current that increases as the voltage is increased. At the time of electrical breakdown of the air, the current rises to very high values and the voltage drops across the gap to about the ionization potential of the gases in it. (Reference 13) Ionization potential is the energy required to remove an electron from a molecule or an atom. For the principal constituents of air, molecular nitrogen and oxygen, the ionization potentials are respectively 15.8 ev and 11.2 ev. (An electron volt, ev, is the kinetic energy acquired by an electron being accelerated through an electrical potential difference of one volt.) For trace gases the ionization potentials are higher. So a potential difference of 12 volts across the gap would accelerate electrons to energies sufficient to ionize oxygen. This additional source of free charges would certainly improve the chances of sustaining an arc. The mechanism would probably by ineffective in a 6-volt gap because the accelerated electrons would not acquire sufficient energy to ionize the gases.
Source: http://www.ascensionearth2012.org/2014/06/cases-of-ufo-interference-with.html
