UFOs and Electromagnetic Effects Part 1

Introduction And Editor's Note

Gaines M. Crook was a registered Professional Engineer licensed to practice electrical engineering in the State of California. He was an engineering expert on electromagnetics and electromagnetic effects having spent the better part of his career designing, building, and testing scientific experiments and devices which used, manipulated, or suppressed the effects of magnetic fields.. This paper reflects his "professional opinion" in regards to the claims that UFOs or UAPs use "electromagnetics" to achieve the effects reported by witnesses.

The manuscript of this article exists in in several forms. The most complete of these is the manuscript presented here which was written in 1990 with the intent of it being published in the MUFON journal publication. Due to its length it was originally intended to a appear as a two part article. I have a letter that indicates the author's agreement to break the article into two parts at the request of the editor of the MUFON Journal

Unlike scientific publications apparently MUFON did not have a "Peer Review" process at that time  [I am unaware if this is still the case] and all "technical documents" were passed to the MUFON Director of Research. Ultimately the paper was not published because its conclusions were not "acceptable" to James McCampbell who was "Director of Research" of MUFON at that time. 

It is to be noted that the author was acerbic in his remarks towards those whom he thought were, in his opinion, "clueless". This is no doubt the reason Mr. McCampbell refused to allow MUFON to publish the paper considering McCampbell was on the receiving end of some of these remarks. I have refrained from making these comments less inflammatory with an eye towards historical accuracy rather than politeness. 

The author seemed to be  of the opinion that a "damned fool is still a damned fool even if you politely call them an condemned unlucky person". Having known the author all my life, I believe that is a fair assessment of his opinion. Normally such remarks would have been revised and edited in "refereed and reviewed" papers for publication . The world of UFO publication still appears to be an untamed wilderness of big egos, unproven opinion, as well as lies and damned lies.

I have in my possession an electronic copy of a letter indicating that this paper was offered to Jerome Clark of "International UFO Reporter" at the end of December of 1991. I do not possess any information to indicate that it was accepted for publication there and can only assume that Mr. Clarke apparently declined to publish it. 

Later versions of the paper were updated to include additional information and apparently were intended for publication either via The Journal of Scientific Exploration or one of the publications of the IEEE but neither of these versions are sufficiently complete to attempt to publish them.

Due to the length of the document I have broken it into three parts: 

1. The first part is an "introduction to electromagnetics". 
2. The second part is the classification of observed / reported effects which were originally reported in "Mark Rodeghier, UFO Reports involving Vehicle Interference: A Catalogue and Data Analysis", Evanston, IL: Center For UFO Studies, 1981" as well as other cases which the author felt were "significant". 
3. The third part presents  the author's conclusions which he drew after having classified the events reported.  In addition I have added an appendix which lists the cases from Rodeghier and their classification according to the author at the end of part three.

This was originally written in 1990 and is presented as a "historical document". Therefore, no effort has been made to update or correct subsequent discoveries, research, or investigations.

I have renumbered the original references. I have also made slight changes to the way that some of the information is presented and added additional notes for clarity.

The original title was:

"Some Thoughts on Electromagnetic Effects"

 by Gaines M. Crook, P.E.

Introduction

One of the most fascinating features of UFO encounters is the often described interference interaction with vehicles. This interaction has been attributed by many writers to "electromagnetic effects". The engineering discipline which deals with the interactions of electromagnetic phenomena is called electromagnetic compatibility and has been practiced for at least 50 years. It even has an international organization devoted to it, the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society. 

Electromagnetic Interference is defined as any EM signal which interferes with an intended function of a piece of equipment whether the signal came from an intentional radiator or not. Electromagnetic Susceptibility is the vulnerability of a piece of equipment to experience impaired operation due to electromagnetic interference. Electromagnetic compatibility is a well developed discipline guided by many specifications such as military standard MIL-STD-461, equivalent NASA specifications, specifications from many standards organizations and a major portion of Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Even McDonalds Restaurants has its own electromagnetic compatibility specification![1]. There are many test laboratories in this country and around the world that are devoted exclusively to electromagnetic compatibility. Part of the business in which I am engaged deals with Electromagnetic Compatibility. [2]

It seems fairly obvious to me that many of the UFO related occurrences described in the literature and called electromagnetic are not due to electromagnetics, at least within our present understanding of the subject. Writers have routinely ascribed all anomalous events to "electromagnetics" as if it were some magic explanation for anything otherwise unexplainable. For one familiar with the properties of electromagnetics, however the determination of whether an effect is of electromagnetic origin (within our present understanding of the subject) is much easier than making any other kind of determination in connection with UFOs.

What Is Electromagnetics?

Electromagnetics might be defined as the group of phenomena interrelated with electric charges, magnetic poles, electric potential, electric currents; electric, magnetic and electromagnetic fields and their ability to transfer energy.

Electromagnetic radiation is defined as "The flow of energy consisting of orthogonally vibrating electric and magnetic fields lying transverse to the direction of propagation. X-rays, ultra-violet, visible, infrared, and radio waves occupy various portions of the electromagnetic spectrum and differ only in frequency and wavelength."[3]

While the study of electromagnetics is very complex, it gives rise to well established results which, for the most part, need not be confused with anomalous effects outside its purview. There are several basic interactions in electromagnetics. Some are related to basic magnetic properties, some are related to basic electrostatic properties and some to electromagnetic waves. These also can occasionally overlap. For the magnetic interaction there can be a force interaction and an influence interaction. The force interaction produces mechanical force when a magnetic field is applied. The influence interaction produces phenomena such as the flux (and saturation) in a ferromagnetic material, the influence of particle orbit resonances within certain elements, etc. Electric fields have their corollaries to the magnetic ones. All known electromagnetic interactions may be derived from Maxwell's equations. Electromagnetics does not describe the manipulation of objects remotely, the levitation of objects, the bending of light beams at right angles and many other things which have been reported as associated with UFOs and called "electromagnetic effects".

The fact that we cannot explain some of the effects observed in association with UFOs within the framework of our present day science presents a problem. McCambell [4] says "But there is no reason to assume that the mechanisms by which vehicle interference take place are beyond the capacity of contemporary science". I strongly disagree with this statement. This is tantamount to saying that we presently understand everything we encounter. We do understand some of the things we encounter but some of them we do not. We understand almost nothing about UFOs but we are beginning to see that some of the associated phenomena is within our grasp. Some of the reported phenomena, however, make no sense at all within the framework of our present day science.

Previous Literature

I have reviewed a number of papers on this subject and find that there has been relatively few writers to propose solutions to the observed anomalous effects. The quality of the arguments used in these papers has been generally poor.

Probably the first mention of electromagnetics in connection with remote effects from UFOs was by Hall [4] in which he postulated that the interference effect was the same as the electromagnetic pulse or "EMP" that accompanies some nuclear explosions. The "EMP" is an isolated event that consists of a whopping surge of electromagnetic energy, similar to a super lightning stroke which lasts only a fraction of a millisecond. The EMP damage mechanism is also substantially the same as that of a lightning stroke. It is hard to imagine why Hall would pick this as a possibility, if he knew what an EMP was. He mentions the gamma ray pulse of a nuclear weapon but does not seem to realize that the EMP and gamma pulse are completely separate phenomena due to separate causes.

The most prolific writer on the subject of vehicle interference has been McCambell [4][6][7][8]. He has at least tried very hard to make sense out of the confusing data, and has been almost alone in doing so. McCampbell's hypotheses (those which he has not already abandoned) are generally on very thin ice, and if not altogether faulted, the uncertainty factors would render them ineffective. In addition to that, the data does not fit his speculations. For instance car engines seem to be able to be stopped regardless of the position relative to the UFO. With all deference to his diligence, I shall ignore his conclusions. 

McCambell and other writers have placed microwaves in the "mysterious" category where certain attributions are made to it with very little foundation. The only difference between microwaves and other electromagnetic waves is one of scale. Microwaves interact in some ways with some other phenomena where waves of lower frequencies do not, but then so do lower frequencies interact in cases where microwaves will not. 

Microwaves at 2450 MHz work well in a microwave oven because of the water molecule absorption at this frequency. On the other hand, whistlers generated by terrestrial lightning strokes in the low kilohertz frequency range bounce back and forth between the Earth's magnetic poles through the magnetosphere because of their interaction with the earth's magnetic field and the conducting plasma in near space. Electromagnetic interactions are very fundamental processes in the dynamics of physics but the frequencies at which these interactions take place depend on a wide variety of parameters. 

It would surprise me very much if microwaves were the cause of any but specific cases of UFO interaction (e.g. the RB47 case, McDonald [9]) and perhaps the cases where finger rings have gotten warm. Another factor is the fact that all sorts of military equipment including vehicles is tested under the electromagnetic susceptibility provisions of MIL-STD-461 which requires exposure to a broad range of frequencies and assessment of the resulting effects. Microwaves have never caused the kinds of effects reported in connection with UFOs.

Donald Johnson [10] has tried to determine the range and positional correlation between UFOs and vehicles with relation to vehicle interference effects. He seems to consider the interference the result of a systematic incompatibility between the operation of the UFO and the ground vehicle without taking into account the possibility that the UFO intelligence may have decided to interfere with one vehicle and not another. He also is silent as to the mechanism. He merely took the data that was available to him and set up a series of statistical tests in order to arrive at correlation factors. Contrary to his conclusions, there are many instances where UFOs came within close proximity to vehicles and no interference occurred. Other cases show interference at 2000 feet from the UFO. Some cases of interference with a vehicle's engine do not affect the lights and some which have affected the lights do not affect the engine.

The only reference which I found in the literature expressing serious concern (which I share) that electromagnetic phenomena was being erroneously blamed for all anomalous effects is by Jerold Johnson [11].

Thomas [12] provides the only credible technical report on this subject that I have seen. Even though I do not share his conclusion that the disruption of vehicle engines is due to an AC magnetic field, he at least appears to be familiar with the engineering aspects of electrical phenomena. He mentions that in McCambell's 1983 experiments the vehicle would start again after the points were unshorted. I believe this was a misunderstanding, for what McCambell said was that in 10% of the UFO interference cases he studied, it was reported that the engine started by itself after the UFO departed. Thomas argues that if the points have been damaged in a certain way then this is an indication that the vehicle has undergone interference from an AC magnetic field. This is a weak argument since the points could become damaged from other causes. 

The fact remains that the car which was known to have experienced interference and whose exterior metal was field mapped during the Condon Commission study, showed no significant departure from a the metal of an identical model car which had not experienced a UFO encounter. This tells me that this car had not experienced even a 10 gauss field for if the car had been exposed to any significant external DC or low frequency field, its mapped signature would have been very different from a similar car which was not interfered with. Even if it had been demagnetized by an AC magnetic field of decreasing strength it still would show yet a different signature.

Thomas also mentions that the heating of finger rings could be due to low frequency magnetic fields. This is true but the higher the frequency the easier it would be to couple the energy into the ring. If the irradiation frequency was near the self resonant frequency of the ring, it would take only a fraction of a watt of power to make the ring feel sensibly warmer. 

The self-resonant frequency, F, of a cylinder is:  

F= 9050/ d

Where:

F = to the Resonant frequency in Megahertz

d = diameter of cylinder in inches (a ring is a short cylinder). 

For a 3/4 inch diameter ring, the self resonant frequency would be around 12 GHz, in the microwave region. A smaller size ring would be resonant at a proportionally higher frequency. Even as early as 1944, when I was attending Army radar schools, we were warned not to wear rings while working on the radars for this reason. 

Though Thomas argues that low frequency AC fields may be the cause for interference, he seems to be unconvinced that the required field levels can be achieved. Besides the magnitude of the fields, the field falloff  of a dipole which falls off at 1/r^3 [13] is also against it. Despite the quality of Thomas' presentation in his paper, I remain unconvinced that low frequency magnetic fields is the cause of engine stoppage.

In examining any scenario to explain the observed data in any of these situations and judge its possible merit, we must first eliminate any erroneous principle factors within it (such as McCambell's illusive microwave irradiation coefficient of resistance of tungsten) and make sure the principle factors we have left are viable and realistic. We would then resolve the uncertainty factors. By uncertainty factors, I mean the conditions required that a particular scenario could be successfully implemented if it is indeed correct. If a theory of how something may be implemented is so tenuous until very special conditions are required for that idea to ever become viable, then it has little chance of being the solution to the kinds of problems with which we are dealing. What I have done here is to assess the probability of success as a matter of judgment. I feel confident that for the ones that I judge to be electromagnetic, I could duplicate in my laboratory in a reasonable time if the proper equipment were available.

ANALYSIS

I have listed above the general kind of interactions which we can expect from electromagnetics in its capacity for action. In the next part, I will discuss some of the reports in the literature, examine a cross section of these anomalous phenomena and then attempt to determine if they might be classified as electromagnetic, in the present state of our knowledge of such things, or if the particular phase of the event under discussion is just "anomalous", meaning that at the present time we just cannot explain how it came about. There are some categories in which the cause could be either electromagnetic or not depending on unknown factors. This will be discussed further when we get to it.

Many writers of UFO literature seem to reflect the idea that the explanation for any certain set of circumstances must be limited to a those few choices that occur to the writer. This idea is clearly faulted. The explanation can be any of a thousand things that the writer or anyone else never thought of, and even are perhaps incapable of thinking of. This limitation in vision is destructive to our efforts to advance our understanding. If an observed phenomena lies outside of our understanding then it is only intellectual honesty to say we do not know the cause. Extreme attempts to fit anomalous events into the framework of our present day understanding is just another side of the coin of using these same techniques to "debunk" UFO sightings. This is even more reprehensible when the writer is ignorant of the physics of his "explanation" as has happened on occasion. When the explanation of the event becomes more bizarre than the event itself, then it is time to abandon the explanation. This does not mean that we should abandon efforts to think things out, but we should not pretend that we know when we do not.

References

[1] Fernando Esparza, "Electrical Disturbance Standards" Oak Brook, IL: McDonald's Corporation, 1988

[2] The author's business was GMC Laboratories which focused on FCC compliance testing for Part 68 and Part 15 of the FCC regulations. See "The Resume and Technical Highlights of the Career of Gaines M. Crook"  Published August 5, 2014

[3] Frank Jay, Ed. in Chief, "IEEE Standards Dictionary of Electrical and Electronic Terms", New York: IEEE, 1984

[4] James M. McCampbell, "UFO Interference with Vehicles and Self Starting Engines" MUFON Symposium Proceedings, 1983

[5] Richard Hall, Ed. "The UFO Evidence", Washington,D.C.: NICAP, 1964

[6] James M. McCampbell, "Ufology", Milbrae, CA: Celestial Arts, 1976

[7] James M. McCampbell, "UFO Interference With Automobile Electrical Systems, Part I, Headlights", 1976 CUFOS Conference, Center For UFO Studies, 1976

[8] James M. McCampbell, "Further Evidence of UFO Radiation" MUFON Symposium Proceedings, 1977

[9] James E. McDonald, "Science In Default: Twenty Two Years Of Inadequate UFO Investigations", Section 5, "UFOs, A Scientific Debate" Carl Sagan, Thornton Page, Eds. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972.

[10] Donald A. Johnson, "The Effects Of Position And Distance in UFO Ignition-Interference Cases", Journal of UFO Studies Vol. III. Evanston, IL: Center for UFO Studies, 1981

[11] Jerold R. Johnson, "Vehicle Interference: A Cautionary Comment" IUR January/February, 1990

[12] Joe Kirk Thomas, "The Vehicle Interference Effect", MUFON UFO Journal, Sept. 1987 

[13] "Dipole, Classification" Wikipedia, Accessed August 6, 2014