UFOs Do Not Use Microwaves To Stop Cars

Editor's Note: Here is a brief note written by Gaines M. Crook concerning the belief that UFOs used microwaves in early reported cases of UFO related car stoppage. 

It is to be noted that technology and automotive design has moved on since this was written. Automotive systems have become more dependent on microprocessors. There have been moves made by governments and or law enforcement to make automotive systems susceptible to remote directed EM pulse or Cellular based "kill switches".  Still these developments do not explain the earlier reported cases of cars "stopping" when in the presence of a UFO /UAP.

The original title of the note is:

Microwaves As The Cause Of Car Stoppings

3-23-96

Some hardy souls have steadfastly maintained that the stopping of car engines by UFOs is accomplished by radiated microwaves. The validity of this seems suspect but let's explore it. An Otto cycle internal combustion engine must have sparks delivered to the fuel-air mixture at the appropriate time or it will cease to function. In the years when the phenomena of car-stopping first manifested, most ignition systems were almost identical to Charles Kettering's first system which developed in 1911. 

This system uses a "coil" (in reality a transformer) which has a primary of perhaps 500 turns of wire upon an iron core and a secondary of about 300 times as many turns. The primary is switched by "breaker points", shunted by a capacitor, which open at the point where it is desired that ignition should take place. When the points open, the self induced voltage (V=L*dI/dt) is integrated by the capacitor, stepped up by the coil and the voltage on the secondary is the high tention output voltage of 15 to 30 KV. A high voltage distributor is mechanically geared to the engine crankshaft to deliver the spark to the proper spark plug. 

When car stopping was first reported, ignition systems were more or less as described above but have changed somewhat as time went on. The first major change was that a power transistor switch was placed between the breaker points and the coil to eliminate sparking and improve the efficiency of the system. These are commonly called "electronic" ignitions. This occurred for OEM ignition systems in the late 1960s. Later the points were replaced with magnetic sensors which produced an output pulse at a more precise time and eliminated the point wear out problem. Later yet, capacitor discharge (CD) systems came into use. 

They use a DC to DC converter which transforms the 12 VDC to about 400 VDC. This voltage charges a capacitor which is in turn discharged through the coil primary by a thyristor switch fired by the timing circuit to produce the high tension at the secondary for ignition. Now, virtually all vehicles have magnetic switch timing and most use a transistor switch in the coil primary. The CD system proved too costly due to the added cost of the 400V DC to DC converter.

It is also covered at length in Chapter 4, Indirect Physical Evidence of the Condon Report [1]. The Condon / University of Colorado Group sponsored tests to determine if a magnetic field could have been responsible for the stalling of one vehicle. It concluded that it did not since even though the operation of an ignition coil could be disabled by core saturation under the influence of a 16 to 20 kilogauss magnetic field, the outside metal of a vehicle which was stalled showed no evidence of having experienced this level of magnetic field. 

Even if it had not been established that the body metal magnetic condition was undisturbed, I would have my doubts about the efficacy of a magnetic field in these cases. Magnetic fields have been known to be associated with UFOs but a dipole magnetic field attenuates as 1/r^3 where r is the radius. The same kind of effects have been described at 20 feet and 2000 feet away from the UFO. 

Assuming a magnetic dipole source of constant value, scaling at 1/r^3 shows the field at 2000 feet to be only one millionth of the field at 20 feet. There has been a tendency on the part of some writers to attribute the so-called electromagnetic effects to the mode of operation of the UFO. While this may be true in some cases there are many reported cases where a nearby UFO did not affect vehicles and other cases where it did. This seems to indicate that the interference was not caused by the basic organization of the UFO.

[1]. Edward U. Condon, Ed. "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects", New York: New York Times, 1969