Thrive Is Free: New Fans, New Approach, and a Fresh Welcome to This Blog.

The big news in Thrive-land this week is that the movie is now free. Originally released on the Internet on November 11 of last year—a date that supposedly has some kind of cosmological significance in New Age circles—the film was initially available only as a download for $5, although it was ripped to various torrent sites and even YouTube within hours after its release. Now it seems that Foster Gamble and Clear Compass Media don’t care if you pay for the movie anymore. You can now download the film from the Thrive website for free. We can speculate as to the motives for taking this new approach to the movie, but up until now there certainly have been those—even people highly complimentary of the film—who criticized the fact that you had to pay to see it. This move is likely to silence those critics.

Yesterday, coinciding with the release of Thrive free, I noted a sudden and dramatic upswell in page views here on the Thrive Debunked blog, which is now more popular than it ever was. Each of the last two days has been a record-breaker for page views. As people discover the film, in many cases they discover the debunking at the same time. One of the most common ways people come to this blog is by clicking from various forums, some conspiracy-related, others not, where a link has been posted. In almost all cases the paradigm is the same. A user on a forum will make a topic to the effect of, “Hey, have you seen this movie Thrive?” Usually the user posting the topic will be complimentary toward the film. Within a few replies someone will take a different view of the movie, and they’ll very often provide a link to this blog. I’ve seen forums from Germany, Romania, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Australia and Israel where this blog has been mentioned and discussed. This tells me that Thrive Debunked is doing exactly what I hoped it would do: it’s serving as a powerful counterpoint to make people think about the issues before blindly accepting the spurious claims in Thrive as gospel truth.

Because we now suddenly have many more readers thanks to the free release of the film, I thought I would provide a fresh welcome to those who are discovering Thrive Debunked for the first time. This blog has now been around for about five months. There’s a lot of material here and a lot of discussion especially in the comments. Here, therefore, is a quick guide to what parts of the film have been debunked, what remains to be done, and where you might be able to find answers to some of the most common questions about the movie and its claims.

Comprehensive Debunkings

Full Debunking of Thrive, Part I. This article, by our contributor SlayerX3, is the first of three to try to go through Thrive very quickly, tackling many of its claims in sequence. Not every claim in the first third of the film is dealt with here, but you’ll find comments on the film’s intro, the “torus” shape with which Foster Gamble is so entranced, the “Flower of Life” claims (which are dealt with in much greater detail in other articles), the supposed 64 energy units, Steven Greer and his UFO claims, more UFO material from Edgar Dean Mitchell, Clifford Stone, Harry Allen Jordan, Dwynne Anderson and John Callahan; and finishing up with crop circles. All of these subjects are roundly debunked.

Full Debunking of Thrive, Part II. SlayerX3’s second outing, this one at the middle section of the film. Here you’ll find debunkings of the UFO and energy claims of James Gilliland and Daniel Sheehan; the movie’s nonsensical distortions of the work of Nikola Tesla; free energy suppression; Adam Trombly (himself the subject of two additional articles), John Bedini and John Hutchinson, who all claim to have invented “free energy” machines; and Eugene Mallove, who was not killed (as the movie claims) because of his work on cold fusion.

Full Debunking of Thrive, Part III. The third in the full debunking series by SlayerX3 debunks the following: oil and energy empires; Foster Gamble’s misstatements about the Green Revolution; loss of biodiversity and environmental harm; Vandana Shiva; free trade agreements and globalism; a fake quote from Henry Kissinger; NEA and the Rockefellers; John Taylor Gatto; Deepak Chopra; alt-med quackery from R. Royal Raymond Fife, Rene Cassie, and Max Gerson; and the controversial Hoxsey Therapy.

Debunkings of Specific Topics and People

Crop Circles—Debunked! This article demonstrates how and why we can be sure that crop circles are not created by extraterrestrials, are not mysterious or unexplainable, and certainly are not messages from aliens telling us how to turn spinning electric donuts into “free energy” machines. In terms of page views, this is one of the most popular articles on the blog and seems especially offensive to fans of Thrive. It was the response to this article that began to convince me that the target audience of Thrive is the New Age religious crowd. For some reason I do not understand, the notion that crop circles are not extraterrestrial in origin is deeply offensive to many people in the New Age milieu. This article has surpassed the David Icke exposé as the single most controversial piece we’ve ever done on this blog.

Thrive Makers Back Down on “Flower of Life” Claim: This article details an extremely rare event—a factual correction by the Thrive makers. In this case they admitted that the claim, made in the movie by Nassim Haramein, that the “Flower of Life” design at the Osirian Temple in Abydos, Egypt is somehow “burned into the rock at the atomic level,” is in fact false. Nevertheless, despite this retraction, many Thrive fans continue to believe that the “Flower of Life” was put there by aliens and not by crafty Egyptian artisans.

Who Is Nassim Haramein? This article is a profile of Nassim Haramein, the person who makes the “Flower of Life” claim and most of the “ancient astronauts” claims in the film. As this article shows, Mr. Haramein has a history of making pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical claims that are met with extreme skepticism by members of the legitimate scientific community. An example of such a claim is his inventive “Schwarzschild Proton” theory, which postulates that every atom is a mini-black hole, despite the fact that this theory flies in the face of established physics. Yet, according to many Thrive fans in the comments, Mr. Haramein is a scientific visionary right up there with Galileo, Copernicus and Einstein. I’m not ready to book my plane tickets to Oslo for Mr. Haramein’s Nobel Prize acceptance ceremony quite yet.

Ancient Astronauts—Debunked! This article takes apart the ridiculous notion that Egyptians, Mayans and Incas were too stupid, backwards and ignorant to have created great works of ancient engineering, which Thrive claims must have been built by aliens instead. As you’ll see in the article, this idea rests awkwardly on a single untenable assumption that manages to offend historical fact, scientific reality and cultural sensitivity all at the same time. If there’s an old paperback copy of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods on your bookshelf, you need to read this article.

Who Is Adam Trombly? This article must be read in conjunction with Exclusive: Allegations About Adam Trombly Present Potential Credibility Crisis for Thrive. The first article, the earliest person profile on the blog, began our descent into the Adam Trombly saga. Adam Trombly claims to have invented a “free energy” machine that will solve all the world’s energy problems. As you’ll see in the second article, another inventor, David Farnsworth, came forward in March 2012 and claimed that the machine shown in the movie and identified as Trombly’s was actually invented by him (Farnsworth), and that it can’t do what Thrive claims it can do. I don’t know what the absolute truth is here. Despite a lengthy back-and-forth between Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Trombly, as well as additional comments from Mr. Trombly’s daughter and Foster Gamble himself, the two questions I have about the machine—(1) did Adam Trombly really build it? and (2) can it do what Thrive says it can do?—remain unanswered.

Global Domination Agenda—Debunked! This is my personal favorite of all the articles on this blog. In it I debunk the idea that the Illuminati or New World Order, which Foster Gamble calls the “Global Domination Agenda,” actually exists and is trying to control the world. In fact it does not exist, but the article attempts to explain why believers in this bizarre conspiracy theory are not only utterly convinced that it does exist, but why everything they see and hear seems to confirm their belief. Hint: it’s a self-reinforcing delusion that is specifically designed to be impervious to anything in the way of reason or evidence. My one regret about this article is that its length probably scares away most casual readers, but you can’t really describe the issues involved in Illuminati/New World Order conspiracy theories without using a lot of words.

False Flag Attacks—Debunked! This article attacks a small section of the film where Foster Gamble is guilty of serious historical distortions, especially regarding the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that was a prominent milestone on the U.S. road to involvement in the Vietnam War. In the article I explain why Gulf of Tonkin was not a “false flag” attack, how and why conspiracy theorists get the whole idea of “false flag” attacks totally wrong, and why, contrary to what the film asserts, belief in the bizarre and ridiculous “9/11 was an inside job” theory is in fact declining rather than increasing. Hint: it’s declining because the idea that “9/11 was an inside job” is a bunch of crap, and the vast majority of the American public knows it’s a bunch of crap. Nevertheless, the true believers have chosen to go down with the sinking ship on this one; devotees of conspiracy theories are ferociously resistant to the reality that fewer people believe 9/11 conspiracy theories now than at any time since the disaster itself.

Who Is David Icke? Formerly the most controversial piece on this site–until surpassed by the crop circles article–this article profiles British conspiracy theorist David Icke, who, if Thrive had a conventional cast list, would probably get top billing as the star of the film. Mr. Icke believes that the world is secretly run by an evil race of reptilian shape-shifting aliens. “But wait!” you protest, “he doesn’t say that in Thrive!” This article explains why, and it also explains why Mr. Icke’s reptilian shape-shifting alien theories are especially dangerous and offensive.

Thrive’s Philosophy, Purpose and Broader Context

Should We Give Thrive a Pass on its Facts, And Instead Praise its “Message?” This article answers many of the objections Thrive fans have to why I don’t just go quietly into the sunset. Although the point of the movie seems to be to establish conspiracy theories as a theodicy for New Age belief systems (see the article for an explanation of what that means), it does still purport to be a documentary, and as such it has a duty to present the facts responsibly.

Progressive Think Tank Slams Thrive’s Political Agenda. This article could also go into the feedback/response section, but I put it here because it’s a good exposure of the neo-libertarian, pro-Ron Paul political subtext of the film, which many viewers who don’t follow politics may miss entirely. Much of this article is my critique of a progressive reviewer’s take on the film, and my thoughts on how conspiracy theories, such as those advanced by Thrive, are increasingly becoming intertwined with libertarian political ideology. The progressive reviewer herself chimed in in the comments section, as well as an especially shrill Ron Paul supporter.

A Post at the Sister Blog: Thrive Demonstrates How the Conspiracy World is Changing. This is a portal to an article I posted on my other blog, which is not specifically limited to Thrive, dealing with how the world of conspiracy theories is changing in the wake of the ignominious death of the “9/11 Truth Movement.” The article mentions Thrive as an example of how conspiracy theories are increasingly being deployed either as recruiting tools for particular groups or as marketing angles for ideological, political and even religious belief systems.

Reception and Reaction to the Film

JREF Reviews Thrive! This article, fairly short, showcases a review the film received from a writer for the James Randi Educational Foundation, a group devoted to skepticism and busting woo beliefs. Needless to say, the Randi folks didn’t exactly have Thrive on their best-films-of-2011 list.

Another Negative Review of Thrive Hits the Nail on the Head. This article presents the thoughts of a noted UK environmentalist blogger and activist on Thrive. Predictably, he savaged it, and many of the arguments he made against the film echo criticisms that had already been made on this blog. Be sure to see the comments on this one, where the UK blogger himself chimes in, and gets some heavy flak from outraged Thrive fans.

Thrive—A Flop? This article is somewhat outdated. Thrive seems to have become much more popular recently, but in December there were some indications that it had peaked. Nevertheless, there is still some topical material here, such as the controversy among conspiracy theorists as to whether the film is “disinformation” and especially whether its promotional poster contains “Illuminati symbolism.” It astonishes me that anyone could be so loony as to think that, but conspiracy theorists never cease to amaze me with what they’ll be willing to swallow.

Just for Fun

Poll: Is the Creator of This Blog a “Paid Disinformation Agent?” This article is a specific response to those readers (you know who you are) who insist that no one in their right mind could ever criticize the shining truth of Thrive, and therefore anyone who does so must be an agent provocateur paid by _________ (fill in the blank—the government, the Rockefellers, the oil industry, or whoever you most love to hate). In the poll at the end of the article you get the chance to vote on whether I am really a “paid disinformation agent,” but be careful—I might be logging your IP and telling the Illuminati death squads exactly where to find you!

Debunkings We Have Not Done Yet

This site is not yet complete. There are several topics I’d still like to tackle at some point, but, as I do have a job, a life, loved ones etc., I can’t spend all my time working on this blog (contrary to what some people think). While I can’t guarantee I’ll get to all of these topics, here are some topics I’d like to cover in the future.

• Claims regarding fractional banking and the Federal Reserve. There is a lot of demand for a debunking of Thrive’s views on this topic, but as anything to do with banking bores me silly, it’s not a topic I relish taking on. However, SlayerX3 is reportedly working on an article along these lines. I think it will be a crucial addition to the site.
• UFOs. Thrive traffics in so much UFO folklore and apocrypha that it seems incomplete for a site devoted to debunking it to not have an article specifically devoted to UFO claims.
• Global warming denial. Thrive doesn’t hit it that hard, but I observe from other sources (interviews, etc.) that there are some indications that Foster Gamble is a global warming denier. I don’t know that for sure, but I do know that many conspiracy theorists deny the proven scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change, so it’s relevant enough to be included here. This is a topic I know much about and have written about before on other blogs. As it’s not a huge part of Thrive, it’s a lower priority, but I do hope to get to it.
• Other claims regarding free energy. This is a very rich topic and I’ve learned a great deal about it in the past five months. Lately with the Trombly-Farnsworth debate we’ve focused a lot on energy claims, so the time is not right to do another article on it quite yet. However, it may be coming in the future.

Conclusion

Contrary to what it may seem like at first glance, I don’t dislike Thrive fans. I want to reach them and get them to expand their thinking. My whole point here is to educate people and get them to ask for evidence before accepting someone’s word for anything. In that spirit, I welcome all the new Thrive viewers who will be attracted to the movie now that it’s free. Read the articles, join the discussion, and understand what this movie is about, why it exists and what it’s telling the world. I already feel that this blog has been phenomenally successful, and I look forward to the discussions to come.

Who Is Nassim Haramein?

One of the people whose views the Thrive movie showcases is a man named Nassim Haramein. A caption on the screen identifies Mr. Haramein as “Cosmologist, Inventor.” Beginning at 12:23 in the film, excerpts of interviews with Haramein begin and continue for almost the next ten minutes. Mr. Haramein opines on questions of astronomy and ancient history. Even before Thrive, Mr. Haramein was well-known in New Age circles. This article will evaluate what Mr. Haramein claims in Thrive, and also try to answer the question, who is he?

What Does Nassim Haramein Claim in Thrive?

In his first appearance in Thrive at 12:23, Nassim Haramein appears in the context of the discussion about the “torus” design which Thrive creator Foster Gamble believes is the key to free energy. Mr. Haramein refers to “big arms of galaxies spinning around” and a claim is made at 12:34 that the galactic halo is shaped like a torus. A little later, at 16:12, Mr. Haramein appears again, talking about the Osirian Temple in Abydos, Egypt. This discussion occurs in the context of the “Flower of Life” design that Foster Gamble asserts is of extraterrestrial origin. At 16:32 of the film, Mr. Haramein states that the Flower of Life at the Osirian Temple is “burned into the atomic structure of the rock in some extraordinary way.” No backup is given for this claim at all. In fact, this claim is false. It is the only factual claim that I know of, to date, which the Thrive creators have retracted.

Mr. Haramein continues to appear sporadically over the next few minutes. He appears again at 18:20 talking about the Forbidden City in China, “where the sun gods reside.” Later still, at 20:10, Mr. Haramein again refers to “sun gods” from Egyptian, Incan and Mayan culture who supposedly came to earth and taught ancient peoples engineering, writing and science. This is clearly an assertion that “ancient astronauts” are supposedly responsible for great feats by ancient civilizations, who were mistaken by these civilizations for “sun gods.”

At 21:25, Foster Gamble states that “Nassim has impressive evidence to back up his theories.” He does not state what this “impressive evidence” actually is.

Is Nassim Haramein Right About the Things He Says in Thrive?

Not very much of the time. A lot of what Mr. Nassim states in Thrive is simply false. On this blog we have already debunked much of the material he presents. For example, we’ve already noted that his claim about the “Flower of Life” in the Osirian Temple is incorrect. It is not “burned into the atomic structure of the rock.” In this article, which debunks the idea of “ancient astronauts,” I explain at length how and why Mr. Haramein’s assertions about ancient civilizations and ancient history are wrong. For instance, the Egyptian and Mayan “sun gods” had nothing to do with science or engineering. A case can be made that the Incan “sun god” did supposedly teach some knowledge to the Incas, but the context in which Mr. Haramein employs this idea—supposedly to illustrate that “ancient astronauts” exist—is totally incorrect. There is not a single piece of evidence anywhere in the world indicating that aliens visited ancient civilizations thousands or hundreds of years ago. The only basis for the “ancient astronaut” claims is the supposition that particular structures, such as pyramids, were beyond the capability of ancient peoples to construct, and therefore they must have been built by aliens. As I explained in the article debunking ancient astronauts, that supposition is totally unsupportable. Furthermore, he’s also wrong about the Forbidden City being “where the sun gods reside.” The Forbidden City, built in Beijing in the early 1400s, was where the terrestrial emperor resided, not the “sun gods.”

Who is Nassim Haramein?

The subject that concerns the bulk of Mr. Haramein’s testimony in Thrive is ancient astronauts. He is clearly identified with that theory. In fact, while this article was being written, in late February 2012 yet another YouTube video popped up of Mr. Haramein claiming that certain archaeological artifacts “prove” ancient astronauts existed. These claims are no different than the basic gist of his claims in Thrive. All proceed from an assumption that “ancient peoples couldn’t possibly have created this!” because whatever is being examined is judged from the standpoint of modern technological and scientific understanding.

However closely he’s associated with ancient astronauts in Thrive, this theory is not Mr. Haramein’s main claim to fame. Who is he, then and what his he known for?

According to the bio that appears on his own site—for the Resonance Project—Nassim Haramein was born in Switzerland in 1962 and began developing, at the age of nine, a “hyperdimensional theory of matter and energy.” His bio goes on to state:

“Haramein has spent most of his life researching the fundamental geometry of hyperspace, studying a variety of fields from theoretical physics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, biology and chemistry to anthropology and ancient civilizations. Combining this knowledge with a keen observation of the behavior of nature, he discovered a specific geometric array that he found to be fundamental to creation and from which the foundation for his Unified Field Theory emerged.”

Mr. Haramein often gives lectures at conferences, and you can see many of his talks on YouTube. The topic he lectures on most often is something called the “Schwarzschild Proton,” which we’ll get to in a minute. I find it interesting that neither the Thrive movie nor Haramein’s own website list any degrees or credentials. That is noteworthy, because people who do have degrees or credentials and who are interviewed in Thrive are usually presented with a title card on-screen that lists what their credentials are—example, “Dr. Jack Kasher, Ph.D.—Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Nebraska” (31:01). I have also not been able to locate a C.V. (curriculum vitae), sort of an academic résumé, for Mr. Haramein. If anyone is aware that he has advanced degrees in physics or other relevant fields, please pass on the information to me and I will gladly add that to this blog.

What Is the “Schwarzchild Proton” Claim?

This blog has already debunked what Mr. Haramein claims in Thrive, both in this article and the previous articles. Let’s move on to some of the other claims he makes other than the ones in the film. Although the focus of this blog is on the film, Mr. Haramein’s other claims are relevant to judging his overall credibility as a source on matters of science and ancient history.

The “Schwarzschild Proton” theory states that a proton is really a miniature black hole. I am not trained in physics, but what I do know of it, this assertion is completely outside the realm of science as we understand it. Needless to say, the scientific community is not impressed by the “Schwarzschild Proton.” In fact, it’s very difficult to get a scientist to spend their time debunking it. Nevertheless, there are scientific opinions about Mr. Haramein’s theories. Here’s one, a fairly high profile blog called “Up,” which ran several articles about Mr. Haramein and his various theories. The creator of this blog, Bob (also known as Bob-a-Thon), had this to say about Mr. Haramein and his paper:

“(a) His overall argument is circular, which means it shows nothing. A hypothesis is presented that a proton might be considered as if it were a black hole, and his first conclusion, after a few pages of equations, is that the forces between them would be very strong, like the forces in a nucleus. But this goes without saying! If you pretend that something is as heavy as a thing can be, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise to find that the forces would be as strong as a force can be. There’s no significance in this whatsoever.

(b) His theory implies that the nucleus of a single atom of hydrogen has a mass of nearly a billion tons. This does seem a bit silly – but theoretical physicists do hypothesise apparently silly things sometimes, so that’s not a deal-breaker. For obvious reasons, though, you need a very convincing reason to do something like that, including an explanation as to why we never measure this huge mass when we weigh hydrogen (or anything else), and none is given.

c) The paper, while using some scientific terms, is presented at a very basic level. This could be considered a plus – all scientists would agree that there’s nothing better than a simple theory, if it works. But Nassim is merely playing with equations from student textbooks (these are the only references cited in the paper), things that have been explored thoroughly for decades, and he’s using them in a pretty simplistic way. It’s unlikely that he’ll find anything that hasn’t been found before by doing this. What he has found is some values for things that look suspiciously like what he knew when he started. This is often what happens when you go around in a circle.

It’s a bit of a joke to claim that anything profound can come from this kind of thing. But again, it looks cool, and it’s clearly enough to impress a lot of his followers.”

Bob went on to post a lengthy scientific debunking of the Schwarzschild Proton theory. You can find it here. I won’t reproduce it here because it’s full of a lot of very specific scientific jargon and equations that I don’t think I need to show here so long as it’s available at the link. Suffice it to say that Bob’s blog makes a strong argument that Mr. Haramein’s theory does not have any validity when judged against actual provable science.

Bob’s conclusion, at the end of that article, was the following:

“Haramein claims to be doing serious science. He claims to have unified the forces of nature, and to have created a unified field theory. He claims to be able to point out where all ‘the other physicists’ are going wrong. He claims, moreover, that his paper, The Schwarzschild Proton, has won serious academic acclaim. All of these are patently false.

The only sensible conclusion from looking at this example of his work is that he is utterly incompetent as a physicist – even with the help of his hired academics, whose “advice and careful reading of the manuscript” didn’t reveal any of the myriad of nonsensical implications that a little exploration should have found.

He knows that taking on the air of authority of a research physicist will give weight to his outlandish ideas, many of which are in the language of physics. And he knows that this will bring him followers and cash. Indeed it does.”

It appears likely from this analysis that Mr. Haramein’s claims are not supportable by science. I say it appears likely because I’m not a trained scientist. While I suspect that Bob is a trained and credentialed scientist, we do not know this for certain. Therefore, I’ll state that if someone with at least a Ph.D. in physics is willing to come forward and state (1) that Bob’s debunking of Mr. Haramein’s Schwarzschild Proton theory is fundamentally flawed, and (2) that Mr. Haramein’s theory is correct or at least reasonably arguable in good faith, I will retract this article and issue a high-profile correction.

Good luck. I’ve been searching for a physicist who will comment on Mr. Haramein’s theories on the record since Thrive came out. No one will touch it. It’s that bad.

Here’s what other scientists are willing to say, however. On the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast of January 12, 2011, linked here, Dr. Phil Plait had this to say about a video he saw of Mr. Haramein expounding various astronomical theories (the relevant part starts about 50 minutes in):

“It’s hard to actually describe or understand a place to start or find any sort of grip on the amount of weirdness that this video has in it. I mean, he just says stuff and it doesn’t matter what he’s saying, he just says it. He’s talking about watching Shoemaker Levy 9, the comet, hitting Jupiter back in ’94, and he says, “the community said that comet might not be visible from the earth.” No, actually most astronomers thought it would, and there were a few who said it might not, but we weren’t sure, but that’s how science works…His whole thing, watching this, he’s talking about the tetrahedron dictating the energy about to happen inside Jupiter, and I’m thinking tetrahedrons, certain specific latitudes, he’s talking about Hoagland! And five seconds later “this is the theory of consultant to NASA, Richard C. Hoagland!”…This is so bad it’s not even wrong…You can watch this guy giving talks about pyramids and Egyptians and he just says stuff…it’s made-up silliness.”

Richard C. Hoagland is an infamous pseudoscience purveyor and conspiracy theorist. He’s most famous for expounding the ridiculous Face on Mars theory from the ‘80s. Any mention of Hoagland as a credible source should set off alarm bells.

Need more to convince you that Mr. Haramein’s theories are not good science? Check some physicists kibbutzing about him over at Reddit. Here are some of the comments:

“For some reason I was browsing /r/psychonaut and I saw a video posted of this guy, Nassim Haramein, lecturing about “sacred geometry and unified field theory”. After about 5 seconds you see he’s just making it up as he goes along, misunderstanding even the most basic principles of physics and math(s). He basically just tells people into that whole “new age” thing exactly what they want to hear. This pseudoscientist is either deliberately misleading the public, extremely deluded or mentally ill in some way.”

“We can, but on the other hand we could do physics instead. Nevertheless, I took the liberty of correcting one of your hecklers.”

“You’re probably right… I’m not sure why it bugs me so much. I guess I just think it’s sad that the people who are enjoying his talks are showing an interest in physics and not being told anything that resembles real physics.”

What Does Mr. Haramein Say In Response?

Bob’s “Up” blog engendered a response from Mr. Haramein himself. Here it is. Please go to the link for the full text, as it’s very lengthy. Here are a few excerpts:

“I typically avoid wasting my time participating in these so-called debunking sessions. However, as I can see that the gentleman has invested substantial efforts in this particular example, and because it is such a prime and typical expression of the reactionary tendencies defending against all odds the status quo and proclaiming it as “the truth”, I feel obligated to reply.

I actually don’t believe in mediocre minds, as I consider that everyone is born brilliant but that certain life experiences and difficulties can reduce one’s capacity to access deeper levels of awareness that are necessary for creative and fundamental reflection. Here the inhibitors are constraints resulting from a style of education in which what is taught is proclaimed as the truth and the only truth, and where students are discouraged and severely reprimanded if they tend to wander in the awful world of untruth as predetermined by the Obvious Truth Holder…

[H]istory speaks for itself as any new significant changes that were brought to the scientific community were typically largely resisted, ridiculed and then eventually accepted. As Schopenhauer said, ‘All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’”

Much of the rest of the response is very technical, and those issues, while quite relevant, are beyond the scope of this blog. Nevertheless, Bob responded to the response. Needless to say he wasn’t too impressed:

“So, what to make of all this. To summarise, his rhetoric is great! The bits of physics he’s thrown in look really impressive! If the aim is to wow the fans and seal their contempt for me, he’s done an excellent job.

But has he actually addressed the criticisms that I’ve raised? Surely, somewhere in all that work, he must have? Help me out here if you think I’m missing something, but I really don’t think he has. I’ll illustrate some of the ways he’s misused physics in his defence later on.

If you disagree – if you can find any single point in there that convinces you that any of my criticisms of his physics aren’t completely valid – then I’d really love to hear from you. It would be great if we could keep it to the physics. I know it won’t happen, but it would be great if it did.

Meanwhile, as you can see for yourself, he has had fun doing what he does best – inventing things to entertain his fans, and telling them what they want to hear. He presents this new, conveniently fictionalised version of me to his followers as “an important study for anyone who is interested in my work.”…

The back-and-forth between Bob and Mr. Haramein is actually quite interesting. Because I can only present the smallest snippets of it here, I strongly recommend that anyone interested in evaluating Mr. Haramein’s grasp of physics (or ancient history, for that matter) look at the entire exchange. Looking at this material certainly led me to a a conclusion regarding the level of credibility to which Mr. Haramein is entitled.

A Related Issue: Academia, Credentials, and the Value of Experts.

A key theme that you should see emerging from this analysis is that Mr. Haramein does not and cannot back up any of the major assertions he makes with any evidence or argumentation that passes muster among professionals in the fields he opines on—physics and ancient history. If you read Mr. Haramein’s responses to Bob’s critique, you’ll see a lot of references to Einstein and how Einstein was not (supposedly) a “mainstream” physicist, coupled with philosophical statements about how closed-minded and corrupt the institutions of mainstream learning are. Indeed, from what I’ve observed in my research for this article, this is the primary line of defense when Mr. Haramein is attacked: claim that Einstein (or someone else who is well-respected but has an unorthodox background) had radical ideas too, and suggest that because he was vindicated, Mr. Haramein’s unorthodox ideas are worthy of the same level of credulity and acceptance that we today give the theories of Einstein and Copernicus.

I’ve encountered this line of argumentation many, many times before. In fact, it’s a trope used almost universally by believers in fringe phenomena such as pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and conspiracy theories. I wrote an article about this about 18 months ago on my other blog, specifically in the context of conspiracy theorists, and explaining why their views on academics and experts are wrong. The same principle goes here. People who accept fringe beliefs exhibit a curious form of bipolar behavior when it comes to experts. On the one hand, they really wish that some credentialed experts would agree with them so it would lend credence to their pet theories. Simultaneously, because they can’t get any credentialed experts to agree with them, they’re forced to explain why this is by claiming that credentialed experts are worthless and that the institutions they come from are closed to any new ideas or new knowledge.

The problem with this argument, however, is that it presumes the legitimacy of credentialed experts and institutional knowledge—academia and peer-review, if you will—is essentially arbitrary and has little to do with the substantive content of their fields. Followers of pseudoscience, pseudohistory and conspiracy theories think that academia and institutional knowledge is a sort of old boy’s club, where a cap and gown and a secret handshake get you “in the club,” and only knowledge that originates from within “the club” is taken seriously. The reality is very different.

You do not have to be a credentialed expert with a Ph.D. in physics to come up with a revolutionary new idea that totally redefines scientific truth. You could be a plumber and still come up with a revolutionary new idea that totally redefines scientific truth. However, whether you are a Ph.D. physicist or a plumber, the validity of your idea must be still be provable using the scientific method.

You do not have to possess a Ph.D. in archeology to come up with a bold new theory that explains the workings of ancient civilizations. You could work at Subway and still come up with a revolutionary theory that redefines ancient history as we know it. However, whether you are a Ph.D. archaeologist or a Subway sandwich maker, the validity of your idea must still be provable with evidence and the methods of archaeological research and historical analysis.

This is what Mr. Haramein doesn’t seem to understand. The reason his theories don’t have any credibility is not because he is not a credentialed expert doing research at a traditional institution. The reason his theories don’t have any credibility is because they’re not verifiable or supportable according to the methods of physics, astronomy and ancient history. It’s the methods that matter. Scientific inquiry and historical analysis have been built up over centuries, even millennia. Democritus was doing science in Thrace in the 4th century B.C., and Thucydides was researching history at about the same time. Guess what? The methods that Democritus used all those centuries ago are still sound by today’s scientific standards (though of course technology is much different), and the methods that Thucydides used to describe the Peloponnesian War are still recognized as hallmarks of historical scholarship today. This is not to say that science or history haven’t advanced since the time of the ancient Greeks; clearly they have. But our process of asking questions and seeking answers, of judging hypothesis based on verifiable facts, and of testing the evidence for its reliability are remarkably similar to the processes that experts have been using for centuries to get at the truth of various problems.

Want to know something else? The “scientific heretics” that fringe believers like to trot out on cue—Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, etc.—could prove their unorthodox theories by using those same processes. Galileo was persecuted by religious authorities, but he could still prove that Jupiter had moons; Copernicus’s books were banned by political authorities, but his mathematics still proved that a heliocentric solar system was the truth. Einstein wasn’t even much of a heretic at all. After all, he won a Nobel Prize. They don’t give Nobel Prizes to people who don’t use the scientific method or whose discoveries can’t be verified by it.

Through his rhetoric about institutional knowledge and credentialism, Mr. Haramein and his supporters seem to want you to jump to the conclusion that he’s a bold innovator and a brave defender of scientific truth in the face of unreasonable conformity. But the real bold innovators and brave defenders of scientific truth, like Galileo and Copernicus, could prove their theories using scientific methods and reasoning, and thats why their ideas are accepted today as truth. By contrast, Mr. Haramein seems to want to skip the part where his theories are actually proven using the methods and reasoning that experts have been using for centuries to determine what’s true and what’s not. Unfortunately, science and history don’t work that way.

Conclusion

During his brief appearance in Thrive, Nassim Haramein makes a number of statements and invites a number of inferences. He makes statements about the “Flower of Life” design which are incorrect. He makes statements about ancient gods and the history of ancient peoples which are incorrect. He invites the conclusion that aliens came to Earth long ago to help civilizations build various things, a conclusion which is unsupportable.

Outside the movie Thrive, Mr. Haramein is known for making similar wild claims, which are similarly incorrect. His “Schwarzschild Proton” theory is absolutely unsupported given physical science as we know it today. Real scientists consistently deride his methodology as flawed and his arguments as totally unpersuasive. His response to these criticisms, which is to dismiss the value of expert opinion or institutional knowledge, is similarly unpersuasive.

The rational viewer of Thrive, when confronted with these facts, should not only be extremely skeptical of the assertions Mr. Haramein makes in the film, but should also wonder why the makers of the film did not conduct better research, and consult more reliable sources, about the matters Mr. Haramein discusses.

Ancient Astronauts–Debunked!

One of the key claims in the Thrive movie, and in fact a major assumption on which the movie is based, is the idea of “ancient astronauts”—the supposition that extraterrestrial beings came to Earth in the early history of the human race and imparted knowledge to humans. As with most other claims and basic assumptions in Thrive, the idea of ancient astronauts is unsupported by facts and contrary to logic and critical reasoning. It is purely a faith-based proposition, and this article will explain why.

What Are “Ancient Astronauts” And What Does Thrive Claim About Them?

The idea of ancient astronauts is very popular in New Age circles. The basic idea is that supposedly aliens visited Earth thousands of years ago and gave humans knowledge that they wouldn’t otherwise have had. Thrive argues that part of this knowledge was the “torus” shape that Foster Gamble asserts is some sort of pattern for unlimited, free energy. This pattern is supposedly observable in the “Flower of Life” and virtually anything else in ancient or early modern art or architecture that involves 64 circles or really 64 of anything.

Much of the first quarter of Thrive either deals with ancient astronauts explicitly or implicitly. At 20:25 of the film, for instance, there is the explicit claim that alien intelligences were visiting Earth in UFOs in ancient times. Prior to that, however, there are various claims made, such as those by Nassim Haramein, of things that are supposedly of extraterrestrial origin, “proving” the ancient astronaut theory correct. At 20:10 in the film, Mr. Haramein states that the Egyptians, Incas and Mayans all talk about “sun gods” who come to Earth and teach them engineering, writing and all of their science. Evidently we (the human race) are supposed to get back to our extraterrestrial roots and discover the “gift” of free unlimited energy that these aliens supposedly gave us thousands of years ago.

What Is The Evidence That Thrive Relies On To Claim Ancient Astronauts Are Real?

The answer to this question is simple: none whatsoever. All of the claims made in Thrive about ancient astronauts are based on the same basic assumption: that ancient peoples couldn’t possibly have built this or that structure, or known about this concept or that concept, and therefore this “proves” that they must have been given these ideas by a superior intelligence.

That’s it. That’s all the Thrive movie has to support its claims about ancient astronauts. No evidence at all. Just an assumption followed by a supposition, neither of which are logically or factually supportable.

Example: at 18:45 of the film, Foster Gamble, finishing up his talk about the 64-circled “Flower of Life” design, says, “Is it a coincidence that this design appears on two different continents?” We have already seen on this blog that the Thrive movie’s claims about the “Flower of Life” being “burned into the structure of the rock” are false, and that the makers have acknowledged that they are false. Later, trying to link the number 64 with recent discoveries about human DNA, Gamble says of ancient peoples (at 20:02), “But how on earth did they know about it?”

This assumption is nothing less than a frontal assault on human intelligence. Mr. Gamble and Mr. Haramein are suggesting that ancient peoples were so stupid, simple-minded and helpless that they couldn’t have come up with anything worthwhile unless that knowledge was given to them by aliens.

There is also another incorrect assumption lying behind this one: that knowledge of science and technology in the modern world is always a perfectly linear expansion, that nothing that has ever been known or discovered in human history has ever been lost or forgotten, and that modern understandings of science and engineering are the sina qua non of intelligence. That is to say, if we can’t explain how the Egyptians built a pyramid in terms roughly analogous to understanding of the processes of building the Empire State Building, this precludes the possibility that the pyramids could have been built by humans.

Although it appeals to an extraterrestrial designer rather than a divine one, ancient astronaut theories are similar in reasoning (or lack thereof) to young-earth creationism and “Intelligent Design.” Right away this should tell you that ancient astronauts are not a rational explanation for the concepts or creations of ancient peoples.

Where Do Modern “Ancient Astronaut” Theories Come From?

Ancient astronauts, as the idea is commonly understood in the circles of New Age believers that are evidently Thrive’s target audience, burst into popular culture in 1968 with a pseudoscientific book called Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken, which is still in print 44 years later. This virtually fact-free book argues that ancient structures such as Stonehenge and the Nazca Lines are too advanced to have been built by ancient peoples, and thus must have been constructed by aliens. Probably the best debunking of von Däniken is this article written by John T. Omohundro way back in 1976 which takes apart both von Däniken’s supposed “evidence” and his faulty reasoning. A more concise criticism can be found on the Skeptic Dictionary page on von Däniken, which states:

“[M]ost of von Däniken’s evidence is in the form of specious and fallacious arguments. His data consists mainly of archaeological sites and ancient myths. He begins with the ancient astronaut assumption and then forces all data to fit the idea. For example, in Nazca, Peru, he explains giant animal drawings in the desert as an ancient alien airport. The likelihood that these drawings related to the natives’ religion or science is not considered. He also frequently reverts to false dilemma reasoning of the following type: ‘Either this data is to be explained by assuming these primitive idiots did this themselves or we must accept the more plausible notion that they got help from extremely advanced peoples who must have come from other planets where such technologies as anti-gravity devices had been invented.’”

These ideas weren’t new even in 1968. This article mentions some of the progenitors of the ancient astronaut theory, and also debunks some other examples from Chariots of the Gods?. But in New Age circles—people who want to believe spiritual “alternative explanations” for things rather than accept factual and rational explanations—von Däniken has been a hero for nearly half a century. Unfortunately, woo beliefs tend to be much more popular than dry facts of history and archaeology.

But Isn’t It True We Don’t Know How The Pyramids (Or Other Ancient Structures) Were Built?

Yes, in some cases it is true. But why does this lead to a binary choice—that if we can’t explain it, we must conclude that it was done by aliens? There is, in fact, another and much more likely possibility: that the ancient peoples did it themselves using means and procedures whose exact natures are no longer extant in the historical record.

Also, do not confuse “we don’t know how they were built” with “the building of these structures is impossible given what we know about physics and engineering.” Believers in ancient astronaut theories constantly confuse these two conclusions. We do not know how the pyramids were built, but the construction of them by human hands is certainly not impossible. Skeptic Dictionary puts it this way:

“We still wonder how the ancient Egyptians raised giant obelisks in the desert and how stone age men and women moved huge cut stones and placed them in position in dolmens and passage graves. We are amazed by the giant carved heads on Easter Island and wonder why they were done, who did them, and why they abandoned the place. We may someday have the answers to our questions, but they are most likely to come from scientific investigation not pseudoscientific speculation. For example, observing contemporary stone age peoples in Papua New Guinea, where huge stones are still found on top of tombs, has taught us how the ancients may have accomplished the same thing with little more than ropes of organic material, wooden levers and shovels, a little ingenuity and a good deal of human strength.”

What we lack is not an understanding of the scientific possibility of building these structures, but the historical records of the processes used to build them. For example, it is clearly not impossible for human beings to haul massive stones, such as those used to build the pyramids at Giza, many miles from a quarry to a construction site. We do it today with trucks and cranes, but many, many historical records exist of it being done in structures all over the world in the days before trucks and cranes. Therefore, we know it is possible. But with the pyramids, the historical record of how they were built has been lost. Did they use pulleys? Ramps? Did they haul the stones on donkeys? Did they use teams of slaves? We don’t know, but the fact that we don’t know doesn’t mean that any or all of these techniques were not or could not have been used.

See the difference? We don’t know how they were built is not the same as we believe that the building of these structures is impossible according to our understanding of science and engineering. Those are two very different concepts, but New Age believers conflate them constantly, and this conflation is the basis for ancient astronaut claims.

But What About Ancient Peoples’ Mythology About Sun Gods Who Taught Them Everything? Isn’t That Evidence of Alien Visitation?

No.

A key part of ancient astronaut bunk is to warp and distort ancient peoples’ mythology and religious beliefs to try to claim that they really were talking about aliens and UFOs. Von Däniken does this in Chariots of the Gods? and Nassim Haramein does exactly the same thing at 20:10 of Thrive. Mr. Haramein claims that Egyptians, Mayas and Incas all had “sun gods” that supposedly taught them science and engineering. This claim is false at least with respect to the Egyptians and Mayas.

The ancient Egyptian sun god was called Ra. I looked up Ra in my Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, by Arthur Cotterell & Rachel Storm, and while I found a very detailed article on Ra’s role as the daily-reborn sun god of Egypt, there was not a single word referring to him teaching science and technology to the Egyptians. You can browse some online resources about Ra (such as this one) and you will also see that there is no mention of Ra’s relationship to science and technology. I read quite a lot about Egyptian mythology in my early years, and I don’t recall ever hearing this. If anyone more versed in Egyptian mythology than I am can correct me if this is a misconception, I invite them to do so—but please come armed with a direct quotation from a reliable source before commenting.

Mayan mythology and religion is extraordinarily complex. In researching this article, as near as I can tell the Mayan sun god was called Kinich Ahau, and he was primarily associated with music and poetry—not science and engineering. Clearly there is no mention of this god, at least in the materials I could find, “teaching” ancient peoples how to build anything. Again, if anyone who knows Mayan mythology wishes to dispute this characterization, I’ll do an update to this blog with a correction—but again, come armed with direct quotations from reliable sources.

I have a friend who is very much into Mayan culture, and who just got back from an archaeological dig in Guatemala. (His blog is here). I asked him about the sun god stuff. His answer: it’s garbage. Mr. Haramein appears to be mistaken.

He does have a point, however, when it comes to the Incan sun god. That god was called Inti and was the most important god in the Incan pantheon. This site refers to legends that Inti “taught civilization” to Manco Cápac, the mythological founder of the Incan civilization. Presumably the teaching of “civilization” involves science and engineering.

But before you conclude that this is “evidence” that the Incas learned everything they knew from little green men from the Pleiades, let’s step back a moment. Mr. Haramein made the claim that all three civilizations had sun gods who taught them about science and technology. The facts show that only one of them had a belief similar to that. Mr. Haramein was also proven incorrect about the “Flower of Life” at the Temple of Abydos. Clearly, when it comes to making assertions about ancient history, he doesn’t seem to be correct very much of the time.

Even beyond the issue of Mr. Haramein’s credibility, however, think of something more basic: if these ancient peoples were visited by extraterrestrials, why would formulations of myths and religious stories be their primary means of recording this extraordinary event? These ancient peoples did write down their history. Take the Mayans, for instance. In addition to recording their mythology, they recorded the genealogies of their kings and historical events that occurred in their countries. You can see a translation of a Mayan codex, called Popul Vuh, which does exactly that, here. Why would these peoples have not recorded what actually happened?

That dovetails with my next point.

If Ancient Astronauts Helped Ancient Peoples Build Things in the Distant Past, How Come They Haven’t Helped Us Build Anything in Recorded History?

This is a question I’ve never heard a believer in ancient astronauts even attempt to answer. If aliens helped Egyptians build the pyramids thousands of years ago, how come they didn’t help us build, say, the Hoover Dam in the 1920s? Why do all these supposed alien interventions lie in periods of the past for which historical records are sketchy or nonexistent?

Let’s take another example of an awesome and mysterious structure, every bit as amazing as the pyramids: the cathedral of Hagia Sofia (St. Sofia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople, now called Istanbul.

This, one of the largest and grandest cathedrals in the world, survived many earthquakes over the centuries that turned most other structures to rubble. For many years modern scientists and engineers had no idea how or why the builders of St. Sofia were able to “earthquake-proof” the building. Then, in 2002, the answer was discovered: the Byzantines who built St. Sofia in the 530’s A.D. invented earthquake-proof cement 1300 years before anyone else had thought of it.

Before 2002, then, St. Sofia was in precisely the same category as the Egyptian pyramids or the Nazca lines: “We have no idea how they did it!” Yet I am unaware of a single instance in which New Agers have alleged that aliens helped build St. Sofia.

Why not? The answer is very simple. St. Sofia was built in recorded history. There are lots of written records relating to its construction in 532 A.D. We even know the names of the architects: Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. In short, we know that aliens weren’t involved in building St. Sofia because none of the historical records relating to the construction of the cathedral mention them.

This fact is proof positive of how and why the “We have no idea how they did it, so it must be aliens” reasoning is inherently faulty. We know for a fact that humans built St. Sofia without help from Antares or Alpha Centauri. There was something about how they built it that we did not know, at least until 2002, and that something was a marvel comparable only to modern techniques of modern earthquake-proof construction. Yet no one could take seriously the claim that because this marvel existed, it somehow “proved” that aliens must have been involved in its construction.

This means that the only candidates for alien construction projects are those for which we don’t already have detailed records of their construction. If, for example, a stone tablet was discovered in Egypt tomorrow with a complete record of how the Great Pyramid was constructed, and archaeologists verified the tablet as genuine, the Great Pyramid would suddenly be off the New Agers’ list of “proof” items for alien astronauts. This shows that alien astronaut claims can only thrive (pardon the expression) where there is no direct evidence to refute them. This is a classic telltale sign of faulty reasoning.

Aren’t You Being Unfair And Closed-Minded By Refusing To Accept The Possibility That Aliens May Have Interacted With Humans In The Past? I Mean, You Should Be Open To All Possibilities, Right?

Many defenders of Thrive who have come to this blog to comment have taken me to task for denouncing this or that possibility involving woo subjects like UFOs or crop circles, or conspiracy theories like the “Global Domination Agenda,” as if I am somehow being unfair and closing the door on potential understanding by insisting on verifiable facts and logical reasoning. This criticism totally misses the point and again reinforces the faith-based belief system of Thrive’s target audience.

Personally, I would be delighted if historical or archaeological evidence of extraterrestrial visitation came to light. It would undoubtedly be the greatest discovery in the history of the human race. I personally do think it is likely that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. However, this supposition—and it is no more than a supposition—does not justify a belief that these extraterrestrial beings are visiting Earth in UFOs, because there is no credible evidence that this is in fact happening. Not only is there no credible evidence of extraterrestrial visitation in modern times, but the supposed “evidence” for extraterrestrial visitation in the past is even thinner.

Why, if aliens visited humans in the past, should the evidence of these visitations be so oblique and attenuated? If it really happened, shouldn’t it be unmistakable? Again—why didn’t Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, erect a stone tablet stating, “I just want to leave this stone behind to thank Zorky and Bloopblop from the planet Galinka for all their help in building my wonderful pyramid”? If it really happened, wouldn’t there be ample evidence of it? And in the absence of such convincing evidence, is it really that unreasonable to conclude that it did not happen?

I believe in the human race, the intelligence of the human species, and the boundless ingenuity of humanity. I seem to believe in these things more than Foster Gamble and Nassim Haramein do. I believe that a bunch of very intelligent men and women, born in Egypt thousands of years ago, were clever enough to figure out a way to build the Great Pyramid, and if we modern peoples could see how they did it, we would be extremely surprised and intrigued by their ingenuity. Foster Gamble and Nassim Haramein do not believe that Egyptians were smart enough to do this; they’d rather believe that these people were pathetic and helpless and could only have done what they did if aliens helped them.

I believe that artists, engineers and artisans across many different cultures, in many different countries, in many different eras, were smart enough to come up with the idea of a flower-like design with 64 interlocking circles independently of each other. This is not a “coincidence.” Is it really that hard? Is it so far beyond the realm of possibility that one ancient person in Egypt came up with a 64-circle flower design and thought, “Gee, that’s pretty—I think I’ll paint it on the wall,” and then someone else in China hundreds of years later had the same idea and also thought it was pretty? Why does this stretch any sort of credulity to believe this?

But Foster Gamble and Nassim Haramein do not believe this. They believe people in Egypt and China—civilizations that gave us paper and fireworks, had running water in their houses, and explored much of the ancient world—were too stupid to do this without the help of aliens.

I believe that a couple of ordinary yahoos from rural England, with no advanced training in engineering or mathematics, working with boards, measuring tapes and other simple tools, can and regularly do create magnificent, geometrically perfect crop circles on a regular basis. In fact, I can prove that they do. But Foster Gamble and Nassim Haramein do not believe this. They believe people are too stupid to figure out how to flatten some wheat stalks and throw some magnetized particles around to fool the gullible.

Most sadly—and here is the real tragedy of Thrive—Foster Gamble and Nassim Haramein do not seem to believe in the capacity and ingenuity of the human species to improve its present condition. They don’t think we can end global warming, clean up the environment or improve the quality of life for many of the world’s people on our own, the same way we have solved many other problems, by using science and reason and calling upon the infinite creativity of the human spirit. No—the whole point of Thrive is that we, the human race, are too stupid and corrupt to do these things, and we must instead rely on magical technology supposedly given to us by extraterrestrials in order to solve these problems.

That’s their message. Humanity is doomed, and we always have been. Hell, according to Gamble and Haramein, as well as some commenters on this blog, we’re too stupid to figure out how to build crop circles correctly! But that doesn’t matter. Aliens will sail down from the skies to our rescue. As long as we don’t let those evil Rockefellers and the Federal Reserve take over.

Seen in this light, Thrive’s dogged insistence on the alien astronaut hypothesis is not only silly and illogical—it is downright insulting.

Who Is Adam Trombly? (UPDATED!)

This blog, originally published December 9, 2011, was updated March 16, 2012. Scroll to the end for the update.

This blog was written jointly by Professor Pious and by Muertos. Authorship of various sections is stated within.

Adam Trombly is one of the “experts” presented in the Thrive movie, and upon whom Thrive maker and narrator Foster Gamble relies heavily for his conclusions that “free energy” machines exist and are being suppressed by conspiratorial forces. Trombly makes his first appearance at 35:07 in the movie, and the film focuses on him for much of the next few minutes.

This blog will attempt to present answers to the following questions: Who is Adam Trombly? Is there any evidence that his machines actually work? Is there any evidence that, if his machines work, they have been suppressed? Bottom line: are his claims credible?

Who Is Adam Trombly?

[This section by Muertos]

Adam Trombly is a researcher who is closely associated with “free energy” devices. The device he is most closely associated with is something called a “Closed Path Homopolar Generator.” This is a free energy/perpetual motion device. As has been stated on this blog before, these devices do not work because they violate the basic laws of physics.

Some general links to familiarize you with Trombly:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=8510.0

http://www.economicexpert.com/5a/History:of:perpetual:motion:machines.htm

[This section by Professor Pious]

Unfortunately most of the information in the links here on Adam Trombly trace back to Trombly’s own “projectearth” web site. It seems most information on Trombly available on the Internet has simply been copied from his own web site.

He claims to be:

“an internationally acknowledged expert in the fields of Physics, Atmospheric Dynamics, Geophysics, Rotating and Resonating Electromagnetic Systems, and Environmental Global Modeling”

In addition, the Thrive movie bills him as a “physicist.” Not a single academic degree is mentioned from any accredited institution.

[Muertos comment: I searched at some length for information on Adam Trombly’s academic credentials. I couldn’t find anything. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a Ph.D. in physics or any of the other fields he claims to be an expert in, but it seems unusual that, if he did, he and the Thrive movie would not mention that fact. Every other expert in the film who does have a Ph.D. in a relevant field is identified as being a Ph.D. Trombly is not. 

This section regarding credentials is not an “ad hominem” attack, either, as some may eventually try to claim. The question of academic and scientific credentials is directly relevant to the credibility of Trombly to design and build these sorts of machines. Even if we cannot expect that revolutionary new energy inventions will always come from credentialed experts—I am not making that claim at all—if there’s something to these designs, at the very least credentialed experts would be who we would naturally look to in order to explain and verify these claims.]

Does Trombly’s machine actually work?

Trombly’s web site contains a review of his “Homopolar Generator” by a Bruce E. DePalma:

http://projectearth.com/closed-path-homopolar-machine

As one might expect, DePalma is also a well-known “free energy” researcher, whose research never produced a device that produced excess energy. Here’s a short biography of DePalma:

“De Palma studied electrical engineering at MIT, leaving without a degree around 1958. DePalma worked in weapons electronics at General Atronics Corporation in Philadelphia following his under-graduate years at MIT before returning the Boston area for a job at Polaroid in Cambridge MA. In the mid-1960s he also obtained a teaching assistant position in the laboratory of Dr. Harold Edgerton, the renowned inventor of stroboscopic photography.
Coincident with his return to Massachusetts, he became infatuated with psycho-active drugs and believed the mind altering effects he perceived opened an entirely new way to pursue the study of physics. Unfortunately, this experimentation led to problems with his academic and corporate relationships and by 1970, he left both to strike out on his own and begin the full-time pursuit of free energy machines that occupied the rest of his life. While he was thought to be quite brilliant by the many students he recruited to assist him, his addictions to hashish and LSD colored everything he wrote and conceived, and invariably left within a few years when it became clear that despite his most sincere efforts, nothing he ever postulated could be scientifically verified. Undaunted, he recruited more as needed, invariably assisted by his willingness to share his psychedelics with the newcomers.”

Source:
http://wikibin.org/articles/bruce-depalma.html

That leaves us without any credible verification of Trombly’s free energy homopolar generator, except Trombly’s claims that an Indian scientist named Paramahamsa Tewari had taken up the research.

http://projectearth.com/articles/25-common-sense

Thankfully Gary Posner has some fact-checking here:

http://www.gpposner.com/Hoagland_pt2.html

Excerpt:

“According to FTP, a variation of the “N Machine” [Homopolar Generator] was already in full operation. Thus, on September 21, 1990, I wrote to B. Premanand, founder of the Indian Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal:

~I would like to know if the Indian government has in operation a power generator that produces more energy than it consumes (i.e., a perpetual energy machine). This claim is being made repeatedly on the “For The People” radio program (heard on 7.520 MHz. internationally from 2400 to 0200 hours UTC).

The machine is supposedly a magnetized gyroscope, located on the west coast of India in a city that sounded like “Caroa,” which is supposedly south of an old Portuguese colony that sounded like “Doa.” If I heard correctly, a German company that sounded like “Gadori” may have actually built it.

Although Premanand’s letter of reply never made its way back to me, mine did reach him. I was quite surprised, and delighted, to discover that, as a result of my letter, he had devoted nine pages to this subject in the April 1995 issue of his group’s Indian Skeptic newsletter (in which a copy of my letter was reproduced). Premanand wrote about his efforts to track down Dr. Paramahamsa Tewari, who, according to a 1987 Indian newspaper account, had demonstrated his machine in Hannover, Germany, before an audience that included 1,500 scientists from around the world. His Space Power Generator (SPG), one of about twenty-five similar machines presented at that conference, supposedly extracts power from the vacuum of space. Though the prototype was said to have been built at the Tarapur Atomic Plant in India, Premanand could find no one in the Department of Science & Technology of the Indian government who knew of Dr. Tewari or his SPG.

In a June 21, 1994, letter (reproduced in Indian Skeptic ), N. A. Janardan Rao, Vice President for R&D and Technology Development of Kirloskar Electric Company Ltd. in Bangalore, wrote (to the author of a 1994 Indian newspaper article), “Many years ago I had corresponded with Dr. Thiwari [sic] and he had sent me a small book written by him on this subject. I then proceeded to actually design and fabricate a free energy machine. We incurred an expense of more than one hundred thousand rupees and 8 man months in fabricating this unique device. Subsequent testing showed that there was no free energy as claimed; an infinitesimal electrical output was detected which could be attributed entirely to Faraday’s law” (emphasis added).”

So Trombly’s device was indeed the basis of a design for a free energy device that was actually built and…surprise…never worked.

[UPDATE: Since this article was written, there is now a viable question as to whether Mr. Trombly actually built this machine at all, and what it actually does.]

Interestingly enough, we see the “free energy – extraterrestrial” link being promoted in 1990 by the long discredited Richard Hoagland in the writeup by Gary Posner linked above. A search of the thrivemovement web site turns up no mention of Hoagland, however, he is most closely associated with the discredited “face on Mars” claim.

Is there evidence to support the claim that Trombly’s inventions have been suppressed?

The Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 does allow the government to impose “secrecy orders” on certain sensitive patent applications:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/invention/index.html

However, Trombly has not published the two written gag orders he has claimed to have received. Furthermore, inventors with secrecy orders imposed on their patents are entitled to compensation from the government due to lost revenue: (Constant v. United States, 617 F.2d 239 (Ct. Cl. 1980))

Reference:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2002/02/022002.html

Trombly makes no mention of ever having sought compensation from the government for his inventions being suppressed. Of course, if the invention never worked in the first place, and the gag orders were imaginary, why would he? It is more likely that the suppression did not take place because Trombly’s machines did not work.

[This section, and rest of the article, by Muertos]

There is no evidence that Trombly’s inventions have been suppressed. First, as we’ve seen, there is no evidence that they actually work. Why would a government or a power company go to the trouble and expense of trying to suppress an invention that is useless in the first place? By logic, therefore, we can already be extremely skeptical that the “suppression” claims are true.

Trombly presents no evidence of suppression. At 36:28 of the Thrive movie, while Trombly is speaking, former President George H.W. Bush is shown on the screen—however, no claim is made that Bush was involved in suppressing Trombly’s work. The sole purpose of introducing Bush is to create a false association in the mind of the viewer that Bush must have had something to do with it. This is innuendo, not fact.

Furthermore, at 39:15 of the film, Trombly blames the “military-industrial complex” for suppressing free energy. About thirty seconds later he says, “The suppression of UFO phenomena is hand in hand with suppression of free energy.” He does not back up these claims. Indeed, the movie next launches into various related claims by Steven Greer, but does not return to claims about the supposed suppression of Trombly’s specific device.

Why, if Trombly could prove that he was being suppressed, does he and the Thrive movie resort to innuendo to make their case? If Trombly’s machine actually worked, it would be easy to prove government suppression. First of all, since he has claimed to have received two “gag orders” about his invention, if he produced these orders it would be strong evidence that the suppression is taking place (and, logically, that there is something worth suppressing). He has not received any gag orders, nor has he applied for economic remuneration as a result of having received them—remuneration to which he is entitled by law. Secondly, if there was any other evidence of suppression, he could add it to the gag orders, thus backing up his claims. Mr. Trombly has not done this.

The issue of the UN/Senate tests

There is another clue that the suppression is not taking place. At 36:24 of the film, Trombly claims that he was invited to demonstrate his generator in front of the U.N. and the United States Senate. Why, if the “powers that be” are so afraid of his machine, would they invite him to present it in front of them? Wouldn’t that be extremely dangerous for them to do, if as Thrive implies these official bodies have a strong vested interest in suppressing devices such as Trombly’s? After all, if his invention actually worked, they’d be stuck, wouldn’t they?

Think about it. If Trombly demonstrated his machine in front of the UN and the Senate and it actually worked, an effort at suppression taking place after the demonstration would be much harder to “sell” in the face of verified evidence of the machine’s operation. Why would the conspirators take this risk? If they weren’t yet sure his machine worked, they would not have to have a demonstration in their open chamber to determine this before they invited him—they could easily send someone out to Trombly’s lab and have him demonstrate the machine to them, and then they would report back to their superiors. Therefore, there is no point in having him demonstrate the machine in front of them if there is any chance that it would make their ultimate aim of suppressing the technology harder rather than easier.

To those who say, “Oh, but they obviously rigged the demonstration precisely to discredit Trombly!”, I reply, first, that there is no evidence of it, and second, that this too would be unnecessarily risky. If the UN and the Senate are afraid that the machine works, and they need to screw around with the conditions of the test to make sure Trombly fails in a public forum, they are exposing themselves to further risk—their efforts at rigging the test might not succeed, and even if they did, others who were there could testify that the test was rigged.

We have already presented evidence (Posner’s fact-checking) that Trombly’s machine never worked to begin with. It makes little sense that conspiratorial forces would exert any effort to suppress a machine that doesn’t work, and no sense at all that, even if they did exert this effort, a key piece of the case demonstrating Trombly’s failure had the potential to backfire publicly and complicate the effort at suppression.

Why, then, would the Senate and the U.N. invite somebody like Adam Trombly to demonstrate in front of them a machine that works on a principle that violates the laws of physics and for which there is no evidence that it actually works?

The answer is quite simple: they’re bending over backwards to demonstrate that they are not suppressing this sort of technology. As you can see from this blog, any rational person certainly has good reason to be skeptical that Trombly’s machine can do what he says it does. However, if you invite Trombly to demonstrate his machine in front of you, even despite this extreme skepticism, you have given him the benefit of every possible doubt. If his machine fails under those conditions, you can be certain that there was nothing there of substance to begin with.

[UPDATE: In light of recent discoveries, it seems likely that the U.S. Senate test in 1989 was in fact a test of a machine that did something totally different than the machine the film claims Mr. Trombly invented supposedly does. Scroll to the end for that update.]

Are Trombly’s claims reliable?

I am not going to spoon-feed an answer to this question to you, the readers of this blog. I invite you to draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind:

1. Adam Trombly does not appear to have academic credentials in physics. (If I am wrong about this, and readers can present evidence that he does, I will correct this blog immediately).
2. Adam Trombly claims that his machine does something that we believe to be impossible given our current understanding of the laws of physics.
3. Trombly’s design was the basis for a machine built in India and investigated, and found not to work at all.
4. Trombly has not presented any evidence that his machine actually works.
5. Trombly has not presented any evidence that his design has been suppressed by the government and/or business interests.
6. In direct logical contradiction to his claim of suppression, he admits he was invited to demonstrate his device in an open forum before some of the very official bodies who are part of the institutions he claims are suppressing him—which would entail considerable risk to the suppression plot, if his claims were true.

None of these six points are absolutely conclusive on their own (though I would argue that points 3 and 4 are pretty close to conclusive). However, all six points together definitely seem to point unmistakably in a certain direction.

I’m sure Adam Trombly is a nice person, and from the movie he seems to be a smart person. I for one would love to have a beer with him and have him explain to me how his device works. On the basis of the evidence I have seen—and the evidence I haven’t seen that I would like to see—I am skeptical that his claims of building working “free energy” devices are correct.

Update 16 March 2012

This article cannot be taken in isolation. Please see this article which presents additional information on Adam Trombly and the claims made in Thrive.

In short, a person, David Farnsworth, has come forward stating that (I) Adam Trombly did not actually build the machine shown in Thrive, which was actually built by David Farnsworth; and (II) that the machine shown in Thrive does something totally different than the movie claims it does–in other words, that it is not in fact a “free energy” or “zero point energy” device. This was the device tested in front of the Senate in 1989 (or possibly 1988), which explains the issue regarding that test–it’s not evidence of government suppression of “free energy” because the device shown, and then allegedly suppressed, was not a “free energy” device to begin with.