NASA Engineer Built Mercury-Powered Ion Engine That Ran for 11 Years Despite Toxicity
"In the early 1960s, Harold Calfman wanted the opposite of a rocket, not a single violent burst, a gentle push that never stopped. An engine that used very little fuel at once but kept running and running and running for months, maybe years. Take liquid mercury and boil it into a vapor. Hit that vapor with electrons to charge the atoms. Then throw the charged atoms out the back of the engine at tens of thousands of miles an hour. When it fired, it glowed a pale blue, the same pale blue the Germans saw coming off the Glocka. In 1970, NASA bolted Calfman's engine to a satellite called SERT 2 and waited for it to die. It didn't. They hoped it would run for 6 months. It ran for 11 years."
About this episode
The Y Files host AJ examines claims that Nazi Germany developed an anti-gravity weapon called Die Glocke (the bell) during World War II and traces alleged connections to modern US Navy patents for advanced propulsion technology. The episode explores how ancient Indian king Bhoja wrote about mercury-powered flying machines in 1010 AD but deliberately withheld construction details due to mercury's toxicity. AJ details how the Nazis allegedly attempted to build a bell-shaped device powered by counter-rotating mercury cylinders that could warp time and gravity, though project leader Hans Kammler and the bell itself disappeared at war's end. The episode reveals that NASA engineer Harold Calfman successfully built a mercury-powered ion engine in the 1960s that operated for 11 years on the SERT 2 satellite before the program was abandoned due to mercury poisoning of workers. In 2017-2018, aerospace engineer Salvatore Pais filed multiple US Navy patents for gravity-warping, cloaking, and advanced propulsion technologies allegedly based on spinning charged matter, with the Navy claiming the technology works and that China is pursuing similar capabilities. Most dramatically, the episode exposes how Apollo Fusion, Inc. nearly commercialized mercury-powered satellite engines in 2018 that would have released 20 metric tons of mercury annually into Earth's atmosphere before a UN treaty closed the loophole in 2022. AJ ultimately concludes that while the Nazi bell story lacks solid documentation and likely originated from a single journalist's unverified source, the recurring pattern of mercury-based propulsion attempts throughout history demonstrates humanity's repeated failure to heed ancient warnings about the metal's catastrophic toxicity.
Key takeaways
- US Navy filed patents in 2017-2018 for anti-gravity propulsion, cloaking technology, and advanced spacecraft allegedly based on spinning charged matter principles similar to Nazi bell weapon claims
- Apollo Fusion company attempted to deploy mercury-powered satellite engines in 2018 that would have released 20 metric tons of mercury into Earth's atmosphere annually before UN banned the practice in 2022
- NASA engineer Harold Calfman built mercury-powered ion engine in 1960s that successfully operated for 11 years on SERT 2 satellite before program abandoned due to worker poisoning
- Aerospace engineer Salvatore Pais, inventor of Navy's controversial patents, currently works for United States Space Force with most details about his technology remaining classified
- Ancient Indian king Bhoja documented mercury-powered flying machines in 1010 AD but deliberately withheld construction instructions warning the technology was too dangerous to build
- Nazi SS commander Hans Kammler, who allegedly oversaw Die Glocke bell weapon project, disappeared in 1945 with US documents showing him in American custody despite official death claims
- Die Glocke story originated from single journalist Igor Witkowski in 2000 based on interrogation transcripts that no other researcher has verified or seen