The Ning Li Cover-Up They Got Completely Wrong

Source: American Alchemy Magazine
Publication: American Alchemy Magazine
Author: Graeme Atkinson
Published: 2026-05-10
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Sourced: 2026-08-13
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By now most people who follow this space have heard the name Dr Ning Li. Chinese physicist. Anti-gravity research. Vanished. Took American secrets back to China. Case closed.

Except almost none of that is true, and the real story is considerably more interesting.

Li was not a lone maverick. She was not a defector. She never left Alabama. What she was, was one key member of a quietly coordinated network of top tier physicists who spent decades building a complete theoretical and experimental framework for manipulating gravity, funded at various points by NASA, the U.S. Army, and the Department of Defense, right up until 2014.

This piece untangles what actually happened, who was actually involved, and asks the question nobody has properly asked yet. What became of their work?

The U.S Congress forgot about her, or at least Representative Eric Burlison did.

On 20th April 2026, NewsNation research producer, Rob Jones, posted on X in reference to a House Oversight Committee investigation.

This particular House inquiry concerns the spate of deaths and disappearances among scientists linked to U.S classified defence programs. As you will be aware, the cases have garnered substantial media attention recently. Jones namechecked the late Chinese-American physicist who carried out research into anti-gravity on behalf of the U.S army, but then vanished from public life in the early 2000s.

Representative Eric Burlison replied:

“That’s a good point. I forgot about Dr Ning Li.”

Burlison isn’t exactly unacquainted with this particular subject matter.

He’s at the forefront of UAP transparency, lobbying for disclosure from inside of Congress. He has also been privy to classified briefings held in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs), and has previously engaged whistleblower David Grusch as a special adviser on his team, helping push for the government to be more open on this topic.

Indeed, to further cement this position, prior to responding to Jones on X, he had just co-signed a letter, “seeking information from the Department of Energy, Department of War, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) about the scientists and other personnel connected to U.S. nuclear secrets or rocket technology who have died or mysteriously vanished in recent years.”

Burlison is therefore as dialled into this issue as any sitting US lawmaker.

Amy Eskridge, anti-gravity researcher

Several of the names being examined by Congress include Amy Eskridge, a 34 year old Huntsville based anti-gravity researcher who, with her father, co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and sadly died in June 2022 in what has been described as controversial circumstances.

Yet, despite extensive knowledge on these matters, Dr Ning Li - also a former Huntsville resident - had not crossed Burlison’s mind.

This is hardly surprising.

The online exchange between Jones and the Congressman was brief, but it was honest and it speaks to just how sprawling this particular story has become in recent months. Frankly, it is simply impossible to provide a definitive account of these reportedly interconnected deaths and disappearances.

Eleven? Twelve? Even seventeen - the number of individuals missing or dead alters depending on which list you consult. But, irrespective of where you look, the numbers are considerable and the circumstances surrounding many of these cases are certainly worthy of rigorous, federal investigation.

For the avoidance of doubt, our focus here though is Dr Ning Li and the stories that have come to orbit around her over the last three decades.

Where myths have taken root, we will address them head on and where wild theories have emerged with no basis in reality, we will say so.

What remains when we do is, in many ways, more remarkable than anything born from pure fiction - Li was not acting alone , there was a significant established network around her…

What’s more, it’s largely been hiding in plain sight all along.

But first…

Let us set the record straight once and for all.

Upon researching Ning Li, there is much in the public domain that is incorrect. Indeed, the dominant narrative running through Li’s story to this day is - as one rather astute journalist once described it - “spectacularly wrong”.

Depending upon where you aim your browser search it may likely lead you to quickly conclude the following easy summary of Li’s life and career:

Dr Ning Li was a Chinese-born physicist who arrived in the United States in 1983. Over the following decade she conducted controversial anti-gravity research at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, producing a peer reviewed paper in 1997 and securing nearly half a million dollars in U.S. Army funding by 2001. Then she promptly disappeared whilst carrying her American funded research back to China.

Or so the story goes.

This version of Li’s account has been recycled by many credible voices and on so many occasions that it has almost become ‘canon’ in certain online circles.

But, is it all true?

Let’s examine what the evidence reveals.

In many ways it all began in 2008 with physicist Jack Sarfatti, but we must begin by retracing the arc of Li’s own journey…

Dr Ning Li was indeed born in China in 1943. Her formative years were turbulent to say the least.

At that time Japan occupied much of the major coastal cities. Shandong Province - where she then lived - was one of the areas significantly impacted by that occupation. Therefore, as a young child Li grew up in the shadow of Nationalist and Communist ideological tensions.

The Nanjing Massacre had occurred only a few years earlier and extreme violence towards civilians was a common occurrence. The end of the civil war, and a communist victory under Mao occurred when she was around six.

Young Ning Li was surrounded by these troubles.

Dr Ning Li at MITRE Corporation Conference, 2003

Despite these challenges, she later graduated from the Peking University with a degree in physics and began work at Beijing Polytechnic Institute developing night vision goggles for use in defence applications. Just prior to that - in the 1960s - she had been a Chief Engineer in a semiconductor manufactory.

Then, at around forty years old, Li arrived in the United States. It was 1983. By that point, long before she became entwined in military funded classified exotic propulsion research - as her night vision work demonstrates - she was already versed in classified defence programs.

Once on American shores she secured work at University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Centre for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, sitting in a geographical location that is renowned for aerospace research and military/defence contracting.

Whilst there, from 1991, she collaborated with another physicist by the name of Douglas Torr on a series of peer reviewed papers proposing a theoretical mechanism for generating measurable gravitomagnetic fields, using high temperature superconducting discs.

Their resulting publications were:

‘Effects of a Gravitomagnetic Field on Pure Superconductors’(Physical Review D, January 1991),
_‘Gravitational Effects on the Magnetic Attenuation of Superconductors’ _(Physical Review B, September 1992), and
‘Gravitoelectric-Electric Coupling via Superconductivity’ (Foundations of Physics Letters, August 1993).

Screenshot via Barely Sociable/YouTube showing three peer-reviewed papers co-authored by Ning Li and Douglas G. Torr.

Through these papers they laid out their theoretical roadmap for electrically generating and controlling gravity. The underlying physics behind it was based on the following core claim:

“That an anti-gravity effect could be produced by rotating ions creating agravitomagnetic field perpendicular to their spin axis. In her theory, if a large number of ions could be aligned (in a Bose–Einstein condensate), the resulting effect would be a very strong gravitomagnetic field producing a strong repulsive force.”

These endeavours quickly attracted the attention of recognised institutions.

By 1996 Li had been appointed Principal Investigator of the Delta-G project at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre. The program was NASA’s formal attempt at investigating gravity modification and operated from December 1996 through to December 2000.

A scientist by the name of Jonathan Campbell who worked with Li at NASA best captured the essence of what this program sought to achieve. He is on record stating:

“The first thing to understand about Li’s device is that it is neither an antigravity machine nor a gravitational shield. It does not modify gravity, rather it produces a gravity-like field that may be either attractive or repulsive.”

This really is a truly sensational statement when you consider the employer in question. As we can see, the language is not based on theory nor experimental ‘what-ifs’.Campbell is definitive in his claim - he is asserting it ‘ produces’ a gravity-like field.

Then, in 1997 Li and her team published another report. This one really made some waves.

‘Static Test for a Gravitational Force Coupled to Type II YBCO Superconductors’ was printed in the pages of respected journal Physica C.__ It became a foundational peer reviewed paper still cited by academics in the field to this day.

It also noted that prior experiments had reported, “anomalous weight loss for a test mass suspended above a rotating type II, YBCO superconductor, with the percentage change (0.05-2.1%) independent of the test mass’ chemical composition and diamagnetic properties.”

In plain terms it means if an object was placed above a spinning superconducting disc - and in a controlled setting - testing observed that this object then reduced in weight. Thus, it appeared to be some measurable interaction with gravity itself.

Those referenced ‘prior experiments’ were clearly significant and mainly those of Eugene Podkletnov, a pioneering Russian engineer at Tampere University in Finland.

In 1992 - whilst working adjacent to Li and Torr but seemingly wholly unconnected - he had claimed the positive gravitational shielding effects above a rotating superconducting disc.

These were the results Li’s team were seeking to further investigate and build upon. Their own testing measured changes in acceleration of less than 2 parts in 100 million of normal gravitational acceleration. Their 1997 paper described this as placing,“new limits on the strength and range of the proposed coupling between static superconductors and gravity.”

Eugene Podkletnov’s 1992 foundational research paper

According to a YouTube video by Barely Sociable - an independent account that has become one of the most widely referenced tellings of Li’s story - the full version of their 1997 academic report committed to reporting further results from a rotating version of the experiment.

That research never materialised publicly.

One aspect of Li’s story that has never been widely reported centres upon her work with NASA and the reasons it suddenly stopped.

A concluding summary report, from 2000 titled ‘Cooperative Agreement NCC8-124 Between NASA/MSFC and UAH Final Report’ (confirmation that NASA had partnered with Li’s own university to conduct research) makes clear what unfolded during the period of the program’s existence (1996-2000).

And she was its author.

The NASA document states that Li and her team successfully developed what is described as, “the first United States 12-inch superconductivity disk of 1-2-3 superconducting material.”

So, according to Li, ‘Gravity’ discs existed and despite problems encountered in their fabrication which took “twenty attempts” to put right, in the opinion of Li they became a significant technical achievement successfully accomplishing the task set by those commissioning the project.

However, NASA’s obligation was to provide the ‘rotating’ architecture to conclude the experiments. This would allow the team to successfully test the discs. The rotating apparatus necessary for the next stage of testing would likely have allowed for that further research promised in the 1997 Physica C paper too. And, this is where matters appear to have gone somewhat off-piste.

NASA, for reasons rumoured to be a failure of “leadership, organizational and funding issues” discontinued its own co-supported initiative with Li and UAH. In short, it was unable to fully build the supporting infrastructure to conclude these experiments. This position is all the stranger when considered alongside NASA’s Dr Jonathan Campbell’s comments that Li’s work produced, “ a gravity-like field.”

However, Li diplomatically acknowledges the disappointment in the ‘Final Report, “It is unfortunate that these fine superconducting specimens were never used in the desired experiments.”

Presumably filled with frustration from NASA’s failures and perhaps by institutional dynamics at UAH, Li left the university in 1999 to commercialise her own theoretical work. She would become the architect of her own fortunes.

As several online accounts have touched upon, Larry Smalley, the former Chair of UAH’s physics department, left with her.

Smalley was someone who already had his own deep ties to this research. Whilst simultaneously serving as Associate Director of UAH’s Gravitoelectromagnetic Science Laboratory he was also a part time astrophysicist for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Yet, Smalley is on record actually blaming NASA for their part in the winding down of the UAH collaboration, stating, “It made me feel like they wasted time, a lot of money and a really golden opportunity to do something.”

In this light, Smalley leaving UAH alongside Li appears less like a speculative career move and more a considered and strategic step.

Indeed, according to a 2000, Popular Mechanics article by Jim Wilson, titled, ‘Taming Gravity ’, several other of their key colleagues departed with them.

This becomes crucial to Li’s story - it notes that they were all, “striking out on their own to commercialise devices based on her theory and a proprietary HTSD fabrication technique.”

Instead of a departure by two individuals then, it was - as we will come to explore - a coordinated exodus of several credentialled scientists all heavily involved in leading U.S anti-gravity research that had until that point been funded by NASA.

Once she left UAH, Li immediately founded her own company - AC Gravity LLC.

This career risk - if it could be described as such - paid off. In 2001, she received a sizable US Army contract worth $448,970 to continue with her experimental work.

The language contained within a Department of Defence (DoD) Annual report on Cooperative Agreements and Other Transactions from 2001 (cited in various sources) is revealing about what the government thought her research could lead to:

“If successful the payoff would be enormous - the ability to generate gravitational forces artificially would allow for new forms of propulsion, new ways of controlling missiles and gun-launched munitions, the lowering of the weight of heavy vehicles - making a 70-ton tank appear to weigh much less - and the potential of deflecting or countering the guidance systems of missiles which rely on inertial guidance like theatre or intercontinental ballistic missiles. If unsuccessful this avenue can be eliminated from future efforts and would put to rest the controversy surrounding these theories.”

Whilst Li left no public record of what she believed her research would ultimately be utilised for we can see that the U.S Army was considerably less coy - in their minds it was quite literally a weapons program.

The contract ran up until 2002. The results were never made public.

Li was also quoted in the Popular Mechanics piece referenced earlier. Her claims at the time were equally striking to say the least, “Using about one kilowatt of electricity, Li says, her device could potentially produce a force field that would effectively neutralize gravity above a 1-ft.-dia. region extending from the surface of the planet to outer space.”

Despite this publicity and indeed the years of academic peer reviewed publication, Li made her last public appearance in 2003 at a MITRE Corporation conference (MITRE manages federally funded research across multiple U.S. agencies. It has also been referenced in connection with whistleblower claims connecting it to reverse engineering of non-human craft). Li’s presentation was titled ‘Measurability of AC Gravity Fields’ and she delivered her talk alongside an official from Redstone Arsenal’s U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command.

After this date, she was never heard from in public again.

Yet one simple comment, made five years later, would blur the lines around what actually happened next.

We must now return to Jack Sarfatti. His own story is intriguing, one worthy of a separate deep dive.

For example, he once declared that he, “was asked by CIA guys and DOD guys back in the mid 70s during this SRI remote-viewing episode... I was asked to work on two problems…how does consciousness work from a physics point of view? And how do flying saucers fly?” It’s a claim which warrants its own attention and its topic we hope to return to in the future.

Sarfatti’s education background speaks for itself, providing significant weight to his statements. He received a BA in physics from Cornell University, an MS and PhD from the University of California - also in physics - and his dissertation was on ‘Gauge Invariance in the Theory of Superfluidity’. Notably, the early part of his career was documented by MIT historian David Kaiser in How the Hippies Saved Physics.

Sarfatti is therefore far from your average commentator.

Jack Sarfatti, Physicist

The relevance of his credentials to Li’s story is this - during an interview with podcaster Tim Ventura in 2008, Sarfatti made a remark that became the fertile ground from which many of the false claims surrounding Li have since grown.

Their conversation was focused on electrogravitic superconductivity, and Li’s name - almost as an aside - was mentioned. “One thing that did come up,” Sarfatti told Ventura at the time, “and this is very important from a national security and political point of view,” Li, “has disappeared and allegedly gone back to China.”

Sarfatti had not been asked about Ning Li directly, and he was disclosing no definitive evidence to Ventura either. It was an off-the-cuff comment in an early YouTube video. Yet, again given the credentials of the man making it, the claim received significant traction. A short clip of that same 2008 interview featured in a later and more recent Barely Sociable YouTube video. It has since accumulated more than four million views.

Then in April 2024, to his audience of many more millions, Sarfatti’s words were recounted by Joe Rogan on episode 2140. However, by the time of Rogan’s broadcast it was already clear - if we take the claims of Li’s son at face value - that this particular narrative surrounding her was false.

Nine months earlier, journalist Noah Logan of the Huntsville Business Journal , a regional publication in Alabama, had tracked down Li’s son, George Men, who spoke to Logan on the record. Logan’s article has become a valuable source for those researching Li’s story.

Uncovering the mystery of Huntsville’s brilliant anti-gravity scientist, Noah Logan, Huntsville Business Journal

Upon reviewing the viral Barely Sociable clip, Logan observed Men “took it in quietly, occasionally shaking his head. When it ended, he was able to clarify, with some amusement and some weariness, several things people had gotten spectacularly wrong over the years.”

Rather than simply vanish, potentially returning to China, Men placed on record that his mother had instead continued working for the U.S Department of Defense after what became her last public appearance in 2003.

She had not left the U.S after all, nor returned to China with U.S military grant funding as per the rumours.

That said, Men confirmed his mother had been involved in classified research on behalf of the U.S Army, at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama and it was clear she was unable to talk about it. There was reportedly a noticeable shift in her demeanor as a result.

Men revealed to Logan that his mother had become “ much quieter” and looked “ worn down” after she secured her ‘top secret’ clearance. When he would enquire about her work and the secrecy surrounding it she would respond, “First off, you don’t know anything. Second off, if you even think you might know something, you forget about it.”

As for the Chinese government angle - Chinese Communist Party officials had visited Li at her Huntsville home in 2008 asking whether she would return to China to continue her research with them.

Men confirmed it directly to Logan. However, Men states she declined their offer.

Li’s response appears to have placed her in a somewhat awkward position with both the U.S and Chinese governments. Following the death of her mother the Chinese refused her from re-entering the country. The U.S, for its part, denied her permission to travel.

Far from being a defector carrying American secrets back to China, she was caught in a diplomatic superposition - neither permitted to leave by one government nor welcomed back by the other and thus unable to attend her own mother’s funeral.

Li remained in Alabama and continued with classified DoD funded research at Redstone Arsenal until 2014.

It was then that sadly, whilst crossing a street on the UAH campus she was struck by a vehicle driven by an undergraduate student.

This particular incident has also generated its fair share of rumours. Most of them seem disconnected from the actual facts. The suggestion that the driver was a Chinese national and that the incident was a hit and run case is, according to Men, not true.

Martin Burkey piece on Ning Li, The Huntsville Times, 1993

However, when considered alongside what the press previously published on Li and her work, it must be said that the local news coverage of her accident was remarkable.

There was none.

Yet, Martin Burkey, Times Aerospace and Science Writer for the Huntsville Times , had already reported on Li on two prior occasions. His ‘UAH Duo Hopes to Reverse Gravity’ from 1993 was the first to link Li and Torr in the public domain. It carried a quote from Torr which revealed the huge ambitions and confidence the scientists had in their early work, “The bottom line is this is the first scientific basis for anti-gravity.”

Then, three years later the same writer once again covered Li’s story. Someone had moved her laboratory equipment out into the hallway without seeking agreement to do so. It became a front page story, “UAH Co-Workers Have Spat Over Laboratory Space”. On this occasion, Li is quoted directly,“To do science at UAH is so difficult,” she informed Burkey. “People become so jealous they think how to block me and kick me out.”**** This goes some way to reveal her rationale for leaving the institution a few years later.

Therefore it is curious that the same newspaper that believed an internal disagreement over lab space warranted a front page headline did not then consider it worthy of reporting that this same scientist - one who by that point was working on classified research for the U.S Army - had been hit by a car on the UAH campus rendering her unable to speak.

Second Martin Burkey piece on Ning Li, The Huntsville Times, 1996

As it transpired, the accident also left her with permanent brain damage and she was later cruelly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

One cannot even imagine what that meant for a physicist of her calibre. To compound the tragedy, her husband of 46 years was witness to the full impact of Li’s earlier accident. He suffered a heart attack as a result of seeing the moment unfold and he sadly died the following year.

Following her accident Li was never able to return to her anti-gravity research. Her son carried on caring for his mother himself until she died in his care on 27th July 2021.

Li was 78 years old and despite the rumours of returning to China, she had never left Alabama.

These are the salient facts as we understand them.

There is, however, another side to Dr Ning Li’s work, one that has been seriously overlooked and arguably it is the most significant aspect of all.

Nearly every account of Li’s story casts her as the sole protagonist - the brilliant but controversial physicist who published cutting edge anti-gravity research, established a company, secured U.S defence funding and fled the country. At best it may reference Larry Smalley leaving with her.

Yet, the myths and the debunkers have in the main all shared one common theme - both typically consider this is one woman’s work and thus a solo project.

As we will now explore in depth, that was far from the case…

Li’s experimental research at UAH was underpinned by a theoretical anti-gravity ‘operating system’ of sorts - a mathematical engine if you will - one that had been running in almost parallel development with her own work for a decade or so by the time she left that institution.

One of the key players was Douglas Torr, whom she co-authored with on those research papers referenced earlier - from 1991-1993.

Torr had significant credentials of his own and was just as important to this anti-gravity work as Li. Yet, Torr barely featured in any of the public accounts of Li that we have seen since her death.

As documented, he also worked at UAH in the late 1980s. During this time period he was - according to The Defence Intelligence Agency’s Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications programme’s own records - “examining neglected areas of physics, including aether theories and experiments, as well as gravitational wave antennas.”

It reveals the fact that his work was also “ the subject of a paper awarded the Gravity Research Foundation’s ‘First Award’ in 1989.” His wife, Marsha Torr, was herself a decorated space physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

To be clear then, two years before he and Li even published their first paper together, Douglas Torr had already walked away with the same prize previously awarded to Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and George Smoot placing him not on the periphery of physics, enviously looking inward, rather operating at its epicentre.

Torr also later relocated his research to the University of South Carolina and worked - according to Wikipedia’s entry on anti-gravity - alongside Timir Datta. Together they developed what one 1997 USC press release described as a “Gravity Generator.” But that particular breakthrough came later.

In the meantime, while Torr and Li’s collaboration was redefining the possibilities of gravity research at the experimental level, Torr had already been pushing back the frontiers of related theory - and doing so with yet another key collaborator, Jose Vargas.

It was the duo of Torr and Vargas who developed the theoretical engine that underpinned Li’s own experimental work.

Think of it like this - Vargas and Torr built the mathematical framework and Torr, working alongside Li, translated their theoretical thinking into predictive modelling.

The mathematics determined which predictions were testable in the lab, Li then attempted to build the hardware those predictions described.

It was a three stage process if you will; pure theory, applied theory, and a form of ‘experimental realisation’.

Vargas sat at one end. Li’s superconducting discs sat at the other. And Torr, through his collaboration with both, occupied a place in all three stages of the pipeline, simultaneously.

It is arguable therefore that without Torr, neither of the two ends of this anti-gravity research program would have ever come together.

José Vargas should not be overlooked either.

Open source data does not reveal whether he is still active. However, the mathematician and theoretical physicist’s last recorded publication was a solo paper entitled ‘Geometric Unification in Classical Physics’ , published in 2018 outside of peer reviewed academia. It revealed that he was still tinkering on the same theoretical architecture he had developed with Torr decades earlier.

Whatever his current status, he will be best remembered for that earlier collaboration.

Vargas and Torr’s research centred on what they described as _‘Cartan-Einstein Unified Teleparallelism and the Discrepant Measurements of Newton’s Constant G’. _It was - simply put - a complete, quantised model of gravity.

Their work was clearly hugely ambitious, though they were also standing on the shoulders of giants, building upon the earlier research from - as you might have guessed - Élie Cartan and Albert Einstein. Where Torr and Vargas’ work became distinct was through torsion. This, according to a 2023 peer reviewed paper, ‘Torsion-Gravity and Spinors in Fundamental Theoretical Physics’ by Luca Fabbri, is based on, “ the fact that curvature couples with energy suggests that torsion may couple with spin, which is the other conserved quantity in quantum field theory.” So, whereas Einstein’s general relativity describes gravity through the curvature of spacetime, torsion offered Vargas and Torr a separate geometric take on gravity. This was not driven by mass and energy but rather by the spin of matter itself.

The focus was a form of differential geometry that was so demanding it remains, to this day, largely unexplored in mainstream physics.

Their seminal paper on the subject was published in Foundations of Physics in February 1999. Its central thesis sought to demonstrate that Cartan and Einstein had, in 1929, come closer than they realised to producing a theory in which the electromagnetic field is embedded within the geometry of spacetime itself.

Vargas and Torr were able to demonstrate that the mathematical framework Cartan and Einstein had developed, had they pursued it further, implicitly contained both Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism and Einstein’s gravitational field equations - a unification that Cartan and Einstein had been unable to complete.

There was a key line in Vargas and Torr’s 1999 paper and when we examine the detail of Li’s own experimental work running alongside, a clear understanding is revealed. “On the practical side,” the two men wrote at the time,“the inconveniences faced in measuring G may be greatly compensated by the possibility of manipulating spacetime with electric fields at the first-order level.”

Putting it plainly - their mathematics suggested that gravity could be manipulated using electric fields but not just as some vague theoretical possibility, it could be derived from their mathematical equations.

Therefore, Li’s experiments in the lab - around building physical architecture capable of defying gravity - were not thrown together based on a whim. Instead she was greatly supported in applying the practical implementation of multi-decades long research by other top tier physicists published in peer reviewed journals. Their work was not chasing a speculative goal so much as it was based on a solid foundational blueprint.

Around the same time that Vargas and Torr published their own findings, Ning Li left UAH and formed AC Gravity LLC.

So, what does this all tell us?

It evidences that Li was not working alone - she was one key member of a highly credentialled group of theoretical physicists - all with different skillsets.

When working together they produced a complete framework in pursuit of conquering anti-gravity technologies (from theory into practice).

Such was the intriguing nature of their findings, the Defence Intelligence Agency would still refer to them over a decade after the group left UAH.

Indeed, the DIA report from 2010 does not conclude that their work was fraudulent as some sceptics have since argued. Instead, they found that one of the main challenges that physicists face when entering this particular field of research is stigma, “Although the payoff of the discovery of a superconductor-mediated interaction between matter and gravity would be tremendous, only a few researchers are pursuing this goal. The main reason for this is the adherence to dogma concerning the impossibility of increasing the matter/electromagnetic coupling coefficients.” Adding,“The likelihood of scientific ridicule is extremely high in the search for laboratory-scale gravitational interactions.”

So, yes, the picture that emerges of Li is not of a lone actor. The aforementioned anti-gravity architecture which began with pure theory and sought practical implementation did not fracture when the group left UAH either. As highlighted above, they all departed almost simultaneously, in what appears in retrospect to have been a highly coordinated exit.

One also wonders what they all took with them.

Whether this coordinated effort points to huge transformational success in the laboratory or not, readers can determine for themselves.

However, what is clear is that based out of addresses in both North and South Carolina, Vargas and Torr also co-founded a small company, namely Phase Space Time Associates. They continued their theoretical work in parallel with Li’s own experiments at AC Gravity.

Torr and Vargas were not alone in this venture either. A third individual - Michael H. Graff - joined them at Phase Space Time Associates. Graff is listed alongside both men as a co-inventor on a 2005 international patent filed by Phase Space Time Associates, with the title, ‘Field Converter for Thrust Generation.’ The patent described:

“An apparatus for generating an inhomogeneous electric field that can produce thrust having a first electrode constructed of a first conducting material, a second electrode constructed of a second conducting material separated from but in proximity of the first electrode and a first and second dielectric material interposed between the first and second electrodes, the first and second dielectric materials having a high and low mass density, respectively.”

‘Field Converter for Thrust Generation’ Patent, Phase Space Time Associates

Whilst the description is clearly heavy on technical language it appears to have been another practical attempt at engineering the very gravitational manipulation that Vargas and Torr’s mathematics had predicted was theoretically possible.

In essence this was a patent for a commercial application for a gravity thrust device filed some six years after Li left UAH and three years after her half a million dollar DoD funding expired in 2002. The Phase Space Time Associates patent also cites a 2004 Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) conference paper co-authored by Datta and Vargas claiming to have observed gravitational effects “in an experiment that placed a test mass in an electric field. They reported a change in weight of up to 6.4 parts in 106.” This citation further connects Datta’s experimental work at USC and Phase Space Time Associates.

In fact, the 2005 patent was not their last. In September 2014 Graff and Torr filed an international patent again under Phase Space Time Associates which was utterly remarkable.

It was rather dryly titled ‘Superconductive Trace Patterns’. However, it expanded upon an earlier March 2014 U.S application of theirs describing a system and method for ‘Generating Electricity from Gravitational Forces.’ Both remained ungranted and the patents’ status is listed as ceased. Yet, the 2014 patent states:

“Under theories of relativity, energy from the Earth velocity ordinarily cannot be harnessed because any particle from which it would be harnessed is moving in the same speed and direction as the environment that supports the particle; relative to each other, the particle and the environment do not have such energy to capture. However, such relativistic relationship breaks down in the environment of operating superconductors.”

In laymen’s terms this - sensationally - appears to have been an attempt to harness the kinetic energy of Earth moving through space - otherwise known as ‘Free Energy’.

Once we lay out these data points side by side, what becomes stark is this - the multi decade work of Torr, Vargas and Li et al was not abandoned at UAH when they all left…

It simply transitioned - migrating into separate but interlinked private companies one funded by U.S defence budgets, the other filing patents on gravitational manipulation.

Therefore, far from Li being a single maverick physicist with a day dream - one who could easily be debunked on her own - the evidence points to a much broader gravity manipulation program that transferred from the public to the private sector and continued for at least over a decade with many of the same team involved.

A year after the expiry of her initial DoD funding in 2002, Li made that last public appearance at the MITRE Corporation conference, delivered in tandem with U.S Army officials from Redstone Arsenal.

It’s then said that a short time after she sent a private email to several colleagues. Some researchers have described it as her, ‘last known correspondence.’ However, whilst it is referenced in several accounts of Li’s story, its provenance cannot be substantiated fully. Its claim was that Li observed, ‘11 kilowatts of output effect’ during one of her experiments. The significance of that figure, and what device produced it, has never been explained publicly.

Given the physical effects of the accident on Li, she was unable to expand upon this account and although records indicate that her company, AC Gravity, had licences renewed annually until 2018, there are no records of any further related work by the company in the public domain beyond those covered here.

Of course, the work of Li and her colleagues has not gone without its critics.

As the DoD itself reflected in 2010, this is an area of research that cannot be separated from ridicule. A full balanced appraisal of Li’s career and of those around her therefore cannot - in all good conscience - be considered complete without acknowledging the strongest of those objections.

Let’s start with Li’s account in her own words.

In her 1997 Physica C paper - the last of her peer reviewed work - she writes about the testing that she carried out alongside her team. Her findings are arguably somewhat abstract:

“In experiments using a sensitive gravimeter, bulk YBCO superconductors were stably levitated in a DC magnetic field. Changes in acceleration were measured to be less than 2 parts in 10⁸ of the normal gravitational acceleration. This result puts new limits on the strength and range of the proposed coupling between static superconductors and gravity.”

The paper does not describe this as a failure or as a success. Rather, it frames the result as narrowing the parameters for any research that follows. But, once again, the promised follow up study of the rotating configuration never materialised. And whilst one could argue that the 1997 stationary testing, like much of this story, remains somewhat unresolved, it is unclear how that practical implementation of their work validates or invalidates the broader theoretical framework.

Dr Eugene Podkletnov, Russian Engineer

Other physicists also sought to replicate Podkletnov’s claimed results (The Russian engineer who in 1992 claimed measurable gravitational shielding results which helped Li in her own work) with limited success. This does not mean Li did not achieve positive results but speaks to the scale of the challenges when seeking to do so.

In his 2003 peer reviewed paper _‘Gravity Modification Experiment Using a Rotating Superconducting Disk and Radio Frequency Fields,’ _Canadian engineer George Hathaway based his tests on, “Podkletnov’s published descriptions” but found “no evidence of a gravity-like force to the limits of the apparatus sensitivity. ”

Interestingly, Hathaway was one of three authors behind the earlier referenced DIA’s, official report from 2010, ‘The Role of Superconductors in Gravity Research’. Whilst the authors are redacted in the declassified document, the paper states, “Our own version of the Podkletnov spinning disk experiment was completed in late 2001 and published in 2003 (Reference 35)” And, reference 35 reveals Hathaway’s report title touched on above - ‘Gravity Modification Experiment Using a Rotating Superconducting Disk and Radio Frequency Fields,

It’s worth just remaining on this point for a moment.

The DIA report is presented as somewhat of an objective account of related anti-gravity research. Yet, given that Hathaway appears to be one of its main authors and recognising that his own experiments found null results, questions of conflict of interest arise.

After all, Hathaway was indeed a player in the anti-gravity game. Yes, he could have ensured careful, rigorous reporting but equally it remains unclear around whether he may have been somewhat biased in his analysis.

In March 2006, whilst working under contract for the European Space Agency (ESA is Europe’s equivalent of NASA), Martin Tajmar, a physicist and professor for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology also declared positive findings replicating gravitomagnetic effects in rotating superconductors during a presentation.

However, by 2007 that early promise faded as Tajmar acknowledged the latest findings did not live up to initial results. The source for this statement once again is derived from the 2010 DIA report. It states, he accepted, “that new data from improved experiments did not match their prior predictions.”

We now move onto the criticism from Physicist E.G Harris in 1999.

His paper in ‘Foundations of Physics Letters, volume 12’,__ argued that “Li and Torr’s previous results were erroneous because they assumed arbitrary (and extremely small) distances from the lattice ion to the observer, thus producing unreasonably large effects.”

For what it’s worth, Hathaway, also adds,“In fact, Harris pointed out that the correct estimation of the induced gravitoelectric field outside a superconductor is some 20 orders of magnitude smaller! No evident rebuttal has been forthcoming from Li or Torr.”

And then there is Eric Davis - a physicist who has consulted on NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program, co-founded the Advanced Deep Space Transport Technology Assessment, and spent 30 years researching UAP phenomena, obtaining security clearances via AAWSAP and even a DIA deputisation.

Davis stated recently on our show that Li, “was wrong, and so was he[Larry Smalley], ok . They made off with $400,000 in Army Research Lab money and didn’t produce a producible for it. They didn’t deliver anything for that money.”

These critiques do not sit on the fringe of Li’s story.

They are intrinsically linked and should not be dismissed out of hand. Instead we should place them alongside the wider account and consider them in the round to form a more balanced opinion.

That said, it is worth acknowledging that the DIA, the same organisation that Eric Davis worked for, noted in their 2010 paper, “The most prominent, albeit controversial theoretical work on creating laboratory detectable gravitomagnetic fields via high-temperature superconductors was initiated by Li and Torr.”

Remarkably, this conclusion was written some seven years following Li’s last public appearance. The DIA is unlikely to ever make such a public assessment of Li’s work if it were considered to be truly fraudulent.

The attempted debunking focuses on science, and rightly so. Yet one cannot help but wonder why Li’s business licence was continually renewed for sixteen years, nor have the sceptics been able to explain why the DIA was still exploring her work after her period of classified silence.

Crucially, as noted by MissileMan, a researcher on X, it does not explain why Noah Logan reportedly received a threatening phone call in 2023 warning him to stop reporting on Li, if the work had in fact reached a dead end.

It does appear curious that, officially, Li’s research was downplayed, including by the DIA in 2010, yet the DoD continued to fund her work at Redstone Arsenal (beyond the initial half a million dollars in 2002) right up until 2014, when she suffered her accident.

Public denial or suppression, whilst simultaneously funding the work privately, may appear wholly contradictory but there is historical precedent - think MK Ultra, the Manhattan Project and even America’s Stealth Aircraft Program.

The U.S publicly denied any knowledge of ‘invisible’ aircraft between the 1960s and 1988 whilst, simultaneously, secretly funding and developing both the F-117 Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit.

Once stealth tech was declassified by the U.S government in 1988 it was not only theoretically possible - stealth was fully operational. That said, we cannot rule out that in respect of the DIA, their public position on Li may have simply served as strategic cover to obscure from foreign adversaries what knowledge on advanced propulsion and weaponry the U.S. actually held at the time.

After Douglas Torr left UAH he joined the University of South Carolina. Alongside fellow USC employee and physicist Timir Datta, he produced what a 1997 USC press announcement described as a “Gravity Generator”. The 2010 DIA report states that the machine would, “replace the wheels of a car...lift and propel aircraft, drive generators more efficiently and produce gravity-free environments on Earth.” It adds, “a subsequent announcement was issued stating that the previous announcement was ‘premature.’”

However, a document from the USC Office of Technology Transfer - which reached a wider audience that was seemingly intended, gave a different impression.

As per journalist Charles Platt’s 1998 ‘Breaking The Law of Gravity’ article published in Wired Magazine, “ Incredibly, this text described a ‘gravity generator’ that would create a force beam in any desired direction. The announcement concluded: ‘University seeks licensee and/or joint development. USC ID number: 96140.”

Platt also writes in his article about reaching out to an assistant at the Office of Technology Transfer by the name of Frances Jones, who would not confirm to him whether Torr was involved. However, the assistant did reveal the technology was genuine,“Mr. Littlejohn says it was presented prematurely, it got wider distribution than we intended, and we’re - still working on the technology, and would prefer not to receive any publicity.”

Platt’s conclusions on the matter in 1998 were essentially bewilderment. It’s hard to disagree with him. After all, here was a respected university seeking, “ commercial partners to develop a gadget straight out of a 1950s science-fiction novel.”

The device was never heard of again.

Torr continued publishing with José Vargas via Phase Space Time Associates, the company they founded together. However, their last known paper together was September 2008. As recently as 2013, Torr was still listed as formally publishing academic work having written a chapter of a book, ‘Modeling Magnetospheric Plasma Processes ’. Vargas’s 2014 textbook, Differential Geometry for Physicists and Mathematicians , was published by World Scientific in April of that same year. This may well have been the last formal publication linked directly to Phase Space Time Associates. Open source data does not readily return any other results to the contrary. The publisher lists Vargas as the author and adds simply, “ PST Associates, LLC, USA.” This seems to be the quiet closing chapter of Phase Space Time Associates in any meaningful sense.

Research Gate therefore reveals Phase Space Time Associates was active up until at least this point. However, either way - with no obituary (he would presumably be in his 80s by now if still alive) and no further affiliations or publications after this date there is little recent information on him available online.

That said, José Vargas does give us some possible clues. Vargas published a solo paper in 2018 titled,‘Geometrization of Classical Physics, Unified for Electrodynamics’. Intriguingly he dedicates it to, “To the memory of the late Dr. Marsha Torr” which suggests either he was no longer collaborating with Douglas Torr or that Douglas had already passed away by this point.

Either way, the report shows that Vargas continued working on the mathematical framework he developed with Torr as recently as 2018. After that date the open source trail goes cold.

As it does for Michael H Graff too.

Larry Smalley died in January 2010 at the age of 72.

As established above, Marsha Torr, Douglas’s wife and a decorated space physicist also at Marshall Space Flight Center, died in 2015.

Timir Datta continues in his role as Professor at University of South Carolina, in the department of Physics and Astronomy McCausland College of Arts and Sciences, where according to USC’s X account, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022.

Datta is the only remaining individual from the core names identified in this article with a confirmed active institutional/academic base.

Of note is Datta’s own 2019 CV published via USC. It lists a select number of distinguished publications in a long and illustrious career that has clearly majored in superconductivity research.

However, there is a glaring omission. One that cannot be accidental. Despite his colleague and co-author Douglas Torr both being employed by the same institution during the 1990s (Datta has been at USC since 1982) Torr is not mentioned once.

Remember that they both reportedly developed what a 1997 USC press release once heralded as a “gravity generator”. Although Torr’s name is more publicly associated with this device, according to Wikipedia’s entry on anti-gravity, Datta is attached to the work by USC’s own Faculty Senate Annual Report for 1997, albeit the document is no longer accessible via USC’s home page.

Extract from Wikipedia’s entry on anti-gravity

The university sought to patent it under licence USC ID number: 96140. Wired magazine also confirmed Torr’s name appeared on an, “Annual Report to the Faculty Senate” under the patent application for a, “gravity generator.”

Yet, Datta’s 2019 CV contains:

No mention of Douglas Torr
No mention of their “gravity generator”
No mention of Phase Space Time Associates
No mention of the STAIF 2004 conference paper on inhomogeneous electric fields and gravity - the paper directly cited in Phase Space Time Associates own patent filings
Despite his Faculty Directory Bio stating he has an interest in, “Newtonian gravitational fields” there is also no mention of any gravitoelectromagnetic research
And, no mention of Ning Li

We draw no definitive conclusions from what follows but note that when you step back and examine several key details; Li’s accident, the patents, the dedication, the quiet retreat from publicity, something becomes noticeable, something that has not been revealed as starkly before…

To understand what, we must return to 2014.

It was the year everything changed.

Let’s return to 2014 and look again at what occurred either that year or just a short time thereafter:

Li’s accident rendered her incapable of continuing with her research
Li’s classified defence work at Redstone Arsenal appears to have concluded.
Douglas Torr filed what appears to be his last patent and then vanished from public record.
Similarly, Michael Graff’s public story ends with the same filing.
Phase Space Time Associates, the theoretical engine of the entire programme - no longer active in any real sense.
Marsha Torr, Douglas’s wife and herself a NASA space physicist, died the following year.
José Vargas carried on working until at least 2018, dedicating his final research paper to Marsha Torr’s memory. The sole dedication might therefore imply Douglas (who he had previously collaborated with) had already passed. His public presence goes cold after 2018.

Whether these matters converging in this manner and in close proximity represents a coincidence or something else entirely, we shall leave for you to decide.

Whatever the truth, 2014 does point to a clear endpoint of sorts. A single overarching, coordinated effort to manipulate gravity, involving six key individuals whose combined talents spanned the full breadth and depth of skills necessary to produce both the theoretical mathematical framework and the practical engineering architecture to fully realise anti-gravity technologies - it all effectively came to a halt at the same time and broadly in the same year.

Only one individual remains publicly traceable - Timir Datta. Yet despite remaining in public life his CV contains zero reference to his former colleague and - if we accept USC’s own Faculty Senate Annual Report - fellow collaborator , Douglas Torr, nor any involvement in this work.

Representative Burlison, recently argued that “the fate of the scientists is ‘almost certainly’ linked to their access to classified aerospace, defence, and UAP material…”

Eric Burlison

Whilst the world pores over the first tranche of President Trump’s UFO disclosure files, his own description of the spate of missing and dead scientists linked to UAP classified research was as “pretty serious stuff” and represents the clearest acknowledgement yet from the highest level of American government that this particular matter warrants significant scrutiny.

In response, the FBI has confirmed it is investigating the reports and the House Oversight Committee is also looking into them.

It is into this picture that Dr Ning Li’s name resurfaced and whilst Burlison may have initially forgotten about her, history should not.

Yet, when remembering Li, it is surely important to do so in a way which more faithfully captures her story, one that has sadly become blurred through decades of myths and mistruths. Indeed, much of the information that has circulated on her and which has come to be accepted as fact is simply incorrect.

Li was not a lone actor.

She was not a defector.

She did not return to China with American classified secrets.

Instead, due to the tragic manner in which she eventually disappeared from public life completely, she unwittingly became the most visible face of a multi person team, whose combined remarkable talents of theoretical physics, applied mathematics, experimental physics and of materials engineering, sought to manipulate gravity itself.

We should not lay blame in any particular direction for any mistruths, especially if they were shared in good faith. That would not serve any meaningful purpose.

Simply put, the more her story is accurately told, the further it moves from the version it was never meant to be and the closer it comes to honouring what she actually was. By any scholarly measure she was one exceptional scientist among several, who worked on something that ultimately had the opportunity to change humanity for the better.

Eric Burlison may have forgotten Dr Ning Li but the world forgot a bigger story which - even with a clearer account at hand - in many ways continues to patiently wait to be fully told.

We know that anti-gravity research did not begin with Ning Li. The strand that existed within UAH did not stop when she left either, nor did it stop when her initial U.S Army funding expired in 2002. It carried on inside the private companies she and her colleagues founded, working on classified anti-gravity programs and funded by the DoD until at least 2014.

Li was never alone, we have revealed the evidence here in depth. The question that now remains is - what has become of their classified work and findings?

By Graeme Atkinson