io9: flying saucer

Flying Saucer Power Source Discovered: Ionized Air

Ed Grabianowski — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:00:00 PDT

Those strange lights in the sky seem to move with unnatural precision, making turns and accelerations no human-made aircraft could possibly match. What ultra-advanced anti-gravity system allows UFOs to fly in such a bizarre way? Apparently it's ionized air. An engineering professor at the University of Florida has it all figured out, and he's going to build his own flying saucer.

Professor Subrata Roy started working on his "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle" (WEAV) for NASA. The surface of the saucer-shaped craft will be covered with electrodes that, when powered by a battery or other power source, will ionize the surrounding air to create plasma. When charged with an electric current, the polarized plasma will repel the non-polarized air, creating lift and thrust. Such an aircraft would have very stable flight characteristics, with the pilot controlling it by diverting the electrical charge to different parts of the surface. Professor Roy thinks it could be scaled up to useful dimensions (his prototype will be about six inches across).

I'd check out the professor's work while you still can. He's scheduled for a visit from a couple of guys in black suits tomorrow, after which his research will be republished in a heavily redacted form. Image by: Scientific American.

The World's First Flying Saucer: Made Right Here on Earth. [Scientific American]

A UFO Lands in Downtown Nanning

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:00:00 PDT

The language of UFOs is universal. That's why, when you travel across countries and continents, you'll always find structures that look like UFOs. More importantly, you'll find spaceship-esque buildings that somebody out there has called a UFO on Flickr. In other words: The only thing more universal than the UFO is the compulsion to call any freaky round building a UFO. Above, you can see a UFO that landed in the middle of a city in Nanning, China — captured on film by Peigianlong. Want to see more UFOs from around the world? Check out our collection.

Down in Rio, Brazil, the flying saucers look a little inverted but are still sleek and lovely.

Piatus snapped this shot.

In Spain, meanwhile, this glorious building looks just like a landed UFO, according to photographer Dags1974.

And of course people in Florida, United States, have their own special take on the UFO. Just crash it into a building.

Tony the Misfit took this one. Some things aren't entirely universal.

Raiders of the Lost Saucer!

Kevin Kelly — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:00:00 PDT

What would have happened if Raiders of the Lost Ark met Sid and Marty Krotfft's Lost Saucer? It might have looked a little something like this. Of course, you might have a chance to see this scene for real if the rumors about extraterrestrials in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are to be believed.

Artist Jim Nichols has been painting scenes of spaceships and flying saucers for years, and he's even co-hosted a cable show called UFOAZ all about visitors from outer space. In 1980, Jim met with retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Wendelle Stevens who was researching UFOs, and this inspired him to pursue a career in UFO illustration. Most of his pieces are on sale at his website, which features six pages worth of prints. There's bound to be something in there you're interested it since he runs the gamut from a saucer hovering over a lone farmhouse in "Country Road," to Nazi spaceships in "World War II UFO."