10. Cloud Buster Dr. Wilhelm Reich was a remarkable man. Earning a doctorate in psychiatry, he was
an influential figure in the field before moving to New York to escape the Nazis. He also coined the term “Orgone”, referring
to a biological energy. Soon after this, Reich began building Orgone
Accumulators, which could supposedly harness the mighty power of Orgone to improve physical
or mental health. But all of this was just a preamble for the
Cloudbuster. In 1953 a severe drought swept across the
United States for several months, leaving the state of Maine badly affected. So, Reich decided to build a device to use
Orgone to bring the rain. According to the Bangor Daily News, within
hours of its use the area had a quarter of an inch of rain, despite no forecast. Eventually though it seemed that his claims
about the wonders of Orgone caught up with him. The FDA took him to court to prevent Orgone
related products and literature being distributed, as they believed it was “fraud of the first
magnitude”. Reich was later convicted of contempt of court
and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. His designs were also completely destroyed. Conspiracy theorists have said that the FDA
wanted Reich to keep quiet about the potential of the Cloudbuster. SOURCE: Gawker, FDA, Orgone Institute 09. EV1 These days in some of the more hipster areas
of the world (looking at you San Francisco) you can’t cross the street without being
knocked down by an electric car or hybrids. Yet back in 1996, you’d have been hard pressed
to find a single one of them. General Motors changed that with the EV1. It was the first mass-produced electric car
ever and GM distributed 800 of them across California and Arizona. But it seems that General Motors wasn’t
as into the idea of an electric car as first thought, despite widespread popularity from
those that tested them out, including celebrities such as Tom Hanks. According to the 2006 documentary “Who Killed
the Electric Car?” the ad campaigns were lacklustre to the point where GM started being
openly critical of the EV1. In 1999 GM discontinued the line, saying there
was a lack of demand. But even if that were the case, why did GM
make a point of scraping almost every single EV1 out there? Some conspiracy theorists point towards pressure
from the oil industry to drop it. Others think GM wanted to remove the greener
competition to their small penis compensator, the Hummer. SOURCE: Electrifying Times, Smithsonian, James
Woudhuysen 08. Hemp bio-fuel Hemp, a variety of the Cannabis sativa plant,
is useful for the production of durable fabric, paper and plastics. But it also has great potential as a viable
biofuel. The problem is that biofuel itself has been
maligned by everyone, from the Royal Society to the European Commission. Biofuel has so far relied on corn, palm, or
sugar, but hemp is more versatile, cleaner and more hardy than any of those crops. So what gives? Well, according to author Jack Herer, the
failure to see the modern benefits of hemp stems from the 1930s. At the height of the Great Depression, hemp
stripping and pulping technology made it an “available and affordable” alternative
to paper. If hemp had taken off, businesses such as
paper and plastic conglomerate DuPont stood to lose millions. As a result, a campaign to highlight the dangers
of marijuana was ramped up - to make it socially and legally unacceptable to grow hemp. Despite this, bio fuel believers are fighting
back. In the US there are a range of websites dedicated
to the use of hemp as a fuel for cars and in the UK, companies such as Hemp Global Solutions
have been set up with climate change and the reduction of carbon emissions in mind. So watch this space. SOURCE: The Guardian, Alternet, “The Emperor
Wears No Clothes” 07. Phoebus Cartel Electric light bulbs are vital to the modern
world and it’s hard to see how anything got done before them. The typical incandescent light bulb lasts
roughly 1,000 to 2,000 hours, and this has hardly changed in a century - but why not? Well it might be, at least partly, due to
The Phoebus Cartel. This cartel was a collection of global light
bulb manufacturers who gathered in 1924 to ensure a monopoly on the electric light bulb
market. Despite the fact that bulbs of the time lasted
2,000 plus hours, the cartel enforced a reliable but short-lived alternative, lasting 1,000
hours. This planned obsolescence removed decades
of progress and enforced a certain standard of light bulb that partially exists today. Thankfully, though, World War 2 disrupted
the cartel and it officially folded in 1940. SOURCE: Spectrum, The New York Times, The
New Yorker 06. XA safe cigarette We all know smoking can cause cancer, so what’s
needed? Cigarettes without the carcinogens. Well, they already exist... kind of. In the sixties and seventies, the Liggett
and Myers Tobacco Company worked on a product that practically eliminated carcinogens, creating
a healthier alternative to conventional cigarettes. Codenamed XA, the project was intended to
regain lost market share, but would never make it that far. Why? Because rival tobacco firm Philip Morris Inc.
allegedly threatened to eliminate it if they tried. According to Dr. James Mold, the research
director on the project, marketing the XA would be an admission that cigarettes were
harmful. This would therefore break the “gentlemen's
agreement” between the big tobacco companies - that any evidence to suggest cigarettes
were harmful was to be suppressed. SOURCE: U.S. Justice Department, PBS 05. Hoxsey Cancer Remedies In the 1920s, Harry Hoxsey started up his
own natural cancer remedy. Hoxsey came from a family of vets and he observed
that cancer-riddled horses would eat certain flowers and weeds to recover. This concoction was then made fit for humans
and sold by Hoxsey. According to The Truth About Cancer website,
Hoxsey attempted to prove the efficacy of his remedies to Morris Fishbein, director
of the AMA. The formula was apparently effective enough
to convince Fishbein to make an offer to buy them for exclusive AMA use. Hoxsey refused, and the AMA began discrediting
the remedy any way they could. This included articles in the national press
branding Hoxsey a “quack”. In 1950 Hoxsey responded by taking Fishbein
to court for libel and winning, using fifty patients’ testimonies to prove the point. This included the case of a terminal cancer
patient who was cured by Hoxsey’s herbal treatments and wound up living for another
10 years. But this was not enough and the AMA and FDA
continued to brand the treatments as worthless. As Hoxsey didn’t have a medical license,
his clinics were shut down and the formula was finally banned in 1960. Today the Hoxsey Bio-Medical Center in Tijuana,
Mexico, claims an 80% success rate, but remains banned in the US. SOURCE: The Truth About Cancer, U.S. Justice
Department, Hoxsey BioMedical Center 04. Anti-gravity Back in the 1920s Thomas Townsend Brown experimented
with an X-ray vacuum tube. He varied the electric currents passing through
it and observed a weight decrease of the tube in a certain configuration. According to Brown, he had electrically influenced
gravity, but his fellow academics seemed less than enthusiastic about the news. Over the next 30 years he developed his theories
to the point that in the fifties he is believed to have designed and demonstrated self-propelled
metal discs that could produce sufficient anti-gravity properties. An excited Brown brought the fantastic invention
before the US government and the Pentagon. But instead of wonder, he was greeted with
obstacles. Some theorists believe that Brown’s very
public invention posed a threat to the US military’s own experiments into anti gravitational
propulsion. For the rest of his life he attempted to develop
devices based on his idea, but no one in industry or the military would take him seriously. In 1985, Brown died and his ideas were left
with his family. SOURCE: Electrogravitics 2: Validating Reports
on a New Propulsion Methodology (Thomas Valone, 2005) 03. Water Powered Cars 71% of the Earth’s surface is water, while
global oil reserves are expected to run out in approximately forty years. Clearly then the way to solve this problem
is for the latter to be replaced by the former. That’s what Stanley Meyer believed when
he filed a patent for a water fuel cell in the late eighties. The process was designed to extract hydrogen
stored in water via electrolysis, which would then be combined with air and ignited for
fuel. While extremely exciting as a concept, the
battery violated both the first and second laws of thermodynamics, making Meyer either
the greatest inventor ever or a literal wizard. Despite being widely credited as a fraud,
Meyer continued to champion his water fuel cell as the future, claiming that any car
that used it could do 160km per gallon. According to Meyer’s brother, Stanley was
repeatedly offered sums up to $800 million, either for the rights to the technology, or
to stop altogether. However, before any deal could be reached,
Meyer died during a meeting with investors. The invention has since disappeared, leaving
behind only discredited patents. SOURCE: American Free Press, The Columbus
Dispatch, The Sunday Times 02. Rife Ray In 1934 the interestingly named Royal Raymond
Rife began experimenting with a device that could allegedly cure cancer. According to Rife, the trial was run under
strict clinical conditions and the results were very impressive, as 14 out of 16 terminally
ill patients claimed to have been cured. However, according to Barry Lynes, author
of “The Cancer Cure That Worked”, the Rife Beam, as it was known, was so discredited
by the American Medical Association that it fell into obscurity. This is despite reports from several medical
practitioners over the years saying that the treatment has in fact worked. Lynes claims that Rife rejected attempts by
the AMA to buy shares in the machine. So, after losing out on potentially profiting
from the device, director of the AMA Morris Fishbein launched a furious attack, which
discredited Rife and left him penniless. SOURCE: Cancer Research UK, Rife Videos, FDA 01. Radiant Energy In the 1920s, Dr. T. Henry Moray claimed to
have invented a radiant energy machine that could harness cosmic rays for electrical use,
meaning that it had the potential to provide free energy for everyone on Earth. From the beginning, despite demonstrations
to doubters and naysayers, Moray began encountering hostility to his device. Talk of his invention that defied the laws
of physics reached Capitol Hill, where Senator Reed Smoot requested a meeting with the young
inventor. Moray offered the Radiant Energy machine to
the government, an offer that Smoot turned down. After spending thousands, the Moray family
was broke and Moray himself sadly died in 1974. As for the machine, today it is in the possession
of the Moray family but no one knows whether it will be brought to the public’s attention
again.
