Engineer Claims He’s Found a Way to Beat Gravity

And Why the Claim Is Both Fascinating and Deeply Unsettling

Every so often, a story appears that makes even seasoned engineers pause. Not because it’s obviously correct but because, for a moment, it sounds just plausible enough to be dangerous. This is one of those stories.

A former NASA engineer says he and his team have developed a propulsion system capable of producing thrust without expelling propellant. Not ionized gas. Not plasma. Nothing. Just electric fields doing… something. Enough, he claims, to counteract Earth’s gravity.

If that sentence made you uncomfortable, good. It should.

Because propulsion without reaction mass doesn’t just tweak physics around the edges. It bulldozes straight through some of its most fundamental assumptions. Conservation of momentum. Newton’s third law. The idea that you don’t get something for nothing. And yet despite decades of failed attempts and embarrassing retractions the idea refuses to die.

So let’s slow down. Let’s look carefully at what’s being claimed, who is making the claim, why people are paying attention, and just as importantly why many physicists are already quietly shaking their heads.

The Eternal Dream: Motion Without Fuel

Spaceflight, at its core, is brutally inefficient. Rockets throw mass in one direction to move in the other. That mass is heavy, expensive, and inconvenient. Every kilogram of fuel requires more fuel to lift it, which requires even more fuel, and so on. It’s the classic rocket equation problem that keeps aerospace engineers awake at night.

So naturally, for as long as rockets have existed, people have dreamed of something better. A drive that doesn’t need propellant. A system that pushes against space itself. A way to move without throwing anything overboard.

On paper, such a device would change everything. Spacecraft could accelerate indefinitely. Missions to Mars could shrink from months to days. Interstellar probes might finally move from science fiction to engineering challenge.

There’s just one issue.

Physics does not appear to allow it.

Why Propellant less Drives Are a Problem

The problem isn’t technological. It’s conceptual.

Newton’s third law every action has an equal and opposite reaction isn’t a suggestion. It’s a rule that has survived centuries of scrutiny. When a rocket moves forward, it’s because mass is expelled backward. When you walk, you push against the ground. When a fan blows air, it pushes air molecules to generate force.

Remove the reaction mass, and the system becomes closed. In a closed system, internal forces cancel out. You can shuffle energy around inside, but the center of mass stays put.

That’s not an opinion. That’s mathematics.

Which is why every claim of reactionless propulsion immediately raises red flags. Not because scientists are closed minded, but because they’ve seen this movie before. Many times.

The Ghost of the EmDrive

If this all feels familiar, that’s because it is.

Back in the early 2000s, British engineer Roger Shawyer introduced the EmDrive, a microwave cavity that allegedly produced thrust without propellant. The idea sounded absurd and yet experimental setups occasionally appeared to show tiny but measurable thrust.

For a while, excitement spread. Even NASA’s Eagleworks lab reported anomalous results in 2016. Headlines followed. Hopes rose.

Then reality arrived.

More careful experiments, better isolation, improved controls all of it pointed to the same conclusion. Thermal effects. Measurement errors. Interaction with Earth’s magnetic field. Once those were accounted for, the thrust vanished.

By 2021, the consensus was clear. The EmDrive did not work. Not even a little.

And yet, the dream survived.

Enter Charles Buhler

Charles Buhler is not a fringe YouTube inventor working out of a garage. That’s important. He spent years at NASA, helping to establish the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center. His work focused on understanding how electric charges behave in extreme environments knowledge that, quite literally, helps prevent rockets from exploding on the launch pad.

That background gives his claims weight. Or at least, credibility enough to deserve attention rather than outright dismissal.

Now, as co founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies, Buhler says his team has discovered what he calls a “New Force.” According to him, electric fields alone can generate sustained thrust without expelling mass and in at least one test, enough thrust to overcome Earth’s gravity.

Pause there.

Not orbit. Not micro newtons in a vacuum chamber. Gravity. As in, lift.

That is a staggeringly large claim.

The Claim, in His Own Words

Buhler argues that asymmetric electrostatic systems configurations where electric pressure or field divergence is uneven can generate a net force on a system’s center of mass. In simpler terms, if the electric fields are arranged just right, they don’t cancel out.

Instead, they push.

“This discovery,” he says, “is fundamental in that electric fields alone can generate a sustainable force onto an object and allow center of mass translation without expelling mass.”

It’s the kind of sentence that sounds profound right up until you try to reconcile it with known physics.

A “New Force” Outside Known Laws

Whenever someone invokes a “new force,” physicists instinctively reach for aspirin.

That’s not arrogance. It’s pattern recognition.

The Standard Model already accounts for four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. Adding a fifth isn’t impossible but it would be revolutionary on a scale comparable to discovering electricity or relativity.

Such discoveries don’t usually emerge from small private companies. They come from decades of work, massive collaborations, and mountains of independently verified data.

And yet, Buhler insists this force exists. He presented his findings at the Alternative Propulsion Energy Conference (APEC), a gathering known for enthusiasm and creativity but not necessarily for rigorous peer review.

That context matters.

The Company Line vs. the Scientific Process

To be fair, Buhler has done some things right. He’s explicitly stated that his work is unaffiliated with NASA. He has not claimed commercial readiness. He has acknowledged the need for independent verification.

That already puts him ahead of many past claimants.

But science doesn’t advance on credentials or intentions. It advances on reproducibility.

And so far, no independent laboratory has confirmed these results.

The Measurement Trap

If you talk to experimental physicists long enough, they’ll eventually tell you a story about chasing a signal that turned out to be noise.

Tiny forces are notoriously difficult to measure. Thermal expansion can mimic thrust. Electrostatic interactions with surrounding structures can fool sensors. Even minute vibrations from nearby equipment can produce false positives.

This is exactly what happened with the EmDrive. And before that, with dozens of lesser known devices that have quietly disappeared from the literature.

The more extraordinary the claim, the more brutal the testing must be.

Right now, Buhler’s work hasn’t faced that brutality.

Why Smart People Still Pay Attention

Here’s the uncomfortable part.

Sometimes, science really does find surprises. Not because someone breaks the rules but because we realize the rules were incomplete.

Quantum mechanics didn’t overthrow classical physics. It refined it. Relativity didn’t erase Newton. It explained where Newton’s laws stop working.

So it’s not impossible that there are edge cases in electromagnetism we don’t fully understand. Or subtle interactions between fields and spacetime that haven’t been mapped yet.

Extremely unlikely? Yes.

Impossible? No.

And that slim gap between “unlikely” and “impossible” is where stories like this live.

The Culture of Alternative Propulsion

It’s also worth acknowledging the environment around alternative propulsion research. It attracts a unique mix of serious engineers, speculative thinkers, and let’s be honest people who are deeply allergic to being told “no.”

That’s not entirely bad. Curiosity drives progress. But without discipline, curiosity drifts into wishful thinking.

APEC, where Buhler presented, sits squarely in that gray zone. It’s a place where unconventional ideas are welcomed, sometimes without the skepticism that usually keeps science grounded.

That doesn’t make it useless. It does mean claims emerging from it should be treated carefully.

The Burden of Proof Hasn’t Changed

If a device truly produces thrust without reaction mass, it must do so in a way that cannot be explained by known interactions. That means vacuum tests. Isolation from electromagnetic interference. Independent replication. Peer reviewed publication.

Not once.

Again and again.

Until even the skeptics run out of alternative explanations.

We are nowhere near that point.

Why Gravity Is the Red Line

Claiming micro newtons of thrust is one thing. Claiming enough force to counteract gravity is another entirely.

Gravity on Earth is strong. Overcoming it requires continuous force, not momentary fluctuation. Any device that does this would leave unmistakable signatures thermal, electromagnetic, mechanical.

Those signatures should be easy to detect. Easy to verify. Easy to reproduce.

The fact that they haven’t been publicly demonstrated is telling.

So, What Should We Call This?

Not a breakthrough.

Not a fraud.

Something in between.

For now, “improbable engine” is a fair label. A hypothesis with ambition. An experiment with unanswered questions. A claim waiting for reality to either elevate it or quietly dismantle it.

Why This Still Matters

Even if Buhler’s device ultimately fails, the conversation it sparks is valuable. It reminds us why physics works the way it does. It forces experiments to improve. It sharpens our understanding of measurement, noise, and error.

And occasionally, very occasionally, chasing the impossible reveals something unexpected along the way.

Just not usually the thing we were chasing.

A Final, Honest Take

If someone asked whether this device will rewrite the rules of spaceflight, the honest answer for now is no.

But if they asked whether it’s worth watching, the answer is yes. With skepticism. With patience. And with the understanding that physics has a long memory.

Gravity has not been defeated yet.

And if it ever is, it won’t whisper. It will roar.

Open Your Mind !!!

Source: PopMech

Open Your Mind

Found a Way to Overcome Earth’s Gravity