That was a fascinating Sunday morning diversion, thanks!

I can easily believe there was a programme researching that. There's been research into all sorts of crackpot ideas, especially in wartime. The film The Men Who Stare at Goats was based on a true story of US military research, and there was WW2 research into death rays after all.

Mistaken, or failed research that was well secreted? It took 30 years for Bletchley Park to leak, despite involving thousands.

Cook now seems to be a defence consultant specialising in climate change.

Another one to add to my impossibly long reading list though. :)

It never hurts to wonder. If we assume the Tic Tac is a man made craft, it doesn't seem a far stretch to also assume it may employ antigravitics. Perhaps it can be traced back to Die Glocke [1]. Your linked HN posts also mention Hutchison, an interesting character who appears repeatedly down the rabbit hole, where you'll also discover Schauberger and Leedskalnin. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in these topics, which often delve into conspiracy and pseudoscience, making it hard to discuss them without sounding like a crazy person. In any case, it's fascinating to ponder, even if it's all just science fiction.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Glocke

Per your link:

>"Although no evidence of the veracity of Witkowski’s statements has been produced, they reached a wider audience when they were retold by British author Nick Cook, who added his own views to Witkowski’s statements in The Hunt for Zero Point.[4]"

The WW2 "Bell" experiment narrative was actually my largest complaint with Cook's book. While it makes for a fantastic story that's pretty much screenplay material, it's very unlikely to be true.

Yes, Die Glocke / the bell has been embellished beyond all recognition of whatever it really was. I bear some guilt with my comment above; it would have been more appropriate to suggest that the bell's mysticism may have inspired fringe research, e.g. Podkletnov, similar to how Rife may have inspired Hutchison, and Hutchison inspired Bushman, and so on.

A lot of the super cranky claims around the Bell come from Joseph Farrell and others. It could have been any number of things if it did exist. My money is on an enrichment device or something else related to a-bomb R&D. It could also have been a fringe physics experiment, and maybe it just didn't work. The Nazis pursued a lot of odd things.

It's entirely possible that there have been secret R&D programs looking into such things. It's also possible that these programs were fruitless since there may not be such a thing or the energies required to access it may be way past our Kardashev ranking.