posted on Jul, 18 2011 @ 07:51 PM
I apologize for resurrecting a six year old thread, especially as I am most certainly not a regular poster in the UFO forums at ATS, but I was
searching for Paul Potter and this was the only relevant result that came up.
Anyway, today my neighbour (who is also a conspiracy believer) loaned me a book called "Gravitational Manipulation of Domed Craft" by Paul Potter.
My neighbour is a smart guy but he has no scientific background, and since I have an engineering degree, he wanted me to take a look at the book and
see what I thought of it. I wanted to see as well what the ATS community thinks of him; is he a reliable UFO researcher, or has he been debunked? I
tried using google to look him and the book up, but all I could find were various book sellers trying to get me to buy it, and when I looked at Amazon
and a few places like that, there weren't any customer reviews for it.
I'm only in the first chapter so far, but my basic impression is that Paul Potter seems to have a good understanding of science, and I don't have
any issue with his explanations of scientific concepts. He is relying on the testimony of alleged UFO abductees, in particular (as least so far)
Betty Ann Luca, who claims to have been abducted numerous times over a span of decades. She wrote the foreword to the book, and Betty seems to be one
of his primary sources of information. I have always been very skeptical about reported alien encounters, but until the existence (or absence) of
aliens and UFOs proven, I try to keep an open mind on the subject.
The style of the book is first to lay out what the witnesses (so far just Betty) have described seeing in their alien encounters, and then, assuming
that they really saw what they claimed, to posit scientific explanations based on known scientfic principles. For example, in one encounter, Betty
described seeing refractive rays in the environment she was in, so Potter theorizes that whatever medium she was in had a different index of
refraction than the atmosphere on earth does. Another example; Betty described these transparent shoe-like things that she had to wear in that same
environment, and how twin beams of light were emitted from them. She describes the process and based on the description Potter theorizes that
sonofusion was taking place in a narrow tube inside the 'shoes'.
The book also contains a lot of diagrams explaning concepts and pictures drawn by abductees. It's certainly interesting reading, but basically what
I want to know is whether the community thinks Potter is on to something, or whether he's a nut full of BS.