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John Keely

Graylien

Graylien

As if!
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Whilst researching the 1896-7 Phantom Airship wave recently, I came across some intriguing references to a forgotten American inventor named John Keely, who was apparently working on some kind of anti-gravity flying machine at the time. Depending on who you listen to, Keely was eithier a genius decades ahead of his time, or else a complete charlatan.

The story goes that sometime in 1896, Keely gave a demonstration of his airship to the US army - who were strangely unimpressed when Keely whizzed around at up to 500mph, and declared that they had no use for his invention. Shortly afterwards, mysterious flying machines were seen here, there, and everywhere. Could there be a connection?

By 1897, Keely had died from pneumonia, and the Phantom airship wave petered out. Keelys equipment was bought up in bulk by a Boston businessman who couldn't make head or tail of it, and apparently eithier destroyed it or sold it off for scrap. When a concealed chamber of compressed air was discovered in Keelys laboratory by journalists from The Scientific American, the late inventor was denounced as a fraud, and quickly forgotten.

For an overview of Keely and the Airship Wave see:

History of the Mystery Airship Sightings

And for a picture of Keelys invention, plus a load of technical gobbledegook I don't pretend to understand, see:

Keely's Airship And the Aerial Propeller

Also of interest may be this bizarre tale of John Keelys floating spheres:

Music of the Spheres
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be retrieved via the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20041226153551/http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/keely_2.htm

See later post in this thread for the text of the MIA webpage.

So, could Keely have been behind the Phantom Airship wave? Or is it all just a load of baloney?
 
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As for Keely's fantastic aircraft - they don't seem to have featured much in WWI or WWII or Korea or Vietnam, whereas other secret weapons were used visibly all over the place. Rather hard to explain all those pathetic WWI flying machines getting shot down everywhere if they already had 500mph craft.
 
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Then the question raises, why were people so intrepid back in the day, and don't seem to be now? I've been reading some biographies lately of people from the Nineteenth Century and most of them seemed to be working on perpetual motion machines in their spare time.

Nobody seems to do this anymore . . . I mean, obviously there are cranks out there working on all sorts of bullshit, but it seems like in the Nineteenth Century it was common for almost anybody to be up to this kind of stuff.

Why?

Is it because everything seems to have been invented?

-Fitz

p.s. - What was the point of perpetual motion machines? Was it to be used in trains or something like that? I don't really understand the function.
 
Fitz said:
p.s. - What was the point of perpetual motion machines? Was it to be used in trains or something like that? I don't really understand the function.
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Free Energy. If the machine goes on and on (and on and on...) then, you can keep generating energy from it. (Simply hook it up to a flywheel, and presto...inexhaustible electricity.)

It does seem a shame that so few inventors of new and interesting devices get our attention these days. The ones that do tend to be a little less sane than you'd like as well.
 
Nobody does this anymore??

Try putting 'Free Energy' into google and step back quickly to avoid the avalanche of backyard science.

Serious technology, otoh, like getting a new aircraft working, takes serious money these days, which is why it tends to be the big outfits.
 
"When we reach the luminiferous track on the ninths, in the triple subdivision, we have proof that the infinite stream, from that unexplored region where all sympathetic streams emanate, is triune in its character, having the dominant as the sympathetic leader, to which the remainder of the celestial thirds are subservient; the cerebellic being the ominant, and the triplets, (gravital, electric, and magnetic) following in its train."--John Keely
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Um, Keely was a nutter.
 
The craft I refer to are definitely associated with the Sonora Aero Club.
Apparently, they were fairly big machines, requiring a crew of several men. Some of the eyewitness descriptions are evocative, with the beam of the ship's big front-mounted searchlight sweeping the dark, barren plains.

Keely's "invention" bears no resemblance to the SAC airships, and he seems very much a crank.
 
Ooh--great links, graylien! How fortunate to have you around!

Tell me, what is your take on the airship mystery? Did somebody perfect powered flight before the Wright Bros.? If so, why the mystery? If not, why the hoax?
 
I had my hopes pinned on Mr Keely for a while, simply because he was around at the right time, and the airship wave ended after his death. However, as you point out, his surviving technical papers seem to be little better than gibberish, and there is no convincing corrobative evidence for his claims. ...
 
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Returning to Keely: His workshop was literally ripped apart by his detractors after his death and scant evidence was found to uphold the accusation of fraud. As for the pressure vessel, what no one seems to address is the fact that to fill one of these a compressor is needed. Compressors are notoriously noisy and I shudder to think about the noise of one at the turn of the last century especially when you consider the enormous pressures used. No compressor was found as far as I know and it would certainly have been presented as evidence if it had.

As I recall, from the book (Free Energy Pioneer by Theo Paijmans) only a small piece of tubing was found in a wall and this and the spherical vessel was all the evidence used to defame the guy. Someone who worked with Keely stated at the time that he had buried the sphere in order to get it out of the way, as it was no longer used in his experiments.

I’m told that his reason for the “gibberish” was because he had no points of reference in the science of the day and even today the science of resonance is not exactly something that we hear about. Also the fact that he was largely self-educated and very secretive would seem to explain his incomprehensible language.

There is a Google Video – “Dale Pond, The Basic Principles of SVP, parts I & II” that explains all that Keely was about. He also has the only surviving Keely machine in the video that he says does what it says on the label.

Keely did do work on a flying machine, but it was not a balloon or anything resembling them and he was supposed to have demonstrated it to the military along with a gun, but there is no evidence of this.

He was something of a celebrity in his time and there are many newspaper reports about him.

Tesla was a contemporary of his and is said to have warned someone against investing in the Keely Motor Company. However, he did try Keely’s methods and caused a minor earthquake whilst shaking a building. :)
 
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I find it interesting that both Keely and Tesla were investigating aspects of harmonic resonance from different directions at around the same time.
 
I find it interesting that both Keely and Tesla were investigating aspects of harmonic resonance from different directions at around the same time.
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Yes you’re right and it’s a connection that did not occur to me, Tesla by way of electronics and Keely with sound. :idea:
 
Whatever else may be said about John Worrell Keeley he was one heck of an excellent machinist and his "fraudulent" devices, if that's in fact what they are, are beautiful to behold.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Whatever else may be said about John Worrell Keeley he was one heck of an excellent machinist and his "fraudulent" devices, if that's in fact what they are, are beautiful to behold.
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That's true. I've often wanted one of his gizmos just as a scientifical art object.

Which raises the question - if he was an outright fraud, why invest so much time and energy building these devices? Seems like a fraudster wouldn't expend more energy than absolutely necessary to convince the marks.

My pet theory about Keely is that at one point, he did have some legitimate, annomolous results. Which he did not fully comprehend. And possibly some (unrealized) help from the other side. Then, for whatever reason, things stopped working for him. He exahusted the local spacewarp, the spirits got bored with him, whatever. Then in desperation he started rigging his demos.
 
My pet theory about Keely is that at one point, he did have some legitimate, annomolous results. Which he did not fully comprehend. And possibly some (unrealized) help from the other side. Then, for whatever reason, things stopped working for him. He exahusted the local spacewarp, the spirits got bored with him, whatever. Then in desperation he started rigging his demos.
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His engineering designs were indeed beautiful and I’m filled with admiration of them.

I don’t think he had help from “the other side”; his problems were about controlling the amount of energy generated as it would destroy his machines. (He may have built around two hundred) If you look at Dale Pond’s videos this is explained. His demonstrations are well documented with few detractors among those that saw them. The main objections came from, I think, Scientific American who you will remember refused to look at the Wright Bro’s work even though their flights were common knowledge at the time.

I do realise that Keely’s work/ideas was taken over by some dubious people, but I don’t think any of this was Keely’s intention and there is no evidence that he encouraged it or had any part in it. The fact that his writings and construction plans disappeared after his death and that the books written about him tend to be esoteric, does not help.

Some of the methods used were like the water hammer effect which is well known to science but ignored.

Lots of info about Keely here: http://www.keelynet.com/keely.htm
 
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John Keel must surely have appreciated the coincidence of name while he was researching the airship stuff.
 
Timble2 said:
Another view of some and dammed/rejected science and technology. ...
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I have never given support to ‘perpetual machines’, as running with no power source is impossible. However, the phrase is applied to machines that science is not prepared to investigate and I’d need to make a list. Dale Pond has studied Keelys’ motor and says that it works.

http://www.svpvril.com/

You will see that Keely laid out an atomic physics, years before science and its frighteningly similar to the modern one.

His motors seem to have run on cavitation driven by the water-hammer effect, but that’s an opinion so don’t quote me. Both of these are well know to science, but never used for anything useful. Science seems to be opposed to anything useful.

“”If one- just one device really produced over-unity energy we could make millions of them, and produce enough energy to (say) move the Earth into interstellar space and live in the infinite dark, growing crops by artificial light powered by over-unity energy.
I submit to you that this will never happen.””
-
I don’t think that I’ve ever mentioned “over unity”, but its an interesting concept that’s not at odds with scientific theory.
 
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... I've been reading about Keely of late who came up with an atomic theory surprisingly similar to the modern one about 20 years before. Apparently he not only built motors, but invented a whole science/philosophy of his own and I've spent some time trying to get my head around it – very intriguing, but hard going.

One of the things that I do understand is that he understood the insubstantial nature of matter – that it's made of energy.

Where he deviates from today's science is that he sees the energy as vibrations in the ether. His vibrations start with the lowest frequency sound and rise through the electromagnetic spectrum to infinity – and they are all part and parcel of the same thing. A truly Fortean approach with all things connected.

Dale Pond, who wrote the book tells us that he has had access to one of Keely's motors and when he tried it - it worked, and as I suspected it worked on the cavitation/water hammer principal. Also there are drawings and part diagrams of the motor in the book, together with a description of how it works. ...
 
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For the record, it seems fairly obvious to me that Keely was almost ccertainly a charlatan, despite devising remarkably ingenious theories and devices. He managed to obtain energy from nowhere; this turns out to be impossible; and his laboratory/workshop. when examined. showed clear evidence of hidden devices with intent to decieve.

It may be true that people nowadays are able to replicate his results; but it is also entirely possible that they too are following the master down the road of duplicity. Which is also good Fortean stuff, when you think about it; a self-replicating deception which is set to run and run, like perpetual motion.
 
Eburacum wrote:
He (Keely) managed to obtain energy from nowhere; this turns out to be impossible; and his laboratory/workshop. when examined. showed clear evidence of hidden devices with intent to deceive.
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eburacum.
Have I not told you where the energy came from, or is it a case of “there are non so blind”. Search cavitation – water hammer and you will see where the energy came from. This effect has been known to science for many years and is used in remote areas where running water is available. It's not impossible, it works and Keely refined it and used it to drive his motor. There is no intent to deceive, there is no need to deceive, it is out there working just as Tesla's turbine is out there working.

The reason that these people were so defamed is because it's easier to do so that to engage them in genuine academic argument. Just as it is today, the authority of science had the power to say yea or nay to anything it chose and knew that it would be supported by the media. The Wright brothers and a long list of others were treated in exactly this way if you take the trouble to check the facts. Most major innovations are made outside of science. ;)
 
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Eburacum wrote:
and his laboratory/workshop when examined. showed clear evidence of hidden devices with intent to decieve.
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I have looked at this and I find that there was nothing in his lab that would possibly lead to this conclusion.
 
almond13 said:
Eburacum wrote:
and his laboratory/workshop when examined. showed clear evidence of hidden devices with intent to decieve.
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I have looked at this and I find that there was nothing in his lab that would possibly lead to this conclusion.
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That is encouraging news; it does of course contradict the information on this site, which I am sure you are familiar with;

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/keely/keely.htm
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed at the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20061105053948/http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/museum/keely/keely.htm

Some of the apparatus ended up in England. No one could make it function as it had in Keely's laboratory. The secret was not in the machines; the secret was in the laboratory building itself. Engineer Alexander Scott and Mrs. Moore's son, Clarence, examined the building, accompanied by press and photographers. False ceilings and floors were ripped up to reveal mechanical belts and linkages to a silent water motor in the basement (two floors below the laboratory). A system of pneumatic switches under the floor boards could be used to turn machinery on and off. A three-ton sphere was found in the basement, apparently a reservoir for compressed air. The walls, ceilings and even apparently solid beams were found to have hidden pipework. The evidence of fraud on a grand scale was obvious and undeniable.
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almond13 said:
eburacum.
Have I not told you where the energy came from, or is it a case of “there are non so blind”. Search cavitation – water hammer and you will see where the energy came from.
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We did discuss cavitation; you mentioned that you thought Keely's machine used this phenomenon. I wonder if this is connected with the mostly discredited documentary 'It Runs on Water' we have also discussed. One device mentioned on that programme has not only been vindicated but has gone into production; the super-cavitation pump. However it has been investigated by NASA scienticians and is certainly not an over-unity device; just very efficient.
 
However it has been investigated by NASA scienticians and is certainly not an over-unity device; just very efficient.
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Hi eburacum
The “It Runs on Water” device is not available to me for inspection and so I can't comment. However, I have not discussed so called free energy on this NG as far as I can remember as I feel it would be pointless. The only exception to this is the motor of Robert Adams, New Zealand I think, which I would agree is an efficient by unlikely candidate for free energy.

Having said that, I would like to know how NASA scientists would be able to decide what is and what is not free energy. Any “free energy” device is more than likely to be to be powered by something outside of the remit of accepted science and therefore – illusionary is the word most often used. Over unity is measured by power in against power out and a meter on both ends is not likely to measure anything other than current. Adam's says that the only way to measure these things is by calorimetry and I doubt that the NASA bods did this.
I will answer the questions about Keely when time allows. :D
 
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Actually I expect that some form of calorimetry was used, as that would be the best way to measure all energy in versus energy out.
 
Hi eburacum.
To get back to Keely:Theo Paijmans has a book “Free Energy Pioneer” - ignore the title as it's nothing to do with free energy – in which he has a bio' of Keely and lists a whole load of writings from the period, both for and against. He treats the subject neutrally and says that he has no idea what Keely was up-to.

He devotes a whole chapter to the debunking and attempts at exposure of fraud and I quote him at the start as saying,”And it must be said, in all fairness to Keely, that those who investigated the matter after his death were prejudiced from the start”.

Almost the whole of the case was based on the idea that Keely used compressed air to power his motors and much was made of the “pressure vessel” that was found buried under the floor in his workshop. Although he was said to have hidden it, it was known to the world and his wife that Keely had used it in early experiments and the book quotes the maker. In short, it was not a secret.

All sorts of theories were offered and when it was found that there was no evidence of a compressor ever being on the premises a hand pump was suggested;
Chapter six Anatomy of an Exposure page 153
William F. Rudolph, the expert mechanic who had built Keely's latest engine "frequently took apart and put together other machinery," did not think so. In response to Herring's suggestion, he said bluntly: "I never heard such nonsense. I would like to see the person who could pump up a pressure of more 300 pounds in a 60-gallon reservoir, the size of the old sphere found, with
hand pumps. It's plain that the force of the air inside would be too great to pump more air by hand. If that's the case what is compressing machinery for. Why, to compress 20,000 pounds in a 60-gallon receptacle powerful compressors and engine would have to be worked half a day. Then the tubes found would not stand the pressure of the stored air. I repeat that none of the Keely machines can operated with compressed air." He also pointed to the problem of the exhaust of quantities of air used in operating the machines: Any exhaust would "make a noise, and a tremendous one if 2,000 pounds pressure were used. No such noise was heard at the Keely exhibitions in late years, Rudolph claimed. Rudolph gave reporter a demonstration of what he meant by compressing 20 pounds of air,which he allowed to escape through a tube of the same diameter as that found in the laboratory and about 10 feet long. “The noise made by the escaping air could be heard 20 feet away," the startled reporter wrote."

The steam and air machinery company of Borton & Tierney stated that to store air to 20,000 pounds pressure in a 60-gallon tank powerful compressors and a 40 horsepower engine would be needed. And to direct the compressed air to a device, tubes "much larger and stronger than those found would be necessary”.The Keely Investigation, The Record, January 21, 1899
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As far as the pulley arrangement is concerned, this is AFAIK not mentioned in the book nor are there any photographs of said. If you look closely at some of the photographs of Keely's workshop you will see that the ceiling has numerous shafts and pulleys. This was the norm for the time and anywhere that machinery was used would be equipped with such things. I can actually remember such pulley arrangements used in this country in machine-shops up to the seventies.
Powering one room from the one below was also common and having the belts enclosed was a necessary safety precaution. The belts were joined with a metal buckle arrangement which would easily lift a man off the floor if it caught his clothing.

No fraud was ever found and Wiki is wrong on this one. :D
 
Update on Keely
Hi again eburacum.
It seems that I was wrong and I do have some references for the concealed pulleys and shafts in Keely's workshop.
Chapter six
New York Journal January 29 1899, “Keely The Monumental Fraud Of The Century. First Official Confession and the Only True and Authorised Explanation of the Miracles of the Great Keely Motor” were the headlines. Apparently there were “elaborate cross section drawings of the double floors and ceilings which contained and belts that lead to a “small water motor of peculiar construction” (of which more later)in the basement”. “A false box, a hollow post and a hole leading through the floor lead to a careful investigation”. Now they had the secret of Keely's deception and this is still part of the basis for the character assassination today.

Keely's machines were investigated by one Mr T Burton Kinraide (spellings vary), who took many of them away to his cave workshop, never to be seen or heard of again. Kinraide reportedly pronounced them all to be the result of trickery.
http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com/KReference.htm

To return to the mysterious “small water motor of peculiar construction”, I began to wonder what this could be. A small water motor working from a tap that could drive a complex of pulleys and shafts and produce the large amount of energy required to power Keely's impressive demonstrations. It was then that I remembered the Keely motor that Dale Pond had tested and found to be in working order and that it runs on water.

The only conclusion that I could draw was that we are left with the ludicrous situation of Keely having a hidden motor that by all accounts was impossible and used it to drive further impossible machines!

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/P ... rmotor.htm
 
almond13 said:
To return to the mysterious “small water motor of peculiar construction”, I began to wonder what this could be. A small water motor working from a tap that could drive a complex of pulleys and shafts and produce the large amount of energy required to power Keely's impressive demonstrations. It was then that I remembered the Keely motor that Dale Pond had tested and found to be in working order and that it runs on water.

The only conclusion that I could draw was that we are left with the ludicrous situation of Keely having a hidden motor that by all accounts was impossible and used it to drive further impossible machines!

http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/P ... rmotor.htm
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Of course you realise that these water motors simply convert water mains pressure into work; nothing impossible about that yet. If Keely was piggybacking his devices on the water pressure provided by the local utilities company then that is ingenious, but dishonest.
 
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