Steorn Forum Representative Final Report, July Demo 2007
by drmike

As the elected (by somewhat loose means) forum representative I had a
fantastic opportunity to be allowed to check the outrageous claims of
Steorn.  On top of that, Steorn paid my air fare and put me up in a
really nice hotel very close to Buckingham Palace.

At the beginning, I thought I was going to Dublin. All through April I
was dubious about the trip being real.  In the first week of May,
Steorn sent me tickets for the London Demo.  I was not to tell anyone
of the travel dates because Steorn wanted the place and time to be
announced on the day of the demo.

When I first told the forum I was going, I did not mention a two day
period before the demo.  Sean got very upset about that.  While it
appeared to me to be a simple mistake easily rectified, he seemed
exceptionally angry.

During this whole time Steorn sent me two papers.  The first did not
explain any detail, but the second was a full technical report.  Sean
had mentioned magnetic viscosity as the key to the effect he was
seeing.  I wanted to find a way to combine Steorn's technology with a
fundamental physics test.

So I came up with the pendulum idea.  The purpose was to look at the
physics of Steorn's claim without giving away any technological
secrets.  Steorn agreed it was ok to post the idea.

Many people looked at the first idea and made lots of suggestions for
improvement.  I built the electronics, then the physical device and
took data.  With more suggestions, I modified a few things and took
more data.

With the data looking pretty good and several people beginning the
analysis, I built a second data collection device.  This only had
magnetic field probes, but I figured it would be a good backup.

I had plenty of tools and electronics.  My wife had picked out lots of
places to go, but I was figuring on not seeing much of London.  I saw
a lot more than I expected.

I started time shifting two days before leaving.  I wanted to make
sure the two days before the demo would be without jetlag problems.
While not completely successful, I had very little trouble adapting
the next day.

Just before I left I got a copy of Wikipedia's version of Noether's
theorem and an English translation of the original paper.  I spent a
good deal of the flight over reading these two texts so I could
understand the full argument.  While I learned a lot from this, it
never really came up.

My wife and I landed in London late on a Sunday.  We found our driver
and got to the hotel with no problems.  I got to bed and went to sleep
quickly given I was tired from all the travel.

There are a couple of important side stories here.  Two gentlemen
offered me quite a bit of help and I gratefully accepted it. One is
SpinOnThis.  The other wishes to remain anonymous.

Anonymous sent me a phone he had purchased in China.  Crank had
explained how the pay-as-you-go phones worked.  So first thing monday
morning I walked up Piccadilly street and found a mobile phone
store.

Once I got a sim card for the phone, I called SpinOnThis to see how
the phone worked.  SpinOnThis was not feeling well and wanted me to
meet his wife at Euston Station.  She was already on the train!

We had exchanged pictures via the net, and SpinOnThis had his wife
wear his Jacket and T shirt.  I figured out how to get to Euston
station, but we had no idea which platform she was coming in on.
After 10 minutes of wandering around, she spotted me in my hat.

She had brought me a very expensive laptop and a brand new, never used
before cell phone.  The original purpose was to help me take data
during the first two days.  It ended up helping immensely in keeping
up with the forum.  My wife used the phone to stay in contact with me
and that was exceptionally useful.

With two phones and a computer, I was now ready for Steorn.  So I
called CathyC and found out Sean and crew had trouble getting in and
they would contact me tuesday.  OK, I figured that was possible, so I
went sightseeing.

On tuesday, I was still psyched and ready.  I sent email and tried to
call. Unfortunately I didn't really understand how the phone worked,
so I was not successful all the time.  It didn't really matter since
CathyC said Sean would call me when he was ready.  So I went
sightseeing again.

By wednesday I was very familiar with much of the Underground and had
overcome any left over jetlag.  I also figured my chances of seeing
anything were nil.  I spent the afternoon lost in Greenwich learning
about John Harrison and the invention of the chronometer.

On thursday I went to Kinetica.  There were quite a few people there
so I chatted with many of them.  Richard came out and told us there
were still lots of problems and things weren't right yet.  There were
signs on the doors saying technical problems remained, but the live
feed had started.  I went out to lunch with the Earth Tech crowd and
had fun listening to many ideas on how Steorn's stuff could be working.

With the official opening delayed I met my wife and we went to the
Victoria and Albert museum to see the Surrealists show and then on to
the British museum to see the Rosetta stone.

On friday I went back to Kinetica.  I met with several people from
Earth Tech International. The opening was still delayed, and I asked
Hal Puthoff if I could take him out to lunch.  He said he had to meet
with some other people and we could meet up at 13:00.  So I went back
to my hotel.

At the hotel, I logged in and found out the demo had been cancelled
and that Sean would be making a public announcement at 15:00.  I got
back on the tube and made it back about 13:10.  Hal and I had a great
lunch in a very small sandwich shop and talked about quantum
mechanics.  I would have to say this was the highlight of the trip for
me, as I am now psyched to go back into doing physics experiments I've
been putting off for a couple of decades.

At 15:00 we got back to Kinetica and heard Sean apologize.  I am
assuming that anyone reading this has read the Steorn forum or fizzix
or FreeEnergyTracker blog to know what was said there.  He talked for
a long time, and took several people up stairs who would not be able
to come on saturday.  The rest of us chatted while they were upstairs
and around 17:00 we took off to the pub.  

At the pub we talked physics. I listened to EFF explain many of his
ideas and asked a few questions.  After a while we wandered to another
corner where other people had gathered and tried to come up with as
many plausible explanations for how magnetic viscosity or lag or
delays could help create energy.  As a skeptic I tried to explain why
it'd never work, but I had a blast talking.  After losing count of the
number of Guinness I had polished off, I made my back to the hotel.

On saturday Sean again brought everyone into the lower part of
Kinetica and answered many questions.  This was for the SPDC, not
really for the public.  After a while, he took us all upstairs and
explained pretty much everything I had seen in the technical report
plus a few other things.  A lot of people played with magnets and
tried to get things to spin.  It was a lot of fun.

The bottom line is that Steorn claimed they could "create energy".
They claimed they had a "start - stop" device which proved it.
Nothing like either claim was shown at all.

One of the comments I saw on the forum was that if this was a con,
something would have worked here.  Watching Sean and listening to him
talk (and boy can he talk!!) I am convinced he has seen everything he
describes.  Unfortunately, the rest of us have not.

I am certain Steorn really believed I would see something that
resembled their claim.  They spent a lot of money setting up this demo
and some 2000 pounds sending me over and putting me up.  There are
much cheaper ways to pull a con.

If it was a hoax, the whole upstairs would not exist, nor would Sean
have taken the time to go through all the details of how he thinks it
all works.  I can not describe any of those details without breaking
the NDA, so it puts me in a fairly strange position.  The flaws in the
thought process are clear to me, but Steorn considers these details
propriatary information.  

My conclusion after going through all this is that Steorn is neither
hoax nor scam.  It is delusion.  The reason it seems surreal is
because it is surreal - we are the real part of someone elses
imagination.

I thank Steorn for this truely awesome opportunity to meet so many
really wonderful people.  I hope I get to meet you all again someday.

Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike