An Invisible wall was created by accident at a 3M Factory

David Swenson of 3M Corporation describes an anomaly where workers encountered a strange "invisible wall" in the area under a fast-moving sheet of electrically charged polypropelene film in a factory. This "invisible wall" was strong enough to prevent humans from passing through. A person near this "wall" was unable to turn, and so had to walk backwards to retreat from it.

This occurred in late summer in South Carolina, August 1980, in extremely high humidity. Polypropelene (PP) film on 50K ft. rolls 20ft wide was being slit and transferred to multiple smaller spools. The film was taken off the main roll at high speed, flowed upwards 20ft to overhead rollers, passed horizontally 20ft and then downwards to the slitting device, where it was spooled onto shorter rolls. The whole operation formed a cubical shaped tent, with two walls and a ceiling approximately 20ft square. The spools ran at 1000ft/min, or about 10MPH. The PP film had been manufactured with dissimilar surface structure on opposing faces. Contact electrification can occur even in similar materials if the surface textures or micro-structures are significantly different. The generation of a large imbalance of electrical surface-charge during unspooling was therefore not unexpected, and is a common problem in this industry. "Static cling" in the megavolt range!

On entering the factory floor and far from the equipment, Mr. Swenson's 200KV/ft handheld electrometer was found to slam to full scale. When he attempted to walk through the corridor formed by the moving film, he was stopped about half way through by an "invisible wall." He could lean all his weight forward but was unable to pass. He observed a fly get pulled into the charged, moving plastic, and speculates that the e-fields might have been strong enough to suck in birds!

The production manager did not believe Mr. Swenson's report of the strange phenomena. When they both returned to the factory floor, they found that the "wall" was no longer there. But the production workers had noticed the effect as occurring early in the morning when humidity was lower, so they agreed to try again another day. The second attempt was successful, and early in the morning the field underneath the "tent" was strong enough to raise even the short, curly hair of the production manager. The "invisible wall" effect had returned. He commented that he "didn't know whether to fix it or sell tickets."

Link

If any R&D people are reading, maybe a way to make some kind of force field?

An interesting comment from the link:

I met this guy at an ESD meeting in austin once. He said the strength of the field maxed out his equipment at a distance so he couldn't get a maximum measurement.

After he published the paper he was contacted by NASA and all the three letter agencies asking for more info. He wanted to experiment around with it but no company had millions to throw into such a project (presumably, the government did). It had to be a pretty narrow window of temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. They kept the garage door open so that's where the insects and sparrows got sucked in (which obviously ruined the product).

He said it was actually known to the technicians for awhile before he experienced it and they just were kinda like "meh". Eventually they fixed the grounding issue on the machine and the problem never popped up again.

Maybe a device could be engineered that could find a way around the temperature and humidity that seems to be required for this phenomenon to occur. Think of the applications if it was controllable. All in all, just a small piece of what I think is a much larger puzzle..

a reply to: underwerks

Neat. Force field, indeed. Wonder if it would fry cell phones or stop pacemakers.

Cheers

30 Years ago, yup is somebodies baby somewhere just trying to figure it out and put it to work.

1980 and we just now are hearing this?

Either it is BS which I am sure you don't thinks so to start this thread, or it is being used as something top secret. It does sound fantastic and requires fantastic evidence. For now we should take note of the possibility as since it is a theory we can test it at some point. I for one don't think we will know unless a big reveal that explains why it wasn't being shared with the Scientific community so that Physicists and Physical Chemists could explore the theory and perhaps learn to build something useful.

I'm agnostic of localized static charge walls.

a reply to: underwerks

What the frack?

He could lean all his weight forward but was unable to pass. He observed a fly get pulled into the charged, moving plastic, and speculates that the e-fields might have been strong enough to suck in birds!

They invented a Force Field and a Tractor Beam at once?

S&F'n the hell out of this!!




Don't they have a Warp Drive Engine now too?

"Kirk to Akbar" ohhh myy.

a reply to: underwerks

And they have been using them in gaming for the last 30years....dam you 3m, dam you to hell!!!!

originally posted by: Justoneman
1980 and we just now are hearing this?

Either it is BS which I am sure you don't thinks so to start this thread, or it is being used as something top secret. It does sound fantastic and requires fantastic evidence. For now we should take note of the possibility as since it is a theory we can test it at some point. I for one don't think we will know unless a big reveal that explains why it wasn't being shared with the Scientific community so that Physicists and Physical Chemists could explore the theory and perhaps learn to build something useful.

I've read in the past how the government will fund research projects at different universities across the county. Each one will be given just a fraction of what they're looking for, without being told what the government is specifically trying to find.
When they get their answer, they pull the funding, saying the study isn't reaching any desired results. This keeps their projects secret- even from those doing the research- and cuts years off of new developments. The added bonus is nobody knows what's being developed.

Here's how water is both repelled and attracted by the same static charge.
It happens to be an experiment debunking explanation of YT Veritasium popular science guy


It looks to be easy enough to create high static charge but you'd expect a discharge instead of dividing two air masses of different humidity or something

MU Article

As the film went about this unspooling and re-spooling process, one of the workers found that as he tried to walk to a new location he was stopped as if by an invisible wall. Other workers also approached and pressed against it to find it unmovable, with them unable to pass through or even budge it, and one worker who examined it with a 200KV/ft handheld electrometer found that the reading went through the roof. They leaned all their weight into it and pounded on it, but it seemed this force field was impossible to pass through. Making it all even more bizarre is that the unseen wall seemed to be inexorably pulling them towards it, to the point that they were unable to turn away and had to walk backwards to pull themselves away.

I love this story, it would be great if the effect could ever be recreated.

I wonder if you could direct that energy it could be used of some form of space propulsion.

This could be the key to invisible doors because that sounds like a rich person thing to buy for the novelty of it. Yay science.

a reply to: Spacespider
Love that thinking

a reply to: Spacespider

That would be cool. Maybe with mutliple fields in a series from big to small in an elongated cone off the back of the ship.

ESD at this level should fry anything near it except for old Nokias.

Very interesting. I found this example of static electricity bouncing around a roll of poly film on a much smaller scale than mentioned in the OP.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

This is like a Van de Graaf generator constantly short circuiting with each new layer.

a reply to: underwerks

I like this one but don't really believe it.

That said maybe it is true and if it is true then just maybe someone somewhere has recreated this on purpose.

A force field like that could even make star wars like Speeder's, if you can't walk through it and it is capable of holding weight that is pushed against it then it could if re-oriented also act as a propulsive or suspensive field of some kind.

Interesting but not one I am sure that I could believe in, I would love too however don't get me wrong I really want a star wars speeder parked in the drive and a force field hammock in the back yard.

Also if this could be created imagine the safety and also military applications, instead of an air bag an force field to surround the driver and passenger and also a mechanism to deflect RPG's and Bullets from military vehicles - scale it down and just maybe you could even have a star wars deflector belt and make all those storm troopers miss.

I knew post-its were an accident when they created it.

Now this? 3M should invest in accidental discoveries I think...

If true, and it happened in the 80's, that would mean there is a possibility that it was developped in a black project then and does exist without our knowing.

If someone likes to ask the man himself you can contact him here: wiza.co...

I guess he still work at 3M, he is real and the company is real.. but the story could still be made up and someone just attached his name to it.