A former NASA engineer’s claim that he has built a fuel-free, electricity-only engine has unsettled scientists worldwide, because if the repeatable thrust he reports is real it could expose a subtle experimental error—or reveal a disturbing gap in our understanding of physics, leaving the scientific community both cautious and deeply uneasy.

Ex-NASA Engineer Says He Created a Gravity-Defying Engine

A claim made by a former NASA engineer is quietly stirring debate across the aerospace and physics communities, not because it has been proven, but because it refuses to disappear under scrutiny.

Charles Buhler, who previously worked on electrostatics and advanced propulsion concepts during his time in the U.S.

space program, says he has built a device that generates measurable thrust using only electricity—without fuel, exhaust, or any visible reaction mass.

If confirmed, the implications would be extraordinary.

Modern propulsion, from chemical rockets to ion drives, is built on a single, unshakable principle: Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

To move forward, something must be pushed backward.

Buhler’s system, by his own description, does not do that.

According to statements he has shared in recent presentations and interviews, the device operates as a closed electrical system.

No propellant is expelled.

No rotating components provide mechanical leverage.

There are no vibrating parts designed to exploit resonance or oscillation.

Yet under specific configurations, the apparatus appears to produce thrust that can be detected by precision instruments.

“What makes this difficult to dismiss,” one physicist familiar with the tests said privately, “is not the size of the force, but the repeatability.

” In experiments described by Buhler, the thrust disappears when the configuration is altered and reliably returns when the original setup is restored.

That on-off behavior is a key reason the claim continues to attract cautious attention.

Buhler’s background complicates the conversation.

This Former NASA Engineer Has Discovered a Way To Overcome Earth's gravity. He's developed an engine that harnesses a new force outside of our current knowledge of physics to create thrust without

He is not an outsider posting theories online, but an engineer who spent years working within NASA-affiliated research environments.

Colleagues describe him as methodical and conservative in how he presents results.

“He’s not claiming to have rewritten physics,” said one former coworker.

“He’s saying something happens that he can’t yet explain.”

That distinction matters, but it does not reduce skepticism.

History is crowded with propulsion claims that initially seemed promising before collapsing under closer inspection.

Tiny thrust measurements can be distorted by thermal expansion, electromagnetic interference, air currents, or subtle mechanical coupling.

In laboratory settings, forces measured in micro-Newtons are notoriously easy to misinterpret.

Because of that, the scientific response has been restrained rather than celebratory.

Independent verification remains the central issue.

So far, the tests described have not been replicated by unaffiliated laboratories under fully controlled conditions.

Without that step, no claim—no matter how intriguing—can advance beyond speculation.

Still, discomfort persists.

Former NASA scientist claims he's invented an anti-gravity engine

Standard explanations have not yet been conclusively matched to the reported behavior.

The device does not neatly resemble earlier controversial ideas such as the so-called “reactionless drives” that circulated a decade ago.

Those concepts were eventually traced to experimental artifacts.

Buhler insists his setup avoids those pitfalls, though he openly acknowledges that unknown errors remain possible.

“What bothers people,” said a university researcher who reviewed a summary of the work, “is that if momentum truly appears without an exchange we can identify, then either our measurements are lying to us—or our model of the system is incomplete.

” Neither option is comforting.

Importantly, Buhler has avoided grand promises.

He has not announced a new propulsion revolution, nor has he claimed imminent spacecraft applications.

Instead, he frames the project as an unresolved anomaly that deserves careful examination.

That restraint may be why the story continues to circulate rather than fade.

For now, the engine exists in an uncomfortable space between impossibility and uncertainty.

It has not overturned physics, but it has unsettled assumptions.

Until independent tests confirm or refute the effect, the claim will remain what it is today: a challenge, not a breakthrough, and a reminder that even the most established laws of nature are protected not by belief, but by evidence.