The Hunt For Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology

By Nick Cook, Broadway Books

Review by Kathy Kasten, Paranoia Magazine

One just never knows what can happen when you step away from your office desk to trot down the hallway to get a cup of coffee. Nick Cook, investigative reporter for Jane's Defense, returned to his desk one day, coffee cup filled, to find a package. Picking up the package, Cook scanned the open office area searching for who may have put the package on his desk. Not seeing anything suspicious, he opened the package. After reading a bit of the contents, he made a decision. We all know that it is never about who you are, but the decisions you make. So thanks to Nick Cook's decision, the reader is taken on the equivalent of a magical mystery tour, in the finest sense of that term.

For the next three years of his life, Cook spends his spare time hunting down the source and reality of zero energy. All because of a copy of an article he found in the package on his desk. The article was titled "The G-Engines Are Coming" by Michael Gladych. Here's the kicker, the article was published in 1956 and talked about anti-gravity engines as if they were a very near future reality. The article named Martin Aircraft Company, Bell Aircraft, Lear and "several other American manufacturers" who would not spend millions of dollars on science fiction. Lawrence Bell, maker of the planes first to break the sound barrier, was quoted sounding as if his company was in the middle of developing equipment to cancel gravity. William Lear, long before he designed business jets, was thinking of how an anti-gravitational system would affect the pilot.

You want adventure? You want secret meetings with insiders? You want late night/early morning telephone conversations with knowledgeable sources unwilling to allow Cook to give their real identity? Journeys between England, United States and Eastern and Western Europe? Long bumpy rides to visit the ruins of Nazi/SS research facilities in Poland, Austria and the Fatherland? Cook has written a first rate true life detective novel. He knows very well how to report the story, even if it is his own story. It is apparent that Cook loved immersing himself in this tale of a real life adventure.

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