1960
Disclosure timeline event
1960-12-01

Radio-Electronics reports AF plasmoid missile defense program

Plain English Summary

A popular electronics magazine revealed that the Air Force was studying plasma fireballs as missile destroyers. The fireballs would be guided by radar beams to intercept incoming missiles — a concept directly inspired by Soviet physicist Kapitza's theory.

Primary Sources

Primary Source Document
e 030 06 0973
— Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics
ACCESS →
Source Verification (1)
  • 01

    "SOVIET PHYSICS JETP A translation of the Zhurnal Eksperimental'noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki Editor in Chief-P. L. Kapitza; Associate Editors-M. A. Leontovich, E. M. Lifshitz, S. Yu. Luk'yanov; Editorial Board E. L. Andronikashvili, K. P. Belov, A. S. Borovik-Romanov (Editor, JETP Letters), V. P. Dzhe"

    e 030 06 0973
External Sources (1)
paper 2024-12-20
Producing entangled photon pairs and quantum squeezed states in plasmas — Physical Review E
Kenan Qu, Nathaniel J. Fisch

Related Dossiers (2)

ORGANIZATION Research Institution
Armour Research Foundation
The Armour Research Foundation (ARF) of Illinois Institute of Technology conducted a classified Air Force plasmoid resea
PERSON Personnel
Pyotr (Peter) Kapitza
Pyotr Kapitza (1894-1984) was a Soviet Nobel laureate physicist who proposed that ball lightning is a plasma fed by radi

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