Less than 5 months before his tragic death, Mark McCandlish delivered a final detailed, technical presentation on the legendary Alien Reproduction Vehicle (ARV) at the Alt Propulsion Conference. In a field crowded with rumor and recycled lore, McCandlish tried to do something unusually specific: treat the ARV story like an engineering problem—naming parts, proposing materials, describing electrical pathways, and arguing that multiple witness traditions converged on the same architecture. The result was less a “UFO story” than a guided tour through a speculative machine—one he insisted was reverse-engineered, human-built, and dangerously real.

Mark McCandlish’s technical blueprint of the “Flux Liner” ARV

Mark McCandlish spent decades doing what aviation artists do best: turning hard-to-photograph machines into legible, high-resolution pictures. Rivet lines. Panel seams. Odd bulges that betray a hidden mechanism. In this final detailed technical presentation, he tried to apply that same visual discipline to a stranger target: an alleged “Alien Reproduction Vehicle” (ARV) sometimes called the “Flux Liner.”

In his telling, the ARV story isn’t “a UFO story” in the usual sense. It’s a reverse-engineering story—one where secondhand testimony becomes a set of engineering constraints, and those constraints are used to infer architecture: power in, power out, field effects, controls, safety margins, failure modes. McCandlish’s drawings and explanations aim to make the ARV feel less like folklore and more like a machine that could be diagrammed, instrumented, and—at least in principle—tested.

That’s also the fault line running through everything McCandlish says. His claims hinge on the credibility of sources, the accuracy of memory, and the risk of “technical storytelling”—where plausible-sounding components are stitched into a system that sounds buildable, even if no independent documentation exists. He acknowledges the uncertainty bluntly at times: the “ARV” label may not mean what the public assumes it means; the “Flux Liner” name may be a code-like hint rather than a literal description; and some of the most dramatic performance claims (mass reduction, spacetime effects) arrive attached to very specific voltage thresholds.

Still, what makes McCandlish’s material persist—especially for technically minded audiences—is its internal texture. He doesn’t just say “it flew.” He talks about capacitor banks arranged like an engine built into the hull, about a central column that behaves like a high-voltage switch, about spin-up coils and a homopolar generator that make a saucer shape functionally convenient, and about the human-factors reality of putting a crew inside what he repeatedly implies is a “hot” (high-field, high-voltage) vehicle.

The Plant 42 / Skunk Works Exhibit Story as the Origin Point

McCandlish frames the ARV’s starting point as an encounter story filtered through a friend he typically calls “Brad” (identified by some as Brad Sorenson). The timeline, as he recounts it, begins around a 1988 air show at Norton Air Force Base. McCandlish—an aviation illustrator—wanted the kind of reference photos that only open-house events provide. At the last moment, he says, he took a well-paid illustration job instead, and his friend went without him.

When they spoke afterward, McCandlish says “Brad” sounded unusually drained and reluctant to talk by phone. In a later in-person conversation, the friend described seeing multiple unusual craft—“three flying saucers”—in a hangar context connected to a higher-level group of visitors. The story evolves as McCandlish learns more: what initially sounded like “a hangar at Norton” becomes, in later retellings, a trip involving dignitaries who flew to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale—associated in his account with Lockheed and a Skunk Works hangar environment.

One of the more cinematic details becomes important for McCandlish’s later reverse-engineering: he describes “blinds” or tall visual barriers around individual exhibits—so visitors could be escorted from one craft to the next without seeing the whole floor at once. That matters because it implies compartmentalization and staged viewing—less “museum display,” more “controlled exposure,” the kind that suggests the craft are both real objects and sensitive program artifacts.

McCandlish also uses the exhibit narrative to establish a practical foundation for his drawings. He positions his diagrams as an attempt to preserve geometry and components as described—then refine them as additional claims and comparisons emerge. He repeatedly returns to the idea that whatever this was, it was being shown in a context that sounded like U.S. aerospace black-program culture rather than a purely “alien” narrative.

What “ARV” and “Flux Liner” Mean in McCandlish’s Telling

In the transcripts, McCandlish treats the term “Alien Reproduction Vehicle” with a kind of careful distance. He says that “ARV” was the phrase used within the group he associates with Skunk Works—but he also emphasizes that he never received a definitive answer about whether it literally meant “reproduced alien technology,” or whether it was a shorthand label that later took on a life of its own.

That distinction matters for how he wants the material read. For McCandlish, “ARV” is not proof of extraterrestrial origin; it’s a program label attached to an object he believes existed. He’s explicit that he can’t resolve Roswell linkage questions or any “this is the craft” claim—he doesn’t have the missing documentary bridge.

“Flux Liner,” by contrast, is where he becomes more interpretive. He calls it a roundabout way of describing a propulsion approach “reliant on high voltages.” The name, in his view, points not to a destination (alien) but to a method: electric fields, ionization, and high-voltage architecture as the underlying “engine.”

“They also call it the Flux Liner, which was kind of a roundabout way of expressing the fact that the propulsion system relied on high voltages.”
— Mark McCandlish: APEC 11/21, Part #2 (UFO & ARV Technology Q&A)

This is where McCandlish’s reverse-engineering temperament shows. A label is valuable only if it constrains the design space. “Flux Liner” pushes him toward capacitor arrays, switching, and distribution networks; “ARV” pushes him toward provenance questions he can’t settle. So he mostly builds his technical narrative around the former.

And he adds a further constraint: era. He repeatedly insists the architecture he’s describing is “1960s technology”—a “Model T” version of whatever later systems may have become. That framing lets him argue both directions: it keeps the design from requiring exotic modern materials, and it explains why the vehicle might look bulky, segmented, and overbuilt compared with what a “2020” version would look like.

The Capacitor Array as the “Hull Engine”

If McCandlish’s ARV has a signature feature, it’s the capacitor array embedded in the lower hull—the part of the machine he treats like an engine block. In his cutaway descriptions, the “skirt” is not cosmetic; it’s where the power sits and where the field effect is produced. He describes packs cast into a unified array, with plates arranged so that neighboring sections interleave plate positions and gaps—geometry that, in his telling, supports a controlled field distribution rather than a single monolithic charge.

He also describes the internal end of the capacitor packs as having alternating positive/negative plate arrangements tied into connectors that “plug into” the base of the central column. At the time of his earliest drawing (late 1980s), he says he didn’t understand the distribution network; later, he comes to believe each capacitor pack could be connected through a vertically oriented solenoid-like element, allowing selective energizing around the vehicle.

This becomes his steering model. McCandlish compares it to the swash-plate logic of a helicopter rotor: rather than changing blade pitch, the ARV would bias field strength around the circumference—more “thrust” on one side creates a tilt, and tilt produces a net acceleration vector. The metaphor is doing a lot of work: it’s how he makes a non-aerodynamic craft feel “flyable” in a pilot’s hands.

“The capacitors are charged up in excess of 1,250,000 volts, a tremendous amount of electrical potential…and this creates an effect which basically amounts to a reduction in mass.”
— Mark McCandlish: APEC 11/21, Part #1 (UFO Reverse-Engineering)

Finally, he anchors the entire effect to that dramatic threshold claim: that the packs were charged to about 1,250,000 volts before a mass-reduction effect became noticeable—reducing the mass of the vehicle and, in his phrasing, affecting a region beyond the hull. Whether this is read literally or as an attempt to rationalize reported performance, the voltage threshold functions as McCandlish’s key engineering “set point”—the number he keeps returning to when asked “how would it work?”

Materials, Dielectrics, and Why McCandlish Obsesses Over the Plates

Because he thinks like an illustrator, McCandlish tends to treat the ARV as a material puzzle: if the effect depends on fields, then plate composition, dielectric choice, and mechanical tolerances become the story. He references plate stacks and pack casting, and he repeatedly circles back to what might have been available in the 1960s—strong dielectrics, stable geometries, and high-voltage insulation methods that could survive repeated cycling.

In the transcripts, there’s a recurring sense that the plates were not simple “two sheets and an insulator,” but engineered laminations: multiple plates tied together in groups, connected via conductive bars, and arranged so adjacent segments create a patterned field geometry. This is consistent with how someone might design a segmented field generator rather than a single capacitor bank: controllable gradients matter more than raw stored energy.

He also treats the “outer panels” differently than the internal packs. In at least one exchange, he argues the outer skin panels were likely just composite panels assembled with fasteners—important structurally and for access, but not necessarily the active control surface. That’s a subtle but telling design choice: the “engine” is internal and segmented; the exterior is maintainable and modular.

The net effect is that McCandlish turns a sensational claim (“a flying saucer in a hangar”) into something that has the language of manufacturing: cast packs, connectors, plate alignment, service panels. It’s not proof of anything—but it’s the kind of detail that gives his narrative a persistent engineering texture, and that’s a big reason the story has remained sticky.

The Central Column as a High-Voltage Switch (Not Just a Mast)

If the capacitor array is the hull engine, McCandlish’s central column is the heart of the switching and distribution logic. He resists the idea that the column is merely a structural mast or antenna-like feature. Instead, he frames it as a high-voltage device that charges, gates, and distributes energy into the capacitor array—and possibly interacts with a rotating power system.

One clue is how he talks about the base of the column, where the capacitor connectors plug in. In his account, the column is not simply adjacent to the power system; it’s the interface. If the vehicle needs to energize different sections at different times, then a central distributor makes architectural sense—especially in a “1960s” design where centralized control and thick conductor runs might be preferred.

He further suggests the column involved a gas—specifically mercury vapor described as a “noble gas” in the witness account he relays. That claim leads him toward an interpretation of the column as a kind of high-voltage tube device: something thyrotron- or klystron-like in spirit, where gas ionization enables rapid switching and large pulse handling. In this model, the column becomes less like a mast and more like a pulsed-power component—capable of handling the kind of voltages he thinks the hull requires.

McCandlish doesn’t present this as settled. He describes it as an evolving inference: witness description, combined with the functional need for switching, combined with what the tech ecosystem of that era could plausibly support. It’s classic reverse-engineering logic: the exact component is uncertain, but the role in the system is constrained.

Mercury, “Ionic Smoke Rings,” and the Column as a Dynamic Device

McCandlish’s most vivid technical imagery shows up when he talks about the column’s internal behavior. In the abductee-comparison material, he describes a witness account involving mercury-like behavior and flow patterns that suggested counter-rotating elements—leading to speculation that the system might form dynamic “ionic smoke rings” that propagate through the column during discharge events.

Whether this is read as literal physics or metaphor, it functions as a mechanism hypothesis: organized ion structures, pulsed discharge, and the possibility that the column is not simply carrying current but shaping ionization dynamics. It’s an attempt to explain why a central column would exist at all—why a saucer doesn’t just have a battery and a motor.

He also treats mercury as potentially dual-purpose: part switch, part power conditioning, part unusual electrical behavior that becomes useful at high fields. McCandlish’s posture here is collaborative rather than doctrinal: he accepts that mercury vapor might be “critical,” but he doesn’t claim a full, closed-form theory.

Importantly, he repeatedly flags the hazard implication: high ionization, irregular charge distribution, arcing events, pilot lethality. He recounts an anecdote about a vehicle exploding, possibly from a runaway spin-up condition where an internal flywheel came apart and destroyed the craft. It’s one of the places where his story feels less like “magic tech” and more like real engineering: any machine that pushes energy density and rotational energy storage hard enough becomes a machine with catastrophic failure modes.

Spin, the Homopolar Generator, and Why a Saucer Shape Helps

A major theme of the later transcripts is that spin is not a gimmick—it’s part of the power architecture. McCandlish repeatedly references a homopolar generator-like system in the center of the craft: an internal rotating disc (or flywheel) interacting with magnetic fields to generate electrical output, invoked here as part of a larger high-voltage architecture.

He explains that he has built homopolar generators himself and describes their typical commercial role as high-amperage, low-voltage sources (often used as welders). He also mentions encountering claims that industrial homopolar designs can reach higher voltages—suggesting a path, at least conceptually, toward charging large capacitor banks.

“We believe that that internal rotating disk was actually being spun up for the purpose of functioning as a homopolar generator.”
— Mark McCandlish: APEC 11/21, Part #1 (UFO Reverse-Engineering)

The saucer shape becomes functionally attractive in this model because it naturally accommodates a large rotating disc in the center, with annular space around it for coils, capacitor packs, and a shielded crew compartment. A disc wants to spin; a saucer wants to be a disc. The geometry fits in a way that a cigar shape does not, unless the architecture is radically changed.

McCandlish also distinguishes between sets of cylinders: some vertical cylinders around the base of the column that he interprets as induction coils for spinning up the disc, and separate horizontal cylinders beneath the skirt that he identifies as oxygen tanks for the breathing/environmental system. That distinction matters because it keeps the design from collapsing into a single-purpose myth object; it makes it a vehicle with life support, power, and control subsystems competing for volume.

Field Control, Tilt-Steering, and the Problem of “Inertia Leakage”

McCandlish’s flight-control explanation is consistently distributed. He doesn’t describe a single thruster or nozzle; he describes field bias—energize the hull engine asymmetrically, tilt the craft, and let the net force vector carry it. That’s why he likes the helicopter swash-plate analogy: it’s a control system familiar to pilots, mapped onto an unfamiliar force mechanism.

He also entertains the idea that irregular charge distribution could cause violent failure modes. When asked about “inertia leakage,” he interprets it as field integrity loss: an uneven ionization field, an arc-over event, a high-voltage discharge that could kill pilots. In other words, the same field that lifts the craft is also a threat to the crew if it becomes unstable.

That tension—field strength versus field containment—also connects to his comments about outer panels. If those panels are “just composite” held with fasteners, they may not be the active control surface; but they still have to survive being near the field, near discharge, near corona. Maintenance-friendly modularity collides with high-voltage reality.

And then there’s the hard question: where does the energy come from? McCandlish’s system implies enormous stored energy in capacitors at megavolt scale. He tends to treat the rotating generator and the switching column as a way to build those voltages and distribute them, but he doesn’t present a fully specified prime mover (fuel, reactor, external supply). The story’s strength is architecture; its weakness is the energy-source foundation.

Crew Compartment, Egress, and the Human Factors of a “Hot” Vehicle

McCandlish’s ARV is not an empty shell; it’s a crewed craft with a physical interior that must be survivable. He explicitly calls attention to the hazards of high ionization and high-voltage proximity. In his view, a pilot sitting inside a megavolt-class field machine faces risks that look more like pulsed-power lab hazards than conventional aerospace hazards.

He also talks about practical interior subsystems. The oxygen tanks beneath the skirt become part of his environmental-control picture. He distinguishes these from the vertical induction coils, keeping life support and power separated. That kind of separation is what makes his diagrams feel like vehicle diagrams rather than speculative art.

Egress is where his human-factors emphasis sharpens. He mentions removable access panels and fasteners, reinforcing the idea of serviceability. But he also alludes to situations where an arc-over or runaway spin-up could be fatal, which implies emergency escape is not theoretical. A “hot vehicle” demands robust procedures—yet field containment and structural integrity push in the opposite direction.

The result is a design contradiction he never fully resolves, but does acknowledge: if the ARV is real as described, it’s a machine that could plausibly injure or kill its operators through the same physical mechanisms that make it “work.” That’s not a Hollywood detail; it’s a sobering engineering detail, and it’s one reason his material stays compelling for technical audiences.

Cross-Checks: Abductee Witnesses, Modern Sightings, and a Cautious Method

McCandlish’s abductee-witness comparison material is his attempt to triangulate. He says that when he first heard the ARV story (late 1980s), he looked for cross-pollination evidence—anything outside the original witness chain that contained similar component descriptions. That search led him into abductee claims, which he acknowledges many listeners will dismiss—but he emphasizes a methodological point: he sought accounts where a witness described components before McCandlish had publicly described his ARV model, reducing the risk of contamination.

In that context, he describes a witness who reported seeing a central column associated with a mercury-like substance and coil structures embedded in a clear glass-like material around a pit area—details he felt matched the shape of what he had been told about the ARV’s column. He treats this not as confirmation, but as a data point: an independent narrative that, if true, contains congruent subassemblies.

He also makes a striking claim in the “Why Do UFOs Glow?” discussion: he says he witnessed a disc-like object in 2012 with hexagonal plates in a recessed underside that changed color and then vanished suddenly as the panels went bright. He frames the color shifts as voltage-linked behavior—almost like a visible proxy for changing operational states.

Finally, he expresses strong opinions about other UAP categories. In one segment, he says he believes “Tic Tac” objects are man-made, citing a secondhand close-observation story involving cockpit-like details near a military air base. Whether that claim holds up is separate; what matters here is the consistency of his posture: he is willing to place some UAP into “ours” rather than “theirs,” and he wants engineering observables—cockpits, displays, component layouts—as decisive.

Reverse-Engineering the Flux Liner: What McCandlish Leaves Open (On Purpose)

A useful way to read McCandlish is to treat him less as a “whistleblower” and more as a systems storyteller who thinks in diagrams. The core of his ARV/Flux Liner model is a set of roles: a hull engine (capacitor array), a distributor/switch (central column with vapor), a power subsystem (spinning homopolar generator and induction coils), and a control scheme (field bias/tilt). Those roles cohere—even if the provenance is unverified.

But he leaves major things unresolved. The energy source remains vague. The exact physics of “mass reduction” is asserted via a voltage threshold rather than derived from a formal model. The purpose of the craft—testbed, demonstrator, operational vehicle—remains inferred rather than documented. Even the word “reproduction” in ARV remains ambiguous in his own telling.

He also acknowledges a more human, practical constraint: naming sources had consequences, and the consequences shaped how openly the story could be told. That tension sits beneath the technical language—an awareness that the narrative is both an attempt to preserve a model and an attempt to avoid escalating harm.

If the story has lasting value beyond the claims, it may be this: McCandlish offers a way to talk about alleged reverse-engineered craft that doesn’t immediately collapse into either credulity (“it’s alien, therefore magic”) or dismissal (“it’s nonsense, therefore nothing to learn”). He insists on architecture, on constraints, on failure modes, and on what could be tested—even when the origin story remains contested.

Conclusion: The ARV as a Machine, a Memory, and a Method

Mark McCandlish’s “Flux Liner” ARV account survives because it tries to be more than a rumor. It’s a machine story: one that places a capacitor array at the center of propulsion, treats a central column as a high-voltage switch, and argues that spin and saucer geometry are not aesthetic choices but architectural necessities. Even skeptical readers often find themselves drawn in—not because the provenance is proven, but because the design language feels internally consistent.

At the same time, the story is inseparable from its uncertainty. McCandlish admits he can’t prove what “ARV” truly meant, can’t confirm Roswell connections, and can only relay what he says witnesses told him. The boldest claim—megavolt charging leading to a mass/spacetime effect—functions as a narrative keystone, but it is also the least independently anchored. Reverse-engineering can narrow possibilities; it can’t conjure missing evidence.

If anything is “left out” of the ARV story as McCandlish tells it, it’s mostly what the story itself cannot supply: documentation, chain-of-custody clarity, and unambiguous technical validation. He provides subassemblies, plausible roles, and a control metaphor. He does not provide schematics that can be built, instrumented, and replicated to produce the claimed effect. That gap is not a minor omission—it’s the canyon between engineering narrative and engineering demonstration.

And yet—this is why McCandlish remains a recurring figure—he offered a method that technical audiences recognize: start with geometry and testimony, translate into system roles, look for cross-checks, admit unknowns, and keep the conversation anchored to observables (voltages, coils, spin, discharge, failure). Whatever one concludes about the ARV’s reality, this final detailed technical presentation stands as a concentrated attempt to make the “Flux Liner” legible as engineering rather than myth.

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Appendix: Key claims about the ARV

McCandlish’s key claims fall into two categories: (1) provenance and recollection (who saw what, where, and how the story reached him), and (2) technical architecture (how the “Flux Liner” ARV was allegedly built and how it allegedly functioned). The list below paraphrases the claims in a quotable, story-ready form.

A recurring theme is that McCandlish treats “ARV” as an internal label with ambiguous meaning, while “Flux Liner” is his cue that the propulsion approach centered on high voltage and field effects. He repeatedly frames the design as “1960s tech,” implying bulkier, more modular, more mechanically obvious choices than a modern equivalent.

Another consistent theme is distributed control: capacitor packs in the hull, selectively energized to bias lift/thrust around the circumference, steering by tilt. The central column appears as a switching/distribution device, and spin appears as a power-generation strategy compatible with a saucer geometry.

Finally, he emphasizes hazards and failure modes: irregular field integrity, discharge events that could kill pilots, and catastrophic failures if a central flywheel/homopolar element runs away or disintegrates. His ARV is not a “safe magic craft” in his telling; it’s a dangerous, high-energy machine.

Key claims list (paraphrased):

• The origin story began with a witness (“Brad,” identified by some as Brad Sorenson) describing a controlled exhibit of unusual craft connected to Plant 42 / Skunk Works context.

• Visual barriers (“blinds”) separated craft exhibits so visitors saw them one at a time under escort.

• “Alien Reproduction Vehicle (ARV)” was an internal phrase used by people associated with the craft; McCandlish did not get a definitive answer that it literally meant “reproduced alien technology.”

• “Flux Liner” was another label that, in McCandlish’s interpretation, pointed to propulsion reliant on high voltages.

• The ARV’s “engine” was a large capacitor array integrated into the hull/skirt—cast as a unified pack with segmented plate geometry.

• Capacitor pack plates alternated positive/negative arrangements and connected into the base of the central column via grouped connectors.

• Flight control worked by selectively energizing different capacitor segments around the circumference—more field strength on one side produces tilt and acceleration, analogous to a helicopter swash-plate.

• A mass-reduction/field effect reportedly became noticeable above a threshold around ~1,250,000 volts applied to the capacitor system.

• The central column was not merely structural; it functioned as a high-voltage switch/distributor feeding the capacitor array.

• The central column was described (in witness retellings) as involving mercury vapor, suggesting a tube-like pulsed-power switching role.

• Spin was integral: an internal rotating disk was treated as a homopolar generator/flywheel-like power element.

• Vertical cylinders around the base of the column were interpreted as induction coils for spinning up the internal disc; separate horizontal cylinders beneath the skirt were interpreted as oxygen tanks for life support.

• Field integrity problems (irregular charge distribution, arc-over events) could be lethal to pilots; McCandlish also relayed an anecdote of catastrophic failure potentially tied to runaway spin-up and flywheel disintegration.

• McCandlish sought cross-checks by comparing ARV component descriptions with abductee-witness accounts, emphasizing cases he believed predated his own public descriptions.

• He claimed a personal 2012 sighting of a disc-like craft with hexagonal underside panels that changed color as if voltage-linked, then vanished abruptly.

• He expressed the opinion that “Tic Tac” objects are man-made, citing a secondhand close-observation story involving cockpit-like details.

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References

Alt Propulsion Conference: APEC 11/21 — UFO Reverse-Engineering & Inertial Propulsion

Reverse-Engineering the “Flux Liner” ARV | Mark McCandlish – (YouTube)

Mark McCandlish obituary (Legacy.com)

Mark McCandlish (1953–2021) – Find a Grave memorial

Zero Point: The Story of Mark McCandlish and the Flux Liner (IMDb)

Zero Point: The Story of Mark McCandlish and the Fluxliner (YouTube)