Ron Evans

Dr. Ronald Evans is a mathematician who joined British Aerospace, or BAe, in 1978 as an expert in fluid mechanics. Evans built his early career inside BAe’s military aircraft business, where he was valued as a versatile, mathematically minded problem-solver. He is best known as the former head of BAe’s secretive “Project Greenglow”, an investigation of gravity control as a possible disruptive technology.

The Spark of an Idea: Gravity as a Disruptive Technology

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Evans began quietly exploring whether gravity—normally the domain of pure theory—might yield practical engineering leverage if approached with fresh experiments and open-ended “what-if” assessments. That curiosity catalyzed an internal study that, by the late 1990s, evolved into a formal corporate R&D effort with a code name: Project Greenglow. According to the project’s official site, Greenglow was funded by BAE Systems from 1997 to 2004 and was headed by Dr. Ronald A. Evans.

Project Greenglow: A Bold Corporate Experiment

Project Greenglow, under the leadership of Dr. Evans, is generally recognized as the most rigorous pursuit of gravity modification and advanced propulsion research performed in the United Kingdom. Evans assembled a group of BAE engineers to test unconventional physics claims with rigorous engineering methods.

A NASA technical review from the same era notes that under Evans, Greenglow supported work that assessed Evgeny Podkletnov’s “gravity shield” claims (with null findings), examined microwave thrusters, and explored ideas spanning gravitation, vacuum forces, and feasibility “what-ifs.”

Public Revelation and Media Attention

The project’s existence became public in 2000, when The Guardian reported that British Aerospace (soon after, BAE Systems) had confirmed a hush-hush gravity effort led by mathematician Ron Evans at the company’s Warton site, with university collaborations in the UK. The article captured both the ambition and the cultural headwinds: serious engineers probing a taboo topic in the long shadow of earlier “fringe” claims.

Greenglow wrapped up in the mid-2000s as Evans retired from BAE Systems. By then, it had not produced a practical gravity-control device—nor did it expect to on a short timeline. But its legacy was real: a disciplined attempt by a major aerospace firm to interrogate bold physics with careful engineering, leaving behind a clearer map of dead-ends, promising questions, and experimental hygiene for whoever would pick up the thread next. A BBC Horizon documentary later summarized it plainly: when Evans retired, BAE Systems closed the project.

Writing and Legacy

In 2015 Evans published Greenglow & the Search for Gravity Control, a book that traces the historical quest to master long-range forces and lays out Greenglow’s aims, methods, and lessons learned. It reads less like a victory lap and more like a field notebook—honest about setbacks, rigorous about evidence, and convinced that curiosity-driven engineering still matters.

Public interest surged again in 2016 when the BBC’s Horizon: Project Greenglow – The Quest for Gravity Control brought Evans and his colleagues’ story to a mainstream audience. The program paired Greenglow with NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project to explore why seasoned engineers sometimes probe past conventional guardrails—and what good can come from doing so, even when hypotheses don’t pan out.

Continuing Influence

In recent years Evans has continued to engage with the scientific community, discussing Greenglow’s origins, the reasoning behind its bets, and where he thinks careful experiment might still reveal surprises. In talks and interviews he has emphasized method over myth, encouraging researchers to chase anomalies with better instruments and tighter protocols rather than grand claims.

Why Ron Evans Matters

Evans stands out not for overturning physics, but for how he explored the possibility. He built a culture where experienced engineers could test audacious ideas without abandoning rigor, then shared results candidly—positive, negative, or null. That approach helped reset the conversation in the UK from “is antigravity real?” to “what can we learn by checking carefully?”—a subtle shift with lasting value for advanced propulsion research.