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25. Rossi and Focardi LENR Device: The Melich and Macy Reports
(This article was originally published on the New Energy Times blog on Jan. 19)
By Steven B. Krivit In the past two days, Jed Rothwell, librarian for the LENR-CANR Web site, has published two reports on the Rossi-Focardi device and demonstration.
The Melich Report
On the morning of Jan. 17, Rothwell announced that he would soon be uploading a report, written by Michael Melich, on the Rossi-Focardi demonstration.
Melich, affiliated with the Naval Postgraduate School and with the Naval Research Laboratory, is also on the board of advisers of Andrea Rossi’s deceptive Journal of Nuclear Physics.
Hours later, Rothwell uploaded the report, which listed Rothwell as the editor, with no mention of Melich. The Melich-Rothwell report promotes the “Andrea Rossi Ecat (Energy Catalyzer) Boiler” as property of Leonardo Corp. and Rossi as president of the corporation. This information has not appeared in news reports or accounts of this event.
Melich circulated a copy of his report before sending it to Rothwell, and I obtained a copy from physical chemist Melvin Miles. The Melich version is nearly identical; Rothwell added three photos to his version.
Because Melich is on Rossi’s board of advisers and he seems to be promoting this company behind the scenes, I asked Rossi whether Melich is involved with Leonardo Corp.
“Michael Melich is absolutely not involved with Leonardo Corporation,” Rossi said.
Rossi incorporated Leonardo Corporation on April 22, 1997, as the sole incorporator, in New Hampshire. Corporate documents show that Rossi is the sole officer and director.
For reasons not clear to me, Melich redacted the identities of the two “prominent physical chemists” who provided calculations.
Miles told me that he was the contributor of the calculations in section two of the report, but he perceived that the person who asked him to perform the calculations wanted him to keep it secret.
“I don’t know if this should be kept confidential. Hence, I don’t want to give out names,” Miles wrote. “However, the same person that asked me to do the calculation on Sunday also sent me the report on Monday.”
Macy Report
Melich’s wife, Marianne Macy, a writer for Infinite Energy magazine, published what appears to be a news report on the Rossi device on the LENR-CANR Web site on January 14, 2011.
One curious thing is that LENR-CANR is a library of scientific papers, not a news Web site.
At a glance, the document appears to be a technical report on the device. But Paragraph 3 is loaded with extravagant claims from an unidentified representative of an investment group that has an unidentified relationship with Rossi. Like the Melich report, this paragraph implies that Macy’s agenda includes commercial promotion.
Background
Some background on Macy may be helpful. Besides writing for Infinite Energy magazine, she is also working on its Cold Fusion Oral History project, to be housed at the University of Utah. Macy is well-liked by researchers in the field, and they have been open with her. Before her work in “cold fusion,” she pretended to be an escort while she reported undercover on the New York City sex scene. She wrote up her odyssey in the book Working Sex.
Some background on Melich may be helpful. Melich is not a researcher, and his fundamental relationship with the LENR field is unclear.
For many years, Melich has gone out of his way to give people in the LENR field, including me, the impression that he is a covert intelligence agent, specifically tasked by the U.S. government to promote and keep an eye on “cold fusion.” Many people in the field have believed this and consequently have responded to him deferentially and with unusual openness. One problem with his methods is that true covert operators never try to give people the impression that they are covert operators. |
Marianne Macy and Michael Melich.
Photo courtesy David Nagel. |
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