Person
Norman R. Bergrun
Norman Bergrun was a senior aerospace engineer. He was a research scientist at NACA Ames from 1944 to 1956, then at Lockheed Missiles & Space from 1956 to 1969, where he managed re-entry test operations in the Polaris and Agena era. In 1986 he published Ringmakers of Saturn. In it he argued that enlargements of public Voyager negatives show huge cylindrical vehicles laying down and maintaining Saturn's rings. "This is not a theory when there's data," he said in a TV interview.
On the record
- B.S.M.E., Cornell University, 1943; thermodynamicist at Douglas Aircraft, El Segundo, 1943-44; US Navy 1944-46, reaching Chief Specialist.
- Aero Research Scientist, NACA Ames Laboratory, 1944-56 (ice-prevention design method, roll-stability laws, per the Smithsonian).
- Lockheed: Manager, Re-Entry Test Operations, 1963-67; Navy Department "Appreciation for Contributions to First Polaris Launching", 1960.
- AIAA San Francisco Section chair 1962, Regional Director 1963, Associate Fellow; NSPE National Director 1975-76; California Space and Defense Council and a Presidential Task Force, 1982.
- Born 4 August 1921. Also wrote Tomorrow's Technology Today (Academy Press, 1972).
- Six NACA reports at Ames, 1947-57, on airfoil icing, thermal ice prevention and roll stability (NASA Technical Reports Server).
- Founded Bergrun Engineering and Research (1971) and Bergrun Research (1999); website ringmakersofsaturn.com, now offline.
Open questions
- The video says he "built Cassini"; he left Lockheed in 1969 and his plates are Voyager (1980-81) images, so he had no hand in the probes that took them.
- The video's "helped form Ames at its conception" and "set up the first aeronautics industry in America" aren't in his record (Ames was founded in 1939; he joined in 1944).
Claims (2)
'Alien spacecraft are proliferating in our solar system and around these ringed planets.'firsthandLeadNorman Bergrun (undated interview in a SecureTeam 10 video, quoted by Fox News, 17 Jul 2017)
When John Lear asked to post 'the real picture of one of the ships', he replied 'Permission was denied' and referred readers to ringmakersofsaturn.com.secondhandSourced, unconfirmedJohn Lear (AboveTopSecret, Sept 2007)
Cases (2)
- 1980Bergrun's ring vehicles in the Voyager plates
- 1981The ring discontinuity band and its five lights
Connected
Sources
- Ringmakers of Saturn (1986), author biography pp. vii-viii (archive.org scan)
- Smithsonian Air and Space Wall of Honor: Dr. Norman Bergrun
- NTRS: water impingement on an airfoil leading edge (NACA, 1947)
- NTRS: heat for wing thermal ice prevention (NACA, 1947)
- NTRS: water-drop impingement on airfoils (NACA, 1952)
- NTRS: meteorological factors in aircraft icing (NACA, 1952)
- NTRS: steady rolling and natural frequencies of a body-tail combination (NACA, 1953)
- NTRS: steady rolling, angle of attack and sideslip (NACA, 1957)