Thunderbolts Forum v3.0

About 10 years ago the Natural Philosophy Alliance was a very active alternative science database. It had annual conferences, proceedings and publications of papers, a large membership, over 1000 scientists, both PhDs and researchers who were critics of Einstein, and Saturday morning presentations with fairly good attendance online.

All of this was quickly taken over and subsequently shut down after "Barry" Springer joined the NPA board.

I have notes, emails, and documentation which I would like to share.

In January of 2013 I attended a Natural Philosophy Alliance meeting, which mainly discussed the history of the organization, its goals, and some future plans.  

The NPA was founded in 1993 by John Chappell, and was intended to be a place for the "criticism of mainstream science, especially Special Relativity and the Big Bang."

In 2007-2008 the World NPA registered online, and it grew to include pages for, and memberships of, over 2500 scientists. This was a huge database, and building this website was largely accomplished through volunteer work done by Dave DeHilster. Worldsci.org was also offering Saturday meetings, conferences, and NPA proceedings for scientists to present their work. Greg Volk offered considerable skills and labor in keeping these publications on weekly, monthly and yearly schedules.

At the time of this meeting in January of 2013, the NPA had 576 paying members. It was around $50 per year and allowed for various ways of publishing and presenting. The need was growing for more reporters and conference bloggers.

The World Science NPA set out to catalogue alternative theories in science in an extensive database. The main shared interest for all of these scientists was the need "to start over from 1900s science with an emphasis on experiments."

The NPA sought also to "make clear that multiple theories for one phenomena is acceptable and advantageous."

It was also at this meeting that Greg Volk announced that "Barry" Springer would be joining the board.

For 20 years Dave DeHilster volunteered and built the website for the Natural Philosophy Alliance and worldsci.org, with Greg Volk organizing Saturday morning meetings, yearly conferences, and the publication of yearly NPA proceedings.

Greg Volk brought Col. Springer onto the board in order to develop by-laws. Mr. Springer was not chosen by the board, or by the members.

Mr. Springer created by-laws to give himself the position of chairman of the board. Next, he began to impose academic requirements for various positions, and later denied the vote on this requirement.

As Chairman of the Board he next denied payment to Dave DeHilster of pre-approved work, and hired Sam Falaki to work on the website instead. Sam Falaki was elected to the board two weeks after becoming a member, and he replaced the worldsci.org with worldsci.net.

Meanwhile, Greg and Dave continued the Saturday morning meetings, and Greg Volk planned a joint conference with Tesla Tech for their annual meeting. Mr. Springer hired a lawyer to threaten legal action to stop the conference. He used members' dues for the legal fees.

As a result, an NPA conference was not held in 2014, for the first time since 1994.

Mr. Springer also proposed a charge for reading all dissident papers.

In response to all of these actions by the new Board, the membership started a petition. -/+ 90% of the paying members asked for Mr. Springer and Jim Newburn to resign. They refused to do so. Greg Volk and Dave DeHilster resigned in protest.

That is how Mr. Springer dismantled and disbanded the NPA, and commandeered the $15,000 in the account.

My own involvement was as a paying member, and I attended often on Saturdays. I also published one paper. I was a member in good standing.

In my view, it all began with a simple desire to add by-laws in order to pay the volunteers for work done. He presented himself as capable of advancing and incorporating by-laws for simple economic solutions.