The Mysterious Demise Of Dr. Ning Li | Jim Landrith

Transcript

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Well, so Jim Landreth, so you've been doing some research. I mean, we're here at the SEU conference 2025. You've been doing research on Ning Lee, who was based in Huntsville, right? So, yeah, I'm definitely not an expert. Uh, I've done a shallow dive. I've seen a lot of the mythology online and I know a lot of people uh have certain narratives.

I think that the one of the the best pieces of journalism that was done was uh by a journalist right here in Huntsville, I believe, the local business journal. And forgive me, I I don't recall his name right now, but as I read that recently, and he sat down with the son, George. Yeah. Yeah. And and and and he he really ironed out most of the timeline and what actually happened to uh you know to George's mother and the father who was a witness to the accident.

Okay. So and and there seems to be a lot of disagreement about what actually happened. So if it's okay, let me run through there are bits and pieces of Well, yeah. Run run run run run run run through the myth and then I'll tell you what I found. Yeah.

Well, so Ningley I I I came into this I learned about her work in the '9s I think u right Eugene Pogllinoff made the superconductor claim and then she kind of appeared on the scene she ended up working with NASA later she was working with Douglas tour and another fellow and actually her former professor yeah and so I've actually talked to them and they kind of lost touch with her so yeah there was that and then um she als also talked to Paul Murad who was one of my former mentors and Paul had said that she got cancer and she kind of went quiet. Uh and then I just talked to Tony Glenn Tony Robertson from NASA and he had kind of worked alongside her cuz he was on the NASA team investigating those and he had talked about the cancer but he didn't mention any kind of an accident. So, so there there there's a lot there, but I I think the one of the the interesting parts was she did make claims she she was very quiet about her later work. She did make claims that she was getting what she called an AC gravity effect, right? That no one else company. Yeah.

No one else had had gotten those kind of results. Um she had apparently gone further than NASA had gone with her research. That's what she claimed. Yeah. Yeah.

and and so there was a lot there and one of the things that Tony had said was she did not share her work very well. So if she had discovered something it may have very well been kept quiet, right? So that that's there are a lot of interesting bits and pieces and then she went dark and again she was ill and then eventually she passed. So you you had said that there was a car accident in there as well, right? Yeah. And that's Yeah. So there's a wide conjecture on the internet that uh that she hadn't been seen.

She uh in in physics spaces, she hadn't published any papers. Uh AC Gravity was still a business, right? They were renewing the business license. Uh there was no more like money or paper trail from the Department of Defense other than their initial $448,000, you know, half million dollar investment in AC Gravity in the beginning. And that's kind of when she went dark and the company went dark and we don't really know what happened after that uh because they didn't publish anything. Yeah.

Uh but tour was still involved at that time and so was Small. Uh, and that's when they kind of went silent. And so that's where that myth came that she disappeared. Well, she never disappeared. She was always here.

And her son George confirms that like, yes, mom was still here. Mom was working in Huntsville that whole time. And AC Gravity was still doing work. We we don't know what. Uh, and I think we can just fill that in with whatever mythology or, you know, that that that people want to map onto that.

So, we don't know that that that can't be confirmed. We don't know. Uh but what we do know is that in 2014 uh according even according to her son uh there was an accident. So she was at the University of Alabama Huntsville and uh he confirms her son confirms yes there was an accident. She was apparently in a crosswalk and she was with her husband, George's father, and they were uh walking across a road somewhere adjacent to campus and she was struck by a car.

Now, speed limits all around that are pretty much 25 mph. Uh but it's possible, you know, and through, you know, other information I'll reveal in a minute. Uh there there could be an explanation for that. But he confirms that uh first responders, she was hit by a car. She suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Okay. The father was there at the same time. He suffered a heart attack having witnessed this horrific scene. Uh and the you know the the son George has confirmed this and and this is all done by a local journalist here in Huntsville. So uh who sat down with the family to talk about this and iron this out and kind of try to eliminate some of the mythology.

So this has already confirmed stuff that I did not I did not that was not my footwork. That's good journalism by someone else. So she was struck by a car. She did suffer some sort of traumatic brain injury. She was she was hospitalized.

Uh the husband uh uh he suffered a major heart attack. Uh he too was hospitalized. I don't know the details of his state but he died a year later. So he died in 2015. She was alive.

She was hospitalized. Eventually, she went home. George took care of her, but she was she was essentially nonverbal after that. Okay. So, he he he was responsible for taking care of her in in every way, shape, and form.

So, uh and that and that's how her life played out for the next uh 7 years until she died. So, that would explain why she was so quiet. She was quite literally unable to communicate. Certainly after 2014 she was incapable of communicating. It does not explain why she was quiet during the time when she was still supposedly productive and AC gravity was still a going concern.

So that that that that part is still that part is still mysterious and interesting. Why was AC gravity silent and and why was she silent for such a long period of time? Well, so did George uh did he mention anything about her work? Did he suggest that she may have had any kind of breakthrough or anything along those lines? Uh he actually does in this article and again this is not my work. This is part of this article uh from uh from the uh I believe it's the Huntsville Business Journal done by this you know amazing journalist that I I cannot recall his name right now. in that he uh George recounts that he asks his mother, "Is there anything to the work that you did?" This is pre204. What what kind of work are you doing? Or you know you know you you know you're working in anti-gravity.

What is that? And she made some very cryptic things and I won't try to paraphrase a paraphrase but she said whatever you think you know you don't know. You don't want to know. Something along those lines. So she went back to China if I understand correctly for cancer treatment at one point as well. According to the son that's that's not the case.

Her mother she was a Chinese national her mother died uh and and uh uh rewind a little bit uh uh that the Chinese approached her to come home and come to work for them and she said no. And that didn't go over too well. Uh, fast forward a few years later, her mother dies in China and she attempts to travel to go to her mother's funeral and they refuse her entry. So, she did not go to China for for treatment, at least not according to the the son. Uh, according to the son, she she was refused entry and that was extremely upsetting to her.

Interesting. Interesting. So, another piece of this that that I'm aware of comes from Paul Miad. And so, he was talking to her and keeping track of her. And one of the things that he had said was she was not incredibly communicative.

And he felt like maybe she had some information or something, but um it was it was being kept quiet. And so he had speculated that um if she had discovered something maybe she was going for a patent or some kind of intellectual property rights, you know. So well I I think I think all of this comports with the general idea that that the the DoD captures technology that it likes. Yeah. And and makes sure that it doesn't it doesn't escape into the wild.

And I think so so maybe part of widely understood. So even even if you don't quell it, you make sure that it stays in house. Yeah. So I I think I think that's a it's a likely narrative there. There's no evidence of that because there's no money trail.

Uh but that's certainly plausible and possible and comports with everything that we know about about about secret defense. So it it the the impression that I kind of get was if there was a breakthrough, she was playing that close to close to her vest. so to speak, right? And and perhaps was compelled to Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Interesting. Because again, folks that I've met um she just kind of became very quiet and if she's making cryptic remarks, then it sounds like maybe there was something there. She had made several public statements about um you know, results that early on early on and no one had been able to confirm those, I guess. So yeah, because her research be went went dark. It went dark.

went went dark. Yeah. So, so now let's fast forward to 2014. So, I became interested in the story and I've spoken to, you know, several other people that are active in the community and because it's become a mythology. And so, as a journalist, I I was very interested in trying to get to the bottom of it like are people asking the right questions? Yeah.

Right. And so, so that's what I did is I said I'm going to be in Huntsville. And so I will, you know, being a journalist, I know if someone was hit by a car, there's an accident report. Let's just follow follow the paper trail. So I just I I just decided, well, why don't I call the campus police? If it happened on campus as was reported, uh, then they'll have a an accident report.

So that's what I did. So today I I called them. I got through to their records keeper and uh he said no there is no record of it. Uh there and that it was not responded to by them or their departments. Uh which is kind of surprising because if there's you know a major accident then you know it should have been part of the recordeping.

Furthermore what this individual told me was that he was working in 2014. So he worked in that office. He was a dispatcher. Now he did not work on the day shift. He worked on the night shift.

But he did confirm that yes, he was working and that certainly a traumatic accident, a pedestrian accident where someone suffered major injury and and and someone else suffered a heart attack you and you know obviously there's you know agencies responding. there would be a record of that and there is there is no record of that from uh the uh University of Alabama Huntsville uh police department. Interesting. And and uh but he also offered the idea that if someone called 911 and it was at the edges of the campus, which comports better if there was a major accident, she was hit by a car and suffered a major injury. Uh the campus is all 25 mph.

So a major injury doesn't really comport with somebody just walking around the campus casually. Uh so it may have been on one of the thorough affairs going into or out of the campus. And he and he noted that this gentleman I spoke to said if it was out there someone called 911, they would have gotten they would have gotten city PD and they would have gotten city first responders, city EM and that this report would reside with them and that the responsor would reside with them and that would explain why they don't have that record. I have not yet uh gone to uh the police department, you know, for for Huntsville. So, I I've not followed that lead yet, but uh but part of that story, part of that mythology about her being hit on the campus and that there a student having been responsible, which is kind of the narrative, uh none of that can be can be confirmed yet, and it certainly can't be confirmed by by the police here.

Now, he did say it's conceivable that someone could have pulled up a record, but he says it's almost impossible that it wouldn't have been the talk of the office since he worked in the office at that time. And it's just practically impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so it the entire thing is intriguing.

It sounds like there are a lot more suspicious pieces than than you would expect. And in my experience, a lot of time when you dig into mythology like this, you find a lot of prosaic explanations. In this case, it seems like it gets a little bit more mysterious instead of less. In some ways, there there are still mysteries. There are still questions, uh, you know, who responded, why does the campus not know about it? If if you just accept that that that that's the truth and that somebody didn't pull a report and that there there is no, you know, there is no conspiracy there, well then who did respond and who was who was the student that that hit her supposedly? And and what was the actual location of the accident? Was it really on campus or was it what at one of the science cameras? Well, and then if we're being really conspiratorial, right, which is where the internet likes to take these things, if it was some attempt to quell her research, would that have been through our side, which which at least believed that they were funding her, or would that have been through some foreign national organization that didn't want the US to gain an advantage in that area, you know? Yeah, that's and that's and that's that's why it's so intriguing for so many people because it by by having unanswered questions, that's how conspiracies arise.

Yeah. Right. When when when we have questions we can't answer, we fill it in with our own imagined narrative. And uh and one of those narratives is that is that, you know, perhaps we, you know, perhaps our own industrial complex decided to do away with her for some nefarious reason. uh you know, maybe maybe she was losing faith.

Maybe maybe she was, you know, going to go, you know, off book or something. That's conceivable, but there's zero evidence of that. And certainly, her son says she was super dedicated to her to her job and and was dedicated to working for, you know, the government um in in whatever capacity that might have been. So, she seemed to be extremely loyal. And as far as as far as the the the Chinese, whatever slight that she gave them by saying, "I don't want to come work for you." It just seems very odd that they would come back so many years later to exact revenge upon her after she's already done another decade's worth of work.

It is interesting. It doesn't it doesn't quite doesn't quite comport. So, it it to me it doesn't hold a lot of weight, but until we have more answers about where the accident happened and who was responsible and who responded, until we have those answers, then it's going to remain a conspiracy. Well, Jim, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Yeah, I'm glad I could just add something to