[1] On September 1, 1996, Matthews's story broke, leading with the startling statement: "Scientists in Finland are about to reveal details of the world's first anti-gravity device.
[4][5] The resulting uproar over the alleged claims in the withdrawn paper is reported to be the primary reason for his expulsion from his lab and the termination of his employment at the university.
[1][2] In a 1997 telephone interview with Charles Platt, Podkletnov insisted that his gravity-shielding work was reproduced by researchers at universities in Toronto and Sheffield, but none have come forward to acknowledge this.
[7] In a BBC news item, it was alleged that researchers at Boeing were funding a project called GRASP (Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion) which would attempt to construct a gravity shielding device based on rotating superconductors,[8] but a subsequent Popular Mechanics news item stated that Boeing had denied funding GRASP with company money, although Boeing acknowledged that it could not comment on "black projects".
[10] In July 2002, an article by Nick Cook in Jane's Defence Weekly reported about Boeing's internal project GRASP — Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion to evaluate the validity of Podkletnov's claims.