[1][2] In September 1981, Santilli established a one-man organization,[3] the Institute for Basic Research in Boston;[2] he told a reporter from St. Petersburg Times in 2007 that he left Harvard because scientists there viewed his work as "heresy".

[1] In 1982 Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper wrote that Santilli's calls for tests on the validity of quantum mechanics within nuclear and hadronic structures, represented a return to scientific sanity.

Santilli claimed that a number of scientists, including Nobel Laureates Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg, conspired to stop him from conducting research which might have led to the inapplicability of part of Einstein's theory of relativity while he was at Harvard.

[5][6] He has complained that papers he has submitted to peer-reviewed American Physical Society journals were rejected because they were controlled by a group of Jewish physicists led by Weinberg.

Ruggero had no executive or director role, but the licenses with Hyfuels remain in place and he "personally contributed a small refinery" for the company's use.

[16][17] As of 2018 two people had been killed and one person injured by MagneGas canisters; as of July 2018 the company was under investigation by OSHA as well as the US gas transport regulator.

[20] Santilli claimed he was able to use the telescope—a standard, commercial telescope re-fitted with concave lenses, to view antimatter galaxies and images that he interpreted as invisible beings.

[24][25] In 2017 an article in Perspectives on Science described Santilli's Institute for Basic Research as follows: "The substance of the IBR's program is more directed at a Kuhnian rather than an institutional revolution but the readiness with which its supporters endorse the idea of a Jewish conspiracy could class it as having revolutionary intent and being norm violating.