Aurigema, Andrew

Introduction

Andrew Aurigema is an American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur best known in alternative propulsion circles as a co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies and as a prominent on-camera demonstrator of the company’s “Exodus Effect” propellantless propulsion claim. Aurigema’s public-facing role centers on explaining the company’s experimental approach, showcasing engineering tests (including vacuum-chamber demonstrations), and engaging the replication community through accessible build guidance. While Exodus Propulsion is not a ufology organization, its claims are deeply “ufology-adjacent” because Biefeld–Brown and electrogravitics narratives have long been invoked as possible mechanisms for unconventional craft performance.

Background

Aurigema is commonly described as a Space Coast–based engineer with professional experience in the U.S. space industry and practical familiarity with test hardware, instrumentation, and vacuum infrastructure. His public profile emphasizes hands-on engineering: fixtures, enclosures, high-voltage safety practices, and iterative test articles. In addition to propulsion-adjacent work, he has been associated with technology development and manufacturing-oriented roles, reflecting a career that blends applied engineering with entrepreneurial productization.

Ufology Career

Aurigema’s relevance to ufology is indirect and primarily technological. Within UFO lore, “electrogravitics” and asymmetric capacitor thrust claims are frequently presented as candidate explanations for silent lift, abrupt acceleration, and extreme maneuverability. Aurigema enters this discourse through Exodus Propulsion: a startup whose claims are often interpreted by enthusiasts as evidence of a “new force,” and by critics as a renewed chapter in a long history of high-voltage thrust artifacts. As a result, Aurigema appears in ufology-adjacent encyclopedias as an experimenter/advocate in the electrostatic propulsion space rather than as an investigator of sightings or experiencer narratives.

Early Work (2010–2019)

Prior to broad public attention on Exodus, Aurigema’s early career is characterized by conventional engineering work and by involvement in applied technology environments. The broader context of the time included a resurgence of interest in “lifters” and Biefeld–Brown demonstrations, with communities increasingly demanding better instrumentation and vacuum testing to separate ion-wind behavior from more exotic interpretations.

This period set the stage for later public disputes over standards of evidence: a propellantless claim must address common confounds—electrostatic attraction to nearby conductors, ground-return forces, cable stiffness, discharge-driven air motion, and test stand coupling—before any “new physics” interpretation can be considered.

Prominence (2020–2024)

Aurigema’s prominence rose alongside Exodus Propulsion’s patent-driven publicity and the spread of online video demonstrations. During this period he became one of the most visible “explainers” of the Exodus narrative, describing thrust as arising from engineered field asymmetries and emphasizing hardware techniques intended to reduce conventional explanations. His appearances often focused on test protocol details—fixtures, shielding strategies, grounding practices, and vacuum pump-down routines—presented as steps to rule out ion wind and plasma effects.

A major component of his visibility came from engaging replication culture. Aurigema provided a widely circulated DIY-style build walkthrough that allowed hobbyists to construct a simplified device and observe thrust behavior. To supporters, this served as an on-ramp to understanding the broader claim. To critics, it reinforced the view that much of the visible thrust in accessible builds is explainable by conventional electrohydrodynamics and electrostatics, and that simplified builds cannot validate extraordinary “reactionless” conclusions.

Later Work (2025–Present)

In later public discussions, Aurigema’s role has continued to emphasize validation narratives: improvements in enclosure design, refinement of electrode/dielectric assemblies, and discussions of longer pump-down times and higher vacuum quality to suppress residual discharge-driven momentum exchange. He has been presented as an operational counterpart to Exodus’s scientific leadership, focusing on manufacturability, fixtures, repeatability, and test pragmatics.

As debate has continued, his public stance has generally stressed that: (1) the observed thrust is measurable, (2) improved experimental controls increasingly constrain conventional explanations, and (3) further demonstrations and independent tests are the appropriate pathway to resolution. Meanwhile, the absence of broadly available raw datasets and fully independent replications remains a central point of contention among critics.

Major Contributions

• Replication outreach: Brought “build-and-test” accessibility to a controversial electrostatic propulsion claim by releasing DIY replication guidance and walkthrough content.
• Test hardware advocacy: Helped popularize a shop-floor, instrumentation-minded narrative emphasizing fixtures, shielding, grounding, and vacuum practice as decisive factors.
• Public technical spokesperson role: Became one of the most recognizable faces explaining the Exodus claim across interviews, community channels, and video demonstrations.

Notable Cases

Aurigema is most closely associated with (1) the DIY replication walkthrough intended to demonstrate a measurable force consistent with an Exodus-style electrostatic thrust narrative, and (2) vacuum-chamber demonstration content presented as evidence that the effect persists when atmospheric ion wind is suppressed. These cases are frequently replayed in online debates about whether the observed forces reflect genuine propellantless thrust or are artifacts of electrostatic coupling, residual gas discharge, wiring forces, or unaccounted momentum exchange with the environment.

Views and Hypotheses

Aurigema’s public-facing framing aligns with Exodus Propulsion’s central hypothesis: carefully engineered electric-field stress distributions can produce a net force vector in a device architecture that does not rely on conventional propellant mass flow. He emphasizes practical implementation details—geometry, dielectric selection, grounded enclosures, and vacuum practices—as reasons the effect can be made repeatable and scalable. In broader discussion, some supporters interpret this as momentum exchange with fields or the vacuum; critics counter that conservation-law accounting demands a fully specified momentum pathway and that high-voltage systems are unusually prone to measurement artifacts.

Criticism and Controversies

Controversy surrounding Aurigema’s demonstrations largely mirrors controversy surrounding Exodus itself. Critics argue that electrostatic attraction to nearby grounded structures can dominate small-force measurements, and that wiring geometry, ground return paths, and test-stand compliance can create apparent thrust vectors. They emphasize that decisive validation requires: hard vacuum, strict isolation from external conductors, carefully symmetric current return paths, null tests via inversion and geometric symmetry, calibrated thrust stands, and transparent methods and raw data for forensic review.

Supporters respond that improved enclosures, long pump-downs, and refined fixtures increasingly suppress ion wind and plasma artifacts, and that the observed thrust behavior and scaling trends justify continued testing and eventual independent verification.

Media and Influence

Aurigema’s influence is amplified by his “builder” orientation and his willingness to speak directly to replication-minded audiences. His demonstrations circulate widely through alternative propulsion networks and social media, where they function as both promotional material for Exodus and as a focal point for technical critique. This dynamic has made him a recurring reference in the modern revival of electrostatic “propellantless” propulsion debates.

Legacy

Aurigema’s legacy remains contingent on independent verification outcomes. If Exodus-style thrust is validated under rigorous conditions, he will likely be remembered as a key early experimenter who translated a controversial concept into replicable hardware culture and helped force a new generation of high-voltage thrust measurement standards. If not validated, his work will likely be cited as a high-profile example of how difficult it is to disentangle genuine net forces from artifacts in high-voltage systems—and how replication can reproduce conventional effects without confirming extraordinary interpretations.