As the climate changes and humans drain the planet of finite resources, renewable energies like wind and solar power have become a growing necessity.
But what if there were another, perhaps-infinite source of energy? It may sound like science fiction but such is the promise of ISA Industries, a Phoenix-based startup that claims it has created technology that produces vast amounts of previously untapped, carbon-free energy.
The company claims that it has technology that can harness “underlying background energy that exists in space throughout our entire universe.” Specifically by extracting something called zero-point energy.
The science behind zero-point energy is a work in progress, according to experts. Last year physicist Ethan Seigel described this mysterious energy in a Forbes blog post: “It appears to be a form of energy inherent to space itself, it appears not to change with time, it appears to be of a constant density everywhere and always, and we don't know what's causing it,” Seigel wrote.
Zero-point energy technology has been fodder for science fiction and comic books, while researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and NASA have been experimenting around the edges of this idea for years.
Raised millions
The collective might of the world’s professional scientists may not understand zero-point energy yet, but ISA has raised more than $10 million from investors, according to a February filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. ISA CEO Hunter Bjork told the Business Journal that the funding came from a confidential group of California investors.
The company intends to use the money to make acquisitions, including the purchase of a factory in Anaheim, California later this year, he said. Bjork said that ISA technology will be added onto the existing power supply units being produced at the Anaheim facility.
ISA's technology, according to its website, is designed to "universally integrate with existing infrastructure" so the company says it is pursuing licensing agreements and acquisitions of other companies in the energy sector.
The ISA website acknowledges the company has created “a system that at first glance defies the laws of physics,” and for one academic physicist, "defies" is the operative word.
Timothy Andersen, a principal research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute, said that this type of energy production might be possible in the future, but scientists have not figured out how to make it happen yet.
He said recent experiments have shown that it’s possible to extract an extremely small amount of heat from the vacuum, but turning that heat into usable energy is a different question. These experiments happen at microscopic scales, so the heat generated is exceptionally little.
"Large-scale energy production from zero point is almost certainly relying on faulty arguments that fail to take thermodynamics into account," Andersen said in an email. "To even show you could do it in a lab setting might be a Nobel Prize level achievement."
The ISA C-suite has people with entrepreneurial experience, but no university-affiliated academic researchers. In fact, Bjork said that they have no PhDs on staff.
Two people that Bjork described as close to the company have faced legal issues related to allegations of market manipulation or securities fraud in the past.
The Wizard of AZ
Bjork, 25, is originally from Wisconsin. He told the Business Journal that he caught the entrepreneurial bug early and started doing e-commerce when he was still a teenager. He said that those early business ventures gave him experience, but it wasn't until he met his first mentor that he realized that business and personal fulfillment could go hand in hand.
"At the end of the day, for me, it's just you know, have a long lasting impact on humanity," Bjork said. "I'm very worried about where the future is headed in terms of society, and I'm trying to do the best that I can to have significant impacts so that the future is a good one."
Bjork said William Alek is the person behind ISA Industries' technology. The company’s website previously listed him as the chief engineering officer and described him as “a modern day Tesla,” referring to Nikola Tesla, the famed inventor who died in 1943.
Last September, the Arizona Corporation Commission ordered Alek, his company AuroraTek, Inc. and co-owner Aurora Ellegion to pay $742,420 in restitution and a $50,000 fine for committing securities fraud, according to an ACC announcement.
The ACC found that Alek and Ellegion misrepresented how funds would be used, telling investors that the money would go toward product development of anti-gravity technologies when in reality a significant amount of investor funds went toward their living expenses. The pair was also named in a cease and desist order from New Mexico's Regulation and Licensing Department for the sale of unregistered securities in 2019.
When asked why ISA investors should trust Alek with their money, Bjork said the answer was clear.
“Well, the answer is because he's a genius. And he really has what he says he has. So that's part of it. But it's really unfortunate. Like I said, you know, this area of science has been criticized for decades. You know, especially for William Alek, he is an incredibly smart individual, and is one of the most experienced people in this segment of science and physics. And, you know, he's dedicated 25 years of his life to working on this technology.”
Alek could not be reached for an interview despite multiple attempts to get in touch with him. His name was removed from the ‘About’ page of the company’s website after the Business Journal's first interview with CEO Bjork.
In 2015, TechCrunch published an article and video of Alek calling his products the "technological equivalent of snake oil" after encountering him and AuroraTek at the Consumer Electronics Show.
In 2017, Alek obtained a U.S. patent for his "split-flux transformer" device, a component of his energy-creating system.
Aurora Ellegion, Alek’s business partner who also goes by Aurora Light, co-authored a book in 2009 called "Prepare for the Landings!: Are YOU Ready?," about the pending arrival of extraterrestrial life on Earth. The book has an average rating of 4.5 stars on Amazon.
Aurora Ellegion and Alek are also listed on a website called Vortex Network News, which mentions government cover-ups and UFOs & ET contact on its homepage. On the Health Galleria section of the website, various health remedies are available for purchase including a pendant that has supposedly been charged off another crystal found in an underwater pyramid off the coast of the Bahamas — at a cost of $2,690.
The Vortex Network News website lists Alek, the engineering guru behind the technology at ISA Industries, as someone also known as Doctor Whodini and the Wizard of AZ. The page also described AuroraTek as a cutting-edge technology company bringing exotic and free energy to the world. It is unclear if AuroraTek or Vortex Network News are still operational.
'I don't care for PhDs at all'
Absent from such a scientifically-intense enterprise as ISA is anyone with a background in university-affiliated academic research. This type of physical experimentation typically requires complex and sensitive instruments only found at universities or state-funded labs, but Bjork said they’ve been pursuing “home development” of their tech because of Covid-19.
Bjork said they have no need for conventional thinking at ISA.
“I don't care for PhDs at all, mostly because people that are conventionally trained are very close-minded. You know, the people that we work with are unconventional, they want to push the envelope,” he said. “It'll be really exciting to watch PhDs maybe sit there, scratch their head, and then work to really finalize the understandings in the modern science world in an acceptable way.”
Despite that antipathy toward academic credentials, Bjork said they were looking to start a partnership with Arizona State University to bring legitimacy to their endeavor.
“We've decided that we needed someone else to be the proponent of actually studying what we've built as a technology, really putting their PhDs on it, looking at it, doing stress tests, etc. to really test its limitations. And show not only from the modern science standpoint, that it does, indeed work, and how it works, and give a better explanation to publications that ASU puts out of the technology and that it is here to stay."
A representative from ASU’s Business Development office did acknowledge that they had spoken with ISA, but said the office could not go into specifics about their discussions.
The company’s website has a page called ISA Academy to “open source our research archive to you through this secure academic portal.” The portal is simply a webpage with just more than 40 links to open or download PDFs. About a quarter of the items on this page come from academic experts, but the majority are authored by William Alek.
Other team members
Jeremy Wilson is listed as the chief technology officer on the ISA Industries website. Wilson was previously the director of software for WebPT, one of the Valley’s sterling examples of startup success. He left WebPT in 2016, according to his LinkedIn page.
The Business Journal reached out to Wilson through his website, but never heard back from him directly. Bjork said that Wilson forwarded the interview request to him, but that Wilson could only speak to the Business Journal if both parties signed a non-disclosure agreement.
The ISA website previously listed Ed Lonergan as a director of offerings and governance. In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Lonergan and his Scottsdale-based company Green Planet Group for market manipulation.
The case closed with final judgment against Green Planet Group, which was ordered to pay $50,000, in 2016. The judge also ordered that Lonergan pay a civil penalty of $25,000 and he was prohibited from acting as an officer or director of any securities issuer for three years. Lonergan was also ordered to pay fines and restitution by the ACC in 2004 after selling unregistered securities.
Bjork, the CEO, said Lonergan has helped him understand what not to do.
“I've known Ed for a long time, he's been an adviser of ours,” Bjork said. “I think that a lot of the value that it has provided to us is what not to do, in terms of his experience, because those situations that happen in his past have really forced him to be very analytical and very ‘dot your I's cross your T's’ kind of fashion, which has allowed us to really understand the complexities around securities, and in listings and mergers, acquisitions and things of that nature. I found a lot of value in working with him because of his experience, both with positive and negative things.”
Lonergan’s name was previously listed on the company’s website but was also removed after the initial March 1 interview with the Business Journal.
When asked why Alek and Lonergan’s names had been removed, Bjork said that the company has changed its policies regarding people with a history such as theirs. Both men have previously agreed to pay restitution in agreements with the ACC, and Lonergan was ordered to pay a civil penalty in his SEC case.
“They are people that are close to us, but they're not employees of the company,” Bjork said.
When asked if Alek was still actively working with the company, Bjork said he could not comment.
“I can't comment on William Alek's working relationship with us,” he said. “He is the original inventor, and we were lucky enough to obtain that technology, and we're taking it to the next level as a company.”
