Inventor Paul Pantone hoped to save the world. Now, will the world save him?
by Stephen Dark/Salt Lake City Weekly
Led by a bailiff into Judge Royal Hansen’s 3rd District Court in
West Jordan on June 7, Paul Pantone’s shuffling gait might have been
caused by a broken big toe—gone untreated for more than year and a
half—rather than by his wrist and ankle manacles.
The 56-year-old’s tall frame was stooped, his face, gray and long.
He sat down between his two lawyers and looked up almost in
bewilderment as Hansen called the hearing to order, the outcome of
which Pantone has been awaiting for the 16 months of his incarceration
in the state mental hospital.
...
This institutionally imposed silence must be frustrating to a man
who, for decades, hawked inventions to a highly skeptical world.
Extraordinary Technology magazine publisher Steve Elswick says
Pantone’s a very accomplished inventor. He’s also, Elswick says,
outspoken and egotistical. “You’ve got to be somewhat egotistical to
believe you can do something everyone else says is impossible.”
Not everyone. Alternative-energy obsessives scattered across the
United States have long followed Pantone’s litigious battles with
ex-partners and his largely undocumented claims for his 20-year-old
invention, Global Environmental Energy Technology (GEET), with
fascination. And then there are those seeking to get rich quick by
investing in a device that Pantone claims offers, when attached to an
automobile engine, not only clean exhaust, but also double or even
triple the gas mileage.
...
More: http://www.slweekly.com/editorial/2007/feat_2007-07-26.cfm
