This is Bruce DePalma's spinning ball experiment -- a person with some training in aerodynamics (unlike, say, Richard Hoagland) would call this a nice example of the Magnus Effect.unmistakably, the steel ball that was rotating (at ~27,000 rpm) flew higher ... and fell faster ... than the companion ball that was not rotating!
(Exclamation marks his!)
Easily refuted... try his experiment for yourself.
Not so easily refuted, I suspect. The true test would be to repeat the experiment in a vacuum chamber.
By the way, somebody suggested exactly that in an Amazon reader's review of Mike Bara's book The Choice. Bara commented "That's plain dumb" but he didn't say why he thought it was "dumb" to eliminate an obvious possible explanation for the phenom.
