In a viral video shared by UBC Uganda on Twitter, American film star Terrence Howard was seen addressing the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and some officials of the Ugandan government. He claimed to have invented a new cutting edge technology that he hoped to gift to the country.
Terrence Dashon Howard – perhaps most popularly known for his role as Lucious Lyon in the drama series “Empire” – was invited to speak by Ugandan Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries Frank Tumwebaze to “explore Uganda’s uniqueness and spread the word”
Instead, his address to them was rather unexpected. Howard claimed he had invented a new form of flight which he hoped to bring to Uganda to replace the drones, helicopters and planes.
Appealing to the Ugandan government, he said: “We have all the funding necessary. What we need is just a fertile ground to build this… We can now sell and take centre stage with technology, but the main purpose is to defend the sovereignty of a peaceful place and a peaceful people without having to have our young men lose their lives.”
Howard spoke a bit about how the technology worked – albeit vaguely. He claimed to have defined a new the universe worked via geometric manipulations after leaving his chemical engineering program at Pratt Institute as he realised “there was an inconsistency with the math there”.
About the Lynchpin technology, he said:
“This is the geometry of hydrogen. This is the proton itself, so any bond that hydrogen can make, our Lynchpins are able to make. So we’re talking about unlimited bonding, unlimited predictable structures, super symmetry, and the Lynchpins are now able to behave as a swarm, as a colony that can defend the nation, that can harvest food, can remove plastics from the ocean, that can give the children of Uganda and the people of Uganda an opportunity to spread this and to sell these products throughout the world, so we’re no longer selling just agricultural products.”
Is There Any Legitimacy to Howard’s Novel Technology?
The video received a lot of backlash from Americans and Ugandans alike, as Howard has a history of making tall claims of scientific innovations. In 2017, he made a tweet – which was subject to heavy ridicule – to prove his claim that “1x1= 2”. This was after a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone where he claimed he had created his own language of logic called “Terryology”.
In a 2013 interview with GQ Magazine, Howard said he hoped to finish his chemical engineering degree of which he was only “three credits” short. However, in the UBC video, he said he only completed 2 (out of 4) years of his degree.
Pratt Institute closed its engineering school in 1993 and there has since been no confirmation of Howard’s attendance.
In the past, Howard has also claimed that he earned a PhD degree in chemical engineering from South Carolina State University. However, Howard’s only affiliation with the university was an honorary ‘Doctor of Humane Letters’ degree he was conferred with in 2012.
In a 2021 press release, the properties of Howard’s novel drone technology, the Lynchpin, were explained in detail. The drone system flies in a horizontal planar fashion and possesses the ability to orbit around its centre of gravity during flight, granting it a superior manoeuvrability quality. The Lynchpin also possesses a unique geometric shape that enables it to have qualities like no other drone technology in the market. One of such is its ability to easily connect to other drones, forming a unique drone network that facilitates inter-communication.
In the press release, it was also said that the Lynchpin could dive into the water like a dolphin, perhaps pointing to Howard’s comment about the technology being able to pick plastics from the ocean. It was said to be protected by 86 patents.
Howard appointed Andrew Sobko, as Executive Consultant for the Lynchpin Project. Sobko, who is an well-respected entrepreneur with an extensive portfolio of enterprises and technology-based business ventures, perhaps lends more credibility to the project.