Photo: VCG

A Beijing-based fellowship "studying" the theory of relativity, composed of dozens of international members, has been banned by authorities. The fellowship became known to the public after two of its members published an article claiming that "boiled chicken eggs can be turned into raw eggs and hatch into chickens" through "mind power and energy."

The group, Beijing Relativity Research Fellowship, has carried out activities as a social organization with its own constitution and personnel setup. It has 15 internal institutions as well as an academic committee, review committee and liaison offices around the country, reported China Central Television (CCTV) on Saturday.

The number of its members reached up to over 1,000, of whom at least 30 people are from the US, the UK, France, Russia, New Zealand, Canada, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said CCTV. 

The fellowship is reported to mainly focus on scientific research that goes against the theory of relativity and publishes papers that are not recognized by mainstream media on its own publication, and another one jointly issued with a US magazine. 

On April 19, 2020, it approved the manufacture of a perpetual motion machine, "cosmic flying saucer," "wormhole machine," "mind camera," "telepathic machine" and other devices. It has now been banned by the Beijing Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau.

The fellowship first gained public attention after two of its members released an article that claimed some students had successfully "turned more than 40 boiled chicken eggs into raw ones," and eventually hatched one of the eggs into "a healthy chicken" in September 2020, which caused huge controversy and was widely ridiculed on Chinese social media.

One of the authors, Guo Ping, was found to have served as the vice president of the fellowship. 

The president of the fellowship, Wu Shuiqing, was the former chief editor of Modern Physics, a journal published by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and established the fellowship in 2002, according to media reports.