Alfred Matthew Hubbard (July 24, 1901 – August 31, 1982), was an early proponent for the drug LSD during the 1950s. He is reputed to have been the "Johnny Appleseed of LSD" and the first person to emphasize LSD's potential as a visionary or transcendental drug. Career In 1920, Hubbard was publicized in West Coast newspapers as having developed a free energy motor, though a Popular Science article published in 1928 referred to it as a hoax. In 1929, he received for a radioactive "Internal Combustion Engine Spark Plug" device, which was manufactured sparingly by at least one U.S. company. It used an electrode doped with polonium 210, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 138 days. The supposed "ionizing effect" of polonium 210 upon the combustion gases in the spark gap was purported to "improve engine efficiency". Motion was said to be among Hubbard's passions. His identity as "Captain" came from his Master of Sea Vessels certification and a stint in the US Merchant Marine. According to some accounts, Hubbard worked at various times for the Canadian Special Services, the United States Justice Department, the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS (predecessor of the US Central Intelligence Agency). As Hubbard told the story to Willis Harman (and Harman told it to Todd Brendan Fahey, a reporter for High Times), he was hiking in Washington State when an angel appeared to him in a clearing. "She told Al that something tremendously important to the future of mankind would be coming soon, and he could play a role in it if he wanted to. But he hasn't the faintest clue what he was supposed to be looking for." Having read in a scientific journal about the then-obscure drug LSD-25, Hubbard felt this was something that he was destined to learn more about and to be involved with. Hubbard found a researcher who was conducting reported experiments on LSD with rats. He was able to obtain some LSD for himself. He believed in its utility for opening the human mind to deeper, broader vistas. The confident and connected Al Hubbard invited Dr. Humphry Osmond to join him for lunch at the Vancouver Yacht Club. Osmond and his colleagues were using the drug, as well as the similar substance, mescaline, in psychiatric research and treatment at Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Osmond later recalled that