Alfred Matthew Hubbard
Psychedelic drug researcher
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 U.S. patent 1,723,422 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". According to local historian Brad Holden, Hubbard was an early prototype for the "unconventional Seattle tech genius".
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).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Alfred Matthew Hubbard” as psychedelic drug researcher. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as psychedelic drug researcher. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4723138. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1982, 1920 and 1928.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Alfred Matthew Hubbard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.