Melvin Miles

Melvin H. Miles (Mel) was born on January 18, 1937, to Maurice Jarvis and Mary Lyon Miles after an unusually cold winter morning in St. George, Utah that made it difficult to get to the hospital. He was the fourth of eleven children in this large family.

He attended Dixie High School (class of 1955) where he was the center on the basketball team and the pitcher on the baseball team and recorded a no-hit pitched game against Enterprise in 1955. He was also the top scorer for the Southern Utah Region for the undefeated (10-0) Dixie High basketball team in 1954-1955.

Mel then attended Dixie College where he also played basketball and baseball. He graduated from Dixie College in 1957 as the Class Valedictorian. This was followed by a church mission in West Germany where he became fluent in the German language and even attended some German university classes on the side. He also played basketball one year with a missionary team where they became the undefeated champion team in Hamburg (1960) with Mel as the top scorer.

Mel then attended two years at BYU (1960-62) and attained a B.A. degree in chemistry with a math minor along with German language studies.

The next career move led to a Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry in 1965 at the University of Utah. He did research with both Henry Eyring and his son Edward (Ted) M. Eyring. The Eyring's taught him a great love for research that he retained throughout his life. Mel was always appreciative of the research start given to him by the Eyring's.

The next change was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Technical University of Munich (1965-1966) where he started research in electrochemistry with Professor Heinz Gerischer, a renowned electrochemist. This was then followed by several years of research with a battery group at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory Corona (NOLC) in California (1967-1969).

Because this Navy Laboratory was closing and because of his desire to teach, Mel accepted a teaching position at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in 1969. W hile at MTSU (1969-1978), Mel usually had summer research positions at the Naval Weapons Center (NWC) in China Lake, California or at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island in New York). Mel eventually accepted a research position at NWC and remained there for most of his career (I 978-2002). His research at NWC involved mainly Batteries and Cold Fusion. During his years at NWC, Mel often led the Research Division for scientific publications, and he received several top awards.

Mel's electrochemical group at NWC was the first to report the correlation for Excess Heat and Helium-4 production in Cold Fusion experiments (1991). This should have been proof that the cold fusion discovery of cold fusion reported in 1989 by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons was correct. However, this important discovery remained embedded in a great scientific controversy despite offering a possible new energy source for mankind. Many cold fusion effects have been reported experimentally, but others claim that this is not possible based on theory. Mel had over 300 research publications, and more than 100 were about his cold fusion research.

After a divorce in 1995, Mel met Linda S. Smith and they were married on April 19, 1997. They moved together to various visiting teaching or research positions. These included the New Hydrogen Energy laboratory in Sapporo, Japan (1997-1998), Middle Tennessee State University (2000-2001), Bates College in Maine (2001-2002), and the University of La Verne, California (2003-2006). They then moved back to their home in Ridgecrest, California where Mel was employed at China Lake as a Contractor for several years (2006 -2012). During this period, they also purchased a second home in Bakersfield, California. They moved to St. George, Utah in November 2017.

During these years, Linda prepared all Mel's scientific publications and presentations regarding cold fusion. Mel's presentations on cold fusion took him to various countries including Italy, Japan, China, India, Canada, Russia as well as various meeting in the U.S. It remains a scientific tragedy that this important cold fusion discovery has been viciously rejected by many major scientific institutions.

Mel is survived by four children: David Lyon Miles, Jolene Carol Stanley, Melinda Marie Quan, and Samual Jarvis Miles. He is also survived by eight grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

A visitation will be held on Friday, October 31, 2025 from 10:00 - 10:45 a.m., followed by a funeral service at 11:00 a.m. at the Spilsbury Mortuary Chapel. 110 South Bluff Street, St. George, Utah.

Arrangements were made under the direction of Spilsbury Mortuary. 435-673-2454. Family and friends are invited to share memories on Mel's digital memorial page at www.SpilsburyMortuary.com