by Will Nell
Tesla was correct in his assessment of the flaws he detected in the version of the technology being developed for the Philadelphia Experiment by the Princeton Academics. However, he probably didn’t realize that even long after his death, the giant shadow of Thomas Edison was still exerting pressure on Nicola’s work. Some of those that worked for Edison on early experiments with radar were now involved in a separate attempt to develop what was hoped to be a powerful new radar system for U.S. Ships. That system required huge amounts of power. Like Edison, his protégés had no faith in Tesla. They doubted his ability to create a workable system to transmit the amount of wireless power needed to run their radar and still power the stealth and optical invisibility devices.
The Princeton Academics tried to keep Tesla in the dark as much as possible, but he was far more intelligent than they were and saw through what were trying to do. When he allegedly got wind of the involvement of some of the old Edison Company researchers, he realized what was happening and quit the project in 1942. His departure spelled doom for the Philadelphia Experiment. The first experiment in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard brought mixed results. The ship involved became radar and optically invisible shocking Navy and other Military Officers viewing the test. Although the ship was safely degaussed without harming any of the electronic equipment on board, the same could not be said of most of the test animals involved. Animals were brought on board to test the results of the technology on living things. Many were badly burned or seemed to partially melt into the wooden deck and metal of the ship.
After making some adjustments and still ignoring Tesla’s recommendations, another test was ordered. This was a sea trial with a crew on board. During this phase of the experiment, the ship again became degaussed, radar and optically invisible. However, technicians lost their ability to control the on board generators causing effects similar to those experienced by the animals during the first experiment and worse. Crew members were burned and some faded into the deck and superstructure of the ship. Others became invisible, transparent and a few just floated away.
Without Tesla’s knowledge and ability to control such new and powerful technologies, the experiment never safely achieved the desired results. Instead, it went awry during later attempts causing a number of even more bizarre and unexpected results than the first shipyard or subsequent sea trial attempts. These included contact with Aliens, the opening of space/time portals and resultant time travel experiences. None of these new discoveries could be taken advantage of or developed in time to help with the war effort, but they were hardly something that the military would ignore for long. After the war, the military took another look at the original experiment and formed a committee of officers from the Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force to study what happened and develop a new program that would become the basis for future experiments involving space/time portals, time travel, mind control, teleportation and the manipulation of psychic powers. Tesla may have been an important part of their plans.
Shortly after his death in January of 1943, the FBI raided Tesla’s hotel room and offices. They removed a number of items including the entire contents of his safe. Most of Tesla’s papers were declared Top Secret. In an strange and still unexplained move, many of Tesla’s personal items and papers that were not considered a threat to national security were almost immediately sent back to his homeland (still occupied by Nazi forces at the time) by the U.S. Government. They used a special diplomatic Courier who flew into enemy territory and landed in an American military transport aircraft with Tesla‘s personal possessions on board. Many of these items are on display in the Nicola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and most of the personal papers are now apart of the Museum’s archive. His ashes are also kept inside a golden sphere at the Belgrade Museum.
Despite the fact that the U.S. Government claims that Tesla never actually worked for them, the return of his personal items to the country of his birth by U.S. authorities during wartime and events at his funeral seem to suggest otherwise. His casket was covered with both an American and Yugoslavian Flag during the funeral. However, his casket was covered solely with an American Flag while being carried into and out of the Cathedral of St John The Divine by pallbearers which included several high-ranking members of the U.S. Military. The real question is whether or not Tesla actually died in 1943. Some witnesses claim to have seen Tesla working on later incarnations of the Philadelphia Experiment and other projects as late as the 1950s. Technically speaking, that would put him well into his 90’s during that time unless time travel was possible.
Tesla’s life is not an open book and probably never will be. Even now the U.S. Government recently felt it necessary to state almost seventy years after his death that the FBI is not now and never has been in possession of his death ray. That is a narrow statement that isn’t fooling anyone. The FBI searched his premises after Tesla’s death and seized what they considered to be of importance. That doesn’t mean they actually found a working death ray machine. It’s more likely that plans and notes about that and many other inventions he had yet to build were confiscated. If a death ray was later built, that task would not have been accomplished by the FBI.
Circumstantial evidence indicates that Tesla’s relationship with the U.S. Government was a tempestuous one at best and certainly allows for all kinds of guess work. For example, during the building of his Wardenclyffe facility on Long Island, a number of underground tunnels were constructed. These were to be used for various purposes involving his energy distribution system and are said to have extended for many miles in all directions. Though most are blocked off or cannot be easily accessed, many of these tunnels still exist and may have been used for experiments involving more updated versions of the Philadelphia Experiment in the area of and under the infamous Montauk Base. Witnesses have claimed for years that the old radar and military facility known as Camp Hero has been used for government projects involving time travel, invisibility, mind control and psychic powers.
It’s important to understand that Tesla probably thought of and envisioned technologies that he knew most people in his day would not be able to comprehend or accept. His projects were almost always multi-faceted and it’s almost impossible to guess what he might have really been up to during various projects. I believe that he did achieve time travel and that the U.S. Government may have used his own inventions and work against him. It’s possible that the activation of the Wardenclyffe facility could have caused some sort of catastrophe or might have hindered future government experiments involving their projects at Montauk. If so, they could have sent someone back in time to stir up enough doubt about Tesla to cause the authorities responsible for national security in those days to close down and destroy Wardenclyffe.
While all this may sound like wild speculation, when it comes to Tesla, no speculation is wild enough. Anyone that takes the time to study this genius, his theories and inventions will soon discover that he led no ordinary life and caused changes in our world that have yet to be fully seen or appreciated. Just the fact that most grade school students learn all about Thomas Edison, but may never even hear the name of Nicola Tesla during their courses of study, speaks volumes. And it’s not just all about secrecy. Nicola Tesla is not a subject for the lazy learner. He is a phenomenon and force of nature and it could easily take a lifetime to understand even a small portion of what he was trying to accomplish.
EXPERIMENTS
WITH
ALTERNATE CURRENTS
OF
HIGH POTENTIAL AND HIGH FREQUENCY.
BY
NIKOLA TESLA.
A LECTURE
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
INSTITUTION OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, LONDON.
With a Portrait and Biographical Sketch
of the Author.
NEW YORK:
1892
Biographical Sketch of Nikola Tesla.
While a large portion of the European family has been surging westward during the last three or four hundr
ed years, settling the vast continents of America, another, but smaller, portion has been doing frontier work in the Old World, protecting the rear by beating back the "unspeakable Turk" and reclaiming gradually the fair lands that endure the curse of Mohammedan rule. For a long time the Slav people—who, after the battle of Kosovopjolje, in which the Turks defeated the Servians, retired to the confines of the present Montenegro, Dalmatia, Herzegovina and Bosnia, and "Borderland" of Austria—knew what it was to deal, as our Western pioneers did, with foes ceaselessly fretting against their frontier; and the races of these countries, through their strenuous struggle against the armies of the Crescent, have developed notable qualities of bravery and sagacity, while maintaining a patriotism and independence unsurpassed in any other nation.
It was in this interesting border region, and from among these valiant Eastern folk, that Nikola Tesla was born in the year 1857, and the fact that he, to-day, finds himself in America and one of our foremost electricians, is striking evidence of the extraordinary attractiveness alike of electrical pursuits and of the country where electricity enjoys its widest application. Mr. Tesla's native place was Smiljan, Lika, where his father was an eloquent clergyman of the Greek Church, in which, by the way, his family is still prominently represented. His mother enjoyed great fame throughout the countryside for her skill and originality in needlework, and doubtless transmitted her ingenuity to Nikola; though it naturally took another and more masculine direction.
The boy was early put to his books, and upon his father's removal to Gospic he spent four years in the public school, and later, three years in the Real School, as it is called. His escapades were such as most quick witted boys go through, although he varied the programme on one occasion by getting imprisoned in a remote mountain chapel rarely visited for service; and on another occasion by falling headlong into a huge kettle of boiling milk, just drawn from the paternal herds. A third curious episode was that connected with his efforts to fly when, attempting to navigate the air with the aid of an old umbrella, he had, as might be expected, a very bad fall, and was laid up for six weeks.
About this period he began to take delight in arithmetic and physics. One queer notion he had was to work out everything by three or the power of three. He was now sent to an aunt at Cartstatt, Croatia, to finish his studies in what is known as the Higher Real School. It was there that, coming from the rural fastnesses, he saw a steam engine for the first time with a pleasure that he remembers to this day. At Cartstatt he was so diligent as to compress the four years' course into three, and graduated in 1873. Returning home during an epidemic of cholera, he was stricken down by the disease and suffered so seriously from the consequences that his studies were interrupted for fully two years. But the time was not wasted, for he had become passionately fond of experimenting, and as much as his means and leisure permitted devoted his energies to electrical study and investigation. Up to this period it had been his father's intention to make a priest of him, and the idea hung over the young physicist like a very sword of Damocles. Finally he prevailed upon his worthy but reluctant sire to send him to Gratz in Austria to finish his studies at the Polytechnic School, and to prepare for work as professor of mathematics and physics. At Gratz he saw and operated a Gramme machine for the first time, and was so struck with the objections to the use of commutators and brushes that he made up his mind there and then to remedy that defect in dynamo-electric machines. In the second year of his course he abandoned the intention of becoming a teacher and took up the engineering curriculum. After three years of absence he returned home, sadly, to see his father die; but, having resolved to settle down in Austria, and recognizing the value of linguistic acquirements, he went to Prague and then to Buda-Pesth with the view of mastering the languages he deemed necessary. Up to this time he had never realized the enormous sacrifices that his parents had made in promoting his education, but he now began to feel the pinch and to grow unfamiliar with the image of Francis Joseph I. There was considerable lag between his dispatches and the corresponding remittance from home; and when the mathematical expression for the value of the lag assumed the shape of an eight laid flat on its back, Mr. Tesla became a very fair example of high thinking and plain living, but he made up his mind to the struggle and determined to go through depending solely on his own resources. Not desiring the fame of a faster, he cast about for a livelihood, and through the help of friends he secured a berth as assistant in the engineering department of the government telegraphs. The salary was five dollars a week. This brought him into direct contact with practical electrical work and ideas, but it is needless to say that his means did not admit of much experimenting. By the time he had extracted several hundred thousand square and cube roots for the public benefit, the limitations, financial and otherwise, of the position had become painfully apparent, and he concluded that the best thing to do was to make a valuable invention. He proceeded at once to make inventions, but their value was visible only to the eye of faith, and they brought no grist to the mill. Just at this time the telephone made its appearance in Hungary, and the success of that great invention determined his career, hopeless as the profession had thus far seemed to him. He associated himself at once with telephonic work, and made various telephonic inventions, including an operative repeater; but it did not take him long to discover that, being so remote from the scenes of electrical activity, he was apt to spend time on aims and results already reached by others, and to lose touch. Longing for new opportunities and anxious for the development of which he felt himself possible, if once he could place himself within the genial and direct influences of the gulf streams of electrical thought, he broke away from the ties and traditions of the past, and in 1881 made his way to Paris. Arriving in that city, the ardent young Likan obtained employment as an electrical engineer with one of the largest electric lighting companies. The next year he went to Strasburg to install a plant, and on returning to Paris sought to carry out a number of ideas that had now ripened into inventions. About this time, however, the remarkable progress of America in electrical industry attracted his attention, and once again staking everything on a single throw, he crossed the Atlantic.
Mr. Tesla buckled down to work as soon as he landed on these shores, put his best thought and skill into it, and soon saw openings for his talent. In a short while a proposition was made to him to start his own company, and, accepting the terms, he at once worked up a practical system of arc lighting, as well as a potential method of dynamo regulation, which in one form is now known as the "third brush regulation." He also devised a thermo-magnetic motor and other kindred devices, about which little was published, owing to legal complications. Early in 1887 the Tesla Electric Company of New York was formed, and not long after that Mr. Tesla produced his admirable and epoch-marking motors for multiphase alternating currents, in which, going back to his ideas of long ago, he evolved machines having neither commutator nor brushes. It will be remembered that about the time that Mr. Tesla brought out his motors, and read his thoughtful paper before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Professor Ferraris, in Europe, published his discovery of principles analogous to those enunciated by Mr. Tesla. There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Tesla was an independent inventor of this rotary field motor, for although anticipated in dates by Ferraris, he could not have known about Ferraris' work as it had not been published. Professor Ferraris stated himself, with becoming modesty, that he did not think Tesla could have known of his (Ferraris') experiments at that time, and adds that he thinks Tesla was an independent and original inventor of this principle. With such an acknowledgment from Ferraris there can be little doubt about Tesla's originality in this matter.
Mr. Tesla's work in this field was wonderfully timely, and its worth was promptly appreciated in various quarters. The Tesla patents were acquired by the Westinghouse Electric Company, who undertook to develop his motor and to apply it to work of different kinds. Its use in mining, and its employment in printing, ventilation, etc., was descri
bed and illustrated in The Electrical World some years ago. The immense stimulus that the announcement of Mr. Tesla's work gave to the study of alternating current motors would, in itself, be enough to stamp him as a leader.
Mr. Tesla is only 35 years of age. He is tall and spare with a clean-cut, thin, refined face, and eyes that recall all the stories one has read of keenness of vision and phenomenal ability to see through things. He is an omnivorous reader, who never forgets; and he possesses the peculiar facility in languages that enables the least educated native of eastern Europe to talk and write in at least half a dozen tongues. A more congenial companion cannot be desired for the hours when one "pours out heart affluence in discursive talk," and when the conversation, dealing at first with things near at hand and next to us, reaches out and rises to the greater questions of life, duty and destiny.
In the year 1890 he severed his connection with the Westinghouse Company, since which time he has devoted himself entirely to the study of alternating currents of high frequencies and very high potentials, with which study he is at present engaged. No comment is necessary on his interesting achievements in this field; the famous London lecture published in this volume is a proof in itself. His first lecture on his researches in this new branch of electricity, which he may be said to have created, was delivered before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers on May 20, 1891, and remains one of the most interesting papers read before that society. It will be found reprinted in full in The Electrical World, July 11, 1891. Its publication excited such interest abroad that he received numerous requests from English and French electrical engineers and scientists to repeat it in those countries, the result of which has been the interesting lecture published in this volume.
