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Tesla_s Death is Extremely Suspicious _ True Crime Central · History Dark

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Nikola Tesla is one of the greatest scientific minds of
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: all time.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Even more than the 20th century, he's responsible for the
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: 21st century.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Pioneer of alternating current, remote control, and wireless power.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: He wanted to distribute electrical power to all parts of
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: the Earth.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: But the circumstances of his death are highly suspicious.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: Tesla might have been killed over his invention of the
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: particle weapon.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Was Nikola Tesla murdered in a conspiracy to steal his
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: death ray plans?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: They picked the lock, opened the safe.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Or could he have been assassinated to stop enemy powers
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: obtaining his devastating weapon?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Kill people, bring down machinery, bring down airplanes.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: In the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler storms into power. His
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Nazi rhetoric appears certain to trigger a Second World War.
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: We had a rogue regime in Germany that was hell-bent
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: on taking over the world.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: It was pretty clear that war was on the horizon
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: and governments were interested in anything that could give them
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: an edge in that war.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: In New York City, one man thinks he has that edge.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: The key to the most devastating weapon ever devised. His name,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Nikola Tesla.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: He was a seer, a visionary, the inventor of remote control.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: The motors that we use today.
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: The wireless transmission of radio signals. Electricity available 24-7 anywhere
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: you live.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: On the earth. Even more than the 20th century, he's
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: responsible for the 21st century.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: In 1934, after a lifetime of scientific discovery, Serbian-American Nikola
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Tesla announces his invention of a revolutionary particle beam weapon,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the death ray.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Tesla was making very substantial claims about so-called teleforce rays
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: that could bring down airplanes from thousands of miles away.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: So powerful is the death ray, it could create an
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: impenetrable shield around any nation possessing it. making war obsolete.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: His announcement raises headlines around the world, and in 1935,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the concept secures a ready buyer, not in his adopted home, America,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: but in its emerging rival, the Soviet Union.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: The Soviets gave him $ 25, 000 for some preliminary details regarding
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the particle beam weapon.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: The deal for the death ray concept is done in secret.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: But Tesla suspects he's being spied upon, and soon after,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: he's involved in a suspicious accident.
• 3:12
  Speaker 7: He was hit by a taxi, and was it coincidence
• 3:16
  Speaker 7: or not, It is possible that someone tried to assassinate him.
• 3:22
  Speaker 7: He was followed at that time by the FBI, and
• 3:25
  Speaker 7: he gave his project to the Soviet Union. So maybe
• 3:29
  Speaker 7: for some people it seems very dangerous what he was doing,
• 3:33
  Speaker 7: and maybe someone wanted to eliminate him. It's possible.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: But Nikola Tesla survives, and in 1939, predictions of another
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: war come true as Nazi Germany invades Poland. With World
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: War II raging in 1943, from his home in a
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: New York hotel, Tesla contacts a US military general to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: ask for a meeting. He wants to share the secret
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of his death ray to help end the war.
• 4:03
  Speaker 6: Tesla was trying to involve the United States government and
• 4:06
  Speaker 6: then any other government who would listen to him.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: But the inventor never makes it to that meeting. Within days,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: On January 8, 1943, Nikola Tesla is found dead in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: his Manhattan hotel room.
• 4:21
  Speaker 8: He was a.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Recluse living alone in two rooms of the Hotel New Yorker.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: The timing of his death is suspicious, and so is
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that his hotel safe is ransacked and personal
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: papers taken. Has iconic genius Nikola Tesla been killed to
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: gain access to the deadly secret of his death rate?
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: For decades, rumors and conspiracy theories swirl.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: There are some theories that suggest that Tesla might have
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: been killed over his invention of the particle weapon. And
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: certainly there are a lot of people who suggest that
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: Tesla's papers and notes for a particle beam weapon were
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: stolen so that nefarious governments could work on them.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Now, Recently released FBI files have revealed the identities of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the men who raided the safe in the hours after
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Tesla's death. The mysterious group was led by Tesla's own nephew,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Sava Kasanovich, who was a Yugoslav diplomat and not well
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: liked by his uncle.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Kasanovich brings a group of people with him, as well
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: as a locksmith. They pick the lock, open the safe.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Kosanovic is named in the FBI files as a possible communist.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Knowing the Soviet Union already had the death ray plans,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: did Tesla's nephew and the group with him steal the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: plans to the death ray to keep them out of
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: American hands?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Kosanovic is not an individual that the FBI and the U.S.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: government trusts. They don't know who he's going to side
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: with at the end of the war.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: There are also other powers who are desperate to obtain
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the death ray and might have a motive to kill
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Nikola Tesla for it. Top of the list, Nazi Germany.
• 6:27
  Speaker 9: The German government took death rays very seriously.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: The Nazis probably would have been interested in the particle
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: beam weapon as one of several devices that they could
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: use to terrorize another population.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Another possible culprit is... Tesla's home country, America. Could Tesla
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: have been assassinated to prevent him selling the plans to U.S.
• 6:52
  Speaker 8: Enemies? The U.S.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: Was engaged in fighting Hitler and the Nazis and trying
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: to take over the world. So a weapon such as
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: a death ray being developed by Tesla, falling into the
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: wrong hands, could have been devastating.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: One day after Sava Kasanovich and his cohorts leave Tesla's room,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: the FBI and Office of Alien Property seized Tesla's remaining documents.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Could they have stolen the plans so America could secretly
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: develop their own death ray?
• 7:24
  Speaker 8: Something very fishy went on.
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: He kept a small black book in which he recorded
• 7:29
  Speaker 6: some of his more out-there types of ideas about weapon
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: systems to end all war. That went missing, as well
• 7:39
  Speaker 6: as a lot of the other papers concerning the death ray.
• 7:43
  Speaker 9: During the Second World War, I'm sure that governments on
• 7:46
  Speaker 9: both sides would have loved to have gotten their hands
• 7:49
  Speaker 9: on Tesla's death ray, or at least the plans for one.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It's not just governments desperate to steal his death ray
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: that may have a motive to harm Nikola Tesla. In
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: his life as a visionary and eccentric inventor, he made
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: and lost massive fortunes, associated with arms dealers and spies,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: and had bitter rivalries with some of the biggest names
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in American history.
• 8:17
  Speaker 6: The mere facts of Tesla's life and his death lends
• 8:21
  Speaker 6: itself to all sorts of wild speculation.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: In the midst of World War II, acclaimed inventor Nikola
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Tesla is found dead. His hotel safe is raided. Some
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: believe he might have been killed and his blueprint for
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: a deadly weapon stolen.
• 8:40
  Speaker 6: The mere facts of Tesla's death lends itself very easily
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: to all sorts of speculation.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Is Tesla's death linked to his lifelong obsession to create
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: an electric superweapon called the Death Ray?
• 8:54
  Speaker 9: Tesla claimed that his death beam would be able to
• 8:58
  Speaker 9: destroy an attacking enemy air fleet. He said that this
• 9:02
  Speaker 9: would also be able to stop an enemy army, up
• 9:06
  Speaker 9: to a million men.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Born during a lightning storm in 1856 in modern-day Croatia,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Nikola Tesla's entire life would be shaped by electricity. As
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: a student in his homeland, he dreams of using it
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to provide free energy to the world. But he realizes
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that can't happen using direct current, or DC, The method
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: favored by American electricity pioneer Thomas Edison, who is currently
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: lighting up New York.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Direct current is a type of current where the polarity
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: never changes. So the current only flows in one direction.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: That's what you get out of a battery.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: But because increasing its voltage was difficult, DC power couldn't
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: be transmitted over large distances. So Tesla invents a motor
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: that will use alternating current, or AC, And in 1884,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: travels from Europe to show it to his hero, Thomas Edison.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: That alternating current allows us to change a voltage from
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: one value to a much higher value. So we can
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: use thin wires, which makes it economical to transmit power
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: over very, very large distances.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: But Edison is committed to his own DC system and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: dismisses Tesla's proposal. With this rejection, a lifelong rivalry begins.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Tesla seeks out a different benefactor and finds Edison's competitor,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: George Westinghouse.
• 10:37
  Speaker 8: With his backing.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: In 1888, Tesla unveils his induction AC motor, further fueling
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the bitter conflict between Edison and Tesla.
• 10:47
  Speaker 8: Which became known as the War of the Currents.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Edison begins a dramatic smear campaign to paint AC power
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: as a dangerous option.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: Things like do demos where they would use alternating current
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: to electrocute animals. They made sure that when New York
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: State built the first electric chair, that it was with
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: a Westinghouse electric motor. And look how dangerous this is.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: For five years, America's electrical giants are locked in battle.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: The War of the Currents reaches its climax in 1893,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: when Tesla successfully uses his AC system to light up
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the World's Fair in Chicago.
• 11:30
  Speaker 7: It was something fantastic. People couldn't understand where this current
• 11:34
  Speaker 7: is coming, how it's happening. It was magical.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Tesla and Westinghouse are hailed as heroes, while Edison is humbled. Next,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: they win an enormous contract to build the world's first
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: large-scale hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls.
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: Here was a technology that was going to revolutionize people's
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: daily lives.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: The project cements AC as America's chosen power system.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: The main reason why alternating current beat out direct current
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: is simply that it was more efficient and much more economical.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Tesla's AC current has finally won the war of the currents,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: leaving the great Thomas Edison embittered and possibly set on revenge.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Today, if you were to look at one of those
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: satellite images that shows you how the world is lit
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: up at night, 95% of the electricity that you see
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: in that picture, all of those lights, is distributed by
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: alternating current.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Without Tesla's invention of alternating current technology, it would be
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: a much darker and quieter world.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: With his success comes fame, making Tesla the toast of
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the New York social scene. In the press, he's depicted
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: as a wizard with almost magical powers, an archetypal mad scientist,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: an image enhanced by his eccentric habits.
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: Tesla himself was a very strange individual.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Among his unusual traits... Tesla was celibate his entire life.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: He only slept three hours a night, believed in alien life,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and had an unexplained aversion to pearls. But his most
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: remarkable feature was his unstoppable brain, which over his lifetime
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: would produce over 300 patents.
• 13:28
  Speaker 8: Tesla would describe.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: The process of invention is basically he would build a
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: model in his mind and then run simulations, almost the
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: way engineers do with computers today.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: But Tesla's weakness is business acumen. Although the Westinghouse AC
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Motors sell millions, when Westinghouse runs into money trouble, Tesla
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: relinquishes the royalties for his AC Motor patent, a decision
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: he that would deny him of an estimated $ 300 million.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: But it's scientific discovery, not money, that drives Tesla. And
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: as a new century dawns, he sets his mind to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: solving another of electricity's biggest challenges.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Tesla was obsessed. He wanted to distribute electrical power to
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: all parts of the Earth.
• 14:21
  Speaker 8: It's an obsession.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: That will take him one step closer to the super
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: weapon that could be his deadly downfall. Near the end
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of the 19th century, the idea of a devastating super weapon,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: a device powerful enough to make war obsolete, first takes
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: root in Nikola Tesla's brain. But before it can become reality,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: he must push his visionary mind past a new technological frontier.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: After his winning of the War of the Currents, he
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: was obsessed with getting rid of the wires used to
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: distribute power.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It's an idea that Tesla brings to his New York
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: workshop and in 1891 takes form in his most spectacular invention,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the Tesla coil. Using what's known as resonance, the coil
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: amplifies low voltages into massive voltages.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: It's like having a tuning fork on steroids, except voltage-wise.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: So you can get very, very big vibrations at very,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: very high frequencies.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: By emitting high-frequency alternating current waves, the Tesla coil lights
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: up bulbs without any wire connection. For Tesla, it's a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: literal light bulb moment. Could wireless power be sent this
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: way around the globe?
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: He was obsessed. He wanted to distribute electrical power to
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: all parts of the Earth.
• 15:49
  Speaker 8: And he thinks the perfect conductor could be found in nature.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: What does nature give me that could possibly pass for
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: a wire? He had the air above his head, so
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: he's going to use the atmosphere as a free conductor.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: To keep his new project away from the prying eyes
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: of his rival Thomas Edison, Tesla leaves New York.
• 16:10
  Speaker 8: In 1899, he builds a new lab in the.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Prairie near Colorado Springs. For his dream of wireless power
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: transmission to work, he needs to find a way to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: electrify the atmosphere.
• 16:22
  Speaker 10: What he was thinking was he could mount these Tesla
• 16:25
  Speaker 10: coils on top of high buildings and transmit energy by
• 16:30
  Speaker 10: using these discharges, which are similar to lightning strikes. And therefore,
• 16:34
  Speaker 10: he could create a distribution system for electricity that didn't
• 16:38
  Speaker 10: require poles and wires.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: The Colorado locals watch in awe as Tesla summons his
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: own lightning storms and rolling thunder.
• 16:50
  Speaker 8: He was a terrific showman.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: And so that brought this aura of being a wizard
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: about him.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: The larger the coil, the more energy Tesla is able
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: to make. Just one major challenge remains. So far, he
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: hasn't been able to produce sufficient power to travel more
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: than 100 feet.
• 17:14
  Speaker 10: The difficulty with transmitting things wirelessly is most of it
• 17:19
  Speaker 10: leaks away and you get a very small amount of
• 17:22
  Speaker 10: power at the receiver.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Tesla turns his idea on its head. and wonders if
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the solution might be lying right beneath his feet.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: He believed that you'd be able to pump electrical energy
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: into the Earth at the resonant frequency of the Earth,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: set up standing waves, and that that energy would be
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: transmitted or distributed across the surface of the Earth. They
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: would then travel through the Earth's crust to locations where
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: people would basically put a wire or drive a pipe
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: into the ground, and you would get your electricity or
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: your messages from that pipe or that wire.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But before he can turn this vision into reality, Tesla's
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: eclectic brain is distracted by a new challenge in the
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: newly discovered field of radio waves.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: He realized that radio could be used for communicating human
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: to machine.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Three decades before the death ray, he comes up with
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: a concept that will later change the face of warfare.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a model boat controlled remotely.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: How Tesla's system worked for remote control of the boat
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: was imagine two radio receivers, one tuned to channel A
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: and one tuned to channel B. A signal appears in
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: channel A, says, rudder, you do this, and signal in
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: channel B says, rudder, you do that other thing. So
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: you could see how you could extend this to control
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: lots and lots of bits and pieces necessary to control
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: a boat's motion.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Tesla's idea for a remote-controlled boat came from his interest
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: in automatons and his interest in building what we now
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: call robots. But he built that remote control boat two
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: decades before the word robot was even coined.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: The remote-controlled boat is Tesla's first step into the deadly
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: field of military tech.
• 19:19
  Speaker 8: And it won't be his last.
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: He was working on radio-controlled robots. torpedoes, robot ships, all
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: sorts of things.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: He dreams up weapons, vehicles, even robotic soldiers that can
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: be controlled from a distance. But his vision is too
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: far ahead of its time to gain traction.
• 19:41
  Speaker 8: The U.S.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Navy was not interested. The demonstrations were not convincing to them.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: People are always kind of hesitant about new technologies.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Tesla's concept of remote control weapons only becomes military reality
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: many decades after his death.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Conceptually, the idea of a boat or remote control device
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: that could be used in a defensive way without putting
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: soldiers in harm's way comes from Tesla.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: That, of course, is the grandfather of today's drone technology.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Ironically, Tesla's drive to create horrifying superweapons is his pacifism.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: An early supporter of the deterrent theory, he wants to
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: create weapons so destructive that war becomes pointless.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: The idea was so-called teleforce rays that could bring down
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: airplanes from thousands of miles away.
• 20:43
  Speaker 8: He said that it would make war impossible.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Tesla's plan is to build something so powerful it can
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: bring about peace through mutually assured destruction. He wants to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: create the death ray to save lives. As the 20th
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: century dawns, in his Colorado Springs lab, Nikola Tesla is
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: testing dangerous theories. He believes he can transmit wireless power
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: around the world through the earth beneath his feet.
• 21:25
  Speaker 6: He thought that the Earth itself was like a giant condenser,
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: that the Earth contained a great deal of natural energy.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: Tesla was convinced that if he could tap the resonance
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: energy of the Earth, that he would be able to
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: create waves that would, in theory, never dissipate.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Using an ultra-sensitive electrical receiver, he makes a stunning discovery.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: While Tesla was in Colorado Springs, he had basically hooked
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: up a receiver to see what kind of currents were
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: passing through the Earth. And one night, he realized that
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: he was not only getting currents through the Earth, but
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: he was also getting a consistent signal, first one beep,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: then two beeps, and three beeps as he listened on
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: a telephone receiver.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Surprisingly, Tesla claims the source must be extraterrestrial. possibly coming
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: from Mars.
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: The public was fascinated by this account because it made
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: the headlines in major newspapers around the world that somehow
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: Tesla was in communication with outer space.
• 22:32
  Speaker 8: The public loved it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: Scientists attacked it roundly because they didn't believe such a
• 22:37
  Speaker 6: thing was possible. Actually, the scientists were incorrect, but no
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: one knew that at the time.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Again, Tesla is simply light years ahead of his time.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: A century later, his belief is partially vindicated.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Scientists 100 years later figured out that what Tesla was
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: actually listening to was not necessarily a message from Mars,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: but indeed a radio signal that was coming from one
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: of the moons of Jupiter. So there was a real
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: astronomical phenomenon that Tesla was the first to measure.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Yet, Tesla believes his greatest achievements are still to come.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: He wanted to prove... that it would be possible to
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: transmit power and messages all over the world using his
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: ideas about oscillating currents that could be pumped into the Earth.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: To make the dream happen, he'll need a much bigger
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: testing facility. And to finance it, he'll need a big investor.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Tesla returns to New York and knocks on the door
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: of the man known as America's greatest banker.
• 23:43
  Speaker 8: J.P.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Morgan.
• 23:44
  Speaker 9: J.P.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Morgan invested in Tesla because he saw the opportunity to
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: come up with a new form of wireless technology.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Having secured funding, Tesla buys 200 acres near Shoreham, Long Island.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: In September 1901, his dream appears to be coming true
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: as a massive tower goes up.
• 24:09
  Speaker 8: Its name, Wardenclyffe. J.P.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Morgan looked at Tesla as possibly providing a way to
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: control worldwide communications. And so Wardenclyffe was the site of
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: what was to be a worldwide transmitting device for broadcasting news,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: all the things that we associate with radio. That's what
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: Tesla had promised J.P.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Morgan.
• 24:33
  Speaker 8: J.P.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Morgan believes he's buying into a giant radio station. But
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: unknown to his financial backer, Tesla doesn't. as a more
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: ambitious agenda.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Tesla sort of is guilty of slightly misleading J.P. Morgan.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Tesla's real goal was worldwide power transmission. And he just
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: used the canard of, well, I'm going to work on
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: communication as a way of securing funding.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: While Tesla races to crack the code of wireless transmission,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: he's about to be dramatically upstaged by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: who in December 1901 sends the first radio transmission across
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic. It's a blow Tesla will never recover from.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And Marconi, too, will become a bitter enemy.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Tesla contributed to the development of radio by coming up
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: with practical circuits and with the idea of tuning.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Despite his other interests, Tesla had 17 prior patents related
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: to radios. And as enraged, Marconi gets the credit for
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: his invention.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that Marconi necessarily stole them as much
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: as he took advantage of what was already out there
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: in the literature.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Worse still, Tesla's financial backer, J.P.
• 25:59
  Speaker 8: Morgan, is furious.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: J.P.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: Morgan said, basically, I'm not going to keep funding this.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: Marconi has already beat you, and you haven't produced anything yet.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: After his financial relationship with JPMorgan Sowers, some believe Tesla
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: used Wardenclyffe to undertake early tests for his death ray,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: with devastating consequences.
• 26:26
  Speaker 6: This was an event of such magnitude that something blasted
• 26:31
  Speaker 6: an entire region.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: In 1908, in Tunguska, Siberia, A massive and mysterious explosion
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: knocks down trees over 770 square miles. Some suggest a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: comet crash, but there's no crater. Others point the finger
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: of blame at Nikola Tesla.
• 26:56
  Speaker 8: According to theorists.
• 26:59
  Speaker 6: The Tunguska event was the result of Tesla firing off
• 27:03
  Speaker 6: a huge bolt of energy that was supposed to go
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: to the North Pole, but which instead wound up in Siberia.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: It's a theory modern scientists are quick to dismiss.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: It's definitely not possible for Wardenclyffe Tower to have created
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: enough energy to cause the devastation of the magnitude that
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: we saw in Tunguska.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: With the money gone, Tesla can't continue his research at Wardenclyffe.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: His dream of achieving wireless power is in tatters. In 1917,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: rumors emerge Wardenclyffe is being covertly used by German spies,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: and it's demolished. The once lauded scientist fades from the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: public eye. For decades, he lives as a recluse in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: hotel rooms, raising pigeons.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: Tesla did kind of take a beating in his career.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: He wasn't as prolific in his inventions. It seemed to
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: adversely affect his emotional health.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Despite all his visionary ideas, Tesla is broke and nearly forgotten.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: But as another world war appears on the horizon, Tesla
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: makes a sensational announcement of a mega weapon that could
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: revive his career.
• 28:23
  Speaker 8: Tesla was a visionary.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: He was imagining a sufficiently superior technology that it was
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: basically going to negate the existence of existing military technologies.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Tesla believes his death ray invention will change the course
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: of history.
• 28:41
  Speaker 8: But it could come at a price. His own life.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: By the 1930s, a series of setbacks has turned visionary
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: scientist Nikola Tesla into a virtual recluse. Disputes with Thomas Edison, J.P. Morgan,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and Guillermo Marconi have left him bitter and nearly destitute.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: But now, with war on the horizon, a public announcement
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: throws him back in the spotlight. In newspapers across America,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Tesla claims he has invented an energy weapon of awesome power.
• 29:19
  Speaker 9: In 1934, Tesla claimed that his death beam would be
• 29:23
  Speaker 9: able to destroy attacking enemy aircraft and wipe out an
• 29:30
  Speaker 9: army of one million men.
• 29:32
  Speaker 11: Tesla himself was intentionally ambiguous in describing his invention. He
• 29:37
  Speaker 11: didn't want to describe it in too much detail, for
• 29:40
  Speaker 11: fear that someone else would then basically steal his invention.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: The details he does provide, and the only drawing of
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: it ever uncovered, suggests that the weapon was a type
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: of particle beam. So you can think of the basic
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: particle beam weapon as essentially equivalent to a rifle, but
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: instead of lead bullets, small ions, but you accelerate them
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: to very high energies.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Those particles could be traveling at about 36,000 miles per hour,
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: many times faster than a speeding bullet, generating enough heat
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: to just go right through a plane and knock it
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: out of the sky.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: The particle beams could be arranged to form a defensive shield.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: You'd have a whole series of towers, and the projecting
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: beams would either kill the pilot or disable the engines.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: That was his vision, again, to make war impractical to age.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: While some scientists claim the invention is impossible, Tesla's adamant
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: it will work and offers an early design for it.
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: To the highest bidder.
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: Tesla certainly wasn't shy about it. He talked about it
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: in interviews. He announced it in the papers as a
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: way of generating publicity and interest because he wanted funding
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: for his idea.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Tesla's sale of preliminary death ray plans to the Soviets
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: in 1935 is well documented. But it's believed these were
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: early designs and did not include enough detail to make
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: a working death ray. But new evidence shows, at the
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: same time, Tesla had close contact with a Nazi agent.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: German-American writer George Virek would later be convicted of being
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: on Hitler's payroll.
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: George Sylvester Virek was a very devoted German. First, and
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: then later, as World War II began to develop, he
• 31:33
  Speaker 6: was a devoted Nazi agent as well. We know that
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: Tesla and Virek discussed Tesla's weapons systems and everything Tesla
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: was working on. Virik was working for the Nazis all
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: during that period. Did that information go to the Third Reich?
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: With the possibility that the Soviets and the Nazis have
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: prototype death ray plans, Tesla doesn't speak of it again
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: until the middle of World War II, when he offers
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it to the U.S.
• 32:04
  Speaker 8: Military.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: But within days of making contact, he's found dead in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the Hotel New Yorker. Ever since, there have been rumors
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: that his death was a result of foul play.
• 32:23
  Speaker 8: To those who.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Believe he was murdered, there are three main suspects. The Soviets,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: who might have killed Tesla to stop him selling the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: plans to a rival power, or to get their hands
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: on more complete plans. The Nazis, who had been tipped
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: off about the death ray through Tesla's friend George Fierich.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Or the United States, which may have eliminated Tesla because
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: he sold dangerous weapon plans to their enemies.
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: Any papers that even had research related to the death
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: ray at this point in history would be extremely valuable
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: to any superpower.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Around the world. According to some, valuable enough to kill for.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Key to the Soviet theory is Tesla's own nephew, suspected
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: communist Sava Kasanovich, who raids Tesla's hotel safe, providing another
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: possible route for complete death ray plans to get to
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: America's enemies.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: If the details for a particle beam weapon are taken
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: control of and held by Kosanovic, then Kosanovic could turn
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: around and give the papers to the Soviets. He could
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: give the papers to the Nazis. He could give the
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: papers to some other group in Europe that was going
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: to emerge as a major power at the end of
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: World War II.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: But there's another theory about the safe-cracking raid that points
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: back to America. It revolves around a mysterious hotel worker
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: called Fitzgerald, who was also on the scene.
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: The worker has.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: The same name as one of Tesla's associates, Blois Fitzgerald.
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: Fitzgerald was a scientist. He was a friend of Tesla's.
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: He had a position in the military. He was only
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: a private. But there was also a Fitzgerald present when
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: the safe was opened, who was supposed to be Potele's staff.
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: It's quite possible that this Fitzgerald is the same as
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: the other Fitzgerald. They're one and the same person.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Could Fitzgerald have stolen Tesla's death ray plans for the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: American military?
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: Later, he became involved in developing particle beam weapons research,
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: as well as some of the other weapon systems that
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: Tesla had devised.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: When the FBI and Office of Alien Property arrive to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: confiscate Tesla's documents, they may be too late.
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: Hoover's instructions at the time of Tesla's death would have
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: been to go and to get all of the research
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: that he was currently engaged in to figure out what
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: was actually in those documents.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: So what happened to the 200,000 Tesla documents U.S.
• 35:08
  Speaker 8: Agents seized?
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: They send in John G. Trump, a physicist from MIT,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: and a team of people from Naval Intelligence.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Professor John Trump spends two days examining 80 boxes of papers.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: But it seems the working plans for the death ray,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: if they ever existed, are gone.
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: It seems that Mr. Trump's investigation was very short. He said,
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: my conviction is that there is nothing serious inside.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Navy personnel secretly document Tesla's papers on microfilm. But mysteriously,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: it later goes missing.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: If you look at the records that were released under
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: the Freedom of Information Act in the 1980s, the FBI says, yes,
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: the Navy had a set of secret papers that were microfilmed.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: And that microfilm has never, ever surfaced. And nobody knows
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: whatever became of that microfilm.
• 36:11
  Speaker 6: I believe the papers that are still missing may contain
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: the key to how that death ray could have been
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: built and employed.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: If Nikola Tesla was killed for his secret superweapon plans,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: finding the culprit could be as simple as finding out
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: who has successfully created a death ray. And in 1945,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the Allies find an alarming clue in Nazi Germany.
• 36:38
  Speaker 9: Some of Germany's top scientists were working on a Sonnengewehr,
• 36:43
  Speaker 9: or sun gun. The idea was to direct this like
• 36:47
  Speaker 9: a giant magnifying glass at targets on Earth.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Near the end of World War II, rumors leaked to
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the Allies that Nazi Germany has weaponized a beam of
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: deadly energy. Could this be the smoking gun that proves
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the Nazis stole Nikola Tesla's death ray plans and killed
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: him for them?
• 37:14
  Speaker 9: We found out shortly after the American forces captured a
• 37:18
  Speaker 9: base at Hillersleben in Germany, some of Germany's top scientists
• 37:23
  Speaker 9: were working on a Sonnengewehr, or sun gun.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: The Nazis' secret plans for the sun gun plot out
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: a mile-wide concave reflective surface mounted in space. Like a
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: real-life Death Star, it would focus solar rays onto enemy cities.
• 37:43
  Speaker 8: And destroy them.
• 37:45
  Speaker 9: The scientist interviewed by the Americans said this was a
• 37:50
  Speaker 9: project that had been authorized by Hitler.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: While it appears ambitious and destructive, the proposed Nazi weapon
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: bears little resemblance to Tesla's death ray.
• 38:03
  Speaker 8: What about the Soviets?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: They secretly bought Tesla's early concepts for the death ray
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: in 1935 and may have wanted Tesla dead to prevent
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: him from sharing the designs with their rivals. Or so
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: they could steal more complete plans. For decades, American intelligence
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: suspects the Soviet Union are making a death ray. And
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: at the height of the Cold War, they think they
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: find proof.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: In the mid-1970s, the US government became concerned that the
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Soviets were developing a particle beam weapon at a remote
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: location in Kazakhstan.
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: Overhead surveillance satellites spotted a weird configuration of equipment in Kazakhstan.
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: They were concerned that this bizarre-looking contraption was actually a
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: version of Tesla's death ray machine.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Around the same time, in 1976, A confidential US intelligence
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: report records a blinding beam of light seen by pilots
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: of British European flight 831 while it passed over Western
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union. A beam Soviet authorities refused to explain. Two
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: years later, there's a strange and terrifying incident over North America.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: A sudden eruption of freak lightning bolts over a hundred
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: times stronger than conventional lightning.
• 39:28
  Speaker 8: They're dubbed superbolts.
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: In the 1970s, there was a superbolt that took place
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: over Belle Island in Newfoundland, Canada. It was so devastating
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: that people thought it had to be a superweapon of
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: some kind. They put things together. and very high up
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: individuals in the government believed that the superbolts over Bell
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: Island in Newfoundland, as well as that facility in Kazakhstan,
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: was all evidence of the fact that the Soviets were
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: going full tilt on developing Tesla's particle beam weapon.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: But it turns out the strange facility in Kazakhstan is
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: actually a test site for a nuclear thermal spacecraft, not
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: a particle beam weapon. That doesn't mean the Soviets never
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: tried to build the death ray. It just means that
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: no one has been able to prove it.
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: Since Tesla's death, there has been a lot of speculation
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: that Tesla's discoveries are being used or concealed by governments
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: around the world today.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Those governments include the United States. Documents prove the U.S.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: military has been involved in secret particle beam research for decades.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Research that could have been triggered by papers stolen from
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Tesla's hotel room in 1943.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: The Americans worked on particle beam weapons in order to
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: shoot down nuclear missiles beginning in the 1970s into the 1980s.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: And it ultimately became the genesis of the idea for
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: what Ronald Reagan called the Strategic Defense Initiative or Star Wars.
• 41:06
  Speaker 11: Today there's a great deal of work on directed energy weapons,
• 41:09
  Speaker 11: and it involves billions and billions of dollars. It involves lasers,
• 41:14
  Speaker 11: particle beam weapons, a variety of different types of directed
• 41:18
  Speaker 11: energy technology.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: America, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, all had a motive
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to obtain plans for the death ray, and even perhaps
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to kill Nikola Tesla for them. Questions still remain over
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: the actions of his own nephew. But proof of foul
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: play in Tesla's death remains elusive. And the great irony is,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: as world powers fought over his superweapon, all the great
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: inventor wanted was to create peace.
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: What Tesla was trying to do was make war obsolete.
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: He was a mad scientist. but at the same time
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: someone who was very concerned about the future of the
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: human race and wanted his inventions used only to promote
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: peace around the world.