Page 40 of 76
Tesla's Transmitter: A Tunguska Connection? Tunguska Did Nikola Tesla's wireless power transmission experiment cause the mysterious explosion over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908? ent parts of the world. The work of Harry Grindell-Matthews, London, was the first reported. The New York Times of 21st May had this story: "Paris, May 20 — If confidence of Grindell-Matthews, inventor of the so-called ‘diabol- ical ray' in his discovery is justified, it may become possible to put the whole of an enemy army out of action, destroy any force of airplanes attacking a city or paralyze any fleet venturing within a certain distance of the coast by invisible rays."" Grindell-Matthews stated that his destructive rays would operate over a distance of four miles and that the maximum distance for this type of weapon would be seven or eight miles. Asked if it would be possible to destroy an approaching enemy fleet, the inventor said it would not, because "Ships, like land, are in continual contact with the Earth, but what I can do is to put the ships out of action by the destruction of vital parts of the machinery, and also by putting the crews temporarily out of action through shock.'* Airplanes, on the other hand, could be completely destroyed. As soon as his ray touched the plane it would burst into flames and fall to Earth. Germany joined the technology race on 25th May when it announced its electrical weapon. As The Chicago Tribune reported: "That the German Government has an invention of death rays that will bring down air- planes, halt tanks on the battlefields, ruin automobile motors, and spread a curtain of death like the gas clouds of the recent war..." Sensing something of importance The New York Times copyrighted its story of 28th May on a ray weapon developed by the Soviets. The story opened: "News has leaked out from the Communist circles in Moscow that behind Trotsky's recent warlike utterance lies an electromagnetic invention, by a Russian engineer named _ Grammachikoff, for destroying airplanes."” Tests of the destructive ray, the Times continued, had began the previous August with the aid of German technical experts. A large-scale demonstration at Podosinsky Aerodrome near Moscow was so successful that the Revolutionary Military Council and the Political Bureau decided to fund enough electronic anti-aircraft stations to protect sen- sitive areas of Russia. Similar but more powerful stations were to be constructed to dis- able the electrical mechanisms of warships. An English engineer, J. H. Hamil, offered the American Army plans for producing "an invisible ray capable of stopping airplanes and automobiles in midflight", invented by a German scientist. The ray device was said to have been used the previous summer to bring down French planes over Bavaria. Hamil noted, however, that "the fundamental "4 work was done by Nikola Tesla in Colorado Springs about 30 years ago". I: the spring of 1924, newspapers carried stories about "death ray" inventions in -differ- TESLA'S WIRELESS EXPERIMENT The effect that captured the attention of foreign death-ray inventors occurred at the Colorado Springs Electric Company powerhouse. One day while Tesla was conducting a high-power test, the crackling from inside the laboratory suddenly stopped. Bursting into the lab, Tesla demanded to know why his assistant had disconnected the coil. The assis- tant protested that he had not done anything. The power from the city's generator, the assistant said, must have quit. When the angry Tesla telephoned the power company he received an equally angry reply that the power company had not cut the power, but that Tesla's experiment had destroyed the generator! These Colorado tests led to the development of a weapon much more ominous than any of the "death ray” inventions. © by Oliver Nichelson 333 North 760 East American Fork, Utah 84003, USA Reprinted with permission from Extraordinary Science (January/February/March 1995) PO Box 5636 Colorado Springs, CO 80931, USA Ph (719) 475 0918; Fax (719) 475 0582 333 North 760 East American Fork, Utah 84003, USA NEXUS ¢ 39 IN SEARCH OF A "DEATH RAY" AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1995