Wizard

by Marc Seifer

  I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of a new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth…There was present something mysterious, not to say supernatural, but at the time the idea of those disturbances being intelligently controlled signals did not yet present itself to me…

  It was sometime afterward when the thought dashed upon my mind that th[ose] disturbances might be due to intelligent control. Although I could not decipher their meaning…the feeling is constantly growing on me that I have been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.8

  As the inventor admits, the night he received the signals he did not attribute them to extraterrestrials. Most likely he first thought that they were periodic oscillations stemming from the thunderstorms that he was monitoring. A few days later, it began to dawn upon him that the metronome nature of the beats did not correlate with the supposition that they were linked to lightning discharges. The article also speculated that they may have stemmed from Venus or Mars. Two decades later, in 1921, Tesla wrote:

  Others may scoff at this suggestion…[of] communicat[ing] with one of our heavenly neighbors, as Mars…or treat it as a practical joke, but I have been in deep earnest about it ever since I made my first observations in Colorado Springs…

  At the time, there existed no wireless plant other than mine that could produce a disturbance perceptible in a radius of more than a few miles. Furthermore, the conditions under which I operated were ideal, and I was well trained for the work. The character of the disturbances recorded precluded the possibility of their being of terrestrial origin, and I also eliminated the influence of the sun, moon and Venus. As I then announced, the signals consisted in a regular repetition of numbers, and subsequent study convinced me that they must have emanated from Mars, the planet having just then been close to the earth.9

  Note slight alterations from the original article and letter to the Red Cross. In the 1901 article Tesla does not single out Mars as the only possible source of the impulses. Venus or other planets are also mentioned. In the 1921 article he says that Venus had been ruled out. Clearly this had to occur over two years after the event, that is, some time after the 1901 article which still included Venus as a possibility. “After mature thought and study,” Tesla himself dates his “positive conclusion that they must [have] emanate[d] from Mars” to the year 1907.10 In the Red Cross letter and the 1901 article Tesla is very specific in mentioning three beats. In the 1921 article the number of beats is obscured. Julian Hawthorne, who had written to Tesla while he was in Colorado Springs and who met with Tesla in New York upon his return, also refers to “three fairy taps.” Tesla also alters the facts with regard to competing wireless operators. While Tesla was in Colorado, he received a number of letters from George Scherff concerning competitors. For example on August 1, 1899:

  Dear Mr. Tesla,

  Mr. Clark, the experimenter in wireless telegraphy called this morning seeking a powerful oscillator or information on how to build one.11

  In August and September 1899, Scherff continued to inform Tesla about Clark, who could send messages three miles, thereby obtaining employment by a New York newspaper to report yacht races. Other wireless operators at this time included Professor D’Azar in Rome, Professor Marble in Connecticut, and Dr. Riccia in France.12 And, of course, there was Guglielmo Marconi, who captured the imagination of the media during the America’s Cup races that autumn. Although Scherff wrote, “The New York Times continues to boom Marconi,”13 Tesla confidently replied, on September 22, 1899, to Scherff, “Do not worry about me. I am about a century ahead of the other fellows.”14

  Tesla, as one of numerous adherents to the group-fantasy belief that Mars was inhabited, assumed that the impulses stemmed from there. In 1899 it was frankly inconceivable to him that he could have intercepted a competitor’s message. However, the fact of the matter is that Marconi was transmitting messages hundreds of miles across Europe and the English Channel during the summer of 1899 and was using as a signal the Morse-code letter S (dot-dot-dot), which precisely corresponds to the three beats Tesla said he intercepted while he was in Colorado.15

  On July 28, the very date it has been hypothesized that Tesla received the signals, Marconi was with the British Admiralty and the French Navy in the English Channel, demonstrating his wireless apparatus between ships in mock battle maneuvers over distances of thirty miles, fifty-five miles, and eighty-six miles. “On 28 July, Marconi had inspected [the ship] Alexandra’s equipment in preparation for hostilities.”16 Most likely he transmitted the letter S at that time to see if it was picked up by the other warcraft. If Tesla was monitoring his equipment at twelve midnight, it would have been about 8:00 A.M. in England, so the times correlate as well.

  At first, Tesla must have sincerely believed that the source of the impulses were extraterrestrial, for he boldly stated as much in a series of published articles.17 A few years later, the awful truth dawned upon him. Worse, Tesla may have intercepted Marconi’s impulses and made a fool of himself by claiming they had derived from superior intelligences. Marconi for Tesla was anathema. In 1921, ironically, while Marconi was making headlines by trying himself to intercept messages from nearby planets, Tesla wrote: “I was naturally very much interested in [recent] reports that these supposed planetary signals were nothing else than interfering undertones of wireless transmitters. These disturbances I observed for the first time from 1906-1907 occurred rarely, but subsequently they increased in frequency. Every transmitter emits undertones, and these give by interference long beats, the wavelength being anything from 50 miles to 300 or 400 miles.”18

  This statement supports the hypothesis that the 1899 impulses also stemmed from some competitor. Furthermore Tesla suggests the actual mechanism for his encounter: an undertone effect; and it appears that he unfortunately also provided, through Marconi’s piracy, the very oscillators used to transmit the signals! The transmitter on the high seas in England, therefore, was attuned to the receiving equipment in Colorado. Coincidentally, this realization in 1906-1907 occurred, as we shall see, during a time of great emotional stress. Rather than face the truth, the mystical Serb clung to a supernatural explanation.

  The most ardent proponent of the outer-space scenario was undoubtedly the journalist Julian Hawthorne. The son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Julian authored a series of elaborate treatises on Tesla’s philosophy, laboratory work, experiments in interplanetary communication, and place in history. Perhaps because he had engaged in a spectacular duel of articles with his brother-in-law George Lathrop, who wrote science-fiction tales about Tom Edison battling invaders from Mars in Arthur Brisbane’s New York Journal,19 Hawthorne took up Tesla’s extraterrestrial cause.

  The competition between Edison and Tesla would never abate, and it continued even into the realm of science fiction. Like many creative individuals, Edison had an interest in the occult. With Charles Batchelor, he had studied telepathy,20 and he had worked with spiritualists on a “telephone” to communicate with departed souls. Edison was interested in space travel and interplanetary communication. Lathrop, who had married Julian’s sister, had worked with Edison since the mid-1890s in cowriting a number of articles that became the precursors to latter-day fantastic tales. In Lathrop’s story “Edison’s Conquest of Mars,” when the Red Planet warriors invaded the earth, the Wizard of Menlo Park “invented a disintegrating ray…and it was ‘Edison to the Rescue of the Universe.’”21 The son of Nathaniel Hawthorne would not be outdone.

  And How Will Tesla Reply to Those Signals From Mars?

  Julian Hawthorne

  The other day, there happened to Mr. Tesla the most momentous experience that has ever visited a human being of this earth—three fairy taps, one after the other, at a fixed interval travelling with the speed of light were received by Tesla in Colorado from some Tesla on the planet Mars!

 
No thoughtful man can have much doubt then, that little as we are aware of it, we must for ages have been subjected to the direct inspection of the men of Mars and of the older planets. They visit us and look us over year after year; and report at home: “They’re not ready yet!” But at length a Tesla is born, and the starry men are on the watch for developments. Possibly they guide his development; who can tell?22

  Perhaps more than any other writer, Hawthorne elevated Tesla to the order of an interplanetary Adonis whose mystical destiny upon the earth was to give its inhabitants electrical power, instrumentation, and enlightenment. Note the overblown yet elegant description Hawthorne pens in meeting with the sorcerer: “Ever and anon there appears a man who is both scientist and poet [who] walks with feet on the ground but with head among the stars. Men of this mark are rare. Pythagoras was one; Newton must have had a touch of the inspirational; in our own times Tesla is the man…He was born in Herzogovina, of Greek stock, one of the oldest families there. I believe he is a prince at home.”23

  Hawthorne interviewed Tesla in the same article in which the inventor reiterated his extraterrestrial hypothesis and his technological vision of the future, creating a world in which cheap energy would be available for all and humanity could begin to take its rightful place in the evolutionary hierarchy. And although Hawthorne tried to introduce some doubt as to the definite reality of the extraterrestrial encounter, a quarter of the way through the five-thousand-word treatise, the writer softened the potential criticism by rationalizing that “the hopes Tesla holds out embody things that ought to be true; that would immensely enlarge and beautify the world if they were true…” Concluding with a rhetorical question, Hawthorne wrote, “And what about conversing with Mars?…Tesla will do what he was sent here to do.”

  Backed by the opposition, factions of the press also lashed out vigorously. One severe critic, under the byline of a mysterious Mr. X, cautioned “intelligent readers”: “Mr. Tesla obviously wants to figure in the newspapers. Everyone would be greatly interested if it were true that signals are being sent from Mars. Unfortunately, he has not adduced a scrap of evidence to prove it…His speculations on science are so reckless as to lose an interest. His philosophizing is so ignorant as to be worthless.”24

  While in Colorado, Tesla negotiated with officials of the U.S. Navy and Light House Board, with nine letters passing between them from the spring of 1899 and, upon his return to New York, through the autumn of 1900.25 On May 11, Rear Adm. Francis J. Higginson of the U.S. Navy wrote Tesla a letter which was forwarded to Colorado:

  Dear Sir:

  I would like to ask you if you can not arrange to establish a system of wireless telegraphy upon the Light-Vessel No. 66, Nantucket Shoals, Mass., which lies off about 60 miles south of Nantucket Island.26

  Higginson stated explicitly, “The Light-House Board [has] no money…[so funding] will have to be paid from some outside source.”

  Tesla sent his “humble apologies for a tardy reply,” because of a “severe cold,” and then ended the note with this seemingly innocuous line: “[It] is also my sincere hope that I am not standing in the way of some other expert more deserving and better able to fulfill the task than myself.”27

  The statement strikes this investigator as odd. Why would Tesla write that he was potentially “standing in the way of some other expert more deserving” when he knew that this was a completely false statement. No other expert was more deserving or more knowledgeable than he. Moreover, he knew that it was very likely that other experts were pirating his work, so why would he encourage more of that activity? This was clearly a self-deprecating and self-destructive element. Be that as it may, the response from Commander Perry, Higginson’s associate, was just as peculiar:

  Office of the Light House Board

  Washington, D.C. 16 August ‘99.

  Mr. N. Tesla

  Experimental Station,

  Colorado Springs, Col.

  Sir:

  In acknowledging the receipt of your letter of 11 Aug. ’99…from certain expressions used in it the Board fears there may be some misunderstanding, so in order to prevent you from going to any trouble of expense, the board desires to say that it has taken no action as yet toward providing any apparatus for using wireless telegraphy, as no appreciation is available for the purpose…

  When it does take up the question of installing apparatus for communicating with light-vessels, your great name and fame in such matters will insure earnest consideration of yourself.

  Respectfully yours,

  T. Perry, Commander, U.S.N.

  Apparently, Commander Perry read into Tesla’s letter information that wasn’t there. The inventor did not discuss reimbursement but took the opportunity in another letter to chastise Perry for his miserly response, writing on August 20, 1899, from his “Experimental Station” in Colorado Springs, to the Light House Board, Washington, D.C.:

  Gentlemen,

  …On this occasion permit me to avail myself of my

  acquired and precious prerogative as a citizen of the United States and to express my deep astonishment that, in a country of such vast wealth, and leading in enlightenment, so important a body as the Light House Board, instead of being provided with unlimited resources, should be trivially hampered and placed in…such an awkward position.

  Very respectfully yours,

  N. Tesla28

  Although clever, Tesla’s response was short-sighted, as the benefits that would accrue from installing wireless apparatus on this boat would clearly outweigh any short-term loss. The equipment would have been far more advanced than Marconi’s, the press and public would see, without doubt, Tesla’s superiority, and other branches of the navy and armed forces would have created contracts with the inventor. Furthermore, it would have been the first public demonstration by Tesla of long-distance wireless telegraphy. Unfortunately, throughout Tesla’s long career, he never demonstrated this capability to anyone other than himself.

  Nevertheless, Tesla’s letter did not destroy his chances with the Lighthouse Board. On September 14, Commander Perry responded by offering Tesla the contract because the navy “preferred to award home talent” over Marconi.29

  Here was the opportunity of a lifetime. Certainly it was understandable that Tesla needed to stay in Colorado through the autumn. He would return to New York the first week of January 1900. The Colorado experiment was a costly endeavor, and the inventor had now built up momentum, pushing toward the grand conclusion, that is, his wish to send impulses around the globe. Perry wanted action “quickly.” But asking him to delay ninety days would not have been an unreasonable request. However, from the emotional point of view, Perry had said the wrong thing. He had mentioned the name of Signor Marconi.

  Gentlemen,

  …Much as I value your advances I am compelled to say, in justice to myself, that I would never accept a preference on any ground, the merit of my own work excepted, particularly not in this case, as I would be competing against some of those who are following in my path and as any pecuniary advantage which I might derive by availing myself of the privilege, is a matter of the most absolute indifference to me.

  But since you have reasons for preference, permit me to state…that a few years ago I laid down certain novel principles on “wireless telegraphy” which I have been since perfecting.

  Tesla went on to describe the seven features of his system: (1) an oscillator; (2) a ground and elevated circuit; (3) a transmitter; (4) a resonant receiver; (5) a transformer “that scientific men have honored me by identifying it with my name” (Tesla coil); (6) a powerful conduction coil; (7) a transformer in the receiving apparatus. Having “carefully perused all the reports of the more successful experimenters as they appeared,” Tesla discovered that “they are all using, with religious care, these devices and principles, without the slightest departure, even in minor details…” He ended the letter by offering his services once again but requesting that the navy purchase an even dozen transmitters, wit
h the caution that

  in the end one is apt to be accused of making outrageous prices. It is more than probable that my apparatus will cost more than that offered by others as I look to every detail myself.

  With many thanks for your good intentions I remain,

  Very respectfully yours,

  N. Tesla30

  The navy never responded to this letter. One year later, on October 4, 1900, Tesla wrote Admiral Higginson. Four days later, the admiral responded: “It will…be necessary before asking Congress for money to carry on this work to have further estimates of cost.”

  Tesla’s style of writing to the navy was particularly irritating and filled with contradictions. He claims to be “absolutely indifferent” to gaining a “pecuniary advantage,” and yet he tells Commander Perry that the cost might appear to be “outrageous.” At the dawning stage of a completely new industry, instead of building one or two prototypes to display before the government, Tesla insists on a sizable order. In an early letter he states that he does not want to stand in the way of any competitor; in another he claims he did not know there were any other competitors. In one passage, he accuses all his competitors of piracy (which was probably true), and yet in another he wishes them “hearty success.” His position was incongruous to say the least, and it served to scuttle his own cause. This would turn out to be one of the most significant blunders of his career.

  27

  THOR’S EMISSARY (1899)

  Th[e] problem was rendered extremely difficult, owing to the immense dimensions of the planet…But by gradual and continuous improvements of a generator of electrical oscillations…I finally succeeded in reaching rates of delivery of electrical energy actually surpassing those of lightning discharges…By use of such a generator of stationary waves and receiving apparatus properly placed and adjusted in any other locality, however remote, it is practicable to transmit intelligible signals, or to control or actuate at will any one apparatus for many other important and valuable purposes.