Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely

by Theo Paijmans

  The employees remembered one occasion, while testing a chamber of the generator with a number of New Yorkers present, a heavy plug that was screwed into the device "blew out with such a force that it broke the marble of a dwelling on the opposite side of Twentieth Street." The hydraulic pump remained at Keely's workshop all the years, a fact that was corroborated by others, in spite of Ackermann's statement that no such machinery "sufficiently powerful to compress air" was ever in Keely's workshop.61

  Enters Nikola Tesla. Tesla the sphinx, was in many respects as enigmatic as Keely and as little understood, even though he gave the world alternating current, and his inventions led to more patents. In their strange and wonderful visions, Tesla and Keely matched each other perfectly. Tesla arrived in America when Keely was already 10 years involved in his wondrous experiments, but had grown over the years into what was to become one of the truly great and misunderstood geniuses of the 20th century. Tesla had corresponded with and visited Bloornfield-Moore. He signed his contract with Astor some 10 days before he chose to break the silence, amidst the furor that drew headlines in the press: "When the reservoir and the pipes were found I knew that the surmise I had long entertained was correct. I would like to think that Keely was not a dishonest fellow, and believe him simply to have been a man who erred so that he would have accomplished no great thing had he lived a dozen lives. Although he evidently used compressed air in his experiments, it does not follow that he did this deliberately to deceive." Then the genius concluded with a statement as mysterious as himself: "Acting on my conjecture, I have performed most of the experiments reported and still more wonderful ones to the lay mind."62

  In spite of all the statements to the contrary, the Keely Motor Company kept its head cool and proclaimed at a meeting of the company, on January 26, that its directors reaffirmed their faith both in Keely and his invention,63 and that the directors were going to meet Kinraide two days later. At that time, Kinraide was said to be "confident of his ability to complete Keely's inventions," and the directors of course expressed their "implicit faith in him."64

  On January 29, the opposing forces focused, and their verdict was out. On that day, a huge multipage article was published in the New York Journal subtitled the "First Official Confession and the Only True and Authorized Explanation of the 'Miracles' of the Great Keely Motor."65 The article contained statements of

  Hill, Anna Keely's lawyer, Smith, who had been given the opportunity to learn "Keely's Secret," and elaborate cross-section drawings of the double floors and ceilings which contained shafts and belts that lead to a water motor in the basement. This motor was discovered when the disintegrator was taken apart. "In taking down the posts which held the stationary axis on which revolved the hub of the motor, with its arms, the first fraud was discovered. This framework had no apparent connection with the engine, beyond serving as a support for the stationary shaft or axis which passed through the hub of the motor. A false box, a hollow post and a hole extending down through the floor led to a careful investigation. Under the floor, between it and the ceiling of an unused store room that was always kept locked, an iron shaft with a small pulley on it was found running through the timbers supporting the floor. The pulley and the hole in the floor were directly under the hollow post of the engine."66

  The team followed the iron shaft to the side of the wall, where it ended in another pulley. Directly beneath this pulley, but just above the ground floor of the room, another iron shaft came through the wall, also connected to a pulley. The team found a "small, well-worn belt which fitted over and exactly connected these two pulleys." In the small rear room that was filled with "old junk," and the floor of which was raised considerably above that of the middle room, a trap door was discovered beneath a box and an oilcloth. The trap opened over the shaft which came through the wall. "Here it was found that the shaft connected with a small water motor of peculiar construction, the water being supplied by a lead pipe coming in from the outside of the building. A small rubber tube extended from this water motor. When Moore's team attached a rubber bulb to this tube, the water motor could be started by pressing the bulb, and it would stop when the pressure was released. "67 The water motor was transferred to Kinraide's cave on Jamaica Plain.68

  When it was taken apart by Kinraide, Keely's Globe Motor revealed a "strong spring," also described as a "heavy coiled spring" with gearing that could be fitted into the globe. This spring was connected by a diaphragm that pressed against the shell, acting as a brake. The spring, "having been previously wound up was inoperative to move the globe until the brake was released. This was done by screwing up the diaphragm in the transmitter and the globe would revolve. A very small tube was used to connect the transmitter and the brake in the motor. "69

  The globe also contained more diaphragms, "some flexible and in order, others hard and not easily moved." Although Kinraide failed to explain how, it was "evident that these had been in some way used to operate the Globe Motor."

  Keely's mysterious compass, with a match instead of a needle, was found to contain a "false bottom which concealed a piece of iron like a needle. When revolving this the 'match needle' would revolve." Keely's transmitter was found to contain yet another "simple diaphragm," that, when pressed by an outside screw, produced an air pressure which could be transmitted by a tube running to the machine when operated.

  Keely's famous floating weight that had so astounded Professor Leidy and many other people nine years before, was a "very light, hollow box, with an opening in it, so arranged that when air pressure was exerted on the top of the water in the jar the water would be forced into the box, and, being made heavier than the water, would sink." When the pressure was taken off, the box would rise or float. The cover of the jar concealed yet another diaphragm and was connected with a small tube with a diaphragm in the transmitter, and this "explains the mystery."

  The Vitalized Disk was found to have been made partly of iron and partly of brass. When the brass side was held against a magnet, it did not attach itself, but naturally the iron side did. The iron parts of the disk were "gilded to match the brass, giving the whole the appearance of brass." Keely's Musical Sphere also contained a coiled spring and a diaphragm "similar to that described in the Globe Motor." The wire was connected with the mouth harmonica and the sphere was a tube that led to "a bag of India rubber," that would deliver air pressure when pressed, "sufficient to release the diaphragm brake and the sphere would revolve." The awesome disintegrator was also found to contain a "tubular iron reservoir containing compressed air."70

  The article was to be the death blow for Keely and those who had believed in his inventions. Other newspapers of course quickly summarized the article, and the story was carried across the country.71 Although Kinraide, as we have seen in the previous chapter, accused Bridge of breach of faith, and the examination of Keely's engines was still ongoing at Jamaica Plain, as far as the general public was concerned, that was that, and there the matter ended.

  Not so for the Keely Motor Company! After all, there was still hope that Kinraide would prove the contrary. On this a newspaper remarked that, "The explanation of Keely's secret that is said to come from Mrs. Keely's counsel bears all the marks of authenticity and is entirely in accordance with what has been generally believed by those who have seen the motor in operation. Still, we do not understand that it is actually an official statement, and we suppose that it will be disputed by the stockholders and managers just as earnestly as previous explanations have been. The kind of faith that has been imposed in Keely is hardly to be disturbed even by ocular demonstration. ...there are some people who still believe in the cabinet trick... and there are those who have believed so long in Keely that even a detailed description of his air tubes and water motor, discovered beneath the flooring of his laboratory, will be rejected by them as a device of the enemy."72

  And so it was; Collier and Thomas both were "loud in their denunciation of the statements and alleged expose of the principles of the m
otor made by Charles J. Hill, counsel for Mrs. Keely and J. Ransom Bridge." Collier and Thomas held a conference with "several other stockholders of the company and decided to issue a statement." Collier said, "The statements attempting to prove Keely's inventions to be tricks and frauds have not shaken my faith in his works. The alleged exposing of Keely's methods, which have come forward so plentifully lately, are all answerable...," and he expressed his conviction that the joint statement would "restore faith in the Keely motor. The statement will be carefully prepared and will answer specifically the charges against the inventor."73

  Whatever they were going to state, it would have to be good, since a reporter wrote that "those who are professing to carry on the Keely scheme must take themselves, in the public estimation, out of the class of dupes and into that of accomplices."74

  Whatever Collier and Thomas first planned, it probably was something different from the statement that was issued at the meeting of the directors on February 29, perhaps because of the veiled allusion to illegal practices made by the reporter.

  The directors intimated that "there was deception in some of Keely's methods." Collier said that it was the "consensus of the meeting today that we have to come down to a point or two and discard some of the methods whereby Keely made his invention so wonderful to his audiences. The musical globe machine, the appliances with which he claimed to have set a-going his machinery, or, rather parts of it, is an impossibility undoubtedly." And according to Collier, "among our directors a few tried to hold out for a while, not for the purpose of aiding a deception, but simply that we might weigh everything in the scale of possibility. Well, the musical feature, the theatrical appurtenance, has been weighed and found wanting."75

  Collier did not know the reason for such theatrics, those were "best known to our late friend," but he also declared that "coming down to the disintegration of water, on this point, the Board of Directors stood a unit," for "We have all of us seen what he accomplished with his lifting machines. We believe the force is there."76

  However, the following months would reveal that the force was sadly absent, at least in the cave at Jamaica Plain where Kinraide explored Keely's engines further. After his damning statements in July of that year, as seen in the previous chapter, the Keely Motor Company fell in a sorry state of disarray. In the months that led up to Kinraide's statement, doubt lingered as was predicted by Scientific American, which wrote, "the investigations were so thorough and the results obtained so satisfactory that it is to be hoped that, once and for all, the Keely motor may be considered to be exposed, though we have no doubt that, like the scotched snake, the tail may still continue to wiggle."77 And indeed a magazine wondered: "Was it compressed air, hydraulic power or electricity? The recent exposures of trickery on the premises point strongly to the former conjecture, but the probability is that the exact modus operandi will never be absolutely established..."78

  What then had been Keely's motive? Was it money? While this was the explanation preferred by his adversaries who painted him as a fraud who earned huge amounts of money with his inventions, even a cynical Keely opponent admitted that, "Keely, as a matter of fact, lived fairly well, but neither lavishly nor ostentatiously, and he spent far more time during those 20 years in the dingy little shop, with its wires and cylinders and dismantled relics of previous experiments, than he did at his own hearthstone."79 And another remarked, that Keely "spent the money which he obtained in experimental investigations cannot be denied even by the most strenuous of his opponents at that time or now."80 What then happened with all the money that had poured into Keely's research? "That is a mighty difficult question to answer" a newspaper wrote, for while his "personal habits are not expensive," there was "no doubt" that "vast sums have been expended on useless machinery, devices and tools."81

  It was this puzzlement that could not be taken away, and that prompted the author of the passage above to muse: "If an impostor, he certainly was an extraordinary one. Few men could have maintained so successful a game of trickery for twenty-five years, not only enlisting the sympathetic interest of such distinguished gentlemen as the late Professor Joseph Leidy of the University of Pennsylvania; George H. Boker, late minister of the United States to Turkey; and the late John Welch, minister to the Court of St. James.82

  The puzzlement that lingered a quarter of a century later put Charles Fort, the great collector of the unexplained, in a pensive state when he summarized the aftermath as follows: "anybody who has ever tried to keep a secret for 24 hours, will marvel at this story of an impostor who, against all the forces of revelation, such as gas men, and coal men, and other persons who get into cellars — against inquisitive neighbors, and, if possible, even more inquisitive newspapermen — against disappointed stockholders and outraged conventionalists — kept secret, for twenty four years, his engine in the cellar."83

  This puzzlement and this lingering feeling of doubt has remained ever since. Although elaborately drawn cross-sections of Keely's workshop were published,84 and elsewhere photographs of the sphere, the trap doors and the tubes,85 there unfortunately exists no such thing of the water motor "of peculiar construction" that was found and then quickly and conveniently hauled off to Kinraide. No photograph exists of the thing, and no triumphant explanation of its fraudulent nature.

  Perhaps the water motor was a relic of the days when Keely wrested his force from the disintegration of water and was therefore quite incomprehensible. This would also explain the "peculiar construction" of the device, a construction that was not further explained or elaborated upon. Although Kinraide possessed the water motor, he made no statements about it. In fact, the water motor became so forgotten that the only orthodox explanation that has survived today is that Keely solely used compressed air.86 In addition, there would not be any public demonstration or display of Keely's devices or the water motor.

  As far as is known, there were no photographs made of Keely's dismantled engines and the parts that Kinraide allegedly found inside the machines. The only descriptions are the written statements, the cross-section drawings and sketches of some of his equipment.87 These sketches included a cross section of his latest transmitter, showing the hidden rubber diaphragm, the piston and his harmonica with a rubber tube and a hollow wire. A problem was in the timing of the events; the expose was published at a moment when Kinraide, considering his own statement, strangely disapproved. Why Kinraide did this, and then waited several months to make his statement that tallied with the expose was never resolved.

  And who was this mysterious but pivotal T. Burton Kinraide? While contemporary sources offer only tantalizing glimpses and details, any further documentation on this character is strangely absent from the pages of history. All that we know of him now is that he was very wealthy, and that on his estate he pursued research not unlike Keely in a special cave hewn out of solid rock. His laboratory, also described as "large and finely appointed," was called the Spring Park Laboratory, and it is alleged that in this laboratory Keely and Kinraide "delved and chatted." Kinraide, who was 35 years old at the time of Keely's death, was "quietly pursuing the life of a scientist, without attracting much attention outside of professional circles." Kinraide also brought out a new induction coil that was widely used in connection with x-ray equipment. The coil is called the Kinraide coil.88

  Kinraide appeared several years before Keely died and subsequently became a constant visitor to the workshop, sometimes staying there for long periods of time. The two got on very well. Keely's last request had been to place all the material and data in Kinraide's hands. He had been in the house between the death and the funeral and he had accompanied Keely's widow in the carriage to the cemetery. Kinraide even paid for his grave, but after the expose and Kinraide's statements several months later, he dissolved in the mist of time, never to be heard from again.

  Considering all this, we could easily present another speculative scenario: Moore and his team uncovered what they interpreted as evidence of fraud, and Keely's wo
rkshop was carefully guarded by private detectives, so that nobody could verify their claim anyway. Kinraide — who also took precautionary measures by barring his cave to reporters89 — shrewdly stated what Moore wanted to hear; everything that Keely had invented amounted to nothing. Moore was satisfied and Kinraide knew very well that through Moore, the press would be informed. Months later, Kinraide's own damning statements followed. The attention of the general public was diverted and what certain people saw as the real nature of Keely's discoveries was carefully hidden from public view. Thus Keely's work could be continued elsewhere in secret, a possibility that is considered true to this day in certain occult communities.

  In the meantime, Hill had successfully refuted the claims of the Keely Motor Company, which was already weakened by internal quarreling and fractures. After the expose, the status of the company was further weakened and rendered impotent. After all, the members of the company now also faced the possibility of accusations that they were accomplices in a scheme of fraud and deception. Interestingly, the expose was first printed in a New York newspaper and not in a Philadelphia newspaper. The New York newspaper was owned by William Randolph Hearst, whose mysterious role will be examined more closely in chapter 12.