I have heard that Tesla was somehow responsible for the explosion, supposedly Tesla had been building a kind of reverse-Tesla coil capable of absorbing usable energy from the atmosphere (a la John Galt) and then blasting a big lightning bolt into the ionosphere, refracting the bolt into many small ones. The supposed purpose being to deliver free power to everyone in the US. In the version I heard, J.P. Morgan was financing this up until he learned that Tesla intended to use the device to GIVE everyone free power, at which point Morgan pulled the plug. Tesla needed to secure funding, so he decided to prove the device worked by zapping a blast over the North Pole while those first explorers were there, but because it wasn’t known at the time that electrons had mass, his bolt missed and slammed into Tunguska, causing the catastrophe. Seeing the destruction his device was capable of it, he destroyed it and the records. That’s the story at least. I’m kinda intrigued by it just because so many of Tesla’s notes/records are missing or were destroyed/classified/something.
Column: What caused the massive 1908 explosion in Tunguska, Siberia?
98% of everything you’ve ever heard about Tesla is rubbish. The dude was smart, to be sure, but not the inventor of most of the amazing (and still, oddly, non-existent) devices attributed to him.
Cecil addresses some of the myths about Tesla’s experiments with broadcast power in the second part of this column.
Of course, I remember the stories that he was working on a death-ray as well, and succeeding in building it. Considering no National Death-ray Association has since been formed, either it was bunk or else there’s some huge gov’t conspiracy to bury the technology along with that supposed ship-teleporter thing.
Yeah, and I heard that there are carburateurs that can make the cars get 200 mpg, but the big oil companies don’t want to let them get to the people. It’s true, man, I know this guy who met this guy who used to have one.
Don’t let big business fool you, man. They’re in it with the government and the aliens that are under wraps in Nevada.
The case for Tesla and the Tunguska Ray.
All this seems to have come to light since the mid 1990s, and after an SF book. Somehow, given that Tesla went into mental decline at the time, I doubt it happened.
Tesla did design a death-ray, IIRC, but none were ever built.
Andrew “NO .SIG MAN” “Juan” Perron, and it’d be no more deadly than the weapons we have today, really.
Hmm well I find it hard to believe anoyone could see him as just a crackpot. Whether he did it (Tunguska) or not, he was definately not your run of the mill mad scientist. A good deal of his theories and practice were stolen, Marconi claimed he invented the radio (patents prove he did not) and Eddison jeez the list goes on. If one can call Nikola primitive, I guess Da Vinci was as well. A good deal of what we use today stems from Nikolas theories or practice.
I can only imagine what would have come to pass had AC not have been invented, whether it would have been invented later is debatable, though it’s entirely possible. DC would have no doubt caused alot of tragedy, a hell of alot. Did Tesla not envision Radar/MRI techonology?
While these posts stem from the Tunguska Incident, whether he did it or not is unknown - I’ve seen docos claiming they can prove it was a comet etc to ball lightening, to a natural gas leak which was ignited - he was not just an average scientist, and this is my beef with what Cecil has posted.
Cheers
As far as I’m aware, it came to popular awareness during the late seventies.
Oops that was meant for Ice Wolf - couldn’t edit my post, my apologies.
Cheers
He talked about a Death Ray, but made no designs.
Or experiments.
Or coherent explainations.
And died a reclusive old loon.
In this total absence of evidence, coupled with the fact of mental illness, we may conclude it never existed.
You have been WHOOSHED! Cardinal was being sarcastic. No such carburator ever existed, it is merely an Urban Legend.
Besides–cars don’t use carburators anymore. Fuel injectors, baby.
Well, naturally! They eliminated carburetors because too many people were getting close to the secret!