# Wait, 1930's Style Death Rays were REAL? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 27, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287 "2015-07-27T02:54:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/1 "2015-07-27T02:54:09Z")
[http://www.tested.com/science/weird/489527-9-lost-inventions-could-come-handy-today/item/tesla-death-ray/](http://www.tested.com/science/weird/489527-9-lost-inventions-could-come-handy-today/item/tesla-death-ray/) Because I thought that was a science fiction reference. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/2 "2015-07-27T03:01:08Z")
I’ve heard that the famous New Yorker cartoon [‘Death Ray, fiddlesticks…’](http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Rash/misc/addams.htm) is a reference to Tesla’s idea. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/3 "2015-07-27T11:53:42Z")
Between 1910 and 1940 there were more than 25 “Death Rays” and beam weapons proposed. They were featured in the newspapers and on the covers of Popular Science-type magazines. That New Yorker cartoon (from the early 1950s) needn’t be a reference to Tesla at all – he had plenty of company, although he was arguably the most famous and (at least at first) most credible. The prevalence of such rays actually helped make the science fiction use of the idea more credible, since people read about tem in the news all the time. We’ll never know what most of them were – the inventors weren’t about to reveal the “secrets” – they were trying to sell them to governments. I suspect most of them wouldn’t have worked. Tesla’s own “death ray” was actually a particle accelerator =-- but the “particles” were, by the standard of particle physicists, pretty damned big. We was proposing accelerating tiny blobs of liquid metal (mercury mainly, although he might have proposed melting others) using strong electric fields to high velocity, so that they could punch through armor. The concept of such Death Rays was considered so plausible that it was used in a number of movies – **Air Hawks** (1938) starred Ralph Bellamy (an honest-to-God A-list actor) and had a cameo by pilot Wiley Post. In France, the title was _Le Rayon Diabolique_It involved a ray that would stop airplane engines. Two years later _Murder in the Air_ featured Ronald Reagan as Secret Service agent Brass Bancroft (it was the third in a series of Bancroft films), trying to stop enemy agents who were using an Inertia Projector, which could stop a plane’;s engine in mid-air. Some people later suggested that his work on this film predisposed him for the Strategic Defense Initiative. Most of these Death Rays, by the way, real and fictional, were pretty massive affairs, kind of like machine guns. It wasbn’t until Philip Nowlan’s hero Anthony Rogers made the transition to newspaper comic strip as “Buck” Rogers in 1929 that we got hand=held ray guns. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/4 "2015-07-27T13:58:21Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > [http://www.tested.com/science/weird/489527-9-lost-inventions-could-come-handy-today/item/tesla-death-ray/](http://www.tested.com/science/weird/489527-9-lost-inventions-could-come-handy-today/item/tesla-death-ray/) > > Because I thought that was a science fiction reference. > > Carry on. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=202225](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=202225) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/5 "2015-07-29T00:48:48Z")
Cal’s the expert, but I have a page on real-life [1920’s Style Death Rays](http://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/#!1920s-style-death-rays/c1t1r). Yes, I named it specially for you guys. I don’t even mention Tesla. He was a later afterthought when he did nothing but spout craziness. I have a whole section on [Death Rays and Life Rays](http://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/#!rays/cg6h), with most of the rest being fictional representations. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/6 "2015-07-29T00:55:46Z")
Death rays reached the apex of their zenith in the 1920’s. Everyone knows that. ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/7 "2015-07-29T01:34:27Z")
Radar was originally proposed as a kind of ‘death ray’. But Robert Watson Watt did some calculations and decided that at a distance radar could not raise the body’s temperature enough for damage, but that it could detect metallic targets. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/8 "2015-07-29T02:34:53Z")
> [@Marion\_Wormer](#): > > Radar was originally proposed as a kind of ‘death ray’. But Robert Watson Watt did some calculations and decided that at a distance radar could not raise the body’s temperature enough for damage, but that it could detect metallic targets. This is a possibly misleading version of [what happened](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Watson-Watt). > [@](#): > > Nazi Germany was rumoured to have a “death ray” using radio waves that was capable of destroying towns, cities and people. In January 1935, H.E. Wimperis, Director of Scientific Research at the Air Ministry, asked Watson-Watt about the possibility of building their version of a death-ray, specifically to be used against aircraft.[citation needed] Watson-Watt quickly returned a calculation carried out by his colleague, Arnold Wilkins, showing that the device was impossible to construct, and fears of a Nazi version soon vanished. However, he also mentioned in the same report a suggestion that was originally made to him by Wilkins, who had recently heard of aircraft disturbing shortwave communications, that radio waves may be capable of detecting aircraft: “Meanwhile attention is being turned to the still difficult, but less unpromising, problem of radio detection and numerical considerations on the method of detection by reflected radio waves will be submitted when required.” Wilson’s idea, checked by Watt, was promptly presented by Tizard to the CSSAD on January 28. Watson Watt had been working on air defense and radio signaling for a long time. His earlier work had alerted him of the possibility of bouncing radio beams. Radar was not actually proposed as a death ray; it was the accidental result of someone knowledgeable proposing a real solution to a different problem. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/9 "2015-07-29T06:03:23Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Death rays reached the apex of their zenith in the 1920’s. > Everyone knows that. Once, for about 20 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/10 "2015-07-29T12:33:15Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Air Hawks** (1938) starred Ralph Bellamy (an honest-to-God A-list actor) and had a cameo by pilot Wiley Post. In France, the title was _Le Rayon Diabolique_It involved a ray that would stop airplane engines. The _Ace Drummond_ comic strip and serial, written by Eddie Rickenbacker of all people, had that, too. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/11 "2015-07-29T12:50:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The _Ace Drummond_ comic strip and serial, written by Eddie Rickenbacker of all people, had that, too. Not at all surprising – as I say, “death rays” that could stop engines, spark fires at a distance, and the like were in the newspapers and Pop Science magazines. That they would get picked up as the nucleus for a crime or spy drama was practically inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/12 "2015-07-29T15:22:14Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The _Ace Drummond_ comic strip and serial, written by Eddie Rickenbacker of all people, had that, too. My article on 1920s Death Rays has a quote from April 21, 1924 from Harry Grindell Matthews that his death ray could shoot down airplanes. That was a dozen years before the _Ace Drummond_ strip and serial. By that time death rays and zap guns were standard comic strip fodder, following _Buck Rogers_ and others. Movies, too. In my [Death Rays at the Movies](http://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/#!death-rays-at-the-movies/cxvk) article I cite 50 movies before 1963 to feature death rays. Ace Drummond is mentioned, but so are more than 20 earlier films. In fighting ignorance news, I’ve corrected _Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction_ citation for the first use of the term “ray gun.” I tracked down the original use that they had a later reprint date for. It was in a promo for [The Intrigue](http://www.flyingcarsandfoodpills.com/#!the-intrigue-and-the-first-ray-gun/c171o) from 1915. I also now have an actual screen cap of the death ray gun that’s available nowhere else, through the courtesy of Steve Joyce, film historian. ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/13 "2015-07-30T03:18:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > This is a possibly misleading version of [what happened](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Watson-Watt). > Watson Watt had been working on air defense and radio signaling for a long time. His earlier work had alerted him of the possibility of bouncing radio beams. Radar was not actually proposed as a death ray; it was the accidental result of someone knowledgeable proposing a real solution to a different problem. It’s possible in the last few decades my memory has gone wonky–also, I shortened the explanation somewhat from what I remember. If I can find Watson-Watts bio in the basement where it should be, I’ll double check and come back and apologize. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wait-1930s-style-death-rays-were-real/726287/14 "2015-07-30T11:19:33Z")
I should thank Exapno for his kind comments, and say that I think he gives me too much credit. I accept them in the spirit they were meant.