Nikola Tesla: The Man Who Gave Us the 20th Century and Died Penniless
Wireless power. Free energy from the ionosphere. Death rays. The night he died, the FBI seized his papers. Sixty-three years later we still don't have most of them.
Nikola Tesla invented the alternating current we use today, the induction motor, radio (Marconi got the patent on appeal after Tesla died), wireless transmission, neon lighting, robotics, and 700 other patents. He demonstrated wireless transmission of power at his Wardenclyffe Tower (1901-1917), funded by J.P. Morgan until Morgan asked: "where is the meter?"
When Tesla replied that the entire ionosphere was the conductor and humanity could draw power for free, Morgan pulled the funding. Wardenclyffe was demolished in 1917. Tesla died in poverty at the Hotel New Yorker on January 7, 1943.
That night - within hours - the FBI and the Office of Alien Property Custodian seized his papers, his prototypes, and his "Death Ray" notes. Most have never been returned. The official position was that Tesla had become "delusional" in his later years and his work had no value. The actions of the FBI suggest otherwise.
Some of his recovered work formed the basis of the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") in the 1980s. Some of it has never been seen again.
What did Tesla know that the U.S. government still classifies 80 years later?