12.- TESLA - THE FORGOTTEN GENIUS

Some day I will harness Niagara Falls. — Tesla THIS WAS THE STATEMENT MADE BY THE greatest electrical genius that ever lived, to one of his fellow students, in Budapest, in 1882. Nikola Tesla, born 9 July 1856, was then aged twenty-five and about to commence a lifetime career in the advancement of electrical knowledge which was to transform the world.

If it were not for this one man, almost all modern-day electrical devices would not exist. It therefore seems strange that Tesla’s name is known to so very few students in our universities. Many times I have mentioned Tesla to groups of students, during discussions, and have been met with a blank stare, and the question — “Who is Tesla?”

His birthplace was a small village called Smiijan in the country now called Yugoslavia. His father was a minister in the local church. His mother was illiterate, but was known in the village as one who had a clever and inventive mind. It is said that she invented a considerable number of labor saving devices, which could be used in the home. In later years Tesla stated that he inherited his inventive genius from his mother.

In one stupendous lifetime he gave us the whole foundation upon which to build the industrial empires of the world. It was he who invented the alternating-current motors that power every factory and production centre. He that designed the transmission systems that enabled power to be sent out over vast areas of countryside from a central generating source; the mass production systems and robot control that freed man from the slavery of labor; the basis for radio and radar, and remote control by wireless; modern lighting systems by use of high-frequency currents. The list is endless. No limit has been found to the electronic marvels which can be produced from the basic discoveries which issued from this one fertile mind. The whole world owes Tesla its future — and he has been forgotten, because he was a man who lived before his time.

Tesla was one of five children and even at an early age showed signs of a lively mind. He found that in many things he could surpass other boys of his own age, and this tended to isolate him from his contemporaries. He found it hard to find others to share in his interests and his intellectual attainments were often in advance of his years. Nevertheless, it seems that he still got up to all the other foolish escapades that young boys find to fill in their time - myself included.

One of the more dangerous ones was trying to emulate a bird. He discovered that when he breathed deeply he began to feel very light and buoyant. He considered that this discovery, plus the application of daring and an old umbrella, should suffice to free him from the pull of gravity and allow him to sail through the air with a certain amount of grace and dignity. He climbed up on the roof of a local barn with the trusty old umbrella, breathed a few deep breaths and jumped off into space. The umbrella, not being aerodynamically designed, folded inside out and Tesla carried out a very undignified plummet to the ground. This cost him six weeks in bed, and much embarrassment.

His next accomplishment was the invention of a special frog-catching hook which was immediately copied by all his friends and helped to ensure the demise of most of the frogs in the village pond. Then followed a series of gadgets attractive to small boys, which included very efficient blowguns and popguns the size of small howitzers. Damage to local property caused the sudden end to the production of such warlike weapons, and punishment administered to the end of Tesla.

At the advanced age of nine years he con-structured his first motor. The prime mover of this wondrous machine was a formation of sixteen may-bugs. I suppose in a way they could have been termed galley bugs, as they had to perform in much the same way as the galley slaves of old to produce forward movement to the parts of Tesla’s machine. The design was quite ingenious. He glued two long thin bits of wood together to form a cross, much like the arms of a windmill. Another thin spindle was attached to this with a very small pulley glued to it.

This was connected by a belt made from cotton to a larger pulley on another thin spindle. The engines (or maybugs) were then glued four abreast, facing forward, on each of the four arms. The poor bugs, no doubt dismayed at such cavalier treatment, beat their wings at panic speed and turned the windmill at a surprising rate. It was Tesla’s intention to add more bugs, and thus more power to this truly remarkable machine, but a young friend decided to eat his jarful of spare bugs. This nearly caused Tesla to throw up, and he ended up destroying his invention in disgust.

The first stage of his schooling ended in 1870, when he was fourteen. The college he attended was called the Real Gymnasium, at Gospic. Already he was showing that he was well above the average in his abilities. He continued his studies at the higher Real Gymnasium, completing the full four-year course in three years. It was at this time that he became fascinated with physics and electrical experimentation and made the decision to devote his life to electricity. His father was anxious for him to enter the ministry and make a career of the church, but finally relented and promised Nicola that he would not prevent him from having his wish.

The boy had overworked himself so much with his studies that he had weakened his body and been attacked, first by malaria then a severe bout of cholera. When nearly at death’s door he whispered to his father, “I will get well again if you will let me study electrical engineering.” He was promised by his father that he would attend the most advanced engineering school in the world. Tesla was nineteen when he began his studies in electrical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute at Gratz, Austria.

It was at the Institute that particular insights into the mysteries of electricity by Tesla first began to show themselves. A Professor Poeschl was demonstrating a gramme machine that could be used as either a dynamo or a motor. It was run by direct current and suffered a great loss of efficiency due to sparking at the commutator. (The commutator was necessary in all direct current machines to change the flow of electricity at the correct instant to obtain rotary motion.)
 

An argument developed between the professor and Tesla as to the design of the machine and the necessity to use direct current. Why cannot alternating current be used, suggested Tesla? This would eliminate the need for commutators and thus increase efficiency. The alternating current produced by the dynamos could be fed direct to the motors without the use of the reversing mechanisms.

The professor set up a special set of experiments to prove to Tesla that his idea was completely impractical and made the statement:

“Mr. Tesla will accomplish great things, but he certainly will never do this. It would be equivalent to converting a steady pulling force like gravity into rotary effort. It is a perpetual motion scheme, an impossible idea.”

Tesla had no answer to this at the time, but instinct told him he was right and that some day in the future he would create such a machine. He continued his studies at the University of Prague concentrating on mathematics and physics. Always in the back of his mind was the idea of the alternating-current motor, and in his imagination he contemplated many different methods of building such a device, each time to fail.

On leaving the university Tesla obtained a position with the central telegraph office in Budapest. His genius for invention was not long in being noticed and in 1881 he was placed in charge of the new telephone exchange. It was while working for this company that he had the first flash of inspiration that was to rocket him to short-lived fame.

He was walking with a friend late in the afternoon in the city park of Budapest. It was February 1882, and a glorious day. Tesla was in a particularly happy frame of mind and gave vent to his joy by prancing about, and reciting poetry. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and exclaimed, “Watch me! Watch me reverse it.” He appeared to be in some kind of a trance and his friend got quite alarmed at his antics, believing him to be ill. When Tesla finally calmed down he said, “No, you do not understand. I have solved the problem of my alternating-current motor.” He then explained how he could see the whole concept in front of him, as if in a vision.

A rotating magnetic field which would clutch the armature of a motor with invisible fingers and cause it to rotate in harmony with it. A concept sublime in its simplicity. There and then, he drew a diagram of his motor in the snow to show his friend the technical aspects of his invention. This moment was the beginning of man’s leap forward in the industrialization of the world. It was soon after this that Tesla was offered a position with the Continental Edison Company and spent much of his time improving the designs of the Edison direct-current motors.

He also invented a system for automatically regulating the dynamos. He had been promised a substantial fee for all the new innovations he had produced for the company, and when this was not forthcoming on demand, he immediately resigned. If the payment had been made at the time, Tesla would possibly have remained with the company and they would have benefited immensely from his genius.

It was suggested by a member of the company that Tesla should emigrate to the United States and work with Edison himself. There were not many opportunities left open to him in Europe, so in 1884 the young Tesla arrived in New York with four cents in his pocket and a mind bursting with new ideas. At this stage he had already worked out the whole alternating-current electrical system in his mind. This included step-up and step-down transformers for the most economical transmission of electric power, alternators, and alternating-current motors to supply mechanical power.

When he finally met the famous Edison, he gave him an enthusiastic description of his alternating current system, only to be told that he was “wasting his time messing around with such things. Edison was committed to the direct-current system and would not be swayed by the arguments put forth by Tesla. The whole of the Edison empire was built on the premise that direct current was superior to alternating current.

He spent almost a year working for Edison, again improving and inventing new techniques for the production of the Edison dynamos Promises had been made to him, for the second time to repay him adequately for his services. It is said that Edison had undertaken to pay $50,000 to Tesla when all the improvements were completed and the machines ready for production. When the time came for settlement, Edison treated the whole thing as a joke, so the disillusioned Tesla once again resigned.

It was now 1885. The fortune he was seeking in the promised land was not to come easily. He spent a year taking any menial job he could find just to keep himself alive. At one stage he even resorted to digging ditches. The foreman on the ditch-digging project was fascinated by the visionary descriptions of the new electrical innovations that Tesla related to him, and introduced him to as executive of the company named A. K. Brown. This man had enough faith to finance an experimental laboratory at 33-35 South Fifth Avenue, New York.

Tesla set to work and in a short time had a complete demonstration of his system ready for assessment. Included were alternating current generators, motors, transformers, transmission lines and lights. After examination by Professor W. A. Anthony of Cornell University, it was announced that the Tesla system was equal is efficiency to any of the best direct-current machines then in production. In 1887 Tesla applied for full patent rights for all of his electrical inventions. This was not approved by the patent office as the considered a single patent to cover such a great array of ideas was too unwieldy. They insisted that each important section be covered by a separate patent. Within the next six months seven USA patents were granted, and in 1888 twenty-two more were to follow.

The Institute of Electrical Engineers were now aware of this genius among them and invited Tesla to give a demonstration lecture on his alternating-current system in New York. This was a tremendous success. It was now recognized by the engineers of the world that there need be no limit to the transmission of power over long distances. The way was now open to develop the whole industry beyond men’s wildest dreams.

Tesla was thirty-two when he was approached by George Westinghouse, who offered him one million dollars for all his alternating current patents, plus certain royalties. Tesla agreed, on the proviso that the royalty was to be one dollar per horsepower. Although this royalty was later withdrawn because of financial difficulties in the Westinghouse empire, a bond of mutual trust remained between these two great men for the rest of their lives. Tesla, at last, was being given the credit he deserved. America was his to conquer.

The General Electric Company, founded by the Edison interests, saw the writing on the wall and for their very survival had to negotiate a license from Westinghouse to compete in the rapidly expanding electrical industry being built on the concepts of alternating current. No future remained for those who thought in terms of direct current only.

In 1890 the scientist Lord Kelvin was appointed chairman of the International Niagara Commission set up to determine the most efficient way of using the force of Niagara Falls to generate electricity. In 1892 Westinghouse won the contract for the Installation of the 5000-horsepower hydro-electric generators. The transmission system was contracted to the General Electric Company. The whole complex was designed according to the ideas of Tesla. The massive alternators with external revolving fields and internal stationary armatures were personally designed by him; the transmission line including the step-up and step-down transformers was constructed to Tesla’s two-phase concept. His childhood dream had been fulfilled — he had harnessed the power of Niagara Falls.

Now in his early thirties Tesla was a wealthy man and felt free he devote more of his time to pure research. Throughout his life he give no indication of any type of business sense. The mere making of money was never a primary object with him, and as long as he had the necessary funds to buy all the equipment he needed for his experiments he was happy. His whole makeup was that of the discoverer.

He was at one with the environment itself and had a compelling, restless urge to pry all the secrets from nature and harness them, in order to help his fellow man progress towards higher level of being. He had a vision of the cosmos as consisting of myriad octaves of electrical vibration. It was his desire to be able to understand the interplay of harmonic oscillations that formed the basis of the universe. The lower octaves he had already explored with his 60 cycle per second alternating current. He was now read to reach into the unknown and probe into the regions of ultra high frequency of light and beyond.

For these experiments he constructed a great range of electrical oscillators to produce high-frequency currents, and coils tuned to set frequencies or wavelengths in order to discover the characteristic of each energy level and the particular uses to which each could be applied. He found that the interlocking harmonics were similar to the musical scale and that his coils responded not only to the transmissions of the original waveforms, but resonated at harmonic intervals above and below the original frequency. He had discovered the harmonic nature of matter.

He felt ready to take the next step in the practical application of his theoretical discoveries. During an interview in 1894 he said:

You will think me a dreamer and very far gone if I should tell you what I really hope for. But I can tell you that I look forward with absolute confidence to sending messages through the earth without any wires. I have also great hopes of transmitting electrical force in the same way without waste. Concerning the transmission of messages through the earth I have no hesitation in predicting success: I must first ascertain exactly how many vibrations to the second are caused by disturbing the mass of electricity which the earth contains. My machine for transmitting must vibrate as often to put itself in accord with the electricity in the earth.

He had previously addressed a meeting of the National Electric Light Association and had said, in part:

I am becoming more and more convinced of the scheme, and though I know full well that the great majority of scientific men will not believe that such results can be practically and immediately realized, yet I think that all consider the developments in recent years by a number of workers to have been such as to encourage thought and experiment in this direction. My conviction has grown so strong that I no longer look upon the plan of energy or intelligence transmission as a mere theoretical possibility, but as a serious problem to electrical engineering, which must be carried out some day...

We now know that electrical vibrations may be transmitted through a single conductor. Why then not try to avail ourselves of the earth for this purpose? We need not be frightened of the idea of distance. To the weary wanderer counting the mile posts, the earth may appear very large; but to the happiest of all men, the astronomer, who gazes at the heavens, and by their standards judges the magnitude of our globe, it appears very small.

And so I think it must seem to the electrician; for when he considers the speed with which an electrical disturbance is propagated through the earth, all his ideas of distance must completely vanish. A point of great importance would be first to know what is the capacity of the earth, and what charge does it contain if electrified. Though we have no evidence of a charged body existing in space without other oppositely electrified bodies being near, there is a fair probability that the earth is such a body, for whatever process it was separated — and this is the accepted view of its origin — it must have retained a charge, as occurs in all processes of mechanical separation.

If we can ever ascertain at what period the earth’s charge, when disturbed, oscillates, with respect to an oppositely charged system, or known circuit, we shall know a fact possible of the greatest importance to the welfare of the human race. I propose to seek the period by means of an electrical oscillator, or a source of alternating currents.

One of the terminals of this source would be connected to the earth, as, for instance, the city water mains, the other to an insulated body of large surface. It is possible that the outer conducting air strata, or free space, contain an opposite charge, and that, together with the earth, they form a condenser of large capacity. In such case the period of vibration may be very low and an alternating dynamo machine might serve for the purpose of the experiment. I would then transform the current to a potential as high as it would be found possible, and connect the ends of the high tension secondary coil to the ground and to the insulated body.

By varying the frequency of the currents and carefully observing the potential of the insulated body, and watching for the disturbance at various neighboring points of the earth’s surface, resonance might be detected. For the experiments, Tesla chose a site on the outskirts of the town of Colorado Springs, Colorado. To the present day it has been thought that he selected this particular area just out of pure convenience. It was said that he was attracted by the dryness of the air which made it an excellent position for electrical experiment (violent electrical storms were common in the mountainous terrain around Colorado Springs and nearby Pikes Peak).

But I believe this was not his prime reason, as will be demonstrated. A large barn-shaped structure was built on the site to Tesla’s specifications. It was just on 100 feet square, with sides twenty-five feet high. The roof then sloped upward to a high peak in the centre A pyramid-shaped tower extended upward from the centre peak for a height of about eighty feet through which a mast was supported reaching to a height of around 200 feet. On top of the mast was a copper ball three feet in diameter. A heavy duty wire was run from this copper ball down the mast, then connected to the large secondary coil of the electrical apparatus in the shed.

Power, which was supplied by a generator from the Colorado Springs Electric Power Company a few miles away, was fed into transformer system and stepped up to around 30,000 volts. This was then fed into a condenser. When the condenser reached capacity it discharged into a coil. This provided a continually oscillating high-frequency current. The primary coil was constructed of heavy wire on a circular fence like arrangement about seventy-five feet in diameter. At the centre, the secondary coil, about ten feet in diameter, was wound with approximately seventy-five turns on a frame ten feet high. This inner coil was attached to a copper plate buried deep in the ground at one end and the other end connected to the copper ball at the top of the mast. The two coils were tuned perfectly with each other and created electrical resonances in the order of 100 million volts.

The whole system acted as a gigantic electrical pump, and enabled Tesla to cause massive discharges of energy to oscillate between the earth and the surrounding atmosphere. During his experiments with this fantastic piece of equipment he caused huge bolts of lightning to issue forth from the copper ball into the air, and manmade thunder to scare the living daylights out of the populace for miles around. He finally succeeded in burning out the generating plant at Colorado Springs due to the electrical overload placed upon it. This did not, of course, make him too popular with the local council, and he had to carry out extensive repairs to the plant before he was able to continue with his work.

He discovered that a rate of 150,000 oscillations a second, which produced electrical pulsations with a wavelength of 2000 meters, was necessary to produce the effects he required in the transmission of usable power through the earth.

If we convert the wavelength of 2000 meters to a minute of arc, or nautical mile equivalent on the earth’s surface the result is 1.0792237. The experimental value was therefore very close to 1.08 minutes of arc, or one twenty thousandth of the circumference of the earth. 21600 minutes divided by 1.08.

The exact number of cycles to obtain a 1.08 minute wavelength would be 149892.18 per second. This would tune the transmitter in harmony with the world grid system.

In the early stages of my work I wondered why I could not obtain pure harmonics from all my calculations when dealing with physical substance — that is, exactly 144 for the light harmonic etc. Tesla stated that it was not possible to obtain pure resonance or harmonic vibrations, because if this were so then matter itself would disintegrate. A certain amount of resistance must be allowed for to prevent complete destruction of physical substance. He tested his theory of power transmission by lighting 200 incandescent lamps at a distance of twenty-six miles from the laboratory while the giant oscillator was operating — the energy being extracted directly from the earth. Each lamp required about 50 watts of power — a total of 13hp. The claimed efficiency was 95 percent.

The Century Magazine ran an article in the June edition of 1900 stating comments made by Tesla regarding his Colorado experiments:

“However extraordinary the results shown may appear, they are but trifling compared with those obtainable by apparatus designed on these same principles. I have produced electrical discharges the actual path of which, from end to end, was probably more than 100 feet long; but it would not be difficult to reach lengths 100 times as great. I have produced electrical movements occurring at the rate of approximately 100,000 horsepower, but rates of one, five or ten million horsepower are easily practicable. In these experiments, effects were developed incomparably greater than ever produced by any human agencies and yet these results are but an embryo of what is to be.”

Tesla now had all the information he required to set up a station to transmit power to any point in the world, but before we move on to discuss his later activities let us have a closer look at the site he chose in Colorado where he tested all his theories and found positive proof of the harmonic structure of nature. In one of his unpublished articles he had stated in part that:

“Long ago he (man) recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, of a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or Luminiferous Ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never-ending cycles, all things and phenomena. THE PRIMARY SUBSTANCE, THROWN INTO INFINITESIMAL WHIRLS OF PRODIGIOUS VELOCITY, BECOMES GROSS MATTER; THE FORCE SUBSIDING. THE MOTION CEASES AND MATTER DISAPPEARS, REVERTING TO THE PRIMARY SUBSTANCE.”

His experiments had shown him (as I had found in my own bumbling way) that matter was nothing more than a complex matrix of wave-forms locked together by harmonic resonance. The energy inherent in matter could be tapped if the secret of the geometric structure of the wave-forms could be broken. It appears that, by calculation, he had found that to tune in, so to speak, to this energy ball we call earth, he had to set up his apparatus on a particular point on its surface to ensure that the waves he proposed to transmit were in step with the natural medium.

Colorado Springs was one of the ideal positions which was accessible to him. The position of Colorado Springs is given as 38 degrees 50 minutes North latitude and 104 degrees 50 minutes West longitude. Calculations which have been carried out recently for this arcs show that a theoretical position of 38° 49’ 31.629” North latitude and 104° 52’ 22” West longitude would be the ideal position to set up a Tesla type experiment.

The exact positions where Tesla built his transmitter is unknown to me, but I believe it was not too far from the theoretical one.

During my years of research I have discovered that some of the scientific establishments have been positioned in such a way that the latitude value sets up a harmonic due to the relative distance from the Equator and the North or South Pole. Also I have found that there are harmonic intervals above and below the normal units of degrees, minutes and seconds in circular measure. Division or multiplication is carried out by the harmonic value of 6.

So: for the theoretical latitude position we have:

Distance to the North Pole = 51.174548 degrees
Distance from the equator = 38.825453 degrees
Difference = 12.349095 degrees
Divided by 6 = 2.0581825 units
Multiplied by 2 = 4.116365 units
Squared = 16.9444 units

The harmonic 169444 is related to MASS, GRAVITY and COMMUNICATION and is demonstrated many times in my later works. The method of calculation also follows a regular pattern. The great circle displacement between longitude 104° 52’ 22” west and 90° 00’ 00” west, at the same latitude, also sets up an important harmonic. The value: 694.44 minutes of arc. This is the reciprocal harmonic of the Grid speed of light, 144000 minutes of arc per Grid second, in free space.
 

Tesla must have been well aware of the importance of the position he chose, but kept the reasons a closely guarded secret. It is interesting to note that in this same area the military have chosen to set up the greatest electrical complex in the world — the North American Defense Command, NORAD. I am not telling tales out of school here because other publications have already pointed this fact out.

The caption on a photo of the command post, in publication which I have, free to any of the public who wish to buy one, states:

“The main battle staff position in the combat operations centre (COC) at headquarters North American Defense Command (NORAD), Colorado Springs, Colorado, fronts a display area which allows observers to see the positions of airborne objects thousands of miles away. NORAD (COC) is hooked to all of NORAD’s subordinate units and to every major command post on the continent. I am sure the Russians are also fully aware of the significance of this position and that they have similar military command posts set up on the Russian continent, so I am not releasing anything that could in the remotest sense be termed a military secret. From a public point of view though, one of the reasons becomes clear why the work and discoveries of Tesla remain suppressed: the military application of his discoveries has been considered far more important ant than the welfare of the ordinary citizen of the world.

Tesla was now ready to build his world power system. With a cash grant of $150,000 donated by the banker J.P. Morgan he was able to commence construction of his world wireless power and broadcasting station.

The site he picked for this station was to be on a tract of land owned by James S. Warden, a lawyer and banker. This was at Shoreham, in Suffolk County, Long Island. Tesla’s idea was to create a radio city from which information would be broadcast on all wavelengths. I find once more that far better than my own inadequate description of the system, the reported words of Tesla himself give more of an idea of the magnitude of the enterprise:

The world system has resulted from a combination of several original discoveries made by the inventor in the course of long continued research and experimentation. It makes possible not only the instantaneous and precise wireless transmission of any kind of signals, messages or characters to all parts of the world, but also the interconnection of the existing telegraph, telephone and other signal stations without any change in their present equipment.

 

By its means for instance, a telephone subscriber here may call up any other subscriber on the globe. An inexpensive receiver, not bigger than a watch, will enable him to listen anywhere on land or sea to a speech delivered, or music played, in some other place, however distant. These examples are cited merely to give an idea of the possibilities of this great scientific advance, which annihilates distance and makes that perfect conductor, the earth, available for all the innumerable purposes which human ingenuity has found for a line wire.

 

One far-reaching result of this is that any device capable of being operated through one or more wires (at a distance obviously restricted) can like wise be activated, without artificial conductors, and with the same facility and accuracy, at distances to which there are no limits other than those imposed by the physical dimensions of the globe. Thus, not only will entirely new fields for commercial exploitation be opened up by this ideal method of transmission, but the old ones vastly extended.

The world system is based on the application of the following important inventions and discoveries.

1. The Tesla Transformer: This apparatus is in the production of electrical vibrations, as revolutionary as gunpowder was in war-fare. Currents many times stronger than any ever generated in the usual ways, and sparks over 100 feet long, have been produced by the inventor with an instrument of this kind.

    

2. The Magnifying Transmitter: This is Tesla’s best invention — a peculiar transformer specially adapted to excite the earth, which is, in the transmission of electrical energy, what the telescope is in astronomical observation. By the use of this marvelous device he has already set up electrical movements of greater intensity than those of lightning, and passed a current sufficient to light more than 200 incandescent lamps around the globe.
    

3. The Tesla Wireless System: This system comprises a number of improvements and is the only means known for transmit-ting, economically, electrical energy to a distance without wires. Careful test and measurements in connection with an experimental station of great activity, erected by the inventor in Colorado, have demonstrated that power in any desired amount can be conveyed clear across the globe if necessary, with a loss not exceeding a few per cent.
    

4. The Art of Individualization: This invention of Tesla, is to primitive tuning what refined language is to inarticulated expression. It makes possible the transmission of signals or messages absolutely secret and exclusive both in active and passive aspect, that is, non-interfering as well as non-interferable. Each signal is like an individual of unmistakable identity and there is virtually no limit to the number of stations or instruments that can be simultaneously operated without the slightest mutual disturbance.
    

5. The Terrestrial Stationary Waves: This wonderful discovery, popularly explained, means that the earth is responsive to electrical vibrations of definite pitch, just as a tuning fork is to certain waves of sound. These particular electrical vibrations, capable of powerfully exciting the globe, lend themselves to innumerable uses of great importance commercially and in many other respects.

The first world system power plant can be put in operation in nine months. With this power plant it will be practical to attain electrical activities up to ten million horsepower and it is designed to serve for as many technical achievements as are possible without undue expense. Among these the following may be mentioned:

1. Interconnection of the existing telegraph exchanges or offices all over the world.

2. Establishment of a secret and non-interferable Government telegraph service.

3. Interconnection of all the present telephone exchanges or offices all over the globe.

4. Universal distribution of general news, by telegraph or telephone, in connection with the press.

5. The establishment of a world system of intelligence transmission for exclusive private use.

6. Interconnection and operation of all stock tickers of the world

7. Establishment of a world system of musical distribution, etc.

8. Universal registration of time by cheap clocks indicating the time with astronomical precision and requiring no attention whatever.

9. Facsimile transmission of type or handwritten characters, letters, cheques etc.

10. Establishment of a universal marine service enabling navigators of all ships to steer perfectly without compass, to determine the exact location, hour and speed, to prevent collisions and disasters etc.

11. Inauguration of a system of world printing on land or sea

12. Reproduction anywhere in the world of photographic picture and all kinds of drawings or records.

The complex that Tesla planned to build on Long Island to bring all this to fruition was at that time like something out of some science-fiction drama. The tower for the transmitter was constructed on a wide circular base from strong wooden beams, with all the necessary metal fittings produced from copper. It tapered toward the top and rose to a height of 154 feet. Surmounted upon this was a colossal hemispherical structure to form the electrode.

The skeleton of this was also formed from wood and was to be sheathed in copper. Not far from the base of the tower was a large brick building designed to house all the intricate machinery necessary to generate the massive amount of power required to run the station. Most of the equipment was of special design and Tesla had a great deal of trouble in having some of it manufactured. By 1902 the tower and the control building were completed.

Soon after this everything started to go wrong for Tesla. He had trouble getting supplies of equipment he required and the financial hackers, who up till then had been highly enthusiastic about the project, withdrew their support. The whole project crashed. A plan that Tesla had for creating a similar station at Niagara Falls for Canadian interests was also abandoned. He never fully recovered from this setback. He was never again to receive the money he needed to carry out large-scale experiments.

The reasons for this were, and still are, veiled in mystery, and in 1943 he died alone, in a hotel room in New York, a poor and almost forgotten man.

This small resume of the life of Nicola Tesla does not give anything like the coverage of his achievement that it deserves. A large volume would have to be written to do anything like justice to this electrical genius who spent his life trying to give his fellow men a basis for a new and wonderful world. Why was he stopped? Would the dreams of a universal power system have allowed the poorer nations to advance too quickly? Could it be that the large international companies would have found it difficult to control such a system?

Many questions — but no answers. I only hope that the students of the future will take time to study the works of Nicola Tesla and one day endeavor to complete his dream. The reason for the location of the transmitter of the world power system at Wardenclyffe, in the Shoreham area of Long Island, would also have been because of the geometries involved. If the station were to operate at maximum efficiency, it had to be set up in a position that ensured the propagation of the electromagnetic-wave-forms was in perfect harmony with the atomic structure of the Earth. The electrons in every atom of every element had to be resonated in order to transmit the energy being imparted.

During the first world war the Wardencliffe Tower was dynamited for some obscure reason, and most traces of Tesla’s activity in the area completely obliterated.
At the time of writing the initial draft for this chapter I was unable to find the exact location of the tower site, because of the scanty records left behind for public viewing.

I did publish a theoretical position in my earlier works which showed a series of harmonics but was never really satisfied with the results. One of my readers in England decided to help me with the problem and wrote to a friend of his who lives on Long Island asking if it were possible to pin-point the site. He sent the results of his query on to me and I quote a section of his letter:

“I mentioned to my friend that you were unable to locate the site of Tesla’s Tower. Well this produced an unexpected reaction from my friend because it is just around the corner from where she lives in the grounds of the Peerless Company. In fact the road that runs on the other side of the boundary fence, 50 yards from the octagonal concrete base, is called Tesla Street.

Peerless replied that according to the highways department (presumably Suffolk County) the coordinates are as follows:

40° 56’ 50.3” north/ 72° 53’ 55.6” west.”

At last a position was available for study, although I have not been able to check the accuracy. If any reader can supply more information, I would be most grateful.

Computer calculations indicated that Tesla was in possession of knowledge far in advance of his time. If the position of the transmitter was near correct then the geometric placement was directly related to the unified equations discovered in my work on the world grid system.

The great circle displacement from the transmitter to a point of longitude 180° 00’ 00” at the same latitude, was:

269375.57 seconds of arc.

This was extremely close to the energy harmonic derived from the unified equation in relation to the speed of light at the Earth’s surface, found in my latest research.

269364.5 harmonic.

The difference of around eleven seconds of arc would give as error of about 800 feet, which is not too bad for normal map reference. See Diagram. The longitudinal placement indicated that Tesla had chose a position harmonically tuned to the reciprocal of the Greenwich meridian. An article published in the “Arizona Republic” on Sunday, September 2, 1984, regarding Tesla’s experiments, contained some interesting information, which showed a relationship with grid harmonics.

Quote:

With a pocket sized vibrator, he told reporters, he could generate resonant tremors that could split the Earth in two. He gave its resonance frequency as one hour and 49 minutes. Whatever the plausibility of his Earth-splitting scheme, the rather precise estimate of the Earth’s frequency turned out to be close to the mark, as was demonstrated during the great Chilean earthquake of 1960, when geophysicists were able to measure the time it took waves to travel back and forth through the Earth.

Unquote.

I wondered just what time base the Earth frequency was based on and after several calculations discovered that it was related directly with the yearly cycle of the Earth round the Sun of 365.25 days.

One Earth year = 365.25 days
= 8766 hours
One hour 49 minutes = 1.8166 hour
8766 divided by 1.8166 = 4825.3211
Square root of 4825.32 = 69.464

In grid terms the reciprocal harmonic of the speed of light (144,000 minutes of arc per grid second, in free space, relative to the Earth’s surface) is 69444444.
If we work backwards from this harmonic value, then:

69.444444 squared = 4822.5308
8766 divided by 4822.5308 = 1.8177178
1.8177178 hours = One hour 49 minutes
03.7842 seconds

The results are so close that I would venture to say that the resonant frequency of the Earth is directly related to the speed of light.

Another interesting point that I believe we should note is that Tesla insisted that 60 cycles a second would be the most efficient frequency to use in all the alternators and motors produced from his patents. There was much opposition to this from the manufactured and practical men in the field, but Tesla won his point and, to this day, 60 cycles a second is the frequency used in alternating-current transmission.

Why? It has been found that one of the basic natural frequencies of the Earth is six cycles per second. Tesla picked a harmonic of 6 which would be the most practical.

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13.- SPACE COMMUNICATION

THE SCIENTISTS ARE NOW BEGINNING TO AGREE publicly that we are not alone in the universe. Millions of worlds similar to ours must exist and the odds are that on many of them life has developed in much the same way as it has on earth. Some civilizations will be just beginning, others will be far in advance of our achievements here, and possibly many of them have reached the stage of traveling freely across the vast reaches of space.

Our own progress has been fairly rapid in the last century, and it won’t be long before we will be ready to try our first venture into deep space. If we do have neighbors, our first step will be to communicate by means of transmitted signals before we take the more difficult step of building vehicles to take us there. In fact, if we could communicate in some way, we might possibly gain vital information from a more advanced race that would enable us to carry out a probe into deep space much sooner.

The problem is, by what method, and with what type of transmission can this be accomplished most efficiently? Normal radio transmission is not the answer, as vast amounts of power and extremely expensive equipment are required to broadcast a signal for any distance. Even at the speed of light a time factor is involved if we hope to contact many of the nearest star systems. Communication is not a very practical prospect if we have to wait many years for a reply.

The best and most efficient method, as I see it, is to devise a system whereby the communication frequencies are tuned to the structure of matter and the harmonic wave-forms that permeate all space. With the correct aerial system, and frequency ratios to match, It may be possible to find a short cut to reach far-distant worlds which interest us.

Our planet is a resonating ball of wave-forms tuned to the unified fields of space, so what better antenna could we use to broadest intelligent signals through the cosmos than the earth itself? If a method could be found to superimpose coded wave-forms within the natural grid of the earth, then they would permeate through space within the electromagnetic fields which join all the planetary bodies of the universe.

To do this, we would have to pick a geometric position on the earth’s surface which would be harmonically associated with the structure of the atom. Then we would have to design an aerial system that would enable us to resonate the whole world. It would then become a spherical broadcasting antenna of immense potential causing any signal imposed upon it to be spread throughout the galaxy.

It is possible that unbeknown to the United States Navy, they have solved the problem. With our present technology, and a few million dollars, the job can be done.

In the 16 August 1973 edition of the New Scientist, I found an article headed “New Home For America’s Doomsday Radio”. Project Sanguine — the transmitters proposed for sending the retaliation signal to America’s missile submarines following a nuclear attack—has quietly slipped back into gear, having been held us for four years by environmental protests. Two new sites have been selected for the aerials that spread over literally thousands of square miles and beam their submarine messages through the earth’s crust. Project Sanguine, as it is known, will if and when complete enable the President of the United States to activate his second strike missile submarine force lying hidden in deep canyons on the ocean bottom. It will provide the only remaining communications link between a continental America destroyed by a nuclear fire strike and the deeply submerged submarine fleet which will the hurl retaliation against its aggressor.

Sanguine will use extraordinarily low frequencies — somewhere between 30 and 100 hertz, which have never before been used for communications purposes. Their great advantage is that they will propagate through the earth’s crust, penetrating the ocean bed from below — providing radio communications with deeply submerged submarines for the first time.

Sanguine’s buried aerials will have to cover an area of anything up to 100 miles square, and will have to carry currents so strong that in early experiments they rang telephone bells, interfered with TV reception, and electrified fences on the surface above. The navy has awarded contracts worth three million dollars for design proposals for a system and expects to place full-scale development contracts next year.

Sanguine’s use of frequencies previously employed only on national electricity grids is only an extreme example of a long-term trend in radio communications with submarines. Conventional mf, hf and vhf waves are rapidly absorbed by sea-water and cannot be used. But even before the first world war it was realized that below about 40 kilo-Hertz attenuation rapidly falls off and communication becomes impossible. As the frequency is reduced from 40 to 10 kilo-Hertz, attenuation falls from 2.2 to 1.1 decibels per foot. All naval powers have long had stations operating in the lower part of this frequency band.

Unfortunately any radio aerial, if it is to be an efficient radiator, must have a length equal to at least one-quarter of the wavelength of the radio wave to be transmitted. At these frequencies the wavelengths are so enormous (say 20 miles) that this is physically not possible. Very low frequency (vlf) stations are all of great size and use very high power to compensate for the low efficiency of their aerials.

By 1969 several Project Sanguine research teams were in existence: RCA had a 4.3 million dollar contract to run a test facility; the US Navy had 20 million dollars put on one side for research in the following year; and there was talk of a final 1500 million dollar system.

The idea was to bury the aerial cables below the surface in a 22,000) square mile grid measuring 150 miles by 150 miles. The rectangles of the grid pattern would be eight miles by eight miles, and at each crossover point there would be a buried amplifier feeding current into the grid. Maximum current flow would be 300 amps and this would create a magnetic field of one gauss and an electro-magnetic field of 0.35 volt per meter. The navy has selected two possible sites for the aerial grid

One is atop the so called Llano Uplift, a non-conducting rock formation 45 miles north-west of Austin, Texas. The other is in the Upper Michigan Peninsula where the bedrock is part of the Laurentian Shield. Total power will be of the order of 10 megawatts. The information given indicates that the best area to build the grid antenna would depend on the type of rock strata below ground level. The right type of strata would act as a wave guide, it is suggested.

According to my research, the type of rock strata would have no effect on the transmission of the radio waves. The factor, as I see it, that would control the efficiency of the system would be the latitude and longitude of the position chosen. Because of this, I believe that the site suggested north-west of Austin, Texas, would be an ideal location for the job.

In my earlier books I had shown a position north west of Austin which would give a series of grid harmonics. Now, many year later, I have access to much more information which enables me to calculate a more accurate position, which is displaced only slightly from the original.

The diagram will show that the latitude sets up a harmonic geometric which is directly related to twice the speed of light — 288. The speed of light in free space being 144,000 minutes of are per grid second, relative to the Earth’s surface. The speed of light according to grid theory, varies from 144,000 minutes of arc per grid second in free space, to 143,795.77 minutes of arc per grid second at the Earth’s surface. (See my work, “The Bridge to Infinity”) The great circle distance between the antenna position and longitude 180° west, at the same latitude, is 4116.36 minutes of arc. A study of all my works will show that the square of this number give a harmonic value of 169444. Other sections of my published data will show that this harmonic is directly related to mass, gravity and communication wavelengths.

A further, most important, fact is that the great circle distance between the antenna position and grid pole “B” in the north is the harmonic of twice the speed of light at the Earth’s surface or 2875.9 minutes of arc. Grid Pole “B” is displaced 694.44 minutes of arc from the north geographic pole, which is the reciprocal harmonic of the speed of light in free space.

The interaction of all these factors would ensure that all transmissions from the theoretical position would set up unified fields harmonized with the geometric structure of matter itself. But this is not all. The dimensions of the aerials, the spacing and the area covered, are all vital requirements necessary to tune our world into the Cosmos.

The length of each side of the Grid Antenna is: 130.1691208 minutes of arc, (149.89171 statute miles). Therefore the area covered by the grid would be: 16944 square minutes of arc, (or square nautical miles). The harmonic of mass, gravity and communication. The number of rectangular areas enclosed by the grid antenna, not including the centre square, would be 288, the harmonic of 2C, where “C” equals the speed of light.

Each small square section would have a side length of 6.944 minutes of arc, or nautical miles. This value is the harmonic reciprocal of the speed of light. 6.944 nautical miles is equal to 7.99612 statute miles (8 miles).

So it appears that if the aerials are spaced at 7.9912 statute miles and the sides of the square covered by the system are 149.928694 statute miles long, our aerial would be closely tuned to the structure of the Atom. Any signal transmitted by such a system should, in theory, travel a great distance into space.
Hello neighbor.

Since publication of this chapter the construction of the antenna system has become an environmental issue and the project has been postponed. Latest information suggests that the project may be shifted to a site near Crystal Falls in Wisconsin. The given aerial length and site position also indicate similar harmonic associations.

Showing the geometric relationship of the underground antenna to grid harmonics,

Latitude displacement to north pole = 59.4°
Latitude displacement to equator = 30.6°
Difference = 28.8°
Relative displacement = 288 harmonic 2C
Distance A B 4116.36 minutes of arc.
This value squared = 169444 harmonic

The value 169444 has been found to have connections with the harmonics of mass, gravity and communications. The number of rectangular areas enclosed by the grid antenna not including the centre square is 288, the harmonic of 2C, where C equals the speed of light. The number of amplifiers, shown by dots each aerial intersection, is 324. This harmonic is shown in various ways throughout the book. 8 x 6.9444 = 55.555.

DIAGRAM 11

Showing theoretical grid structure of underground antenna for resonating the earth Dimensions of grid antenna in minutes of arc:

(A) 55.555 (55.555 squared = 3086.358025, the reciprocal of 324)
(B) 130.1691208
(C) 18.489
(D) Centre of grid aerial position

The square of 130.1691208 is equal to 16944

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14.- WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLYERS GONE?

FIVE DECEMBER, 1945. A FLIGHT OF FIVE AVENGER torpedo-bombers of the United States Navy took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and flew out over a fairly calm sea. The weather conditions were clear. The time was exactly ten minutes past two when the leader roared down the run-way closely followed by the four other aircraft in the formation. Cruising off at 215 mph, the flight was slowly lost to view as the bombers winged their way out on an easterly course over the Atlantic.

The plan filed by the fight leader showed that the proposed course would take the formation 160 miles east towards the Bahamas, then north for 40 miles, and then finally back on to a direct course that would bring the five aircraft back to the naval air station. In less than two hours the flight would be completed, the planes back on the ground.

But those two hours were to drag on into a nightmare for the crews of the aircraft, and they were not to see their base again. That flight has gone down in the annals of Air Force history as the greatest air mystery of our time.

Word came from the formation at 3:45 p.m. when a strange radio message was received in the operations control tower at Fort Lauderdale. The flight leader spoke in a bewildered manner; he was obviously worried. He radioed:

“We seem to be off course. I’m not sure of our position.”

More calls were received over the next hour, and each time the leader seemed increasingly at a loss as to what was happening to his flight — and as to where it was.

Around 4 o’clock that strange afternoon a brief radio conversation was heard by the listeners in the control tower. The flight leader, by the sound of it, was beginning to panic; he had turned over the command to another pilot. The last message from the now overdue flight was received at 4:25 p.m.

“Our position still not certain,” the message said. “Believe we are about 225 north-east of base.”

With the receipt of this oblique message, a Martin Mariner flying boat equipped with rescue and survival equipment was hurriedly made ready and dispatched to the position estimated for the Avengers in order to guide them home. Meanwhile, the control tower was desperately trying to raise the flight commander, but no more was to be heard from him or from any of the other pilots. It was as though the flight had never taken place.

The anxious tower operators then tried to contact the Mariner that had been sent off to help the Avengers find their way home. There was no response. Communication with all six aircraft was lost.

By now the operations personnel were thoroughly alarmed. The coastguard at Miami were contacted, and almost immediately a coastguard rescue plane was sent off to follow the path of the other aircraft. After a thorough search of the last estimated position the coastguard pilot reported back that no sign of the six missing planes could be found.

Surface craft were sent out, and the area was searched through out the night. By morning there were twenty vessels methodically scouring the sea, and soon they were joined in the air by 240 search aircraft, flying in a pattern from Florida to the Bahamas. For two days an unceasing search was kept up. The area, scrutinized by sea and air as it had never been searched before, extended up to 300 miles from the coast over the Atlantic, and 200 miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

Not a single trace of the six missing planes was found. The search area was then shifted to the inshore areas and around the sinister Everglades in the faint hope that the aircraft had. for some inexplicable reason, flown inland. Before it was over the search operation covered some quarter of a million square miles. to become the most intensive air-sea search ever undertaken. But the results remained negative. The six aircraft had disappeared as though they had vanished from this earth, or into another dimension.

At last, with the search crews exhausted, the Navy reluctantly called a halt to the hunt. But search teams continued to rake through land areas, the beaches, and the Bahamas Islands them selves. For weeks all debris cast up on the beaches, every item of flotsam, was minutely examined in the dying hope of finding some tiny clue, some tiny part of any one of the six missing planes. Nothing was found.

Months later a naval board of inquiry formally stated that no trace of the missing planes or their crews had been found, and that no adequate theory could be put forth to explain their disappearance.

An analysis made afterwards to try to determine the most probable position of the aircraft at the time they disappeared only helped to deepen the mystery further.

Had the flight of Avengers continued on a direct course to the east the air-crews would eventually have made contact with Great Asaco Island. If they had gone northeast they would have flown ever Grand Bahamas Island, which is about twenty-five miles in length. Had they continued in a south-easterly direction, they would have sighted Andros Island, or any one of a great number of smaller islands scattered about that area. In fact, the only completely open areas were almost directly north or south, and it is most unlikely that either of these courses was followed by the missing six aircraft, since they were known to have flown off from the airfield in an easterly direction, in accordance with their flight plans.

At no time did any of the crew members indicate that land was within sight in the radio messages received. In other accounts of this incident it has always emerged that the crews were confused and apparently disorientated — almost as though they were flying in a void. They seemed not to know whether they were flying straight and level or upside down — sea and sky appeared to be as confused as if the crews had stumbled through a hidden doorway and had entered a topsy-turvy world with its own rules.

The only possible explanation seemed to be that for some unknown reason the formation had been flying along a circular course within the ring of the surrounding islands; otherwise, it was argued, at some stage they would surely have sighted land. Since there were five aircraft in the missing formation, the chances off the navigation equipment in every one of them being faulty were so remote as to be an impossibility. All equipment had been thoroughly checked out and passed as fully serviceable before the exert else. In the event of any disaster, of whatever nature, at least one of the five aircraft would have had time to send out a distress signal. All aircraft and crew were equipped with survival gear for use in the event of a crash landing or an enforced ditching in the sea. The same thing was true of the missing Martin Mariner. Moreover, this particular aircraft was bulging with survival equipment.

If all six aircraft had crashed somewhere, or gone into the water, some trace, some item of wreckage, would eventually have been picked up. Yet nothing has ever turned up — not the tiniest trace.

The records of the incident are still open, and to this day no logical explanation has ever been put forward to account for the mysterious events of that December day.

In my earlier publication Harmonic 695, I had put forth the theory that the aircraft had flown into an area of space-time instability due to the partial destruction of the world grid, in ancient times. Now that I am aware that the grid system is a natural manifestation due to the formation of matter itself, I have checked the known facts once again and estimated the flight path by computer analysis.

At the time of my earlier findings I did not believe that our own scientists had the knowledge to set up any type of experiment which could have had any effect, what-so-ever, on the flight of the Avengers; so the disappearance was thought to be caused by forces beyond our control.

Now, many years later, the evidence at hand indicates, without much doubt, that the scientists did have a great deal of theoretical knowledge concerning the structure of space-time and that various experiments were being carried out in order to verify the unified nature of our reality.

The flight plan filed by the flight leader, on close analysis by computer, now reveals a strong possibility that the Avengers were part of an advanced scientific experiment, set up by our own scientists. If this were so, then the crews of the aircraft were probably not aware of it. If anything went wrong, or, if indeed the experiment was a success, they would, under the circumstances, be deemed expendable. The fact that the radio transmissions from the aircraft gave no indication that the crew members were aware of the cause of their predicament suggest that the experiment, if it took place, was known only to those who set it up.

The filed flight plan showed the following possibilities:

The proposed course would take the formation 160 miles east towards Great Abaco Island, then north for 40 miles and then finally back onto a direct course that should take them to the Naval air station.

If we take these coordinates and transpose them into very close grid equivalents of minutes of arc, or nautical miles, then:

160 statute miles (flight plan) could be:
159.93256 Statute miles (grid)

Which converts to:
138.8888 nautical miles (minutes) grid Which is equal to:
(69.4444 x 2) or twice the speed of light reciprocal harmonic (694444)
40 statute miles (flight plan)

Could be:
39.983139 statute miles (grid)
Which converts to:
34.7222 nautical miles (minutes) grid Which is equal to:
(69.4444/2) or half the speed of light reciprocal harmonic (347222)

The return, or third, leg of the journey would equal:
165.583 statute miles.

Which converts to:
143.79577 nautical miles (minutes) grid.
The speed of light at the Earth’s surface (average) is: 143,795.77 minutes of arc per grid second.

A glance at diagram 12 will show that the filed flight plan closely fits the theoretical flight plan which allows direct association with the harmonics of the unified field.

In the diagram (A) represents the take-off point at Fort Lauderdale, (B) the turning point near Gorda Cay and (C) the turning point for home, near the Downer Cays. At the first turning point (B) the aircraft would be at a distance of 3229.8793 minutes of arc from north grid pole (B).

This converts to:

53.8313 degrees.
The Cosine of this angle equals:
0.59016475
The reciprocal of this value equals:
1.69444 (harmonic 169444)

This harmonic is associated with mass and gravity. If, at the time the aircraft reached these turning points, a pulsed harmonic transmission was broadcast from a strategically placed ground station, or stations, it is possible that a unified field effect could have been caused at these positions. It is also possible that advanced electronic equipment could have been placed in the aircraft without the knowledge of the crews.

Admittedly the theory is pure speculation but the flight plan fits and I have a feeling that this is more than just coincidence. As I said in my initial publication, I believe that all the aircraft were completely disintegrated, or moved through space-time. Where, may we ask, have all the flyers gone? Do they still exist in some kind of space warp? Were our own people responsible?

MAP 6

Map showing estimated, intended, flight path of five Avenger aircraft from Fort Lauderdale on December 5th, 1945

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15.- PEOPLE WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT

STARTLING THOUGH IT WAS TO HAVE FOUND A network of man-made aerials built into the UFO grid system, some of the subsequent events were bizarre.
Up to this time I had been aware of treading on the corns of a few faceless technicians and other parties who had some connection, scientifically or politically, with the UFO grid. It had to be only a matter of of time before the corns were inflamed enough to bring their possessors out into the open. So far as I was aware, no direct action had been taken to prevent me from proceeding with investigations connected with my theories, or to try and stop my constant probing into the network.

Like all the best ordered secret societies, the group had given no positive indication that they even existed. So long as the public at large did not insist upon answers to controversial questions, the group’s members, whoever and wherever they were, were apparently content to let matters quietly take their own course, no doubt hopeful that eventually I would be branded as just another crank, and that anything I had to put forward would automatically be discounted.

I was fully aware that there was a possibility that I would be written off as a crank, but I soon decided that this was a chance I would have to take anyway. Obviously I had to be fairly careful how I handled information I was now receiving. If I pushed too hard, I would almost certainly be regarded as a Grade A lunatic, On the other hand, if I kept all the information to myself I would lose any advantage I might have gained, and I would be placing myself in a position that could prove to be quite dangerous. Other investigators of UFO phenomena in the past have disappeared or have been victims of strange accidents as a result of probing too deeply into the so-called flying saucer enigma.

For these reasons I decided that my best course was to leak information out as it came into my hands, and also to filter out copies of all my notes through a loose-knit chain of contacts both within and outside New Zealand, so that it would be impossible to stop the truth from spreading. All the evidence so far gathered would be in the hands of certain newspapermen, so that it could be transmitted via the wire services immediately any move was made to stop my investigations.
I had no intention of becoming involved in some weird cloak and dagger game; certainly I have never regarded my investigations as either a game or a harmless hobby. I am also deeply aware of just how serious the “group” is about maintaining secrecy over their activities.

In fact, I took some pains to keep the “group” informed about the network I had set up to ensure that all information would quickly be disseminated in the event of some untoward accident coming my way. There were a few people whom I was certain had direct connections with the “group,” if they were not members themselves. Through these people I let the word go out as to the precautions I had taken. One of them scornfully suggested that he could not believe any journalist would sit on such hot news when it might be possible for him to get a scoop on the news services of the world.

My answer to him was:

“Test the truth of what I have told you by trying to stop me in my investigations.”

So far the test has not been made; perhaps he realized that after all there are more honest and dedicated men in this world than we sometimes think. At any rate the scheme appeared to be working very well; I found that the public, instead of labeling me as crazy, with first-class honors, actively encouraged my research into the UFO mystery. Letters came every day, from many parts of the world, after the publication of Harmonic 33. The majority of them enclosed useful information or offered further suggestions for lines of investigation.

Only rarely did a letter turn up in my box that assassinated my character or intimated that I was off my trolley. It was clear that a large slice of the reading public knew that there had been some thing going on which they were not being properly informed about On reflection I think it was this flood of encouragement that came through my post box, more than anything else, that drove me on with my investigations. By nature I have a strong streak of curiosity; but it helps a lot more than I can estimate to find that there are many other people around who are anxious to help in any way they can.

When we photographed the first radio transmitter which I found to have a connection with the UFO grid, though, our “opposition” must have blown their cool. We had made ten prints of the photos and these were in my possession when, a few days later, I was scheduled to carry out an airways flight to New Zealand’s South Island. On the night of 16 March 1968, I was to stop over in the capital, Wellington, and on the next day, fly on to Invercargill, New Zealand’s southernmost city, returning the following day (18 March) via various centers throughout the country.

I was well aware of the significance of the photographs we had taken, and I considered it unsafe to leave them at my home while I was absent. I had stowed them into my airways brief bag, and during my stay in Wellington I contacted the American Embassy’s air attaché. I had told him the whole story, stressing that the photographs were in my possession. Until this time, in fact, I had passed a great deal of information to the Americans by way of the Embassy. There had been five personal discussions with the air attaché at his office in Wellington up to this time.

At first I had thought that the Embassy’s interest in my research was because I had found something new. As time went by I realized that this was not the case. On the contrary, it soon became clear to me that the scientists were well ahead of anything that I had been able to discover. So the Embassy’s interest was more in order to keep tabs on what I might be finding — and to see if I did happen to come upon something that the scientists did not already know.

I was content to go along with this situation because I believed that, everything I did, discovered or theorized should be kept in the open. If, on the other hand, the Americans or anyone else wanted to keep their findings a secret — well, that was their business. I felt that once it was known that I had acquired a certain level of knowledge they would have to admit something of the state of their own research, even if to do so was only in an attempt to dissuade me from continuing my own line of research.

The air attaché in fact turned out to be a valuable source of information, help and encouragement. It was he who assured me that my calculation of the UFO grid pattern for the global system was correct. Among other items he passed on to me: intensive UFO research was being carried out at Wright Patterson Airfield in the United States. The scientific laboratory there, set up for the purpose, was described as a complex of buildings covering a large area and staffed by many of the world’s top scientists. Experimental work was carried out twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

At one stage the official asked me if I would consider a trip to America to visit this base. Naturally I said I would — any time they cared to put out an invitation. Perhaps the idea was vetoed in the States, for I heard no more of this. In retrospect it seems to me that although at that time I was in the very early stages of my UFO research, perhaps I had already stumbled on to something that was of deep interest to the American scientists. They must have realized that I was beginning to uncover information which they themselves had kept carefully hidden from the general public for many years

The following night after this visit to Wellington, having takes pains to inform my Embassy contact that I had the photographs of a transmitter with me, I stayed at the Grand Hotel in Invercargill What took place there that night convinced me that there were other people in New Zealand besides myself who were keenly interested in our camera work. They are some of the people I would like to know more about.

After a leisurely dinner my co-pilot and I retired to the lounge for a chat and a cup of coffee. On this particular night there were two complete aircrews staying at the Grand. Members of the other crew were based in Wellington, and for some reason, which is still a mystery to me, the roistering section of the airline had switched the Wellington co-pilot on to my flight for the next day, while my Auckland co-pilot was to return with the Wellington crew on the early morning flight. We were not informed of this switch until after we had arrived in Invercargill earlier that afternoon. The co-pilot originally with me was most upset over this, as it interfered with some of his personal arrangements and also meant his getting up very early the following morning.

To verify the situation I telephoned Wellington and was told that the Wellington co-pilot was to crew the flight with me as far as the capital, while another Auckland co-pilot would carry on from there back to Auckland with me. I thought the whole thing rather odd it meant that three crew members would be chopping and changing to do the work of two men. However, it was not really my concern so I okayed the change and told my original co-pilot of his tough luck.

The Wellington co-pilot chatting with me over coffee in the Grand’s lounge had been interested in my research, he said; so I brought our the photos of the aerial from the bag in my room to show him Before he joined the airline as a pilot, this man had been associated with the DSIR (Department of Scientific and Industrial Research), and had carried out duties in the radio research division at McMurdo Sound, in the Antarctic. I though he might be able to tell me what range of frequencies the aerial arrangement in the photo-graphs might be operating on.

We were soon deep into a discussion on this point. He tried to persuade me that the aerial was a completely mundane affair, in common use among ham operators for normal transmissions. Suddenly we were interrupted by a tall, conservatively dressed man who had wandered over from the company of two similarly attired gentlemen sitting around a table some distance away from us, at the centre of the lounge.

Just before the stranger came to a halt at our table I had slipped the photographs back into their large envelope, and this was now resting on my lap, so I’m sure he was unable, at any time, to see that the photographs were related to broadcasting equipment. Moreover, the table at which he had left his two friends was quite some distance away, and certainly he would have been out of car-shot.

He asked me if we were talking about duck-shooting, and if we were interested in that sport? Somewhat non-plussed at this gambit, I told him we had no interest in ducks or any other kind of sporting birds, and that we were in Invercargill for reasons quite unconnected with shooting.

Then I asked him if he was staying in the hotel. He said that he was; he had, he said, a farm some miles distant from Invercargill, and he and his wife (of whom there was no sign) were in town to celebrate their wedding anniversary. This certainly seemed odd to me, and the sensation I was experiencing that this was no ordinary, casual hotel lounge encounter increased when the stranger drew up a chair and sat down with us, intent on carrying the conversation on for some time. I studied him more closely: he was aged between forty-five and fifty; over six feet tall and well built, although rather slim for his height.

His features were on the rugged side, and his face roundish; a small fold of skin under the lower lip gave one an impression that at some time he might have been in a minor accident or suffered facial burns that required slight surgery. His hair was dark, slightly greyed, and thinning; his eyes light colored and conveying an impression of considerable intelligence. His hands were long-fingered and strong, but not as rough as one would expect in a farmer. He wore a dark suit and black shoes. The suit was of conservative cut, well tailored though from a material I would describe as coarse, almost cheap. Perhaps this was one of the factors that made me feel he was odd.

After talking for a while about ducks he suddenly switched the conversation on to an entirely different channel. He asked if we were interested in ham radio or radio stations. Trying not to show my surprise I told him we were not particularly interested; privately, I began to wonder how I could get rid of him without being obviously rude. He continued to insist that we must be interested in radio; he said he had a friend not far out of town who had a ham radio set-up, and if we were to go with him we would be very intrigued with the equipment. I tried to tell him that we were not very interested in radio, and that as it was now after nine o’clock we certainly did not feel like taking a trip out of town to see a ham operators gear. He then countered with the information that he knew someone in a local government radio station, and would we care to go with him to meet his friend there and discuss radio matters with him?

By this time my co-pilot was looking distinctly uneasy; suddenly he stood up and excused himself, disappearing into the TV lounge. This left me alone with the stranger, wondering how best I could get rid of him without making a scene about it, and at the same time getting my envelope of precious photographs into a safe place. Finally I made it clear to him that I was not prepared to leave the hotel, for any reason. He at once asked me to write down the name of his friend at the government radio station on the envelope on my lap so that I could visit him next time I found myself in Invercargill with nothing better to do. It seemed to me that he wanted to put a name on the envelope so that he would be able to claim it as his, if somehow he could get possession of it. Needless to say I kept a firm hand on the envelope as he talked on.

From the conversation that followed I gathered that on the previous evening he had been aboard an American ship which was in the port at Bluff, and had had a few drinks with the captain in his cabin. He hinted that if I were interested I could go with him now to visit the ship. He did not explain how he had met the American captain, or how he had managed to get aboard the ship. This omission added to my suspicions, and I made up my mind to get rid of him.

I stood up rather abruptly and excused myself, saying that I had some urgent business to attend to, and made to walk away. He became apologetic, and did his best to keep me talking; he said he hoped he had not embarrassed me or my friend in any way. I left him then, and walked through the lounge past his two friends, who were still sitting at their table, downstairs to the main office. His two companions looked like businessmen; they had been keeping an eye on us all this time.

At the office downstairs I asked the receptionist for some Scotch tape and with it I firmly sealed the envelope, the photographs se-surely inside it, writing my name boldly on the front and back I had the receptionist place it in the hotel’s safe, explaining that I would pick it up just before I left the following day. The task completed, I went back upstairs and let myself into a public telephone box at the top of the stairs, just outside the entrance to the main lounge and the smaller TV room.

I put through a toll call to Auckland and spoke to my wife. I told her some of the odd events of the night, and asked if she had been disturbed. She told me that some friends of ours were with her, and that nothing unusual had happened. Immediately after this brief conversation I went into the TV lounge to talk to my co-pilot. He told me that the three strangers had left a short time before by the stairway to the ground floor and the main entrance of the hotel. Back down the stairs I went to ask the receptionist who the three men were who had just left, to ask whether they were staying in the hotel. All I got was a blank look. Who was I referring to?

There were no men of that description staying in the hotel; she had been at the desk the whole time; no one had passed her office, no one had gone out of the main doors, in full view of her desk and less than ten feet away. Anyone leaving by the stairs from the first floor would have had to leave by those doors. There was no other exit. Doors leading into the bars at the back of the ground floor were locked at this time of night. The only other means of egress would be from the first floor upward, by means of the fire escapes. I was beginning to feel as confused as the girl was looking. I went back up the stairs once more, and asked my co-pilot if he were quite certain that the men had left by the main stairs. From his seat he could see the top of the staircase quite clearly, and he confirmed that they must have left by the main entrance just a short time before.

How had they come into the hotel — and how did they leave?

How did they pass in front of a receptionist without being seen? Who were they? And what were they after? I am positive that our darkly-clad friend was no more a local farmer than I am. I still wonder, frequently, what would have happened if I had left with them, and taken that offered trip to the radio station outside of the city.

A few days later I was again passing through Wellington. I contacted the United States Embassy and told the air attaché of the incident. I added that I was aware that I was being kept under observation, and that if any of the people who contacted me went overseas agents my advice to him was to see to it that they stopped bothering me. The New Zealand Government at this time was fully aware of my activities, and had given me written approval of my research. If anyone caused me trouble, I told him, I would immediately make known all the facts, the evidence, the theories — everything I had put together so far.