The New Death-Dealing "Diabolic Rays" Page 153

beam is projected alone. As this beam comes in contact with the windings of the magneto it forms a conducting path between the primary and secondary windings, thus creating a short-circuit. For the actual destruction of magnetos an electric current could be applied to the carrier beam and transmitted along it. This would burn the insulation between the windings, thus facilitating the permanent shorting of the circuit.

For airplanes a ground is needed or the highest potential in the world could not do any damage. To form this ground and thus to complete the circuit, a second carrier beam, uncharged, is projected against the plane from a second station on the ground. Thus the plane forms the contact point between the two beams, the charged one and the uncharged one.