Inventor Claims New Rays Which Can Be Set Up Like Wall Around Nation to Bar Invaders

NEW YORK, July 10 — (AP) — Nikola Tesla, noted machine inventor, celebrating 78th birthday anniversary, declared today he has discovered force rays which can be set like a wall around a nation’s borders to render it impenetrable to military attack.

He said he plans to place his inventions at the disposal of the Geneva conference in the interests of peace.

The new rays, he said, would be made of particles, probably dust or some sort, microscopically fine, driven electrically and projected in the form of vast curtains miles high and 100 miles each in length. The particles would travel the unheard of velocities of 50,000,000 volts.

Their effect would be so devastating, he claimed, that 10,000 airplanes flying into one of these curtains would be destroyed to the last machine. He drew a picture of force projecting plants set up every 200 miles along the border. Each would shoot rays 100 miles on either side. The dust beams would travel in straight lines.

Tesla gave no details of the nature of his apparatus and only the most general description of its powers. He said that the force rays involve advances scarcely conceived by scientists in general.

Particle rays now known to science are composed of fragments of atoms. They travel mostly inside of vacuum tubes. They have also been projected out into the air, but there they travel only a few inches. The air completely disintegrates and absorbs them after this short flight.

These present known particle rays moreover have no “stopping power,” they may cause burns, or some disintegration of objects which they strike, but they would not move even a pin.