Message from Mars

TESLA THINKS THAT PLANET IS SIGNALING US.

NEW YORK, Jan 4 — "I share the belief of other scientific men that the plan et Mars is inhabited; that the inhabitants are intelligent and that they are trying to communicate with the inhabitants of other planets, including our earth."

Nikola Tesla made the foregoing statement when seen in his laboratory at 48 East Houston street and asked about a machine he hopes to construct to aid Mars in her supposed efforts to send us a message.

What results he obtained from his experiments in Colorado in 1899 were not made public by the electrician until yesterday. They were far beyond his expectations. Indeed, he is firmly convinced that while conducting his investigations one day certain strange electrical disturb ances affecting his instrument were nothing less than signals from another planet.

Not only does Mr. Tesla believe with other scientific men that Mars is inhabited, but he believes it reasonable to consider the possibility of it or one of the score or more of planets in the solar system being even further advanced than us in telegraphy or other means of communication.

Mr. Tesla spent about eight months in Colorado from May, 1899. He wanted to conduct experiments in relation to the wireless transmission of energy at an altitude of several thousand feet. He built his laboratory about ten miles from Pike's peak and set out to ascertain the best conditions for transmitting power without wires and how to best develop apparatus for the transmission of messages across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a problem with which he has labored for years.

Another problem he worked on he does not care to make public at the present time, but he considers it of great importance.

In his investigations Mr. Tesla sought to master certain mysteries of electrical vibration, and these experiments resulted in what may have been a signal from Mars.

"I desired," said Mr. Tesla, "to master electrical pressures of at least 50.000.000 volts, and electrical discharges were necessary, for some purposes, measuring at least 50 or 100 feet. In my New York laboratory I was able to go only to electrical discharges of 16 feet, and I had reached effective electrical pressures of about only 8,000,000 volts.

"So satisfactory were the results I attained that I was forcibly impressed with the stimulating influence of nature in scientific research. The conditions in Colorado were suitable. I believe I did more work there in eight months owing to the marvelously invigorating climate than I could have done in three years in this city. I found that my mental vision was much clearer.

"In New York I had discovered the stationary electrical waves in the earth, and one of my first observations in Colorado was confirmatory of this result. This phenomenon, the significance of which has not yet been grasped by scientific men. virtually amounts to positive proof that with proper apparatus, such as I have perfected, wireless transmission of signals to any point on the globe is practical.

"After gradually learning how to confine electrical currents of a pressure of 50,000,000 volts and how to produce electrical movements up to 110,000 horse power I succeeded in obtaining electrical discharges measuring 100 feet and more. I also perfected novel methods for detecting feeble electrical actions.

"Whereas in ordinary, finely adjusted Hertzian appliances a lightning discharge could be detected at a distance of only 300 miles, with my instrument it was easy to observe the effect in the receiving instrument at a distance of 1,100 miles.

"While investigating the instrument I was using recorded certain feeble movements that could be barely noted at times. Their character showed unmistakably that they were not of solar origin. Neither were they produced by any causes known to me on the globe.

"After months of deep thought on this subject I have arrived at the conviction, amounting almost to knowledge. that these movements must be of planetary origin. My transmitting apparatus has now been perfected so far that I can undertake to construct a machine which will without the slightest doubt be competent to convey sufficient energy to the planet Mars to operate some delicate appliance such as we are using here now, say a telegraph or telephone.

"Inhabitants of Mars, I believe, are trying to signal the earth. Who knows but what they are farther advanced than we are in the use of instruments for the transmission of messages? With improved means of investigation we shall soon be able to find out whether indeed these disturbances I have noticed are what I feel they must be."