Nikola Tesla Thinks He Has Heard From Mars

Believes That During His Investigations in Colorado an Agitation in His Receiving Apparatus Was Caused by the Planet Endeavoring to Communicate with the Earth.

WAS EXPERIMENTING WITH A PRESSURE OF 8,000,000 VOLTS

Agrees with the Idea That Mars Is Inhabited by an Advanced People.

ACHIEVEMENT OF THE CENTURY

Can He Says, Now Construct an Apparatus to Hold Communication.

"I share the belief of other scientific men that the planet 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 to-day when seen in his laboratory at No. 45 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 to-day. They were far beyond his expectations, indeed, he is firmly convinced that while conducting his investigations one day certain strange electrical disturbances affecting his instrument were nothing less than signals from another planet.

Taken altogether Mr. Tesla regards the results of his Colorado experiments as the most important he has ever attained. He kept his secret to himself until recently, when he gave a hint of it in responding to the National Red Cross' request for an expression of opinion on some great achievement of the twentieth century.

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 electricaj vibration, and these experiments resulted in what may have been a signal from Yars.

"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 fifty or one hundred feet. In my New York laboratory I was able to go only to electrical discharges of sixteen feet, and I had reached effective electrical pressures of about only 2,000,000 voits.

"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 marvellously 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 in 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 one hundred 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 to almost knowleilge, 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 appilance 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 further 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 the disturbances I have noticed are what I fee they must be."