Tesla's Call from Mars?

SOME PLANET, IT SEEMED TO HIM, AFFECTED HIS MACHINE.

Suggestive of Signalling, the Movements Recorded When He Was Noting Electrical Conditions on a Peak in Colorado - Why Shouldn't Mars Know Morse as well as We?

Not quite two years ago Mr. Nikola Tesla went out to Colorado to conduct experiments in relation to the wireless transmission of energy, which has engaged his attention for several years. Mr. Tesla found it necessary, in order to carry on his investigations and his experiments to the extent he desired, to work at an altitude of several thousand feet. He found the conditions suitable for his purposes in Colorado and went out there in the spring of 1899, built a laboratory about ten miles from Pike's peak and went to work. What he accomplished in the eight or nine months while he was working there he has kept pretty much to himself ever since, but when the National Red Cross, which was arranging for the end of the century meetings of its various branches throughout the country, asked Mr. Tesla to indicate what, in his opinion, would be one of the great achievements of the coming century he gave just a hint of one of the wonders he discovered in Colorado.

In a more elaborate way Mr. Tesla dwelt on his work to a New York Sun man the other afternoon. He regards his latest results as far and away the most important he has ever attained. Briefly, Tesla has been able to note a novel manifestation of energy, which he knows is not of solar or terrestrial origin, and, being neither, he concludes that it must emanate from one of the planets. While he was conducting his investigations in his Colorado laboratory one day the instrument he was using to observe the electrical condition of the earth was affected in an unaccountable manner. It recorded three distinct though very faint movements, one after the other. These movements were observed not once, but many times, the number of impulses varying, and Mr. Tesla now firmly believes that with improved apparatus it will be quite possible for the people of the earth to communicate with the inhabitants of other planets. In telling about his work and his discoveries Mr. Tesla said:

"I went to Colorado early in May, 1899, and stayed there about eight months. I believe that during that time I did more work than I could have done in the city in three years, on account of the marvelously invigorating climate. I was compelled to go either to Colorado or to California, as only in these two states I could obtain power at a high altitude, which was necessary for certain investigations I had in view relative to the transportation of power in accordance with a method I had invented. I had tested the conditions at sea level thoroughly, and wanted to know how far my laboratory observations would agree with practical tests at high altitudes. Colorado was nearer than California and I had some friendly relations in Colorado Springs, and this determined me to select that neighborhood for my place of observation.

"A laboratory was erected on an elevation at a distance of about ten miles from Pike's peak. I set out to carry on my experiments along three different lines: First, to ascertain the best conditions for transmitting power without wires; second, to develop apparatus for the transmission of messages across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on which problem I have been engaged for eight years, and, third, to work on another problem which involves a still greater mastery of electrical forces and which, with my present knowledge, I consider of still greater importance than even the transmission of power without wires, and which I shall make known in due course. There were, however, numerous points to be found out about electrical vibrations, and there were actions on which I was still in doubt. In my laboratory in New York I was able to go only to electrical discharges of 16 feet in length, and I had only reached effective electrical pressure of about 8,000,000 volts. To carry the problems on which I was working further I had to master electrical pressure of at least 50,000,000 volts, and electrical discharges were necessary for some purposes measuring at least 50 or 100 feet.

“The results I attained were far beyond any I had expected to reach. I found that my mental vision was incomparably clearer, so much so that I could look back in thought to my laboratory in New York, and in examining familiar objects in the rooms there I could notice the smallest scratch on them, and in scanning the features of my assistants I could notice the slightest marks on their faces, as though they had been actually before me. Now in the city the mental images are much duller.

“One of the first observations I made in Colorado was of great scientific importance and confirmatory of a result I had already obtained in New York. I refer to my discovery of the stationary electrical waves in the earth. The significance of this phenomenon has not yet been grasped by technical men, but it virtually amounts to a positive proof that, with proper apparatus, such as I have perfected, a wireless transmission of signals to any point on the globe is practicable. When I read statements to the effect that such a thing is impossible and recall the numerous adverse criticisms of my expressed confidence that I can ultimately accomplish this, I experience a feeling of satisfaction.

"In perfecting my apparatus I encountered at first great difficulties. I had a few narrow escapes from sudden sparks jumping out to great distances and a of times my laboratory caught fire, but I carried all the work through without a serious mishap. I gradually learned how to confine electrical currents of a pressure of 50,000,000 volts; to produce electrical movements up to 110,000 herse power, and I succeeded in obtaining electrical discharges, measuring from end to end, 100 feet and more. These results were, however, rendered more valuable by the fact that opened up still greater possibilities for the future.

"Parallel with the development of my machinery for the production of powerful effects, I also perfected novel methods for detecting electrical actions; which, I feel confident, will be Important In a number of lines of scientific research. To illustrate the efficacy of these methods, I need only say that whereas with ordinary, finely adjusted Hertzian appliances, a lightning discharge could be detected at a distance of only 300 miles, with my methods it was easy to observe the effect in the receiving instrument at a distance of 1,100 miles. It was, in fact, In investigating feeble electrical actions transmitted through the earth, that I made some observations which are to me the most gratifying. Chief among these were certain feeble electrical disturbances, which I could barely note at times, and which by their character unmistakably showed that they were neither of solar origin nor produced by any causes known to me on the globe.

What could they be? I have Incessantly thought of this for months, until finally I arrived at the conviction amounting to almost knowledge, that they must be of planetary origin. As I think over it now, it seems to me that only men absolutely stricken with blindness, Insensible to the greatness of nature, can hold that this planet is the only one inhabited by Intelligent beings. I have perfected my transmitting apparatus so far that I can undertake to construct a machine which will without the slightest doubt be fully competent to convey sufficient energy to the planet Mars to operate one of these delicate appliances which we are now using here, as, for instance, a very sensitive telegraph or telephone instrument. Now, since we ourselves are already so far advanced, is it unreasonable to at least believe in the possibility that of 20 or 25 planets of the solar system one if not more might be ahead of us in the evolution? Where there is sun's heat and moisture, life must originate, and must go on developing, just as a stone must fall to earth.

"I would have a abstained from making these observations known, for some time yet, had I not been asked by the Red Cross Society to give a short expression of opinion for- their meetings on New Year's eve. I have entertained a profound respect for the Red Cross ever since my boyhood, when I was told that the mere appearance of this society in the Balkans has advanced these wild regions a hundred years. I believe it to be the noblest and worthiest association in existence, and there was nothing which I could have refused to them and, furthermore, I desired to give them my best. This my opinion, was my best. With improved means of investigation we shall soon be able to find out whether indeed these disturbances which I have noticed are what I feel they must be. The time has certainly arrived for the electrician to join the astronomer in the exploration of our neighboring worlds.

With regard to my work in other lines, which I have simultaneously carried on, my progress has been most satisfactory, and I hope that soon electrical energy may be turned to the uses of man in a way and for purposes such as to surpass in Importance all that we have ever done heretofore. The difficulties are still enormous, to be sure, but not such that we could not look with confidence to overcoming them. What will retard progress unquestionably is the fact that, the mastery of electrical vibrations requires. like other arts, not only a thorough technical knowledge, but years of continuous, performance. Our colleges are rapidly turning out skilled and talented young men, and whatever remains undone by us will be carried farther by them."