The Teslian - Vol. I, No. 6 Page 4

Communication with Mars — (continued)

The professor relates that he has "been working in conjunction with a noted king of science, secretly and arduously, for some time it is that miracle of modern scientific wisdom, Nikola Tesla!" It is soon revealed that the professor and Tesla have been working on a device to communicate with Mars. The professor asks young Edison and his traveling companion to work with them, and then begins a series of rather artificially daring melodramatic incidents in the mountains of upper state New York.

Edison is floated and propelled (harmlessly!) through the air by balloons, strange magnetic fields and catapult devices, in accompaniment to various encounters with the hated rogue janitorial assistants from Camden who have allied themselves with criminal interests. Tesla and Edison are nearly killed when a 'scientist of the mountains,' also intent on contacting outer planetary systems, sets off a tremendous explosion as a driving thrust hoping to propel a ship of his making to Mars. Young Edison solves a code secured from a dying German scientist (!!) permitting the group to render their device for communication with Mars "positively possible." But, as misfortune would have it of course, the device surprisingly explodes at the precise moment when an attempt at communication is to be made. The chance for communication with Mars had passed away.

All in all, Tesla's name is used in 1/5 of the exploits of the book. Now referring to the question mentioned earlier, that is, whether permission had to be secured to use Tesla's name so freely in this book, it would seem that it was not. Some reasons are outlined below in conclusion:

Beginning in 1901, "quoted" statements appeared in newspapers in regard to Tesla detecting faint signals from Mars while experimenting at Colorado Springs in 1899. Although Tesla adhered to the idea of life on other worlds (a view shared by increasing numbers today), he did not publicly announce that he "had received signals from Mars!"

Mr. John J. O'Neill, Tesla's biographer, spoke to Tesla about the matter when a full page article appeared in the New York Sunday World magazine (circa 1905-6). Tesla admitted hearing sounds in his receiver, the source of which he did not know, but denied he had made any statements about Mars, the signals, or any other subject to the author of the article. Tesla stated that the whole story was pure imagination on the part of the author of the article.