Nikola Tesla FBI Files - Page 155

THE LEGACY →→ 286 valued wavelength to establish a standing wave condition. Tele believed the propagation path fell along a diameter. But according to much knowledge developed since 1899, the propagation path would not be along a diameter but, rather, along an ellipsoidal arc somewhe between the diameter and the spherical surface. A fundamental aspect of wave propagation of power is that no power is transmitted if the wave is standing; power is transmitted solely with a traveling component. Boundary layer propagation, 1.e., the mode of lossless propagation of waves at the boundary of two differing media (such as earth and akty), is a viable concept. However, the boundary plane must be smooth and the waves must be properly launched. At the frequencies Tesla was using, such launching apparatus would be an enormous structure. In examining the photographs of his experimental station at Colorado Springs, it is apparent to experti that he did not employ apparatus essential to the launching of such WABASS. Tesla probably was mistaken at Colorado Springs in his Interpretation of the lightning storms which he observed traveling away from him (eastwardly) across the plains, producing maxdma and minima effects upon his Instruments. This he interpreted as standing waves being set up in the Earth by the traveling storm, with the crests of the waves passing through his location as the storms advanced. It is believed he was seeing an interference effect caused by the reradiating surface of the frontal range of mountains to the west of his station. The results would have been the same on his instruments. Dr. Walt, formerly senior scientist at the Environmental Re search Laboratories, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, In Colorado, describes himself as a "firm skeptic" of the Tesla theory "The concept that electromagnetic energy penetrates through the earth,'" he says, “is valid only if the frequency is sufficiently low and if the distances are small. It's all tied up with 'skin-effect phenomena; that means that the field is confined to the surface of a good conductor as in metallic wave guide.”* Dr. Walt even goes so far as to suggest that Tesla never really accepted the fact that electromagnetic waves could transport energy through the air. "Instead he thought of the earth itself as a conveyor and also thought of the possibility of a return conductor at heights of '15 miles above sea level.' The parallel of this idea to the earthionosphere wave guide at extremely low frequencies is striking (see IEEE Journals of Oceanic Engineering, Vol. OE-2, No. 2, April 1977) Also his proposed resonance of the system might be interpreted as the first disclosure of the earth-ionosphere cavity oscillations that have THE LEGACY → 287 been associated from the early 1960s with W Q Schumann, N Christofilos, and J Galejs, among others.” With respect to wireless communication, the U.S. Navy's Project Sanguine/Seafarer of recent years has evolved from Tesla's Colorado experiments. In a thermonuclear war, conventional radio communication probably would be disrupted at certain heights and wavelengths. America's atomic submarine Beet might then be without a means of receiving messages. The U.S. Navy, seeing this danger, turned back to Tesla's nineteenth-century suggestion of employing 10 Hz signals (ELF or extra low frequency), to circle the globe and penstrate the deepest waters. One of the headier speculations concerning Teslian science is a suggestion that Russia has been employing his theories on weather modification to interfere with the jet stream, causing droughts and extremes of hot and cold weather. However unlikely the charge, it is true that Tesla did do a good deal of theorizing (but very little experimentation) on weather control. He wrote, for example, on the possible use of radio-controlled missiles and explosives to break up tomadoes and the use of “lightnina of a certain kind" to trigger rainfall. Of the former he said, “It would not be difficult to provide special automata for this purpose, carrying explosive charges, liquid air or other gas, which could be put into action, automatically or otherwise, and which would create a sudden pressure or suction, breaking up the whirl. The missiles themselves might be made of material capable of spontaneous ignition." His proposal included a lengthy mathematical formula. As with much modem scientific exploration inspired by the maestro, the returns are still not in on weather changing. Scientist Frederic Jueneman, “Innovative Notebook" columnist for Industrial Research magazine, calls attention to the fact that Dr. Robert Helliwell and John Katsufrakis of Stanford University's Radio Science Laboratory, demonstrated that very low frequency radio waves can cause oscillations in the magnetosphere. With a 20-km antenna and a 5 kHz transmitter in the Antarctic, they found that the earth's magnetosphere could be modulated to cause high energy particles to cascade into our atmosphere, and by turning the signal on or off they could start or stop the energy flow "The theoretical implication suggested by their work," says Jueneman, "is that global weather control can be attained by the Injection of relatively small 'signals' into the Van Allen belts-something like a super-transistor effect." But Jueneman's speculations go further and are eminently 155