♪♪
Nikola Tesla was the greatest inventor in American history.
A/c power, electric motors, fluorescent lights, x-rays.
Wireless energy.
Tesla paved the way for all of these technologies.
Prince: Tesla was taking several of his inventions
and putting them together to become this super weapon.
He called it a "death ray."
Did Tesla invent the world's first weapon
of mass destruction?
And was he murdered for it?
Narrator: Now, a military investigator,
a historian, and an engineer
unlock the mysteries behind what could be
the greatest cover-up of the 20th century.
Koscho: We're gonna build Tesla's death ray.
It's dangerous.
- Ready? - We're ready.
Two, one.
Aw, what the [bleep]
Murphy: Recently, I've been going over newly declassified FBI documents
that could re-write American history.
This says, when Tesla died, that his safe was forced open.
Could any of the documents that were stolen from the safe
be related to the death ray?
If Tesla's weapon was real, then we could have
a possible motive to assassinate Nikola Tesla.
You really have to go to wardenclyffe.
What's there for us to look at?
What is under the ground might be of interest.
Prince: There are rumors of tunnels at wardenclyffe.
Murphy: The site of Tesla's old lab.
Prince: We have to find out what's buried there.
- Yo, we hit something. - What is that?
- Oh, wow. - Dude, we got something.
Captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com
captions paid for by discovery communications
watch your back.
Narrator: Jack and Cameron are investigating
the most infamous laboratory of the 20th century...
Wardenclyffe.
Nikola Tesla built this lab as part of a plan
to wirelessly transmit energy around the globe.
But many believe he used it to work on
some of his most dangerous inventions.
For decades, rumors persist that the complex is riddled
with a network of tunnels.
Extensive testing may have just proven this true.
Murphy: Tesla was famously secretive.
He was known to write some notes in code.
He kept some information locked away.
So, it stands to reason that, whatever is buried
beneath wardenclyffe could contain information
about the designs of Tesla's death ray,
or even the circumstances around his mysterious death.
Prince: Hey, what's that?
There's something hard there, man.
- Yeah. - Sure isn't a brick.
It's a rock.
Ah, a big rock.
Well, we need to go deeper.
Yeah, we're gonna have to go deeper.
Maybe another five, six feet.
Narrator: Digging to these depths,
especially in the Sandy earth beneath wardenclyffe,
requires shoring... large, metal boxes that keep the walls
from caving in and crushing any workers inside.
Prince: Tesla was a very deliberate man.
Everything he did, he did it for a reason.
So, the fact that the tunnels are buried so deep
must mean something.
We have to keep digging to find out what that is.
♪♪
Narrator: The ground-penetrating radar shows anomalies
starting at 6 feet.
A couple more scoops, and then, we're going down there.
15 feet deep.
Man: That's it, guys.
That's as much as we can get out.
Do some digging down there by hand,
but that's about it with the machine.
♪♪
Murphy: We've gotten so deep that the excavator bucket
can't reach any deeper.
So, now, Cameron and I have to go in there and dig by hand.
Man: You're at your maximum depth,
and anything after this is just way too dangerous.
Go down a little bit, and then,
I think that's where we're gonna have to call it.
♪♪
Get in there.
I know it's down there, man.
I know it is. - You're a true believer, cam.
We need to dig as much as we can.
You know, I thought this was gonna be easier,
but nothing about Tesla surprises me.
The lengths he would go to protect his work are astounding.
♪♪
Hey, can I get a light over here?
Yeah. - Yeah, shine them down.
♪♪
It's caving in faster than I can dig.
Yeah.
- Hey. - You got something?
I got something.
What the [bleep] is that?
Do you think that's the roof of a tunnel?
I sure hope it is.
Oh, it's red.
I hope it's a brick.
What's that?
Another big rock.
Biggest one we found.
Was not a brick.
Son of a bitch.
Hey, sal, how far are we down?
You guys are about 19 feet below grades
with the bottom of your shovels.
Dude, we can't hardly do [bleep].
This stuff's falling in as fast as we dig it.
Can we reposition the ladder so we can get out?
Mastrangelo: Yep.
Narrator: While the ground-penetrating radar
points to tunnels in this spot,
the equipment and permits for this dig
prevent the team from going any deeper.
Sal, there's got to be something we can do here.
I feel like we're so close to what we need to find down there.
Mastrangelo: Well, right now, the machine's at maximum depth.
We can't dig any lower than we are right now,
because then, it could cause the boxes to shift.
It's too dangerous to go any further than you are right now.
Jack and Cameron travel back to Texas to regroup with Aron,
who's been attempting to build Tesla's death ray.
They hoped the wardenclyffe tunnels
might hold the key to the weapon's design.
Murphy: We weren't able to dig deep enough
to access the tunnels at wardenclyffe,
but we know they're there.
When you take that fact, coupled with the blueprints
and from talking to the local people,
it shows us that this lab was far more complex
than we had previously understood.
Maybe the design and the layout of Tesla's labs provide clues
as to how his death ray functioned.
So, we need to take a look at some of the other sites
where Tesla was developing the wireless transmission of energy.
Wireless energy... Tesla's concept of sending power
through the air for free...
Would eliminate the need for power lines
and change the world.
A multi-billion-dollar idea,
this concept remains the holy grail
for the tech industry today.
We have to go somewhere else if we're gonna find anything
that can help Aron build the death ray.
We really could use some more data,
because it's not an easy thing to do this.
And I'm not entirely sure we're going to be successful with this
if we don't get something to point us in the right direction.
Murphy: If we go and start looking elsewhere,
and broaden our horizons a little bit,
there's this other FBI document here
that talks about some successful experiments at pikes peak.
Prince: That's Colorado Springs.
Tesla went there in 1899 and built an experimental station
where he did some of his most impressive and successful tests.
So, wait, before he was at wardenclyffe,
he was in Colorado Springs?
Yep.
Narrator: In 1899, hoping to pursue his work on the death ray
and the transmission of wireless energy,
Tesla leaves the east coast and relocates to Colorado Springs.
He is drawn to this area by the offer of free electricity
from the local utility company,
and by the frequency of lightning storms
in the region...
A phenomenon he hopes to study and recreate.
This article talks about
when Tesla was there in Colorado Springs,
and the interesting point is this headline.
"Wizard of electricity had instruments which could kill."
Kill 30,000 people?
In an instant.
What does that sound like, Jack?
It sounds like a death ray.
Exactly.
So, this proves that, people that were observing this,
they were comparing what Tesla was doing to a weapon.
He was energizing the whole earth.
You could reach out to a water faucet
and a spark would jump your finger.
It's crazy.
So, it sounds like Tesla was developing
the same source of technology at wardenclyffe
that he was developing at Colorado Springs.
They were both created for wireless power transmission.
So, there could possibly be something in Colorado Springs
that could help Aron with his build of the death ray.
Yeah. You know, anything you can find
is really gonna help me, at this point.
You know, documents, drawings or, you know, even data
about what's under that ground,
you know, what that area looks like.
Maybe why Tesla chose the designs he did.
This might be the next trail that we have to follow.
Yeah. The problem is, we've got to find where the lab was.
Really?
When Tesla left there, he ran up some debts,
and eventually, the lab was foreclosed on,
and it was sold and dismantled.
Just like wardenclyffe.
So, at that point, a neighborhood was built.
There was really nothing left there that belonged to Tesla.
Yeah. You know, it really is a real loss.
I guess, at the time, people didn't realize
the significance of the research he did there.
No. Not at all.
The lab is somewhere in Colorado Springs.
We've got to go there, get boots on the ground,
actually walk the terrain,
and figure out the exact location of the lab.
Tesla never documented tunnels at Colorado Springs,
but that doesn't mean he didn't dig there.
I think we need to see what's underground.
Yeah. That's critical right now.
That ground is really important.
I mean, we can take a look and maybe it'll give you some idea
of how his lab was constructed
and how his experiments were run.
Sounds great to me.
Yeah. Let's go to Colorado Springs.
So, you think he conceived of the death ray
here in Colorado Springs?
- Yes. - And what do we have here?
Oh, Jack, look at that.
[ Drone whirring ]
Holy [bleep]
Narrator: Colorado Springs,
the home of Tesla's lost experimental lab.
Locating this lab might mean finding
some of Tesla's missing research,
which could confirm the existence of the death ray
and provide a motive for his murder.
Prince: When Tesla was here, some people looked at him
like a star, a genius.
Some people thought he was a wizard.
Some people were scared of him.
There were reports of people walking around downtown,
watching horses walk by,
and sparks were flying from the ground of the horseshoes.
Because Tesla was forcing so much electricity
into the ground, he burned out the town's generator,
made a total blackout of the city.
I have the receipt that shows where Tesla paid
to have this alternator repaired.
Narrator: Tesla's time in Colorado Springs is shrouded in mystery.
Eyewitnesses report bolts of lightning around 130 feet long
shooting from the tower at his lab,
and thunder cracks are heard for miles in every direction.
While here, Tesla receives unexplained signals in his lab.
He is convinced the messages originated on Mars.
Locals wonder whether Tesla is a genius trying to power the world,
or a mad man hell-bent on destroying it.
Murphy: I'm dying to know if this death ray is real or not.
There are bits and pieces,
but there never seems to be
enough to complete the whole puzzle.
That's downtown, of course,
but more importantly is the white dome.
That's memorial park. So, Tesla's lab is somewhere...
- In that area. - Closer to that area
than it is downtown.
Okay. Where do we even begin to look right now?
There's a guy, John mcginnis, he's a Tesla historian here.
And if anybody knows about Tesla in Colorado Springs,
it's this guy.
All right, yeah. I can start there.
I'm gonna go to the library.
Maybe a reporter documented the location.
We're gonna find this lab.
♪♪
Koscho: All right, y'all. Let's get it over to the table,
see what's going on with this thing.
Man: All right.
Narrator: Back in Texas, Aron and his team are building a smaller version
of Tesla's death ray.
If the weapon works, there could've been a motive
to murder Nikola Tesla.
You want to bring that forklift in here?
But their early attempts are unsuccessful.
-Three, two, one.
- Oh, wow. - What the [bleep] was that?
We had too much voltage too fast.
Narrator: Now, the team has to determine
why the power is overwhelming the prototype.
- Oh, man. - Smell good in there?
Man: It's... It smelled charred.
Koscho: Any engineer will tell you, when an experiment fails,
it's an opportunity to learn why.
- [Bleep] Oh, wow. - How would that even happen?
Oh, we blew this the [bleep] up.
I think everybody's tripped a breaker in a house at some point.
You're in the bathroom, you know,
you've got a heater plugged in because it's cold.
You've got the hair dryer plugged in over here, you know.
And then, the kid goes and turns on the microwave,
and all the lights go out.
That's exactly what happened here.
We pushed it, we pushed it, we pushed it, everything was fine.
Then, we pushed a little bit too far, and blew everything up.
If this happened with the full-sized death ray,
it would blow the whole coil off.
There wouldn't be anything left.
It would all be charcoal.
- Yep. - Yep.
As opposed to little areas of charcoal.
Well, I mean, this is why we test it, right?
Had we been testing this at even twice the amount of energy
we had, we would've lost everything here.
Hays: Yeah. It would've been a total rebuild.
Well, no wonder, you know,
we're having issues and stuff like this.
It's never been done before.
Every time we run into a roadblock like this,
it makes you wonder
if there's something out there you're missing.
You know, Tesla, he was brilliant,
but he was a strange man.
There could be a lot more documentation.
There could be a lot more out there we just didn't find.
You know, it looks like we're gonna have to
make something for this.
For now, I think we build an insulator,
we put it on top of this, and then we test it again
and see what we get out of it.
Okay, so, we're gonna put a big piece of plastic
in between this to keep it separated?
- Yep. That's the idea. - So, just a big insulator. - Yeah.
Tesla didn't specify an insulator there,
but Tesla didn't specify a lot of things in the design.
So, you know, trial and error.
Yeah.
♪♪
Prince: I've been studying Tesla since I was 11 years old.
If there's anything written about him...
Whether it's in a book or on the Internet...
I probably already know about it.
But the vault here in the library
at Colorado Springs contains documents
and maps and articles from newspapers
when Tesla was here.
That's probably gonna have information
that has never been seen before.
If there are secrets left to uncover
about Tesla's lab in Colorado Springs,
this is the place to start.
♪♪
Murphy: When you work a cold-case investigation,
you have to follow up on every lead,
and this is especially true in this mystery,
which is 100 years old.
Narrator: Jack is meeting with John mcginnis,
a local Tesla expert who knows every detail
about the elusive inventor's time in Colorado Springs.
I'm here in Colorado because we had heard
that Tesla had a lab here.
He did, and as a matter of fact, most of his early giant works
were done here in Colorado Springs.
When he constructed his lab here,
he did his first work
with the wireless transmission of electricity.
And I know you've seen that picture, I believe,
of Tesla sitting amongst these lightning discharges.
- Yep. - That was inside his laboratory,
so his laboratory was pretty spacious.
But were any of these experiments
related to the death ray?
Is that really a thing?
Yes, it is.
You would need enormous amounts of power.
The laboratory provided that.
With the Tesla coils inside,
the amounts of voltage go into the millions,
and this is what you need if you're gonna do something.
So, you think he conceived of the death ray
here in Colorado Springs?
Yes.
Murphy: If what John is telling us is true,
it's even more important now
that we find the location of the Colorado Springs lab.
We might find clues there that unlock
the mystery of the death ray.
This picture here depicts his laboratory.
And what's important here, for determining
the location of the lab is in the photo.
You can see the printers retirement home.
- Printers retirement home? - Yeah.
That huge mansion right there?
- Right. - Yeah.
Is the printers home still there?
The union printers home is still there.
Oh, wow. So, that's a hard reference point.
Yeah. And from that, if you do a little mathematics,
you can come pretty close to identifying
where the lab may be.
It's the only clue we have to determine
exactly where the laboratory sat.
Wow.
If you find it, let me know.
Because, in my opinion, the death ray was
a causative factor in his demise.
I knew that foul play was a possibility
because I read it in the FBI documents.
But no one's ever actually told me this before.
There was motivation that wanted him out of the picture.
He had the death ray,
and I'm sure there's something there that should be uncovered.
At this point, we don't have enough information
to follow up on whether or not Tesla was murdered.
But the information we have about his lab is real,
and it's something we can follow up on right now.
What's up, cam? - Hey, Jack.
Prince: What you got?
I talked to Mr. Mcginnis.
He had some very interesting things to say
about Tesla and the lab here in Colorado Springs.
He laid a couple pictures on me.
I think this one is the most interesting, though.
This shows the lab in 1899.
The building, of course, was taken down after Tesla left,
so the lab is no longer in existence.
However, this picture shows, in the background, right here,
that is the union printers home.
That building is still standing to this day.
This is the best photographic evidence
that I know of that kind of gives us an idea
of where the lab actually was. - Yep.
I got some really good articles.
This article here says,
"highest point of the land in that vicinity
and is on a direct line east from pikes peak."
So, the articles, you know, they're gonna get us close.
If you combine that with this photograph,
we should be able to figure out where the lab was.
Narrator: Jack and Cameron are in Colorado Springs
searching for the location of Tesla's lost laboratory.
It was somewhere here that Tesla started work on his designs
for wireless energy transmission,
which could have formed the backbone
for his death-ray plans.
Prince: Yeah. And you know, that totally matches our photo.
The building hasn't changed in what...
It's exactly the same.
You know, 100 years.
So, uh, let's find Tesla's lab, man.
I'm gonna rely on you for this stuff.
Murphy: As a former member of U.S. special forces,
this is one of those unique moments
that I live for, where I can offer some perspective
that others just don't have.
I've tracked targets all over the world.
So, using skills like map resections
and land navigation is just second nature to me.
All right, we're located right here.
Well, there's the northwest corner
of the building right there.
Yep. Look at that.
That's what you're seeing in the photograph.
We know that we have to head in a Northwestern direction,
so it takes us somewhere right along here.
Here is the 99th parallel coming off pikes peak.
So, that matches our article.
So, the next question is, where do these two lines
intersect with one another?
Well, let me give you another clue here.
In this other article I found,
apparently, this is from a police chief or something,
and he's saying Tesla had enclosed a tower
at the end of a barn or building north
of pikes peak Avenue and east of hancock Avenue,
at the highest point.
So we have a series of different data points
that are taking us to the same location.
So "x" marks the spot.
That's it.
All right, so let's walk that line,
look for the highest point, and, you know,
that has to be the exact location
of Tesla's lab.
It's definitely in the ball park.
♪♪
Pikes peak and union boulevard.
All right, so we need to go that way.
♪♪
We need to go through this building.
Yeah, well, these are city blocks now,
so we're gonna have to go around some of these obstacles.
♪♪
Prince: In 1899,
the infrastructure here was very limited.
Back then, there were a few streets
and a rudimentary water system
that was connecting a few of the buildings around here,
but that's about it.
As this neighborhood went up,
the location of the lab was lost to history.
♪♪
Well, well, well. What do we have here?
Oh, Jack, look at that.
You know, we got a high spot there,
and you got pikes peak here.
I mean, this is it. We got a pretty good match.
I think at this point,
if we want to pin down
the exact location of where the lab is,
we should call in some experts who can come out here
and do a better job than I can do with a map and a compass.
♪♪
Narrator: Aron's team designs an insulator
for the death ray prototype,
to protect against another explosion.
[Bleep]
Oh, we blew this the [bleep] up.
The insulator will fit between
the base of the Tesla coil and the secondary...
The tube that makes sure
the 20,000 volts
traveling through the system
moves successfully from the base
to the weaponized portion of the coil.
In the previous attempt,
the energy escaped through this joint,
causing the explosion.
We've got a couple notches in here.
So, instead of the power going straight across the surface,
it's gonna have to go down, over, up, over,
down, over, up, over.
If this works for our prototype,
then we should be able to scale it up
and use it on the final death ray.
♪♪
Koscho: The energy in this insulator...
It's like a runner running along a track.
It's very easy for a runner to run along a straight track.
They'll get from point "a" to point "b" no problem,
but you put a bunch of hurdles in there,
we turn it into an obstacle course,
then the runner might not make it to the other end.
If we design this insulator the right way,
the energy will never be able to find a path to the other side,
because there's too many obstacles in the way.
All right, guys, this looks good.
Let's get the secondary in here.
♪♪
If this does work, we've definitely got
the ground work for something big.
We might be able to scale this up,
all the way up to the sizes Tesla talked about.
♪♪
- Hey, I'm Cameron. - Tyler. Nice to meet you.
- And I'm Jack. - Hey, Jack.
- How's it going? - Good, man.
My skill set got us this far, but we're gonna have to bring in
somebody who has the skills and the tools
that Cameron and I don't have
in order to pinpoint the exact location of the lab.
We think Tesla's lab is somewhere in that vicinity,
but we need to find the high ground.
Tyler: Sure thing.
We can launch my drone, take some still images,
get a topographical map out of it.
We'll be able to find the high points
that you're looking for,
and you can pinpoint your elevated point.
- Awesome. - All right, man.
Murphy: This drone is equipped
with some very sophisticated and precise mapping technology.
Once the drone scans the area,
it'll identify the highest point of elevation
down a tenth of an inch.
♪♪
According to one of the articles
that Cameron found in the library,
this is exactly where we're supposed to find the lab.
It's gonna make a right around here and come back that way.
We got 70 images so far.
Should end up with about 590 or so
when it's done. Nice.
You know, it's ironic... We're using Tesla's technology.
I mean, this would not be possible
without what he gave mankind... Remote control.
Narrator: New York City, 1898...
Tesla stuns crowds in Madison square garden
by presenting the first remote-controlled boat.
The innovation is so ahead of its time,
many perceive it as magic.
Tesla predicts this technology
will soon be used to create guided weapons,
like torpedos.
What he does not predict is the extent to which
the new remote control technology
will drive human exploration,
from rovers on Mars
to the voyagerprobe far beyond our solar system.
He was thinking about it a long time ago.
Yep, and we're using his technology to find his lab.
♪♪
All right, so what are we looking at?
Tyler: This is a 3D model of the area.
So, this is showing terrain elevations.
Correct. We got pike peaks ave. Up over here.
Okay.
North foote right there.
Right. That's kiowa.
Got it. If we pan down a little bit,
you see you definitely got a high spot over here,
across north foote and east kiowa right there.
Yeah, it matches all the other information we got.
I mean, I think this is it, man.
We got it. - Yeah. Yeah.
Let's go check it out.
♪♪
Murphy: I hope we're gonna be able
to search every inch of this property.
This could be the key to many of the answers that we need.
[ Knocks on door ]
Prince: Tesla always had this determination.
And we're the same way.
I want to wring every bit of information
we possibly can out of this property.
If he dropped a nickel, I want to find it.
Lokken: You guys can come back this way, if you want.
Prince: Thank you so much for letting us do this.
So, tell us a little bit about the history.
How long have you had the house?
I purchased the house in September, 2013.
Okay, so...
Did you know that Tesla
had a laboratory on your property?
When I purchased it, they had mentioned that
there might be some Tesla history.
Have you heard any stories about,
like, anything underground in this neighborhood?
Not to my knowledge, no.
What's that?
Lokken: That's a well.
When I bought the property, they told me it didn't work,
and I just was so worried
that my son would fall down in there
that I covered it up with the rocks.
I don't know, maybe we can find something down there.
Who knows?
Could we look down there?
Sure.
I'm interested to see, too.
♪♪
There we go.
Got it?
Holy [bleep]
♪♪
Narrator: Jack and Cameron pinpoint the location
of Tesla's lost lab in Colorado Springs.
Although the lab is long gone,
an old well on the property
could hold clues to what exactly Tesla was doing here.
There we go.
♪♪
Holy [bleep].
We got to get down there, Jack.
♪♪
What do we got there?
It's like there's a subfloor.
It's very interesting that it's right in the middle
of where Tesla had his lab.
Yeah, do you think it's possible
that we could find something if we were to dig deeper here?
I think it's worth a try.
Murphy: The subterranean room is really just an entranceway
to give you access to the well.
But the well itself runs much deeper,
and we need to see what's down there.
Any clues we can unearth here
might help us understand how the death ray was constructed.
♪♪
Pearson: What do we know about this well?
Not much.
We were hoping you could tell us.
You guys looking to buy the house or something?
Cameron might, depending on what you find down there.
Yeah? You know, let's have a look in there.
Have a look at the well casing.
That'll give us an idea.
Okay.
♪♪
That well casing does look pretty old.
This is a very thin, metal casing used a long time ago.
Murphy: Is there any way, maybe, we can see what's
inside the well itself?
We have a camera that will actually
fit in that well.
We can actually see all the way to the bottom.
Yeah? Right on.
♪♪
Pearson: Okay, everything's stable and set up.
I think we're ready to go.
♪♪
We're right at the top of the water now.
It looks pretty clear, too.
Come on and have a look.
♪♪
That's looking down, and that's looking sideways.
Okay.
These almost look like perforations here.
Is that normal?
It would be if the water was up here,
but at one time, it may have been.
That actually could just be holes
in the side of the well casing from age.
This metal isn't very thick at all.
It's right about 1/8 inch thick.
So, it's not very heavy, and that's what leads us
to believe that this well is very old.
♪♪
- Whoa. We stopped. - We stopped.
Yeah, we hit something at 279.
- What's that? - I don't...
Pearson: Just some sort of protrusion in the well casing.
I'd say that's about as far as this camera's gonna go.
I mean, does this look like man-made or...?
It looks like it's metal.
It's orange, it's rusty,
just like the rest of our steel casings.
So, that's not a brown rock. We've seen rocks.
That's not a brown rock. That's rust.
That's some sort of metal.
What metal would be down there at 279 foot?
It's hard to say.
I'll leave the speculation to you.
Murphy: This metal at the bottom of the well
may indicate that there's something else here...
Something man-made.
It's suspicious enough that we need to look into it.
♪♪
Just like at wardenclyffe, we have a team of experts
with technology that they can use
to determine if there's anything buried underground here.
Narrator: These tests could reveal buried structures,
tunnels, or infrastructure similar to wardenclyffe.
♪♪
Murphy: The first test is resistivity,
which gives us a broad picture
of what's going on beneath the surface of this property.
Narrator: Resistivity testing
works by passing electrical current
through electrodes in the ground
and then measuring how fast or slow the electricity
passes through the soil between the electrodes.
Slower current means the ground is more resistant,
made up of dense earth.
Faster current means the ground is less resistant,
containing conductive metals or even empty tunnels.
Walter: Everything's good,
and now we're gonna start acquiring data.
Let's take a look and see what we've got.
These red objects here...
Those are the trees and the bushes,
the root systems on those.
♪♪
If we were to find a tunnel,
it would look like a linear object, like a pipe.
It would be much deeper than these.
These are very close to the surface.
♪♪
- So, no tunnel? - No. Unfortunately not.
It looks as if there aren't any tunnels here,
bases on the resistivity testing,
but we're not done yet.
Another method we have is the t.D.E.M.,
which is basically like a metal detector.
♪♪
Murphy: Electromagnetic testing
could uncover remnants
of the foundation of Tesla's lab,
electrical cables underground,
components of the grounding system.
Whatever is down there, we're gonna keep looking for it.
Murphy: Are we at the end of the line here?
I mean, if this test strikes out,
are we pretty much done?
Yes.
♪♪
Walter: So, looking at the data here,
the blues are areas where it's less conductive.
The darker reds are more conductive,
so that could be a pipeline.
Prince: So this long thing here...
That may be like a sewer pipe or a water main?
Yes.
Narrator: At wardenclyffe,
the team discovered a grounding system
that was critical to Tesla's design.
Here we have some of the drawings from wardenclyffe.
Ah! Look at that.
Copper ground put in lateral tunnels.
And it looks like that connects to another pipe
in the yard there.
When Tesla got here in 1899, there wasn't much here,
but there was a rudimentary water system,
probably made up of copper pipes
that some people say he used to ground his lab.
It seems, with this data, that this theory is confirmed.
Narrator: Tesla's death ray is a weaponized execution
of his obsession with wireless energy.
The energy travels from the air, to the ground,
and back to the base of the weapon through the soil.
Copper pipes, like the ones likely used in the water main
in Colorado Springs,
are needed to keep the device from overloading or exploding.
♪♪
Prince: Wherever he was, Tesla used what was there
or he made it what he needed for his experiments.
He was enough of a genius that he figured out
how to plug into what existed
and to get the results that he needed.
Here, it was a water pipe. It was a water main.
This water main was metal. It went for miles.
That gave him what he needed to give it that ground.
Now, at wardenclyffe, he didn't have that luxury,
so he dug that huge hole,
and he drove those rods in the ground
to give him that same grip there.
So, he learned from this experience here,
at Colorado Springs,
and that informed what he did at wardenclyffe.
Absolutely, without a doubt.
It's about getting the most conductive metal
into the earth
that makes that connection.
So, this is what Aron needs to know.
We need to give him a call.
Colorado Springs provided us with a clue that might help us
crack open the design of the death ray.
We understand now that Tesla grounded
all of his systems with metal underground,
and that's a huge piece of information for us.
But when it comes to Tesla's death,
there's got to be more evidence out there somewhere.
♪♪
To make the death ray work,
we wanted 1.5 gigawatts of power.
And to generate 1.5 gigawatts,
he would need an enormous power source.
Tesla's first large-scale power-generation experiment
was Niagara Falls.
Narrator: Tesla's power plant at Niagara Falls
is a hydroelectric dam,
which operates by harnessing the power of falling water
to spin turbines and generate electricity.
Tesla was looking for ways to create power
so he could transfer it wirelessly across the globe.
Koscho: This power plant was capable
of generating enough power to power nearly 2 million homes,
which is astounding.
It's amazing when you think about it,
but power plants of this scale,
they were just a means to an end for Tesla.
This was a byproduct of his experiments.
He needed these to power the other things.
Even so, these things were another Tesla contribution
that changed the world forever.
♪♪
Narrator: Back in Texas, Jack and Cameron's discovery
of a grounding system in Colorado Springs
has a major impact on Aron's death ray build.
If Aron can demonstrate that the death ray was viable,
this could prove that there was motive to murder Nikola Tesla.
What's up, guys?
Looks like we've got some good data.
Matter of fact, the data's really clear.
Tesla was very pragmatic.
He put a bigger ground structure in it
until he got what he wanted.
So, that's what we're gonna try and do.
If we can create a grounding system
that is as successful as the ones Tesla used
at wardenclyffe and Colorado Springs,
then we might have a shot at a successful test.
We need to get as much metal as we can into the ground.
Once we do that and we hook it up to our prototype,
hopefully, we'll have done everything we can
to prevent any more explosions.
I want to dig a hole out back,
I want to fill it with copper,
I want to connect it to the coil
and I want to use it for our test.
♪♪
This grounding structure is gonna give us
a really good return point for all of the current
that's coming from our prototype.
That current... it's got to flow from the capacitor bank,
through the Tesla coil, into the target,
and then, from that target, into the ground,
back to the bottom of the system.
This accomplishes what we need, I think.
The more surface area you got in contact with the dirt,
the better it's gonna work,
and this is a really simple way to do what we need it to do.
Great. Well, let's get digging.
♪♪
You can see, it's dry up here.
- Yep. - And down here, it's wet.
That extra moisture's gonna give us more conductivity.
Narrator: A grounding system, likely using copper pipes,
was a critical component of Tesla's experiments
with wireless energy.
♪♪
What do you got going on?
The connections look good.
I mean, these look pretty solid.
I think once this is all covered in dirt,
connected to the rest of the system,
we have a pretty high likelihood of success.
♪♪
Everything's good right now.
You know, we had our problems with our capacitors,
but that's dealt with.
- Absolutely. - We blew up the coil.
Koscho: That's fixed.
We've got us a good ground,
transmitting that energy back into the bottom
of the Tesla coil.
So, we've got the ground in place,
we've got our insulator ready.
We're finally ready for another test
of our small-scale death ray prototype.
If this works, the energy from our capacitor bank
is gonna build that charge up
until all of the energy is discharged through
that Tesla coil in a split second.
And we are going to see what amounts to a lightning bolt
come off the top and hit the target rod.
If everything goes as planned, then we are going to be able
to scale up to the full-sized death ray
and take a shot at that 1.5 gigawatts of power
Tesla was talking about.
But none of that matters unless we have a successful test
right now.
We've done everything we can.
Let's hope this [bleep] works.
♪♪
Five... four...
Three... two... one...
♪♪
Wow! Holy [bleep]!
- [ Laughs ] - We did it.
That did exactly what it was supposed to.
Yeah, I couldn't be happier with those results.
You know, the capacitor bank didn't blow up,
the Tesla coil didn't blow up,
the capacitor bank didn't blow the Tesla coil up,
and everything worked the way it was supposed to.
The discharge, man, that's really [bleep] cool.
- It is. - Very bright.
Koscho: That looks like something that would be called
a death ray, you know? - Yeah.
It's like a little piece of lightning almost, you know?
Something very deathly and very ray-like.
Yep.
Now is the hard part.
We've got to see if we can scale this
and build a giant death ray.
Yeah, Tesla was crazy.
And we might be, too.
[ Laughter ]
Narrator: Aron's successful test means Tesla's death ray works,
but if the motive for his murder is real,
then the question remains,
who killed Nikola Tesla?
♪♪
[ Electricity crackles ]
Murphy: We didn't come all the way to Serbia
just to spin our wheels.
There are around 38,000 documents.
That came from New York? Came from New York.
♪♪
If documents were found,
then we are in business.
Don't have to make the story
more complicated than it is.
Now that we know this works, we can move on
to something a little bigger.
Koscho: If something fails,
it's gonna be a really bad failure.
Those documents... That would change the world.
Absolutely.
Man: I think that you stay here.
Murphy: Is that the death ray or...?
That's definitely a death ray.
Have these documents ever been published?
No.
Wow.
That makes the death ray real.
[ Electricity crackles ]