♪♪
Murphy: Nikola Tesla was...
The greatest inventor in American history.
[ Electricity crackles ]
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 superweapon.
He called it the death ray.
Murphy: 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.
When Tesla died, his nephew sava kosanovic
broke in to the safe.
Those documents that were stolen may be about the death ray.
The FBI and an alien property custodian swoops in,
confiscates 80 trunks of documents.
We need to track down where these documents went.
If that leads to Serbia, then that's where we need to go.
Have these documents ever been published?
Woman: No.
Man: 3, 2, 1...
Prince: Holy [bleep]
We've been working on this thing
pretty much blind up till this point,
and now we have Tesla's handwritten notes
filling in some gaps that we weren't sure we had right.
Is there a next page?
Something's missing.
This could change who we potentially look
at as a suspect.
Prince: Do you think it's possible that the FBI took
some of Tesla's papers
before you received them?
Murphy: It seems highly probably that the United States government
went in and removed documents.
They definitely had the means and the opportunity to do so.
The question is... why was the FBI even interested in Tesla?
Captions by vitac... www.Vitac.Com
captions paid for by discovery communications
narrator: According to their own recently declassified files,
on the night of Nikola Tesla's death,
the FBI allows 80 additional trunks of Tesla's research
to be confiscated by a mysterious agency
known as the office of alien property custodian.
The agency's authority extends only to immigrants
without legal status.
But Tesla is a naturalized American citizen.
In spite of the status, they confiscate 80 trunks of research
with more than 130,000 pages of notes.
After just three days, the government claims Tesla's work
contains nothing of national security value.
But they refuse to release the trunks to his nephew,
sava kosanovic.
Almost nine years later, the documents are finally released
to the inventor's home country
and are now stored in the Tesla national archives in Serbia.
But rumors persist that key pages remain with the FBI.
♪♪
So, Jack and I met with this guy named sava sremac,
and he was the guy put in charge of handling Tesla's material
when it came over to Serbia to be set up in a museum.
This guy is dead sure that there are missing parts
to those documents related to the death ray.
Murphy: That's the question.
Back in 1943, the FBI could take certain actions
that they can't take today,
and america was on a war footing at that time.
Tesla considered himself an American citizen,
and he was legally an American citizen.
At the very least, at that time,
someone of a foreign nationality sticks out,
especially when they come up with ideas
that could change the course of history.
They could've seen him as a potential traitor.
I mean, people were worried,
and Tesla was doing a lot of talk
about building superweapons.
Narrator: 1934... Tesla begins leaking information
about his death ray plans to journalists.
News reports share details about Tesla's superweapon,
capable of shooting down warplanes
from 250 miles away in publications
where even enemies of the U.S. can read them.
Some scoff and claim Tesla has gone mad,
but internally, the U.S. government takes notice.
I mean, considering how powerful the weapons
that Tesla was working on are
and what some of the things in the documents say,
we have to consider the United States government.
What I want to do is go and meet
with a former CIA case officer that I know
and see what he makes of it.
Prince: It would be great to be able to find out
what the FBI's standard operating procedure is
when handling something like this.
What's the latest with the death ray?
Koscho: It's gonna be extremely close to Tesla's device.
After those documents y'all brought back from Serbia,
we did choose this design to come as close
to what he did as possible.
Nice.
And if this thing actually fires,
it means that there very well
may have been a motive to murder Tesla.
There's no guarantees this fires when we turn it on.
But if it does, we're probably going to try and knock some
[bleep] Out of the sky with it,
and I think that's really gonna drive that point home.
I mean, this could be a real weapon.
[ Electricity crackles ]
♪♪
So, y'all, we're standing on the slab
that is ultimately going to hold what could very well
be the world's first iteration
of Tesla's death ray.
So, at this point, we have built all of the individual parts
we're going to need for this death ray.
We've got our sphere taken care of...
Man: Perfect.
We've got our slab in place,
and we have our capacitor bank taken care of.
[ Laughter ]
A lot of work has gone into getting to this point,
and a lot of that as been helped by those documents
Jack and Cameron brought back from Serbia.
Now we have to get it all set up,
and we've got to make sure that we do this right,
because if we don't get this right right now,
we may never really know if this was going to be a real device.
This is some pretty crazy [bleep].
You know, it's an unreal project
that was invented by an unreal man.
I've had a tremendous amount of respect for Tesla
ever since I was a kid.
If this works, I think it's going to be a fitting tribute
to the man's genius.
So, we've got a lot of materials to get in here.
The secondary's not gonna be an easy thing to unload.
No.
The secondary is the tall, vertical column
that carries the energy from the bottom
all the way to the top where the beam ultimately is fired from.
In our prototype, our secondary was only about 5 feet tall.
But we're talking about a ton more energy this time.
So the thing's gonna weigh over 1,000 pounds.
You know, on top of that, it's 20 feet tall.
We have to move that thing into place.
I mean, this is gonna be a hell of a process.
We'll stand it up with the forklift.
Okay.
That's the sketchy part right there.
Yeah.
Once we've got the thing stood up here,
I mean, that weighs 1,000 pounds
and it's not attached to anything.
It's gonna have to be dead still for this to go well.
So, once we get this bolted down, then it's safe.
So that's obviously going to go dead not-center.
Right.
All the cabling, everything,
is going to come in along this axis here.
So, Kevin, that's you're gonna get on.
Pritchard: Okay.
Koscho: When we start moving some of the big components out,
the high-voltage stuff,
you know, let's give it the respect that it's earned.
There's nothing safe about this thing,
even when it's working right.
A matter of fact, if this works right,
it's going to be very not safe.
We're finally ready to attain that ultimate goal.
It's time to build a death ray.
Tesla, he had a hell of a vision for this.
If we don't blow some [bleep] out of the sky with this,
I'm gonna be disappointed.
♪♪
Narrator: After learning that key pages from Tesla's death ray plans
were never delivered to the archives in Serbia...
So you're saying that pages were physically torn
out of the notebook.
Jack and Cameron travel to D.C.
To track them down.
Now, the investigation turns to a new potential suspect...
The U.S. government.
Through his military network, Jack secures a meeting
with a contact who understands
how United States spy agencies operate.
Glenn carle is a former CIA officer
who I've asked to review these declassified FBI files
on Nikola Tesla.
I think we can rely on his expertise
in telling us what the FBI
really thought about Tesla in 1943.
What do you think the FBI's interest
was in Tesla at that time?
Pretty strong.
He was one of, arguably, the leading scientist
in the first half of the 20th century.
And then there were the reports for a decade,
anyway, he could develop this death ray
that would change the course of the war, of history.
And the FBI took that seriously?
At a time when there are 16 million Americans in uniform
and the world is blowing up,
you better take something like that seriously.
If the bureau found
that there were national security implications,
you will be inclined to stop the person who you suspect
might be doing something harmful
before he or she can act.
Even if there's a 1% possibility of a report
about hostile activity or hostile individuals,
then you will act as though it were certain,
because the consequences are that people will die.
You can't take the risk.
I mean, Tesla was going around...
He was in time magazine, he was in newspapers...
Saying he could build a literal death
ray that had a range of hundreds of miles.
Do you think it was dangerous for Tesla
to be doing all of this press,
talking about superweapons and death rays at that time?
I do, and I think that's an important point.
I know if I had been a bureau officer sitting in Manhattan
or wherever it is and you go, "what the hell?
I mean, what is this guy doing here?
He's offering to peddle a death ray?
Sorry, no."
That's really confusing to me,
because Tesla talked about how big a patriot he was
and that he valued his citizenship more than anything.
Prince: I'm not surprised that the FBI would have considered
Tesla's actions as something that would be dangerous
to the United States.
But what I've always found strange
is that Tesla would do something that could be damaging
to the U.S., which he loved so much.
It doesn't add up.
Well, except that intelligence work
is fundamentally being a psychologist.
Actually, in reading the file, I became a little alarmed
that the guy was sort of a loose Cannon.
He wanted to peddle his brilliance and breakthrough.
Narrator: In the early days of his career,
Tesla is the golden child of modern engineering.
But by the 1930s, his reclusive and bizarre behavior...
Like eating dinner at precisely 8:10,
avoiding human contact,
and squishing his toes 100 times each night
before bed to stimulate brain activity...
Makes Tesla an outcast.
Ultimately, Tesla is ignored by the scientific community
and spends his declining years
trying to regain the attention of financial backers
at any cost.
Carle: At a time when there's combat and people
dying everywhere in the world, you can't peddle technology...
A weapon of mass destruction.
Or information that can lead to an advantage
for a foreign power on your own.
And america's future is in jeopardy,
you can't afford to not act.
So the FBI had to take it seriously just because, I mean,
if there's that 1% chance
that it could be developed into a real weapon, then...
Oh, you have to. Absolutely, you have to.
And if you don't, something like 9/11 happens.
Glenn carle gave us some fresh insight on the FBI's interest
in Nikola Tesla and his death ray designs,
and it means that we have to pursue
this U.S. government thing all the way.
Holmes: Just take it straight up.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Murphy: What we really need is historical context.
I have a military contact.
When Tesla was all over the media
talking about this death ray and all the capabilities it had,
I have to believe that somebody, somewhere took it seriously.
The only country that bought his plans were the Russians.
- Ready? - All right, coming up.
[ Boom! ]Whoa!
Murphy: Former CIA officer Glenn carle tells us
that the FBI might've been concerned
about someone like Tesla.
I know if I had been a bureau officer sitting in Manhattan
or wherever it is, and you go, "what the hell?
I mean, what is this guy doing here?
He's offering to peddle a death ray?"
Murphy: But the FBI had Tesla's research for nine years.
But what does mean for us trying to uncover new information
about the death ray?
What we really need now is historical context...
Finding out if the U.S. government
was working on Tesla's death ray
in the early '40s
and if any of those innovations have shown up in modern warfare.
That should give us an idea of whether or not
they were taking it seriously
and even if they would've killed for his invention.
Narrator: To help answer these questions, Jack meets with Adam DeMarco,
a former member of the U.S. army
with an extensive background in weapons research.
So, I wanted to talk about
basically high technology and weaponry.
I know with the work you do, you might be able to help me out,
because I'm trying to figure out
if Tesla's research influenced
today's military weaponry.
There's kind of three areas that Tesla really had a big impact
in terms of modern military weaponry and warfare.
The first, just handheld radio waves.
The second is the remote controls.
And then really the most interesting thing
is modern laser technology.
His concept of the death ray, that's kind of really
the Genesis of the modern-day laser.
His concept was basically charging particles,
put some energy behind it, and shoot it out of a vacuum.
I mean, that's essentially what a laser is.
And I can tell you that what we're seeing now
in the evolution of modern military warfare and weaponry,
there's definitely a correlation.
Amazing.
'Cause it used to be, when we were in Iraq,
if, you know, a vehicle was approaching you
at a high rate of speed, you just light 'em up with a
.50-Cal, but now, it's looking at can we disarm 'em
without expending 1,000 rounds?
Narrator: Laser weaponry provides modern militaries
with numerous advantages,
including limitless ammunition,
inexpensive electrical power sources,
and advanced targeting and firing systems,
reducing civilian casualties.
The earliest versions of laser-weapon technology
traced back to Tesla and his death ray.
I mean, if you're using directed energy,
isn't it also gonna take away some of the
ballistic calculations that we normally have to make?
Oh, absolutely.
And it fires in a straight line...
Absolutely.
Yeah, because you're not dealing with
any of the environmental issues.
So, yeah, it saves a lot of money
and it saves a lot of lives, too,
because now you don't have to worry about,
you know, that collateral damage.
So, I mean, Tesla technology
is sort of the weaponry of the future.
He's kind of an unsung hero of modern military warfare.
Murphy: This means that the U.S. government
was using information contained in the 80 trunks
that were seized for almost a decade
to develop powerful weapons.
It looks like the U.S. government
was secretly paying very close attention
to Tesla's work.
I have to believe that somebody, somewhere took it seriously
when Tesla was all over the media
talking about this death ray and all the capabilities it had.
This is where it gets really interesting is,
Tesla in 1937 is shopping around this idea
for this new energy source,
and the only country that bought his plans were the Russians.
Narrator: In the 1930s, rumors begin to swirl
that Tesla plans to sell his death ray designs
to a company called amtorg,
widely considered a front for the Russian government.
Cameron and Jack hear the same rumors on their trip to Serbia.
The Russians bought part of his plans for his,
you know, phase 1 plans of this death ray,
and they were able to implement it and test it.
So, what, the Russians actually developed
the early death ray plans?
The initial phases, yes.
And why they stopped there, no one knows.
Holy [bleep] all right, thank you, Adam.
Yeah, absolutely.
You've given me a lot to think about.
Murphy: If the Russians realized that the death ray plans
that Tesla sold them in the '30s were incomplete,
then I can't even imagine what they would do
to get the rest of them.
But at the same time,
if the United States government realized
that Tesla sold the plans for components
of the death ray to the Russians,
they would have been quite alarmed by that.
This is finally confirming some pieces of information for us
about what we've long suspected...
That there were numerous different countries
who were interested in plans to the death ray.
The only question is, was one of them willing to kill for it?
♪♪
Narrator: Aron and his team are done fabricating the individual parts
of their large-scale death ray
and are finally assembling the 25-foot superweapon.
The next step is to place the secondary...
The tube that allows energy to build up from the power source
and fire out of the weaponized portion on top.
Koscho: We've manufactured this secondary
to specification off-site.
Now we've got to stand this thing upright,
get it wired, get it connected, get it bolted down,
and make sure that everything goes safely.
Holmes: Right there. Come on in.
So, the idea is we're gonna drill the holes in the end...
Yeah.
We're gonna feed the chains through the center...
Yeah.
We're gonna hook 'em on to it
and then pick this whole thing up
and then pull it off and set her down.
Okay, sounds good.
Koscho: See, now, out in the middle of the field,
it's not exactly a controlled environment.
There's a lot more that could wrong here.
We have to deal with weather.
We've got all the heavy machinery moving around.
It's all dangerous.
All we're gonna do is we're just gonna pick it up
a little bit to get the weight off of this.
We just don't want it to slide at all.
Yeah... whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Something's wrong. - Yeah, I see it.
I'm just trying to get the...
Get the eye hooks out from the middle.
It's catching on the edge.
Pull on the chain.
This secondary has to be maintained in perfect condition
or we're going to have a failed test.
Narrator: With the amount of energy running through the death ray,
any dent or divot in the system
could cause the power to leap out at the damaged point,
resulting in a dangerous misfire.
If there's any damage on this thing at all,
we're screwed when it comes time to fire it.
Just... Here.
N-No, come back in.
I'm putting a safety on this.
Hays: All right.
This is already [bleep] set up for failure.
So, all we're gonna do, we're gonna stand it up vertical.
After you're done and stood up, we're just gonna back up
and set her down on there.
I think the risk here is when we're starting a near vertical.
Seems to me that if it's not perfectly vertical,
the bottom end's sliding around on the trailer.
Yes.
Remember, just get the chain vertical.
I'm trying to...
Oh [bleep] all right, coming out.
I'm gonna keep pulling on it from here.
- Yeah. - There he goes.
Keep coming up.
Now, if this falls, don't let it swing.
- Yeah. - Just pick it straight up.
♪♪
Okay, set her down.
Coming down.
Whoa. The whole thing's about to fall.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
You got that wire prepped?
Yep.
High voltage is really unpredictable.
Crazy [bleep] starts to happen if something goes wrong.
All right, they're charged.
We've got a drone, and we're gonna see
if we can knock this out of the sky.
I mean, that's what Tesla always wanted.
Narrator: In Texas, Aron and his team
continue final assembly of their large-scale death ray prototype.
This step is critical.
They must get the superweapon's 20-foot tall secondary
in place safely...
Holmes: Okay, set her down.
Hays: Coming down... And without any damage.
With the amount of energy traveling
through this secondary,
any damage here could be devastating to the outcome.
You know, I trust my guys completely, but nonetheless,
we're dangling out secondary above our slab here, you know?
[Bleep] Happens, and if [bleep] happens now,
we lose our chance to build a death ray.
Whoa.
Is that stable?
It's standing by itself right now.
Well, that felt like 17 hours.[ Laughter ]
Koscho: Go ahead and get this thing bolted down.
- And get to it. - All right, man.
Narrator: Back in D.C., Jack and Cameron discover
that the U.S. wasn't the only country
working on Tesla's death ray.
In 1937, the Russians bought part of his plans,
and they were able to implement it and test it.
So, wait, the Russians actually developed early death ray plans?
The initial phases, yes.
And why they stopped there, no one knows.
So, the Russians had the incomplete death ray plans.
At first, they probably didn't even understand
what Tesla sold them.
I can imagine if Tesla sold them something that was incomplete,
they weren't very happy about it.
So they would've probably went to just about any means
to have gotten the rest of it.
So that they could build the functional weapon.
So, who could have done this?
They couldn't have gotten it from the FBI.
They didn't have them in Serbia yet.
So the only person that was... Could've done it is sava.
Narrator: If the Soviets did have a hand in Tesla's death,
sava kosanovic is a potential connection.
Tesla's nephew and a rumored communist,
sava is the first person in Tesla's hotel room
the night of his death.
He breaks into Tesla's safe and removes documents
that have never been accounted for.
But was he working for the Russian government at the time?
Sava's very suspicious behavior around the time of Tesla's death
makes sava kosanovic worth investigating.
He had first-hand knowledge of the hotel rooms,
they knew who he was, they let him right in the door...
Right.
And he actually had the foresight
to bring somebody in to crack the safe.
He didn't do that himself.
I want to talk to somebody who knew sava
when he was still alive.
I want to find someone who can tell us
exactly how devoted sava was to the communists.
That will tell me if sava was so devoted to the Soviets
that he would've murdered his own uncle
and stolen the death ray designs for them.
Well, there's one person that's alive that knows him.
That's William terbo that we've already spoken with.
♪♪
Narrator: For perspective on sava's relationship with the Russians
and with Nikola Tesla, Jack and Cameron
visit William terbo,
Tesla's grandnephew and sava's second cousin.
Murphy: Terbo can give us some family insight
into what sava kosanovic was thinking,
what his motivations were, his ideology,
all these things that are otherwise lost to time.
♪♪
Prince: Do you recall meeting sava?
Terbo: Oh, I met him, yeah.
He was a member of our family.
He was not a technical person.
He was a political person.
He had been associated with the communist government
of yugoslavia and the Soviets.
I understood what his background was,
and he was useful... Very useful... to them.
One of the lines in the FBI files that, you know,
stood out to us
was the FBI considered sava an enemy.
They use that word.
Oh, yes, he was.
It's in that document there where the FBI thinks
or believes that sava might turn over
some of Tesla's information
to quote-unquote "the enemy."
Reasonable... Reasonable conclusion.
A very reasonable conclusion.
The Soviets were promoting a change
in the political structure of Europe.
Sava kosanovic switched sides,
and he became more than just tolerant of communists.
Murphy: So, Nikola Tesla's nephew says that it's possible
that communist Russia was using sava kosanovic
to try to acquire Tesla's death ray plans.
I can't say for sure that sava did this,
but absolutely had the motive, the means,
and plenty of opportunity to pull this off.
Was Tesla in any way sympathetic to communism?
Not at all, not at all.
Tesla thought of his American citizenship
as one of the most important documents that he had.
Tesla claimed that his American citizenship
was more valuable to him than any of his inventions.
He was clearly a patriot for the United States,
so if Tesla sold incomplete plans
to the Russians in the 1930s,
it could've been because he just hadn't finished the design yet,
or maybe Tesla was reluctant to give away all his secrets
to a foreign world power, but we may never know.
Narrator: In Texas, Aron and his team
successfully secure their 1,000-pound secondary
and can move on to the next stage
of the final death ray assembly...
Lifting the sphere,
the weaponized portion of the death ray,
20 feet into the air
and attaching it to the top of the weapon.
Man: Looking good.
All right.
Koscho: The attachment of the sphere is critical.
It's really designed to sit directly
on top of the secondary,
and then we'll bolt it in place,
make sure that everything is secure enough
and stable enough to fire the death ray safely.
Holmes: Go up.
Hays: How am I looking, guys?
You need to come forward a little bit.
- Roger that. - Right there.
Justin, stop and bring the boom in.
- Bringing it in. - Whoa.
That's about perfect, Justin.
Perfect. All right, now come on out.
Coming out.
Look at that.
Koscho: Now that our sphere's ready to go, we can focus on the power.
Narrator: In electrifying the system, Aron and his team
will run wiring from the primary
up through the secondary to the muzzle,
the weaponized portion of the sphere.
Koscho: When we see this beam exit the muzzle,
it's going to look like almost a lightning bolt.
It's going to look like raw electricity
flowing through the air.
It's gonna reach out, it's gonna grab that target.
The moment it does, it's gonna destroy it.
We have almost everything ready at this point.
♪♪
Narrator: The final step of the investigation is to see
if Tesla created the world's first weapon
of mass destruction.
Murphy: We started this whole investigation to prove
whether or not there could be a motive for murder,
and do you think we've accomplished that?
I don't see how we can go much further to prove it.
Based on what Adam was telling me about laser technology
and how Tesla kind of developed
the very early stages of it, it makes sense
that the U.S. government would be very interested
in those types of plans,
but it doesn't make any sense
that they would've killed somebody for it.
Yeah, I'm not buying that either.
You know, if anyone had a motive,
to me, it was the Russians.
We know that Tesla had dealings with them,
but he didn't provide them with much.
Murphy: We've done a lot of research,
but sava acting at the behest of the Soviet union
stands alone as our biggest suspect,
but we night never know what really happened
the day Tesla died.
Hopefully, we've supply Aron with the missing pieces
he needs to pull this off.
But I hope that this does some justice
for Tesla and illuminates some of the factors around his death.
I mean, we went to every major Tesla landmark in the world.
We did every bit of technology testing
about these properties that we possibly could.
I mean, we found never-before-seen drawings
of the death ray with formulas and schematics.
The ball's in his court at this point.
And he's the man to do it.
Yeah.
Whoa, what's that there?
Whoa, that's it, man.
Check it out. They got it lit up.
Holy [bleep] it's big, man.
Murphy: [Bleep] Damn.
Murphy: Is it ready to fly?
Koscho: About to be.
Everything we've done has led up to this moment.
Will it work? - I don't know.
Narrator: After months of investigation, the team is ready
to test their large-scale death ray.
Whoa, what's that there?
Whoa, that's it, man.
Check it out. They got it lit up.
Holy [bleep]
If the superweapon fires, it proves the death ray
was not just a Tesla theory, but a real weapon.
Success also proves the inventor
was in possession of designs worth killing for.
It's big, man.
[Bleep] Damn.
Let's go check it out, man.
It's huge.
♪♪
- Aron. - Hello, you guys.
How's it going? - Been hard at work, yeah?
Yeah.
- What's up? - What's up?
- How you doing? - Great to see you.
How's it going?
All these months of hard work, they build towards this moment.
I really hope this works.
Murphy: When this investigation started,
we weren't even totally sure what we were after.
We weren't sure if that right there was possible,
and here it is.
I mean, it's starting to become real.
Koscho: You know, honestly, we're fortunate
to have been able to get this together the way we did.
I mean, it's almost like we've brought
wardenclyffe back to life.
I mean, it has that kind of look to it.
I mean, this is impressive.
Prince: Now, what about the wind?
How did you accommodate for wind in this design?
Koscho: We've had to accommodate loading of the structure
to make sure that this could stand vertically
even if we did get winds out here.
We've had to accommodate what the sphere would experience
and what the tube would experience,
what that whole secondary, primary structure, all of that.
It's anchoring, all of that is accounted for.
So this is exactly what Tesla was talking about
in the documents that we found in Serbia.
Koscho: Right? It even looks the same.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Murphy: Aron, do you realize that if this thing fires tonight,
it means that we finally have a motive in Tesla's murder?
You know, that's a real possibility.
It would mean this thing was real from the get-go
and those plans were highly sought after for a reason.
If this death ray test actually works,
what it demonstrates is that Tesla's research
and all those years he spent talking about the death ray
were not flights of fantasy.
It was something that was very real
that he could have sold or developed
for various governments around the world.
So, what kind of power are we talking about here?
Koscho: We're putting through this massive, massive energy pulse.
It's over 100 megawatts.
That's enough energy to power 10,000 homes.
So it is a truly remarkable amount of energy
is going to be contained in the beam from this death ray.
So, what are we expecting to see here?
Well, when we turn this on,
we're gonna start seeing a beam
that reaches out from here a good distance,
and then, if all goes well, that beam will connect to our target.
Narrator: When activated, the death ray beam
will take the path of least resistance,
jumping to the nearest target in its range
the same way a bolt of lightning
strikes the highest point in a field.
So you don't want to be standing next to it when...
Oh, no, no.
You know, this is incredibly dangerous when it's armed.
Just being on the ground is dangerous.
Yes, just being in the area is dangerous.
So, like, no [bleep], how dangerous is this thing?
If you were there, it would kill you
and in spectacular fashion, too.
When it fires, it has the ability
to damage damn near anything
and certainly kill a person or any living thing.
Certainly an abundance of caution is required
when we're pushing that "go" button.
So we've all got to keep our distance.
Everybody pay attention to me when I'm running this thing,
and if I say it's safe, then it's safe.
If I don't, then stay the hell away
and wait for me to tell you it's safe.
This thing will absolutely kill you.
There's no if, buts, mights, or maybes about it.
If you get underneath this and it arcs to you, you will die.
I can't wait to see it fire.
Me, too. Is it gonna fire?
That's the question.
You never know until you push the button.
No doubt at this point, pressure's on.
Are we about ready to fire it up?
Yeah, we're about ready.
We're just doing the final connections now.
We've got the capacitors getting ready to come in, actually.
You just rolled up on us wiring up
the high-voltage power supply.
Narrator: Aron's team moves their capacitor bank into place.
The eight large-scale capacitors have been connected
to become a single power supply.
If the experiment works as planned,
power will surge from the capacitors
into the primary circuit,
race through the secondary into the sphere,
and fire through the muzzle.
Koscho: The reality is, we built the enclosure large enough
to handle not just the primary circuit
but also this energy-storage circuit.
That's good.
Narrator: Not only will this mimic Tesla's designs
by adding insulation to the base of the system,
but it will also serve the added purpose
of keeping everyone on site safe
if the capacitors overload.
High voltage is really unpredictable.
Crazy [bleep] starts to happen if something goes wrong.
That looks good.
Probably.
So the walls of the primary enclosure
protect the death ray from itself so to speak,
but they also protect us from what's going on inside there.
You got that wire prepped?
Yep.
I need your soldering iron.
Yeah, it got it right here.
We're gonna charge these capacitors and see what happens.
This is the moment of truth.
Let's see if we can blow some [bleep] up with this.
What do you guys want?
Well, we've got a drone, and we're gonna see
if we can knock this out of the sky.
I mean, that's what Tesla always wanted, right?
Right.
Soon as that drone comes in range,
I'm gonna hit the "fire" button,
and hopefully we see an arc start to creep
out the end of that muzzle, make contact with that drone,
and then an enormous amount of energy
should be released to the drone,
blowing the drone up.
Prince: All right.
You know, what Tesla had envisioned was maybe
a b-29 flying by.
Maybe it's got a nuke in it.
It's headed for New York city or something
and somebody hits the "go" button
and blows that thing out of the sky.
Murphy: This is the moment that we've been building
up to for months now.
If this actually fires and shoots the drone down,
it proves the concept of the death ray.
Yeah, Tesla might've been on to something with this,
and I think we're about to prove it.
Charging.
All right, they're charged.
Arm the coil. Okay, there it is.
All right. Glasses, everybody.
Go, Justin.
3...
2...
1...
[ Electricity crackles ]Whoa.
Narrator: Tesla envisions the death ray as a weapon to end all wars,
shooting enemy airplanes
carrying nuclear weapons out of the sky.
Aron's test using a drone simulates such an event
but also brings Tesla's death ray innovations
into the modern day.
Unmanned aircraft are now at the forefront
of 21st century warfare,
serving a range of purposes from high-altitude surveillance
to targeted bombings.
Drones would not be possible
without another of Tesla's inventions...
Remote control technology.
Tesla unveiled the first remote control
more than 100 years ago in 1898.
With both the death ray and remote control,
Tesla was far ahead of his time,
and now his genius is both more valuable
and more dangerous than ever.
Koscho: I'm going to charge these capacitors and see what happens.
Narrator: The entire team is together in Texas for their final test...
All right, they're charged.
Narrator: Hoping the death ray will fire and release
100 megawatts of power into their target
all in only one-thousandth of a second.
Koscho: Let's see if we can blow some [bleep] up with this.
We've got a drone.
We're gonna see if we can knock this out of the sky.
You know, what Tesla had envisioned
was maybe a b-29 flying by.
Maybe it's got a nuke in it.
It's headed for New York City or something
and somebody hits the "go" button
and blows that thing out of the sky.
Prince: So, what's the flight path?
How are you going?
We're gonna try and fly this thing
right across where our muzzle is.
So right at the end of the point,
we're gonna fly and hope that it finds the target.
- Let's hit the button. - All right.
♪♪
Is it ready to fly?
Pritchard: About to be.
Kevin, you set?
Kevin: Yeah, I'm good.
All right.
♪♪
All right.
Glasses, everybody.
Mm-hmm.
Arm the coil.
All right, Kevin. Ready? - All right. I'm coming up.
♪♪
Murphy: Oh, boy.
Koscho: 5...
Murphy: If this death ray will fire,
it will validate that there was a motive to have Tesla murdered.
Koscho: 4...
After studying Tesla and all of his works for most of my life,
it's a pretty surreal moment to see this thing here,
ready to fire.
I'm devoted to Tesla because I feel that he changed the world
and he didn't get the credit he deserves for it.
Koscho: 3...
Prince: If this death ray fires,
it finally proves what he was dreaming
wasn't just science fiction.
That he was really doing something to protect the world
and his favorite place... The United States.
Koscho: 2...
♪♪
1...
♪♪
[ Electricity crackles ]
Whoa.
[Laughter][Bleep] god...
- [Bleep] - Holy [bleep], it worked!
That was [bleep] awesome.
♪♪
Yeah!
Prince: I think you have a death ray, my man.
Oh, that was wonderful.
It wasn't messing around.
Murphy: No.
All right, everyone stay clear.
I'm gonna go make sure the capacitors didn't...
Ooh [bleep] that was loud.
What are you thinking, Jack? Is the death ray real?
Yeah, it worked. It didn't even hesitate.
It just went straight to the target and blew it up.
I'm impressed, man.
- Thank you. - Good job.
Let's take a look at that drone.
Yeah.
- Is there anything? - There it is!
Well, here's the battery.
Ooh [bleep] yep, there's part of it.
Kevin, what do you...
I don't think I'm gonna be able to fly this anymore.
- Holy... - Hey, did you keep the receipt?
It's a success.
Prince: Wow.
So, I mean, this really is a viable weapon now.
I think this heap of drone parts really drives
that point home, doesn't it?
- Yeah. - I mean, if we can blow this up,
there are many other things we could blow up.
So, let's do it again.
- All right, good. - All right.
You know, it's one thing to do this once.
Maybe we got lucky, right?
But can we do this twice?
- All right. - Come on, Kevin.
Pritchard: Coming up.
♪♪
- We lost it. - No, we didn't.
We got it, we got it.
Yes.
3...
2...
1...
[ Electricity crackles ]
Yeah! [ Laughter ]
[ Whooping ]
Hays: Holy [bleep] you hear that?
Man: Wow.
Ksocho: Oh, that's never gonna get old.
That is so impressive.
Congratulations, Aron.
Jack and I brought this from Serbia for you.
Oh, that's awesome.
Thanks, guys.
Every since I was a kid working on Tesla's projects,
I've always hoped to be able to realize
some of these crazier ideas.
I was able to take something that a lot of people
thought was science fiction
and turn it into science fact, and that?
That's cool.
Murphy: Seeing the death ray fire was the culmination of all our work.
It showed us that the death ray was real.
It wasn't just some sort of fantasy.
- To Tesla. - To Tesla.