Why Was Someone So Essential to Human History Completely Forgotten?
Tesla’s legacy fell victim to unique circumstances. His death occurred in 1943 during the most brutal global conflict in history at the height of World War II. It was a time when people were struggling just to put food on the table and survive. Preserving the history of this legendary Serbian-American genius was last on the list of America’s priorities.
No Corporate Sponsorship
To make matters worse for Tesla, he had no company at the time of his death. When a corporation survives the death of its founder, that corporation typically uses its wealth to preserve the legacy of that founder. Thomas Edison’s General Electric and Marconi’s RCA did exactly this, and hence, school children learned about Edison and university students learned about Marconi. Most never learned about Tesla.
It is an established view in today’s American politics that very often, corporate lobbying sets the agenda for which laws will get passed and which laws will not. Corporate wealth and influence are powerful factors that should not be overlooked in the study of why Tesla’s legacy was lost for many decades before re-emerging in the early 2000s.
The problem here is two-fold. Not only did General Electric and RCA work tirelessly to preserve the legacy of their founders, but Tesla had no surviving company of his own to highlight his own achievements in the field of electrical innovation. For nearly an entire lifetime there was no one working to preserve his legacy – or at least no one with power and reach.
Recent Recognition
Fortunately, the truth about Tesla gradually became available to the public due to the enormously important work of Margaret Cheney’s 1981 biography. Over a decade later in 1997, Marc Seifer published Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla – a masterpiece of research that is gripping from beginning to end. This book in particular had a ripple effect into the mainstream and academic understanding of Nikola Tesla’s importance.
In the year 2000, PBS published the first major documentary on the genius inventor. More than 50 years after his death and more than 100 years after his greatest accomplishments, Tesla finally received recognition from a major institution for giving us access to electricity (AC modern electrical distribution), remote controls, and other pivotal contributions.
It was not until recently in 2019 that CNN recognized Tesla as the true inventor of radio – it was the first recognition of this fact by a mainstream news media organization. As Tesla himself might say: The world is slow to accept change.
Given that his legacy was buried for so long, there still remain many mysteries. We may never know the answers to these questions, but many of us are asking:
- What really happened on the night of Tesla’s death? What did the FBI really find upon raiding the home of Nikola Tesla?
- The FBI released a public statement in 1943 saying that nothing of useful interest was found in Tesla’s home regarding technological documents. Considering that the U.S. intelligence community has a well-documented history of lying to the public, do we have any reason to believe them? It remains the view of the FBI that they hold no duty to release national secrets to the public.
- What was Tesla actually doing for the final decades of his life at the Hotel New Yorker? Was he really just wasting away? Was he working on projects that never became public? Is it possible that he was doing work for the US government or for other governments? (New evidence of Tesla’s later years is explored in Marc Seifer’s upcoming book. Tesla Science Foundation also heavily recomeneds this book.)
- In 1943 the US Supreme Court ruled in a patent dispute case that Tesla was the true inventor of radio. Mainstream media finally acknowledged Tesla for the same achievement in 2019 in an article by CNN. Marconi received a Nobel Prize for the invention of radio. Will this Nobel Prize ever be reversed and retro-actively awarded to Tesla?
- Will we ever have Tesla’s dream of wireless energy? It has been proven many times that wireless energy is possible, but contemporary innovators still struggle to transmit large enough quantities of energy without the use of wires to make it practical on a commercial and industrial scale. Did the practical application of this knowledge die with Tesla? If ever re-discovered, would this create another major industrial revolution that leads humanity upward on stepladder of new technologies?
- Speaking of wireless energy, what really happened with Tesla’s tower at Wardenclyffe? When Tesla described the functionality of the tower, he told us there are many other major uses for it that he is not yet comfortable sharing. Were those mysterious uses the actual reason the tower was destroyed? Is it possible that the tower could be weaponized? Although Tesla only had access to his tower for a short time: THE TOWER STOOD FOR SIXTEEN YEARS BEFORE IT WAS DESTORYED.
- In reality, what functions did his first tower actually possess before it was destroyed?
- What really happened to Tesla’s body? His Serbian Orthodox religion did not permit cremation, so why was this choice made? Was he really cremated? There is no public documentation of his cremation. His ashes are held at the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, and it has long been the perspective of the museum that these documents are confidential and therefore do not warrant public access. It has been nearly a century, why keep these documents a secret? Why refuse the offer of third-party experts to authenticate the documents for free?
Tesla Science Foundation was founded in the year of 2010 to preserve the legacy of the great genius. We are a large network of volunteers, and we invite you to join us in our mission to celebrate and discover all of these mysteries.
By Nick Lonchar and Ellis Oswalt
Ellis Oswalt is the author of Tesla’s Words: A Stunning Utopia of the Future.