The Tesla Files: U.S. Military's Hunt for Secret Tech (S1, E4) | Full Episode

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NARRATOR: Tonight on The Tesla Files... So this is a-a patent from Nikola Tesla. The concept is-is certainly innovative. This ties the Tesla papers -to military intelligence. -Right. MARTIN EBERHARD: We weren't convinced about what was the right technology. And that is what made us think about Nikola Tesla. He, of course, invented the AC induction motor. TRAVIS TAYLOR: This hotel might be a laboratory. That really is an incredible idea. (thunder rumbling) NARRATOR: Shortly before he died, alone in a New York hotel room, scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla claimed to have 80 trunks filled with his life's work-- everything from detailed plans for wireless electricity to weapons so powerful they could destroy entire cities. But after he died, only 60 of Tesla's 80 trunks were reportedly found. For decades, people have wondered what happened to the files contained in Tesla's missing trunks. Could they have contained secrets, secrets that could forever change the world? ♪ In the past several weeks, astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor and investigative journalist Jason Stapleton, along with their friend, author and Tesla biographer Marc Seifer... Wireless transmission of power. This is unbelievable! ...have been conducting an exhaustive search for an estimated 20 trunks filled with Nikola Tesla's missing scientific files... Are there signatures on this document? -Can we see the signatures? -Yes, there... No. ...files which, if discovered, might contain everything from the inventor's designs for global defensive weapons systems... ...to unlocking the secret of universal, clean electricity. In the process, they have become convinced that, shortly after he died in 1943, shadowy forces, possibly within our government, conspired to enter the inventor's hotel room, steal his files, and then use the information contained in them for some secret purpose. We've done so much research, been so many places, done so much investigation, found so many new things about Tesla that nobody has ever known before. Even our demos demonstrated things that haven't been done for a hundred years. -(zapping) -Whoa! And now I see there's still this big question out there, is, what was Tesla doing? What was in those cases? NARRATOR: Today, Travis and Jason are on their way to Woodside, California, where they have scheduled a meeting with two of the original inventors of the famed Tesla automobile. STAPLETON: I'm really glad Marc set this up with us, because I'm hoping that I'm gonna get some insight that maybe some of the technology that they're using in this vehicle was originally used or thought up by Tesla. Marc wants us to get a feel for, um, what Tesla's inventions and things may have become. Maybe give us some insight into what might've been in those cases, those trunks and stuff. -What it would be like today. -Yeah. NARRATOR: For Travis and Jason, meeting with the inventors of the Tesla car presents a unique opportunity. If they can prove that the inventor's groundbreaking AC induction motor is not only still viable after more than 100 years but the crucial component in a cutting-edge automobile, they will be able to discredit those mainstream scientists who still call Tesla's work everything from "fringe science" to downright dangerous. TAYLOR: Well, they said they'd be in the shop. Hey, you guys, uh, must be Marc and Martin. -Yeah, I'm Martin. This is Marc. -Martin, nice to meet you. -I'm Marc. Nice to meet you. -Marc, very nice to meet you. -Travis Taylor. NARRATOR: In 2003, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning cofounded Tesla Motors in Palo Alto, California. Since then, their all-electric car company has gone on to become the most successful new American automaker in more than a century. So why-why Tesla? Why did you guys settle on that as a name? Is it... Did he have some sort of sentimental meaning to you guys? Naming it Tesla came from my decision that the AC induction motor was the right motor. -Sure. -And thinking that he especially deserves credit because he's not well-known. He was known to those of us who are engineers. But outside that, not so many people knew. NARRATOR: An immigrant who came to America in 1884, Tesla made few friends and many, very powerful enemies. While working for George Westinghouse, the Serbian-born scientist developed innovations in the field of alternating current that enraged Thomas Edison, who went to great lengths to argue that his direct current energy delivery system was far superior. To prove it, he even went so far as to publicly electrocute dogs and horses. (zapping) But Tesla's system became the standard, so much so that it is used even to this day. TAYLOR: Well, the whole idea of having an electric car couldn't have happened without Tesla pioneering all of the induction motors, generators, alternators and these concepts, uh, for AC power. Give us some, uh, insight on-on how you came up with the idea to start the company and to start making the Tesla car. The first thing was to make something that didn't run on gasoline, and we-we weren't convinced about what was the right technology. And-and there were two technologies that came to mind that were possible only if we weren't trying to make a low-cost car. One of them was lithium-ion batteries, and the other one was an AC induction motor with a modern high frequency controller. There is your Tesla connection. -There it is. -That's right. Exactly. And that is what made us think about Nikola Tesla. Uh, he, of course, invented that motor. He had written some paper to what eventually became, I think, the Society of Automotive Engineers, suggesting that his AC induction motor was probably -the right direction to go for cars in the future. -Is that it? -TAYLOR: Really? -This is our very early business plan, and-and, someplace in, we had tucked in a story about it. STAPLETON: Electr... Well, when you talked about electric cars. -Oh. 1904. -Yeah. -He wrote this in 1904. -1904. Wow. -Yeah, yeah. He was incredibly farsighted. NARRATOR: Writing for the Manufacturers' Record in 1904, Nikola Tesla put forth a vision of cars powered not by fossil fuels but by the electricity that could be generated by his AC induction motor. It was not, however, a unique idea. At the turn of the 20th century, many different car companies were actually producing electric vehicles. Even Tesla's rival, Thomas Edison, along with his friend Henry Ford, partnered to manufacture electric-powered cars that could be more universally affordable. But it was also at this same time that rumors began to spread that the burgeoning oil companies, who had a vested interest in the success of the gasoline-burning internal combustion engine, were using strong-arm tactics to intimidate electric car manufacturers. These rumors were strengthened when half of Edison's supposedly fireproofed factory buildings mysteriously burned down in 1914. Could one of the reasons that Tesla and his ideas were so brutally dismissed in their time be that they represented a threat to those who stood to make billions from high-priced oil and expensive energy? Was he, in fact, the victim of an elaborate conspiracy, one that regarded the eventual theft of his files as a means of protecting the status quo? So, guys, the reason that we're here is for us to take a look at some of the current technology that either could have used or does, in fact, use -some of Tesla's old patents and ideas -Right. -and then see if we can't kind of work our way backwards. -Yeah. I don't know if you guys realize this, but, um, the last few years of Tesla's life, he-he lived in a-a hotel in New York. The story goes, anyway, that he has all these trunks and cases of documents. As soon as he died, they're confiscated by the government. NARRATOR: Within hours of Nikola Tesla's death in 1943, agents from the U.S. government's Office of Alien Property Custodian took possession of what Tesla claimed were some 80 trunks' worth of the Serbian-born inventor's scientific papers and belongings. Once secured, more than 200,000 pages of documents were shown to a government-appointed engineer for evaluation. But after looking at Tesla's mountain of files for only a few hours, John G. Trump, the uncle of future U.S. President Donald Trump, determined that Tesla's papers had virtually no military, strategic, or scientific value. Was John G. Trump genuinely blind to the potential value of Tesla's materials? Or was he told to dismiss Tesla's life's work by someone who had a vested interest in discrediting it? Imagine getting into the giant pile of papers that are written by somebody who is an absolute genius, -somebody who has already made hundreds -Yeah. of really important inventions, and looking at that in two days and saying, -"Ah, there's nothing good here." -Yeah, right. STAPLETON: And these are two guys who would know how difficult it would be to understand and comprehend the type of material that Tesla was creating. And they were just as flabbergasted as we were that... at the idea that someone could go through all that information in two days. I have, in the garage, the second production Tesla ever made. It's the only one in the color it is, and it's-it's pretty fun to drive. Why don't you guys go out and I'll go through the garage -and bring the car out. -All right. -Yeah. NARRATOR: While Travis and Jason continue investigating the link between Tesla's 19th-century AC induction motor and the Tesla automobile, their friend and partner Marc Seifer is in Washington, D.C. Marc has arranged to meet with fellow Tesla researcher Kevin Leonard, who believes that Tesla's missing files weren't just lost or hidden but were deliberately stolen to serve some secret purpose. So, what do you got for me? Oh, I think I found the connection that the team's been looking for to the military. This was at the National Archives. It was part of the Sarah Clark collection. Oh, wow. This is the Office of Strategic Services. This is the connection you've been looking for. James Murphy, he was high up in the OSS. "Confirming the conversation of Private Bloyce Fitzgerald to the Air Technical Service Command." This is amazing. This means that Bloyce Fitzgerald contacted the OSS about Tesla. LEONARD: Right. NARRATOR: In the early 1940s, Bloyce Fitzgerald was a young and eager electrical engineer at MIT. He was also a protégé of Nikola Tesla, who gave him total access to most, if not all, of the inventor's highly guarded plans and designs. But unknown to Tesla was the fact that his trusted protégé, in addition to working at MIT, was also receiving a paycheck from the Ordnance Department of the U.S. Army. Was this so that Fitzgerald could use his position with Tesla to supply the army with privileged information about Tesla's unpublished plans and inventions? And is it also why, just hours after the inventor's death, Fitzgerald posed as a hotel manager-- so that he could make sure that Tesla's files wouldn't fall into anyone's hands but his? What I think's pretty amazing here is that it ties, uh, the Tesla papers -to military intelligence, -Right. not just to the domestic side of the Office of Alien Property -simply holding on to it. -Right. NARRATOR: Kevin Leonard's discovery of a letter linking Bloyce Fitzgerald not only to Nikola Tesla but to his covert relationship with the OSS, the precursor to today's CIA, has opened the door to an entirely new set of possibilities concerning Nikola Tesla's last years and the fate of his missing files. And while Tesla's known accomplishments contributed greatly to the world, could it be that his more secret experiments, including his so-called death ray, were of much greater value to the United States government than was previously known? This is a very important document. There's your connection. Wow. This is really something. I got to bring the guys back from California. We're gonna turn our attention to the military, and I'd like you to keep digging. -All right, will do. And these are yours. -Okay, Kev. -SEIFER: Great to see you. -LEONARD: Glad I could help. TAYLOR: Wow, look at that. -Serial number two. -Serial number two. So, this means the second Tesla car ever built? Exactly. NARRATOR: Back in Woodside, California, investigative journalist Jason Stapleton and astrophysicist Dr. Travis Taylor continue their meeting with two of the original cofounders of Tesla Motors, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Jason and Travis are curious to see how Martin and Marc used one of Tesla's original patents to create a car that represents a modern milestone in the development of the electric-powered automobile. TARPENNING: If Tesla looked at our motor today, he'd look at and totally recognize it's his design or his, you know, concept. -TAYLOR: Can we actually see anything when you... -Sure. -Yeah, let me just pop the hood. -Can we see the carburetor -on it? -Yeah, yeah. TAYLOR: Where's the dual exhaust on it? EBERHARD: Yeah, so, there's not much to see. It's a trunk. This is the inverter. This is the battery, and underneath the inverter is the motor, which is, you know, just down underneath. So what you're looking at is the entire drivetrain, -essentially, for the car. -This is it, right here. -Yeah. The AC induction motor is a far superior concept for an automobile than the combustion engine. The AC induction motor, you can use it to power extremely high torques and highly controllable motion. Can we take it for a ride? -Sure. Let's go. -Man. -Yeah, I'd love to. -TARPENNING: You're gonna like it. Yeah, that's crazy. EBERHARD: I'm gonna wait till we're around the bend up here. There's a straightaway, and I'm gonna use that to open up a little bit. What's the fastest you've ever had this thing? Maybe 110? You know, when I want to pass somebody, -I have instant power. -Oh, yeah. Right. Here we go. Let's see what this can do. I only have a little space for this car. TAYLOR: That's exciting. EBERHARD: Moves right along. TAYLOR: The acceleration is so amazing. NARRATOR: Located in the trunk, the drivetrain in the Tesla Roadster is a marvel of engineering. Beneath a power electronics module is a modern version of Tesla's AC induction motor, which sits side by side with a single-speed, four-gear transmission. This transmission is connected to a lithium-ion battery that contains over 6,800 cells and is capable of delivering 215 kilowatts of power, a configuration that allows the original Roadster to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.9 seconds and have a top speed of 125 miles per hour. Refinements made to subsequent models have boosted the top speed to 250 miles per hour. I always wonder what Tesla would think if he came back and he saw what his name is being used for. I mean, he'd have to be a little excited about it. I would hope so. And-and one of the reasons that we named the company, you know, Tesla, was to honor him. Tesla had these incredible ideas, and some of them were almost, like, futurist type of ideas. Like, stuff that you couldn't even comprehend at the time, and people would have looked at him -and thought he was crazy. -Yeah. But he was extremely poor about the financing and monetizing. You guys have been able to take that technology and those principles, and you've been able to turn it into something amazing, and it was something he really wasn't ever able to do. I think it's largely because we have the ecosystem here in Silicon Valley to do such things. Silicon Valley is filled with people who are, you know, quite clever but maybe don't have the business acumen to pull it off, and there's an entire system here to help that out. And, you know, he didn't have that advantage -in the 1800s. -Yeah. NARRATOR: Although there are many who believe that the reason why Tesla's inventions failed to be utilized in his lifetime was largely due to the limited nature of the resources available in both the late 19th and early 20th centuries, others suspect that the inventor was actually the target of a conspiracy that actively worked to discredit him. STAPLETON: There they are. -(Taylor screams) -(laughter) STAPLETON: Hang on. What'd you break? I didn't break or hit anything. -Well, how was it? -TAYLOR: Dude, it was awesome. Like riding in a roller coaster, man. It was great. It goes, like, from nothing to everything like that. It is a beautiful car. You guys did an incredible job designing it. For me, it was a real pleasure to get a chance to talk with both Marc and Martin because they're two guys who really have fundamentally changed the world. -It's great to meet you. -All right, thanks so much, guys. STAPLETON: And the cool thing about it is they used Tesla's technology, and they recognized it, and they gave him credit for it from the beginning. NARRATOR: After their informative visit with the inventors of the Tesla automobile, Travis Taylor and Jason Stapleton have returned to Washington, D.C.... -Marc. -Hey, Marc. -...for an important meeting with their friend and partner, Marc Seifer. So how was Tesla Motors? -It was awesome. It was, uh... -Yeah. It... They really explained that they based the entire concept on that drawing that Tesla had made in like the 1880, -whatever, you know, it's... -1882? Yeah. That's amazing to me. That's truly incredible. Well, the reason I brought you guys back is I want to turn our attention to the military. Kevin Leonard has given me some amazing documents here which ties Tesla to the OSS. TAYLOR: Marc shows us this letter that's from Wright Field to the OSS, so this is military intelligence, and the folks at Wright Field, are asking them for stuff that Tesla was researching. How did they know they've got it? And another interesting point here is, what are they doing at Wright Field where they need these files that Tesla was working on? It was written in 1945, or at least, it was stamped in 1945. So it was generated some time before that. "Please send the requested material "to the Air Technical Services Command "Equipment Laboratory, Controlled Equipment Branch at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio." Now, why is he writing the OSS? -That's the key. -Yeah. -So... -STAPLETON: And this is going to the OSS. Yeah, so this guy at Wright Field is really interested in this Tesla information, so he thinks they have it. NARRATOR: Could the OSS, the precursor to today's CIA, have been the agency responsible for the confiscation of Tesla's files from his hotel room on the night he died? But if so, why did the government's own science expert, John G. Trump, declare that the files were worthless, especially in light of what would be the military's increasing interest in Tesla's ideas during the critical last days of World War II? Was there any other military technology that he was working on at the time that we know about? I'm wondering, 'cause early on in his career, it was really all about, first AC power, and then it was really about wireless transmission, -TAYLOR: Yeah. -unlimited power for the world. And communications. Yeah. And communication for the world, right? Uh, which... That-that explains why he had so many problems with-with business, is there was a-a desire to keep that quiet. NARRATOR: After Nikola Tesla was unable to convince millionaire industrialist J.P. Morgan to continue financing his plan to produce wireless electricity at Wardenclyffe, the inventor soon became the victim of a smear campaign. Powerful enemies began spreading the word that Tesla was a charlatan and a con man, whose inventions were not only farfetched-- they were downright phony. These attacks forced Tesla to retreat more and more from public life, and, some believe, caused him to focus his attention on developing technologies that seemed more designed for war than for peace. At this point in his life, it's almost as though he shifts to more, I guess darker, or more nefarious types of technology to use in military conquests. He does, and it's during World War I. He announces for the first time that he has a particle beam weapon. You could shoot down incoming planes. You could stop ships from coming in. That's when the dark turn changes. So he reveals for the first time that he's working on top secret stuff. This has never been known before. And then he goes underground with it, and it disappears till the 1930s, and then it reappears. Is that just because of World War II was firing up, and Germany was on the move? I think that's exactly the reason. He was aware that Adolf Hitler had taken power, and he decided to get back into it. That's why I've got these documents. This is the particle beam weapon papers. -TAYLOR: Oh, wow. -That's your wheelhouse. SEIFER: This is the top-secret document revealed for the first time. This is huge. NARRATOR: In 1934, Nikola Tesla reintroduced his particle beam weapon under the name "Teleforce." The press, however, soon dubbed it "Tesla's Death Ray"-- a name which frustrated the then 78-year-old inventor, as he intended Teleforce to be thought of as a defensive, rather than an offensive, weapon. During the next year, Tesla offered Teleforce to any nation willing to use it. In 1935, after being publicly turned down by both the United States and Great Britain, he made a deal with the Soviet Union, although no evidence exists that the deal was ever finalized or that a prototype of Teleforce ever actually existed. When people think about Tesla's death ray, they think about a big, giant Tesla coil, slinging lightning bolts out and destroying the target. That's not at all how Tesla described the death ray. That's not what it was. What Tesla does say is that he's invented a weapon that somehow transmitted energy in a single tiny beam to a target over vast distances. The beam stays the same size all the way out to 200 miles, where he could destroy 250 airplanes with it if he wanted to. That doesn't sound at all like an advanced Tesla coil that could throw a spark of high voltage across, like a lightning bolt. Well, Marc, this is, uh, amazing that I haven't seen this level of detail before. In the '80s, when, uh, Ronald Reagan announced we were gonna do a Strategic Defense Initiative program -to build... -Star Wars. -Star Wars... Star Wars weapons. -Right. They were trying to do the same thing: to build a space-based charged particle beam weapon using very similar ideas. NARRATOR: In 1983, when the nuclear stockpiles of both the United States and the Soviet Union had reportedly reached record capacities, President Ronald Reagan proposed a defense initiative to protect the United States against a possible first strike. One year later, the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, was born. Dubbed "Star Wars" by the press, one of its components was believed to include a particle beam weapon that could destroy incoming enemy missiles. Could the striking similarities between Tesla's Teleforce and SDI have been a mere coincidence? Or did the U.S. government have secret access to Tesla's lost files, and later used them in creating their SDI program? -So, what do you think? -One of the things I'd really be interested in... I'm-I'm wondering, are there any current technologies that the military is using specifically that can in one way or another be tied back to Tesla's research? For example, we got, uh, this one that Tesla did in 1927. It's just of a basic helicopter that converts itself into a prop plane. When I was in the Marines, they actually developed an aircraft like this. -It's called an Osprey. -Yeah, that is cool. And I bet we can... I bet I can call around and find somebody who flies one of these things, and we can talk with them about the technology. -That's key, actually. -I do think the Osprey is an excellent place to start, because it is a real concrete example of a real patent -that Tesla did. -Yeah. -Yeah, right. Well, I'll make a couple of phone calls and fingers crossed. -All right, great. -Get back together soon, all right? All right, man. I'll talk to you soon. SEIFER: Okay, guys. NARRATOR: On Highway 84, approximately 60 miles northwest of Lubbock, Texas, Travis and Jason are travelling to Cannon Air Force Base, located just outside of Clovis, New Mexico. They are determined to find out if the U.S. military is using information from Nikola Tesla's missing files in the creation of modern-day military weapons and communications systems. (explosion) To that end, they have arranged for a private demonstration of the CV-22 Osprey, a combination helicopter and airplane whose basic concept is similar to one patented by Tesla in 1927. I got all kinds of questions about, like, functionality, like, how it works, and... It's just a really unique aircraft. How you doin', guys? -Hey, hey! Travis Taylor. -Good morning. Hey, Travis, how you doin'? -Good to meet you, man. -Hey, how are you? -How you doin'? -Nice to meet you. -Jason Stapleton. -Hi, Jason. -How you doin'? Charlie Mauze. -All right. Welcome to 20th Special Operations Squadron. So, you're our guy, then? Yeah, I'm the operations officer here at the squadron, and, uh, if you guys want today, we got an aircraft for you to look at and then, uh, maybe go fly, if you want to. By the wings, I guess you're the pilot, also? -That's right. That's right. -All right. Uh, you guys want to change up, maybe get something more appropriate if we're going flying today? -TAYLOR: Absolutely. -STAPLETON: Yeah, man! -Lead the way. -Cool. Come on in, guys. NARRATOR: Specializing in unconventional warfare, the 20th Special Operations Squadron use an aircraft known as the CV-22 Osprey to transport special ops soldiers to and from missions in hostile territories. It is uniquely suited to the task since it can function as both an airplane and a helicopter, depending on the requirements of each situation. MAUZE: So this is CV-22. TAYLOR: Wow. So, this is -your newest one? -This is the newest one. STAPLETON: I've known about the Osprey for years and years, but getting a chance to come here, and just walking into the hangar for the first time, and seeing it there, and just the scale of it was unbelievable. What's it made out of-- metal? -Uh, mostly composite. -TAYLOR: That sounds like -carbon fiber. -A lot of carbon fiber. Yeah. So, is there armor built into it? Uh, we mostly armor the people, not the aircraft. Okay. That makes sense. Wouldn't be... It'd be too heavy to fly, -right? -That's right. STAPLETON: I absolutely love the idea of looking at Tesla's 1927 patent, and then trying to tie it to the Osprey. And if we can link those two together, that proves that the government was using ideas that first originated with Tesla. So let me ask you a question. So, this is a patent from Nikola Tesla in 1927 for what... it essentially looks like a really rudimentary version of what we've built here. How feasible is something like that to have actually worked? The concept is-is certainly innovative, and it would work. You know, he-he has figured out changing... using the same thrust for-for take-off as he does for forward flight, and has a wing. Big problem I see as a pilot-- there's no way to counteract torque there. In our aircraft, we have two prop rotors spinning to counteract the torque from each other... You're missing the tail rotor, is what you're saying. -Perhaps. Or another prop rotor. -Something to counterbalance. STAPLETON: Or another prop... Okay. NARRATOR: Almost simultaneous to the invention of the airplane was the idea that it could be effectively used for military purposes. That notion was put to the test during World War I as pilots on both sides of the conflict explored and exploited the advantages and limitations of combat from the air. It was these limitations that inspired Nikola Tesla to come up with a design that featured a tilting rotor that could fly both forward and straight up and down. It would be able to fly at speeds comparable to those of an airplane, but was also capable of taking off and landing in confined spaces without a full runway. But what also makes Tesla's design so astonishing is that it was filed with the Patent Office in 1927, 12 years before the world's first practical helicopter took flight. What are the odds that something like this actually came from an original patent that Tesla would have put together in the '20s? Well, I think the inspiration certainly did, you know? I think what's remarkable about that patent, it's not so much the actual lines on the page, but it's the-the idea. -It's what he was trying to accomplish. -Yeah. MAUZE: Using the knowledge and the materials he had on hand then. I can totally see where that, -that-that concept came from. -Right. STAPLETON: You know, Travis and I were having a conversation on our way over here, just about Tesla and his life. He did hundreds of patents over the course of his life. And-And this was the last one that he recorded. The world was falling apart at the time. STAPLETON: They had a lot of secret programs... -A lot of secret programs. -...that were starting up. And really, he would have have to have been on a short list for people to go to for technology. Do you think that that's reasonable knowing a little bit about how the military works? Is that something you think could possibly have happened? There's always a need for good ideas. And, uh, you know, when there's a need, the folks that need them will generally go out and find them through private industry or otherwise, so... -Right. Well, what's next? -MAUZE: Well, uh, again, we can ask these questions or I can just show you what it does. TAYLOR: Let's quick talking about it and let's go do it. I'm excited. NARRATOR: For Travis and Jason, the striking similarities between the Osprey and Nikola Tesla's 1927 plan for a vertical flying machine, have raised a series of compelling questions. For instance, when did the U.S. military's interest in Tesla begin? And, given the incredible sophistication of the CV-22 Osprey, is it possible that Tesla kept working on his 1927 design for a vertical ascent airplane, and that his more evolved ideas are among those that were stolen after his death? MAUZE: All right. ♪ NARRATOR: In their ongoing search for Nikola Tesla's missing files, and evidence that some of them may have ended up in the hands of the U.S. government, aerospace engineer Dr. Travis Taylor and investigative journalist Jason Stapleton have been given an up-close-and-very-personal look at one of the military's most innovative aircraft: the CV-22 Osprey. TAYLOR: We start rolling forward, and you see the ground just barely moving and it's right there, then you feel it lift up. And instantly, you accelerate. (Taylor and Stapleton cheering) (laughing) TAYLOR: Boom! You look down. I mean, within the snap of a finger, you're 200, 300 feet off the ground, instantly. NARRATOR: 235 knots is equivalent to 270 miles per hour, a fact suggesting that the Osprey fully realizes Tesla's vision of an aircraft which would combine a helicopter's maneuverability with the high speeds and range of a traditional airplane. TAYLOR: The flight is unbelievable. It's not like any other aircraft. It's actually not even like a helicopter. If you've flown in either of those, it's... maybe if you think of both of them at the same time. STAPLETON: The aircraft can bank hard. It was, I mean, it was pushing us down into our seats the entire time. It was beautiful. STAPLETON: We took this steep climb, followed by a very quick descent, and for about five, six seconds, all of us were weightless. Everything was. (system monitor beeping) STAPLETON: The dust came up off of the deck and even an ammo can was floating in the air for a short period of time. It was... it was very cool. NARRATOR: At the end of the demonstration, the Osprey lands in a remote, rugged location-- just as Nikola Tesla envisioned-- without the need of a runway. TAYLOR: When Tesla had this original idea for the vertical takeoff and landing helicopter/airplane vehicle, I don't think he had any idea what it was gonna end up being. MAUZE: If Nikola Tesla saw this aircraft, he would really see what he actualized 90-odd years ago. It's manifested here. And to show him how it got there-- turboshaft engines, composite construction, fly-by-wire-- the way that we got there, it took us 90 years. I think he would totally get that. We have this patent. We know that this was something that Tesla worked on. STAPLETON: But we also know that there are 80 trunks out there just full of his stuff. You wonder what other gems, what other pieces of technology or ideas or concepts are just laying there, waiting to be discovered. It could be groundbreaking, earth-shattering. -(knocking on door) -TAYLOR: Yo, it's open. -Come on in, man. -What's up? NARRATOR: After a long day spent investigating possible links between Nikola Tesla's patent for a Transformer-style helicopter and the U.S. military's CV-22 Osprey... All right, well, should we see what Marc sent us here? ...Travis and Jason are curious to find out what their partner Marc Seifer has sent them from Washington, D.C. Gonna move this over here. "Skype me when you get this. Marc." -STAPLETON: Oh, okay. -Oh, it's the New Yorker. TAYLOR: And this must be... Ah, that's Wardenclyffe. -Let's just call him. -Yep, give him a call. (Skype ringing) All right. -There he is. -STAPLETON: Hey, Marc. -How you doing, guys? -TAYLOR: Good. How are you? -So what is this that you sent us? -Yeah, what are we looking at? Okay, so what I've sent you is a side view of the Hotel New Yorker. And these things are the actual blueprints. STAPLETON: Finally. We've been looking for blueprints for forever, and now we actually have some. I thought maybe if you looked at this, you might have some ideas. Jason and I were looking at it right before we called you, and it does go up to the 40th floor, -and then, there's another section up there. -STAPLETON: Hang on. You had a theory the first time we went there that Tesla would've had a laboratory somewhere inside the hotel. If I lived there, I would have a laboratory there. I think this extra space on top of the building might be a laboratory. STAPLETON: It would have been a good place for it. STAPLETON: Marc, how tall was the original Wardenclyffe Tower supposed to be? Tesla had driven the pipes 300 feet down into the ground which would have made the whole tower about 600 feet tall. How high is that building? If you add it up, that's 40, 100 and 200. It's just short of 600 feet. So now let's think about this for a second. This hotel could have been built to be Wardenclyffe. That's an incredible idea. NARRATOR: Have Marc, Travis and Jason just had one of their biggest breakthroughs? Could they have discovered the ultimate Tesla experiment hiding in plain sight? Hang on though, the guy couldn't finance a 600-foot tower. How did he finance a hotel? -That really wouldn't... -He didn't build the hotel. -TAYLOR: Investors-- yeah. -You're saying he just used the hotel. -Investors built the hotel. -Because it had all the same components that had Wardenclyffe. Yeah, was that serendipitous? That he looked at-- "Wow, this hotel has exactly what I need"? It kind of gives me chills, guys. MARC: You've got an amazing theory, Travis. You think it'd be helpful if we got back to the Hotel New Yorker? If you can get us in there again, where we can open every door we can open. -If that can happen, we need to do that. -STAPLETON: Yeah. Let me make some calls and set that up. -All right. -Okay. -Thank you. -TAYLOR: See you later, Marc. -See you. -All right, bye. Dude, it looks like we're going back to New York. -Let's go. Let's do it. -You know, like you said a long time ago, when we started this, so wouldn't it be funny if we find out that Tesla was the smartest guy in the room and he was playing us all? -Right. -This would certainly -make him the smartest guy in the room. -This would qualify. It would. NARRATOR: Was Nikola Tesla using the New Yorker Hotel as the center for his inventions? Inventions so advanced and so groundbreaking, that it would take nearly a century for them to be turned into reality? If so, perhaps the hotel could still be hiding a treasure trove of secret files and inventions. Inventions that have remained hidden there for more than 70 years. Next time on The Tesla Files... KINNEY: If there's any place in the building that Tesla could've had a laboratory, it would have been in here. SEIFER: Papers in there. STAPLETON: We know that Tesla was being spied on. We know he loved pigeons. Could it be possible to use pigeons to carry messages? More than likely, probable. Wow! WOOD: Tesla was doing some experiments where he wound up using the Earth's entire magnetic field to send a transmission to the stars.

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Channel: HISTORY

Views: 74,567

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Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, nikola tesla, conspiracy theories, Season 1, Without a Trace, The Tesla Files, The Tesla Files streaming, The Tesla Files full episodes, watch The Tesla Files online free, The Tesla Files scenes, The Tesla Files clips, Marc Seifer, Travis Taylor, Jason Stapleton, Nikola Tesla's missing files, Nikola Tesla, missing files, missing Tesla files, researcher, astrophysicist, inventor, episode 4, Secret Weapons

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Length: 42min 22sec (2542 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 02 2024