Tesla's Death Ray: A Murder Declassified (2017–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Digging for Answers - full transcript
♪♪
Captions paid for by
discovery communications
prince: We're looking
for the missing pieces.
It's got to be here.
- We hit something.
- What is that?
- Oh, wow.
- Dude, we got something.
Murphy: Nikola Tesla
was... And a lot of people
will tell you this...
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 superweapon.
He called it the death ray.
Narrator: Now a
military investigator...
Murphy: But we're
gonna have to go around
some of these obstacles.
Narrator: A historian...
Prince: Holy [bleep]
Narrator: And an engineer
of Tesla technology...
We're gonna build
Tesla's death ray.
Narrator: Unlock the mysteries
behind what could be
the greatest cover-up
of the 20th century.
We need to go deeper.
You're telling me that
Hitler actually ordered
the assassination of Tesla?
Yes.
If something fails, there's
going to be an explosion.
Murphy: Tesla
moved from lab to lab.
He left a paper trail
all over the world...
- How can we get in there?
- Trunks of information.
Have these documents
ever been published?
No.
Murphy: Did Tesla
invent the world's first
weapon of mass destruction...
3, 2, 1...
and was he murdered for it?
♪♪
Narrator: January 8, 1943.
As world war ii rages in Europe,
america's most prolific
inventor is found dead
in a New York City hotel room,
his safe empty,
its contents stolen.
Many of the journals
and documents
stolen the night of his
death are never found.
Rumors swirl that Nikola
Tesla was working on secret,
black projects... Weapons
of unspeakable power.
For decades, the
rumors are dismissed,
until September 2016.
The FBI releases
hundreds of pages
of classified documents
on the inventor.
The question is... why was
the FBI even interested in Tesla?
He wasn't a bank
robber, he wasn't a spy.
So, why did the
FBI have hundreds
and hundreds of
documents on an inventor?
♪♪
When you ask people about
Tesla, they think it's a car.
But the truth is, Tesla is
really an American hero.
Tesla was actually the
most important inventor
in the modern world.
He gave us the lights,
he gave us the motors.
Tesla is the man responsible
for bringing america
out of the dark ages.
I've been studying
Tesla since I was a kid.
As much as I know,
there's still this shroud
of mystery around him.
Tesla kept his notes
in shorthand or in code
to protect them if they
fell in the wrong hands.
He was very secretive
about what he was doing.
There are mysteries about
Tesla we're still uncovering,
even to this day.
If you talk to any of
my childhood friends,
they'll all tell you
the same thing...
That I was the guy who
wanted to join the military.
I was a green beret,
I served in Iraq,
and then I went
over to special forces.
These days, I'm
a military analyst.
I investigate top-secret
government programs.
My combat experience
bleeds over into my experience
as an investigator.
When you've been shot at,
your brain calibrates
fear in a different way.
I probably dive into
situations more readily
than most investigators would.
Recently, I've been going over
newly declassified FBI documents
that could rewrite
American history.
So, this FBI document here
says that when Tesla died,
that his safe was broken into...
Was forced open
by parties unknown.
Could any of the documents
that were stolen from the safe
be related to the death ray?
Koscho: It's a hell of a weapon.
I think everybody would want it.
I mean, everybody wanted to get
their hands on these documents.
Everybody wanted
to have this device.
Tesla theorized,
this weapon of his
could take out military
aircraft 250 miles away.
He thought that this
could be a device
capable of delivering
1.5 gigawatts of power
to a target.
It really was
absurd at the time,
and frankly, it
still is absurd now.
That means we're
taking a bolt of lightning,
pointing it at something,
and blowing it up.
Murphy: Maybe he
finished the death ray,
maybe he finished
the design for it,
maybe he'd never had a
feasible plan to begin with.
But these documents prove
that Tesla was working
on the death ray,
and they show that the
events surrounding his death
are highly suspicious.
If Tesla's weapon was real,
then we could have
found a possible motive
for the murder of
an American hero.
Aron, as an engineer,
do you think there's
enough technology
and there's enough
information out there
for you to assemble
Tesla's death ray?
Yes, I think it's possible
to build something
like what he was after,
but, you know, there's
a lot of data missing.
I've spent my whole life
obsessed with
Tesla's inventions.
Building Tesla's tech
is really the only way
to understand the man's genius.
One of the coolest things
about this death ray, to me,
is that it was not
just a weapon.
Tesla theorized that a system
like the death ray could be key
to unlocking large-scale
wireless power distribution.
It's really the holy grail.
Tesla saw the future.
I mean, we're building
technology now
that this man conceived
of over 100 years ago.
On another page of these
declassified FBI documents,
what they say is that
persons sympathetic to Russia
were making an
effort to secure models
or designs of
possible military value.
And when they
say "military value,"
they have to be talking
about the death ray, correct?
Yes, I think that it's clear
that the weapon is
their primary concern.
Tesla was aware of that,
and maybe that's why he was
so elusive about this machine.
Toward the end of his life,
Tesla filed a patent
for this machine.
It's an incomplete
drawing. It's mostly theory,
and that's all we have
to go on right now.
As you see it, the death
ray is actually feasible.
Can it be built?
I think, Cameron, you
and I can go search
and try to dig up
additional information.
Hopefully, we'll
find something new
that will give Aron what
he needs to finish this.
Narrator: Jack and Cameron
travel across the country
to meet a key source of
information about Tesla...
His grandnephew.
Murphy: Tell me what
i'm walking into here.
Who is this guy...
Terbo... really?
He is Tesla's last
remaining blood relative,
and the last person
that is known to have
met Tesla in person.
This is a big deal.
He's considered the
subject-matter expert.
1856... Nikola
Tesla is born at home
during a lightning storm.
No ordinary child,
he'd sometimes
sit still for hours,
memorizing entire
books and inventing
and testing
machines in his mind.
At 28, Tesla comes to america
and reveals his
signature invention...
Alternating-current electricity,
more powerful and efficient
than Thomas Edison's designs.
Drawn by his genius, Tesla
is the toast of high society.
The most powerful
men in New York City...
Like j.P. Morgan...
Line up to fund his work.
But the inventor is
uncomfortable in the spotlight.
He retreats to his lab,
where strange
vibrations in the area
lead neighbors to believe
he's building an
earthquake machine.
The rumors about
Tesla's activities in his lab
persist to this day.
And now only one person alive
can claim to have
known the inventor.
♪♪
Ah, welcome.
Mr. Terbo, how do you do, sir?
I'm Cameron prince.
Hopefully, you remember me.
Oh, yes. Come right in.
I'm Jack. Nice to meet you.
Yes, very good.
Murphy: I'm looking for any
new information about Tesla
or his death ray...
A starting point that we
can sink our teeth into
and really kick off
this investigation.
Prince: First of all, I think,
just tell us who Tesla was.
Murphy: As a person...
His personality.
When I met Tesla, I was
only about 9 years old.
It was really a very
important invitation
to go to his lab.
Tesla had many brilliant ideas,
but he did not have an
organized system of filing.
When I visited him,
that's one thing I noticed.
And I believe that
he was worried
about people trying
to take his research.
So, Tesla worked on
the basis of hiding things.
The so-called death ray...
We've reviewed some
declassified FBI documents,
and it seems that there were
a number of different players
who were interested
in his inventions,
particularly the
U.S. government,
the Soviet union.
His idea of inventing
something catastrophic
like a death ray...
If you want to prove that,
then I think you
really have to go
to wardenclyffe.
Narrator: Wardenclyffe...
Tesla's most ambitious
and mysterious laboratory.
With funding from
the deep pockets
of financial giant j.P. Morgan,
Tesla designs a lab
with a power plant
and massive transmission
tower on long island, New York.
Increasingly secretive,
Tesla refuses to allow
anyone access to the lab,
including his
beneficiary, j.P. Morgan.
Rumors grow that Nikola
Tesla is a mad scientist,
using wardenclyffe as
a secret testing ground
for dangerous technology
like the death ray.
He even hires armed
guards for the property.
Under mounting pressure,
j.P. Morgan pulls his funding.
Tesla loses everything he built.
Mystery still surrounds
the lab at wardenclyffe.
What was Tesla building there?
Terbo: Tesla had a bad habit
of raising money
to do something,
and doing what he thought
was most interesting to do.
And that was his
problem... Wardenclyffe.
He generated the kind of
power that he thought he needed,
and if he could focus
significant amounts of energy,
he could direct it to a warplane
and shoot it down.
Tesla's tower was demolished.
What's there for us to look at?
You know the tower that
he had at wardenclyffe
was an expensive
element of the laboratory,
but it was not operational.
But what is under the
ground might be of interest.
All these auxiliary tunnels
that have not been
evaluated completely
as it should be.
There are so many rumors
about what Tesla was hiding
in those tunnels
in wardenclyffe.
When you talk about having
10,000 or 20,000 pieces of paper
that are missing,
I don't think you could really
deal with Tesla without digging.
If Mr. Terbo is right,
and Tesla did dig
tunnels at wardenclyffe,
then we have to find
out what's buried there.
♪♪
Murphy: Tesla
moved from lab to lab.
He left a paper trail
all over the world...
Prince: How can we get in there?
Trunks of information.
Wow. Tesla's own hand.
Have these documents
ever been published?
No.
If we're gonna build
Tesla's death ray,
there's a reason
nobody's done this before.
It's dangerous.
It wasn't called a
death ray for no reason.
That scares the
[bleep] out of me.
All right, everyone clear.
We're good.
Aw, dude, what the [bleep]?
Wow.
Oh, we blew this the [bleep] up.
Murphy: Wardenclyffe was
the site of Tesla's old lab.
Prince: There are rumors
of tunnels at wardenclyffe.
Murphy: We need to go deeper.
We're looking for
the missing pieces.
If we have any hope of cracking
the mystery of the death ray,
it's got to be here.
Joe, we hit something.
What is that?
Oh, wow. Dude, we got something.
Do you think Tesla
finished the death ray?
That makes the death ray real.
Koscho: Five...
He's like the ghost that
we just can't pin down.
Four... Look at that.
Three... two...
My mind's blown... One.
This is it, man.
Narrator: Jack and Cameron
are en route to
Tesla's mysterious,
abandoned laboratory
on long island, New York.
Meanwhile, Aron
gathers his team in Texas
to start construction
on Tesla's long-rumored
superweapon.
If they can demonstrate
the death ray was real,
they'll prove there was a
motive to murder Nikola Tesla.
Koscho: All right,
y'all, let's do this thing.
[ Tool whirring ]
We're gonna build
Tesla's death ray.
Hmm.right.
[Bleep] Yeah.
It's a big device that
stores a ton of energy
and shoots it in a beam,
out toward a target,
and destroys the target.
Hmm.
So, Tesla patented this idea.
It's a rough idea, right?
I think this is something
that he was trying
to get down on paper
so that he had credit
for being the crazy guy that
came up with the death ray.
I think this is enough
where we can put
something together,
kind of make it work.
So, that's the patent sheet.
Shouldn't there be more with it?
There's, like, usually
drawings and specifications
and more stuff so you can
actually prove our claim.
And there usually would be, yep.
And, like, maybe they didn't
put it in there specifically
so they didn't have
someone re-create it...
Yeah. Unless they could.
Oh, that's an
interesting thought.
Narrator: The incomplete plans
call for two components...
A power source
and the tower to
shoot out the electricity.
All right, now, our design...
I want to use a device
that Tesla himself invented.
I want to use a Tesla coil.
Narrator: The Tesla
coil is the first system
to wirelessly transmit energy.
Electricity travels
inside the device,
along the two giant coils,
increasing the voltage output
until, like lightning,
it breaks out,
looking for the
shortest path to earth.
All right, so, eventually,
I want to build something
that's probably
20, 25 feet tall.
But we can't afford
to go there yet,
because if it doesn't work,
then we're wasting our time.
Building something
like this, that's that big,
you know, that's a lot of work.
So we need something,
you know, 8 feet tall, maybe.
I want to put
together a prototype...
Like, something really basic...
Throw some capacitors together,
get one of the Tesla coils out,
and just see if this
idea can even work.
I'm confident something's
going to happen.
I'm just not sure what that is.
And we're gonna build
this, so do we need to get,
like, a permit from
homeland security or...
[ Laughs ]
They don't regulate death rays.
Oh, good. [ Chuckles ]
♪♪
Prince: Dude, I am
so stoked right now.
I came here once before
'cause they had a guard shack,
and I was able to get
in by jumping the fence.
[ Chuckles ]
I wasn't able to
really look around,
because I was worried
about going to jail, you know.
Murphy: William terbo is
Tesla's last remaining,
living relative.
He told us to go
to wardenclyffe,
the site of Tesla's laboratory.
He believes there could
be clues there that help us
with our investigation
into the death ray
and figure out whether or
not Tesla was murdered.
Prince: We're walking
on holy ground.
Tower stood 187
feet tall in the air.
This tower was designed
to send electricity
to the other side of the globe.
He was gonna transmit
pictures, text, voice, data...
All that from right here...
And most importantly, power.
Narrator: With this
tower, Tesla planned
to transmit free energy
across the globe,
but the project
loses funding in 1905.
The tower is dismantled,
and the property
goes into foreclosure.
For decades, rumors
of a network of tunnels
hiding Tesla's
missing papers persist,
but the full site has
never been mapped.
No one knows if
the tunnels still exist,
or if they were destroyed
along with the rest of the tower.
Prince: We need to figure out
what Tesla was
building this tower for.
Was it radio, was it
wireless power transmission,
or was it a prototype
for the death ray?
Well, this tower
and the building
were designed by Stanford white,
who was a friend of Tesla's.
He has a relative
that lives here still.
If anyone knows about
wardenclyffe, it's him.
Murphy: While
you're talking to him,
I'm gonna go talk
to some of the locals
and see what kind of insider
knowledge they might have.
Narrator: Increasingly paranoid,
Tesla trusts few people
with information about his lab,
but he confides in famed
architect Stanford white.
White builds wardenclyffe
using Tesla's own detailed plans,
becoming the only man who
understands the lab's secrets.
Today, his great-grandson is
one of the only living connections
to white and Tesla's
unusual friendship.
♪♪
So, we know that
your great-grandfather,
Mr. Stanford white,
was the architect
of wardenclyffe.
Mm-hmm.
He oversaw the construction
of the whole project,
including the tower.
They were close
personal friends,
and Stanford
used to invite Tesla
to come out here and
stay on the property.
And the story goes that
my great-grandmother
would find Tesla
wandering in the gardens
and ask him what he was
doing at 3:00 in the morning,
and he said, "I don't sleep."
I can't tell you much about
how they collaborated,
but I do have something
that you might be interested in.
So, here we have
some of the drawings
from wardenclyffe and...
Oh, man, look at this.
So, this is something, you know.
Prince: These are some of the
original plans for wardenclyffe.
Seeing what Tesla had in mind
for the construction of the lab
could reveal whether
this was a power station
or a proving ground
for a weapon of
mass destruction.
Ah, look at that.
Copper grounds
within lateral tunnels.
These tunnels are
odd-looking to me.
Do you have any idea what
they might have been used for?
I don't know what the purpose
of a circular tunnel
like that would be.
And of course,
the possibility exists
that we just aren't
smart enough.
We don't know what
was in Tesla's head,
and we'll never know.
And unless one of
us can channel Tesla,
we'll never find out.
We certainly want to
look for these cavities,
and are there other
tunnels that kind of come up.
More power to you.
This is why it's so hard
to get into Tesla's head.
We know he wanted to
transmit electricity wirelessly,
but that's only half the story.
He had other
intentions for this lab,
and I want to find
out what they were.
If I find something,
I'll let you know.
Thanks so much.
Thank you again, sir.
You're welcome.
Narrator: Locals
give Jack a lead
on a former resident who
has explored the property.
Oh, hi, John.
I'm an investigator doing
some research on wardenclyffe,
and I was wondering
if I could ask you
a couple questions
about the property.
One of the main
things I'm interested in
is if you had heard
anything about tunnels
underneath wardenclyffe.
Murphy: Underground
structures would have provided
the perfect place for Tesla
to keep his work under wraps.
Tesla might have
been burying research.
We have to find these things.
Pritchard: Athena,
Athena, come here.
Narrator: Back in
Texas, Aron and his team
begin construction
on the death ray.
They need to find a way to
store a massive amount of energy
until they're
ready to release it.
Pritchard: A capacitor is
a device that stores
electrical energy,
but all of the energy is
discharged in a split second.
It's just like a slingshot.
So, you're pulling it
back, you're pulling it back,
you're pulling it back,
you're pulling it back.
Finally, we're ready
to fire, we let go.
These are actually
military capacitors.
When I first bought these,
I got a phone call
nearly immediately.
"Hey, what are you
gonna do with those?
Are they gonna
leave the country?"
We're only going
to charge this up
to maybe 10,000 joules
of so of total energy.
You know, I remember looking
at a defibrillator one time...
The shock paddles.
It only takes 300 joules
to either stop or
restart your heart.
We're looking at
48,000 joules' worth.
I don't want to stop my heart.
This would blow your
heart out of your chest.
When one of these
really large capacitors fails,
it can explode.
But the real danger is
that we don't just
have one capacitor.
We have many capacitors,
and when one fails,
all of the other ones
discharge into the bad one.
So it's really easy
to just blow it up.
Go ahead and get
the power supply ready
after you get
this all hooked up,
and let's get ready for a test.
- Hook it up, all right.
- Cool.
Narrator: The team
believes there are
two components
to the death ray...
The weapon and the power source.
Aron's first step is to see
if they can create the
power Tesla imagined.
If this test works, the
banks of capacitors
will discharge their
energy into this target.
Pritchard: I'll give you
a countdown, all right?
I'll tell you when I'm ready.
Okay. Stand by.
Charging.
All right, everyone clear.
We're good.
Now.
Three... two... one... go.
[ Small explosion ]
What the [bleep] was that?
Ah, dude, what the [bleep]?
Wow.
Narrator: Using a crude
patent filed for this device,
Aron and his team
are attempting to build
a small version of
Nikola Tesla's death ray.
They hope that proving
this weapon is real
might unlock the
secrets of wireless energy
and provide a motive
for Tesla's death.
I'll tell you when I'm ready.
- Okay.
- Stand by.
Charging.
Narrator: Their first step is
testing a bank of
large capacitors,
devices capable of storing
the massive amounts of energy
Tesla theorizes
this weapon will use.
Now.
Three... two... one... go.
[ Small explosion ]
What the [bleep] was that?
What was that?!
- That was a flash.
- Holy [bleep], Aron!
Aw, dude, what the [bleep]?
- Wow.
- Whoa.
Oh, yeah, this blew up.
We happened to get the capacitor
that was maybe damaged
before we ever had it,
or it was just defective.
When a capacitor fails,
it tends to just explode,
instead of
destroying our target.
It's cooked from the inside.
It's [bleep] Charcoal.Yeah.
When we charged this
to a high-enough voltage,
that voltage broke
down this insulator
and caused a huge
arc to form inside of it...
Just blew it up.
We just had so much energy here,
if something doesn't
work, this happens.
[Bleep] Blows up.
Okay, well, it is what it is.
We're gonna have to rebuild.
Let's do it again.
♪♪
Find it? Yep.
Great.
Narrator: Aron's team swaps
out the damaged capacitor
and prepares to retest.
If the test works, the
energy will discharge
from the capacitors
and hit this target.
Koscho: Tesla was
a brilliant inventor,
but some of these ideas
are really far-fetched.
There's always a fine line
between genius
and mad scientist.
I've been dreaming
about building a death ray
since I was a
teenager, you know,
and I don't even
know if it's possible.
Three...
Two...
One.
[ Larger explosion ]
Damn.
[ Chuckles ]
All right.
That worked.
Success.
Koscho: The energy
from the capacitors
discharged into our target
the way we had planned.
Now we got to figure
out if it's even possible
to send that much energy
through a Tesla coil.
I mean, that's a hell of
an explosion by itself.
♪♪
Prince: We've got
some documents here
that we were able to obtain.
Narrator: The blueprints
for Tesla's lab at wardenclyffe
suggest there might still
be tunnels underground.
So, this is the tower
structure as it stood originally.
And then, down below,
these are what appear
to be radial tunnels.
We brought in the
ground-testing team
to search the property
from top to bottom.
I'm gonna go ahead and
stretch this tape measure out,
if you just want
to hang on to this.
Okay.
The way this will work...
We'll use two different
types of testing...
Seismic refraction
and electrical resistivity.
We're throwing the
kitchen sink at this [bleep].
We want to know what's
happening down there.
Lindes: What we'd
like to try to do is
get on 15-foot spacing
with these geophones
so that we can try
to get to a depth
of somewhere
around 120 to 130 feet.
Murphy: Seismic refraction works
by slamming a sledgehammer
onto a metal plate
that sends an energy
pulse down into the ground.
The energy pulses
travel at different speeds,
depending on the
type of material
that they're passing through.
And the geophones
we've spread out
are what receives
those messages,
so we're looking for anything
that could indicate a tunnel.
Hit it!
[ Clank ]
All right, so, what
do we got, here?
Mcmillen: You can
see, it comes down.
There's a little
bit of dip there.
Yeah.
So, based on what
you're seeing here,
would you say there
is a tunnel there?
There could well possibly be.
We need to collect
a little bit more data.
Lindes: The first test
showed that there is
something suspicious
underground,
at the south end
of the tower base,
but another test will
show if it's a tunnel.
So, we're gonna
grab those cables.
We're gonna pull them down
from the control boxes up there,
hook them up to each
one of these electrodes,
and then we'll start the program
and try to collect some data.
Murphy: Resistivity tomography
works by injecting
electrical current
into two electrodes
in the ground at a time.
They measure how
easily that current is flowing
through whatever lies below.
Prince: A combination
of these two tests
will give us the
location of the tunnels,
if they exist.
♪♪
So, what you see
here in the data
is this anomaly right here.
It's indicative of something
that has maybe an open cavity
or a water-filled chamber.Wow.
And it's pretty big, too. It is.
We do have another
anomaly right around here.
You found two of them? Yeah.
So, what that could
be representing
is something like an open space,
consistent with a tunnel.
Narrator: The team
finds two anomalies
that could be
underground tunnels.
One is on the
wardenclyffe property,
where digging is restricted.
The other is just
over the property line.
If you turn around,
that's the firehouse
right over there,
leading off the
wardenclyffe property.
Murphy: There were
neighbors who speculated
that there were tunnels
that ran off into that direction.
There's tunnels here,
underground, somewhere.
Finding them could
help us understand
what was going on here.
We might find clues that unlock
the mystery of the death ray
and shed some
light on Tesla's death.
♪♪
Narrator: Jack and
Cameron are investigating
Tesla's abandoned
lab at wardenclyffe.
This is where
Tesla looked to send
wireless energy across the world
and may have invented
his fabled death ray.
[ Knock on door ]
All the clues are pointing
towards the firehouse,
which used to be part
of Tesla's old property.
So, what that could
be representing is
something like an open
space, consistent with a tunnel.
That's the firehouse
right over there,
leading off the
wardenclyffe property.
Come on in, guys.
What can I do for you?
We've been doing
this investigation
over at wardenclyffe,
and one of the tunnels
that they discovered...
Or what appears
to be a tunnel...
Actually runs beyond
present-day wardenclyffe,
into what we think is probably
the fire department's property.
Wardenclyffe was a much
larger property 100 years ago,
when Tesla was
conducting his experiments.
Yeah, I think maybe 20 acres.
I can only give
limited information,
'cause I only know
limited information.
This is the maintenance shop.
This was built
in the early '90s,
maybe '90 or '91.
And talking to one
of the senior men
who was involved
in the construction,
while they were doing the
floor, they did find something.
There's a depression
in the ground.
We've filled it a couple
times, but it continues to sink.
So, we've been working
with some guys over here,
and they've got some equipment
that lets them look underground.
I know this may be
a strange request,
but would it be possible
for them to come look here?
Well...
I think that's okay.
Murphy: After speaking
with the fire chief,
we've learned that there
is a sinkhole or depression
in the parking lot, that
they have to keep refilling.
We might have narrowed
in on the entrance
to one of Tesla's
underground tunnels.
Pavement and ground
doesn't just crush for no reason,
and you can sort
of see those trends
in this asphalt here.
This crack right here,
along the roadway,
and all the way
down towards here...
I can even see where
they've patched it over there.
Right, yeah, and that could be
what the fire department
was talking about
when they said they'd
made multiple repairs.
Murphy: Since we're in
a more contained area
and it's concrete,
we have to use
something called
ground-penetrating radar.
In 1917, Tesla outlined
a plan to use radio waves
as a method of
detecting physical objects.
Today, we call it radar.
Narrator: Tesla
sees this technology
as a way to detect
approaching ships in battle.
Though he is rarely credited,
his ideas are the foundation
of modern-day radar, like gpr.
People say that Tesla was
hiding things in these tunnels.
We're getting closer
to finding the truth
about the death ray,
using Tesla's technology.
But you can see how I keep
coming across these areas
right through here and
here, at those levels.
You can see sort of
a trend where you see
a little bit of sinking or
settling in the subsurface,
whereas the rest
of the screen across,
there's not that
uniformity to it.
And how deep are we?
That's somewhere
right around six feet.
Murphy: A consistent
settling trend indicates
that there's a cavity
right beneath our feet.
That's right in
line with the tower.
Yep.
And it's also right in line
with this new building,
where he talked about
that they ran into something.
At 90 degrees.
Lindes: This is
really leading towards
one of your best chances
of trying to find something.
So we're right
over it? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'd call
it in this area.
This is the place
we should start.
Narrator: In Texas,
Aron and his team
are attempting to build
a smaller prototype
of Tesla's death ray.
Koscho: In the case
of our death ray,
the parts we need
are a big capacitor
bank and a Tesla coil.
Those two components
working together
are going to be able to deliver
a lot of energy to a target.
Three... two... one.
[ Explosion ]
Our capacitor bank test...
[ Laughter ]
it actually worked.
Okay.
So, there she is.
Narrator: The team is
able to create and discharge
the energy Tesla imagined.
Now they're moving
to the next phase.
If we can do this
on a small scale,
then I'm gonna
have the confidence
to move forward
and say, "all right,
maybe the bigger scale...
Maybe this can work."
Let's get it set up.
Let's run it through
a quick test,
make sure this is good
before we hook it
up to the capacitors.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
A Tesla coil is composed
of three main parts.
You have the primary.
That's the big square
box at the bottom.
In the middle, you
have the secondary.
That's the round tube.
The voltage is amplified
going up that tube.
And then at the top is
that big metal doughnut
that sits on top
of the secondary.
That's where all of
the energy builds up.
That energy breaks
out of that toroid
like a big lightning bolt.
♪♪
Yeah, that looks good.
It's perfect. All right.
♪♪
Narrator: A functioning Tesla
coil will shoot arcs of energy
that resemble
tiny lighting bolts.
Koscho: All right. We're ready.
Narrator: If the
coil is functional,
the team will connect
it to the capacitors
and attempt to pass a
much larger voltage of energy
through the coil...
We're ready to go.
Effectively weaponizing
the lightning bolt.
Koscho: We're gonna
start off at a low power here.
♪♪
- Yeah, dude.
- [Bleep] Yeah.
- Yeah!
- Whoo!
[ Applause ]
You know, we know
the Tesla coil works now.
We know how the capacitor works.
The problem is, we're
about to do something here
that people don't
really normally do.
And, uh, I don't know.
You know, don't really
know where this is gonna go.
So, we've tested the capacitors.
We've tested the Tesla coil.
If we can take the energy
that's stored in our
capacitor bank...
The one we've
charged to 20,000 volts...
If we can discharge that in
a beam from the Tesla coil,
we've proven that we
can take enough energy
and put it in an electrical beam
and point it at something.
The, uh, controller and e-stop
is ready to go for you, Aron.
Okay.
♪♪
This is dangerous.
We have a lot of
power here right now.
This might be too much
power for this system.
We've got good
distance between us,
but if something fails, there's
going to be an explosion.
We've got to keep in
mind there's a risk of fire.
There's a risk of things flying.
All right.
Narrator: If this test works, the
energy from the capacitor bank
will travel through
the Tesla coil
and release a bolt of
lightning that strikes the target.
- Ready?
- Ready.
Koscho: Okay. Kevin, charge it.
Pritchard: Charging.
Three... two... one.
[ Explosion ]
- Oh.
- Oh, wow.
[Bleep] Was that?
Murphy: Tesla was involved
in many different innovations.
One of them was the
transmission of wireless energy.
Prince: He's like, "you
know, marconi's got the radio,
but I'm gonna eclipse him.
I'm going to transmit
power, voices, video.
We'll be able to send a
page of written text wirelessly."
Everybody thought
that was just crazy.
You know, today
that's old-school.
Koscho: One of the things
we may learn from
this death ray is
that Tesla's wireless
power-transmission ideas
weren't all that crazy.
Large-scale wireless power
distribution is the holy grail
since Tesla theorized
it, over 100 years ago.
Rural areas, communities
normally hit by storms...
These areas could receive
power with no infrastructure.
It's almost like
Wi-Fi but for power.
And having that
possible outcome,
even if it's a small
percentage chance...
I think that's worth chasing.
Let's test this thing.
Narrator: Aron and his team
are attempting to
build Tesla's death ray.
Now the team is ready
to test the flow of energy
between the power source
and the weaponized Tesla coil.
Koscho: Three... Two... One.
[ Explosion ]
- Oh.
- Wow.
What the [bleep] was that?
That thing's done. [ Sighs ]
We had too much
voltage too fast.
Our capacitor bank...
It actually held up.
We didn't blow up
any more capacitors.
That was great.
The Tesla coil did
what it was supposed to.
The thing is, is getting that
energy from that capacitor bank
through that Tesla coil
didn't go quite the
way we had planned.
I don't know what went wrong.
We might very
well have bitten off
a bit more than
we can chew here.
So, let's sit down,
let's look at it,
let's figure out
how to improve it,
and let's move on.
♪♪
Murphy: We've been
granted exclusive access
by the local fire
department to let us dig,
so we've brought on
a team of professionals
to help with the excavation.
How are you?
Thanks for coming out.
I'm Jack.Sal.
Good morning. Good to see you.
Nice to meet you. Thanks.
What are you guys
looking for, exactly?
Are you familiar with this
property across the street?
No.
All right, this is wardenclyffe.
This is Tesla's last
remaining laboratory
that's still standing.
Now, we know
that Tesla dug tunnels
for a grounding system.
There's some sort of complex...
Something underneath the soil...
That leads from
where the tower stood,
all the way back here.
So, if you find the tunnels,
are you going
inside the tunnels?
We hope so. We'd like to.
I know the backhoe isn't
exactly a precision instrument,
but we want to go
as slowly as we can
to take the soil away
without disturbing anything
that might be underneath.
Okay.
Yeah, this is a historic dig.
For years, people have wanted
to do what we're doing today.
This is the first time it's
ever actually happened.
Yeah. let's dig a hole.
Once I get on
that, if I have to,
I'll put a piece under it.
♪♪
Murphy: Excavating
is the only way
to know what's
under wardenclyffe,
but it's a really
risky operation.
We're on a sinkhole.
The ground is Sandy
and soft, prone to cave-ins.
Watch your back.
Prince: We've got to
find out what's buried here
if we have any hope of cracking
the mystery of the death ray.
♪♪
We got the right
tool for this job.
Yeah, yeah.
Murphy: Our survey of the area
told us that there's
something six feet down.
It's like ocean sand
you find at the beach.
Yep.
So, if our
calculations are right,
we should hit something
around five feet deep.
Now we need to go deeper.
Yeah, we're gonna
have to go deeper.
I'm not seeing anything yet.
You want to dig some more?
Yeah. All right.
One foot at a time. All right.
♪♪
Yeah, you see how
loose this sand is
as we're getting deeper?
♪♪
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop.
What do you got?
There's something
hard there.Yeah.
What's that? What's that?
What is that? Dude,
we got something.
Let's get that out of the way.
♪♪
Koscho: We really could
use some more data,
because it's not an easy
thing to build a death ray.
Pike's peak?
Yeah, that's Colorado Springs.
Tesla went there in 1899
and built an
experimental station.
"Wizard of electricity had
instruments which could kill."
"Kill 30,000
people"?"In an instant."
So, we got to go there,
get boots on the ground,
actually walk the terrain.
Oh, we blew this the [bleep] up.
It's never been done before.
Trial and error. Yeah.
This picture here
depicts his laboratory.
Do you think he
conceived of the death ray
here in Colorado Springs? Yes.
So, uh, let's find
Tesla's lab, man.
Man: And that' our camera.Wow.
Oh. Oh.
Murphy: Oh, we hit something.
Koscho: We've done
everything we can.
Let's hope this [bleep] works.
Captions paid for by
discovery communications
prince: We're looking
for the missing pieces.
It's got to be here.
- We hit something.
- What is that?
- Oh, wow.
- Dude, we got something.
Murphy: Nikola Tesla
was... And a lot of people
will tell you this...
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 superweapon.
He called it the death ray.
Narrator: Now a
military investigator...
Murphy: But we're
gonna have to go around
some of these obstacles.
Narrator: A historian...
Prince: Holy [bleep]
Narrator: And an engineer
of Tesla technology...
We're gonna build
Tesla's death ray.
Narrator: Unlock the mysteries
behind what could be
the greatest cover-up
of the 20th century.
We need to go deeper.
You're telling me that
Hitler actually ordered
the assassination of Tesla?
Yes.
If something fails, there's
going to be an explosion.
Murphy: Tesla
moved from lab to lab.
He left a paper trail
all over the world...
- How can we get in there?
- Trunks of information.
Have these documents
ever been published?
No.
Murphy: Did Tesla
invent the world's first
weapon of mass destruction...
3, 2, 1...
and was he murdered for it?
♪♪
Narrator: January 8, 1943.
As world war ii rages in Europe,
america's most prolific
inventor is found dead
in a New York City hotel room,
his safe empty,
its contents stolen.
Many of the journals
and documents
stolen the night of his
death are never found.
Rumors swirl that Nikola
Tesla was working on secret,
black projects... Weapons
of unspeakable power.
For decades, the
rumors are dismissed,
until September 2016.
The FBI releases
hundreds of pages
of classified documents
on the inventor.
The question is... why was
the FBI even interested in Tesla?
He wasn't a bank
robber, he wasn't a spy.
So, why did the
FBI have hundreds
and hundreds of
documents on an inventor?
♪♪
When you ask people about
Tesla, they think it's a car.
But the truth is, Tesla is
really an American hero.
Tesla was actually the
most important inventor
in the modern world.
He gave us the lights,
he gave us the motors.
Tesla is the man responsible
for bringing america
out of the dark ages.
I've been studying
Tesla since I was a kid.
As much as I know,
there's still this shroud
of mystery around him.
Tesla kept his notes
in shorthand or in code
to protect them if they
fell in the wrong hands.
He was very secretive
about what he was doing.
There are mysteries about
Tesla we're still uncovering,
even to this day.
If you talk to any of
my childhood friends,
they'll all tell you
the same thing...
That I was the guy who
wanted to join the military.
I was a green beret,
I served in Iraq,
and then I went
over to special forces.
These days, I'm
a military analyst.
I investigate top-secret
government programs.
My combat experience
bleeds over into my experience
as an investigator.
When you've been shot at,
your brain calibrates
fear in a different way.
I probably dive into
situations more readily
than most investigators would.
Recently, I've been going over
newly declassified FBI documents
that could rewrite
American history.
So, this FBI document here
says that when Tesla died,
that his safe was broken into...
Was forced open
by parties unknown.
Could any of the documents
that were stolen from the safe
be related to the death ray?
Koscho: It's a hell of a weapon.
I think everybody would want it.
I mean, everybody wanted to get
their hands on these documents.
Everybody wanted
to have this device.
Tesla theorized,
this weapon of his
could take out military
aircraft 250 miles away.
He thought that this
could be a device
capable of delivering
1.5 gigawatts of power
to a target.
It really was
absurd at the time,
and frankly, it
still is absurd now.
That means we're
taking a bolt of lightning,
pointing it at something,
and blowing it up.
Murphy: Maybe he
finished the death ray,
maybe he finished
the design for it,
maybe he'd never had a
feasible plan to begin with.
But these documents prove
that Tesla was working
on the death ray,
and they show that the
events surrounding his death
are highly suspicious.
If Tesla's weapon was real,
then we could have
found a possible motive
for the murder of
an American hero.
Aron, as an engineer,
do you think there's
enough technology
and there's enough
information out there
for you to assemble
Tesla's death ray?
Yes, I think it's possible
to build something
like what he was after,
but, you know, there's
a lot of data missing.
I've spent my whole life
obsessed with
Tesla's inventions.
Building Tesla's tech
is really the only way
to understand the man's genius.
One of the coolest things
about this death ray, to me,
is that it was not
just a weapon.
Tesla theorized that a system
like the death ray could be key
to unlocking large-scale
wireless power distribution.
It's really the holy grail.
Tesla saw the future.
I mean, we're building
technology now
that this man conceived
of over 100 years ago.
On another page of these
declassified FBI documents,
what they say is that
persons sympathetic to Russia
were making an
effort to secure models
or designs of
possible military value.
And when they
say "military value,"
they have to be talking
about the death ray, correct?
Yes, I think that it's clear
that the weapon is
their primary concern.
Tesla was aware of that,
and maybe that's why he was
so elusive about this machine.
Toward the end of his life,
Tesla filed a patent
for this machine.
It's an incomplete
drawing. It's mostly theory,
and that's all we have
to go on right now.
As you see it, the death
ray is actually feasible.
Can it be built?
I think, Cameron, you
and I can go search
and try to dig up
additional information.
Hopefully, we'll
find something new
that will give Aron what
he needs to finish this.
Narrator: Jack and Cameron
travel across the country
to meet a key source of
information about Tesla...
His grandnephew.
Murphy: Tell me what
i'm walking into here.
Who is this guy...
Terbo... really?
He is Tesla's last
remaining blood relative,
and the last person
that is known to have
met Tesla in person.
This is a big deal.
He's considered the
subject-matter expert.
1856... Nikola
Tesla is born at home
during a lightning storm.
No ordinary child,
he'd sometimes
sit still for hours,
memorizing entire
books and inventing
and testing
machines in his mind.
At 28, Tesla comes to america
and reveals his
signature invention...
Alternating-current electricity,
more powerful and efficient
than Thomas Edison's designs.
Drawn by his genius, Tesla
is the toast of high society.
The most powerful
men in New York City...
Like j.P. Morgan...
Line up to fund his work.
But the inventor is
uncomfortable in the spotlight.
He retreats to his lab,
where strange
vibrations in the area
lead neighbors to believe
he's building an
earthquake machine.
The rumors about
Tesla's activities in his lab
persist to this day.
And now only one person alive
can claim to have
known the inventor.
♪♪
Ah, welcome.
Mr. Terbo, how do you do, sir?
I'm Cameron prince.
Hopefully, you remember me.
Oh, yes. Come right in.
I'm Jack. Nice to meet you.
Yes, very good.
Murphy: I'm looking for any
new information about Tesla
or his death ray...
A starting point that we
can sink our teeth into
and really kick off
this investigation.
Prince: First of all, I think,
just tell us who Tesla was.
Murphy: As a person...
His personality.
When I met Tesla, I was
only about 9 years old.
It was really a very
important invitation
to go to his lab.
Tesla had many brilliant ideas,
but he did not have an
organized system of filing.
When I visited him,
that's one thing I noticed.
And I believe that
he was worried
about people trying
to take his research.
So, Tesla worked on
the basis of hiding things.
The so-called death ray...
We've reviewed some
declassified FBI documents,
and it seems that there were
a number of different players
who were interested
in his inventions,
particularly the
U.S. government,
the Soviet union.
His idea of inventing
something catastrophic
like a death ray...
If you want to prove that,
then I think you
really have to go
to wardenclyffe.
Narrator: Wardenclyffe...
Tesla's most ambitious
and mysterious laboratory.
With funding from
the deep pockets
of financial giant j.P. Morgan,
Tesla designs a lab
with a power plant
and massive transmission
tower on long island, New York.
Increasingly secretive,
Tesla refuses to allow
anyone access to the lab,
including his
beneficiary, j.P. Morgan.
Rumors grow that Nikola
Tesla is a mad scientist,
using wardenclyffe as
a secret testing ground
for dangerous technology
like the death ray.
He even hires armed
guards for the property.
Under mounting pressure,
j.P. Morgan pulls his funding.
Tesla loses everything he built.
Mystery still surrounds
the lab at wardenclyffe.
What was Tesla building there?
Terbo: Tesla had a bad habit
of raising money
to do something,
and doing what he thought
was most interesting to do.
And that was his
problem... Wardenclyffe.
He generated the kind of
power that he thought he needed,
and if he could focus
significant amounts of energy,
he could direct it to a warplane
and shoot it down.
Tesla's tower was demolished.
What's there for us to look at?
You know the tower that
he had at wardenclyffe
was an expensive
element of the laboratory,
but it was not operational.
But what is under the
ground might be of interest.
All these auxiliary tunnels
that have not been
evaluated completely
as it should be.
There are so many rumors
about what Tesla was hiding
in those tunnels
in wardenclyffe.
When you talk about having
10,000 or 20,000 pieces of paper
that are missing,
I don't think you could really
deal with Tesla without digging.
If Mr. Terbo is right,
and Tesla did dig
tunnels at wardenclyffe,
then we have to find
out what's buried there.
♪♪
Murphy: Tesla
moved from lab to lab.
He left a paper trail
all over the world...
Prince: How can we get in there?
Trunks of information.
Wow. Tesla's own hand.
Have these documents
ever been published?
No.
If we're gonna build
Tesla's death ray,
there's a reason
nobody's done this before.
It's dangerous.
It wasn't called a
death ray for no reason.
That scares the
[bleep] out of me.
All right, everyone clear.
We're good.
Aw, dude, what the [bleep]?
Wow.
Oh, we blew this the [bleep] up.
Murphy: Wardenclyffe was
the site of Tesla's old lab.
Prince: There are rumors
of tunnels at wardenclyffe.
Murphy: We need to go deeper.
We're looking for
the missing pieces.
If we have any hope of cracking
the mystery of the death ray,
it's got to be here.
Joe, we hit something.
What is that?
Oh, wow. Dude, we got something.
Do you think Tesla
finished the death ray?
That makes the death ray real.
Koscho: Five...
He's like the ghost that
we just can't pin down.
Four... Look at that.
Three... two...
My mind's blown... One.
This is it, man.
Narrator: Jack and Cameron
are en route to
Tesla's mysterious,
abandoned laboratory
on long island, New York.
Meanwhile, Aron
gathers his team in Texas
to start construction
on Tesla's long-rumored
superweapon.
If they can demonstrate
the death ray was real,
they'll prove there was a
motive to murder Nikola Tesla.
Koscho: All right,
y'all, let's do this thing.
[ Tool whirring ]
We're gonna build
Tesla's death ray.
Hmm.right.
[Bleep] Yeah.
It's a big device that
stores a ton of energy
and shoots it in a beam,
out toward a target,
and destroys the target.
Hmm.
So, Tesla patented this idea.
It's a rough idea, right?
I think this is something
that he was trying
to get down on paper
so that he had credit
for being the crazy guy that
came up with the death ray.
I think this is enough
where we can put
something together,
kind of make it work.
So, that's the patent sheet.
Shouldn't there be more with it?
There's, like, usually
drawings and specifications
and more stuff so you can
actually prove our claim.
And there usually would be, yep.
And, like, maybe they didn't
put it in there specifically
so they didn't have
someone re-create it...
Yeah. Unless they could.
Oh, that's an
interesting thought.
Narrator: The incomplete plans
call for two components...
A power source
and the tower to
shoot out the electricity.
All right, now, our design...
I want to use a device
that Tesla himself invented.
I want to use a Tesla coil.
Narrator: The Tesla
coil is the first system
to wirelessly transmit energy.
Electricity travels
inside the device,
along the two giant coils,
increasing the voltage output
until, like lightning,
it breaks out,
looking for the
shortest path to earth.
All right, so, eventually,
I want to build something
that's probably
20, 25 feet tall.
But we can't afford
to go there yet,
because if it doesn't work,
then we're wasting our time.
Building something
like this, that's that big,
you know, that's a lot of work.
So we need something,
you know, 8 feet tall, maybe.
I want to put
together a prototype...
Like, something really basic...
Throw some capacitors together,
get one of the Tesla coils out,
and just see if this
idea can even work.
I'm confident something's
going to happen.
I'm just not sure what that is.
And we're gonna build
this, so do we need to get,
like, a permit from
homeland security or...
[ Laughs ]
They don't regulate death rays.
Oh, good. [ Chuckles ]
♪♪
Prince: Dude, I am
so stoked right now.
I came here once before
'cause they had a guard shack,
and I was able to get
in by jumping the fence.
[ Chuckles ]
I wasn't able to
really look around,
because I was worried
about going to jail, you know.
Murphy: William terbo is
Tesla's last remaining,
living relative.
He told us to go
to wardenclyffe,
the site of Tesla's laboratory.
He believes there could
be clues there that help us
with our investigation
into the death ray
and figure out whether or
not Tesla was murdered.
Prince: We're walking
on holy ground.
Tower stood 187
feet tall in the air.
This tower was designed
to send electricity
to the other side of the globe.
He was gonna transmit
pictures, text, voice, data...
All that from right here...
And most importantly, power.
Narrator: With this
tower, Tesla planned
to transmit free energy
across the globe,
but the project
loses funding in 1905.
The tower is dismantled,
and the property
goes into foreclosure.
For decades, rumors
of a network of tunnels
hiding Tesla's
missing papers persist,
but the full site has
never been mapped.
No one knows if
the tunnels still exist,
or if they were destroyed
along with the rest of the tower.
Prince: We need to figure out
what Tesla was
building this tower for.
Was it radio, was it
wireless power transmission,
or was it a prototype
for the death ray?
Well, this tower
and the building
were designed by Stanford white,
who was a friend of Tesla's.
He has a relative
that lives here still.
If anyone knows about
wardenclyffe, it's him.
Murphy: While
you're talking to him,
I'm gonna go talk
to some of the locals
and see what kind of insider
knowledge they might have.
Narrator: Increasingly paranoid,
Tesla trusts few people
with information about his lab,
but he confides in famed
architect Stanford white.
White builds wardenclyffe
using Tesla's own detailed plans,
becoming the only man who
understands the lab's secrets.
Today, his great-grandson is
one of the only living connections
to white and Tesla's
unusual friendship.
♪♪
So, we know that
your great-grandfather,
Mr. Stanford white,
was the architect
of wardenclyffe.
Mm-hmm.
He oversaw the construction
of the whole project,
including the tower.
They were close
personal friends,
and Stanford
used to invite Tesla
to come out here and
stay on the property.
And the story goes that
my great-grandmother
would find Tesla
wandering in the gardens
and ask him what he was
doing at 3:00 in the morning,
and he said, "I don't sleep."
I can't tell you much about
how they collaborated,
but I do have something
that you might be interested in.
So, here we have
some of the drawings
from wardenclyffe and...
Oh, man, look at this.
So, this is something, you know.
Prince: These are some of the
original plans for wardenclyffe.
Seeing what Tesla had in mind
for the construction of the lab
could reveal whether
this was a power station
or a proving ground
for a weapon of
mass destruction.
Ah, look at that.
Copper grounds
within lateral tunnels.
These tunnels are
odd-looking to me.
Do you have any idea what
they might have been used for?
I don't know what the purpose
of a circular tunnel
like that would be.
And of course,
the possibility exists
that we just aren't
smart enough.
We don't know what
was in Tesla's head,
and we'll never know.
And unless one of
us can channel Tesla,
we'll never find out.
We certainly want to
look for these cavities,
and are there other
tunnels that kind of come up.
More power to you.
This is why it's so hard
to get into Tesla's head.
We know he wanted to
transmit electricity wirelessly,
but that's only half the story.
He had other
intentions for this lab,
and I want to find
out what they were.
If I find something,
I'll let you know.
Thanks so much.
Thank you again, sir.
You're welcome.
Narrator: Locals
give Jack a lead
on a former resident who
has explored the property.
Oh, hi, John.
I'm an investigator doing
some research on wardenclyffe,
and I was wondering
if I could ask you
a couple questions
about the property.
One of the main
things I'm interested in
is if you had heard
anything about tunnels
underneath wardenclyffe.
Murphy: Underground
structures would have provided
the perfect place for Tesla
to keep his work under wraps.
Tesla might have
been burying research.
We have to find these things.
Pritchard: Athena,
Athena, come here.
Narrator: Back in
Texas, Aron and his team
begin construction
on the death ray.
They need to find a way to
store a massive amount of energy
until they're
ready to release it.
Pritchard: A capacitor is
a device that stores
electrical energy,
but all of the energy is
discharged in a split second.
It's just like a slingshot.
So, you're pulling it
back, you're pulling it back,
you're pulling it back,
you're pulling it back.
Finally, we're ready
to fire, we let go.
These are actually
military capacitors.
When I first bought these,
I got a phone call
nearly immediately.
"Hey, what are you
gonna do with those?
Are they gonna
leave the country?"
We're only going
to charge this up
to maybe 10,000 joules
of so of total energy.
You know, I remember looking
at a defibrillator one time...
The shock paddles.
It only takes 300 joules
to either stop or
restart your heart.
We're looking at
48,000 joules' worth.
I don't want to stop my heart.
This would blow your
heart out of your chest.
When one of these
really large capacitors fails,
it can explode.
But the real danger is
that we don't just
have one capacitor.
We have many capacitors,
and when one fails,
all of the other ones
discharge into the bad one.
So it's really easy
to just blow it up.
Go ahead and get
the power supply ready
after you get
this all hooked up,
and let's get ready for a test.
- Hook it up, all right.
- Cool.
Narrator: The team
believes there are
two components
to the death ray...
The weapon and the power source.
Aron's first step is to see
if they can create the
power Tesla imagined.
If this test works, the
banks of capacitors
will discharge their
energy into this target.
Pritchard: I'll give you
a countdown, all right?
I'll tell you when I'm ready.
Okay. Stand by.
Charging.
All right, everyone clear.
We're good.
Now.
Three... two... one... go.
[ Small explosion ]
What the [bleep] was that?
Ah, dude, what the [bleep]?
Wow.
Narrator: Using a crude
patent filed for this device,
Aron and his team
are attempting to build
a small version of
Nikola Tesla's death ray.
They hope that proving
this weapon is real
might unlock the
secrets of wireless energy
and provide a motive
for Tesla's death.
I'll tell you when I'm ready.
- Okay.
- Stand by.
Charging.
Narrator: Their first step is
testing a bank of
large capacitors,
devices capable of storing
the massive amounts of energy
Tesla theorizes
this weapon will use.
Now.
Three... two... one... go.
[ Small explosion ]
What the [bleep] was that?
What was that?!
- That was a flash.
- Holy [bleep], Aron!
Aw, dude, what the [bleep]?
- Wow.
- Whoa.
Oh, yeah, this blew up.
We happened to get the capacitor
that was maybe damaged
before we ever had it,
or it was just defective.
When a capacitor fails,
it tends to just explode,
instead of
destroying our target.
It's cooked from the inside.
It's [bleep] Charcoal.Yeah.
When we charged this
to a high-enough voltage,
that voltage broke
down this insulator
and caused a huge
arc to form inside of it...
Just blew it up.
We just had so much energy here,
if something doesn't
work, this happens.
[Bleep] Blows up.
Okay, well, it is what it is.
We're gonna have to rebuild.
Let's do it again.
♪♪
Find it? Yep.
Great.
Narrator: Aron's team swaps
out the damaged capacitor
and prepares to retest.
If the test works, the
energy will discharge
from the capacitors
and hit this target.
Koscho: Tesla was
a brilliant inventor,
but some of these ideas
are really far-fetched.
There's always a fine line
between genius
and mad scientist.
I've been dreaming
about building a death ray
since I was a
teenager, you know,
and I don't even
know if it's possible.
Three...
Two...
One.
[ Larger explosion ]
Damn.
[ Chuckles ]
All right.
That worked.
Success.
Koscho: The energy
from the capacitors
discharged into our target
the way we had planned.
Now we got to figure
out if it's even possible
to send that much energy
through a Tesla coil.
I mean, that's a hell of
an explosion by itself.
♪♪
Prince: We've got
some documents here
that we were able to obtain.
Narrator: The blueprints
for Tesla's lab at wardenclyffe
suggest there might still
be tunnels underground.
So, this is the tower
structure as it stood originally.
And then, down below,
these are what appear
to be radial tunnels.
We brought in the
ground-testing team
to search the property
from top to bottom.
I'm gonna go ahead and
stretch this tape measure out,
if you just want
to hang on to this.
Okay.
The way this will work...
We'll use two different
types of testing...
Seismic refraction
and electrical resistivity.
We're throwing the
kitchen sink at this [bleep].
We want to know what's
happening down there.
Lindes: What we'd
like to try to do is
get on 15-foot spacing
with these geophones
so that we can try
to get to a depth
of somewhere
around 120 to 130 feet.
Murphy: Seismic refraction works
by slamming a sledgehammer
onto a metal plate
that sends an energy
pulse down into the ground.
The energy pulses
travel at different speeds,
depending on the
type of material
that they're passing through.
And the geophones
we've spread out
are what receives
those messages,
so we're looking for anything
that could indicate a tunnel.
Hit it!
[ Clank ]
All right, so, what
do we got, here?
Mcmillen: You can
see, it comes down.
There's a little
bit of dip there.
Yeah.
So, based on what
you're seeing here,
would you say there
is a tunnel there?
There could well possibly be.
We need to collect
a little bit more data.
Lindes: The first test
showed that there is
something suspicious
underground,
at the south end
of the tower base,
but another test will
show if it's a tunnel.
So, we're gonna
grab those cables.
We're gonna pull them down
from the control boxes up there,
hook them up to each
one of these electrodes,
and then we'll start the program
and try to collect some data.
Murphy: Resistivity tomography
works by injecting
electrical current
into two electrodes
in the ground at a time.
They measure how
easily that current is flowing
through whatever lies below.
Prince: A combination
of these two tests
will give us the
location of the tunnels,
if they exist.
♪♪
So, what you see
here in the data
is this anomaly right here.
It's indicative of something
that has maybe an open cavity
or a water-filled chamber.Wow.
And it's pretty big, too. It is.
We do have another
anomaly right around here.
You found two of them? Yeah.
So, what that could
be representing
is something like an open space,
consistent with a tunnel.
Narrator: The team
finds two anomalies
that could be
underground tunnels.
One is on the
wardenclyffe property,
where digging is restricted.
The other is just
over the property line.
If you turn around,
that's the firehouse
right over there,
leading off the
wardenclyffe property.
Murphy: There were
neighbors who speculated
that there were tunnels
that ran off into that direction.
There's tunnels here,
underground, somewhere.
Finding them could
help us understand
what was going on here.
We might find clues that unlock
the mystery of the death ray
and shed some
light on Tesla's death.
♪♪
Narrator: Jack and
Cameron are investigating
Tesla's abandoned
lab at wardenclyffe.
This is where
Tesla looked to send
wireless energy across the world
and may have invented
his fabled death ray.
[ Knock on door ]
All the clues are pointing
towards the firehouse,
which used to be part
of Tesla's old property.
So, what that could
be representing is
something like an open
space, consistent with a tunnel.
That's the firehouse
right over there,
leading off the
wardenclyffe property.
Come on in, guys.
What can I do for you?
We've been doing
this investigation
over at wardenclyffe,
and one of the tunnels
that they discovered...
Or what appears
to be a tunnel...
Actually runs beyond
present-day wardenclyffe,
into what we think is probably
the fire department's property.
Wardenclyffe was a much
larger property 100 years ago,
when Tesla was
conducting his experiments.
Yeah, I think maybe 20 acres.
I can only give
limited information,
'cause I only know
limited information.
This is the maintenance shop.
This was built
in the early '90s,
maybe '90 or '91.
And talking to one
of the senior men
who was involved
in the construction,
while they were doing the
floor, they did find something.
There's a depression
in the ground.
We've filled it a couple
times, but it continues to sink.
So, we've been working
with some guys over here,
and they've got some equipment
that lets them look underground.
I know this may be
a strange request,
but would it be possible
for them to come look here?
Well...
I think that's okay.
Murphy: After speaking
with the fire chief,
we've learned that there
is a sinkhole or depression
in the parking lot, that
they have to keep refilling.
We might have narrowed
in on the entrance
to one of Tesla's
underground tunnels.
Pavement and ground
doesn't just crush for no reason,
and you can sort
of see those trends
in this asphalt here.
This crack right here,
along the roadway,
and all the way
down towards here...
I can even see where
they've patched it over there.
Right, yeah, and that could be
what the fire department
was talking about
when they said they'd
made multiple repairs.
Murphy: Since we're in
a more contained area
and it's concrete,
we have to use
something called
ground-penetrating radar.
In 1917, Tesla outlined
a plan to use radio waves
as a method of
detecting physical objects.
Today, we call it radar.
Narrator: Tesla
sees this technology
as a way to detect
approaching ships in battle.
Though he is rarely credited,
his ideas are the foundation
of modern-day radar, like gpr.
People say that Tesla was
hiding things in these tunnels.
We're getting closer
to finding the truth
about the death ray,
using Tesla's technology.
But you can see how I keep
coming across these areas
right through here and
here, at those levels.
You can see sort of
a trend where you see
a little bit of sinking or
settling in the subsurface,
whereas the rest
of the screen across,
there's not that
uniformity to it.
And how deep are we?
That's somewhere
right around six feet.
Murphy: A consistent
settling trend indicates
that there's a cavity
right beneath our feet.
That's right in
line with the tower.
Yep.
And it's also right in line
with this new building,
where he talked about
that they ran into something.
At 90 degrees.
Lindes: This is
really leading towards
one of your best chances
of trying to find something.
So we're right
over it? Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'd call
it in this area.
This is the place
we should start.
Narrator: In Texas,
Aron and his team
are attempting to build
a smaller prototype
of Tesla's death ray.
Koscho: In the case
of our death ray,
the parts we need
are a big capacitor
bank and a Tesla coil.
Those two components
working together
are going to be able to deliver
a lot of energy to a target.
Three... two... one.
[ Explosion ]
Our capacitor bank test...
[ Laughter ]
it actually worked.
Okay.
So, there she is.
Narrator: The team is
able to create and discharge
the energy Tesla imagined.
Now they're moving
to the next phase.
If we can do this
on a small scale,
then I'm gonna
have the confidence
to move forward
and say, "all right,
maybe the bigger scale...
Maybe this can work."
Let's get it set up.
Let's run it through
a quick test,
make sure this is good
before we hook it
up to the capacitors.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
A Tesla coil is composed
of three main parts.
You have the primary.
That's the big square
box at the bottom.
In the middle, you
have the secondary.
That's the round tube.
The voltage is amplified
going up that tube.
And then at the top is
that big metal doughnut
that sits on top
of the secondary.
That's where all of
the energy builds up.
That energy breaks
out of that toroid
like a big lightning bolt.
♪♪
Yeah, that looks good.
It's perfect. All right.
♪♪
Narrator: A functioning Tesla
coil will shoot arcs of energy
that resemble
tiny lighting bolts.
Koscho: All right. We're ready.
Narrator: If the
coil is functional,
the team will connect
it to the capacitors
and attempt to pass a
much larger voltage of energy
through the coil...
We're ready to go.
Effectively weaponizing
the lightning bolt.
Koscho: We're gonna
start off at a low power here.
♪♪
- Yeah, dude.
- [Bleep] Yeah.
- Yeah!
- Whoo!
[ Applause ]
You know, we know
the Tesla coil works now.
We know how the capacitor works.
The problem is, we're
about to do something here
that people don't
really normally do.
And, uh, I don't know.
You know, don't really
know where this is gonna go.
So, we've tested the capacitors.
We've tested the Tesla coil.
If we can take the energy
that's stored in our
capacitor bank...
The one we've
charged to 20,000 volts...
If we can discharge that in
a beam from the Tesla coil,
we've proven that we
can take enough energy
and put it in an electrical beam
and point it at something.
The, uh, controller and e-stop
is ready to go for you, Aron.
Okay.
♪♪
This is dangerous.
We have a lot of
power here right now.
This might be too much
power for this system.
We've got good
distance between us,
but if something fails, there's
going to be an explosion.
We've got to keep in
mind there's a risk of fire.
There's a risk of things flying.
All right.
Narrator: If this test works, the
energy from the capacitor bank
will travel through
the Tesla coil
and release a bolt of
lightning that strikes the target.
- Ready?
- Ready.
Koscho: Okay. Kevin, charge it.
Pritchard: Charging.
Three... two... one.
[ Explosion ]
- Oh.
- Oh, wow.
[Bleep] Was that?
Murphy: Tesla was involved
in many different innovations.
One of them was the
transmission of wireless energy.
Prince: He's like, "you
know, marconi's got the radio,
but I'm gonna eclipse him.
I'm going to transmit
power, voices, video.
We'll be able to send a
page of written text wirelessly."
Everybody thought
that was just crazy.
You know, today
that's old-school.
Koscho: One of the things
we may learn from
this death ray is
that Tesla's wireless
power-transmission ideas
weren't all that crazy.
Large-scale wireless power
distribution is the holy grail
since Tesla theorized
it, over 100 years ago.
Rural areas, communities
normally hit by storms...
These areas could receive
power with no infrastructure.
It's almost like
Wi-Fi but for power.
And having that
possible outcome,
even if it's a small
percentage chance...
I think that's worth chasing.
Let's test this thing.
Narrator: Aron and his team
are attempting to
build Tesla's death ray.
Now the team is ready
to test the flow of energy
between the power source
and the weaponized Tesla coil.
Koscho: Three... Two... One.
[ Explosion ]
- Oh.
- Wow.
What the [bleep] was that?
That thing's done. [ Sighs ]
We had too much
voltage too fast.
Our capacitor bank...
It actually held up.
We didn't blow up
any more capacitors.
That was great.
The Tesla coil did
what it was supposed to.
The thing is, is getting that
energy from that capacitor bank
through that Tesla coil
didn't go quite the
way we had planned.
I don't know what went wrong.
We might very
well have bitten off
a bit more than
we can chew here.
So, let's sit down,
let's look at it,
let's figure out
how to improve it,
and let's move on.
♪♪
Murphy: We've been
granted exclusive access
by the local fire
department to let us dig,
so we've brought on
a team of professionals
to help with the excavation.
How are you?
Thanks for coming out.
I'm Jack.Sal.
Good morning. Good to see you.
Nice to meet you. Thanks.
What are you guys
looking for, exactly?
Are you familiar with this
property across the street?
No.
All right, this is wardenclyffe.
This is Tesla's last
remaining laboratory
that's still standing.
Now, we know
that Tesla dug tunnels
for a grounding system.
There's some sort of complex...
Something underneath the soil...
That leads from
where the tower stood,
all the way back here.
So, if you find the tunnels,
are you going
inside the tunnels?
We hope so. We'd like to.
I know the backhoe isn't
exactly a precision instrument,
but we want to go
as slowly as we can
to take the soil away
without disturbing anything
that might be underneath.
Okay.
Yeah, this is a historic dig.
For years, people have wanted
to do what we're doing today.
This is the first time it's
ever actually happened.
Yeah. let's dig a hole.
Once I get on
that, if I have to,
I'll put a piece under it.
♪♪
Murphy: Excavating
is the only way
to know what's
under wardenclyffe,
but it's a really
risky operation.
We're on a sinkhole.
The ground is Sandy
and soft, prone to cave-ins.
Watch your back.
Prince: We've got to
find out what's buried here
if we have any hope of cracking
the mystery of the death ray.
♪♪
We got the right
tool for this job.
Yeah, yeah.
Murphy: Our survey of the area
told us that there's
something six feet down.
It's like ocean sand
you find at the beach.
Yep.
So, if our
calculations are right,
we should hit something
around five feet deep.
Now we need to go deeper.
Yeah, we're gonna
have to go deeper.
I'm not seeing anything yet.
You want to dig some more?
Yeah. All right.
One foot at a time. All right.
♪♪
Yeah, you see how
loose this sand is
as we're getting deeper?
♪♪
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop.
What do you got?
There's something
hard there.Yeah.
What's that? What's that?
What is that? Dude,
we got something.
Let's get that out of the way.
♪♪
Koscho: We really could
use some more data,
because it's not an easy
thing to build a death ray.
Pike's peak?
Yeah, that's Colorado Springs.
Tesla went there in 1899
and built an
experimental station.
"Wizard of electricity had
instruments which could kill."
"Kill 30,000
people"?"In an instant."
So, we got to go there,
get boots on the ground,
actually walk the terrain.
Oh, we blew this the [bleep] up.
It's never been done before.
Trial and error. Yeah.
This picture here
depicts his laboratory.
Do you think he
conceived of the death ray
here in Colorado Springs? Yes.
So, uh, let's find
Tesla's lab, man.
Man: And that' our camera.Wow.
Oh. Oh.
Murphy: Oh, we hit something.
Koscho: We've done
everything we can.
Let's hope this [bleep] works.