History's Mysteries Nikola Tesla Part II

Today, we are finishing up our Nikola Tesla episode….

http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1917-05-08.htm.

https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla/Nikola%20Tesla%20Part%2001/view

https://www.history.com/articles/nikola-tesla-files-declassified-fbi

https://teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/articles/nikola-teslas-electric-car-folklore-or-historical-fact#google_vignette

https://www.history.com/articles/nikola-tesla

https://teslasciencecenter.org

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nikola-teslas-amazing-predictions-for-the-21st-century-26353702/

https://ethw.org/Charles_F._Scott

https://gatescientific.com/technique-geeks-blog/f/tesla-vs-edison-the-feud-that-never-happened#:~:text=In%20the%20usual%20telling%2C%20the%20feud%20begins,in%20his%20face%E2%80%94a%20claim%20Tesla%20never%20made.

https://www.history.com/articles/what-was-the-war-of-the-currents

https://bigthink.com/high-culture/the-secret-to-mark-twains-friendship-with-nikola-tesla/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#:~:text=After%20graduating%20Tesla%20returned%20to,while%20recovering%20from%20his%20illness.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Welcome to Cashley Presents History's Mysteries, the podcast where we dig into the past's most puzzling stories, unsolved mysteries, and tales that won't stay hidden. We're your hosts, Kevin and Ashley.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

In each episode, we look at the facts, question the official stories, and explore the darker corners where history gets interesting. Whether you're a skeptic, a believer, I'm a believer. Or just love a good mystery, you're in the right place. Settle in, keep an open mind, and get ready to rethink what you know about the past. We may not be doing any of these for a while. So why? Because they take me a long time. There has been a while. A month to do this. It has been. Just because I forgot about this one. Because I wasn't going to do anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Is that why they take a long time? Is because you forget about them?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Possible. I just haven't even been working on these at all. So we're going to do some of the same stuff from the other podcast. So today's shout-out, we are going to do my mum. Mum? She's mad at me, so.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

So you call her Mum.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Hey Mom. Don't be mad at me.

unknown 1:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

That'll fix it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Alright, Kevin. First up, we're gonna do uh Laffy Taffy, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Laffy Taffy.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Laffy Taffy. Alrighty.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

What's a tornado's favorite game?

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Hopscotch.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Twister.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Got me.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So we're going back into Tesla because I forgot to do part two.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Everyone has been waiting in suspense for weeks or months, however long it's been.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Sorry. I totally forgot. I was looking through counting how many episodes we'd done, and I was like, oh, there's not a part two on Tesla. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Slip through. Well, when you do as many as we do.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

It's not that many. To understand Tesla's later years and his more mysterious claims, it helps to know Arthur Matthews. Matthews was born in England where his father worked as a lab assistant at to the famous physicist Lord Kelvin.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Of the temperature.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Maybe. So he grew up.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I'm sure it is. Do you know what temperature I'm talking about?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Kelvin. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Right. But I don't know if it's after him.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah, I mean, that would be quite the coincidence.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Maybe it was a popular name back then.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Um, so he grew up around science. When Matthew's family moved to Canada, his father is said to have arranged an apprenticeship for the 16-year-old Arthur with Nikola Tesla. Matthews worked with Tesla for the rest of Tesla's life and became one of the closest witnesses to his most secretive work. Some dispute that Matthew ever worked for Tesla. In the early 1940s, Matthew wrote a book called The Wall of Light, which is unlike anything you might expect from an electrical engineer. The first section claims to be Tesla's autobiography, written by his own voice. In it, Tesla talks about his strange life among humans and describes meeting extraterrestrials. Whether you believe this or not, it raises an interesting question. What did Tesla believe about his own genius and where did he think his ideas came from? In 1986, in a 1986 interview, Matthews took the story even further, saying Tesla built his first electric car as early as 1897, and that they drove it from New York to Buffalo at an average speed of 94 miles per hour. Think about that. In 1897, most cars could only reach between 10 to 35 miles per hour. The distance between New York and Buffalo is 373 miles. A car speeding across the countryside at nearly a hundred miles per hour would have attracted a lot of attention.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah, it would have. I know at the beginning I said I was a believer. This seems almost unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Okay, keep going. Still, Matthews insisted on his story. He described the machine in detail. The engine in the electric car is a small alternating current motor which runs at the tremendous speed of 30,000 RPM, and this is reduced to 1800 by means of a fluid transmission. The whole electric car is a magnificent piece of work, he said. Matthews went on, I could give a few details about the electric car. You see, it does not use a storage battery. It uses a special primary battery. And if you know anything about primary batteries, you'll know the only that the only part that fails is the negative plate. Any little dry cell you use for a flashlight. It's the zinc that gives way. And when that goes, the battery goes dead. Well, Tesla invented a completely new kind of primary battery. In this battery, if the negative plate wears out, it can be replaced even by a child in a few seconds. Once installed in the electric car, the battery would let you drive 500 miles before needing any attention. If something did go wrong, you could fix it in 10 minutes since all the spare parts are in the trunk. There are enough spares to keep the battery running all year. You wouldn't need to stop at a service station. You could drive 500 miles at 75 miles per hour across the country and probably only need to stop for 15 minutes to check the battery. Think about that. A 500 mile range, hardly any maintenance, and no need for service stations. Matthew said, Tesla figured this out back in the late 1800s. Whether you believe him or not, this story sounds less like a wild claim and more like an early version of the future we're just starting to create. Okay, we're taking a break from this and going on to a cashly take.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

I don't remember if we talked about this on here before or not. The toothpaste squeeze.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

A toothpaste. You roll it from the bottom. Is that you're talking about? Mm-hmm. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I do not do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Why? Why do you love chaos so much?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

I just squeeze it.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

That's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

But so so we do have different ways of using toothpaste, so we each have our own toothpaste. Because I will not remember to roll it and it bugs him, so we just use our own separate one.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

I just will roll it though. You squeeze it from the middle, and then when I go, I just give it a squeeze from the bottom and roll it.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

I only do that when it's almost out. Then I'll start squeezing from the bottom to try to get the rest.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

If you just start there, then it's already ready to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I've been doing it for this way for so long. I wouldn't remember. All right. A record found on Family Search says Tesla built a working electric car, possibly as early as 1918. He removed the regular engine and replaced it with a system powered by a converter and a five foot nine inch antenna. Tesla claims the converter could store enough energy to power a whole house. Is this fact or fiction? We may never know the truth, but one thing is clear. Tesla's mind worked on a level the rest of the world is still trying to understand. If you're skeptical, you're not alone. Tesla Universe took a surprisingly open-minded view. Given that a battery could be viewed as a slow discharge capacitor, it is not out of the range of possibilities that Tesla could have stumbled on a superior electrode. After all, he holds a patent on condensers. Even mainstream sources couldn't completely dismiss the idea. The electric car wasn't the only surprising part of Matthew's story. He also said Tesla secretly built a smaller version of the famous magnifying transmitter, not in Colorado or Long Island, but hidden in Quebec, Canada. The magnifying transmitter was unique. Unlike regular Tesla coils, it used a third coil, called an extra coil, which was separate from the others. This design allowed it to reach much higher voltage, estimated between 3.5 and 4 million volts.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

And created over and it created sparks over 100 feet long. Acting as a powerful amplifier, it sent huge electrical charges into the ground, creating standing waves that made the earth itself vibrate. The third coil helped boost the voltage to these extreme levels. The experiments were so powerful that they destroyed a local generator and caused a blackout across the city. Tesla's main goal was bold. He wanted to send energy wirelessly around the world with no power lines, no infrastructure, and no cost to the consumer. Arthur Matthews spent most of his life as a quiet electrical engineer in Quebec, but his story gets stranger the more you look into it. He and his colleagues showed up in several publications linked to Tesla's most controversial research. Matthews died in 1986 at the age of 94, taking many secrets with him. Time for a tongue twister.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

Controversial. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Ready?

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Is that an actual sentence?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Is it just It's just tongue twister? Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

No, we have to say faster. Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. You go.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Pad kid poured curd pulled cod. Good job.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Alright, back to Tesla.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Those are just random words thrown together. It's hard to say them together. That's true.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Alright, so how much of this can we really believe? Let's be honest.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

As soon as Matthews as soon as Matthews claims, go read Pat Kid Kurt Pulcott again. How can you not get Matthew's claims?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

There's too many S's in there.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah, I was gonna say as I said it, I was like, oh, that's kind of funky to say. Matthew's claims.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

As soon as Matthews claims.

SPEAKER_02 10:40

You need an apostrophe S.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

It doesn't matter. No one can see it.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Well, but I'm just saying, like you might be able to read it because right there it looks like multiple Matthews, multiple claims.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah. Matthews claims, Tesla came from Venus. Most people tune out.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

That kind of detail makes the whole story hard to believe. And it's understandable.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Because how could someone from Venus live on Earth? Like his composition would be for so much heat and pressure, he would come here and just light everything on fire and blow up.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Well, how about the other aliens that come here?

SPEAKER_02 11:13

They're not from Venus with that.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

You don't know where they're from? Maybe they depressurize themselves in their spaceship. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

I don't think it works that way.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

I don't know anything about space.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

It's like the Project Hell Mary movie with the rock rock spider.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Maybe maybe the aliens you see are actually in a that's their spacesuit. And they're in a pressurized spacesuit.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

It's holding them in, like us in the ocean.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Going there. Although I guess that's not holding us in. It's keeping us from being crushed. Yeah. But anyways, like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

So Tesla's body was a spacesuit?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

I'm I'm assume he was a little crazy.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

But Matthews?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Probably both of them. Tesla and Matthews.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

The Canadian transmitter with no physical proof seemed made up. It's easy to dismiss and move on. But it's not that simple. This time in Tesla's life is one of the least documented. Historical records are silent, and even his letters to family almost vanish. No one knows exactly where Tesla was or what he was doing. That silence doesn't prove Matthew's right, but it also means we can't prove him wrong. The possibility, however small, is still there. Alright, this name these names are a little rough here. Bear with me. Dr. Adrija Adrija?

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Yep, you got it.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Poorich? Born Henry Carroll Pooric. We're just gonna call him Henry, because it's a little easier. Was oh he was born in 1918. Was just as fascinating and controversial as Matthews. He was a physician. Henry was a physician, medical inventor, and researcher who worked at the edge of science and the paranormal. Henry spent his career studying things mainstream science often ignored. Parapsychology, the study of supposed psychic phenomena, was his specialty. Soon he would find himself caught up in the Tesla mystery. Matthews often had visitors at his Quebec home, including government agents, researchers, and curious investigators. One of them was Henry, who came with a specific question about the Tesla scope. Matthews said Tesla had secretly built this device, not to send power, but to communicate with Mars. Henry was doubtful at first, but what he saw during his visit surprised him enough to speak publicly. In the pyramid guide in 1976, he wrote, It is not generally known, but Tesla actually had two huge magnifying transmitters built in Canada, and Matthews operated one of them. Most people know about the Colorado Spring transmitters and the unfinished one on Long Island. I saw the two Canadian transmitters. All the evidence is there. Henry didn't fully support the Tesla scope idea and privately thought Matthews, when in his eighties, was out of touch with reality. Still, he made a clear distinction between Matthews and his claims about the machine. The Canadian magnifying transmitters, according to Henry, were real. He said he had seen them himself. It's a strange but important point. Matthew was called a mental case by by his visitor, but his main claim, the existence of secret Canadian transmitters, was confirmed by the same visitor. Sometimes truth and illusion can exist side by side.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

Why would he want to communicate with Mars unless there's something there? Otherwise, you're just communicating to a dead planet.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah. Maybe he wanted to see if something was there.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

So he's just zapping it with electricity. Yeah. See if something pops up.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah. Here's where the story takes another turn. The Canadian government didn't just hear about Matthew's story. The government took it seriously enough to respond officially. In December 1950, Wilbert B. Smith, a radio engineer and expert in electromagnetism and telecommunications, started a Canadian government sponsored UFO research program.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

That sounds fun. I don't want to do jobs like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Called Project Magnet.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

That's kind of a dumb name, though.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Arthur Matthews was directly involved in the effort to make contact. The first findings from Project Magnet were so shocking that the government hit them, classifying the program as secret and distancing itself from the work. Years later, former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hillier confirmed the project existed, but he never revealed what Smith had actually reported. Smith's own records say the project accomplished two remarkable things. It detected a real UFO with scientific equipment, and a research group he led made contact with a landed interplanet interplanetary craft. The pilots of the craft claimed to be from Venus. Alright, Venus, the same planet Matthews claimed Tesla came from. Back on Earth, or at least closer to it, Tesla's final years were filled with intrigue. He had been working on a revolutionary torpedo, and that many believe was a real death ray. A weapon that could destroy aircraft from a distance. When he died, those papers didn't just sit in a drawer. Time for Rebus.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Oh, what's a rebus again?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Remember like the I said million and it had one in the middle of it, so it's like one in a million. So this one says G S G E G S G E E S Sorry, E G S G E G S G G E S, G G E S, E S G G and E S G G. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

It means you're as crazy as Tesla. Is this your Venus speak?

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Nope. This is a good one.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Something to do with eggs? Yep. Scrambled eggs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Good job, Cam.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

I'm gonna think of what Ariba says.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

That was a good one, huh?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Yeah. I can see eggs in there, but they're all scrambled up, so I can't read.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Oh scrambled eggs. I see. Good job, babe. Tesla's Prophecies, the man who saw the future. Smartphones and wireless world. In 1926, almost a hundred years before the iPhone, Tesla described a world where people would carry small vest pocket devices that could provide instant communication and face-to-face video calls across any distance. He didn't call it a smartphone, but that's exactly what he was talking about.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Did he have a name for it? Or not yet he just had the idea and like a vague.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

I think he just had the idea of telling like what how what happened. Which seems super crazy that people have these like ideas of like this is what's gonna happen in the future. I don't even know what I'm gonna do tomorrow. How can you know anything that's gonna happen in the future? That's beyond my mind.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

When you're one of the people who creates the things of the future, that's probably a lot easier to do.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yeah, I'm don't invent things, so that's nowhere near anything in my mind. All right, next is AI. In 1900, Tesla wrote about machines that could think for themselves and do complex tasks without human help. At the time, this sounded like science fiction. Today we call it AI. I just think that these are so crazy. How did you know this? How could you even imagine that? Next is global communication. Tesla imagined a huge brain for the earth, a vast connected network where everything is linked and information moves freely.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

I don't know about freely, but I think I see where this is going.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

This idea sounds a lot like the internet. He thought of it decades before anyone wrote a single line of code. Next is autonomous vehicles. When Tesla showed his radio controlled boat in 1898, most people thought it was just a novelty. But Tesla saw the future. Machines that could move without anyone steering them. The idea of self-driving car originated in his imagination long before it became a reality. And like it he had this in 1898. Like why did it take so long for anyone to reproduce it?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, to do it again. Money.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

For sure. Yeah. Alright, Tesla's death. This is where things become unusual. A government document dated January twelfth, nineteen forty-three, lists Tesla's date of death as January 8th, not January 7th, as almost every historical source states. The difference is just one day. It could be a clerical mistake, or it might mean something more.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

So did he die in 1943? Yeah.

unknown 20:29

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Right after Tesla died, the US government acting through the Office of Alien Property quickly took control of his work. This happened because of a warning from an unexpected source. Abe Spainel, president of the International Latex Corporation, who personally contacted the government. Abe told the FBI that he and he and Nick were very good friends. Abe told the FBI that Sava Kosovic, a distant relative from of Tesla, whom Tesla reportedly did not like, was trying to get the research. Abe said Kosinovic was Tesla's only relative in the country and described him as a third or fourth cousin. When Tesla died, Sava was a secretary of state in Yugoslavia in exile, living in New York and applying for U.S. citizenship. Family Search reports that Tesla had four siblings, and Sava was actually the son of Tesla's sister, Marsha, making him a nephew. This confusion might seem small, but it matters. The closer the family ties, the stronger his legal claim to Tesla's estate and papers.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

I think you Americanized her name, by the way. Marica.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

What is it?

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Marica.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Well, she's getting Marsha because No, that's what yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

You get to Ellis Island and your name is what I could say.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

What the document describes next is even harder to explain. On the night of January 8th, Xava came to Tesla's hotel room with two other men, three hotel assistant managers, and members of the Yugoslav Yugoslavic consulate. Together they opened Tesla's safe. They took out a book of testimonials which had been given to Tesla on his seventy fifth birthday, and three photographs of him. The safe was locked with a new combination that only Sava knew. The official reason given that Sava said he was searching for Tesla's will, and that is what the government documents state. However, another account tells a different story. In that version, the safe was already open when Sava arrived, and the death ray papers, teleforce weapon documents, and other scientific records were already missing. If that version is correct, someone else arrived before Sava. No one knows who it was or what they took. There's one last heartbreaking detail in Spain's account. The day before Tesla died, the aging inventor tried to contact the US government. He did not want to sell his work or negotiate. Instead, he wanted to give his patents and inventions away, hoping they would be protected and put to use. No one answered his call. Tesla died the next day. His final act of generosity left without a response. In the days that followed, the US government acted quickly. The Office of Alien Property took two full truckloads, 80 trunks of Tesla's material, to a storage facility in Manhattan.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Is that still a thing? The Office of Alien Property? Like that is such a strange name for a government like entity or office. The DOJ taking over, huh? Mm-hmm. I mean, the Office of Alien Property just sounds so I don't know. Menacing and like made up.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah. It was made up. Yeah, I guess they're all made up.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

But it's like I I want the this is like in a book or a movie or something like, you know, the 20s and 30s and 40s and the Office of Alien Property.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

The same documents mentioned another 30 barrels and bundles that had already been in storage since 1934, almost 10 years before Tesla died. That document has a destruction stamp of March 10th, 1958.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

What does that mean, a destruction stamp?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

It says it's been destroyed, but it was not.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Like they stamped it, like this is destroyed.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yeah, like there was some stuff. So this is How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 24:53

If you have a document, you can't just stamp this is destroyed. It doesn't destroy it. It's still there.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Well, I think it's like you're supposed to destroy this. Or so, like there was a document that I think w Sava was looking for something and they sent him something and was like, it was destroyed. But it actually wasn't destroyed.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Taking a break for a minute. Just letting you know, this week is Independence Day. And it's also Alice in Wonderland Day on July 4th.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

July 4th is Alice in Wonderland Day, huh?

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah. I don't know why they have anything else that day.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah. I wonder what they're what the like what would you call that? Semblance? What the what they're meaning by that Alice in Wonderland.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

On July 4th.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Like I think Alice in Wonderland is a weird show.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

I've never liked it. Always just thought it was strange. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Well, she's like reading a book, falls asleep under a tree, and has a dream, right? It's like But is it a dream or was it real? Right? Isn't that like the whole so is that I don't know. I don't know. I wonder why they chose Alice in Wonderland Day to be on July 4th. Whoever they is. It's all a dream.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Our lives are dreams. Alright, back to Tesla. John G. Trump, an MIT professor, respected electrical engineer, and uncle of Donald Trump, was asked in 1943 to review Tesla's confiscated papers after his death. He officially concluded that the papers were mostly speculative and didn't offer any new workable ideas for power transmission. However, Trump did notice Tesla's strong interest in death ray concepts and wireless power. Whether all of those papers were ever made public is still an open question. In 1950, Sava was still trying to gain access. A government memo from April 3rd of the year shows he had officially contacted US officials to request Tesla's papers. The government response was more open than expected. They said they might be able to provide copies, noting the papers could still be of assistance to the Yugoslav government. Cold War politics and the legacy of a brilliant inventor became closely linked. So who was really after Tesla's secrets? And what did those secrets actually contain? Even decades later, we still don't have a complete answer. In 1952, some of Tesla's property was eventually returned to Sava, a large portion, sixty trunks, and Sava had turned the documents over to the state. The documents are now kept in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade. What was returned and what was not is still unclear. With all the mystery around his death, it's important to remember Tesla himself. He never married or sought romantic relationships, but he was still capable of deep affection. He formed a close bond with a white pigeon that often visited his hotel room in New York. And he described their connection as one of the greatest joys in his life, which is kind of weird. He also said he slept only two hours a night, keeping active through willpower, and it seemed the company of his pigeon.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

So that's that's the description of a of a cook a cook.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Sleeping two hours a night.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, and talking to pigeons.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yeah. One of the last things Tesla did was write a letter to his mother. In it he wrote, I wish I could be beside you now, mother, to bring you a glass of water. All these years I have spent in the service of mankind brought me nothing but insults and humiliation. The man who gave the world alternating current, who dreamed of free wireless energy for everyone, and who imagined the smartphone and the internet before those ideas had names, died alone in a hotel room, feeling forgotten. His last words reportedly spoken to a nurse were about his pigeons. Tesla died alone in the New York hotel room, nearly penniless, with many of his ambitions unfulfilled. The government confiscated his papers, and his name was largely omitted from educational materials. Nevertheless, much of the modern world, including electrical power systems, wireless communication, and artificial intelligence, can be traced to his inventions.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

If he died in a hotel room alone and penniless, how was he in the hotel room and how was there a nurse? Both those things sound like they cost money.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

So yeah. I know that he kept getting kicked out of places because he wasn't paying bills.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

And now I can't remember.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

I mean, if I owned a hotel and someone famous like Tesla wanted to, I would probably just give them a room for free to say that like Tesla's at my hotel, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

But there I don't think he was like famous loved. He was famous crazy.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

You can stay, but your pigeons have to go.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

We'll talk about his health here in a second. Nicola Tesla deserved better from the world he helped create. He deserved the credit that was stolen, the funding that was denied, and the recognition that came too late. Instead, he got an unmarked death, seized papers, and a legacy buried under someone else's name. But he his health was actually pretty bad. I can't remember if he couldn't walk anymore. But he had been hit by a car. And he refused a car? No, but he refused medical help. But he like struggled to walk after that. I think he was in a wheelchair. Alright. Would you rather, Kevin?

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Oh, alright.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Alright. Would you rather lose all your friends but keep your best friend or lose your best friend and keep the rest of your friends? Do you rather have one friend or lots of friends? One best friend or lots of not best friends, but friends.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Probably lots of friends.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Well, but you're my best friend.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

You're gonna lose me but have all your other friends?

SPEAKER_02 31:12

No, that's why I changed my answer. Because I was kind of thinking, I was like, I don't know, I'm like a 40-something year old man. Like you only have like a best friend. But you're my best friend, so I would choose you.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

I was gonna say best friend too. Yeah. Yeah. Just need a good one good best friend, husband. All right. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep exploring, and remember the greatest mysteries in history are the ones we haven't solved yet.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Then you gotta read off these links. HTTP colon forward slash, forward slash. You're going too fast. I can't. I can't read them.