John Trump Investigates Nikola Tesla's Alleged Secret Weapon

From New York, I boarded a plane to Boston to find Dr. John Trump of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Trump was now retired from the company he founded, High Voltage Engineering, but he agreed to meet me at the company office the next morning.

In the spring of 1943, Dr. Carl T. Compton, who was then president of MIT, asked me to go to New York and examine the effects of Nikola Tesla.

These were contained in an upper floor of a warehouse somewhere in New York City.

And I spent a good deal of time examining, one by one, the papers, the books, and various other memorials that he had accumulated.

But I was particularly looking for something which would be evidence of a secret weapon, which I was reminded by the agents, the two agents who were present during the entire time, was a matter of concern to the United States.

In the course of this, I did come across a number of letters directed at the upper echelon of the British Empire, that is, I think, to the King and Queen, or perhaps just to the King of England, and also to the Tsar of Russia, explaining that he was the inventor of a secret weapon which had rather remarkable properties,

and that he would be interested in entering into a negotiation which would lead to a disclosure of what they were.

Of course, I spent a good deal of time looking through these papers, trying to find out what the nature of this secret weapon was.

I think I had, although I don't remember it so very accurately, an idea of what its properties were.

It had the capability of acting at a great distance, of being destructive to flying objects and things of that kind at a place which was remote from the source.

But nowhere in his technical papers did I find anything which revealed an explanation of just how such a device could operate.

I believe that you also opened another box, supposedly a secret weapon, that he left at another hotel.

Can you relate that story, please? Yes, when I had substantially concluded my study on the following day, I think that was a Saturday morning, I was reminded by one of the two agents that there was a box being held as a security for an unpaid obligation.

And that this box was an item of considerable value, and may indeed itself be the secret weapon, that it was armed, and therefore it probably was not touched.

Were you nervous doing this? I found it a matter of a bit of concern.

However, I realized that this had to be done, and so we taxied down to this hotel.

The agents identified themselves and their credentials to the assistant manager of the hotel, who led us to a room.

This room was essentially empty, except for a table.

And a steel cabinet against the wall, which was open.

I think perhaps he opened it with a key.

The cabinet itself was empty, except on one of the lower shelves was a package, a box, a rectangular box of ordinary size, which was wrapped in brown wrapping paper.

It turned out to be a highly polished box with brass clasps, and it looked more like an instrument case.

And after waiting a while, and listening a while, and remembering that it had been there for quite a few years, I think it had actually been there for about five years as a security, I opened it.

It turned out to be a decade resistance box, manufactured by, I suspect, an American manufacturer.

And something of value, but not great value, and certainly nothing ominous at all in its nature.

So after Dr. Tesla had let the world know of his secret weapon, after he had written letters to the King of England and to the Tsar of Russia, offering them this weapon at a time when both were engaged against the Germans in World War II, no evidence or papers were found which referred to any such secret weapon.

My report to Dr. Compton was that I saw no danger in releasing these papers and these relics to his heirs.

Miss Musar had arrived too late to know who had opened Dr. Tesla's safe, or what had been removed.

And Dr. Trump had found nothing which he considered dangerous or a secret weapon.

Tesla had been a naturalized American citizen for 54 years.

So why were his papers seized by agents of the custodian of alien property?

I suspect that governments other than those of the United States, England, and Russia were interested in the inventions of Dr. Tesla.