519: DEEP DIVE: Tesla, Tunguska and the Awesome Power of the Pyramid
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On June 30th, 1908, a mysterious explosion shook the remote Siberian region of Tunguska. The 15 megaton blast flattened 80 million trees across 800 square miles. Every plant, every animal, every insect in the blast radius was vaporized. The shockwave was felt as far away as England. It looked like a comet impact, but no crater was found. No debris was discovered.

scientists still can't explain what happened. Well, except for one scientist. At the exact moment of the blast, on the other side of the world, Nikola Tesla was conducting his latest experiment, transmitting massive amounts of electricity through the atmosphere.

Tesla activated the generators in his lab. His research station, Wardenclyffe Tower, fired up for one final dramatic test. In an instant, millions of volts of electricity were sent into the sky. Moments after the test, Tesla looked at the readings on his equipment. He had one thought. Oh, no. ♪♪

Inventor, visionary, mad scientist. Nikola Tesla was known for his groundbreaking ideas that shaped the world of science and technology. Alternating current, which is the most efficient way of transmitting electricity long distances? The AC of ACDC? That's Tesla.

Tesla also pioneered or invented devices like the induction motor used to power machines like fans, conveyors, cranes, elevators, and more. There's the Tesla coil, a transformer circuit designed to produce high voltage, low current electricity. He invented a radio controlled boat, the first RC vehicle ever. He also invented wireless power.

Yeah, I know that doesn't exist. Or does it? More on that later. One of his inventions remained shrouded in mystery and controversy, a weapon of unimaginable power. He called it the Tesla gun, but it became known by a more colorful and ominous name, the Tesla death ray. Tesla's lifelong fascination with electricity led him to conceive a weapon that could destroy entire armies from a great distance.

The science behind the death ray was based on his experiments with high-frequency electricity. He believed that energy could be transmitted wirelessly over great distances. Tesla's lab was based on Long Island, New York. It was called Wardenclyffe Tower, also known as the Tesla Tower. It stood 187 feet tall with a steel latticework frame. At its base, a 100-foot circular foundation supported it.

Its most striking feature was a large 68-foot spherical cap designed for powerful wireless transmissions. The tower was complemented by a surrounding brick building, housing operational equipment, giving it an industrial yet futuristic look. Tesla planned to use this tower as a blueprint, the central hub of a global network. This network would distribute power to everyone in the world, wirelessly, for free.

This was a problem because Tesla's investors were making a fortune selling electricity. They didn't want to give it away for free. Tesla thought this was short-sighted. Free energy would open many more financial opportunities. So Tesla had an idea. If you couldn't get their attention through charity, he'd get it through shock. Literally.

Tesla described the potential of the death ray.

Electric power is everywhere, present in unlimited quantities. It can drive the world's machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas or any other fuel. This new power driving the world machinery will be derived from the energy which operates daily from the cosmic energy.

Tesla wasn't just building this weapon to create attention. He wasn't doing it out of spite either. Believe it or not, his reasons for inventing the death ray were rooted in a strong belief in world peace. He hoped the weapon would act as a deterrent to war, that if every nation possessed the ability to destroy each other, there'd be no point in waging war at all. One day, this ultimate weapon would usher in a new age of peace.

Now, we live in the shadow of the nuclear age. We now know that powerful weapons are not enough to stop people from trying to kill each other. Often, they encourage people to try even harder. Tesla was a man known for his idealism. All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed, only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

It's easy to see why this belief would be good and bad for him. It motivated him, even if he was ridiculed, he felt justified. He felt like history would prove him right.

But it also made him really confident, even arrogant. He would do what he wanted no matter who said no. Tesla's death ray was an example of his idealism and his arrogance. It made political and military leaders nervous. Anyone who could build a weapon like that, who would they sell it to and what would they do with it? More importantly, it made Tesla's investors uneasy, not only because of its world-ending potential, but because idealism, good or bad, wasn't profitable.

You've heard me say it on the show many times. It's okay to have strong political beliefs, but you have to be willing to pay for them. Tesla had already made investors like JP Morgan anxious by talking about giving away free energy to the world. Now the scientist was building a death ray to prove his point.

So wherever they could, Tesla's critics interfered. They prevented him from getting patents. They made it difficult for him to receive funding. It became a priority to do anything and everything possible to prevent Tesla from creating the death ray. But it didn't matter what they did to stop him. Tesla had already built it, and he was about to give the demonstration of a lifetime.

1908, months before the Tunguska event, renowned explorer Admiral Robert Peary set out on an expedition to the North Pole, a feat that hadn't yet been accomplished. Despite the numerous challenges, Admiral Peary was determined he would reach the North Pole. He would make history.

The journey wouldn't be easy. The harsh Arctic environment made the expedition incredibly difficult and dangerous. The team faced extreme cold, blizzards and unpredictable terrain. Regardless of these risks, Piri wanted desperately to succeed.

To do so, he would need new technology to help him navigate the desolate region. Who better to call than Nikola Tesla? In 1904, Tesla developed a new radio receiver that could detect the signals transmitted by the death ray. Admiral Peary used this receiver during his North Pole expedition. It was claimed that it helped him navigate through the hazardous Arctic terrain. That was 1904. By 1906, Tesla's chief financial backer, J.P. Morgan, was growing impatient with Tesla and the lack of financial return.

The scientist had failed to pay the lease for his lab in Colorado Springs. He had to sell equipment to make the final payments. Morgan had given him $150,000 to build Wardenclyffe Tower. That's roughly $4.7 million in today's money. Still, that didn't cover Tesla's costs. The scientist demanded more money. Morgan refused. Tesla begged. Morgan refused. J.P. Morgan even threatened to withdraw funding entirely.

JP Morgan is considered the godfather of American banking. People once used to joke that he had more money than the United States government. They said he could buy and sell the country if he wanted to. In fact, in 1907, there was a financial panic. The stock market fell 50% and banks were closing. JP Morgan lent his own funds to save the country from a severe financial crisis. He even convinced other wealthy Wall Street bankers to do the same.

Tesla knew if he lost Morgan's support, it would be a death sentence. All future investors would see him as toxic. The relationship between Morgan and Tesla began to sour. Tesla knew he needed to do something dramatic to secure his funding and his future. He knew the world was watching Admiral Perry's expedition to the North Pole. It occurred to him that this was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the awesome power of his invention. The target was Ellesmere Island, a mid-sized island between Canada and Greenland.

In 1908, Ellesmere was considered farthest north, the farthest point of land before the North Pole. Peary and his men would use it as a staging area before the main part of their expedition. This made it the perfect place to show off the death ray, or the Tesla gun. Tesla would charge the machine and fire it towards Ellesmere. Peary and his men would be treated to the greatest light show the world had ever seen.

After such a demonstration, Morgan would have no choice but to fund Tesla. Just two months before Tunguska, Tesla wrote this. This is not a dream. Even now, wireless power plants could be constructed by which any region of the globe might be rendered uninhabitable without subjecting the population of other parts to serious danger or inconvenience.

At the time of the Tunguska blast in 1908, Peary was camped out at Ellesmere Island preparing for a final push to the pole. Tesla sent Peary a cryptic message. The extreme cold and isolation make the Arctic the perfect location for this type of experiment.

He told Peary to watch the skies above the tundra for a signal. Peary asked Tesla what kind of signal he should be looking for. Tesla told him he'd know it when he saw it. Back at Tesla's lab, Wardenclyffe Tower, on the North Shore of Long Island, the moment of truth had arrived. Tesla took a deep breath and activated the machine that would send the charged particles coursing through an intricate network of wires and coils.

At first, the tower generated a low hum, but the sound grew louder and louder until it was a deafening roar. Once the machine was fully charged, a beam of light brighter than the sun shot out of Wardenclyffe Tower and sliced through the air. For 10 or 15 seconds, vast amounts of energy poured into the atmosphere. Then it stopped. Darkness followed. The only sound was the crackling of static from the residual electricity created by the machine.

Tesla felt an intense rush of exhilaration. The machine worked. He knew his funding would be guaranteed. He could continue his work. His excitement would last only a few moments. He looked at the readings on his death ray machine. It had worked. It had worked too well.

He knew what the machine was capable of, but he was careful. He calibrated it to deliver a bolt of electricity to light up the sky, not cause physical damage. At some point, the machine overcharged. Rather than a dazzling light show, the device fired a beam of pure energy, a thousand times more powerful than an atomic bomb. This immense power caused the energy beam to overshoot its target. It didn't light up the sky above Ellesmere. It made landfall somewhere in Russia.

Tesla knew this machine could be destructive, and he was about to find out what that really meant. America, we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. At Grand Canyon University, we believe in equal opportunity, and the American dream starts with purpose.

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For patients prescribed TREMFIA, cost support may be available. I woke up to the sound of the earth trembling beneath my feet. I could hear the trees outside my cabin being ripped from the ground and crashing down all around me. At first I thought it was an earthquake, but the air was filled with the sound of explosions and gunfire. Something dark and terrible was happening outside. As I stumbled out of my cabin and into the forest, I could see the sky lighting up with a fiery orange glow.

It was like the sun had risen in the middle of the night and the air was thick with the smell of smoke and burning wood. Suddenly there was a blinding flash that illuminated the entire forest and the sound of a deafening boom that shook me to my core. I fell to the ground, my ears ringing with the force of the explosion and struggled to regain my bearings.

The trees around me were torn from the ground, and I could hear the sound of splintering wood and snapping branches. The ground shook so violently that I thought it might open up and swallow me whole.

I could feel the shockwave from the blast tearing through the forest. I saw trees being flattened in all directions, and I was pelted with debris from the explosion. The air was thick with dust and ash, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. When the dust finally cleared, the forest was a charred wasteland. The trees had been ripped from the ground, and there was nothing left but stumps and ash.

The air was thick with the smell of burning wood. There were no sounds of birds or insects or animals, just eerie silence. I had never felt so alone in my entire life.

On June 30th, 1908, a massive explosion occurred in the remote Tunguska region of Siberia, releasing an estimated 15 megatons of energy. The blast flattened an area of over 800 square miles. No animal or plant in the blast radius survived. 80 million trees were reduced to cinders. No birds or insects had time to escape. Thousands of animals on the ground were vaporized. The scientific community still debates the cause of the Tunguska event.

Some theories suggest that a natural gas explosion caused it. Some say it was a nuclear detonation caused by an extraterrestrial spacecraft. There is another theory. Many believe it was a Nikola Tesla experiment gone out of control. The prevailing theory is that an airburst caused the explosion, a giant comet that exploded in the Earth's atmosphere. However, there are some problems with this theory.

Eyewitnesses had reported seeing lights in the sky before and for days after the event. Meteors don't do this. Even as far away as England, the sky was lit up. Newspapers were flooded with reports of night turning into day. One reporter said he could read a book at night using nothing but the strange light in the sky.

Eyewitnesses also reported the ground shaking like an earthquake for a long time before the impact. One witness said it was powerful enough to reduce a skyscraper to rubble. The seismic activity was enough to knock people off their feet, and the effects were felt all over Europe, as far away as the UK. A meteor airburst would look like a streak of light or fire and then a mid-air explosion. This would last only a few seconds. But reports say a wide beam of light was in the sky for much longer than that.

Locals said the air got very cold at first, then the sky lit up brighter than the sun, and suddenly the air was very, very hot. Also, there's no meteor crater or traces of meteorite in the area. And if you draw a line from Tesla's lab in New York to Ellesmere Island and continue that line, you end up in Siberia, very close to, if not the exact point of impact.

Another problem with the meteor theory: the explosion happened at an altitude of four or five miles. That's much lower than most meteor air bursts. Luckily, the impact zone happened in Siberia, one of the most remote places on Earth. If the Tunguska event were to occur over a major city, it would be bad. The explosion would generate a massive shockwave that would rip through the city like a tornado. Buildings, roads, all infrastructure would be destroyed.

The shockwave would be followed by a searing fireball that would incinerate everything. Nothing would be left behind but smoldering ash. The sheer force of the explosion would create a hurricane of debris and shrapnel. Anything not firmly attached to the ground would be thrown into the air. Cars, trucks, boats, planes, people. The resulting firestorm would continue to spread, fueled by the intense heat and winds generated by the blast.

A raging inferno would consume streets and buildings. Anyone who survived the initial blast would be trapped in an ocean of flames and smoke. The death toll would be staggering. Millions gone. The city and surrounding landscape would be unrecognizable. All because of one man. One man could create a device that could wreak this kind of devastation. That

is frightening. Even more frightening is that another Tunguska event could happen anywhere, anytime, without warning. And there's nothing we can do to stop it. Remember, though, this all started because Tesla was inspired, not by death, but by hope. Hope that one day the world could be given free energy, a light for every home. It's a beautiful idea. Turns out, someone had the idea first, a long, long time ago.

Mainstream Egyptology says the Great Pyramid of Giza is a tomb built for Khufu, the fourth dynasty Egyptian pharaoh who ruled 4,500 years ago. But the Great Pyramid doesn't have any characteristics of other Egyptian tombs. The pyramid contains no artifacts, no hieroglyphs, and no elaborate wall art. It's been argued that the granite sarcophagus found in the king's chamber once contained Khufu's mummy. But there's no evidence that a mummy was ever there. No mummy has ever been found in any pyramid, ever.

Ancient Egyptians considered their pharaohs gods. The Great Pyramid is a strange structure for a god. Small chambers, narrow shafts, no markings at all. The way the pyramid was built and the materials used to build it suggest it had a different purpose. The sides of the pyramid are aligned with the compass with such accuracy that only modern engineering can match it, and just barely.

The Great Pyramid is a mountain made of 2.3 million blocks of stone, weighing 6 million tons, piled 481 feet high. Its footprint is over 13 acres. To align this construction within 1/15th of a degree of true north is impossible precision.

Fun fact: the pyramid doesn't have four sides, it actually has eight. Each side is slightly concave so you can only see it from directly above, or when the pyramid casts shadows during equinoxes. And yes, those angles too are perfect.

Whoever built the pyramid somehow knew the size of the Earth. If you multiply the structure's height by 43,200, you get 3,938.685 miles, which is within 11 miles of the polar radius of the planet. That's 99.7% accurate. If you take the perimeter of the base of the pyramid and multiply that by 43,200, you get 24,734.94 miles.

That's the Earth's circumference at the equator with 99.3% accuracy. We know the ancients were obsessed with equinoxes, when the day and night are the same lengths. The length of the day and night on an equinox is 43,200 seconds. Skeptics will say this relationship between 43,200 and the size of the Earth is forced. They say, well, the planet is different sizes in different places, so this is just a coincidence.

Some believe otherwise. Based on the pyramid's measurements and the materials used to build it, some think it was more than a tomb. Some think it was a resonator, a power plant. Some think the Great Pyramid was ancient Egypt's very own wardenclyffe, a giant Tesla tower made of brick and stone.

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Whether true or not, it's scientifically possible that the Great Pyramid was a structure for creating, harnessing, and focusing energy. The exterior was made of Tura limestone. This material is not local to Giza. It was sourced from Tura, almost five miles away. Now that may seem like a small distance. But remember, the Great Pyramid contains over 2.3 million blocks of stone.

That means one block would have to be laid every five minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day for 20 years. That's a punishing schedule, especially since each of these blocks weighs on average about 10 tons. So why go so far out of the way to get these blocks? Other limestone for the pyramid was sourced from right on the Giza Plateau. Why not just use that for the outside?

Well, one theory is that it looked nice. Tura limestone was known for its bright white color. If you wanted to build a monument worthy of your god-king, that would be the stone you'd pick for the outside. But there's something interesting about Tura limestone.

Let's talk about the inside of the Great Pyramid.

The interior chambers were built with a rare type of granite called rose granite. This granite was brought from Aswan, which is 500 miles away from the construction site. That's the length of the entire state of Florida. This granite has a high concentration of silicon dioxide, also known as quartz. When quartz is compressed or even just moved, it creates a charge called piezoelectricity. That literally means electricity generated by pressure.

One face of the quartz will have a positive charge. The other will have a negative charge. Connected to faces, you have an electrical circuit. Because of this property, quartz is used in all kinds of modern devices like watches, clocks, TVs, GPS units, and on and on.

To charge a watch that uses quartz, all you have to do is shake it. If you've ever used a barbecue lighter, the voltage is created by a quartz crystal. The king and queen's chambers were built with granite that is 85% quartz. The tunnels and passageways are also lined with quartz-rich granite. If pressure was applied to all this granite, it would generate a tremendous amount of electricity, turning the pyramid into a giant power plant. The idea that the Great Pyramid was a power plant is not new. It was first proposed.

It was proposed in the 1970s and it was and is considered a fringe theory. As more and more discoveries were made over the years, more evidence emerged that the Great Pyramid as a power plant wasn't fringe science but actual science. So how does an ancient stone building channel this electricity? It hums. Below the pyramid are aquifers. As water moves through the underground cavities, sound waves are created. The frequency of these waves resonates with the Earth's natural vibration.

As those waves move up through the pyramid, a process is used to magnify, focus, and convert the sound into energy. There's a network of shafts through the queen's chamber, and traces of hydrochloric acid and hydrated zinc chloride have been found in various parts of different shafts. Combining these two chemicals creates a volatile reaction that generates hydrogen, a lot of hydrogen.

This hydrogen gas would flow from the queen's chamber through the horizontal passage. From there, the gas travels through a long tunnel and then into the king's chamber. The tunnel is called the Grand Gallery. The Grand Gallery is also made of granite. As the hydrogen gas builds up, the pressure compresses the granite, creating electricity. This electricity also ionizes the air, increasing conductivity.

Within the Grand Gallery were 27 or 28 pairs of resonators that would vibrate and emit sound. The hydrogen atoms would organize themselves into waves in sympathy with the sound waves of the gallery. These sound waves further excite the stone, creating even more electricity. This creates a resonant tone at 440 Hz, a natural F-sharp chord. If you're a Mac user, you may recognize the tone.

That's the sound of the Great Pyramid. The King's Chamber is above the Grand Gallery. Above the King's Chamber is a series of smaller spaces called relieving chambers. These chambers are composed of five layers of granite beams. They're stacked and separated by air gaps. It's thought they were built to relieve the weight of the pyramid, but that's not all they do.

The beams are smooth. They were carved so builders could chip at the stone until they resonated with an F-sharp chord, which they do. The King's Chamber is what's known as a Helmholtz resonator. When you blow air across the top of a bottle and create sound, that's a Helmholtz resonator. Change the volume of liquid in the bottle or change the volume of stone within the chamber, you change the pitch.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is a giant musical instrument. Some skeptics reluctantly agree that the Great Pyramid has musical properties. But for skeptics to consider the pyramid as a power plant, they would need evidence to show that a giant stone pyramid would respond to electromagnetic energy. There was no evidence of that until 2018.

In 2018, scientists used radio waves at different frequencies to see if the Great Pyramid would interact with electromagnetic waves of a resonant length. Their experiments proved that, in a resonant state, the pyramid can concentrate electromagnetic energy in the internal chambers under its base. Resonance in the pyramid can be induced by radio waves with lengths ranging from 200 to 600 meters. The closer to 200 meters, the more dramatic the effect.

A year after the experiment in 2019, Eric Wilson published a paper called "A Large-Scale Thermal Acoustic Generator." The paper describes how electrons will migrate through rock and up to the surface when granite and other rocks are vibrated. By combining science and music, the builders of the pyramids created a power-generating machine tuned to the natural harmonic of the Earth's vibration, vibration that primarily comes from the tidal energy created by the moon's gravity.

This technology, created thousands of years ago, could generate unlimited clean energy. But how did they get the energy out? Well, that brings us back to Tesla.

His Wardenclyffe Tower was built on top of an aquifer, with copper and iron rods extending into the water. When electricity was sent into the tower, it was to be transmitted around the world through the ionosphere. The pyramid is also built on an aquifer, and copper pipes and iron rods have recently been discovered there. If the capstone was made of gold, the energy concentrated inside the pyramid would have been drawn to the top and transmitted to the atmosphere.

Tesla's wireless power distribution system used the resonance of the Earth, just like the pyramid. Just like the pyramid, the energy generated by Tesla's tower would be unlimited, clean, and virtually free for everyone on the planet. All he needed was some money to get started. One small problem. His main financier was J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan used to beat people with his cane if they took a photo of him. He is a villain. He is literally on every game of Monopoly. The Monopoly Man was based on J.P. Morgan. J.P. Morgan didn't like the idea of free energy. He didn't like the idea of free anything. At the time, Morgan owned copper mines all over the world.

His factories generated miles of copper wire, wire used to conduct electricity. He owned rubber farms and factories. They made insulation for the wire. He owned steel companies and factories that built generators. He owned timber mills that made telegraph and electricity poles.

He owned coal mines that fueled power plants. He owned two dozen railroads. They carried all the materials all his other businesses made all over the country. This was an empire built to create and sell energy. J.P. Morgan had no interest in helping to dismantle his empire.

When Tesla came to him with the idea of creating free energy, Morgan considered Tesla's proposal. JPMorgan responded by financing Thomas Edison and Marconi, Tesla's direct competitors. What's more, not only did JPMorgan refuse any further investment, but he also put out the word to everyone in the wealthy investor class that Tesla should be avoided. From that point on, Tesla was essentially blacklisted.

By 1915, Tesla had accumulated so much debt that the bank foreclosed on the Wardenclyffe property. The tower was demolished in 1917 and sold for scrap. The project was never completed. Tesla was a brilliant scientist, but he was a terrible businessman. He didn't play the game like Edison did. That's why Edison and Marconi became millionaires, and Nikola Tesla died broke.

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This may have increased results. Results may vary. Serious allergic reactions may occur. Tramphia may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms of infection, including fevers.

sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough. Tell your doctor if you had a vaccine or plan to. Emerge as you. Learn more about Tremfaya, including important safety information, at Tremfaya.com or call 1-877-578-3527. See our ad in Food & Wine magazine. For patients prescribed Tremfaya, cost support may be available. Have a question or need how-to advice? Just ask MetaAI.

Whether you want to design a marathon training program or you're curious what planets are visible in tonight's sky, Meta AI has the answers. It can also summarize your class notes, visualize your ideas, and so much more. It's the most advanced AI at your fingertips. Expand your world with Meta AI. Now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger.

Tesla's most famous weapon was his death ray, also known as the Tesla gun. It was a weapon rumored to be capable of destroying entire armies with a single shot. If it was behind the Tunguska event, forget armies, whole cities could be vaporized with the press of a button. Tesla's weapon is still shrouded in mystery and controversy. It's now a scientific legend. The idea, however, of a directed energy weapon or DEW is very, very real.

Of course, if a powerful weapon can be created, a government will fund its research. Countries that either have or are researching directed energy weapons include the U.S., the U.K., China, Germany, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Libya. Now that's a recipe for disaster.

DEWs sound like science fiction, but they're based on sound science. The basic principle of a directed energy weapon is the conversion of electrical energy into an electromagnetic or particle beam. This energy is concentrated and then directed toward the target. The type of energy used and the delivery method vary depending on the weapon. Some DEWs use lasers, some use microwaves, others use particle beams. Lasers work by emitting a concentrated beam of light that can burn, blind, or disable a target.

Microwave weapons use high-frequency electromagnetic radiation to heat up or damage the target. Particle beam weapons use accelerated charged particles such as electrons or protons to cause damage.

The effectiveness of a directed energy weapon depends on a few factors: the power of the energy, the duration of the beam, and the distance between the weapon and the target. Directed energy weapons are being deployed right now. They've been used to disable missiles, drones, and other airborne threats. And some, like sonic DEWs, are even used for non-lethal crowd control.

All of these machines are derived from Tesla's work, and he would be disgusted. Tesla had a deep understanding of particle physics and electromagnetic theory. His energy weapon used particles. The particles, electrons, protons, or ions, would be accelerated and focused into a beam using powerful magnetic fields. The beam would then be directed at the target, where it would cause massive damage. Though he innovated modern DEWs, the idea of a directed energy weapon existed before Nikola Tesla.

There's the legend of Archimedes using a series of mirrors to set fire to the Roman fleet as they invaded Syracuse. This has supposedly been disproven, though there are debates around the subject. That said, if anyone had the vision and skill to create one of the first successful DEWs, it was Nikola Tesla.

Though no one officially saw it in use, Tesla claimed his prototype worked. Tesla himself fueled this speculation. He wrote several letters to the New York Times explaining the potential of his invention. "As to projecting wave energy to any particular region of the globe, this can be done by my devices. The spot at which the desired effect is to be produced can be calculated very closely, assuming the accepted terrestrial measurements to be correct.

So is this what really happened at Tunguska? Was the explosion the result of a Tesla experiment gone awry, like many people believe? Or was it the result of a meteor airburst? For years, it was all speculation. We had nothing to compare it to. But then there was another airburst. It happened in 2013, and this time there's video. And it's terrifying.

On February 15th, 2013, a blinding flash of light tore through the sky over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. A loud explosion followed. The earth shook. Residents were stunned, terrified, and confused. The Chelyabinsk meteor event was one of history's most dramatic and mysterious moments. It remains a testament to the scary power of the universe.

The meteor that caused the Chelyabinsk event was estimated to be around 60 feet in diameter and weighed over 10,000 tons. It entered the Earth's atmosphere at approximately 19 kilometers per second. That's 12 miles per second, or over 43,000 miles per hour, almost 60 times the speed of sound.

The fireball glowed 30 times brighter than the sun, so bright and hot that people who saw it suffered burns on their skin and damage to their eyes. The resulting explosion was estimated to be the equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, making it one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. The shockwave shattered windows, damaged over a thousand buildings, and injured 1,500 people.

Unlike Tunguska, scientists were able to study the Chelyabinsk meteor in detail. They believe it was likely a remnant of the early solar system. It had been traveling through space for about four and a half billion years before colliding with Earth. The Chelyabinsk event also served as a wake-up call for the scientific community. Nobody saw it coming. There was zero warning. These types of meteor airbursts and impacts happen every day. Whenever you see a shooting star, that's a small meteor burning up in the atmosphere.

Larger impacts happen pretty frequently too, every 10 or 15 years. But they usually happen over the ocean so we don't notice. That's just luck. The Tunguska event was 10,000 times more powerful than the one at Chelyabinsk, enough to easily wipe out a large city.

But the Chicxulub impact that happened 66 million years ago, that wiped out about 75% of all species on the planet. That's the impact that killed off the dinosaurs. And that wasn't even the biggest asteroid to hit the Earth. Not even close. So it's not a matter of if it happens again, it's just a matter of when. Fortunately, scientists are taking this threat seriously. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, conducted a successful test on September 26, 2022.

it intentionally slammed into the asteroid called Dimorphos and altered its orbit by 33 minutes. Now, that's not very much, but when considering the vast distances of space, a 33-minute change could be the difference between an asteroid passing by harmlessly or wiping out all life on Earth.

There are over 1 million asteroids in our solar system. NASA is tracking over 30,000 near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, that are potential threats. Still, that's only 90% of the dangerous objects zipping around the solar system. The universe is full of wonders. It's also full of dangers. We have to do everything we can and deploy every possible resource to ensure we don't experience another Chelyabinsk, another Tunguska, another Chikshalub,

Our fate is really up to us.

Before we finish our story, we've got to ask what's real and what's not. We'll start with Tesla's death ray. Tesla did have notes and research concerning particle beams. He wrote extensively on the feasibility of such a device. He discusses its possibility in letters to JP Morgan and other investors. First-hand accounts describe him openly talking about his progress in developing the machine. The fact of the matter is, as far as we know, no one ever saw it. Tesla talked about his Tesla gun, but that's about it.

This is why Tesla being the cause of the Tunguska event is fun, but it's difficult to prove his direct involvement. There are a lot of theories about what caused the event. The most famous and accepted is the airburst idea. There are others, however. Some believe the event came from an eruption of natural gas. Natural gas deep below the Earth is initially stored as fluid. As time goes on, it gets pushed to the planet's surface. This process changes it to a gas, and its volume expands by a factor of a thousand.

When the gas emerges from the crust, all it needs is a spark, a little electricity in the air and boom, the world's largest stick of dynamite. The pattern of how the trees fell and chemical residue supports this theory. What's interesting about the natural gas theory is its compatibility with other theories.

What if this natural gas did rise to the top of the crust? And what if, at the same time, the Tunguska meteor arrived and exploded? This could explain the incredible power of the explosion. Now, what about Tesla? What if he wasn't testing a weapon? What if he was testing the transmitting powers of Wardenclyffe Tower? What if the charge from that device, however small, somehow caused a chain reaction that set off the gas in Tunguska?

There are a lot of what-ifs. Based on the current data, it's usually accepted a meteor is the cause of the Tunguska event, like Chelyabinsk after it. Still, it's fun to ask. How about the Great Pyramid, then? Was it really an ancient power plant? Well, there aren't any records of it being used as such, and given the age of the structure, there's no way to test the theory for sure. We can hypothesize based on trace chemicals and interesting architecture, but there's no way to prove the power plant theory for the Great Pyramid of Giza.

But there's also no way to disprove it. One thing we know for sure, whether he knew it or not, Nikola Tesla stood at an intersection of history and science unlike anyone before or anyone since.

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The story of the Tunguska event, the Tesla death ray, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Chelyabinsk, and the potential connection between all of them is the story of the power of the human imagination. It's a story of the endless possibilities of science and technology. While the theory that the death ray caused the explosion remains unproven, the story serves as a reminder, a warning of the potential that scientific discovery and technological innovation have to change the world.

The legacy of Nikola Tesla is not just his inventions, but his vision for the future. Tesla was a forward thinker who believed science and technology were the keys to a brighter and better world. He once said, "...we crave for new sensations, but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences."

That's certainly true. Look at smartphones. These devices are marvels of engineering. They're packed with advanced sensors, processors, and software that allow us to communicate, to entertain, to learn about ourselves in ways that were unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Yet despite their incredible capabilities, we treat them as if they were as mundane as a toaster or a vacuum cleaner. The same applies to many other innovations, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual reality and artificial intelligence. We've become so accustomed to these technologies' incredible power and potential that we sometimes forget how amazing they truly are.

When Tesla said the wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences, he wasn't scolding us. That was a dream that he had, that technology, specifically his technology, would be available to everyone, everywhere in the world.

Tesla was to modern science what Aristotle was to ancient philosophy. He saw a way to combine the ideal and the real. He believed it was possible to find an unbelievable future in the reality of today. All you needed was the right brain, the right tools, and the right attitude. His vision for the future was that science and technology would improve the human condition.

He saw a world where energy was abundant and cheap, where people could communicate instantly across vast distances, where machines could do the work that humans once had to do by hand. He believed these advancements could lead to a better and more prosperous world. And he was right. 70% of every product we touch can be traced back to Tesla, including 100% of products that use electricity.

His ideas continue to inspire. Electric cars, solar power and wireless communication all owe a debt to Tesla. So why don't more people know about him? Well, let's take a little detour before we close our story. Tesla died in 1943. His estate was supposed to go to his nephew, Sava Kozanovic, who would become the Yugoslav ambassador to the United States.

Sava found that by the time he got to his uncle's room in the Hotel New Yorker, Tesla's body had already been removed. It appeared someone had already gone through his possessions. Technical papers and a black notebook were missing. Sava knew his uncle kept this notebook nearby. It had hundreds of pages of sensitive material, now lost. P.E. Foxworth, assistant director of the New York FBI office, was called in to investigate.

Foxworth said the government was "vitally interested" in preserving Tesla's papers. And you know you can always trust the FBI. Two days after Tesla's death, all his possessions were seized. The FBI called in Dr. John G. Trump to analyze the Tesla papers. Yes, Matt Trump. Dr. Trump was Donald's uncle. Dr. Trump was an electrical engineer with the National Defense Research Committee of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. He was a credible scientist.

After a three-day investigation, Dr. Trump concluded that in his last 15 years, Tesla's thoughts and efforts were mainly theoretical. His statements were more philosophical and somewhat promotional, focused on power production and wireless transmission. However, his ideas lacked fresh, reliable, and practical principles or methods to achieve results. So

So that may sound like a bit of a letdown, but that's okay. The documents were science fiction, nothing of significance. So that meant Tesla's nephew could be given his estate right away, right? Wrong. It wasn't until 1952 that a U.S. court declared Kosanovic the rightful heir. All of Tesla's files and other materials were sent to Belgrade, Serbia, where they now reside in the Nikola Tesla Museum.

One catch: the FBI recorded 80 trunks among Tesla's effects. Only 60 arrived in Belgrade. So where are the other 20 trunks? Maybe they condensed them down. Maybe the FBI felt like helping out Sava with a little house cleaning. Maybe it was a coincidence that the military incorporated particle beam weaponry in the years following World War II. Just after the war, copies of Tesla's papers on particle beam weapons were sent to Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

An operation codenamed Project Nick was well-funded and placed under the command of Brigadier General L.C. Craigie. Its objective? Test the feasibility of Tesla's concept. Craigie was the first person to fly a jet for the military. He said, and I quote, "...there's something to this. The particle beam is real."

Allegedly, the project was discontinued and the experiments were never published. The copies of Tesla's papers also disappeared. In 1958, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, initiated a top-secret project, codenamed Seesaw. Headquartered at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the goal was to develop an underground particle beam network. This network could be used to defend the United States against incoming ballistic missiles.

The 10-year-long project was allegedly abandoned. It would be too expensive to implement. However, 30 years later, Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI. It was commonly known as the Star Wars program. Officially announced in 1983, SDI was a series of programs designed to intercept possible missile attacks. Everything from ground-based missiles to space lasers were considered viable parts of the defense grid.

The program was consistently criticized for being outlandish from a technological standpoint and provocative from a political one.

Star Wars effectively collapsed in 1993 during the Clinton administration. But parts of it do still survive today under the Missile Defense Agency. So in some way, a part of Tesla's legacy lives on in the national defense of the United States. This may explain why some of the files related to the late inventor are still classified. There is a good chance the government is still using them as foundational research for future military projects. But Tesla's legacy is more than death rays and supposed government cover-ups.

In the end, the story of Tesla is more than just the potential for destruction and chaos. It's about the incredible power of human ingenuity and the limitless potential of science and technology. The story reminds us that we all have the power to innovate and create positive change in the world. Tesla once said, "The present is theirs. The future for which I really work is mine." And because of him, the future now belongs to all of us. I just hope we use it wisely.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learn anything, do me a favor, leave the podcast a nice review. That lets me know to keep making these things for you. And like most topics I cover on the Y-Files, today's was recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to learn more about, go to the Y-Files.com slash tips. And special thanks to our patrons who make the Y-Files possible. I dedicate every episode to you and I couldn't do this without your support.

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