Nikola Tesla and the Philadelphia Experiment

Book excerpt: Dr Bradley Lewton, an happy-go-lucky academic chancer who has an unfortunate way with women, knows a lot about the theory of physics and weapons systems but very little about how to make a living. Meet him in Nikola Tesla and the Philadelphia Experiment, an action packed, science based, thriller that will tell you all you ever wanted to know about Tesla's more out-outrageous ideas, some of which Dr Lewton discovers to be true and dangerous. The drowsy life of this unworldly academic researcher is shaken up when he is hired by top-notch lawyer Liz O'Hare, as an expert witness in a Gulf War Syndrome investigation. What seems a simple way to earn some extra cash soon becomes a matter of life and death. The combination of bizarre science, a pushy woman and a secret spy agency results in a fast moving plot which will suck you into its strange world. Facts In 1899 the scientist Nikola Tesla set up an experimental station to broadcast wireless electrical power in Colarado and succeeding in transmitting power over 200 miles, created artificial ball lightning and measured the resonant frequency of the Earth's atmosphere. He also claimed to have created a device which could split the Earth in two using mechanical resonance. On 24 February, 1901 Tesla announced he had discovered a way to communicate with other worlds On 23 July 1901 Tesla started work on his 'World System' which was to be based on a transmitting station at Wardencliff, New York. In February 1905, banker J. P. Morgan, who held a controlling interest in Tesla's patents, closed down Tesla's World System, the Wardencliff site was sold to settle Tesla's hotel bill. During the Second World War Tesla was evicted from a number of New York Hotels for keeping pigeons in his room. The exact date of Nikola Tesla's death is unknown. He died alone between 5 Jan and 8 Jan, 1943, immediately after offering to construct a Secret Weapon for the US Navy. After his death all Tesla's surviving work was declared TOP SECRET by the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover issued a memo saying. 'All matters connected with the late Nikola Tesla are to be handled in a most secret fashion to avoid publicity in respect of Tesla's inventions', and 'that every precaution be taken to preserve the secrecy of those inventions.' In June 1943, six months after Tesla's death, the US High Court ruled that the Marconi Company had infringed Tesla patents concerning radio transmission. In Oct 1943, the US Navy carried out a series of experiments in a Philadelphia dockyard. They used an electrical force field, to make the destroyer the USS Eldridge invisible. Many of the crew ended up in mental institutions. In 1993 the US department of Defence announced it was starting to build an experimental ionospheric research facility in Gakona, Alaska. The principle patents are improvements on patents first held by Tesla. These patents are for: "a method and apparatus for altering a region in the Earth's atmosphere, ionosphere and/or magnetosphere; a method and apparatus for creating an artificial electron cyclotron heating region of plasma; and a method for producing a shell of relativistic particles at an altitude above the Earth's surface." This book is a work of fiction.