Death ray

For the science ction weapon, see Raygun. For other nothing can resist.[12]
uses, see Deathray (disambiguation).
Tesla proposed that a nation could destroy anything approaching within 200 miles... [and] will provide a wall
The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle of power in order to make any country, large or small,
beam or electromagnetic weapon of the 1920s through impregnable against armies, airplanes, and other means
the 1930s that was claimed to have been invented inde- for attack.[12]
pendently by Guglielmo Marconi,[1] Nikola Tesla, Harry Antonio Longoria in 1934 claimed to have a death
Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Scott, and Graichen,[2] as ray that could kill pigeons from four miles away and
well as others.[3] In 1957, the National Inventors Council could kill a mouse enclosed in a thick walled metal
was still issuing lists of needed military inventions that chamber.[13][14][15]
included a death ray.[4]
During World War II, the Germans had at least two
While based in ction, research into energy-based projects, and the Japanese one, to create so called death
weapons inspired by past speculation has contributed to rays. One German project led by a man called Schiebold
real-life weapons in use by modern militaries sometimes
concerned a particle accelerator with a steerable bundle
called a sort of death ray, such as the United States of beryllium rods running through the vertical axis. The
Navy and its Laser Weapon System (LaWS) deployed in
other was developed by Dr Rolf Wideroe and is referred
mid-2014.[5][6] Such armaments are technically known as to in his biography. The machine developed by Wideroe
directed-energy weapons.
was in the Dresden Plasma Physics laboratory in February
1945 when the city was bombed. Wideroe led a team in
March 1945 to remove the device from the ruined laboratory and deliver it to General Pattons 3rd Army at
1 History
Burggrub where it was taken into US custody on 14 April
1945. The Japanese weapon was called Death ray KuIn the year 1923, Edwin R. Scott, an inventor from San Go which aimed to employ microwaves created in a large
Francisco, claimed he was the rst to develop a death magnetron.
ray that would destroy human life and bring down planes
at a distance.[7] He was born in Detroit, and he claimed
he worked for nine years as a student and protg of
2 In science ction
Charles P. Steinmetz.[8] Harry Grindell-Matthews tried
to sell what he reported to be a death ray to the British
Air Ministry in 1924. He was never able to show a func- Although the concept of a death ray was never put into action, it fueled science ction stories and led to the science
tioning model or demonstrate it to the military.[7]
ction concept of the handheld raygun used by ctional
Nikola Tesla claimed to have invented a death beam characters such as Flash Gordon. In Alfred Noyes' 1940
which he called teleforce in the 1930s and continued the novel The Last Man (US title: No Other Man), a death
claims up until his death.[9][10][11] Tesla explained that ray developed by a German scientist named Mardok is
this invention of mine does not contemplate the use of unleashed in a global war and almost wipes out the huany so-called death rays. Rays are not applicable be- man race. Similar weapons are found in George Lucas'
cause they cannot be produced in requisite quantities and science ction saga "Star Wars".[16]
diminish rapidly in intensity with distance. All the energy of New York City (approximately two million horsepower) transformed into rays and projected twenty miles,
could not kill a human being, because, according to a well 3 In popular culture
known law of physics, it would disperse to such an ex The earliest reference to a death ray in literature is in
tent as to be ineectual. My apparatus projects particles
the P.G. Wodehouse short story, 'The Rummy Afwhich may be relatively large or of microscopic dimenfair of Old Biy' published in 1925, in which Bertie
sions, enabling us to convey to a small area at a great disWooster describes Sir Roderick Glossop as having
tance trillions of times more energy than is possible with
eyes that go through you like a couple of Death
rays of any kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus
Rays.
be transmitted by a stream thinner than a hair, so that
1

5
The idea that a death ray was possibly invented by
Nikola Tesla and may have caused the Tunguska
event was explored in an episode of Dark Matters:
Twisted But True in a story entitled "Radio Waves
of Death".
In the book Goliath by Scott Westerfeld, the Tunguska event was caused by Goliath, Nikola Teslas
death ray-like weapon.
This theory is also brought up in one of Spider
Robinsons Callahans books.
Teslas Death Ray (renamed 'Peace Ray') is a prominent xture of nations defense in Larry Correia's
Grimnoir book series. (In the Grimnoir world, Tesla
invented an even more devastating energy weapon
that caused the Tunguska event.)
In the game Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 the
player can build a weapon called a Tesla Coil. This
weapon is vaguely similar to the Death ray.
In the game Clash of Clans, players can build a
weapon called a Hidden Tesla. It remains hidden
until attackers come near it, at which point it shoots
beams of electricity at them, much like the death
ray.
In the Season 3 nale of Murdoch Mysteries called
The Tesla Eect where two former associates of
Tesla teamed with Criminal mastermind Sally Pendrick to build a microwave-based Death ray roughly
the size of a tank.

See also
Directed-energy weapon
Heat-ray
Surgical strike
Sonic weaponry
Science ction weapon
Strategic Defense Initiative
Teleforce

References

[1] Rachele Mussolini, Mussolini privato, Milano, 1979, Rusconi Editore.

[2] To, Wireless (June 4, 1928). Finds a 'Death Ray' Fatal to Humans. German Scientist Says it Inames and
Destroys Cells, Hence Aids in Disease. Expects to Split
Atom. Dr. Graichen Has Device to Make Blind See With

REFERENCES

Light Sent Through the Skull.. New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21. Berlin, June 3, 1928. The discovery
of a new 'death ray,' capable of destroying, though not intended to destroy, human life, has just been announced by
Dr. Graichen, a young physicist and engineer employed
as an experimenter by the Siemens Halske Electric Company.
[3] The 'Death Ray' Rivals. New York Times. May 29,
1924. Retrieved 2007-07-21. The inventors of a 'death
ray' multiply every day. To H. Grindell-Matthews and
Professor T.F. Wall have been added two other Englishmen, Prior and Rae, and Grammachiko, a Russian.
Herr Wulle, 'chief of the militarists in the Reichstag, has
informed that body that the Government has a device that
will bring down airplanes, stop tank engines, and 'spread
a curtain of death.'
[4] Council Seeking Death Ray and Greaseless Bearing for
Armed Forces. Associated Press in the New York Times.
November 3, 1957. Retrieved 2007-07-21. Washington,
DC, Nov. 2, 1957 (AP) Anyone who has a death ray lying
around the house, a hole digger that disposes of the dirt as
it goes along, or a greaseless ball bearing that can be used
in temperatures ranging
[5] http://arstechnica.com/
information-technology/2014/03/
navy-will-deploy-first-ship-with-laser-weapon-this-summer/
[6] http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/05/31/
navy.death.ray.wired/
[7] Denies British Invented 'Death Ray'. E.R. Scott Asserts
He and Other Americans Preceded Grindell-Matthews..
New York Times. September 5, 1924. Washington, DC,
September 4, 1924 Edwin R. Scott an inventor of San
Francisco, today challenged the assertion of Mr. GrindellMatthews, who sailed for London on the Homeric last
week, that the latter was the rst to develop a 'death-ray'
that would destroy human life and bring down planes at a
distance.
[8] Death Stroke. Time (magazine). August 10, 1925. Retrieved 2007-07-21. Utmost secrecy always shrouds the
structural details of new munitions of war. This one, announced last week by its inventor, Dr. Edwin R. Scott, is
called the 'death stroke' or 'canned lightning.' The Navy
Department, which has been in touch with Dr. Scotts researches, hinted that the ultraviolet ray was involved, but
Dr. Scott stated specically: 'There is no ray or beam
about it.'
[9] Nikola Tesla Dies. Prolic Inventor. Alternating Power
Currents Developer Found Dead in Hotel Suite Here.
Claimed a 'Death Beam'. He Insisted the Invention Could
Annihilate an Army of 1,000,000 at Once. New York
Times. January 8, 1943. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
[10] Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Teslas Claim On 78th
Birthday. New York Herald Tribune. July 11, 1934. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
[11] Tesla, At 78, Bares New 'Death-Beam'. Invention Powerful Enough to Destroy 10,000 Planes 250 Miles Away,

He Asserts. Defensive Weapon Only. Scientist, in Interview, Tells of Apparatus That He Says Will Kill Without
Trace. New York Times. Retrieved 2012-09-04. Nikola
Tesla, father of modern methods of generation and distribution of electrical energy, who was 78 years old yesterday, announced a new invention, or inventions, which he
said, he considered the most important of the 700 made
by him so far.
[12] A Machine to End War. PBS: Tesla - Master of Lightning.
[13] Inventor Hides Secret of Death Ray. Popular Science.
February 1940. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
[14] Welder at Work. Time magazine. August 10, 1936.
Retrieved 2008-12-11. Two years ago President Albert
Burns of the Inventors Congress declared that he had seen
pigeons, rabbits, dogs and cats killed at a distance by a
death ray which dissolved red blood corpuscles. The inventor, said President Burns, was Dr. Antonio Longoria
[15] Gadgeteers Gather. Time magazine. January 21, 1935.
Retrieved 2008-12-11. Albert G. Burns of Oakland,
Calif, was re-elected president of the Congress. It was Mr.
Burns who last year revealed that a Clevelander named
Antonio Longoria had invented a death-ray which killed
rabbits, dogs & cats instantly. President Burns said that Inventor Longoria would withhold his secret until invasion
threatened the U. S.
[16] Holland, Charles. Alfred Noyes, The Last Man", St.
Dunstans Red and White, St. Dunstans University.

External links
Defense Update article on M-THEL
Microwave weapons: Wasted energy (Nature)
High Power Microwaves - Strategic and Operational Implications for Warfare (Eileen M. Walling,
Colonel, USAF)
HAARP - High Frequency Active Auroral Research
Program

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