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Did the U.S. Government Really Steal Nikola Tesla’s Research Papers?
On January 7, 1943, Nikola Tesla was found dead in his room at the New Yorker Hotel at 86. His nephew, Sava Kosanović, went to the room the next day, and reportedly claimed that certain key possessions of Tesla’s had been taken—namely, “technical papers” and a black notebook containing notes on some kind of government work.
Tesla was a renowned Serbian-American inventor who created the Tesla coil, engineered the first hydroelectric plant, pioneered the use of the alternating current, and laid the foundation for our modern power grid, among countless other inventions and scientific contributions. Tesla was truly ahead of his time, and quite a few of his ideas—notions that were unfathomable in that day and age—are still being pursued to this day.
According to the FBI’s redacted files on Tesla, made public in 2016, Kosanović indeed went to his uncle’s room to open the safe and retrieve a few things (a book and three photos), though no mention is made of the supposedly missing items. The FBI reported that Kosanović later told Walter Gorsuch, of the Office of Alien Property Custodian (APC), that he had been looking for Tesla’s will. (The APC was in charge of confiscating enemy-owned property during WWI and WWII.)
The FBI’s files clearly express that the U.S. government didn’t trust Tesla’s research in the hands of his nephew, who was the Yugoslavian ambassador to the U.S. The bureau was concerned that he might turn over such coveted information to the “enemy.” So the following day, the APC confiscated all of Tesla’s items, which amounted to “two truckloads”—though it’s worth noting the FBI files state the office didn’t think it even had the legal ability to do so, since Tesla was a naturalized citizen.
At the time it was rumored that Tesla may have made some incredibly powerful and life-changing discoveries. On September 22, 1940, the New York Times reported that Tesla had created a “death ray” that could melt airplane motors from 250 miles away, called the “teleforce.” Supposedly, this teleforce “would operate through a beam one-hundred-millionth of a square centimeter in diameter, and could be generated from a special plant that would cost no more than $2,000,000 and would take only about three months to construct,” according to the Times. If true, such a weapon would be critical to national security.
Tesla had also worked on trying to beam electricity through the air (this also inspired his teleforce), which would have been a huge breakthrough; in fact, wireless electricity is still a potential technology being explored by the U.S. government and others to this day.
Tesla furthermore thought he could collect and harness what he called “cosmic energy” that he theorized existed in the atmosphere. There’s been a long-running (and debunked) conspiracy theory that Tesla succeeded in creating a way to generate this free, unlimited energy, but that the government suppressed the information as it would have upended the industry and revolutionized society.
Soon after the APC collected Tesla’s belongings, an electrical engineer with the National Defense Research Committee (created during WWII as a way for the government to coordinate with scientists for purposes of national defense) by the name of Dr. John G. Trump (yes, of that Trump family—Donald Trump’s uncle) was tasked with investigating Tesla’s papers for anything that might be of importance to the government. Officially, he concluded that Tesla’s papers “did not include new, sound, workable principles or methods” for wireless power. And that may have very well been true—Tesla became increasingly eccentric and obsessive later in life, and his claims could’ve just been wild theories that never came to fruition.
Still, following WWII, the U.S. government renewed its interest in developing beam weapons inspired by Tesla’s research. As described in Margaret Cheney’s biography, Tesla: Man out of Time, in 1945, the Air Technical Service Command at Wright Reid, Ohio, requested photostatic copies of Tesla’s papers on beam weaponry from the Office of Alien Property Custodian. Four months after the APC sent them, the agency requested them again, supposedly having never received them. Two years later, the APC asked for the copies to be returned, and the Air Technical Service Command said they would be, sometime in 1948—but they never were.
It took years and a court hearing for Kosanović to finally receive his uncle’s possessions in 1952. Even then, a good number of Tesla’s belongings were missing—reportedly, his family only received 60 trunks full of his research out of the eighty Tesla had said he’d had.
The U.S. government did keep classified copies of Tesla’s research papers, but the originals are now housed in the archives of the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia.
The question remains, though: Did it return all of them?
注释：
unfathomable: adj
表示"莫测高深的；难以了解的"，means "of depth; not capable of being sounded or measured"，如：Under the unfathomable sea, life glows both audibly or mutely.在深湛的海洋,有声无声地,生命兀自绽放光彩。
redact: v
表示" 编辑；编造；草拟"，means "formulate in a particular style or language"，如：We redact and pack up the contributions from kinds of universities. 我们编辑整理各大高校活动相关稿件。
retrieve: v
表示"取回"，means " get back sth which has been lost"，如：She tried to retrieve the situation by making profuse apologies. 她不住的道歉,力图挽回局面.The dog is trained to retrieve. 这狗受过训能找到并带回猎物。
confiscate: v
表示" 没收；充公"，means " take (private property) away from sb especially with the official right to do so, usually as a punishment"，如：We'll have to confiscate this object. 我们要没收这些物品。
Yugoslavian: n; adj
表示" 南斯拉夫人;南斯拉夫的"，means "a native or inhabitant of Yugoslavia;of or relating to or characteristic of the former country of Yugoslavia or its people or languages"，如：Living evidence of this former Yugoslavian republic's still-strong national culture, boys join a traditional march in Slovenia. 作为这个前南斯拉夫的共和国的仍然强烈民族文化的鲜活证据，在斯洛文尼亚，男孩们参加传统的游行。
covet: v
表示" 觊觎；垂涎；"，means "wish, long, or crave for (something, especially the property of another person);"，如：Mr Appleby does not covet power. 艾波比先生不觊觎权力。
truckload: n
表示"一卡车的容量"，如：The thieves hijacked a truckload of tires. 强盗们抢劫了一卡车轮胎。
naturalized：adj
表示"归化的；入籍的"，means "introduced from another region and persisting without cultivation"，如：English sporting terms have been naturalized in many languages. 英语的运动术语已被多种语言采用。
debunk: v
表示" 揭穿真相；暴露"，means "expose while ridiculing; especially of pretentious or false claims and ideas;"，如：A lot of people used to believe that, but now it's been completely debunked. 过去很多人相信那种想法，但现已真相大白。
suppress: v
表示"压制，镇压；隐瞒"，means "put an end to the activity or existence of； prevent from being known or seen"，如：The revolt was suppressed in a matter of hours. 叛乱在几小时之内就镇压下去了。
upend：v
表示"颠倒；颠覆"，means "set, turn, or stand on end;"，如：If you upend the box it will take less space. 如果你将盒子竖起来，它就可以少占些空间。
eccentric: adj
表示"古怪的；反常的"，means " (of people, behavior) unusual; peculiar; not conventional or normal"，如：She put him down as an eccentric person. 她认为他是个行为古怪的人。
obsessive: adj
表示"着迷的；强迫性的;"，means "characterized by or constituting an obsession"，如：The man is obsessive in gambling.他着迷于赌博。She's obsessive about punctuality. 她对守时十分固执.
photostatic：adj
表示" 静电复印的"，如：All photostat copies submitted will not be returned. 所有递交的证明文件副本将不会退还。
Custodian: n
表示" 管理人；保管人；监护人"，means "one having charge of buildings or grounds or animals"，如：A custodian or trustee is appointed to oversee the debtor's property to protect it from loss. 指定一位监护人或管理人来监管债务人的财产免受损失。
中文简要说明：
说到「特斯拉」(Teslas)，如今是最畅销的电动车品牌，这是致敬20世纪初的电学奇才发明家尼古拉特斯拉(Nikola Tesla)，这位人物在最近20年也逐步有名，特别是他与发明大王爱迪生(Thomas Edison)的恩怨情仇，与「电力大战」更是令人津津乐道。然而，虽然特斯拉在电力大战中胜利，但是他却不像爱迪生那样富可敌国，晚年反而是相当凄凉的接受各方接济才能度日，据说他生前还有无数的发明想法没有落实，只因当时的科技水平跟不上他的想法，所以只能在草稿与图纸中空留遗憾。在他死后，这些图纸也被美国联邦调查局给没收了。
以上的故事常出现在Youtube杂谈家的节目中，有些内容确实是真的，有些则被夸大。1943 年 1 月 7 日，特斯死在纽约客大饭店的长租套房里，享年86岁。他的侄子萨瓦•科萨诺维奇 (Sava Kosanović) 第二天去了房间收拾遗物，当时他就发现，特斯拉的笔记与手稿已被美国政府拿走，而且据说这是联邦调查局派人来收拾的。
特斯拉出生在塞尔维亚，之后前往美国发展，是20世纪初期的著名发明家。他优化的直流马达电圈(爱迪生的委托)，设计了第一座水力发电厂、率先使用交流电，设计交流电马达，为我们的现代电网奠定了基础，因为他在电磁学上的贡献，磁通量密度的单位就叫「特斯拉」。特斯拉确实领先于他的时代，他的许多想法至今才开始实现。
关于联邦调查局FBI没收了特斯拉笔记文件一事，在2016年公开的关于特斯拉文件则写道，科萨诺维奇确实在特斯拉死后去了他叔叔的房间，打开保险箱并取回了一些东西（一本书和三张照片），但是没有提到有其他丢失的物品。联邦调查局报告说，科萨诺维奇后来告诉外国人财产保管人办公室 (APC)，他想找的是特斯拉的遗嘱，没有提到发明手稿这类的东西。
不过，美国联邦调查局也确实不会把特斯拉的档案交还给科萨诺维奇，因为这位侄子的身分并不一般，他是南斯拉夫驻美国大使。FBI担心他可能会将这些图纸与手稿交给「敌人」。所以第二天，APC 没收了特斯拉的所有文件、手稿、图纸，数量相当庞大，用了两辆卡车才运完。
特斯拉虽然因为电力系统的贡献而令人敬重，但在晚年却已是公众眼中的「疯狂科学家」，没人知道他说的「想法」是可行的「计划」还是天马行空的「想象」。1940 年 9 月 22 日的《纽约时报》 报导，特斯拉提出了一种「死亡射线」(death ray)，可以把330公里外的飞机给熔化，他说「射线的直径只有一亿分之一平方公分」，建造成本不超过 200万美元，而且仅需3个月的时间就可以完成。
特斯拉还曾说过「空间传电」的想法，电力传输就不需要电线了。这将是一个巨大的突破；他所发明的「特斯拉线圈」为是空间传电的实验尝试，也确实能点亮在一公尺处的电灯泡，但是他显然小看了空气的电阻性，但是他的概念是对的。事实上，美国好几个研究单位从1980年代开始，就在设想无线电力系统，现在已初露端倪，称为「微波送电系统」。
特斯拉还有更狂想的计划，他认为他可以收集「宇宙能量」，他相信巨大的能量就深藏在宇宙里。现在的科学家认为，他可能是无意间发现了宇宙电磁波，并且认为那些可以收集并成为能量。
在 APC没收特斯拉的物品后不久，国防研究委员会的电气工程师约翰•G•川普博士(Dr. John G. Trump，美国前总统唐纳川普的亲叔叔）的任务，就是调查特斯拉的文件，寻找任何可能对美国政府重要的东西。不过，川普博士的结论是「特斯拉的论文不合理、不可行，没有证实的方法」，也就不具备研究的价值。
尽管如此，在第二次世界大战之后，受特斯拉研究的启发，美国政府也对开发光束武器产生了兴趣。1945 年，航空物资司令部(Air Technical Service Command)要求APC提供特斯拉文件中，关于光束武器的文件的复本。APC给了，但是两年后，当APC 要求归还副本，航空物资司令部说再等等「以后会还」，但他们从未归还。
1952 年，科萨诺维奇要求美国政府归还他叔叔的遗物，为此了花了数年时间打官司，最终法院宣判特斯拉的家族成员确实有权利获得其遗产。即便如此，特斯拉的很多物品还是不完整。据报导， 80 箱装满文件与图纸的行李中，他的家人只收到了60箱，这些图纸已收藏到塞尔维亚首都的「尼古拉特斯拉纪念博物馆」的档案馆中。但问题仍然存在，剩下的20箱到哪去了?
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