"Death Ray" is Carried by Shafts of Light
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Title (Dublin Core)
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"Death Ray" is Carried by Shafts of Light
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Article Title and/or Image Caption (Dublin Core)
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"Death Ray" is Carried by Shafts of Light. Beam is Said to Act as Cable for Transmitting Powerful Energy to Bring Down Enemy Aircraft
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extracted text (Extract Text)
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ACTING as a carrier for energy made up of high-tension electric currents, a new ray invented by H. Grindell-Matthews of London, is claimed to practically destroy aircraft on which it might be directed.
The beams, similar to shafts of light, are claimed to render the air they include within their limits highly conductive to electricity.
Tests have been reported where the ray has been used to stop the operation of automobiles by arresting the action of the magnetos, and a quantity of gunpowder is said to have been exploded by playing the beams on it from a distance of thirty-six feet. It is pointed out that the discovery may result in the development of entirely new fields and methods of warfare. Where aerial attacks are to be combated, the rays could be guided from a battery of transmitters on the ground and a barrage of high voltages loosed upon the craft in a fraction of the time necessary to bring a series of guns to bear on the targets.
With the ability to control the ray and make it visible or in-visible, a property which it is said the inventor has developed, the "spotting" of a target would be greatly simplified. Where attendants have crossed the path of the ray during tests, they have been rendered unconscious by violent shocks.
Other cases are reported where intense burns were received on occasions when the workers came into contact with it.
Experimental sending stations have been equipped with special protective and safety devices in order to guard against injury to those called upon to operate the transmitting mechanism during the trials.
Throughout its development and testing stages the utmost secrecy was observed by the inventor to conceal the method of generating and directing the rays. Other engineers and scientists claim that similar discoveries have been made in the past in several different countries with electric energy that can be directed along invisible paths, and the "death ray" has been made the subject of court action by those disputing the inventor's right to dispose of it.
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Language (Dublin Core)
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eng
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Date Issued (Dublin Core)
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1924-08
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pages (Bibliographic Ontology)
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189-192
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Rights (Dublin Core)
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Public Domain (Google digitized)
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Archived by (Dublin Core)
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Marco Bortolami
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Alberto Bordignon (Supervisor)
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Spatial Coverage (Dublin Core)
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London
Popular Mechanics, v. 42, n. 2, 1924
