For the past century, the FBI has been a vital player in American history, front and center in some of our country’s most high-profile national security and criminal issues. Not surprisingly, some myths and misunderstandings about the Bureau have evolved over that time, in part because of the complex and sometimes sensitive nature of our work. We’ve picked out what we think are the top ten myths down through the years, leaving aside ones that are so fanciful that they don’t deserve mention here…
In descending order, here they are:
Myth #10) The FBI has Nikola Tesla’s plans for a “death ray"!
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| Nikola Tesla |
If you don’t know the name, Nikola Tesla was a prolific inventor and gifted physicist and engineer—most known for developing the basis for AC power—who was born in Croatia in 1856 and settled in the U.S. in 1884. When Tesla died in New York in January 1943, his papers—which were thought to include plans for a particle beam weapon, dubbed a “death ray” by the press—were temporarily seized by the Department of Justice Alien Property Custodian Office (“alien” in this case means “foreigner,” although Tesla was a U.S. citizen). Despite longstanding reports and rumors, the FBI was not involved in searching Tesla’s effects, and it never had possession of his papers or any microfilm that may have been made of those papers. Since 1943, we have told a consistent story to all who have asked. Reports to the contrary appear to be based on an initial confusion of FBI agents with other government officials—especially Alien Property Office personnel. These rumors have long been repeated in biographies and articles on Tesla without double-checking the facts as reported in our files.
Fuente pagina del FBI: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/july/myths_072408
