Federal Bureau of Investigation
Nikola Tesla: FBI file on the seizure of his papers
Case file · written January 1943 · released 2016
Why this matters
Records on what happened to Nikola Tesla's papers after he died in a New York hotel in January 1943, when the Office of Alien Property impounded his belongings. Wartime fears that his rumored 'death ray' notes could reach the enemy run through the correspondence. It is the paper trail behind a century of Tesla legends.
Read the original
https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla
Hosted by FBI Vault
Tags
Cite
Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Nikola Tesla: FBI file on the seizure of his papers." January 1943. Released 2016. https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla (accessed via The Quiet Archive, QA-0012).
Shelved nearby
- 2025 QA-0131ABMC · Correspondence
ABMC records regarding removal of Black soldier panels at the Margraten cemetery, Netherlands (2025)
Records from the American Battle Monuments Commission about the 2025 removal of panels honoring Black American soldiers from the visitor center of the Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten.
- 1947 QA-0007FBI · Case file
FBI ‘UFO’ file (flying disc reports, 1947 onward)
The FBI's main file on 'flying discs', opened during the 1947 sighting wave when the Army Air Forces asked the Bureau to help vet reports.
- 1947 QA-0008FBI · Memo
Roswell UFO: FBI Dallas teletype of 8 July 1947
The FBI's contemporaneous teletype on the Roswell debris, sent the day the base announced it had recovered a 'flying disc'.
- 1932 QA-0011FBI · Case file
Albert Einstein: FBI surveillance file
More than 1,400 pages recording two decades of FBI suspicion of Albert Einstein, starting in 1932 with a patriotic group's petition to keep him out of the country.