conspiracy theories

When I was in high school a friend of mine was really into the Erich von Daniken books, some of you might remember the best-selling books on ancient aliens in his "Chariots of the Gods" series. They were very popular with the geeks of my generation in the 1970s and 1980s The people who followed von Däniken's theories usually followed the overall genre of UFOs and conspiracy theories. I read all the Chariots of the Gods books, the books on Project Blue Book and UFOs, and whatever else I could find on what I collectively called strange science.

In the late 1970s I had a radio show where I discussed Project Blue Book and UFOs. Project Blue Book was one of a series of studies of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) conducted by the United States Air Force. Its ceased operations in January 1970 with the conclusion that there was no evidence that any of the sightings were extraterrestrial vehicles. With thousands of reports to analyze and hundreds of expert witnesses, the stories and conspiracy theories went on long after Project Blue Book was shut down.

I was happy to find my stash of books from the 1970s, as shown in the photo attached to this article. One of the books you see in the photo is "Strangest of All" by Frank Edwards, an American writer and broadcaster. Frank Edwards was a pioneer radio broadcaster in the 1920s through the 1950s, and a writer of a series of popular books about UFOs and "Strange Science."

I would buy a new book every week or two, as well as read about inventors and inventions in magazines like Popular Science or Popular Mechanics. Other than to talk about these topics with my friend, and read a few magazines, I did not have any way to really explore these topics in more detail. Back in the dark ages of the 1970s we did not have the internet to share ideas.  The stories have not changed since I first read them in the 1970s. What has changed is the new vehicle of the internet where myths and legends can take on a massive cult of followers.

The strange life of Nikola Tesla often reads like a the science fiction story of a typical mad scientist. The claims that Nikola Tesla's personal files mysteriously disappeared after Tesla's death and various government conspiracies surrounding the alleged the lost files sounds like an episode the television show the X-files.

Why would the FBI care?

As Nikola Tesla celebrated his seventy-eighth birthday in 1934 he made headlines by announcing he had invented a death ray that could stop at army from 200 miles away.  Convinced that he had the plan to build the ultimate defensive weapon, in 1937 Tesla sent proposals to several nations asking for financing on what called a peace beam. Of all the countries to receive his proposal, the Soviet Union seemed the most interested. According to popular stories Tesla received $25,000 from the Soviet Union.

Nikola Tesla died in January of 1943 at the height of World War II.  Tesla's estate, which possibly included the high tech plans for a weapon of war, was due to be inherited by Sava Kosanovic, an up-and-coming Yugoslav official with suspected connections to the communist party in his country.

Although the FBI did not take possession of Tesla's belongings after his death, there is documentation on the events after Tesla's death on the  FBI vault website describing the events that took place.  Near the beginning of the more than 250 pages of the FBI vault file on Nikola Tesla you will find an FBI document dated January 12, 1943, a few days after Tesla's death, that states the property of Nikola Tesla was seized by taken to Alien Property to the Manhattan Storage and Warehouse Co.

The removal of the property was done in a very orderly fashion,  in the presence of several witnesses, and a certificate of ownership was issued to his nephew Sava Kosanovic.

The internet is doing as much to create history, as it is to document history. In this section of the World of Questy we look at the concept of "truth by consensus" and explore the mind boggling proliferation of myths and legends.

I cringe every time I hear someone say "Google it."

There are countless numbers of websites where people can ask questions looking for answers. I frequent online forums where people share information and ideas. Inevitably some know-it-all overachiever will answer a question with a phrase such as "let me Google that for you."

The overachiever is trying to look smart by insinuating that the question being asked is so simple that a search engineer query should have been used to find the answer, rather than bother the overachievers on the forum. What the egotistical overachiever does not realize is they show their own ignorance by believing that a Google search should be considered the ultimate authority for all answers.

Google Search is the most used search engine on the World Wide Web. Because the term "Google" has become a word in the English language to describe a common action, do you assume that the answers it finds are always accurate? Google gives weight to web pages of a certain length. Sometimes the short and to the point answer is seen as less relevant that a long and rambling answer that misses the point. Ah, if only life were that simple.

Google rates and ranks websites based on popularity, not accuracy. According to Google, "Democracy on the web works." Google says, "We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank™ algorithm, which analyzes which sites have been 'voted' to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web."

Google filters out websites that they decide are bad, and gives extra value to sites they decide are good. Why let them filter your answers? Do the most popular people always have the correct answers?