Perhaps the 20th century's most influential inventor

was a Serbian American named Nikola Tesla.

[thundering]

His patents on alternating electrical currents

and distribution helped establish

the commercial electricity industry.

He also made contributions to robotics, radar, and computer

science.

But while Tesla can be credited for many scientific advances,

one idea that fell short was his attempt

to create a wireless electrical grid.

DAVID CHILDRESS: Tesla's project was

to have these towers around the United States

and around the world.

They would broadcast electricity like a television station.

ROBERT H. FRISBEE: Instead of having to string power lines

all over the place, you'd just transmit the energy

through the air or through the ground.

There were a number of demonstrations of this device

for wireless power transmission during Tesla's lifetime.

So we know the device worked.

It appears that he was using the conductivity of the ground

or the air to carry the electric current.

Basically, in the air, if you put enough voltage on it,

you'll get an arc across it.

You see that all the time in a fluorescent light bulb.

In the ground, you have water, mineral, salts that can also

carry the ions along and therefore carry

the electric current.

NARRATOR: But while Tesla's power towers proved popular

in theory, the project ended in financial failure.

But could Tesla's idea of wireless electricity

have been a rediscovery of an ancient technology?

[dramatic music]

DAVID CHILDRESS: I believe that what Tesla was doing

was trying to recreate what was an ancient power system that

was used around the world.

And the way they did this was the use of obelisks.

[dramatic music]

Obelisks as monolithic, granite towers, which

are one solid piece of crystal.

And the obelisks themselves were cut to special sizes

and tuned like a tuning fork.

NARRATOR: Could these ancient broadcast towers really

have sent electricity up into the atmosphere?

And if so, how was the electricity generated?

Each of these obelisks would have required

some kind of generating power station

similar to what we have today.

Electricity is created by rotating magnetic fields.

So rotating magnetic fields generate AC power.

The very first power station was built by Nikola Tesla

at Niagara Falls.

You've got to have some sort of power that's

spinning the rotating fields.

And in this case, it would be water.

So every obelisk would have had to have

had a power station similar to like the one at Niagara Falls.

It's generating power, but the obelisk itself

is putting the power into the atmosphere, making it usable.

And this is similar to Christopher Dunn's theory

of the Giza power plant, because he believes that the Great

Pyramid was actually sending a microwave

beam to a satellite that was in orbit around the planet.

That satellite then could have been taking microwave power,

and then it could transmit it again, in theory,

to some other location on the Earth,

such as, say, a remote island like Easter Island

or something like that.

From some of the descriptions of ancient flying machines,

it's possible that some form of power beaming

might have been used.

And in fact, for a lot of the schemes that you see,

it actually would make a lot of sense,

because you could put the power beaming station on a mothership

in orbit.

You're just beaming energy to the vehicle

where it's absorbed and turned into propulsion thrust.

It actually makes a lot of sense,

because you're taking the energy system, the power system, off

of the vehicle and locating it remotely.