5. This Fraudster Kept Up an Elaborate and Lucrative Deceit for a Long Time
John Keely tossed around a jumbled science word salad that sounded impressive to nonscientists. In actuality, what he said was pure pseudoscientific gibberish. It was effective pseudoscientific gibberish, however: within a short time, he managed to convince investors to give him the equivalent of $25 million in 2022 dollars as startup capital, which he used to found the Keely Motor Company. In subsequent years, investors handed him the equivalent of $110 million in today’s money for a stake in Keely’s enterprise.
Over two decades, Keely closely guarded the secret of his invention, and refused to share its details with anybody. But he continued to promise investors that the perfection of a commercial version of his machine was right around the corner. Throughout that time, the gullible continued to give him more and more money, despite the consensus of physicists that Keely was a quack and charlatan, and that perpetual motion such as he promised was physically impossible. Finally, when Keely died in 1898, the secret of his engine was revealed to the world. It had not been powered by water, but by a compressed air machine hidden two floors below. It was connected to the Keely engine by cleverly concealed pipes and hoses.