35. The Death Ray and WMDs
Tesla also claimed to have invented a death ray that could explode or vaporize things at a considerable distance. Many suspected that he was responsible for the 1908 Tunguska Event, which flattened thousands of square kilometers of Siberian tundra with an explosion 3000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.
In reality, Tesla had nothing to do with the Tunguska Event, and there is no evidence that he had ever invented a usable death ray. However, after Tesla’s death, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had all his papers seized, out of fear that others might use them to develop weapons of mass destruction.