RankingsPrimerArbiterPhysicistMathematicianContrarianQESites logClaimsSourcesResearch notes

National Archives Catalog (run 3 recheck, Chrome) - 2026-10-04

Site: https://catalog.archives.gov/. Method: the page's own /proxy/records/search JSON. To find matching pages in a microfilm reel: /proxy/metadata/naid-availability/naid/{naId}?q=..., which returns the IDs of the matching image objects. Images were fetched through IIIF and read with tesseract and by eye. Result: positive (new index sheets). Recheck: yes.

Queries (hits)

"Henry Moray" (23; same as run 2: OSTP 1991-92 energy files etc.); "Moray" "sound detector" (13); "Moray" Shinkle; "Moray" "radiant energy"; "Moray" Amlie; "Research Institute" Moray. Matching pages were located inside NAIDs 671915050, 557741114, 561454645, 556983073 and 673186595.

Findings [web]

All are War Department Adjutant General's Office index sheets (RG 407, T822 cross-reference sheets). Each carries the same entry: 413.68, 12-14-36, "C/Ordnance (Brig. Gen. Edward M. Shinkle)" to TAG, "Invention of sound detector by F. Henry Moray", clerk "lkb 12/19/36". Run 2 found the copy under 095 Montero-Motz. Three more cross-filings were found this run: 1. 095 Steffensen, K. K. (name file): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/557741114, image 2033. Saved: files/NARA_RG407_T822-0350_img2033_AGO-index-095-Steffensen-KK_1936-12-14_Shinkle-sound-detector_Moray.png. K. K. Steffenson/Steffensen was Moray's Salt Lake City attorney and the long-serving secretary of the Research Institute. In 1937 he wrote to Fletcher at Bell Labs, and in 1939 he gave Moray patent advice [read: digests of the 5th ed. pp.80-82, 104-105, 168-171, 189]. 2. 023 (subject decimal), image 2453 of https://catalog.archives.gov/id/556983073. Saved: files/NARA_RG407_T822-0074_img2453_AGO-index-023_1936-12-14_Shinkle-sound-detector_Moray.png. What decimal 023 covers was not checked. 3. Cities & Towns: Salt Lake City, Utah, image 631 of https://catalog.archives.gov/id/561454645. Saved: files/NARA_RG407_T822-1327_img631_AGO-index-SaltLakeCity_1936-12-14_Shinkle-sound-detector_Moray.png. Noise: 671915050 image 1199 is "Norman H. H. Moray, Warner Bros." (a 1941-42 film request); 673186595 image 2754 is "J. C. Moray, Trinidad" (1940s). Neither concerns T. H. Moray.

How it bears on the claims

  • Filing the Shinkle report under Moray's attorney's name suggests the War Department corresponded with Steffensen about the device. The 095 Steffensen name file and 413.68 (AGO central decimal file, 1926-39) are the places to request.
  • The family's own account agrees that the device was a sound detector. The family text reproduced on Slideshare (https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/th-moray/10546066, the 5th-edition narrative) says the December 1936 test for "a General Shinkle of the War Department and an accompanying Captain" was of the "Sound Detector Device", which by 1936 "would operate radio loud speakers". It says Moray offered it to the government free of charge, that the general would report to his superiors, and that Congressman Thomas Amlie later told Moray "an official report had been filed in Washington, but that the government had not accepted the offer" [web]. The Army's filing as a "sound detector" therefore matches the family's own description: a listening or pick-up device, not the power unit. Magdiel's 1939 enquiry calls it a "Radiant Energy device"; that is the enquirer's wording. This narrows what Shinkle's report can settle. It bears on Moray's receiver work (Claim 4 and the 1926 "sound pickup" claims) and on Claim 6 (an Army offer declined). It does not bear on the power claim (Claim 1).