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21st Century Books / TFC Books (tfcbooks.com)

Investigator (STEP I), run 2026-10-08. Saved page text (evidence trail, not for publication) is in research/pages/. Findings are leads, not verdicts.

Searched

Found

  1. "Peter Savo Account" [web: http://www.tfcbooks.com/special/savo_account.htm]. Headed "Information about an Invention by Dr. Nikola Tesla, which is said to have harnessed Cosmic Energy" (Unidentified document circulated in the early 1980s). - "The following is a summary of an interview on 16 September 1967 of Peter Savo, a nephew of Dr. Nikola Tesla, by Derek Ahlers, an aeronautical engineer. An attempt was made to record Peter's answers to 36 questions prepared in advance ... since Mr. Savo and Mr. Ahlers have known each other for some 10 years, the subject had previously been discussed". - Biography: born in Knin "just before the turn of the century"; Austrian army; "learned to fly at the military flying school at Wiener Neustadt"; Italy after WWI; "Dr Nikola Tesla was Peter's uncle on his mother's side"; New York, then Detroit; "a foreign trade specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade and later in Bucharest"; captured by the Nazis. - The car: "a standard Pierce Arrow, with the engine removed ... a brushless electric motor ... said to measure 40" long by 28" diameter"; "Set into the dash was a 'power receiver' consisting of a box measuring about 24" long by 10" wide by 6" high, containing 12 radio tubes. Three of these tubes were model 70-L-7"; "a 6-foot rod"; "There was a 12-volt Willard battery installed in the car, but it was for the lights only"; "the motor was an AC motor"; "Peter said that Dr Tesla had built the power receiver himself in his hotel room, and carried it to Buffalo"; "Maximum engine speed was 1800 rpm. Power rating was 80 hp." - Tesla's reported words: "It is a mysterious radiation that comes out of the ether". The summary's own gloss: "An expression of the 1930s referring to what is now called 'outer space'". - Later events: "a secretary of Tesla's broke security and told General Electric about it and promptly got fired"; the call from "Dr Lee De Forest"; a Yugoslav diplomat who "dropped the name Rockefeller"; the car rumoured "shipped to Yugoslavia", but friends there said "nothing ever arrived". - Interviewer's notes: Savo "is quite intelligent but lacks a formal education and has quite a thick accent"; "I gave his $20 out of my own pocket for the phone calls and postage"; Savo "categorically ruled out any possibility of a hoax".
  2. Tesla FAQ No. 16 [web: http://www.tfcbooks.com/teslafaq/q&a_016.htm]: "The information was relayed by his nephew, Peter Savo, to Derek Ahlers after Tesla's death." (Not read in full.)
  3. Tesla's Edison Medal acceptance speech, 1917 (the page URL is dated 1917-05-08; [memory, medium] the medal was presented on 18 May 1917) [web: http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1917-05-08.htm]: - "The highest potential I reached was something like 20,000,000 volts ... For instance, I obtained in my antennae currents of from 1,000 to 1,100 amperes. That was in 1899 and you know that in the biggest wireless plants of today only 250 amperes are used." - "When there is no receiver there is no energy consumption anywhere. When the receiver is put on, it draws power. That is the exact opposite of the Hertz-wave system."

Bearing on the claims

  • Claim 2: the 1100 A figure is Tesla's own (correction recorded in sites.md). Tesla's stated principle, that power is drawn only when a receiver is present, is his own description of the Colorado system. The reviewers should weigh it against the book's "ether engine" reading and against Grotz's "stored energy" reading.
  • Claim 2, the Savo car: this summary is the earliest text found. Book vs summary:
  • Agreements: 1931, Buffalo, Pierce-Arrow, 12 tubes, 6 ft rod, 80 hp, 1800 rpm (= 30 rev/s), 90 mph with speedometer to 120, 50 miles, 8 days, the farmhouse about 20 miles from Buffalo, De Forest's call.
  • Differences: the book's "2 feet ... nearly 1 foot ... 1/2 foot" for the 24 x 10 x 6 inch box; the book omits General Electric, the Rockefeller-named diplomat, the 70-L-7 tube type and the Yugoslavia shipment.
  • The summary's "70-L-7" tube type is a dating clue (see tube-dating note).