Historical Case Studies of U.S. Government Disinformation: Nikola Tesla
The Disinformation Series
One of modern history’s earliest and most significant examples of scientific suppression centers on Nikola Tesla, whose innovative work fundamentally shaped the development of electricity, wireless communication, and high-frequency technologies. In the final decades of his life, Tesla focused increasingly on wireless energy transmission, electromagnetic resonance, and experimental propulsion concepts, areas that, had they been further developed, could have challenged conventional approaches to energy distribution and transportation. Upon Tesla’s death in 1943, the U.S. government seized his papers and personal effects under the authority of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, despite Tesla’s status as a naturalized American citizen.65 Dr. John G. Trump, an MIT physicist and government consultant, was tasked with reviewing Tesla’s confiscated materials and subsequently concluded that they contained no substantive scientific value for practical application. However, discrepancies in the archival record, including the disappearance of key documents and inconsistencies regarding the full contents of Tesla’s seized papers, have fueled long-standing concerns that some of his more speculative or advanced research may have been classified and incorporated into government programs outside public view. These unresolved questions underscore broader historical patterns in which potentially transformative scientific inquiries have been subject to secrecy and institutional control.66
The handling of Tesla’s legacy exhibits recognizable patterns of scientific suppression: immediate seizure of disruptive research, official minimization of its significance, and long-term classification. Tesla’s work on wireless energy transmission, scalar waves, and resonant frequency systems parallels concepts central to modern discussions of advanced propulsion, including field manipulation and energy generation without conventional fuel sources. The absence of a transparent evaluation of Tesla’s innovations raises questions about whether aspects of his research were integrated into classified military projects during the critical early Cold War scientific expansion.
Recent allegations add weight to these concerns. In 2025, shortly before his death, Ambassador Harald Malmgren, a senior advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford, publicly stated that he learned from foreign intelligence sources that Nikola Tesla and Thomas Townsend Brown collaborated on anti-gravitic propulsion.67 Brown, known for his early work on electrogravitics and field propulsion, had similarly seen his research absorbed into classified aerospace programs. While such claims require further scrutiny, they align with long-standing patterns of knowledge sequestration and reinforce the plausibility that Tesla’s contributions were far more consequential than publicly acknowledged.69
The treatment of Tesla’s work mirrors the broader phenomenon of knowledge suppression explored throughout this paper. As was the case with UAP-related discoveries and consciousness research programs like Project Star Gate, Tesla’s innovations were marginalized publicly while quietly influencing classified efforts. Public ridicule, framing Tesla as an eccentric rather than a revolutionary, served the dual purpose of deterring serious academic inquiry and insulating government programs from external scrutiny.
Ultimately, Tesla’s case exemplifies institutionalized control over paradigm-shifting public knowledge. His research, particularly in energy generation and distribution, and unconventional propulsion mechanisms, overlaps conceptually with technologies attributed to UAP phenomena: high-energy fields, non-conventional propulsion, and rapid acceleration without aerodynamic control surfaces.
65 “Curiously, the FBI released his estate to the Office of Alien Property, which promptly sealed the contents. Since Tesla was an American citizen, the OAP’s concern in the matter was hard to justify.” Cheney, Margaret. Tesla: Man Out of Time, New York. Simon & Schuster, 1981.
66 “Since he was part of no group or institution, he had no colleagues with whom to discuss work in progress, no formal accessible repository for his research notes and papers…Thus any inventions which he did not patent or give freely to the world were more or less shrouded in mystery. And, because of the handling of the papers he left behind after his death, the range of his achievement continues to remain a partial mystery.” Cheney, Margaret. Tesla: Man Out of Time, New York. Simon & Schuster, 1981.
67 Fmr. Ambassador Harald Malmgren, Interview. “Presidential Advisor: ‘I Director Handled UFO Material.’” Jesse Michels’s American Alchemy, April 22, 2025.
68 Cook, Nick. “The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology.” Broadway Books. 2001.
69 “The origins of electrogravitics can be traced back to the turn of the twentieth century, to Nikola Tesla’s work with high-voltage shock discharges, and somewhat later to T. Townsend brown’s relatively unpublicized discovery of electrostatic and gravitational fields are closely intertwined. Unfortunately, the electrogravitic effect has for the most part been ignored by mainstream academics, because the phenomenon isn’t anticipated by either classical electrostatics or general relativity, effectively preventing it from being taught in university courses such as physics or electrical engineering.” LaViolette, PhD., Paul A. “Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion: Tesla, UFOs, and Classified Aerospace Technology.” Bear & Company, 2008.