Tesla may have been the first Earthling to ever hear a radio message from another planet somewhere.

Years ago, a friend at a senior center gave me an old dilapidated paperback that was no longer of much use to the center. She was ready to throw it in the trash. Some of the pages were missing at the front of the book, including publisher and other pertinent information. The friend knew I would like the book because it was about my favorite subject matter—strange, unsolved mysteries.

I have riffled through the book many times. Some of the mysteries are dated, not of much interest—famous hidden treasures that have never been found and such. I think the book was probably published in the late Sixties or early Seventies. One chapter has recently grabbed my attention: Radio Messages from Outer Space.

Hmm. I was convinced this old book was published before the WOW Signal had even happened in 1977. What kind of radio messages could they mean, anyway, when this paperback went to print?

It seems the chapter in the old book was about the remarkable Mr. Nikola Tesla. I had read several articles on Tesla in my lifetime but never had I run across a description of how in 1899, Tesla may have been the first Earthling to ever hear a radio message from another planet somewhere.

Tesla was only 44 at the time and it was before Marconi had even been successful at sending wireless signals across the Atlantic. Tesla, an eccentric scientific and inventive genius of Yugoslavian heritage, had been an employee of The Edison Company of Orange, New Jersey. He jumped ship to do his own research and was backed by J. P. Morgan, himself. Tesla was set up in Colorado Springs and one of his first projects was to build a 200-foot tall tower to listen to the heavens. This was in addition to his standard laboratory that contained coils, condensers, transformers, and dynamos.

In January of 1899, then, Tesla was alone in his laboratory listening to static gobbledygook. He sat upright when he heard a different kind of signal coming through. There was a definite pattern to the buzzing noises. They repeated three times. He was astonished.

Later he said, “There was a suggestion of number and order… I was familiar with electrical disturbances caused by the sun, the aurora borealis, earth currents, and I am as sure as I can be of any fact that these variations were not due to any of these causes. It was some time afterward that a thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances that I had observed might be of intelligent control… I may have been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.”

Because Tesla was so eccentric because he held some unconventional beliefs, no one believed what he was saying about the orderly signals could be possible. Although accomplished men could not give legitimate reasons for the signals, they preferred to say Tesla was “imagining things and living in a world of fantasy.”

It took years for anyone to even consider the possibility of Tesla’s statements. Well after the 1960s, a group of radio astronomers met at the observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia to discuss the topic of the possibility of the existence of other societies in the galaxy that it would be possible to communicate with, and also the best way to do that with radio waves and how to troubleshoot the problems involved. Without even mentioning Tesla by name, they were giving credit to his conclusions.

The WOW Signal of August 15, 1977, that was received by The Big Ear at Ohio State University had the advantage of being directional. We know generally its direction of origin. Even though it came from two radio telescopes and had to be interpolated, we know that it originated in the constellation, Sagittarius. As far as I know, Tesla was not able to record directions at that time–yet it may have been another WOW Signal. There may have been many before that in centuries past.

To solve another mystery, recent research has led me to the conclusion that the chapter in the old book told the truth. Nikola Tesla did at one point think he may have picked up intelligent communications on his contraption in Colorado. Though controversial, no one has ever proven that he did not, nor did Tesla retract his belief in this. As for the 1977 WOW Signal, there is a camp of scientists now claiming that signal was caused by two comets. There are an equal amount of scientists, saying no, not comets. The jury is still out.

Sara Marie Hogg is the author of the award-winning Curious Indeed, true stories about strange, unsolved mysteries. Please click HERE to find the book on Amazon.