Nikola Tesla believed he received 'faint signals' from intelligent aliens and it 'terrified' him

Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American physicist known for his contributions to the production, transmission and application of electric power, was way ahead of his time. His discoveries were not only limited to Earth but also to space as in 1899, he claimed that he received a "message from another planet" and immediately sent the scientific community into a tizzy. As per the "Nikola Tesla and The Planetary Radio Signals" study, written by Kenneth L. Corum and James F. Corum in 2003, Tesla shared he believed he received a signal from intelligent aliens, which left him "terrified." He said in a report in 1899, "We are getting messages from the clouds a hundred miles away, possibly many times that distance. Do not leak it to the reporters."

It all started when Tesla picked up a strange signal on his receiving apparatus one night on a hillside in Colorado. He believed that he had connected with an otherworldly being. He wrote, "Even now, at times, I can vividly recall the incident, and see my apparatus as though it were actually before me," as per the study.

"My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night," Tesla shared. He heard beeps of a specific sort that went like "Beep... Beep-Beep... Beep-Beep-Beep." The scientist expressed that he knew of other possible causes of electrical disturbances, but the signal he received that day was nothing like he had known before. There could be a chance of electrical disturbances from the Sun, but the scientist was sure they were not that. "The changes I noted were taking place periodically, and with such a clear suggestion of number and order that they were not traceable to any cause then known to me," he wrote.

In 1900, Tesla shared that he believed he received a message from a nearby planet like Mars or Venus. He wrote, "My measurements and calculations have shown that it is perfectly practicable to produce on our globe, by the use of these principles, an electrical movement of such magnitude that, without the slightest doubt, its effect will be perceptible on some of our nearer planets, as Venus and Mars. Thus, from mere possibility, interplanetary communication has entered the stage of probability." In an interview with a newspaper in 1901, the scientist said, "Movements on instrument repeated many times. Concludes it to be a message from another planet." Tesla was so excited and had such a strong intuition that he wrote in his report, "The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greetings of one planet to another."

By 1907, Tesla strongly believed that the signals were of planetary origin. After mature thought and study, he concluded that they had emanated from Mars and maintained his stance in the following years. The scientist believed that it was a numerical code that Martians were using to communicate, but he was mocked by several people in the scientific community as they believed that the signals were from Earth because such signals couldn't enter our planet's ionosphere, as per IFL Science.

However, when a team of researchers reopened Tesla's study a decade later, they concluded that the signals could be from another planet. "The bottom line is that when you listen to the kilometric signals from Jupiter with one of Tesla's Colorado Springs receivers you occasionally hear 'Beep... Beep-Beep... Beep-Beep-Beep'! Furthermore, extraterrestrial right circularly polarized kilometric signals penetrate the Earth's ionosphere during the time of sunspot minima. Tesla was at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, with the right equipment to be able to detect these unusual electrical signals of planetary origin. It was the scientific community that was unprepared," they said, as per the study.