When the hotel manager opened the vault, the half dozen people there braced for an explosion.

It was January, 1943, right in the middle of World War II.

Inside the vault stood a small cabinet covered in brown parcel paper.

It belonged to the recently deceased scientist Nicola Tesla.

One of the half dozen people there,

a physicist from MIT, had been summoned by the FBI and other government agencies to examine it.

But before he could, the hotel manager handed him a note.

It had been written by Tesla before his death. The note claimed

that the box contained a secret weapon, a death ray, worth $10,000.

More ominously, the note said the box would detonate if opened incorrectly.

At this point, all the hotel personnel scampered away feeling lucky to escape with their lives.

This left the MIT physicist to face Tesla's box and despite himself he was scared.

Tesla had been one of the most revered scientists in history,

an electrical whiz whose inventions had powered the world.

But Tesla had also grown increasingly strange later in life.

For years he'd been making announcements about a death ray,

claiming that it could shoot down airplanes from 250 miles away.

No one knew whether to believe him.

The MIT scientist was skeptical, but this was Tesla. What if the

death ray was real? It could win World War II for the Allies, or lead to their defeat if it fell into enemy hands.

Tesla's threat about the package exploding certainly did not make the scientist feel any calmer.

While deciding what to do, the scientist happened to glance up and look outside.

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