Nikola Tesla predicted drone warfare already in 1898

Nikola Tesla was a child of his own time and of the future at the same time. In addition to his inventions, he also predicted smart phones, television and apparently drones as well, which he thought would bring destruction to humanity.

One of Tesla's inventions was patented on 8 November 1898, which was described as a vessel without wires or electrical cables that could be moved by "producing waves, impulses, or radiations which are received through the earth, water, or atmosphere" as long as it remained within effective range.

Radio waves began to be used in communication in the 1890s. They were still quite new when Tesla was granted patent and described them as "electrical oscillations which do not follow any particular conducting-path, but propagate in straight lines through space."

In his patent "Method and apparatus for controlling mechanism of moving vessels or vehicles" Tesla predicted drone warfare, which would create peace among nations owing to its "certain and unlimited destructiveness."

Matthew Schroyer, President of the Professional Society of Drone Journalist, took notice of the patent, and posted excerpts on Twitter. It is amazing that Tesla had predicted drone warfare a century before unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were created. And the USA uses a lot of them in the war on terrorism…

The atomic bomb was perhaps the weapon of mass destruction and technology that brought nations closest to peace, for both the USA and the Soviet Union feared using it to such an extent that they dared not to attack one another.

The first drone or more specifically the first remote-controlled UAV was invented in World War One. The Kettering Bug was to have carrie bombs, but it was not completed before the end of the war, and it was far too expensive and complicated.

Source: digit.mandiner.hu/cikk/20160824_nikola_tesla_1988_ban_elorejelezte_a_dronos_hadviselest