A radiant sea of energy

A Mormon and electrical engineer based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Dr Thomas Henry Moray was fascinated with the idea of drawing energy from the environment.

In 1911, while on missionary work in Sweden aged 19, Moray found a source of a soft, silvery white crystal whose identity he never fully revealed but would change his life forever. Placed inside a crystal radio set, the substance produced a signal so strong that it destroyed headphones and made large speakers roar.

In 1925 Moray exhibited to curious engineers an energy receiver composed of a cylindrical metal tube, a grounding rod and an aerial. This device could allegedly power 35 bulbs, a hand iron and a heater - simultaneously - and to show that it was generating its own energy, it was tested up a mountain, in a desert and inside a sealed container at the bottom of a lake. Although he allowed other scientists to examine his invention, Moray kept its key element, the mysterious Swedish stone, secret.

Moray came to believe that the enigmatic crystal was drawing energy from cosmic rays emitted by our sun and the surrounding stars, which he called the "radiant sea of energy". He modified his invention and renamed it the Cosray Receiver, which, by 1929, was said to be generating enough power to run a small factory.

This creation - during the Great Depression a possible source of cheap, perhaps even free, energy - drew attention from government electrical authorities who, Moray feared, wanted either to take his invention away from him or destroy it outright. The original device was indeed destroyed in 1941, an event that forms part of a complex web of intrigue involving an assassination attempt and suspected infiltration of Moray's laboratory by the Soviets, who funded him in the 1930s.

Moray continued to work in the radio business, often on military projects, while his own projects resulted only in frustrating rejections from the patent office. Bowing to pressure, he eventually revealed most of the components of his Swedish stone, which may have been a rare form of spodumene (lithium aluminium silicate).

Today Moray's work is continued, and closely guarded, by his son John.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJ2UqrCiwMiopWhqYGWAcLbUp2Zrbl%2BnsrSxwKuaoWaYnrSpsdGem66bkam2sLo%3D