5 LOST INVENTIONS THAT COULD

HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD

Starlite
 Invented in the 1980s by amateur chemist Maurice Ward,
Starlite was a material that could supposedly withstand a
nuclear blast
 The complex plastic reportedly contained “up to 21 organic
polymers and copolymers, and small quantities of ceramics
 In demonstrations, eggs protected with a Starlite coating
remained raw in the 2,200 F (1.200 C) flame of a blowtorch
and in the other tests, the material defined 18,000 F (10,000
C) laser blast, 3 times the sublimation point of diamond
 It was remarkable lightweight, released no toxic fumes, and
could be formulated as a liquid, paste, or molded solid
 Although Starlite drew the interest of governments and
multi-national corporations ward failed to commercialize
the invention Refusing to reliquish a controlling interest in
the mystery formula until it vanished with his death in 2011
4. Ogle Carburetor
 In the late 1970s, auto mechanic Tom Ogle unveiled a device
that allegedly increased auto fuel efficiency over 100 mpg (42
km/L)
 The black box did away with a traditional fuel pump and
carburattor in favor of a high pressure vaporized fuel
injection
 His upgrade required a reinforced gas tank and heating coils,
as pulling vapor from the liquid fuel rendered it ice cold
 Ogle demonstrated his prototype to reporters by driving 200
miles (322 km) from Deming to El Paso, Texas on 2 gallons (7.5
L) of gas
 Oil companies reportedly approached Ogle with million-
dollar offers to never build another machine, but Ogle refused
to sell
 Ogle had dreams to design and sell his own car, but he was
shot by an unidentified assailant in 1981 before suspiciously
dying of an accidental overdose later that same year
3. Chronovisor
 Pellegrino Erentti was a Roman Catholic Bendictine priest
known as the most famous exorcist on Venice, Italy
 In the 1950s, Erentti claimed to have invented a time viewer
called “Chronovisor” that allowed viewing events from the past
 Erentti held a degree in quantum physics and waws allegedly
assisted by scientists such as Enrico Fermi and Warnher von
Braun
 The chronovisor was described as a cabinet with a series of
mysterious controls that could decode past electromagnetic
radiation
 Using the machine, Erentti said he had observed and
photographed Christ’s crucifixion an assertion he recanted in
confession
 Yet, just prior to Erentti’s death, a fellow priest claimed he
learned the Vatican had ordered a functional chronovisor
destroyed and that Erentti’s confession was falsely concerned
forever hide the technology away from “ungodly” hands
2. Tesla Death Ray
 The Teleforce was a “charged particle beam” weapon
developed by Nikola Tesla in the 1930s based on the Van de
Graaf generator.
 Tesla claimed that his “death ray” could bring down a fleet
of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 200 miles (322 km)
 He reportedly carried out successful scaled tests of a
weapon, but its true mode of action remains unknown some
speculate it may have been a laser or a photo-railgun
 Negotiations for technology were conducted several world
powers, but Tesla refused to provide blueprints
 Wary of his superweapon’s “power to end all war” landing
in the wrong hands, Tesla kept the schematic “all in his
mind”
 The soviet Union was rumored to have tested a stage of the
device, but the full design disappeared with Tesla’s death in
1943
1.Sloot Digital Coding System
 In the late 1990s, Dutch inventor Romke Jan Bernhard Sloot
claimed to have developed a revolutionary form of data
“compression
 The Sloot Digital Coding System was said have been able to
compress an entire multi GB movie to the size of 8 kb.
 Sloot’s invention allegedly allowed him to play 16 movies
simultaneously from a 64 kb chip without reading from a
hard drive
 Upon demonstrating the idea to philips executives in 1999,
Sloot was told he was about to be “the richest man on Earth”
 However, two days before the source code was going to be
handed over, Sloot was found dead in his garden of a heart
attack
 His decoding algorithm was never recovered and it was
revealed that someone had also tampered with the
demonstration chip