It is not widely known or reported that Nikola Tesla believed he had communicated with extraterrestrial beings during his career, and as a result he had been influenced to invent a UFO device which was patented with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Tesla described his first alien encounter as being like the “revelation of a great truth”: “I can never forget the first sensations I experienced when it dawned upon me that I had observed something possibly of incalculable consequences to mankind. I felt as though I were present at the birth of a new knowledge or the revelation of a great truth. 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; but at that time the idea of these disturbances being intelligently controlled signals did not yet present itself to me. 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 known to me. I was familiar, of course, with such electrical disturbances as are produced by the sun, Aurora Borealis, and earth currents, [...]