In 1923-24 an inventor named Harry Grindell Matthews repeatedly claimed to have built a device that projected energy over long ranges and attempted to sell it to the War Office, but it was deemed to be fraudulent.
His attempts spurred on many other inventors to contact the British military with claims of having perfected some form of the fabled electric or radio "death ray".
Some turned out to be frauds and none turned out to be feasible.

Around the same time, a series of stories suggested another radio weapon was being developed in Germany.
The stories varied, with one common thread being a death ray, and another that used the signals to interfere with an engine's ignition system to cause the engine to stall.
One commonly repeated story involved an English couple who were driving in the Black Forest on holiday and had their car fail in the countryside.
They claimed they were approached by soldiers who told them to wait while they conducted a test, and were then able to start their engine without trouble when the test was complete.
This was followed shortly thereafter by a story in a German newspaper with an image of a large radio antenna that had been installed on Feldberg in the same area.

Although highly skeptical about claims of engine-stopping rays and death rays, the Air Ministry could not ignore them as they were theoretically possible.
If such systems could be built, it might render bombers useless.
If this were to happen, the night bomber deterrent might evaporate overnight, leaving the UK open to attack by Germany's ever-growing air fleet.
Conversely, if the UK had such a device, the population could be protected.

In 1934, along with a movement to set up some type of scientific committee to look into these new types of weapon, the RAF offered a £1,000 prize to anyone who could demonstrate a working model of a death ray that could kill a sheep at 100 yards; it went unclaimed.
In 1923-24 an inventor named Harry Grindell Matthews repeatedly claimed to have built a device that projected energy over long ranges and attempted to sell it to the War Office, but it was deemed to be fraudulent. His attempts spurred on many other inventors to contact the British military with claims of having perfected some form of the fabled electric or radio "death ray". Some turned out to be frauds and none turned out to be feasible.
Around the same time, a series of stories suggested another radio weapon was being developed in Germany. The stories varied, with one common thread being a death ray, and another that used the signals to interfere with an engine's ignition system to cause the engine to stall. One commonly repeated story involved an English couple who were driving in the Black Forest on holiday and had their car fail in the countryside. They claimed they were approached by soldiers who told them to wait while they conducted a test, and were then able to start their engine without trouble when the test was complete. This was followed shortly thereafter by a story in a German newspaper with an image of a large radio antenna that had been installed on Feldberg in the same area.
Although highly skeptical about claims of engine-stopping rays and death rays, the Air Ministry could not ignore them as they were theoretically possible. If such systems could be built, it might render bombers useless. If this were to happen, the night bomber deterrent might evaporate overnight, leaving the UK open to attack by Germany's ever-growing air fleet. Conversely, if the UK had such a device, the population could be protected.
In 1934, along with a movement to set up some type of scientific committee to look into these new types of weapon, the RAF offered a £1,000 prize to anyone who could demonstrate a working model of a death ray that could kill a sheep at 100 yards; it went unclaimed.
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