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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/MillennialPolytropos on 2024-01-23 19:05:39+00:00.

Victor Penny was a radio enthusiast from Auckland, New Zealand. He was self-taught, but highly intelligent, and it’s clear that he had a good understanding of radio technology.

Things started to get weird in 1923, when Victor was messing around with some circuits and saw his box of matches burst into flame. He’d accidentally found a way to ignite the matches using electromagnetic radiation. Although it’s not clear what really happened, Victor apparently did believe he’d created some kind of destructive ray. It’s important to remember that in the ‘20s and ‘30s many people expected energy weapons to be developed in the very near future, so the idea would have seemed far more credible than it does now. Local media loved the story for obvious reasons.

On June 19th, 1935, Victor was seriously assaulted in his workshop. He blamed the attack on “foreign nationals”. He said they offered to buy his death ray plans, then started threatening him when he refused to sell. At the time of the attack Victor was reportedly being guarded by ex-military personnel because of these threats, but that night the guard had gone home sick. Despite significant police effort, the attacker was never caught and their motive remains unknown.

On July 1st, Victor was escorted from the hospital by police. No one knew where he was taken, he simply disappeared.

In March of 1936 a new government had been elected and the truth finally came out. The previous government had become convinced that Victor could build a death ray, hopefully something that could bring down aircraft. They secretly moved him to the Somes Island military base to work on this project, until the new government shut it down on the grounds that Victor’s work didn’t pass peer review. According to the Prime Minister, “a child could have seen there was nothing in it”.

Victor’s son, Evan, thought his father might actually have been working on radar with the death ray as a cover story. However, one of the soldiers who was stationed on Somes Island has said Victor built a machine that could burn holes in pieces of meat, but it wasn’t very impressive. It sounds like he was trying to build a death ray, so how exactly was this machine supposed to work?

Were foreign agents really after Victor’s plans? Clearly someone was out to get him, and the authorities took his claims seriously, but how much of the story should we believe?

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