Famed inventor of the light-bulb, phonograph, and other devices, Thomas Edison is said to have invented a machine that allows the dead to communicate with the living. He is quoted in the 1920 issue of The American Magazine as saying: “I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this Earth to communicate with us.”
He is quoted by Scientific American in the same year as saying: “I have been thinking for some time of a machine or apparatus which could be operated by personalities which have passed on to another existence or sphere.”
Though no prototypes or schematics were ever found, some say Edison imparted his design to a group of researchers after his death. Over the course of five years in the 1990s, the so-called Scole Experiment purportedly produced many outstanding results in terms of physical mediumship and afterlife communication—including a message from the long-dead Edison outlining the design of his machine.
Dr. David Fontana, former Society for Psychical Research (SPR) president and professor of psychology at Cardiff University, was present during the sessions in Scole, a small village in Norfolk, UK. He said that he was among many investigators who witnessed the paranormal manifestations; engineers, mathematicians, an astrophysicist from NASA, and other experts also attended, he said. They heard voices, felt invisible hands touching them, saw lights, and more.
