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Electrified Sheep - Glass-eating Scientists, Nuking the Moon, and More Bizarre Experiments By Alex Boese

the most prominent reappearance of birds in electrical research occurred during the early twentieth century, and it assumed an unusual, enigmatic form involving the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla.

Tesla was a giant of the modern electrical age. He almost single-handedly designed the technology that made possible the widespread use of the alternating current power that runs through wires in homes today. He then made fundamental contributions to the study of (among other things) high-frequency electromagnetic waves, robotics, neon lighting, the wireless transmission of power, and remote control. It's not an overstatement to say that, without his inventions, the modern world would look very different.

But as he aged he developed an obsessive interest in the care and feeding of pigeons.

He could frequently be seen around New York City, a thin man in an overcoat and hat, surrounded by huge flocks of birds that he fed from bags of seed. But Tesla didn't merely feed pigeons. He went much further. He believed he had a spiritual connection with the feathered inhabitants of the sky - a connection from which, so he suggested, his scientific creativity flowed.

Tesla spoke of one pigeon in particular - a brilliant white bird with grey tips on her wings - who, for lack of any better term, was his creative soul mate.

They spent many years together, but eventually the bird died, and as it did so, according to Tesla, a dazzling white light consumed it, 'a light more intense than I had ever produced by the most powerful lamps in my laboratory'.

The bird's death left Tesla feeling lost and aimless. He told a reporter:

'When that pigeon died, something went out of my life. Up to that time I knew with a certainty that I would complete my work, no matter how ambitious my program, but when that something went out of my life I knew my life's work was finished.'