He is recognized as a great inventor and one of the founders of modern electrical engineering, but it is unlikely that these merits alone could generate enormous interest in both his work and his personality. He earned millions, but died in poverty, patented more than 800 inventions, but he was considered a “largest charlatan” and a “brilliant madman,” he was at the origins of the invention of radio and the discovery of X-rays, but even today he is suspected of having connections with the other world, called “ messenger of other civilizations" and attribute to him unprecedented abilities - from the ability to read minds to vampirism. “The mystery of the Tunguska meteorite”, all-crushing “death rays”, climate weapons... Is there at least some truth in these legends? And who really was a man named Nikola Tesla, who lived such a bright and eccentric life that it could easily become the plot of more than one exciting detective novel? The book, based on documentary materials and testimonies of contemporaries, scrupulously restores the real biography of the most mysterious scientist in world history, presents facts of his life unknown until recently and analyzes his real and mythical discoveries.