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The papers reported, steam engines will be abolished from the industry. Trains and trolley cars will be operated by free energy. Planes will no longer need fuel. Ocean ships will be able to travel five times as fast. Aluminum, when produced cheaply and abundantly by free energy, will replace wood and steel currently used for the manufacturing of ships. All of this could be made possible with Harry E. Perrigo’s device. The invention, they said, gathers static electricity from the atmosphere and converts it into electrical energy without a dynamo, transformer, or generator. And if it sounds too good to be true, in February 1916, Mr. Perrigo was lighting his eight-room home without using the local electricity provider, Kansas City Electric Light Company.
The papers said, when curious visitors expressed desire to see Perrigo’s machine, he would run to his basement to get it, then bring back a “boxlike affair, mounted on a little platform. A small electric motor, light sockets, and switches were on the platform. The top of the box was glass. Through the glass, Harry explained each part and how it works. When he fastened the loose ends of two wires which extended from the box to the connection posts of the motor, then pushed a switch button, the motor started right up. The inventor claimed he had not opened the box for the past five years because there had been no need to: the device always worked without issue.
SW Fries, an electrical engineer and district sales manager for the Economy Fuse and Manufacturing Company, was a disbeliever in Perrigo’s technology, so he came to see it firsthand. He said, “When I heard about the machine through Dr. McDowell, I told him it couldn’t be done. I’ve been converted. I don’t know how it works, but it does. Its possibilities are too big to grasp. Its use will mean a new age in industry.”
Dr. OW Butler stated, “Mr. Perrigo gets enough electricity from somewhere to knock him unconscious. I’ve been called to his house many times in the last four years to revive him, and once I carried him out of his basement.“
When the papers asked Perrigo how he was funding his venture, he said through the banks. When they inquired as to if he was seeking financial aid, he said no. At this point in time, his plan was to patent the Perrigo device, then lease units for approximately $3 a month for a five-bedroom home. The unit would then provide the lessee with all the power they needed for both electricity and heat. ($3 in 1920 is approximately $48 today.)
A few months later, in March 1916, he was knocked unconscious again. It was at this time that the papers again reported Perrigo had proven the device is capable of furnishing enough power for an 8-bedroom house.
In October 1917, World War 1 was underway, and Perrigo and his partner, Mr. Rode, went to Washington, DC, to meet with Congress. Like the inventor of the Garabed, they wanted to gift their technology to the US government so the Allies could win the war. In return for giving the government their tech, they wanted an exclusive patent that would prevent patent theft and lawsuits. They planned to demonstrate two different machines for Congress. However, one of the inventions was damaged severely during shipment, so it could not be shown, but the second, the “Arabian Nights” machine, arrived in working condition.
The demo was a success, but Congress still wanted to see the second, larger invention, so Perrigo was scheduled to return to DC in December. According to the inventors, the damaged machine weighed 65 pounds and produced 195 horsepower. For reference, a 1985 Dodge Coronet with a 5.2-liter V-8 has about 260 horsepower.
Two months later, in December of 1917, Perrigo and his partner returned to DC and performed a demonstration of the larger machine in front of Congress. This demonstration was recorded in the Congressional Record of December 15, 1917.
During the demo, Perrigo mounted his free energy model on the Speaker’s rostrum (desk). To onlookers, his invention appeared to be an electrical motor connected to five lightbulbs. When the motor was turned on, the light bulbs lit up, making this demonstration another success.
After the demo, Perrigo held a reception in his hotel for the House members. When a house member called him a faker, he hurled his machine at the floor, but the motor continued to run, and the lights stayed on.
What happened to Perrigo between 1918 and 1921 is unknown, as I cannot locate any media, but in 1922, the papers began reporting on him again because he was brought back to Congress for another demonstration. This time, he had a new device, the Perrigo Electric Accumulator, which, when turned on, was able to run an electric fan. The presentation was again successful, but, to his dismay, instead of moving to grant his patent, Congress told Perrigo to go see the Bureau of Standards so that they could investigate this device. Perrigo did as told, and the Bureau looked over the invention, but when they wanted to deconstruct it, Harry Perrigo refused unless they first granted him a protection patent because he did not want his tech stolen. The Bureau stated that they must see how it works before they could decide if a patent should be issued. Reluctantly, the inventor allowed them to toy with his life’s work.
A little motor was brought into the room and placed on a table. The investigators told Perrigo to connect his device to it and make it run for ten hours. Perrigo connected the devices, and they ran, but only for one hour. It sounds like the small demonstration motor may have burned out. The investigators then stated the inventor would need to develop a larger machine that would consistently produce 125 horsepower. Perrigo accepted the offer, returned to Kansas City, invented the machine, and had it shipped via Express Mail to Washington, DC. But, to his complete and total shock, what the DC investigators claimed to have received in the mail was missing the key component: the “vital organ” of the contraption. The investigators stated it must have been lost in transit. Without this key piece, the generator couldn’t function, and the investigators refused to issue a patent.
Although Perrigo couldn’t get a patent through the government’s investigators or Congress, he was still hopeful the US Patent Office would approve his submission. On March 27, 1922, the inventor told the media, “The machine has been developed to a state as near perfect as I can make it… I am waiting for the patent office to take final action. My application has been approved, and the investigation has shown no conflicting patents on record. The rest is simply a matter of routine work in the patent office. As soon as the final patents are granted, I’ll be ready to manufacture the Perrigo.”
…The patent was ultimately denied…
Over three years later, on the 31st of December, 1925, the inventor filed another patent, Improvement in Method and Apparatus for Accumulating and Transforming Ether Electric Energy. This patent was also rejected by the US Patent Office, but this didn’t stop Harry Perrigo. He kept plugging away, and in August of 1927, he publicly demonstrated his device in an automobile.
The device was said to be a 14-inch square with a variety of connected copper coils that attracted the electrical current from the air. This invention powered the vehicle, which Perrigo drove up to 40 miles per hour, starting, stopping, backing up, and turning around, without issue. Colonel Paul Henderson, the vice president of National Air Transport, witnessed the demo and said it was the “greatest since the Stone Age.” Lou E. Holland, president of the Chamber of Commerce, saw the demonstration and was very enthusiastic over the invention. He believed it would have a great impact on public utilities if it could be brought to public use.
What Colonel Henderson, Mr. Holland, Mr. Rhode, and Perrigo himself didn’t know was that the invention would never be brought to public use because, no sooner than the automobile was demonstrated, the government acted to shut it down. The Better Business Bureau and Blue Sky Commission, in unison, launched an investigation into Perrigo’s device. The day after the demonstration, the BBB and Blue Sky Commission went back and, quote, “tampered with the motor car against Perrigo’s will.” The ethereal fuse blew out. As they continued to tamper with the vehicle, they found several high-voltage batteries. Perrigo attempted to explain that the batteries store the electricity, but nobody would listen. The BBB, which is not a governmental body, then proceeded to look for ways to assist the Blue Sky Commission (a branch of regulators that deal in the stock market) in jailing the inventor. Perrigo exclaimed that this is the fate of all inventors.
The papers rushed to report that Perrigo was nothing more than a scammer. They all pointed to the batteries, claiming the vehicle was being run by them, not electricity gathered from the air, which was then stored on the batteries.
The Blue Sky Commission then dug into Perrigo’s finances and discovered he had a few investors who, over the course of 17 years, contributed a grand total of $40,000 to $50,000. ($50,000, over 17 years, is roughly $2,940 per year, which is equal to under $50,000 a year in today’s currency value.) Although trying to pin Perrigo as a financial fraudster, the investigators were forced to admit he had not accepted a penny from anyone over the past two years.
Interestingly, one of the investigators from the Blue Sky Commission, Mr. Stockard, stated to the media that his investigation was not into the engineering claims of Perrigo’s invention, but to stop any method of financing that had not been approved by his department. You see, for whatever reason, they chose not to expose Mr. Harry Perrigo’s technology, despite claiming to the media that it was a hoax. They instead decided that, because he accepted money from investors who wanted to see the technology developed, and because Harry said once the tech works and begins being sold, he would give them a share of the company, this was to be considered selling stock, and it is illegal to sell stock without going through the Stock Exchange / Securities Commission. The Blue Sky Commission said Perrigo never applied to the Commission for permission to sell contracts or stock in his invention. So, if I were to invent a device that removes toxins from food, and you believe in my mission and give me a $200 loan, with my promise to repay you once the device is patented and becomes sellable, if the SEC wants it shut down, they can claim I was selling contracts or stock without their oversight. And for it to be shut down, nobody within the government needs to demonstrate that my device doesn’t remove toxins from food; they merely need to claim I was soliciting contracts.
No further mention would be made of the inventor being repeatedly knocked unconscious by something, and nobody would inquire as to how his house received full power when he was not connected to the Kansas City Power Company. There would be no inquiry made into all of the successful tests in front of Congress. The investigators would instead attack payments from investors.
Despite all of this media, not everyone was convinced the device was a hoax. Mr. Holland, president of the Chamber of Commerce, and CE Buehner, assistant manager of the BBB, wanted to see another test, and they weren’t the only ones. The investors themselves were livid that the government was interfering with this incredible development in technology. They stated in the paper that fearful capitalists are weaponizing the government to shut down any technology that may interfere with their monopoly on utilities. Despite the support for the inventor, the government wanted what they were now calling a “hoax invention” to disappear forever.
A full year later, the Blue Sky Commission was still trying to find ways to prosecute the inventor using the Missouri Blue Sky Act, but they had been unsuccessful. The Commissioner told the papers he was disappointed. Meanwhile, the media made Perrigo a joke in the news, even drawing comics to ridicule the batteries found in the vehicle. The news reported that despite everything that had been done to him, “even with the world against him”, Perrigo was still working on perfecting his inventions.
You would think this would be the last the world heard of Mr. Harry, but it was not. In 1929, after dealing with two years of media harassment and the government trying to jail him, he announced in the Kansas City Journal that he had officially perfected the motor and it could run indefinitely.
But the bad press hurt the inventor. I located an advertisement he placed in the paper in 1930 seeking work as an electrical engineer who specialized in motors.
This does not seem to jive with a man who became rich off a financial swindle, as the government claimed.
The following year, Patent Appeal No. 2723 came before the appeals board. This was Mr. Perrigo’s last shot at finally having one of his inventions given the green light, but the appeals board stated the device was just too complicated and it did not conform to “any scientific or engineering principles of which we have been able to obtain any knowledge.” They went on to say it did not adhere to known scientific laws and principles. “The question of patentable invention ordinarily must be determined by applied science, as understood by those skilled in the art to which the invention relates… Should we reverse the experts and grant the patent sought, it would be a leap in the dark.” The board then stated that, although there were three sworn affidavits from witnesses of the device in operation, the affidavits were too brief, too general, and the eyewitnesses did not explain, in detail, exactly how the device works. One of the witnesses, “a member in good standing in the American Society of Electrical Engineers,” didn’t provide enough information in his statement. The board then officially ruled the patent as denied. The case was forever closed. Although this patent would never come to fruition, Harry continued to invent. It was at this time that H. E. Perrigo was dropped from the media. He was replaced by a man also named H. E. Perrigo. The replacement Perrigo was a reverend with no association with the inventor. Despite being a preacher in Indiana, this new H. E. Perrigo began getting lots of media attention nationwide.
Although now financially impoverished and his reputation forever tarnished, the original Harry Perrigo kept pushing, but the US government refused to allow it. Without his knowing, the government convened to issue a secret indictment. His crime? Accepting money through the mail from investors. The government insisted there was no such thing as “Ether Power”, so, by continuing to build his inventions and accepting financial help to do so, they claimed he was peddling “false and fraudulent promises” in exchange for money. On Sunday, January 7th of 1940, Mr. Perrigo was arrested by the Kansas City postal inspectors. The papers reported that, upon his arrest, they forced the inventor to perform an “electrical test”. Interestingly, the papers made no mention of what specifically the test was, how the test worked, or what happened during it.
The media would never again mention the inventor. As of December 2025, Perrigo does not have a Wikipedia page, but is quickly mentioned on “History of perpetual motion machines”. This page only says:
“In the 1910s and 1920s, Harry Perrigo of Kansas City, Missouri, a graduate of MIT, claimed development of a free energy device. Perrigo claimed the energy source was “from thin air” or from aether waves. He demonstrated the device before the Congress of the United States on December 15, 1917. Perrigo had a pending application for the “Improvement in Method and Apparatus for Accumulating and Transforming Ether Electric Energy”. Investigators report that his device contained a hidden motor battery.”
Aside from that, across the internet, whenever Perrigo is mentioned, he is referred to as a hoaxster. But was he? Did this MIT engineer really spend over 20 years of his life duping people with battery-powered inventions? If this were the case, how did the investigators at the US government’s Bureau of Standards not discover the batteries when his invention was brought to them for thorough review? Wouldn’t batteries be the first thing they looked for? Did Mr. Perrigo really invest his own money into traveling to Washington, DC, multiple times, to appear in front of Congress with battery-powered electronics? Was $2,000 a year in fundraising (equal to $50,000 a year in today’s currency value) more than or less than what Perrigo would have made as a graduate of MIT? If he were indeed a scammer, why did he go at least two years without accepting any money from anyone? If there was no real invention, why did he keep paying to file patents, then appeal the rejections? Would a scammer file patents? If he had indeed developed all of these different types of battery-powered generators, which he repeatedly proved to work, why wouldn’t he just patent them as portable battery-powered generators? Were the batteries in the automobile really to power the vehicle? Could a handful of small batteries be powerful enough to make a vehicle reach 40 mph, stop, start, back up, turn around, etc? Or were these batteries indeed storing the energy pulled from the air? Or did he put the batteries in out of fear that the presentation may be a failure?
When the BBB and Blue Sky Commission came back to “tamper” with the vehicle, they blew the “Ethereal Fuse”. What specifically does this mean? If the vehicle was running off a couple of batteries, what does the Ethereal Fuse do? How did it blow? And the biggest question of all:
If the technology was all a scam, why did the government refuse to expose the tech and instead chose to cut off his funding, then imprison him? And why do all of the inventors continually suffer the same fate?
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Same old story. The government is a noose around our necks. The better thing for H. E. Perrigo and other inventors to do is to simply display it to the public, patents be gone.
As I was reading this article, every time it stated that H.E. Perrigo went to a government office, I cringed, and thought - NO, don't show them your invention!!!!
Back in Perrigo's day, people trusted the American government.