The Untold Truth About Lester J. Hendershot

The particular account Hendershot gave was much the same as the newspaper quote, with the minor special case that he was hit by an electrical jolt of 220 volts, not the jarring 2,000 volts the over-avid news hound had composed. He was showing the engine in the patent office, and the stun incapacitated his vocal chords, bringing about several weeks of recovery before he totally recouped.

Something happened throughout this period that could clarify the activities of Dr. Hochstetter and his partners. Hendershot told his children that while he was in the hospital, he was approached by a large company to stop his action in association with the generator. Until the day he ceased to exist, he would not uncover the name of the organization, only that if he were successful with his generator, it might be a genuine risk to their multimillion dollar industry. He named the whole sum he accepted as $25,000, and the condition was that he was not to construct another unit for twenty years. That is the point at which he dropped out of sight.

The bizarre occasions connected with the generator, and the possibility that the "large company" initially tried to stop the activities through Dr. Hochstetter. When this failed, "they" approached him directly and bought him off. Hendershot and his family lived in constant fear, as they were being contacted every so often by psychos who had dove into the records and ran across his creation, and had gone to the trouble of seeking him out. Some of them, he suspected, were agents of subversive assemblies and/or foreign forces.

Unidentified letters, in addition to incidental telephone calls when the callers would not distinguish themselves, and a threat from an admitted Communist which was turned over to the FBI, caused Hendershot concern much of the time. In the event that an extensive organization might assume control over the generator and its research, all he needed out of it was sufficient cash to deal with himself and his family in the coming years.

On September 1956, Hendershot received word that authorities of the Mexican government wanted to meet with him and examine the probability of utilizing his generator for the provincial improvement program in Mexico. Government authorities traveled to Los Angeles and drove out to his house. Arrangements were made for his family to head off to Mexico City, and work with Mexican professionals on the generator.

Hendershot and his family traveled to Mexico City and were housed in an apartment close to the home of the Director of Electricity. He supervised the Mexicans in building a model. He had been working with them for some weeks coming to be more strained as time passed. According to Hendershot's son, he admitted to his wife that he was frightened since he comprehended no Spanish, and his fellow workers talked continually in minimal gatherings by themselves, frequently glancing over at him. He couldn't comprehend a statement they were saying, and it stressed him considerably.

One morning in February of 1957, Hendershot's fear had worked itself into a nervous frenzy and he had rushed to the airport and flown to California.

The last attempt to push the generator/motor came in the latter part of 1960 when a Dr. Lloyd E. Cannon persuaded Hendershot that he had the facilities to present the project to the United States Navy for examination and improvement. The project ended on April 19, 1961, when Lester J. Hendershot was discovered dead in his home by his son. It was recorded as a suicide without any further investigation.