Arthur C. Lingelbach
From Kook Science
Arthur Chester Lingelbach was an American "industrial enterprise promoter" who briefly attained notoriety over his Super Utilities, Inc. stock company,[1] through which he claimed he was developing a therapeutic medical device called the "Super-U-Wave,"[2] as well as a perpetual-motion refrigerator, a new form of television, and a high-speed airplane. Lingelbach's enterprise came to the attention of New York prosecutors during 1936 in part due to his method of soliciting investors: they were sent by medium Alma Nelson, who purported to channel Suda, "Son of Solitude of the Lost Isle of Atlantis," the voice claiming that Lingelbach was the reincarnation of the brother of the engineer who built the Pyramids. While at trial over an injunction to ban sales of company stock, Lingelbach boasted that he had worked alongside Thomas Edison, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Henry Ford, Lee de Forest, and Luther Burbank, making extraordinary claims regarding his accomplishments and scientific background; neither these claims, nor a signed petition by still convinced investors,[T] seem to have convinced the court as to the legitimacy of the offering, as the company was ultimately dissolved.
Selected Bibliography
- Lingelbach, Arthur C. (4 Aug. 1934), "Television Misdirected, New Tack Suggested; Scanning Systems Introduce Problems Impossible of Solution Consistent with Good Picture - New Method Needed, Imitating Nature, Says Scientist, Giving Hint on Course", Radio World: 3-5, https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-World/30s/34/Radio-World-1934-08-04.pdf
Press Coverage
- TU (18 Jun. 1936), "COURT RESTRAINS STOCK PROMOTION: 'Engineer' Who Claimed Kinship to Pyramid Builders Called to Task.", Times Union (Brooklyn, NY): 15, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/121622497/court-restrains-stock-promotion-engine/
- TIME (29 Jun. 1936), "Business: Super-Utilities, Inc.", TIME Magazine, https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770230,00.html, "Halted by the New York State Attorney General's office last week was sale of stock in Super-Utilities, Inc., a concern organized to promote the inventions of one Arthur C. Lingelbach. His inventions included an airplane capable of 1,000 m.p.h. and a therapeutic 'Super-U-Wave' machine with '63,000,000 revolutions a second.' Courtly, white-haired Inventor Lingelbach, whom the Attorney General found to have had a similar career in the securities business in other States, claimed past associations with Edison, Burbank, Henry Ford."
- TRADER (5 Jul. 1936), "SWINDLE VICTIMS GET BACK $92,912", Daily News (New York City, New York), https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/418682762/, "The amazing gullibility of the sucker looking for easy money was vividly demonstrated during the month, when they eagerly bought stock in Super Utilities, Inc., through a spiritualist and a self-styled engineer who posed as the reincarnation of the man who built the Pyramids. On top of that, the 'engineer' claimed to be the designer of the front line trenches for the A.E.F. and to have designed an airplane with a speed of 1,000 to 2,000 miles per hour. Instead of laughing at such preposterous claims the suckers took it all in and bought Super Utility stock avidly. Indeed, many of them were highly indignant when McCall and his staff broke up the seances and haled the spiritualist and her engineer into court. They signed a petition stating they had absolute faith in the stock sellers and believed the charges against them to be 'malicious and totally unfounded.'"
- Ramsay, Jack (12 Jul. 1939), "Mr. Ananias and the Fortune Teller - He Was the Most Amazing Engineer Who Ever Lived, to Hear Him Tell It. And He Was Doing Right Well Until He Made One Little Slip. Georgetown U. Didn't Have an Engineering School. Someone Should Have Told Him.", Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York): 13, 20, https://bklyn.newspapers.com/clip/121622653/mr-ananias-and-the-fortune-teller-he/
- Bennett, Jr., John J. (15 June 1941), "HOW NOT TO SPEND YOUR MONEY", Evening Star (Washington D.C.): 4 (93), https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1941-06-15/ed-1/seq-93/, "First, beware of the 'scientific' sharper. Science has made such wondrous progress that a crook who can mix a little science jargon in his sales talk rakes in money as fast as he can spend it. Arthur Lingelbach posed as an engineer. He was small, suave, dignified and gray, and he told tales of his Super Utilities Company and his perpetual-motion machine that charmed thousands of dollars out of the pockets of simple folks. The machine was to be enclosed in a refrigerator. You wound up his marvelous secret spring and this kept the box cold without the use of gas or electricity. There would be millions in it!"
References
- ↑ "Super-Utilities, Inc.", Robert D. Fisher Manual of Extinct or Obsolete Companies, p. 480, "It was reported on July 20th, 1936, that Supreme Court Justice McLaughlin termed the stock of this company as worthless. Deputy Attorney General O'Hanlon charged that the enterprise is a stock swindle from start to finish, according to reports."
- ↑ An advertisement in American Medicine for March 1936 (p. 171) described the "Super-U-Wave" as a high-frequency apparatus that would "lessen the necessity for surgery in such localized infections as furuncle, boils, carbuncles, middle-ear infections, salpingitis," etc.