17. Simple Fraud Made John Keely a Multi-Millionaire
John Keely tossed around fancy words that sounded impressive to non-scientists but were actually pseudoscientific gibberish. It was effective pseudoscientific gibberish, however. Within a short time, Keely convinced investors to give him the equivalent of $25 million in 2021 dollars as startup capital, which he used to found the Keely Motor Company. In subsequent years, investors forked over the equivalent of 120 million dollars in today’s money for a stake in Keely’s enterprise. Over two decades, he closely guarded the secret of his invention, refusing to share its details with anybody.
Keely kept promising that the perfection of a commercial version of his machine was right around the corner. During that time, gullible investors kept giving him more and more money. That happened despite the consensus of physicists that Keely was a quack and charlatan, and that perpetual motion such as he promised was impossible. Finally, when Keely died in 1898, the secret of his engine was revealed: the whole thing boiled down to his willingness to engage in the crime of fraud. The device had not been powered by water, but by a compressed air machine hidden two floors below, and connected to Keely’s engine by cleverly concealed pipes and hoses.
