The Thing and the Curious Life of Leon Theremin

Léon Theremin was born Lev Sergeyevich Termen in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1896 into a family of French ancestry. Right away his parents noticed his exceptional intelligence and learning abilities. He started to develop an interest in electricity at the age of 7, and by 13 he was experimenting with high frequency circuits.

In the seventh class of his high school, before an audience of students and parents, he demonstrated various optical effects using electricity.

Joining the military in 1916, Theremin finished the Military Engineering School in six months, progressed through the Graduate Electronic School for Officers, and attained a military radio-engineer diploma in the same year.

He then went on to become the director of Military Engineering School in Petrograd. While working with some electronic equipment to generate audio tones at Petrograd, Theremin noticed the pitch changed when his hand moved around. He began to develop this circuit to allow more tones to be played.

In October 1920 he first demonstrated this device for other professors and students to hear. In November, Theremin gave his first public concert with the instrument,  now modified with a horizontal volume antenna replacing the earlier foot-operated volume control. He named it the “etherphone” , but later it was known as the “Theremin” in the United States.

Later,  it was discovered by Hollywood as the choice instrument to use for some of the science fiction movies of the 1950’s.

If a giant bug or outer space creature was attacking, this was the soundtrack. You would recognize the sound immediately as it is that strange whoooo…ooo…whoo sound.

It was also used by some musicians  a few years later.  You may have heard it in the Beach Boys song hit “Good Vibrations”.

Certainly an interesting life, but there is a little known side to Mr. Theremin that most people don’t know.

On August 4, 1945, Soviet boy scouts presented a two foot wooden replica of the Great Seal of the United States to Ambassador Averell Harriman. The Ambassador hung the seal in his office in Spaso House (Ambassador’s residence). The next year the United States started getting reports that the Moscow Embassy had been compromised and intelligence was being leaked from that source.

So the United States inspected the embassy from top to bottom with specialists that scanned for every possible thing. The report stated that the building was fine. But still they kept getting reports of information being leaked. Where could it be coming from?

They ordered another complete inspection of the building. By chance, a technician viewing the wooden Seal noticed a seam in the back, almost invisible to the eye. Further investigation revealed this odd shaped piece of metal in a hollow cavity.

But that was it. It had no power source, it didn’t even have any wires. Just this strange piece of metal.

So they took it back to Washington for viewing by some top intelligence analysis. Still nobody could figure out the damn thing. How did it work? Peter Wright, a British scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, eventually figured out just how the bizarre thing worked.

What he reported absolutely stunned everyone!

This piece of metal that was in the Seal was indeed a eavesdropping bug.  A bug that was designed by Leon Theremin, who was working for KGB in the technical services division. A radio beam would be aimed at the seal by Soviet agents from a distance and the metal would return back the radio waves but slightly modulated by the sounds in the room. Whenever the building was being inspected for bugs, the Soviets would simply not aim the radio waves and the device would be completely silent, just a piece of metal. Impossible! Especially for 1950’s technology.

The American Intelligence agencies were so amazed at this device they even created a name for it…”The Thing”.

The picture below is our UN Ambassador revealing the “Thing” to the United Nations.

What happened to Leon Theremin after that? He received the National Order of Stalin medal for his work.

What happened to the “Thing” and it’s technology? The “Thing” is in a Museum of Spy History at the CIA headquarters in Langley and the technology of the “Thing” is still in use today. In fact quite common.

You may recognize it as one of those pesky little strips of metal in all the store packaging, in the pocket of those new pair of pants, a DVD movie that you just bought, and the thing that rings the alarm as you walk out the door at the Big Box store because the cashier didn’t rub them on the disable mat at the register.

Perhaps you have heard of  their official name, RFID tags?  Whoooo..oooooo…hoooo

Follow MadMike’sAmerica on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to visit our HOME PAGE.

Happy

0 0 %

Sad

0 0 %

Excited

0 0 %

Sleepy

0 0 %

Angry

0 0 %

Surprise

0 0 %