The map · Worked there

Battelle Memorial Institute, Columbus

Documented A record made at the time says so.

The Columbus research giant, a few miles from the Grove City shop, and the one line of his biography a newspaper confirmed while he was alive: the Record called him a former Battelle electronics technician in October 1976, when it was reporting on the silo. His own later accounts build on it — the Southampton biography of 1993 adds that he "has advised NASA on several aspects of the space programme" — and the family says the cash machine came out of that work. He also brought the cell back: at Deer Creek in 1985 he said he took the apparatus "before the patent examiners in the United States, in Battelle and others". One thing does not fit. Channel 4 in 1995 said he left high school early to go straight into research at Battelle; Stephen says the twins went to Ohio State straight out of high school. Both cannot be right.

In March, the former Battelle Memorial Institute electronics technician announced construction of the device was underway, claiming it could have an enormous impact upon the national economy.

What happened here

1. The job

   date unknown

   Before the silo, and before anyone was writing about him. The archive has no dates for it, only that a local paper in 1976 described the work as already behind him.

2. Taking the cell back

   1985

   “We took this apparatus before the patent examiners in the United States, in Battelle and others, and within five minutes — now these men are trained never to bat an eye.”