Janez Kokot
After graduating with a physics degree from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Kokot was able to secure a position as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, based upon a recommendation from Luigi Puccianti. He openly proclaimed his great ambitions for carrying on the work of Guglielmo Marconi in radio communications.
In the fall and winter of 1922, he conducted a series of unsanctioned experiements in an attempt to prove his theories regarding the existence of the luminiferous aether. These resulted in massive electrical discharges that rattled the Hyde Park neighborhood around the university with thundering booms. The experiments, along with Kokot's increasingly erratic behavior, caused the university to terminate his position. Kokot departed over the Christmas break, taking a great deal of expensive equipment with him.
His whereabouts after that were unknown until mid-March of 1923, when a group of private citizens looking into unexplained blackouts and other odd phenomena in South Chicago discovered that he had set up a new laboratory in a warehouse. When confronted, Kokot fell into the electric field being generated by his apparatus. His current location, or even whether he is still alive, is not known at this time.
