Thomas Edison planned on talking to the dead

One of Thomas Edison's little-known ambitions was to build a device to hear the voices of the dead, according to a nearly lost chapter of the inventor's memoirs which is being republished in France this week.

The American, who developed the phonograph and is often cited, inaccurately, as being the first to come up with the light bulb, wanted to create a sort of "spirit phone" that recorded the utterances of departed souls.

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Edison (1847-1931) detailed his efforts and they were published posthumously in 1948 as the final chapter of his "Diary and Sundry Observations."

Strangely, though, his account of dabbling in what would today be considered the occult was expunged in subsequent English-language editions of the book.

Some in America thought the idea was maybe a hoax or a joke by Edison, as no design for a "spirit phone" has ever been uncovered.

But in France, the 1949 French translation of inventor's original "Diary" was preserved intact -- with the missing final chapter.

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