In 1898, Nikola Tesla tricked an entire crowd into believing they could control a boat by shouting commands – in fact, he invented Radio Control and piloted the boat himself.

The crowd that was present at the exhibition couldn’t find a rational explanation for how the boat was moving. They thought of it as magic or telepathy, and even they felt that it was piloted by a trained monkey that was hidden inside.’

When Tesla saw the reaction of the crowd, he decided to trick them into believing that they could control the boat by shouting commands and also encouraged the crowd to ask questions of the boat. In response to the question “What is the cube root of 64?” lights on the boat flashed four times. While the crowd thought that Tesla was controlling the boat with his mind, he was sending signals to the machine using a small box with control levers on the side. 

That “crowd” was the best and brightest minds of the state department and military who didn’t see a use for unmanned vehicles.