Urban legends -- The Philadelphia Experiment

RaTtY81 SG

The Philadelphia Experiment is a supposed secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Yards at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on or before October 28, 1943, which went horribly awry. It is also called "Project Rainbow".Though most mainstream experts and academics argue that the entire affair is an urban legend, a number of people argue that the Philadelphia Experiment could be genuine. Whether true or not, the Philadelphia Experiment has had a major ripple effect on conspiracy theory, and elements of the Philadelphia Experiment feature in many other conspiracy tales.

Note: This account has been widely criticized, and nearly every assertion regarding the Philadelphia Experiment has been challenged as unfounded, highly speculative or as a hoax. There are different versions of the story, and the account below describes the most common features.

The experiment was allegedly conducted by one Dr. Franklin Geno (or Rinehart) as a military application of Albert Einstein's unified field theory, or "generalized theory of gravitation". The theory, briefly, postulates the interrelatedness of the forces that comprise electromagnetic radiation and gravity. Through a special application of the theory, it was thought to be possible, with specialized equipment and enough energy, to bend light around an object, rendering it essentially invisible. The Navy considered this application to be of obvious value in wartime (as the United States was engaged in World War II at the time) and approved and sponsored the experiment. A Navy destroyer escort, USS Eldridge (DE-173), was fitted with the required generator equipment at the Naval Yards in Philadelphia.

Testing began in the summer of 1943, and was initially successful to a limited degree. One test, on July 22, 1943, resulted in Eldridge being rendered almost completely invisible, with some eyewitnesses reporting a "greenish fog" however, crew members complained of serious nausea afterwards. At that point, the experiment was altered by the request of the Navy, with the new goal being invisible to radar only.

Equipment was not recalibrated, and the experiment was performed again on October 28. This time, Eldridge not only actually became almost entirely invisible to the naked eye, but actually vanished from the area entirely in a flash of blue light. Concurrent with this phenomenon, the U.S. Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, just over 600 km (375 miles) away, reported sighting Eldridge offshore for several minutes, whereupon Eldridge vanished again and reappeared in Philadelphia, at the site it had originally occupied a supposed case of accidental teleportation.

The physiological effects on the crew were profound. Almost all of the crew were violently ill. Some suffered from mental illness because of the experience behavior conforming to schizophrenia is described in some accounts. Still other members were missing supposedly "vanished" and allegedly five of the crew were actually fused to the metal bulkhead or deck of the ship. Horrified, Navy officials immediately cancelled the experiment. All of the surviving crew involved were discharged; in some accounts, brainwashing was used to make some crew members forget about the details of their experience.

The details of this experiment were revealed to the public in a roundabout way. The first and oldest source of detailed information stems from Carl M. Allen (Carlos Allende) and first details about the Philadelphia Experiment were mentioned in three letters that he wrote to astronomer Morris K. Jessup. The story as it is known nowadays stems from the movie The Philadelphia Experiment directed by Stewart Rafill. As of 1990, an alleged eyewitness supported the version as it was portrayed in the movie, adding other details to the story which then was widely spread via the Internet and reappeared in several books written since then. The name of this eyewitness is Alfred Bielek. He was proven an impostor in 2003 by the web site bielek-debunked.com.

In 1955, Morris K. Jessup, an amateur astronomer and former graduate-level researcher, published The Case for the UFO, an examination of the phenomenon of UFOs which contained some theorization as to the means of propulsion that flying saucer-style UFOs may use. Jessup speculated that anti-gravity and/or electromagnetism may have been responsible for the observed flight behavior of UFOs. He lamented, both in the book and the publicity tour which followed, that space flight research was concentrated in the area of rocketry, and that little attention was paid to these other theoretical means of flight, which he felt would ultimately be more fruitful.

On January 13, 1956, Jessup received a letter from a man identifying himself as Carlos Miguel Allende. In the letter, Allende informed Jessup of the Philadelphia Experiment, alluding to poorly sourced contemporary newspaper articles as proof. Allende also said that he had personally witnessed Eldridge disappear and reappear while serving aboard a merchant marine ship in its vicinity, SS Andrew Furuseth. He further named other crew with which he served aboard Andrew Furuseth, and claimed to know of the fates of some of the crew members of Eldridge after the experiment, including one whom he witnessed disappear during a chaotic fight in a bar. Jessup replied to Allende by postcard, asking for further evidence and corroboration for the story, such as dates and specific details of his fantastic story. The reply came months later; however, this time the correspondent identified himself as Carl M. Allen. Allen said that he could not provide the details for which Jessup was asking, but implied that he might be able to recall by means of hypnosis. Jessup decided to discontinue the correspondence.

In the spring of 1957, Jessup was contacted by the Office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C. and requested to study the contents of a parcel that they had received. Upon arrival, a curious Jessup was astonished to find that a paperback copy of his book had been mailed to ONR in a manila envelope marked "HAPPY EASTER". Further, the book had been extensively annotated by hand in its margins, and an ONR officer asked Jessup if he had any idea as to who had done so.

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The lengthy annotations were written in three different colors of ink, and appeared to detail a correspondence between three individuals, only one of which is given a name: "Jemi". The ONR labeled the other two "Mr. A" and "Mr. B". The annotators refer to each other as Gypsies, and discuss two different types of "people" living in space. Their text contained nonstandard use of capitalization and punctuation, and detailed a lengthy discussion of the merits of various suppositions that Jessup makes throughout his book, with oblique references to the Philadelphia Experiment, in a way that suggested prior or superior knowledge. (For example, "Mr. B" reassures his fellow annotators, who have highlighted a certain theory of Jessup's, "HE HAS NO KNOWLEDGE, HE COULD NOT HAVE. ONLY GUESSING." [sic])

Based on the handwriting style and subject matter, and in comparison to the earlier letters he had received, Jessup identified "Mr. A" as Carlos Allende/Carl Allen. Others have suggested that the three annotations are actually from the same person, using three pens.

Later, the ONR contacted Jessup, claiming that the return address on Allende's letter to Jessup was an abandoned farmhouse. They also informed Jessup that the Varo Corporation, a research firm, was preparing a print copy of the annotated version of The Case for the UFO, complete with both letters he had received. Numbers vary, but it appears that around 100 copies of the Varo Edition were printed and distributed within the Navy. Jessup was also sent three for his own use.

Jessup attempted to make a living writing on the topic, but his followup book did not sell well and his publisher rejected several other manuscripts. In 1958 his wife left him, and friends described him as being somewhat unstable when he travelled to New York. After returning to Florida he was involved in a serious car accident and was slow to recover, apparently increasing his despondency. Morris Jessup committed suicide in 1959.

In 1965, Vincent Gaddis published Invisible Horizons: True Mysteries of the Sea, in which the story of the experiment from the Varo annotation is recounted.

In 1973 Thomas Pynchon published his novel Gravity's Rainbow which is set in World War II and involves both occult and scientific arcana. Many have been puzzled by the title of the work but it is speculated that even though the Philadelphia Experiment is never mentioned in the book the title of the novel comes from the formentioned project also known as "Project Rainbow".

Later, in 1977, Charles Berlitz, an author of several books on paranormal phenomena, included a chapter on the experiment in his book Without a Trace: New Information from the Triangle. (The Philadelphia Experiment did not take place within the so-called Bermuda Triangle).

In 1978, a novel Thin Air by George E. Simpson and Neal R. Burger was released. This was a dramatic fictional account, clearly inspired by the foregoing works, of a conspiracy to cover-up an horrendous experiment gone wrong on board the USS Eldridge in 1943. However, a year later, Berlitz and a co-author, William L. Moore, published The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility which, though it claims to be fact, as Berlitz's previous books do, plagiarizes Thin Air.

Two movies have been released on the subject: The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) and Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). They are best described as science fiction.

In the computer game Command and Conquer: Red Alert, the Philadelphia Experiment makes a brief appearance a cutscene shows the Eldridge disappearing, with Einstein informing the player of the "horrible aftermath" the sailors experienced. Einstein later uses the Experiment as the basis for the game's Chronosphere weapon (an Allied teleportation device).

The Experiment has been the subject of several television shows dealing with the paranormal and conspiracy theories, including The Unexplained, a series produced by Bill Kurtis on the cable television network The Arts and Entertainment Network (A&E). A similar story also ran on the show Unsolved Mysteries on the cable tv netork Lifetime.

The 2005 SciFi channel mini-series, the Triangle, explains the strange phenomena in the Bermuda Triangle as the result of the Philadelphia experiment.

Detractors, skeptics, and other researchers have noted several serious issues and problems with the story of the Philadelphia Experiment.

To start with it seems difficult to put any credence in the story at all. The entirety of the story was told by a single person and no corroborating evidence has ever been offered. All of the "research" on the story since Allende's version has consisted primarily of various authors re-telling the story with liberal doses of dramatic embellishment. The best known account, Berlitz's, contains material copied from a science fiction book.

Writer Robert Goerman wrote an article for Fate Magazine in 1980, claiming that "Carlos Allende"/"Carl Allen" was in fact who he claimed to be in later letters, Carl Meredith Allen of New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Allen was a highly intelligent but nonetheless mentally ill itinerant who had likely fabricated the story of the Philadelphia Experiment as a result of his illness. Whether illness or simply a practical joke, it is difficult to consider any of his statements to be real.

The science is even more debatable. Einstein never fully developed his Unified Field Theory (UFT) although he worked on variations of the theme until his death in 1955. A broader understanding of fundamental physics during this period and later has shown that the line of reasoning he was following simply could not work. Unfortunately the name "Unified Field Theory" is used to describe any number of theories that are completely different in nature to Einstein's work, which somewhat confuses the issue. Nevertheless, no consistent UFT or linkage of gravity and electromagnetism has come forth. There is no known mechanism by which an electric or magnetic field of any strength can "bend" or "deflect" light or radar, which are composed of uncharged photons. The idea that the Navy would be able to build an experiment based on a nonexistent theoretical basis is therefore highly suspect.

It could be that the authors in question simply did not understand the science involved and are reporting it incorrectly. Several issues weigh against this interpretation too. The description of the system, which uses gravity to bend light around the ship, is theoretically possible, but would require a mass considerably greater than that of the Sun (which does bend light due to gravity, but only slightly its mass does not warp space-time all that much).

The historical timeline of the story is equally suspect. The Eldridge was not commissioned until August 27, 1943, and remained in port in New York, until September. The October experiment took place while the ship was on its first shakedown cruise in the Bahamas. A reunion of veterans who served aboard the Eldridge told The Philadelphia Inquirer in April 1999, that the ship had never made port in Philadelphia [2]. (USS Eldridge's complete World War II action report, including the remarks section of the 1943 deck log is available on microfilm, item # NRS-1978-26, from the US Naval Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060.)

The Navy has denied the entire story, of course, but this has only served to convince the conspiracy theorists that it must be true. Various reasons for a coverup are offered, everything from the technology being widely used and still top secret, to the concern that the victims' families would sue for damages.

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Researcher Jacques Vallee describes a procedure on board the USS Engstrom, which was docked alongside the Eldridge in 1943. The operation involved the generation of a powerful electromagnetic field on board the ship in order to degauss it, with the goal of rendering the ship undetectable "invisible" to magnetically triggered torpedoes and mines. Such a system was widely used during World War II, and British ships of the era often included such systems built-in on the upper decks (the conduits are still visible on the deck of the HMS Belfast in London). Degaussing is a known military technology still in use to protect against these torpedoes; however, it has no effect on visible light, or radar. Vallee speculates that accounts of the Engstrom's degaussing may have been garbled in subsequent retellings, and these accounts may have influenced the story of the Philadelphia Experiment.

A veteran who served on board the Engstrom noted that the Eldridge could indeed have gotten from Philadelphia to Norfolk and back again in a single day at a time when merchant ships could not have by use of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which at the time was open only to Naval vessels. Use of this channel was kept quiet: German submarines had recently been ravaging east coast shipping during Operation Drumbeat, and thus military ships unable to protect themselves were secretly moved via canals to avoid this threat.

It should be noted that this same veteran claims to be the man whom Allende witnessed "disappear" at a bar. He claims that when the fight broke out, friendly barmaids whisked him out the back door of the bar before the police arrived, because he was underaged. They then covered for him by claiming that he "disappeared."

In a more speculative and strongly paranormal vein, Al Bielek and Duncan Cameron both claim to have leaped from the deck of the Eldridge while it was in "hyperspace" between Philadelphia and Norfolk, and ended up, after a period of severe disorientation, at the Air Force station Montauk Point, Long Island in the year 1983, having experienced not only teleportation but time travel. They claim John von Neumann met them there (although he died in 1957). This episode is a seminal event in another alleged secret and horrific U.S. Government experiment into the paranormal known as the Montauk Project.

In the "Død Kalm" (2X19) episode of The X-Files, Mulder and Scully are tipped off to a U.S. Navy ship that had caused its crew to rapidly age; Mulder at first believed the aging had to do with the failed Philadelphia Experiment.

The Command & Conquer: Red Alert series of games involve a device known as the Chronosphere, which was developed by Einstein as an evolution of the Philadelphia Experiment. Einstein utilized the device to eliminate Hitler before the rise of Nazi Germany, but by eliminating Hitler Einstein inadvertently caused an alternate Second World War to take place between the Allied powers, now including Germany, and Soviet Russia.

In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 the United States had perfected the Chronosphere's technology to the point where certain infantry units and the Allied Chrono Miner could teleport across the map; additionally, this second generation chronosphere allowed for the teleportation of up to 9 mechanized units at once. At the end of the game the United States used this device to make a surgical strike at Moscow to avoid fighting through the Iron Curtain nations.

The 1997 science-fiction movie Event Horizon includes several plot elements which seem to be based on the alleged Philadelphia Experiment.

The 2005 Sci-Fi Channel mini-series The Triangle in which the Navy believes the Bermuda Triangle was caused by the Philidelphia Experiment.

ndmmxiaomayi SG

I can't remember the Philadelphia Experiment liao. Read it somewhere.

But I know that there's a lot of arguments for this experiment. This experiment is even said to cause some phenomenon, which is pretty ridiculous.

the Bear SG

the legend says that they actually tore a hole in the space-time continuum...

and managed to teleport a whole battleship somewhere else..

but everyone in the project died horribly Razz

RaTtY81 SG

as the article says. some were fused into the ship Shocked

ndmmxiaomayi SG

And some other weird things as well.

kopiosatu SG

i read that some were "welded" into the hull of the boat.

actually, just watch "Event Horizon" Laughing supposedly to be inspired by the Philadelphia Experiment.

this is the most interesting conspiracy theory for me. screw the UFOs, they're boring!

ditzy SG

The Chronosphere used in red alert. Laughing

the Bear SG

the one where the dude sewed his eyes shut?

the thing went to hell and brought back a piece of hell with it Laughing

RaTtY81 SG

yea they copied the idea of cronosphere from tis project in the red alert game