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ThePhiladelphia Experiment was an alleged event claimed to have been witnessed by an ex-merchant mariner namedCarl M. Allen at the United States Navy'sPhiladelphia Naval Shipyard inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, United States, some time around October 28, 1943. Allen described an experiment where the U.S. Navy attempted to make adestroyer escort,USS Eldridge, disappear and the bizarre results that followed.
The story surfaced in late 1955 when Allen sent a book full of hand-written annotations referring to the experiment to a U.S. Navy research organization and, a little later, a series of letters making further claims to aUFO author. Allen's account of the event is widely understood to be ahoax.[1][2]: 300–301 [3]
Several different—and sometimes contradictory—versions of the alleged experiment have circulated over the years inparanormal literature and popular movies. The U.S. Navy maintains that no such experiment was ever conducted, that the details of the story contradict well-established facts about USSEldridge, and that the physics the experiment is claimed to be based on are non-existent.[4]
The story of a "Philadelphia Experiment" originated in late 1955 when Carl M. Allen sent an anonymous package marked "Happy Easter" containing a copy ofMorris K. Jessup's bookThe Case for the UFO: Unidentified Flying Objects to the U.S.Office of Naval Research. The book was filled with handwritten notes in its margins, written with three different shades of blue ink, appearing to detail a debate among three individuals, only one of whom is given a name: "Jemi". They commented on Jessup's ideas about the propulsion forflying saucers, discussedalien races, and expressed concern that Jessup was too close to discovering their technology.[5]: 27–29, 35, 65, 80, 102, 115, 163–165
The commenters referred to each other as "Gypsies", and discussed two different types of "people" living inouter space. Their text containednon-standard use ofcapitalization andpunctuation, and detailed a lengthy discussion of the merits of various elements of Jessup'sassumptions in the book. There were oblique references to the Philadelphia Experiment (one commenter reassures his fellow annotators who have highlighted a certain theory which Jessup advanced).[3][6]
Shortly thereafter, in January 1956, Allen began sending a series of letters to Jessup, using his given name as well as "Carlos Miguel Allende".[7][8][9] The first known letter warned Jessup not to investigate the levitation ofunidentified flying objects. Allen put forward a story of dangerous science based on alleged unpublished theories byAlbert Einstein. He further claimed a scientist named Franklin Reno put these theories into practice at thePhiladelphia Naval Shipyard in October 1943.[8]
Allen claimed to have witnessed this experiment while serving aboard theSS Andrew Furuseth. In Allen's account, a destroyer escort was successfully made invisible, but the ship inexplicably teleported toNorfolk, Virginia, for several minutes, and then reappeared in the Philadelphia yard. The ship's crew was supposed to have suffered various side effects, including insanity, intangibility, and being "frozen" in place.[8] When Jessup wrote back requesting more information to corroborate his story, Allen said his memory would have to be recovered[8] and referred Jessup to what seems to be a non-existent Philadelphia newspaper article that Allen claimed covered the incident.[4][10]
In 1957,[11]: 67 Jessup was invited to the Office of Naval Research where he was shown the annotated copy of his book. Jessup noticed the handwriting of the annotations resembled the letters he received from Allen.[12]: 9 (Twelve years later, Allen would say that he authored all of the annotations in order "to scare the hell out of Jessup".)[13]
Two officers at ONR, Captain Sidney Sherby and Commander George W. Hoover, took a personal interest in the matter.[7][12]: 9 Hoover later explained that his duties as Special Projects Officer required him to investigate many publications and that he ultimately found nothing of substance to the alleged invisibility experiment.[14]: 59 Hoover discussed the annotations with Austin N. Stanton, president of Varo Manufacturing Corporation of Garland, Texas, during meetings about Varo's contract work for ONR.[14]: 59–60
Stanton became so interested that Varo's office began producingmimeographed copies of Jessup's book with the annotations and Allen's letters, first a dozen and eventually 127 copies.[14]: 59–60 [12]: 9 These copies came to be known as the "Varo edition".[15]: 6 [11]: 72 Besides noting handwriting of the individual named "Jemi" (addressed as such by the others and using blue-violet ink), the anonymous introduction to the Varo edition concludes that there were two other individuals making annotations, "Mr. A" (identified as Allen by Jessup, in blue ink), "Mr. B" (in blue-green ink).[12]: 8
Jessup tried to publish more books on the subject of UFOs, but was unsuccessful. He lost his publisher and experienced a succession of downturns in his personal life, and died by suicide in Florida on April 30, 1959.[16][17]
The various book writers who tried to get more information from Carl Allen found his responses elusive, or couldn't find him at all. One reporter from Allen's hometown ofNew Kensington, Pennsylvania, interviewed his family and was handed a pile of documents and books, all scribbled with Allen's annotations. They described Allen as a "fantastic mind", but also a drifter and a "master leg-puller".[18]
In 1965Vincent Gaddis published a book ofForteana, titledInvisible Horizons: True Mysteries of the Sea. In it he recounted the story of the experiment from the Varo annotations.
George E. Simpson and Neal R. Burger published a 1978 novel titledThin Air. In this book, set in the present day, aNaval Investigative Service officer investigates several threads linking wartime invisibility experiments to aconspiracy involvingmatter transmission technology.
Large-scale popularization of the story came about in 1979 when the authorCharles Berlitz, who had written a best selling book on theBermuda Triangle, and his co-author,ufologistWilliam L. Moore, publishedThe Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility, which purported to be a factual account.[17] The book expanded on stories of bizarre happenings, lostunified field theories byAlbert Einstein, and governmentcoverups, all based on the Allende/Allen letters to Jessup.[16]
Moore and Berlitz devoted one of the last chapters inThe Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility to "The Force Fields of Townsend Brown", namely the experimenter and then-U.S. Navy technicianThomas Townsend Brown. Paul LaViolette's 2008 bookSecrets of Antigravity Propulsion also recounts some mysterious involvement of Townsend Brown.
The story was adapted into a 1984time travel film calledThe Philadelphia Experiment, directed byStewart Raffill. Though only loosely based on the prior accounts of the "Experiment", it served to dramatize the core elements of the original story. In 1989, Alfred Bielek claimed to have been aboard USSEldridge during the Experiment.[19] Addressing theMUFON Conference in 1990, Bielek asserted that Raffill's film was largely consistent with the events he claimed to have witnessed in 1943.[20] Bielek would later add details to his claims on radio talk shows, conferences, and the Internet.[21][22]
The experiment was allegedly based on an aspect of someunified field theory, a term coined byAlbert Einstein to describe a class of potential theories; such theories would aim to describe — mathematically and physically — the interrelated nature of the forces ofelectromagnetism andgravity.
According to some accounts, unspecified "researchers" thought that a theory of this type would enable using largeelectrical generators tobend light around an object viarefraction, so that the object became completely invisible. The Navy regarded this as of military value and it sponsored the experiment.
Another unattributed version of the story proposes that researchers were preparing magnetic and gravitational measurements of theseafloor to detect anomalies, supposedly based on Einstein's attempts to understand gravity. In this version, there were also related secret experiments inNazi Germany to findanti-gravity, allegedly led bySS-ObergruppenführerHans Kammler.
There are no reliable or attributed accounts, but in most accounts of the supposed experiment, USSEldridge was fitted with the required equipment at thePhiladelphia Naval Shipyard. Testing began in the summer of 1943, and it was supposedly successful to a limited extent. One test resulted inEldridge being rendered nearly invisible with some witnesses reporting a "greenish fog" appearing in its place. Crew members complained of severenausea afterwards.[23]
Allegedly, when the ship reappeared some sailors were embedded in the metal structures of the ship, including one sailor who ended up on a deck level below where he began and had his hand embedded in the steel hull of the ship as well as some sailors who went "completelybananas".[23] There is also a claim the experiment was altered after that point at the request of the Navy, limiting it to creating astealth technology that would render USSEldridge invisible to radar.[24] None of these allegations have been independently substantiated.
Other versions of the story give the date of the experiment as October 28, 1943. In this version,Eldridge not only became invisible, but disappeared from the area andteleported toNorfolk, Virginia, over 200 miles (320 km) away. It is claimed thatEldridge sat for some time in view of men aboard the shipSS Andrew Furuseth, whereuponEldridge vanished and then reappeared inPhiladelphia at the site it had originally occupied.[25][26]
Many versions of the tale include descriptions of serious side effects for the crew. Some crew members were said to have been physically fused to bulkheads while others suffered from mental disorders, some re-materialized inside out, and still others vanished. It is also claimed that the ship's crew may have been subjected tobrainwashing to maintain the secrecy of the experiment.
The historianMike Dash notes that many authors who publicized the "Philadelphia Experiment" story after that of Jessup appeared to have conducted little or no research of their own. Through the late 1970s, for example, Allende/Allen was often described as mysterious and difficult to locate, but Goerman determined Allende/Allen's identity after only a few telephone calls.[2]: 300–301
Others speculate that much of the key literature emphasizes dramatic embellishment rather than pertinent research. Berlitz's and Moore's account of the story (The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility) claimed to include factual information, such as transcripts of an interview with a scientist involved in the experiment, but their work has also been criticized forplagiarizing key story elements from the novelThin Air which was published a year earlier.
Personnel at the Fourth Naval District have suggested that the alleged event was a misunderstanding of routine research duringWorld War II at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. One theory is that "the foundation for the apocryphal stories arose fromdegaussing experiments which have the effect of making a ship undetectable or 'invisible' to magnetic mines." Another possible origin of the stories aboutlevitation,teleportation, and effects on human crew might be attributed to experiments with the generating plant of the destroyerUSS Timmerman (DD-828), wherein a higher-frequency generator producedcorona discharges, although none of the crew reported suffering effects from the experiment.[7]
Observers have argued that it is inappropriate to grant credence to an unusual story promoted by one individual in the absence of corroborating evidence. Robert Goerman wrote inFate magazine in 1980, that "Carlos Allende"/"Carl Allen", who is said to have corresponded with Jessup, was Carl Meredith Allen ofNew Kensington, Pennsylvania, who had an established history ofpsychiatric illness and who may have fabricated the primary history of the experiment as a result of his mental illness. Goerman later realized that Allen was a family friend and "a creative and imaginative loner ... sending bizarre writings and claims".[27]
USSEldridge was not commissioned until August 27, 1943, and it remained in port inNew York City until September 1943. The October experiment allegedly took place while the ship was on its firstshakedown cruise inthe Bahamas, whichconspiracy theorists try to explain away by claiming that theship's logs might have been falsified or else still beclassified. Conspiracy theorists also attempt to explain away the inconsistency by claiming thatUSS Hammann (DE-131) was actually used rather than USSEldridge as USSHammann arrived in the shipyard on October 20, 1943, ignoring the "eyewitness statements" from Carl M. Allen which launched the hoax in the first place.[28]
TheOffice of Naval Research (ONR) stated in September 1996, "ONR has never conducted investigations on radar invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time." Pointing out that the ONR was not established until 1946, it denounces the accounts of "The Philadelphia Experiment" as complete "science fiction".
A reunion of Navy veterans who had served aboard USSEldridge told a Philadelphia newspaper in April 1999 that their ship had never made port in Philadelphia.[29] Further evidence discounting the Philadelphia Experiment timeline comes from USSEldridge’s complete World War II action report, including the remarks section of the 1943 deck log, available onmicrofilm.[4]
ResearcherJacques Vallée[30][unreliable source?] describes a procedure on boardUSS Engstrom, which was docked alongside theEldridge in 1943. The operation involved the generation of a powerful electromagnetic field on board the ship in order todeperm ordegauss it, with the goal of rendering the ship undetectable or "invisible" to magnetically fused underseamines andtorpedoes. This system was invented by a Canadian,Charles F. Goodeve, when he held the rank ofcommander in theRoyal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, and theRoyal Navy and other navies used it widely during World War II.
British ships of the era often included such degaussing systems built into the upper decks (theconduits are still visible on the deck ofHMS Belfast in London, for example). Degaussing is still used today. However, it has no effect on visible light or radar. Vallée speculates that accounts of USSEngstrom's degaussing might have been garbled andconfabulated in subsequent retellings, and that these accounts may have influenced the story of "The Philadelphia Experiment".
Vallée cites a veteran who served on board USSEngstrom and who suggests it might have traveled from Philadelphia to Norfolk and back again in a single day at a time when merchant ships could not, by use of theChesapeake & Delaware Canal andChesapeake Bay, which at the time was open only to naval vessels.[30] Use of that channel was kept quiet: German submarines had ravaged shipping along the East Coast duringOperation Drumbeat, and thus military ships unable to protect themselves were secretly moved via canals to avoid the threat.[30]
The same veteran claims to be the man that Allende witnessed "disappearing" at a bar. He claims that when a fight broke out, friendly barmaids whisked him out of the bar before the police arrived, because he was under age for drinking. They then covered for him by claiming that he had disappeared.[30]
To this date (Nov/2020) no one has come forward with the exact newspaper and date the article appeared in. Not even a copy of the originally mailed clipping has appeared anywhere. I have personally searched thousands of newspaper pages and have found nothing that resembles the gist of this article
