The Real Philadelphia Experiment
Did a US Navy warship completely disappear in 1943?
Filed under Conspiracies, Paranormal, Urban Legends
| Skeptoid #16 December 24, 2006 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
Episode 16, December 24, 2006
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4016
Today we're going to pull a giant switch on the wall and activate powerful generators, which will create a mysterious force field around us and cause us all to disappear. For we're going to discuss the perennially silly "Philadelphia Experiment."
The story goes that in October of 1943, at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, an experiment was conducted aboard a US Navy Cannon-class destroyer escort called the USS Eldridge, number DE-173. The experiment involved the creation of a force field which rendered the ship invisible both to the eye and to radar. The experiment was witnessed by hundreds, possibly thousands, of sailors both ashore and on other ships nearby. Unfortunately, there were severe side effects to the crew on board ship. Some were found materialized inside the metal of the ship, others were never seen again, and still others were driven insane or plagued for years by mysterious cases of phasing in and out of existence. In typical Navy fashion, everything has been denied.
None of the above ever actually happened. What follows, did actually happen.
The secret of the mysterious experiment and its terrible aftermath was kept for 12 years, until one day when Morris Jessup, the author of a book about UFO's, was unexpectedly summoned to the US Navy's Office of Naval Research. The ONR had received, in the mail, a copy of Jessup's UFO book, filled with handwritten annotations. The notes were all in the same handwriting, but in three characters, in three colors of ink. The notes revealed all the details of the Philadelphia Experiment, and the ONR wanted to know if Jessup knew anything about who might have written these notes and sent the book to them.
Jessup recognized the crazy handwriting immediately. He had received a series of letters from a man calling himself Carlos Allende, who claimed to have witnessed the experiment from aboard a merchant marine ship nearby, the SS Andrew Furuseth. Jessup had dismissed Allende as a crackpot — among Allende's claims was that Albert Einstein had personally spent several weeks mentoring him on subjects such as invisibility and faster-than-light travel. Several copies of the annotated book were produced, and the rest is history: The Philadelphia Experiment story became part of the fabric of pop culture.
Robert Goerman, a researcher of the paranormal and a friend of mine, noticed that the return address of Allende's original mailing to the ONR came from his own home town, New Kensington, Pennsylvania. He had spent some time putting together the history of the Philadelphia Experiment story and in 1979, found to his great surprise that Carlos Allende, whose real name was Carl Allen, was the son of a close family friend. Over time, Goerman filled in the blanks and presented the complete case in magazine articles and on television shows such as History's Mysteries, Unsolved Mysteries, and The Unexplained — three show titles which by themselves lend far too much credence to Carl Allen's stories. Carl Allen was something of the dark horse of the family, a creative and imaginative loner, notorious for annotating anything and everything in the house, and sending bizarre writings and claims to everyone in the family for any occasion. Goerman also assembled all of the facts of the USS Eldridge: little things, like the ship was nowhere near Philadelphia when the experiment happened, the ship had detailed corroborated records for the normal duties that it was in fact performing at the time, and that nobody who had ever been a crewman on board the ship knew anything about any experiment. The Eldridge had been launched only two months before the experiment, and you'd think that if it was hosting Albert Einstein and the most amazing experiment in history, somebody would have known about it. Without exception, every single fact that Carl Allen presented as evidence of the Philadelphia Experiment has been easily proven to be a complete fabrication.
And therein lies the problem. The trouble with discussing government conspiracies is that the believers generally refuse to accept the factual evidence, because it becomes part of the conspiracy. It's a bit like having a debate about Creationism: believers simply say "God did it" and it's a matter of faith, not of evidence or fact. If the government is trying to cover something up, every falsified claim becomes evidence for the conspiracy. In summary, there is no amount of evidence that can be compiled that will be accepted by a conspiracy theorist. In the conspiracy theorist's mind, evidence against is actually evidence for.
Among this schizophrenic evidence is the US Navy's reply to the Philadelphia Experiment story, which is available online at http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm. As you might surmise, it simply says that they have no idea what this guy could be talking about, here's where both ships were and what they were doing at the time, and here are the statements from their officers. It's an entertaining report, but predictable.
Interestingly, there are some question marks left standing about the Philadelphia Experiment. As you might expect, two or three veterans of the Eldridge and the USS Engstrom, which was once moored alongside the Eldrige in 1943, have claimed to be a guy whom Allende saw disappear in a bar or who have found themselves transported across dimensions. It should be noted that such claims were made well after the Philadelphia Experiment became a pop-culture phenomenon, and in more than one case it turned out that these guys were not actually veterans at all. A more interesting question comes from the very genesis of the story, when the Navy ONR first summoned Morris Jessup to their office to talk about the strangely annotated book. If there was nothing in those annotations of genuine interest to them, why did they call?
Who knows. Goerman suggested that these ONR officers did this on their own time out of personal intrigue, or that some of the allusions in the annotations were similar to actual Navy research and the ONR was simply being responsible at following every lead. Conspiracy theorists maintain that this proves Allen's annotations must have been true. Whatever the truth, I happen to love that this story has this annoying little footnote that can't be easily explained away. I love a good mystery and I remember a streak of disappointment when Goerman's debunking of the case was laid out before me — like most people I'd done no thorough research of my own and only knew what the average moviegoer knows about the Philadelphia Experiment. Intellectually I know the story is silly, but I still love that little loose end. Carl Allen may have been a prankster, but I thank him for making the century just that little bit more interesting.
© 2006 Skeptoid Media, Inc.
References & Further Reading
Barnes, M., Houpt, F., Schelm, G. "Al Bielek finally debunked." Al Bielek Debunked. Golf Sierra, 18 Jun. 2003. Web. 12 Oct. 2009. <http://www.bielek-debunked.com/>
Broderick, James F., Miller, Darren W. Web of Conspiracy: A Guide to Conspiracy Theory Sites on the Internet. Medford, N.J.: CyberAge Books, 2008. 175-188.
Goerman, Robert A. "Alias Carlos Allende: The Mystery Man Behind the Philadelphia Experiment." FATE Magazine. 2 Oct. 1980, Volume 33, Number 10.
Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2003. 583-585.
Vallee, Jacques F. "Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later." Journal of Scientific Exploration. 1 Oct. 1994, 8: 47-71.
Reference this article:
Dunning, B.
"The Real Philadelphia Experiment." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
24 Dec 2006. Web.
20 May 2013. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4016>
Discuss!
10 most recent comments | Show all 112 comments
This article was vague and useless to either the skeptic or the critic. It was written as if someone skimmed, at best over a couple of articles from Wikipedia and then wrote one themselves based on this. Skeptics criticize conspiracists for this same lack of information. If all reports on this site are like this it is not worth a reader's time.
Abbie, New York
December 13, 2012 11:08pm
This is no hoax folks- it is a technology firmly in place for quite awhile.
Personal experience!
Don F, louisville ky
December 16, 2012 5:40pm
Don... I have had a steely dan since 1968... you must be right!
I may appear at the stoic end of skepticism (and its a charge rightfully levelled at me at times) but in this most likely (profoundly) ludicrous explanation of what was possibly a naval accident that still hasnt been satisfactorily explained to the conspiracenti;
Why have an LHC or and SLHC or even designs of SLAC when you can pump electrons around for a tiny cost?
Sorry, why even have drones or missiles when such a covert experiment was so successful?
I know that sounds like a fallacy question..I surely wouldnt dare ask for data in this case.
Now if a ship full of mothers in law was similarly dis...ooops despatched some of us would question conspiracy?
You see...there are some cases where mainstream thought can just go to far..
I am doing a harbour cruise for an Xmas party for a law firm...anyone want to purchase an old van de Graaf generator for the stern?
Mud, At virtually missing point, NSW, OZ,
December 17, 2012 11:35pm
There is a process used on Navy ships called de-gaussing. Cables are wrapped around the hull and a current applied. I don't know what strength or for how long the current is applied but the purpose is to re-align the ship's magnetic field in order to minimise its variation in the Earth's magnetic field. This site explains it much better:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/degaussing.htm
Perhaps this is what the Philadelphia Experiment was?
HowieMowie, Canberra, ACT, Oz
January 08, 2013 8:32pm
In 1943, we were in the middle of a war that we weren't yet winning. Although I will be the first to agree that people did a lot of odd experiments in the 40's trying to figure out ways to end the war, I don't think that this was one of them.
I'll be the first to say that I haven't looked into this one very much, mostly because I'm not really concerned about it. But it would be interesting if it were real. The only problem is that if it were, they'd have kept at it. We needed all the technology that we could have found at that point. More than one incident would have been reported.
And, so much of our technology came out of the war and the space program. Unfortunately, this isn't one of the things that has shown up.
Darn it.
@HowieMowie -- That is a very interesting idea. I didn't even think about that one before. Good comment.
HistoryTalking, The Real World
January 23, 2013 4:03pm
Gauss... now there was a god.
Mud, At virtually missing point, NSW, OZ,
January 24, 2013 9:42pm
What most people fail to realize is that there was a real motive for trying to make a ship invisable and that there is a scientific principle supporting it discovered in the mid 1800's by Faraday
The object was to make the ship apear invisable to the german optical rangefinders on board the submarines, not actualy making the ship dissappear.
Light when subjected to a strong magnetic field becomes polarized and that polarized light beam emerges at a right angle to the magnetic lines of force.
all other light beams are infinetly attenuated.
It is a scientific fact that this occurs and it used to be an experiment in many physics class books in the 1940's and 50's
As a last note for you researchers, Francis Bitter consulted on this project for the ONR.
He headed the Magnetic research lab at MIT.
Alan
Alan Majeski, Ventura Ca.
March 04, 2013 8:10pm
huh huh... the xperiment is ongoing and has been since the 1940s.....
P.E Dantic, World
March 11, 2013 9:25am
Don't suppose you have any evidence for that, P.E?
Darren, Liverpool, UK
March 17, 2013 7:57am
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For the people that say there wasn't any specialized technology back then, you're right. But, according to my resources, they used extreme amounts of electricity to pump out the energy into Tesla coils to create the force field
Anthony Kessinger, Owensboro
November 30, 2012 7:59am