I don't know if it would be considered an urban legend, but I have read one crappy mystery magazine and there was an article about some experiments the USA made during the Second World War, when they were trying to make the warships "disappear" so the enemy forces couldn't see them. I can't remember how they were supposed to make it, but it was somethin with deflection of radiation, magnetic fields and stuff like that... The magazine says that Nicola Tesla and Albert Einstein were involved in it, but both of them backed out of it as they thought it would be dangerous for the crew of the ship. So it was done by some Polish Scientist. So they finally made the experiment and the ship really disappeared, but when it "came back" there were several damages to ship and some men disappeared forever, some were mutilated (the article says that their DNA mixed with the atoms of the ship, like one man's hands were sunk into the deck and stuff like that - someone was probably watching The Fly too much), some men went crazy (they said they saw terrible things when they were "there"), and those who survived later disappeared under "mysterious circumstances".
Well, I don't think it's true, but it was pretty funny story (and who knows what is the US Government doing?).
Philadelphia Project was an alleged naval military experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometime around October 28, 1943, in which the U.S. destroyer escort USS Eldridge was to be rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period of time. It is also referred to as Project Rainbow. The story is widely regarded as a hoax. The U.S. Navy maintains that no such experiment occurred, and furthermore, details of the story contradict facts about the Eldridge. It has nonetheless caused ripples in conspiracy theory circles, and elements of the Philadelphia Experiment are featured in other government conspiracy theories.
USS Eldridge (DE-173) ca. 1944Synopsis of the experiment
Several different, at times conflicting, versions of the purported experiment have circulated over the years. The following synopsis serves to illustrate key story points common to the majority of accounts.
According to some accounts, the experiment was conducted by a Dr. Franklin Reno (or Rinehart) as a military application of a Unified Field Theory, a term coined by Einstein. The Unified Field Theory postulates the interrelated nature of the forces that comprise electromagnetic radiation and gravity, although to date no single theory has emerged with a viable mathematical specialized equipment and sufficient energy, to bend light around an object in such a way as to render it essentially invisible to observers. The Navy, which was engaged in World War II at the time, considered this application of the theory to be of obvious military value and approved and sponsored the experiment. A destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, was allegedly fitted with the required equipment at the naval yards in Philadelphia.
The equipment was further alleged not to have properly been re-calibrated to this end, but in spite of this, the experiment was performed again on October 28. This time, Eldridge is alleged to have not only become almost entirely invisible to the naked eye, but actually vanished from the area in a flash of blue light. However, the U.S. naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, just over 215 miles (346 km) away, is alleged to have reported sighting the Eldridge offshore, whereupon the Eldridge vanished from their sight and reappeared in Philadelphia at the site it had originally occupied, in an apparent case of accidental teleportation.
The alleged physiological effects of the experiment on the crew were profound: almost all of the crew were violently ill. Some were alleged to have suffered from mental illness as a result of their experience; behavior consistent with schizophrenia is described in other accounts. Still other members, like Jacob D. Murray, were physically unaccounted for — supposedly “vanished” — and five of the crew were allegedly fused to the metal bulkhead or deck of the ship. Still others were said to fade in and out of sight. Sometimes they would disappear, then crewmates would stick their hands into the spot they had disappeared and try to grab the crewmate, but, if they did not, that spot would burst into flames. Horrified by these results, Navy officials immediately canceled the experiment. All of the surviving crew involved were discharged; in some accounts, brainwashing techniques were employed in an attempt to make the remaining crew members lose their memories concerning the details of their experience.
Origins of the story
Morris Jessup and Carlos Miguel Allende
In 1955, Morris K. Jessup, an amateur astronomer and former graduate-level researcher, published The Case for the UFO, a book about unidentified flying objects which contained some theorizing about the means of propulsion that flying-saucer-style UFOs might use. Jessup speculated that anti-gravity and/or manipulation of 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, 1955, Jessup received a letter from a man who identified himself as Carlos Allende. In the letter, Allende informed Jessup of the Philadelphia Experiment, alluding to two poorly sourced contemporary newspaper articles as proof. Allende also said that he had witnessed the Eldridge disappear and reappear while serving aboard the SS Andrew Furuseth, a nearby merchant ship. Allende further named other crew members with whom he served aboard the Andrew Furuseth, and claimed to know of the fate of some of the crew members of the 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.
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. Suspecting that Allende/Allen was a fraud, Jessup decided to discontinue the correspondence.
The Office of Naval Research and the Varo annotation
In the spring of 1957, Jessup was contacted by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Washington, D.C. and asked 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 UFO 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.
The lengthy annotations were written in three different colors of ink, and appeared to detail a correspondence among 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 outer 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).
Based on the handwriting style and subject matter, Jessup identified "Mr A" as Allende/Allen. Others have suggested that the three annotations are actually from the same person, using three pens.
A 2003 transcription of the annotated "Varo edition" is available online, complete with three-color notes.
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. About a hundred 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 follow-up book did not sell well and his publisher rejected several other manuscripts. In 1958 his wife left him, and friends described him as being depressed and 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. Many conspiracy theorists believe that he was murdered by the government because of his knowledge of the Philadelphia Experiment.
Public dissemination
Resurfacing via literature
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. 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. And Brad Steiger devoted part of his book Mysteries of Time and Space to this topic in 1977.
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 a horrific experiment gone wrong on board the Eldridge in 1943. In 1979, Berlitz and a co-author, William L. Moore, published The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility, the best known and most cited source of information about the experiment to date.
In 2000, a novel,"The Ship Of The Damned" by James F. David was released used The Philadelphia Experiment in his Psychological Thriller to exploit the minds of the readers.
Hollywood interpretation and the Bielek testimony
In 1984, the story was eventually adapted into a motion picture, The Philadelphia Experiment directed by Stewart Rafill. Though based only loosely on prior accounts of the experiment, it served to bring the core elements of the original story into mainstream scrutiny.
In 1990, Alfred Bielek, a self-proclaimed former crew-member of the Eldridge and alleged witness of the experiment, supported the version as it was portrayed in the movie, adding embellishments which were disseminated via the internet, eventually to surface in various mainstream outlets. In 2003, Bielek's version of his participation in the Philadelphia Experiment was debunked by a small team of investigators including American Marshall Barnes, Canadian Fred Houpt and German Gerold Schelm, and the general consensus now is that he was nowhere near the ship at the proposed time of the experiment.
Discussion
Detractors, skeptics, and other researchers have noted several serious issues and problems with the story of the Philadelphia Experiment.
Evidence and research
Many observers argue it inappropriate to put much credence in an unusual story put forward by one individual, in the absence of more conclusive corroborating evidence. An article written by Robert Goerman for Fate in 1980, determined that “Carlos Allende”/“Carl Allen” was in fact Carl Meredith Allen of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, who had an established psychiatric history and may have fabricated the primary history of the experiment as a result of his illness.
Historian Mike Dash notes that many of the those who publicized the story after Jessup seemed to have conducted little or no research: through the late '70s, for example, Allende/Allen was often described as mysterious and difficult to locate, but after only a few telephone calls, Goerman was able to determine Allende/Allen's identity. Others speculate that much of the key literature has more emphasis on dramatic embellishment rather than pertinent research. Though Berlitz and Moore's famous account of the story (The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility) contained much supposedly factual information, such as transcripts of an interview with a scientist involved in the experiment, it has also been criticised for plagiarising key story elements from the fictitious novel Thin Air published a year earlier, which, it is argued, undermines the credibility of the text as a whole.
Scientific aspects
No fully developed Unified Field Theory currently exists. Shortly before his death in 1943, Nikola Tesla claimed to have completed a Unified Field Theory; however, it was never published. A relative of Nikola Tesla propose that much of Tesla's research papers were seized by the FBI promptly following his death, and highlight the apparent coincidence between the year of his death and the supposed date of the Philadelphia Experiment.
While very limited "invisibility cloaks" have recently been developed, these are unrelated to theories linking electromagnetism with gravity. Regardless, this technology is not yet at a level that could be used to render a small object invisible, much less an object the size of a destroyer escort.
Timeline inconsistencies
USS Eldridge was not commissioned until August 27, 1943, and remained in port in New York City until September 1943. The October experiment allegedly took place while the ship was on its first shakedown cruise in the Bahamas.
A reunion of veterans who served aboard the Eldridge told a Philadelphia newspaper in April 1999 that the ship had never made port in Philadelphia. Further evidence against the Philadelphia experiment timeline comes from Eldridge’s complete World War II action report, including the remarks section of the 1943 deck log, available on microfilm.
Alternative explanations
Researcher Jacques Vallee describes a procedure on board USS Engstrom (DE-50), which was docked alongside 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. This system was invented by a Canadian, and the British used it widely during the Second World War. 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 (C35) in London). Degaussing is still used today; 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 traveled 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 under age. 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 leapt 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 1983, having experienced not only teleportation but time travel. They claim John von Neumann met them there (although officially he died in 1957). This story is part of a continuum involving another alleged secret US Government experiment into the paranormal known as the Montauk Project.
Cultural references
The Philadelphia Experiment, its results, and the potential of the technology involved have been the subject of many books, films, soundtracks, and video games.
Audio/visual media
In the film Outpost (2007) a German equivalent of Einstein's research related to the Philadelphia Experiment is sought out and uncovered.
An early film to dramatize the experiment is The Bermuda Triangle (1979). One portion of the film shows a Navy ship rigged with power cables to create the disappearing field. The ship is made to appear to vanish into the sea, and the sailors experience the effects attributed to the experiment, i.e., vomiting, and disappearing and reappearing.
Two full-length films have been released on the subject: The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) and Philadelphia Experiment II (1993). They are best described as fantasy.
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 Arts and Entertainment Network (A&E). One episode of The History Channel's History's Mysteries discusses the theory. A similar story also ran on the show Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime. It is also a frequent topic on the late night radio show Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and George Noory.
In The Final Countdown, a US Navy ship is featured traveling in time (but backwards).
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 Pegasus", an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation had a plot similar to the Philadelphia Experiment. Tests of an experimental type of cloaking device result in the deaths of most of the crew of the ship; in particular, some deceased crew members are found "fused" to parts of the ship, similar to deaths attributed to the Philadelphia Experiment.
The 1997 science-fiction movie Event Horizon details a salvage mission of the titular spaceship, a prototype equipped with a gravity-powered "gravity drive" intended to teleport the ship and crew instantly across several light years. While in the movie the vessel was teleported successfully, the side effects of the process depicted are similarly horrific as those attributed to the Philadelphia Experiment.
On the Sci Fi Channel, the TV miniseries The Triangle, the Philadelphia Project was thought to be the cause of the disruptions in the Bermuda Triangle, when it was in fact the attempt to fix it in the 21st century (time space distortion, etc).
Many fans of the ABC TV show Lost, with the season two finale, believe that characters on the shows are either intentionally or unintentionally repeating this experiment.
In the 1979 Disney movie The Black Hole a demented spaceship captain intends to travel through space and time by entering a black hole, employing Einsteinian theory. The captain's name is Reinhart (see above), prompting speculation that the movie was inspired at least in part by the Philadelphia Experiment or the idea of it.
The Philadelphia Experiment is a jazz/funk album featuring Christian McBride, Ahmir Thompson, and Uri Caine. All three are from the Philadelphia area.
On the album Darker Than Black by the American heavy metal band Cage there is a song called "Philedelphia Experiment".
The hip-hop sci-fi EP "Projecto: 2501" by Tajai and SupremeEx ends with a lengthy audio clip of a journalist speaking about the Philadelphia Experiment.
Video games
The Command & Conquer: Red Alert games involves a means of time travel/teleportation which was developed by Einstein as an evolution of the Philadelphia Experiment. He used it to eliminate Hitler before the rise of Nazi Germany, but in doing so inadvertently caused an alternate Second World War to take place between the Soviet Union and the Allied powers (now including Germany). The experiment led to two devices, based on its two variations. The Chronosphere, a potent but dangerous teleportation device—for it teleports only mechanized units while killing any biological matter—and secondly the Gap Generator, a building- and vehicle-mounted device that blocks radar and sight in a certain radius around the Gap unit. The game has a cutscene that briefly shows an Iowa-class battleship disappearing and mentions the “horrible aftermath” the sailors experienced. The Chronosphere also has a side effect, essentially a "return shift", when the teleported object phase itself back to the initial position after a short time. Repeated use of the Chronosphere risks the occurrence of a "chronal vortex", which is an extremely destructive phenomenon, though only for a short time.
In Red Alert 2, Einstein has perfected the Chronosphere's technology to the point where certain infantry units and the Allied Chrono Miner can 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 Einstein discovers that the Chronosphere's potential can be increased by building it inside the magnetosphere's "hot spot". The result of this is that USA can use the Chronosphere on Florida Keys to initiate Operation: Chrono Storm, an all-out assault against Moscow through time-space. The expansion pack, Yuri's Revenge explains that after the war, Einstein had further upgraded the technology, resulting in the creation of the Temporal Displacement Device, which has abandoned movement through space in favor of movement through time. The only prototype is used by the Time Commando to travel back in time to the war's outbreak and erase Yuri's Psychic Dominators from existence before he has a chance to mind control the whole world.
In Tiberian Sun, the command vehicle of General Anton Slavik is called the Montauk, and the GDI's space HQ is called The Philadelphia.
In the 1998 PlayStation RPG Xenogears, the starship in the opening cinematic is named the Eldridge.
In the game Half-Life, the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility have designed teleportation through dimensions. When one of the materials from Xen was inserted into an overcharged anti-mass spectrometer by Gordon Freeman, a high energy detonation has ripped the barriers between Xen and Earth apart. The government had tried to cover up the incident, but the dispatched members of HECU (Hazardous Environmental Combat Unit) had failed containing the alien incursion. Freeman eventually managed to break through HECU forces and get to the Lambda Complex, where the teleportation experiments have been conducted. He was teleported to Xen and closed the seams by killing the one who kept them open. The facility was eventually destroyed by a nuclear warhead. In the second installment of the series, teleportation is successfully achieved, because Barney Calhoun has set up a relay device in Xen during the Incident. Xen is then used "as an unexpressed axis, effectively a dimensional slingshot, so we can swing around the border world (Xen) andcome back to local space without having to pass through." When Freeman used a Combine portal to escape from Nova Prospekt, the teleport exploded just as he was 'porting out, resulting in he and Alyx Vance was become stuck in inter-dimensional space for a week (though they saw it as instantaneous), similar to the Philadelphia Experiment. In the second episode a large ship named the Borealis - much like the Eldridge - which disappeared under mysterious circumstances (vanished into thin air with part of the drydock) is reportedly found somewhere in the Arctic, and is presumed by several characters to have been "teleported" by some unknown force across the globe.
In the game Assassin's Creed, an email suggests that the Philadelphia Experiment was conducted by modern-day Knights Templar. This version contains a twist on the "accidental teleportation" theory in which the ship accidentally time travels for approximately 18 minutes.
Literature
In "Green Fire" (1998), a collaborative novella by Eileen Gunn, Michael Swanwick, Pat Murphy, and Andy Duncan, the science fiction masters Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague De Camp, besides Grace Hopper, take part in the Philadelphia Experiment, with the assistance of Nicola Tesla and the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl.jim
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It sounds to me like it might have been a ploy to get people to accidentally download viruses onto their computer - I have heard of websites being set up for that purpose before, asking people to click "accept" and it just links to a download