1. On October 28, 1943, the US Navy supposedly managed to turn the destroyer USS Eldridge invisible. And more: the vessel would have been teleported from Philadelphia to the Norfolk Naval Base. Seaman Carl Allen was in Norfolk, aboard the Liberty USS Andrew Furuseth, and would have watched as the military ship emerged, shrouded in a green mist.
2. Allen claimed to have been the only witness, because the phenomenon lasted a few moments and several crew members of the Eldridge died in the process. merge with the ship on the return teleport. According to conspirologists, the survivors were sent to military psychiatric centers, where they were brainwashed into forgetting everything, and declared as «lost in mission».
3. The feat would be an application of the Unified Field Theory, from Albert Einstein. The physicist actually worked for the Navy. In a June 1943 letter he said to Lieutenant Stephen Bruneauer: «I have an idea of an electromagnetic apparatus for this purpose which I would like to present to you.» In another, he stated that «experiment seems to me to be the only way of confirmation»
4. Years later, Allen began to send letters to the astronomer Morris K. Jessup, author of the science fiction The Expanding Case for the UFO (1955). Allen anonymously sent authorities a copy of that book, with notes about the “experience”. This “commented” version was released by members of the Navy and became known as the “Varo Edition”.
5. Interrogated by the Navy, Jessup began investigating the story. On April 19, 1959, he made an appointment with Dr. Manson Valentine to reveal an important discovery. But the next day he was found dead in his car in a strange suicide with carbon monoxide. Could it have been a file burn?
6. In 1969, Allen finally went public. He showed up at the Aerial Phenomena Research Office in Arizona and confessed that the story had been made up. Ten years later, however, he stepped back and collaborated with authors Moore & Berlitz on The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility, the book that crystallized this conspiracy theory in pop culture
7. In 1984, the story inspired the movie Philadelphia Projectwith Nancy Allen (star of the trilogy robocop). The film gave rise to a new witness. Alfred Bielek, allegedly responsible for the electronics sector of the USS Eldridge, claimed that he had been brainwashed and only remembered everything that had happened watching the feature film
8. According to Bielek, the experiment took place on August 12th, not October. And it had been much more than a teleportation: he had traveled through time, from 1943 to 1983 (just as he had been described in the film). Furthermore, the temporal rift created by the magnetic field attracted UFOs to Earth and one of them had been captured by the US Navy
Curiosity
Allen really existed: According to Social Security records, he died in 1994 in Colorado
On the other hand…
Several records indicate nothing unusual about the trajectory of the USS Eldridge.
– The Eldridge’s logbook reports no unusual activity throughout 1943 and the Navy denies ever carrying out any design
– The Eldridge continued sailing normally until 1951, when it was delivered to Greece. Her voyages are available to view on the US Navy website.
– The records of the USS Andrew Feruseth indicate that it was no longer in Norfolk at the date of the alleged experience
– Einstein was a consultant on another project, which had nothing to do with invisibility or teleportation. He was developing a magnetic mechanism to repel German submarine mines, which in 1942 alone sank more than a thousand Allied ships.
– Today there are several successful research involving invisibility, but all would work only for certain wavelengths. For example, planes can be “invisible” to radars, but not to light.
– Everything known about invisibility today has nothing to do with Einstein’s Unified Field Theory
– Jessup’s daughter believes the suicide was real, as she says her father was depressed after going through a recent divorce and receiving hostile reviews of his book
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SOURCES US Navy, Naval History and Heritage Command, film The Philadelphia Project (1984), History Channel documentary The Philadelphia Project Experience, and websites UFO, Universia, The Philadelphia Experiment from AZ, E-Telescope, and USS Venture