The Philadelphia Experiment Debunked

According to the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment, the United States Navy caused  the destroyer USS  Eldridge to become invisible on October 28, 1943.   Did the Navy conduct invisibility experiments that caused ships appear and disappear?  The truth is that during World War II, the U.S. government did gather together some of the greatest physicists in the world.

The military wanted to come up with some kind of super weapon that would give them an edge over Germany and Japan.  Some claim that the government used Albert Einstein’s Unified Field Theory to make warships invisible. 

They attempted to do this by using massive magnetic fields to bend light around the ships.  This supposedly resulted in the Eldridge disappearing in a green haze off the coast of Philadelphia.  The definitive version of this story is the book “The Philadelphia Experiment” by Charles Berlitz. 

The Navy denies ever conducting such an experiment.  Edward Dudgeon claims the military wanted to make the ships invisible to magnetic torpedoes. Dudgeon was a sailor on the U.S.S. Engstrom, which was anchored next to the Eldridge.  On October 28, 1943, crew members from both ships  had parties on shore.  Skeptics claim that there was no mention of anything out of the ordinary happening. 

Morris Jessup was the author of a book about UFOs.  According to skeptic Brian Dunning, Jessupwas called to the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to discuss a copy of his book.  It had been sent to the ONR by an anonymous person.  The book was full of handwritten annotations and Jessup immediately recognized the wild writing.  This is where the man who may have started the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment enters.

The handwriting belonged to a man who called himself Carlos Allende, who claimed to have witnessed the experiment.  A paranormal researcher named Robert Goerman was surprised to find that Allende was really Carl Allen. Allen was the son of a close family friend.  By the way, Goerman claimed that the Eldridge was nowhere near Philadelphia when the alleged experiment occurred.

A group called the Cincinnati Skeptics back up the allegations about Carl Allen.  According to them, Allen started the rumors about the Philadelphia Experiment in the 1950’s.  He claimed to be a seaman on a ship anchored near the Eldridge.  In reality, the Navy conducted research at the Philadelphia Navy Yard to find ways for warships to evade detection by the enemy.

Carl Allen confused research on evasion with research on invisibility.  Around the same time, Allen read an article about a ship and crew experiencing strange phenomena during a storm.  He put two plus two together and got five.  Allen then communicated his misconceptions to UFO researchers who in turn spread the rumor, and the result was a hit book and movie.

If you have read my articles, you know I am very open minded about the paranormal.  While “The Philadelphia Experiment” is an entertaining story, it has too much going against it.  The main thing it has going against it is Carl Allen, who is either a lunatic or a conman.  What the Navy was doing was research similar to today’s stealth research, nothing more, nothing less.