So Supernatural - CONSPIRACY: The Philadelphia Experiment

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

In the 1950s, Morris K. Jessup received a letter from a stranger. The man claimed to have intel on an ultra-classified wartime Naval experiment involving teleportation, human test subjects, and disastrous results that the government would do anything to cover up. 

Imagine you open up your mailbox one day and inside is this handwritten envelope. It's not a bill, it's not your birthday, and you don't recognize the sender, but it's clearly addressed to you. So you open it up and read the letter inside. The words seem to be written by a madman, which is creepy because this stranger knows exactly who you are, and for some reason, he tells you a secret. The government has been conducting ultra-classified experiments using human lab rats. They might have even ripped a hole through space. You'd throw out the letter and lock your doors, right? Except that in the case of Morris Jessup,

if he had done that, then we wouldn't know about the Philadelphia experiment. This is Supernatural, and I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week, I'm examining the Philadelphia Experiment, a top-secret World War II Navy test said to have had disastrous results. It's a wild story, but it's worth talking about because for decades, people have tried to figure out just how much of it is actually true. All that and more is coming up. Stay with us. If you've been listening to this show, you know that conspiracies don't just fall from the sky.

There's a reason they exist, even if it's hard to separate fact from fiction. Today's story is overflowing with disinformation from all parties involved, including the United States government. Accounts have been regurgitated so many times that it's taken on a life of its own. So what we're going to do is tell the story as it's most often told. Then we'll try to cut through all of the noise to figure out what really happened. The story starts with a guy named Morris Jessup. In 1956, 56-year-old Jessup is selling used car parts in Florida to make some extra cash.

But don't let that side hustle fool you. He has his master's in astronomy. He's studied for a PhD in astrophysics at the University of Michigan, taught science at Drake University, and worked on archaeological missions in Central America. Like, this guy is legit. He's also written a book or two on his fascination with UFOs,

which is why he receives a mysterious letter on January 13th. The envelope is postmarked in Gainesville, Texas, but the return address is listed as someplace in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. Jessup opens the letter, and it looks like it was written in a rush. Even the syntax is garbled. It's filled with errors, underlined sentences, and sporadically capitalized words. And the author calls himself by different names. Sometimes Carl M. Allen, other times Carlos Miguel Allende.

This is already confusing, but the message itself is crystal clear. Allende read Jessup's book, The Case for the UFO, and he wants to correct Jessup on a very important detail. He says Albert Einstein's unified field theory isn't just a theory. It's been proven. Now, to this day, history officially remembers unified field theory as one of Einstein's biggest dead ends. In the 1920s, Einstein hypothesized that a single set of equations might rule all the forces of the universe. So if humans knew what they were, they might theoretically be able to manipulate them. We're talking things like space and time. Allende tells Jessup that contrary to popular belief, Einstein actually cracked the code. And not only does the U.S. government know about it, in the midst of World War II, the Navy tried to weaponize unified field theory. Allende knows this because he witnessed

one of the experiments firsthand. But bear with me, though, because this story is pretty wild. Allende says that in the late summer or early fall of 1943, he was working for the United States Coast Guard on a cargo ship called the SS Andrew Furiseth. The Furiseth is docked in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and right next to it is this massive cannon-class naval destroyer, the USS Eldridge. From the way Allende tells the story, it sounds like he was maybe the only person on board his ship that day, and he can see straight over onto the Eldridge's deck. Just before sunset at around 5 p.m., this green fog starts creeping up around the Eldridge. Then it morphs into this like see-through force field-like perimeter, or at

least that's what it looks like to Allende. Already, this story is pretty hard to believe, but Allende claims that he could actually see the sailors on board the Eldridge becoming translucent. It's almost like they're turning into holograms or even ghosts. At this point, Allende is freaking out. He's trying to figure out what to do, but the next time he blinks, the Eldridge is gone. Like it literally just disappeared before his very eyes. This story already sounds insane, but according to Allende, things get even more creepy because the water, where the ship just was, still looks displaced. There's a dent in it, like the ship was still physically there, just invisible. Then, a couple minutes later, the massive battleship just reappears,

in the same spot as though nothing had happened. Only Allende hears these blood-curdling screams coming from the sailors on deck. The loudest screams are coming from men whose bodies now appear to be fused to the ship. To Allende, it looks like their skin and bones are literally melting into the deck. Now, Allende's letter is so far-fetched, it's hard to believe, but he insists that the whole thing was a Navy experiment gone wrong. He says the sailors who had been on board the Eldridge stopped experiencing time like a normal person, almost as if they were trudging through mud while the world raced past them. Others started to turn invisible at random, and Allende claims two sailors even raided a bar

while invisible. He says there's a record of it happening in a 1943 news article. All in all, he seems to imply that almost every one of the sailors on board the Eldridge during the Philadelphia experiment is now dead. Jessup is reading this letter, and for most of it, he's thinking Carlos Allende is out of his mind. Like, none of this can be true. Either Allende is making the whole thing up, or he's embellishing a ton. Allende does provide a few other witness names, though. Then he signs the letter, Very disrespectfully yours, Carl M. Allen.

Which is just weird and also kind of rude. And next to his signature, Allende includes a string of letters and numbers that first appear to be totally random, but they're actually his old sailor ID code. Official government records clearly indicate that in the late summer 1943, a man named Carl Allen was working on the SS Andrew Furiseth, docked in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. So this much is true. In any case, a few days later, Jessup receives a second letter from Allende.

Apparently, he forgot to mention a few more details. The USS Eldridge didn't just become invisible that day. It supposedly teleported. In the time that it was gone from the Navy yard, Allende says witnesses saw the ship spontaneously materialize at a dock 300 miles away in Norfolk, Virginia. He also gives Jessup the name of a man he says is chief of research at the Navy, Rear Admiral Rawson Bennett. Allende says Bennett may have a job waiting for Jessup. Now, this story is about as crazy as it gets, like disappearing ships, a top-secret job offer, and as far as we know, Jessup never reached out to Rear Admiral Bennett, who, by the way, was a real person, just like the Furiseth and Eldridge were

real World War II ships. In any case, the letters pique Jessup's interest, so he writes to Allende asking for the names and addresses of these other alleged witnesses. He even suggests to Allende that they meet in Texas, if Allende is still there. But when Allende responds, he ignores Jessup's request and says he can't provide any more information. He more or less explains there's a reason nobody has heard of the experiments. The Navy has gone to great lengths to make sure the truth stays buried, and it's been long enough that Allende wouldn't be able to track down the witnesses' addresses or phone numbers, even if he wanted to.

But he does double down on that bar rate. He says if Jessup could get his hands on the newspaper article, it'd probably have a few names in it. Now, as far as we know, Jessup never found the newspaper article, but he did receive over 50 additional letters from Allende over the next year. But they don't add anything new to the story, so Jessup becomes incredibly frustrated. In a desperate search for the truth, he does the unthinkable. It's not exactly clear when, but at some point, Jessup reaches out to the United States Navy and gives them Allende's return address, road number one, box 223, New Kensington, Pennsylvania. When officials go down to investigate, they supposedly find a vacant farmhouse and nothing more. It's just another dead end. Without any more leads, Jessup lets the Philadelphia experiment fade into his periphery, and he figures the Navy must not care about it

either. But the next year, in the spring of 1957, Jessup receives a call. It's from the Office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C., requesting he come in for a meeting. They've received an alarming package that requires his attention. Up next, Jessup helps the Navy unpack a string of clues. Now let's get back to the story. In the spring of 1957, the Office of Naval Research receives a package addressed to their chief of research, Admiral Firth. Inside is a cryptic folder with a message, Happy Easter, just written across the front. Inside the folder, they find a paperback copy of Morris K. Jessup's book, The Case for the UFO. But it's not the book that troubles them. It's what's written in the margins.

In three different colors of ink, in three unique handwritings, are these bizarre annotations. Some of the messages are standalone remarks, others are in conversation with each other. Nothing fully makes sense, but one of the note takers calls himself Jemmy. The other two never mention their names, but the Office of Naval Research starts calling them Mr. A and Mr. B. All three appear to be incredibly intelligent with a grasp of high-level physics and super advanced technology, stuff that the average person just shouldn't know or even have access to. So either these people are high-level scientists

or they've done a ton of research. Now, already this is really weird weird but honestly kind of impressive. Like the theoretical concepts in this book are insane but things kind of go downhill from there. All three writers refer to humans as if they themselves are a different species. They discuss their way of life, their philosophy, and their music as if it's all distant from Earth. And they speak about things like UFOs and propulsion systems. Now, this is obviously pretty weird, but it gets even weirder. On page seven, Mr. A implicates the Navy

in what sounds like the same experiment Allende wrote to Jessup about. He writes, quote, Supposedly, this raises enough of a red flag for the Navy that they tried to track down the sender of the package. But of course, it's a dead end, which is why they called Morris Jessup, the author of the book, into their office. They cross their fingers and hope that maybe he'll know something that they don't. And he does. When Jessup opens the copy of the book, he recognizes one of the handwritings. Mr. A is Carlos Allende. He's sure of it. Jessup hands over Allende's letters to the Navy,

and they agree it's definitely him. But instead of just chalking it up to a prankster and letting it go, the Navy passes the book up their chain of command until it arrives on the desks of two very important people, Captain Sidney Sherby and Commander George Hoover. Both of them are involved with the Navy's Special Projects Department, the division charged with creating high-tech war machines. Their involvement definitely adds credibility to everything that Allende said so far. Like, something in those notes made the government care. They even contract a company called Vero Manufacturing to make 127 copies of the book for their investigation. It's since become known as the Vero Manuscript.

In any case, Jessup feels like something is up. After meeting with the Navy, he seems to take the Philadelphia experiment very seriously, doing as much research as he can. Now keep in mind, this is both an astrophysicist and a UFO writer. He can't help but be skeptical and really curious at the same time. But we'll never know what sort of answers he may have found because two years later, Morris Jessup turns up dead. On April 20th, 1959, around 6.45 p.m., an attendant in Matheson Hammett Park in Florida was preparing to close the park for the night.

But before he turns the key on the park gate, he notices a white station wagon. It's parked in one of the lots and it's still running. The attendant heads over to tell whoever it is that they have to leave. As he approaches, he notices a hose attached to the car's exhaust pipe. It's running up through one of the car's rear windows, which is barely cracked. And the space around the hose has been stuffed with rags. When the attendant opens the door, Morris Jessup is slumped over in the driver's seat,

just seconds away from death. Police arrive on the scene shortly after Jessup is found. And according to researcher Anna Genslinger, as they start their investigation, a doctor just so happens to be passing through the neighborhood. The good doctor pronounces Jessup dead on the spot. So coincidentally, or conveniently, no trip to the hospital is required. As far as the hose that brought the toxic fumes into Jessup's car, it wasn't haphazardly attached to the exhaust pipe. It was wired on. For all we know, Jessup didn't notice it in the rear window when he turned the key in the ignition.

Jessup also didn't leave a note, making it seem to those who knew him like this wasn't a suicide. And yet, no autopsy was ever conducted. No serious investigation into his death ever happened. Now, to be fair, Jessup had recently gone through a divorce and lost a book deal. Allegedly, he wasn't in a healthy state of mind. But according to researchers who've examined the Philadelphia experiment, investigators should have found his death suspicious. A year earlier, in an alleged closed-door meeting with fellow researchers, Jessup supposedly alluded to his life being in very real danger. And in the weeks leading up to his death,

he apparently told his friend, Dr. J. Manson Valentine, that he was on to something really big in regards to the Philadelphia experiment. So it's possible that this something big might have gotten him killed. Jessup's death catapults the Philadelphia experiment into a new spotlight. Over the next decade, researchers managed to get their hands on the Vero manuscript and Allende's letters. And UFO and paranormal researchers published books calling for further investigation into the Philadelphia experiment and Jessup's death. Then, in 1984, the production company Thorne EMI makes a film called The Philadelphia Experiment. It's a low-budget indie feature that takes some liberties with Allende's letters and the chain of events.

But it does surprisingly well at the box office. Most audiences don't know the history behind the film. They've never heard of Carlos Allende or Morris Jessup. They toss back popcorn like it's just a run-of-the-mill sci-fi thriller. But if the film was never made, we wouldn't have heard from a second person who supposedly witnessed the Philadelphia experiment. Now, if you thought things were already strange, buckle up. This is when the story gets really weird. In 1988, four years after the film's release,

60-year-old electrical engineer and contractor for the military, Al Balick, is watching the movie on VHS with his family. He finishes and doesn't really think much of it. But in the coming days, he begins to experience these vivid flashbacks. It's sort of like he's swimming through a sea of deja vu. Bailik goes to therapy. He tries seeing a psychic, but nothing does the trick. Not until he sees a hypnotist who uses this technique known as past life regression.

Supposedly, in the process, waves of painful memories flood back into Bailick's consciousness. The memories belong to him, but they're too overwhelming to process. The illusion of time shatters in front of his eyes, and he's confronted with the truth about his déjà vu. Nearly 50 years earlier, he was a sailor on board the USS Eldridge. Coming up, Al Bailick arrives in the future. Now let's get back to the story. In 1988, the fictional film The Philadelphia Experiment triggered painful memories locked deep within Al Bailik's psyche.

Supposedly, he remembered that his real name wasn't even Al Bailik. It was Edward Cameron. And he wasn't born in 1927. He was born 11 years earlier, in 1916. The government had erased his memories to cover up a terrible secret, but now those memories were back. A few years after this discovery, Balick shared his story with the world, and it's another wild one. In the early 1930s, Balick remembers being in his 20s and studying science at Princeton, then Harvard, where he earned a PhD.

While at Harvard, Bailik apparently meets renowned Hungarian mathematician and physicist, Dr. John von Neumann. Now, we know that von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project, the U.S. program that created the world's first nuclear weapons. That's conclusively true. But according to Bailick, von Neumann's work on the Manhattan Project was preceded by his work on an arguably more dangerous effort called Project Rainbow. Bailick says Rainbow was originally run by the famous inventor Nikola Tesla. But when Tesla raised concerns about the dangers of human experimentation, President Franklin Roosevelt replaced him with von Neumann. Von Neumann pushes any ethical or moral quandaries aside, and he forges ahead using Einstein's unified field theory to turn warships

invisible. As the story goes, by 1940, von Neumann recruits Al Beilick and Beilick's brother Duncan, who is this other, like, science whiz. Their job is to assist on certain technical logistics involved on Project Rainbow, like the details of which are kind of vague. Together, Beilick and Duncan brush up on their physics through this rigorous 90-day training program where they meet both Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein. They're trying to develop technology to put an end to World War II, sort of like Project Manhattan was trying to do with the atomic bomb. By the summer of 1943, Project Rainbow is ready to run its first live test on a small ship in Brooklyn, New York. Bailick and Duncan are assigned to operate the machinery below deck. When they're told all systems go, they flip the switches on the necessary

equipment and the ship becomes invisible. Shortly after, it reappears again in the same spot, exactly as planned. The experiment is a success and according to Bailick, some of the sailors become violently ill, but no one dies. Now, already the story is way out there, but Bailick has more to tell. According to him, later that summer, Bailick and Duncan are on board the USS Eldridge docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard for yet another test run. This time, they're conveniently on the deck when the experiment starts. And when a dense green fog begins to form around the ship, they realize that something is wrong. Bailick and Duncan try to shut the experiment down, but they can't. So they make a dash for the edge of the ship and jump off instead. But they never hit the water.

When Bailick opens his eyes, he's in a hospital room surrounded by technology he's never seen before. Duncan is lying in the bed next to him, unconscious. But Bailick doesn't have much time to process this because a doctor enters the room. The doctor asks him, do you know what year it is? And Bailick responds like, of course, it's 1943. FDR is president. You can turn the radio on and you'll hear Frank Sinatra. But the doctor's like, you may want to stay laying down for this. The year is actually 2137. Supposedly, the doctor pulls out a map of the United States and the entire southeastern coast of the country is just ocean.

Florida is entirely underwater. For the next few weeks, Bailick and Duncan are treated in this futuristic government hospital. Then they suddenly and inexplicably travel forward through time again to the year 2749. According to Bailick, this trip through space and time lasts longer. He and Duncan are healthy enough to get acquainted with the future and they discover that the world is ruled by a computer system, what we would refer to as artificial intelligence. Luckily, Balak and Duncan are only present in 2749 for two years before yet another sudden inexplicable jump in

time. Supposedly this time, they end up in 1983, but they barely adjust to their new surroundings before government officials corner them and erase their memories. Ed Cameron's consciousness is then somehow implanted in a child born in 1927 as Alfred Bailick, meaning he never sees his old body again. And when Bailick is born, he doesn't remember anything about his past life, but it's still there in his subconscious. He grows up and becomes this walking, talking encyclopedia of knowledge. Nobody suspects he's lived another life as a government scientist. They just think he's a little eccentric. So he wanders through life feeling at odds with this world around him, never fully knowing why. That is, until 60 years later, when he's sitting in front of a television, watching the Philadelphia experiment on VHS.

Now, this story is so crazy. It seems hard for anyone to believe. But apparently, Bailick found an audience. On January 13th, 1990, he delivers a speech at a UFO conference in Dallas, Texas. He tells the world that the Philadelphia experiment was real. He even found pictures of what he looked like as Edward Cameron, and the age and years all seem to match up. Bailick's story gets picked up by media outlets across the country. He goes on this press tour, radio, television, conferences, and as crazy as he sounds, his account pretty much

stays consistent. But one of the details Bailick's most adamant about is that the Philadelphia experiment didn't happen when Carlos Allende says it did. Bailick says that it occurred on August 12th, 1943, while most sources say that Carlos Allende's version of events happened in October of 1943. So who's telling the truth? In Al Bailick's case, his unbelievable story really shouldn't be believed. Edward Cameron, the man in the photographs that Bailick claimed to be him in a former life, was a real person named Alex Cameron. And he did go to Princeton and Harvard, but he never participated in a government experiment.

Cameron also had kids, and they are not happy that Bailick used their father's likeness as evidence for Project Rainbow. As for Carlos Allende, he isn't really a trustworthy person either. After Morris Jessup died, Allende remained elusive for years. Then, in 1969, he stopped by the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization in Tucson, Arizona to make a confession. Allende said he made everything up. It was all just lies. But this could have been false because shortly afterwards,

he recanted it. The only other party under suspicion is the Navy. Of course, they maintain that they've never conducted any investigations on invisibility, period. But that's not entirely true. In World War II, many ships were outfitted with degaussing equipment, which sent an electrical current through the vessel's magnetic field, making the field invisible to enemy radar. Now, this technology is real and still exists today, but it doesn't have any known side effects. As for Project Rainbow, Al Bailick's name for the Philadelphia experiment,

Rainbow was the Allied powers' codename for their plans to defeat Germany, Japan, and Italy. But as far as we can tell, it had nothing to do with invisibility or time travel. Still, if you've listened to past episodes, you know that top-secret government programs like the Manhattan Project and MKUltra were real. There have been some really crazy U.S. programs that have either succeeded or failed. Like we said, conspiracies don't just fall from the sky. They exist for a reason.

In the end, no one has been able to answer why the Navy took such an interest in the book with the notes or Jessup's letters from Allende. Maybe the only person who ever knew was Morris Jessup. And maybe the truth was so bad that it was enough to get him killed. Exactly what the truth is, though, we might never know. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode.

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