The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 555: DEEP DIVE: The Philadelphia Experiment

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

During World War II, rumors circulated of a secret Navy experiment gone awry, with sailors allegedly disappearing or merging with steel. The bizarre tale, known as the "Philadelphia Experiment," fueled decades of speculation and conspiracy theories. What truly transpired at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard? Was it a scientific breakthrough or an elaborate hoax? As witnesses emerge and evidence surfaces, the truth becomes increasingly difficult to discern. The facts behind the experiment raise provocative possibilities about mysterious government operations and our understanding of reality itself.

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As the USS Eldridge sat quietly in the harbor, a team of scientists and military personnel activated Project Rainbow. This was a top-secret program where the U.S. Navy attempted time travel, teleportation, and invisibility. This experiment would challenge everything the scientists thought they knew about the nature of reality, and the consequences of tinkering with the nature of reality would be disastrous. In the summer of 1943, two years after the U.S. entered World War II, American destroyers were being decimated by the infamous German U-boat submarines. Over 40 Allied ships a month were being sunk in the North Atlantic. In addition to U-boats, German sea mines were also taking a heavy toll on merchant

shipping. The United States Navy knew something had to be done, so Project Rainbow was born. If it worked, the Navy could win the Battle of the Atlantic almost immediately. According to rumors, the experiment had two steps, spaced several months apart. The first step occurred on July 22, 1943. On that day, naval scientist Dr. Franklin Reno was given the use of a destroyer and its crew at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. His goal was to make the ship and its sailors completely invisible. Reno's experiment was based on unified field theory, an idea first coined by Albert Einstein.

It's not widely known, but records from that same year show that Einstein was also conducting research for the U.S. Navy. Dr. Reno intended to merge Einstein's theory of relativity with Newton's laws of gravity. While it was yet to be proven, the unified field theory implies that with enough gravity, you could bend light around objects. Doing so would render them invisible to the naked eye. To create enough gravity, Dr. Reno had to generate an enormous electromagnetic field. Tesla coils were attached to the bow, stern, and sides of the ship. These coils would generate the field like a cloak around the ship.

Meanwhile, the crew was told it was just a weapons test, though a highly experimental one. Gentlemen, today we stand on the precipice of a great achievement. We shall bend the very fabric of space and time. The USS Eldridge will not only vanish from sight, but shall traverse the boundaries of our reality. Let us proceed with courage and steadfast determination. For the eyes of the world unknowingly rest upon our shoulders at this moment. But as soon as the equipment was turned on, it was obvious it wasn't a weapon. A greenish fog started to appear around the vessel.

As the minutes ticked by, this green fog grew thicker, eventually shrouding the entire ship. Unfortunately, while the destroyer was hard to see through the thick fog, it was still visible. But the ship's crew soon complained of severe headaches. Dr. Reno stopped the test and considered it a success. Soon after, the Navy decided to alter the experiment. Even if they could make a ship invisible, it would be useless if the crew was incapacitated. So they focused on making the ship invisible to radar instead of the human eye. But when they tested the new version of Reno's system, things got even worse. On October 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a cannon-class destroyer, was docked in the

Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. It had just been commissioned in August. It was a brand-new ship with cutting-edge technology and a top-secret mission. The Eldridge was the vessel for Project Rainbow. It held secrets. Equipped with several large generators, the mission was to win the Battle of the Atlantic.

Rumor aboard the ship was that the generators powered a new kind of magnetic field, more powerful than the Tesla coils used in Dr. Reno's experiment that summer. This field would, in theory, make the warship invisible to enemy radar and mines. With the full crew of 216 sailors and officers aboard, it was time to test the system. In broad daylight, in plain sight of nearby ships, the switches were thrown on the powerful

generators, which hummed to life. Sailors on nearby ships and people on the docks all lined up to watch the experiment. The officers aboard the ship were nervous, but confident. Men, prepare yourselves. Whatever happens, remember, we are pioneers on the frontier of reality. If this works, you'll be part of something that will be spoken of for generations. Keep your resolve strong. What happened next was unexpected. It baffled scientists and fueled decades of speculation. As Reno and the Naval Command looked on, the ship began to glow.

Witnesses described a murky green fog that surrounded the entire hull, just like it had a few months before. But this time, the fog didn't just make the ship hard to see. It made the 1,600-ton USS Eldridge completely disappear. When the fog faded away seconds later, the USS Eldridge was gone. It wasn't just invisible to military radar, it was invisible to everyone. Until it mysteriously turned up in Norfolk, Virginia, 250 miles away. And the strangest part? When it arrived in Virginia, it was 10 minutes earlier in the day than when it disappeared from Philadelphia. The Eldridge reappeared in Philadelphia 20 minutes later.

Or would that be 10 minutes later? Because of the whole time travel thing, it's hard to tell. Either way, it was gone, and then it came back. It seemed the USS Eldridge had traveled through time. And this wasn't completely unexpected. The unified field theory implies more than bending light to make objects invisible. It also suggests that electromagnetic gravity can manipulate time. This seemed to be exactly what happened in Philadelphia that day, but something had gone terribly wrong. According

to reports, when the ship rematerialized, crew members suffered terrible burns and disorientation. Some had fused into the metal walls at the molecular level. Their arms and legs appeared melted into the ship. They were unable to move, unable to free their skin from the metal it clung to, and they died in agony. Other crew members were physically unharmed, but they went insane. I saw them. They were screaming, trying to pull themselves free from the ship's walls. Some faded like ghosts, lost to some other world. Whatever we did, it wasn't meant for man to meddle with time or reality like this. Some sailors vanished completely, never to be seen again.

Others appeared to fade in and out of sight, like they were caught between two dimensions. I can still feel it. The cold. The metal. It was like being trapped inside a nightmare. caught between two dimensions. When the news broke that a naval ship had mastered invisibility with grisly results, many believed it. This was an age of war-fueled paranoia. Americans felt that true evil was out there, so it wasn't difficult to get people speculating about the impossible. This was fertile ground for conspiracy theories. Remember, Roswell was only a few years away. The unexplainable, the unidentifiable, the unbelievable

now seemed achievable. It's unsurprising that some Americans clung to the idea of a vanishing warship. While the USS Eldridge did exist at the time, it wasn't in Philadelphia that day, or Virginia. Most of the ships rumored to be nearby also were in other ports at the time. According to the ship's logs, the Eldridge was undergoing sea trials that month with her brand new crew in New York. Most of those sailors survived the war unscathed and lived unremarkable lives. None ever came forward with evidence of the experiment. In fact, the USS Eldridge had an uneventful life. During the war, it escorted Mediterranean convoys.

Then it was sold to the Greek Navy. The ship was finally decommissioned and scrapped in 1999. This isn't to say that the Philadelphia experiment has zero credibility. While the USS Eldridge may not have been involved, there is something to this. We know for a fact that in October 1943 in Philadelphia, the government was up to something. Everyone's got a pro. Need tires? I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound?

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TreadExperts.ca You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. You searched for your informant,

who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms.

Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. In the 1940s, the U.S. Navy conducted experiments at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard aimed at mastering invisibility. But it wasn't actual invisibility. The goal was to make U.S. ships invisible to underwater German mines. This is believed to be the foundation for the story. The Navy was experimenting with degaussing techniques, a method to make a ship magnetically

invisible. At the time, Germans used the gauss as the unit for the magnetic field strength in their mines' triggers. The process used to counter these mines was called degaussing. The original degaussing method involved installing electromagnetic coils onto ships. This likely sparked the rumors about Tesla coils. However, installing this equipment was expensive and difficult. So the Navy developed an alternative method called wiping. A large electrical cable was dragged along the side of the ship with a pulse of about 2,000 amps.

Wiping altered or muted a ship's magnetic field, allowing it to avoid detection by mines. Without a magnetic field, the ships wouldn't trip the magnetic triggers on the mines. But degaussing wasn't permanent. As a ship traveled through the Earth's magnetic field, it slowly picked up that field, counteracting the effects of degaussing. Ships had to be degaussed on a schedule, much like getting an oil change. Using these techniques, Allied ships were well-protected until 1943. But Germany was catching on, so new techniques were pursued to stay one step ahead. Though there's no official explanation from the Navy, it seems these new techniques were being

developed in Philadelphia. Still, as far as we know, they were not experimenting with time travel, at least not in Philadelphia. But as I've covered in other episodes, the experiments at Montauk and Camp Hero are a different story. And stories may be the key to the Philadelphia experiment. While we know the U.S. Navy wasn't using time travel in Philadelphia that day, they might have been testing something else, something far more sinister. It all began in 1955 when a man named Morris K. Jessup received a letter in the mail. Jessup was a well-known author. He had a master's in astronomy and operated the largest refracting telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, located in South Africa.

He also taught astronomy and mathematics at the Universities of Michigan and Drake. Jessup had recently published a book called The Case for the UFO, where he discussed unidentified flying objects and their exotic propulsion methods. The book caused quite a stir. It was written by an actual scientist who seemed to believe in aliens, or at least encouraged Americans to keep an open mind. Jessup understood the power of rumors and cover-ups. He knew public doubt was a useful tool for governments, and wanted his book to inspire questions. Jessup's primary audience was UFO fanatics.

For them, it was proof that the idea of aliens was worth exploring. It gave this whole group of believers credibility. They were ecstatic. Fan mail started pouring in, filled with strange sightings, new theories, and big ideas. Eventually, Carlos M. Allende penned a letter of his own. This letter ignited a cascade of rumors, theories, and speculation that still fascinate believers in secret technologies and government cover-ups. In his letter, Allende claimed he was standing on a merchant ship

called the Andrew Furiseth in October 1943. The USS Eldridge was docked nearby. Suddenly, Allende watched as the ship vanished into a murky green cloud. He told Jessup it then appeared in Virginia 10 minutes earlier in time, before returning to Philadelphia with its crew fused to the steel bulkheads. Allende, also known as Allen, wrote that most of the men had not survived. One sailor walked through his quarters wall in sight of his family. Other crew members simply vanished. He said two burst into flames and burned for 18 days.

Those who weren't killed, he wrote, were mad as hatters. The letter from Carlos Allende was unlike anything I had ever encountered. His claims were fantastical, bordering on the impossible. Yet there was a sincerity in his words that I could not ignore. As a man of science, I was skeptical, but as an explorer of the unknown, I was intrigued. I knew I had to pursue this lead no matter where it might take me. For the truth, however strange or terrifying, must always be brought to light. Allende claimed he knew the science behind the

incident. The U.S. Navy, he explained, had realized Einstein's unified field theory, where electromagnetism and gravity merge into a single field. Allende seemed to understand the science, and he was willing to go public with his information. But there was something about Allende that seemed off, and soon Morris K. Jessup would find out why. Allende, as it turned out, was a pseudonym. His real name was Carl M. Allen, a man fascinated with UFOs, aliens, and Jessup's work. Allen had indeed been stationed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard during the alleged incident,

but there were holes in his story. The USS Eldridge was actually in New York that day, preparing to depart for North Africa. Moreover, there was no record of the Andrew Ferseth ever being in Philadelphia. On October 28th, 1943, the date of the supposed time travel experiment, it was in the middle of the Atlantic,

heading to the Mediterranean. So what was Alan talking about if the ships weren't there? Alan's letter was bizarre, and not just because of what he claimed to witness. His writing was rambling and strange, almost nonsensical. His account was chilling, but hard to follow. Still, Jessup decided to give him a chance. He wrote back, asking for proof. When Allen's next letter was more ramblings, Jessup started to ignore him. Mr. Jessup, you must believe me. I watched the ship vanish, felt the tremors of reality itself twist and shatter. Those men, they walked through steel as if it were air. The Navy has played God and we are the unholy witnesses.

A year later, two officers from the newly formed Office of Naval Research received a strange package. It was a copy of Jessup's book, "'The Case for the UFO'," covered in notes and annotations. The handwriting seemed to be from three people who call themselves the Gypsies.

They wrote about the Philadelphia experiment in detail. The notes showed advanced knowledge of physics and linked extraterrestrial technology to breakthroughs in unified field theory, the very thing the Philadelphia experiment supposedly relied on. Some notes even claimed aliens had made the ship vanish. A few months later, two ONR officers showed up at Jessup's doorstep. The ONR, responsible for scientific research and special projects, brought the annotated book. Jessup recognized Alan's handwriting immediately. He had used different colored inks trying to fake the handwriting of three fictional people, even claiming one was an alien. Alan later admitted this.

When Jessup didn't buy his story, Alan tried it on the ONR, using three different personas, the so-called gypsies. The fact that the ONR took these annotations seriously was a red flag to some conspiracists. The ONR officers were so concerned with the notes that they retyped them all, reprinting 25 copies of Jessup's book with the typewritten notes. Of course, all 25 copies have now disappeared. You sailed beyond the horizon, in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest

while you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. If the Philadelphia experiment never happened, why would the ONR care about this book at all? Why retype it by hand? Maybe Alan was on to something. The U.S. Navy conducted invisibility tests

in July that year. Alan's accounts might have been suspiciously similar to real events, which would require a cover-up. Or maybe the ONR was just checking up on Alan's story. But their visit backfired, giving the Philadelphia Experiment even more publicity. The lesson, if you have theories

about secret government experiments, it's best to not publicize them. While Allen tried to prove his story, Morris Jessup faced a different problem. His writing career was faltering. After the success of his first book, his second didn't sell well. Two more books about UFOs also failed to gain traction. Eventually, his publishers dropped him. The failure of Jessup's books wasn't entirely his fault. The mid-to-late 1950s saw a surge in UFO and supernatural publications. After Roswell, the American public was overwhelmed with stories of extraterrestrials. Few took them seriously anymore. Even scientific approaches like Jessup's had to compete against obvious hoaxes and bad headlines.

Desperate to reclaim his fame, Jessup saw an opportunity in the Philadelphia experiment. He began obsessively researching Allen's claims, collecting any information he could find. In 1958, he shared his research with a friend, Ivan Sanderson. Sanderson was a researcher focused on zoology, physics, and astronomy, and he wrote extensively about the Bermuda Triangle and other strange phenomena. When Jessup met with Sanderson, he spoke ominously, almost fearfully. He begged Sanderson to keep the research safe. Just in case something happened to me, he said.

Morris was a man possessed. He spoke of the Philadelphia experiment with a fervor I had never seen before, as if he had stumbled upon a truth that both fascinated and terrified him. When he entrusted me with his research, I could see the fear in his eyes, the weight of the knowledge he carried. On April 19, 1959, Jessup called his friend Manson Ballantyne. He claimed a breakthrough in his findings and wanted to meet up the next day to share the news in person. He never showed up. Jessup was found dead in his car the next day, April 20, from carbon monoxide poisoning. A hose was attached to the exhaust pipe, filling the car with toxic gas. Washcloths were pressed into the windows to keep fumes from escaping. Officials ruled it a suicide, but no autopsy was performed. Strangest of all,

his prized briefcase was missing. Whatever documents Jessup was about to show Valentine were now gone. Jessup's death was certainly clouded in mystery. Had he come too close to finding the truth? Did someone need to get rid of him? Jessup had been depressed in the years and months leading up to his death. His wife had left him a year earlier. He'd been in a serious car accident that left him with chronic pain.

It's possible he died by his own hand, but people who knew him, like Manson Valentine, weren't so sure. He was on the verge of something, something big. Jessup was not the type to give up, even in his darkest moments. Whatever he discovered, it was enough to silence him, permanently. And now his truth is buried with him. Now, it's likely that a military ship never really vanished into a mysterious green fog. The real mystery, then, might be about us. What does the Philadelphia experiment say

about our willingness to believe in what we can't explain? Our need for something mysterious to exist? Well, there might be another meta-explanation. In 1994, computer scientist and astronomer Jacques Vallée published a theory in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. He believed that deep-seated imagery is key to planting a hoax into the minds of the public. According to Vallée, if you want someone to remember a story, hoax or not, gives some disturbing details. It's possible the Philadelphia experiment wasn't about

making a ship disappear at all. Maybe the government was testing how to tell cover-up stories. This would explain why the ONR was so concerned about the success or failure of Alan's story. It's possible Jessup had agreed to be an intermediary. He had a fan base, a way to reach the public. He was even employed by the U.S. government for a year between 1943 and 1944, which included the time of the alleged experiments in July and October. Jessup's employment records didn't show his title. His FBI records don't disclose the nature of his work that year. It's possible there was much more to Jessup's career than his books, but with his untimely death, we'll never know.

The publication of Vallée's theory did provide one last clue to the truth about the Philadelphia experiment. Not long after Vallée's article appeared, a witness named Edward Dudgeon came forward. Dudgeon was an electrician in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945. He was stationed aboard the USS Engstrom, which was dry docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard during the summer of 1943. He had firsthand knowledge of the classified devices that were installed on ships there because he had helped install them. Dudgeon confirmed the stories of invisibility were related to degaussing machinery. The green glow, he said, was nothing more than static electricity,

also known as St. Elmo's fire, a well-known phenomenon on the high seas. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. The USS Eldridge, the experiments, the strange green glow, it was all real. But it wasn't science fiction fantasy or government conspiracy. It was just static electricity and degaussing equipment, plain and simple. The Navy had us working on classified projects, sure, but nothing like the Philadelphia experiment. As for the alleged appearance of the USS Eldridge in Virginia,

Dugin said the Navy used private canals that were off-limits to commercial vessels. A Navy ship could easily travel without being spotted. To a casual observer, it might seem to appear almost out of thin air. After Dugin's testimony, many of the questions about the Philadelphia experiment seem to have been answered. But the unknown will always have some kind of power over humanity. And as in the cases of Carl Allen, Morris Jessup, and countless others, our quest for answers might drive us to madness

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