The Philadelphia experiment:

There are some points of time in history that an event happens, and either is total Bullshit, or has some validity. When people discuss myths, or urban legends, I’m the first one to smile and want to hear more mainly due to the curiosity in me, but at the same moment, I’m grinning like a grinch, I know in the back of my mind, that most of the bullshit We stumble across is exactly that.  Bullshit. Although, does some urban myths, or stories have a basis to them in a very loosey goosey type of way?  I can say yes, only because we have the biggest book of loosey goosey stories that has ever been written and bounded by mankind.  Namely, the Bible.  Sorry folks, but I’m not convinced on the tales and myths weaved in “said” book…. but neat to think about anyway.  The story we are going to dive into next, is something that I’ve heard many moons ago, and mainly because of my time in the Navy, and the love and fondness that I have for being out at sea, is why were digging this up now.  Believe it or not, I have seen some pretty crazy shit out in the middle of the ocean in the wee hours of the morning.  Everything from unexplained “glowing” coming from all around us in the ocean, to lights and orbs that you would see zipping past you, or at times, even following you.  Some things were explained after I talked to some old salty dogs that were 15, 20 years in the Navy, and some…. well I just don’t know.  So we here at Strange Uncles are going to unfold the supposed “facts” for an experiment that happened in the 40’s, that really grew legs and turned into one of these urban myths, even had a couple of movies based on the transpiring events. But, just for fun, lets go down the Rabbit hole and see if maybe some of this story has some grain of truth to it.  After all, the Government is directly involved, and we all know you Can’t trust the Government as far as you can throw it…. So ladies and germs, lets unravel the story of the Philadelphia experiment….

Open the Gates…

Flashback to the year of 1943.  We were in the height of the infamous WW2, and shit is hitting the proverbial fan.  The Atomic bomb was being experimented with to be unleashed by either us or Russia, and the race to try and “one up” the enemy was at the top of everyone’s list. In the Philadelphia Naval shipyard, tests were supposedly being done on the USS Eldridge, which was a Cannon-class Destroyer based out of the very same shipyard.  The basis of the experiment was as follows:  By using so-called “matter transmission technology”,  based off of Einstein’s theories, the plan was to create a forcefield around the ship, causing the Destroyer to be completely invisible to the enemy when it was out at sea and deployed in warfare.   Easy sleazy right?   Well, this whole experiment unraveled slowly as time went on….so Here we go….

It should be noted at this point, that despite our research into this, there is not much “factual” info that we can find, or proof dug up where we can shake our head and say we told you so.  However, there are some accounts to this story of people in history who tried to research threads or a lead to try and link things together, to try and explain what happened, or if it actually happened at all. But we think a good starting point is the “theory” behind the idea, sort of speak.  Einstein had many theories and was a fucking genius…one of his ideas he had was “unified field theory”.  In this theory, forces are not transmitted directly between interacting objects, but instead are described and interrupted by intermediary entities called, “fields”. However, this idea is simply that, a idea.   So, the navy’s thought was to use generators to bend light light around the object via “refraction”, and this would make the object or ship, completely invisible. Another conspiracy idea about exactly what the Philadelphia Experiment could be, was a test in measuring magnetic and gravitational readings of the sea floor to detect anomalies.   It was said that the fucking Nazis were also in the thick of working on the exact same experiments, and of course, the race was on for which country could be crazier.  Despite what the actual experiment was, we would be a-missed if we did not mention the “outcome” of said experiments.  It was said that there were eyewitnesses from other sailors and personnel, that were onboard other ships in the shipyard when it happened. Some accounts say the ship actually did disappear and where the ship once was, there was a greenish fog, before the USS Eldridge come back into sight.  Other reports claim that the ship disappeared in a flash of bright blue light and did not reappear for almost ten minutes.  Other accounts range from talk of the ship traveling through time, or showing up in a Norfolk, VA shipyard for the time it disappeared from Philly.   Let’s not forget to mention the aftermath of the condition of the Sailors when the USS Eldridge did reappear…. People were seen “melted” into the ship itself.  Half of someone’s body in a bulkhead with the other half on the other side.  What seemed like “faces” melted to part of the deck.  Other reports of Sailors going mad and being whisked away by military ambulances as they screamed the whole way out of the shipyard. Another ship by the name of the SS Andrew Furuseth had several personnel claim that the USS Eldridge appeared in plain site for at least ten minutes in Virginia, which substantiates the idea that the USS Eldridge was actually teleported.  Now again, we need to mention that none of this was documented and said to have any fact to it, also to add to the fact that the Navy itself has no reports or documentation of any kind that the Philadelphia experiment was real.

  So here’s some other debunking facts:  According to the Navy, the USS Eldridge was not even complete until August of 1943, and remained in NY until Sept. of the same year.  If that is the case, how could the experiments even happen in the timeframe that the witness’s stated? There were also talks that the experiments were simply “degaussing” experiments that the Navy still performs today.   To add, the ONR, which stands for the Office of naval Research, who supposedly conducted experiments, wasn’t even established until 1946.  And to top it off, in 1999, there were several Navy Veterans that were interviewed during a USS Eldridge reunion.  They said the ship was never ported in Philadelphia…. period.  But all of those accounts can be wiped away by the other conspiracy theory that people have said all the personnel onboard the USS Eldridge were brainwashed soon after the Experiment. We all have heard of “MK Ultra”, so there’s that.  But let’s start chasing the trail of how this experiment originally floated to the surface.  To do that, we have to fast forward from the 1943 timeline, to twelve years in the future…Stand by…

Now its 1955 and enter a one Morris Jessup. He was a writer of a UFO book previously and was called to speak in front of certain higher ups at the Naval research facility. Weird thing, ….  The Office of Naval Research had received in the mail, a copy of Morris’s book, that included notes of the Philadelphia experiment, handwritten in three different colors and type of writing in the margins.   Supposedly this laid out the Experiment as a whole.  Of course, the nosey fucking Government wanted to know how and wanted to know why. Morris explained that he received letters from someone calling himself Carlos Allende.  Carlos stated that he watched the experiment firsthand, from another ship in the naval yard, where he witnessed the ship disappear and come back, and shortly thereafter, screams.  Men melted into the ship itself, all the stuff we discussed previously from the aftermath of the experiment. Even though the writing looked liked it was from three different sources, it was later proven that it all was from Carlos himself.  And to add, the handwritten notes weren’t just discussing the Philadelphia experiment, but that there was being’s living in space, among other jargon.  The sad thing is, this was the highlight of Jessup’s career. He tried to publish another book about UFO’s after that event, lost his publisher, and in 1959, committed suicide. Weird side story to this whole book thing.  The ONR invested in publishing 100 copies of Morris’s book that included the notes by Carlos.  Curious as to why?  Because we sure shit are.  These books and notes became known as the Varro annotations.   Hmmm…

In steps Robert German, who was also a researcher of the paranormal, along with catching the story of the Philadelphia experiment and compiling notes over time.  In 1979, he picked up on the book and notes written by Carlos Allende.  After some digging, he realized that the address where Carlos mailed the book to the ONR, came from a town in New Kensington, Pennsylvania.   Robert pieced together the holes that were missing in the story, and published it in several magazines, and even got the story on TV, namely on shows such as Unsolved Mysteries and The Unexplained.   It seems that Carlos Allende was actually Carl Allen, who, come to find out, was a son of a family friend.  To shake the story even further, Carlos was somewhat of a Black Sheep of the family and had an imagination that wouldn’t stop…. or a crackpot would be a better term.  So, the whole Carl Allen story somewhat “debunked” the story all together.  To make matters worse, as Robert continued to look into the footnotes in regard to the experiment, he too stumbled on some of the same issues as we mentioned before, such as the USS Eldridge not being anywhere near Philadelphia when it occurred.   What is also funny about this story, is that there were more books written on the matter.  There has been other books and documentaries written and discussed in regard to the Philadelphia experiment. In 1963, Vincent Gaddis published a book on it, called “Invisible Horizons; True mysteries of the sea”, using the notes of the Varos annotations.  Charles Berlitz wrote a book in 1979 called “The Philadelphia Experiment; Project invisibility”, that also included other stories of government cover-ups and conspiracies.  Let’s not forget about the Movie, that supposedly was reviewed by and said it was based on a true story by a supposed crewmate of the USS Eldridge by the name of Alfred Bielefeld.  

Other funny fun Bullshit is the movie that came out in 1984.  Carl Allen also had said that he witnessed Veterans that were on the USS Eldridge years later, disappear before his eyes, which is a lot of what the movie was based off of.  Sad thing is, the names of the veterans that supposedly would disappear and reappear across dimensions, weren’t even Veterans, nor did they exist.   Now, on the other side of the coin, if you’re a diehard conspiracy theorist, its safe to say that the one thing you can scream at the top of the mountain with is, that it was all a cover-up.  Goddamned government, you can’t trust it as far as you can throw it.  They faked documents, changed logs, brainwashed people…. all in the effort to wipe the Philadelphia experiment off the map.

  One thing that we do wonder amongst all of this, is the proven fact that the ONR did invite Morris Jessup to speak on behalf of the original notes in the book that was mailed to them by Allen.  Maybe they were just curious and had nothing better to do but pursue a hoax?  I’ve been in the Navy…its amazing how much money is flushed down the toilet for investigations, programs, experiments, etc.  And, I will add that there are some experiments that the government has thrown their money into that have some pretty solid legs underneath of them.  But despite what you believe, The Philadelphia experiment has taken on a life of its own and let’s be honest…Kinda fucking fun to ponder. 

Close the Gates….