Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

The Philadelphia Experiment

The Philadelphia Experiment isan alleged military experiment supposed to have been carried out bythe U.S. Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, United States, sometime around October 28, 1943. TheU.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge was claimed to have beenrendered invisible (or "cloaked") to enemy devices.

The story first appeared in 1955, inletters of unknown origin sent to UFO writer Morris K. Jessup. It iswidely understood to be a hoax; the U.S. Navy maintains that no suchexperiment was ever conducted, that the details of the storycontradict well-established facts about USS Eldridge, and that thealleged claims do not conform to known physical laws.

Origins of the story

In 1955 UFO researcher Morris K.Jessup, the author of the just published book The Case for the UFO,about unidentified flying objects and the exotic means of propulsionthey might use, received two letters from Carlos Miguel Allende (whoalso identified himself as "Carl M. Allen" inanother correspondence) who claimed to have witnessed a secret WorldWar II experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. In thisexperiment, Allende claimed the destroyer escort USS Eldridge wasrendered invisible, teleported to New York, teleported to anotherdimension where it encountered aliens, and teleported through time,resulting in the deaths of several sailors, some of whom were fusedwith the ship's hull. Jessup dismissed Allende as a "crackpot".

In early 1957 Jessup was contacted bythe Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Washington, D.C., who hadreceived a parcel containing a paperback copy of The Case for the UFOin a manila envelope marked "Happy Easter." The bookhad been extensively annotated in its margins, written with threedifferent shades of pink ink, appearing to detail a correspondenceamong three individuals, only one of whom is given a name: "Jemi."The ONR labeled the other two "Mr. A." and "Mr.B."

The annotators referred to each otheras "Gypsies" and discussed two different types of"people" living in outer space. Their text containednon-standard use of capitalization and punctuation, and detailed alengthy discussion of the merits of various elements of Jessup'sassumptions in the book. There were oblique references to thePhiladelphia Experiment (one example is that "Mr. B."reassures his fellow annotators who have highlighted a certaintheory which Jessup advanced). Based on the handwriting style andsubject matter, Jessup concluded a large part of the writing wasAllende's, and others have the same conclusion, that the three stylesof annotations are from the same person using three pens.

The ONR funded a small printing of 100copies of the volume by the Texas-based Varo Manufacturing Company,which later became known as the Varo edition, with the annotationstherefore known as the Varo annotations.

Jessup tried to publish more books onthe subject of UFOs, but was unsuccessful. Losing his publisher andexperiencing a succession of downturns in his personal life led himto take his own life in Florida on April 30, 1959.

Repetitions

In 1963 Vincent Gaddis published a bookof Forteana, titled Invisible Horizons: True Mysteries of the Sea. Init he recounted the story of the experiment from the Varoannotations.