The US government and armed forces are no stranger to having alternate theories thrown their way. For
decades it seems, doubt and suspicion has landed at their door. But there’s one case, perhaps more
than any other, that potentially reveals the sheer scale of what might be hidden from us.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question;
did the US Navy really turn a ship invisible?
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In science fiction, the power of invisibility probably sits at the very top table of superpower
options. In science fact, however, it’s an extremely difficult (so far impossible) trick
to properly pull off. Yes, there are now certain materials that can make it appear
as though something that’s behind (or covered by) them has disappeared. And, of course, with
film special effects on a screen, invisibility is actually a simple illusion to cast. But real,
genuine, physically vanished-into-thin-air invisibility… we just can’t do that. Or,
at least, if we can do that, then most of the watching world is wholly unaware of it.
In 1955, a bizarre story emerged via a former US merchant mariner, Carl M. Allen. In short,
Allen claimed to have once witnessed part of a top secret experiment in which the US Navy
turned the USS Eldridge - a Destroyer Escort - invisible. According to Allen,
it had all happened twelve years previously, in October 1943. The Eldridge had been docked at the
Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, a one-time crucial hub for American forces at sea. At the same time,
Allen claimed to have then been on another ship, from which he saw the Eldridge fade
and disappear. It’s said that the ship then turned up hundreds of miles away,
in Norfolk, Virginia… before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.
Importantly, even at this early stage in the story, accounts do differ. Some have Allen in
Philadelphia, watching the Eldridge go and come back… while some have him in Norfolk,
witnessing it suddenly appear and then vanish. Some accounts also claim that The
Eldridge arrived in Norfolk a few minutes before it allegedly left Philadelphia,
implying that there might’ve been some kind of time travel at play, as well as the invisibility
and teleportation. From the very beginning, then, there are inconsistencies in the story.
Nevertheless, there are some commonalities, too. For one, it’s said that the crew aboard
the Eldridge suffered immensely as a result of their seemingly impossible ordeal. Some
sailors allegedly disappeared, never to be seen again… while some remained not just on the ship,
but in it. Upon the Eldridge re-emerging in Philadelphia, it’s said that some of the crew
found themselves fused into the fabric of the ship itself. Body parts merging
into walls and floors, and in most cases a painful death shortly followed. If the
Philadelphia Experiment really did happen, then, it clearly didn’t all go to plan.
But there, of course, is the big question… did it happen? It forever
has its place in conspiracy and folklore, but should we really believe that America,
eighty years ago, managed to dissolve an entire warship? And, not only that,
but managed to beam it more than two hundred miles south down its own east coast, as well?
Nowadays, the calls of hoax are extremely loud, and for good reason. First off there’s
the plain physical impossibility of it all, as per mainstream science.
Allen reportedly said that the ship’s invisibility - which allegedly unfolded
amidst a greenish cloud of gas - was made possible due to an until-then-unknown application of the
theories of Albert Einstein. And while so many of Einstein’s ideas have come to light today,
true invisibility still isn’t one of them. Allen was voicing his claims at a time
when so much of modern physics was still misunderstood; when there was much more
room for a more flexible interpretation of the rules. And skeptics argue that the Philadelphia
Experiment was more the product of a wild imagination than a true grasp of science.
From the Navy’s perspective, there’s been little by way of an official response to
any of what supposedly happened. Although, much of what has been said also implies that if Allen
really believed he saw anything, it might’ve again all been due to a huge misunderstanding.
The Second World War was at its height in October 1943. And, beginning with Pearl Harbour itself,
American naval bases had become places of intense scrutiny, as the watching public tried to assess
how its country was faring in the fight. They were also places for cutting edge technology,
though, and there were multiple projects underway aimed at cloaking US ships from
the enemy. It’s just that the plan was more to scramble magnetic signals emitted by US vessels,
to ensure that they couldn’t be tracked or targeted. The plan was
never to physically disintegrate a ship, as Allen claimed he saw.
The really damning case against the Philadelphia Experiment, though, is that even Allen himself
began to backtrack on his story, later in life. Much of the original legend had been
based on handwritten notes in a copy of a book sent to the US Office of Naval Research, in
1955. The book in question was a then best-seller, “The Case for the UFO:
Unidentified Flying Objects”, by Morris K. Jessup. It had been released during the early UFO boom,
but Allen sent it in an all new direction. He mailed his annotated copy anonymously to the ONR,
which included in its margins various musings, apparently jotted by three different people (the
ink shades were all different, and the handwriting changed from one to another). The topics covered
included things like alien propulsion, ET spaceships… and the Philadelphia Experiment.
It appeared as though the book could serve as proof of advanced technology
(including invisibility) being used in America. However, in reality,
it was Allen himself who had written all of the notes, admitting it years after the
event. By then, though, the Philadelphia Experiment had become deeply embedded in
modern myth. And it’s remained there ever since. Official records even show that the
USS Eldridge wasn’t actually in Philadelphia at the time that the supposed event took place. But
the conspiracy counter-argument says, isn’t that just what they would want us to think?
Allen ultimately left the public eye, having retracted most of his statements,
and died in 1994. Meanwhile Jessup - who had unwittingly been brought into the story - died
in 1959, with his death ruled as suicide. Again, some conspiracy theorists doubt the
precise circumstances around Jessups’ death, and Allen’s disappearance… alleging, instead, that
both had grown to know too much about the inner workings of America and advanced technology.
But, what’s your verdict? Is there more to this story than the records show?
Or is the entire thing an elaborate hoax, as most now believe it to be?
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other
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