The Philadelphia Experiment has been a subject of long controversy, debate and blurry vision. The basis is, it was an experiment conducted by the Navy to create a ship that couldn't be detected by magnetic mines and radar. In other words, they wanted to render a ship invisible.
The Philadelphia Experiment has also been associated with several invisibility projects and mind-control experiments. While the actual truth behind the experiment can never be known, we rely on what little information was leaked out or given out by people claiming to be witnesses to the project, or otherwise members of the project itself.
Now, the alleged results of these experiments are extremely bizarre, yet a string of coincidences and events that centered around the Philadelphia Experiment have lent these some credibility. The results include things such as the whispers of men "freezing" in time for months, men traveling through time, and even some of the men becoming embedded into the bulkheads and floor of the ship.
The idea for the experiment came from investigations and experiments by a group involving Tesla for the possibility of invisibility through the use of electricity. The experiments succeeded for small objects, and around 1939, it was presented to the government. The military was particularly interested in this, possibly due to the fact that there was a war going on at the time, and technology like this would be monumental.
In 1943, the government decided to perform a test on domestic animals on a ship. It was the USS Eldridge on which the animals were placed in metal cages. The ship did indeed go invisible, but when the animals were observed again, several of them bore radiation and burn marks, and several were missing. They had decided that humans were not to be tested.
Despite this decision, on August 12 of the same year, the USS Eldridge, with a full capacity human crew on board, underwent this experiment. The crew did not know that an experiment was about to happen. The generators started, the switch was thrown, and the ship disappeared, as was expected. However, the date of August 12 is disputed, with some claiming that October 28, 1943 would have been a more accurate date, because according to the Eldridge's deck log and war diary, it wasn't in Philadelphia at the time. However, the logs could easily have been changed for the sake of national security.
Although the logs stated the ship had been gone for a few minutes, witnesses testified that it was gone for at least 4 hours, and had been transported through space and time.
What was observed when the ship returned was rather disturbing: When it returned to its original place, there was a greenish haze on deck and around the ship. Some sailors were on fire. Some had gone insane. All of them were sick, some suffering from heart attacks, and some were simply dead. Most astounding of all, was that some of the sailors had become part of the structure of the ship itself, buried in the walls or deck of the ship. Additionally, some of the men were missing.
Where the ship had gone, can only be speculated. Some witnessed claimed it went to Norfolk Harbor, and others say it went 40 years into the future and wound up at Montauk, New York.
The Navy, of course, denied everything and claimed that the men were lost at sea. You can read their current rebuttal of the Philadelphia Experiment here.
There is even an elaborate story that combines the Philadelphia Experiment with the Montauk Experiment, a time loop linking the sailors of the Eldridge to Montauk, New York, with a time loop to 1983.
But wait, there's more! As the story continues, the sailors went crazy after the ship materialized, and they raided a bar. They told the bar maid their story and completely terrified her. A newspaper article had been written about the raid, but no date was named, so the article couldn't be found. Most of the crew members eventually went insane, but a few retained their sanity, only to face further situations. One man sat down to dinner with his wife and child, but then got up from the table, walked through the wall, and was never seen again. Two other sailors were also said to have simply
disappeared into thin air and never seen again. Another crew member vanished in the middle of a fight, surprising his opponent to the extent of shocking him. All three of these incidents are said to have had witnesses.
Another side effect was of the men getting 'stuck'. Getting 'stuck' basically consisted of becoming unable to move or interact with anyone for long periods of time. The crew members called this phenomenon as "Hell Incorporated". Another name for this was the "Freeze". A common freeze would last from a few minutes to a few hours and damaged the person psychologically, but wouldn't cause madness. A man would come out of the Freeze if the other crew members laid their hands upon him to "give him strength." This usually worked, except in one case, two men attempted to lay their hands upon a frozen crew member, and he burst into flames and burned for eighteen days. The fires could not be stopped, nor did they spread to the surrounding locations.
As if that weren't enough, some of the men started going into "Deep Freeze." Deep Freeze was something similar to getting stuck, except they would be visible only to the crew members, and they would be completely aware of others and their actions but was unable to communicate with them or interact with them. It was said that it took only two days for a man to go insane in the Deep Freeze. It is also said that the first Deep Freeze took six months and five million dollars of research and equipment to correct.
The man who got out from the six-month Deep Freeze was insane by the time he got out. Some have attributed that the disappearance or freezing of people to the Zeeman Effect - "the spreading out of the spectral lines of atoms under the influence of a strong magnetic field." The rest of the sailors were discharged from the Navy as mentally unfit.
- Technical Details, perhaps
I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the following details, but I include them here due to relevance to this article.
Two crewmen had been walking in a park when a haggard looking man approached them. The man told them a fantastic story about an experiment done in which most of the crew died or suffered terrible side effects. He said that the government then claimed the entire crew was insane so that when they came forward, they would merely be dismissed as a group of crazy people who had merely concocted some fantastic story. After the conversation, one crew member was convinced while the other was not. Eventually, the member that had been convinced contacted Dr. Jessup and told him the story. Although this was a substantial lead, Dr. Jessup was not getting very far and he found that his reputation in the scientific community was worsening. Faced with overwhelming odds, Dr. Jessup eventually committed suicide on April 20, 1959, believing "another existence of universe being better than this miserable world." (The Philadelphia Experiment, 79). Some believe that his suicide was actually an assassination by government agencies to keep the experiment quiet.
Unfortunately for Dr. Jessup, a major clue in the puzzle turned up shortly after his death. This clue was a man by the name of Alfred D. Bielek.
Bielek's story is even more bizarre than Allende's. He claims that he was transported in time to the future and that here in the future he was brainwashed by the Navy. This brainwashing led him to believe that his name was Alfred Bielek, rather than his true name, Edward Cameron. Upon discovering his true identity, he tracked down his brother who had also participated in the experiment. Bielek claims that his brother time traveled to 1983 and lost his 'time-lock'. As a result, his brother aged one year every hour and eventually died. Bielek then claims that his brother was reborn. Needless to say, only a small group of people believe Bielek and nearly everyone thinks that his stories are based on some truth, but he's exaggerating the truth for personal reasons. This popular opinion seems to be reinforced when Bielek starts remembering things only after having seen the movie "The Philadelphia Experiment". Bielek has a Ph.D. in Physics, so he does have some technical experience. He is also a retired electrical engineer with thirty years of experience. Because of his obvious intelligence and skill, he cannot be discounted entirely. Bielek stated that the technology used in the Philadelphia Experiment was given to us by aliens. However, the germanium transistor, which was what Bielek said had been used, was invented by Thomas Henry Moray.
Bielek also stated that Dr. Albert Einstein, Dr. John von Neumann, and Dr. Nikola Tesla were involved in the project. Some controversy has arisen as to the participation of Tesla because he died in New York city on January 7, 1943, which was only a two month period of time after the project took place. Einstein, on the other hand, suggested such a project as this to the Navy on several occasions. Because of this, he was probably involved in the project. As for von Neumann, there is no evidence to refute or promote his active participation in the matter. There is evidence that supports the fact that he later continued on the experiment at a different time.
The principle that lay behind the Philadelphia Experiment was the Unified Field Theory. This theory states that gravity and magnetism are connected, just as mass and energy are connected through the formula E=mc2. Einstein never solved the Unified Field Theory, but the very nature of the Philadelphia Experiment suggests otherwise. It is probably that this theory has become a government secret because it is capable of doing many things, possibly even space travel without the assistance of rockets.
In a search for actual technical data on the experiment, not much information can be found that isn't tainted with doubt and speculation. The basic design has two large Tesla coils (electromagnets) placed on each hull of the ship. The coils are turned on in a special sequence and their magnetic force is so powerful that they warp gravity itself. Bielek also says that on August 12 every twenty years, the magnetic field of the Earth reaches a peak and allows the synchronization between the Tesla coils. The oscillator which Bielek claims to have run the coils in a special pattern looks more like an Army field kitchen refrigeration unit than anything else. Many believe that's exactly what it is and Bielek's story is just a hoax. Bielek gave it a technical name however: the "Zero Time Reference Generator". The oscillators would synchronize with the adjustable phase angle and created a scaler type wave (Anderson). Several scientists today have attacked Bielek's testimony on this, as they believe a vector wave would have been more efficient and probable. Bielek also does not make clear if the power used is AC or DC, pulsed or rotating, and what the Microwave and Radar frequencies are. In other words, Bielek provides almost no accurate technical information that can be used.
Rick Anderson however, may be able to shed some light upon the subject. He states that four RF transmitters were phased to produce a rotating field. This field was pulsed at a 10% duty cycle. Instead of two coils, he says that four coils would have been set upon the deck of the ship and would be run by two generators that were pulsed in a counter-clockwise motion. Anderson states that the Tesla coils use a total of 7,500 feet, or 1.42 miles of #16 magnet wire. Because of this enormous quantity, no one has privately undertaken the experiment; the wire would be too expensive and also must to be wound in a special way (Anderson). Other scientists believe that Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and the science of the Philadelphia Experiment are connected.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance is also known as Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI. Yet another scientist named Alexander S. Fraser believes that everyone is wrong about the electromagnetic qualities of the experiment. He believes that it was never done with electromagnetism, but with thermal fields. This thermal field could have caused the optical mirage effect which several witnesses reported. Fraser says that Allende had spoken of a 'scorch' field, fire, and optical wavering, all of which are products of a thermal field. As for the part about the Eldridge disappearing in front of their very eyes, certain weather conditions have been known in the ocean to cause islands to disappear as well. These weather conditions were taking place the day of the experiment. Yet another scientist believes that sonic and ultrasonic waves were used.
The sonic waves could have been used to create an 'air blanket' around the ship, which is consistent with reports. There were many experiments done in the 1940's with high power ultrasonic waves, which indicates a high probability of the Philadelphia Experiment being one of them. Strong sonic fields are known for having bad side effects upon humans, which is also consistent with reports. The green haze which was presumably around the ship was caused by "exciting the surrounding sea water with powerful ultrasonics - 'sonoluminescense' and related phenomena." (Anderson) The ultrasonic field would have caused the crew to pass out and make the journey from Philadelphia to Norfolk seem to last only a couple minutes. Needless to say, the technicalities of the Philadelphia Experiment are a matter of hot debate among scientists and no one seems to be able to provide any solid evidence. As Rick Anderson aptly puts it: "An electronics person knows that, without a DETAILED, comprehensive THEORY behind bench set-up, he is not going to know how to set up voltages and currents, power levels, frequencies, wave forms, pulse widths or duty cycles. If there's a chance a circuit won't work, Murphy's Law dictates that it WON'T more often than not."
If the technicalities of the experiment are vague and a matter of controversy, the results of the experiment are just as foggy. One fact which everyone seem to agree on is that a field was extended many yards, up to perhaps one hundred, outside of the ship and into the water (Anonymous). Everything inside of this sphere was vague in form and the only visible shape was the hull of the Eldridge in the water. This field seemed to have a greenish color and was misty. Another fact everyone agrees was that the Eldridge did not function properly after the experiment and became a source of trouble.
