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October 1943. The Second World War is raging across Europe
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and the Pacific. German submarines are hunting Allied shipping in
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the Atlantic. Torpedoes are tearing through merchant convoys, and the
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United States Navy is desperately searching for ways to protect
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its ships and sailors. But somewhere inside the machinery of
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the American military, according to a story that would not
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emerge for more than a decade, an entirely different kind
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of weapon was being developed. it wasn't a bigger cannon
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it wasn't a faster aircraft it wasn't even a new
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type of submarine it was a technology that if successful
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would change warfare forever the ability to make a ship
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disappear Imagine standing aboard a Navy vessel in the middle
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of a Philadelphia shipyard. Around you are enormous electrical generators, cables, transformers,
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and equipment designed to produce an extraordinary electromagnetic field. The
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order comes down. The machinery starts. Electricity surges through the ship.
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a strange greenish haze begins to surround the vessel and
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then according to the story the ship disappears not behind
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a cloud of smoke not beneath the water it simply
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vanishes Some witnesses supposedly watched the vessel disappear from Philadelphia
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and reappear hundreds of miles away in Norfolk, Virginia, before
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returning moments later. But the real horror allegedly began when
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the ship came back. Crew members were reportedly suffering from
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severe psychological and physical effects. Some had disappeared entirely. Others
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were supposedly found fused into the metal bulkheads and decks
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of the ship. A few were said to have become
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trapped in a strange state between visibility and invisibility, and
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the Navy, realizing what it had unleashed, allegedly buried the
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entire project. The ship was the USS Eldridge. The operation
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became known as the Philadelphia Experiment. For decades, the story
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has occupied an unusual place between military history, UFO lore,
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theoretical physics, time travel, and government conspiracy. But here's where
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things get interesting. There really was a USS Eldridge. There
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really was wartime electromagnetic research. There really was a mysterious
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man who claimed to have witnessed the experiment. and there
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really was a strange annotated book that found its way
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into the hands of the united states navy so tonight
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we're going to follow the story from its alleged beginnings
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to the strange correspondence that brought it into public attention
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Examine the science behind the claims, investigate what the Navy's
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records actually reveal, and explore why this bizarre wartime mystery
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refuses to disappear. Because sometimes, the strangest part of a
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mystery isn't the story itself. It's how the story begins.
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Welcome to Stranger Things. Ha ha ha ha. Thank you.
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Before we can understand the Philadelphia Experiment, we need to
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understand the ship that supposedly became the center of it.
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The USS Eldridge was a cannon class destroyer escort built
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during World War II. It was launched on July 25th,
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1943 and officially commissioned on August 27th of that same year.
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It was named after Lieutenant Commander John Eldridge, Jr., a
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decorated Navy officer who had been killed in action in
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the Pacific in November 1942. The ship was approximately 306
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feet long, displaced around 1,240 tons, and carried a crew
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of roughly 186 men. Its actual purpose was straightforward. protect
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Allied shipping from enemy submarines and other threats. But according
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to the Philadelphia Experiment story, the Eldridge had another assignment.
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A secret assignment. The Navy was supposedly interested in developing
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a way to make its vessels undetectable to enemy radar
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and potentially invisible to the human eye. At the time,
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German submarines were a serious threat to Allied shipping. Convoys
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crossing the Atlantic were vulnerable, and any technology that could
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make a vessel disappear from enemy detection systems would have
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been an extraordinary military advantage. The alleged experiment
Load full transcript
was designed
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to manipulate the electromagnetic field surrounding a ship. And this
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is where the story begins to intersect with the work
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of one of the most famous scientific minds of the
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20th century, Albert Einstein. Einstein had spent decades exploring the
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relationship between gravity and electromagnetism. His search for a unified
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field theory was an attempt to describe the fundamental forces
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of nature within a single theoretical framework. He never completed
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that theory, but in the world of the Philadelphia Experiment,
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his unfinished work supposedly became the foundation for something extraordinary.
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The theory claimed that powerful electromagnetic generators were installed aboard
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the Eldridge. These generators would produce an intense electromagnetic field
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around the vessel, bending light and manipulating the space surrounding it.
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The intended result was invisibility. But the alleged technology supposedly
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went far beyond that. The ship wouldn't simply become invisible.
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It would disappear from one location and materialize somewhere else.
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Some versions of the story even suggest that the experiment
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involved manipulating time itself. Now, there is an important distinction here.
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The Navy did conduct electromagnetic research during the Second World War.
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Ships were fitted with equipment designed to reduce their magnetic signatures,
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protecting them against magnetic mines. This process is known as degaussing.
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It was real, it was practical, and it was an
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important part of naval warfare. But degaussing doesn't make a
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ship invisible to the human eye. It reduces the magnetic
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field that can trigger certain types of mines. The distinction
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is enormous, but it may eventually help explain how a
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relatively ordinary military procedure became the foundation for one of
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history's most extraordinary conspiracy theories. According to the most popular
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version of the story, the Philadelphia Experiment took place sometime
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in the summer or autumn of 1943. The precise date
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changes depending on which account you read. Some versions place
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the first experiment in July. Others identify August or October.
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The lack of a consistent date is one of the
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many problems investigators encounter when trying to reconstruct the story.
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But the basic sequence is remarkably consistent. the navy supposedly
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positioned the uss eldridge inside the philadelphia naval shipyard a
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network of powerful generators and electrical equipment was activated The
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ship became surrounded by an unusual greenish fog or glowing haze.
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Witnesses allegedly watched as the outline of the vessel began
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to distort. Then the ship disappeared. Some accounts describe a
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brief flash of light. Others describe a cloud of green
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mist that swallowed the entire vessel. But the strangest part
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of the story was what allegedly happened next. The Eldridge
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supposedly reappeared in Norfolk, Virginia. Think about that for a moment.
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Philadelphia and Norfolk are separated by hundreds of miles. A
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naval destroyer carrying nearly 200 sailors had supposedly traveled that
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distance almost instantaneously, and then, according to some versions, it
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returned to Philadelphia. Other accounts claim the ship was visible
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in Norfolk for only a few moments before vanishing again.
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Some even suggest that the vessel had briefly traveled through time,
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arriving several seconds before it had departed. The story eventually
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became known as the Philadelphia Experiment, but another name became
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attached to it, Project Rainbow. The implication was that this
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wasn't simply a test of invisibility. It was a massive,
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coordinated military operation involving advanced theoretical physics, classified technology, and
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an attempt to manipulate the very fabric of space. But
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if the technology had worked, why wasn't it used again?
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Why didn't the Navy begin producing invisible ships? The answer,
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according to the legend, was horrifying. The experiment had worked,
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but the human consequences were catastrophic. The most disturbing element
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of the Philadelphia
experiment isn't necessarily the disappearance of the ship.
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It's what supposedly happened to the men aboard it. According
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to the accounts that circulated over the years, the crew
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experienced physical and psychological effects that were difficult to explain.
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Some sailors reportedly suffered extreme nausea, dizziness, and disorientation. Others
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were said to have experienced strange changes in their perception
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of time and space. But then, the claims became much darker.
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One of the most repeated allegations was that several crew
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members had become physically embedded in the ship. Imagine walking
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through a passageway aboard a naval vessel and discovering that
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a sailor had somehow become fused into a steel bulkhead,
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his body supposedly trapped within the metal. Other versions describe
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sailors becoming partially embedded in the deck or walls, as
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though their bodies and the ship had somehow occupied the
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same physical space. Some were allegedly burned or killed. Others
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supposedly disappeared completely. And then there were the men who
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became known in the mythology as the Frozen Men. These
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sailors were supposedly caught in an altered state, becoming temporarily
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immobilized or trapped in a strange condition after the experiment.
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Some accounts claimed that men would suddenly vanish and reappear
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without warning. Others supposedly experienced episodes where they became invisible
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in front of their families and fellow sailors. One particularly
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disturbing version describes a sailor who disappeared while sitting in
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a bar, only to reappear moments later. The stories became
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increasingly bizarre as they circulated. Some crew members were supposedly
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committed to psychiatric institutions. Others were allegedly subjected to secret
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medical examinations. And those who survived were supposedly warned never
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to discuss what they had witnessed. There are even claims
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that the Navy erased records and altered the identities of
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sailors to prevent investigators from tracing the men involved. But
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here's the problem. There is no reliable documentary evidence establishing
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that these events happened. No authenticated medical records have surfaced
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proving that sailors were fused into the ship. No verified
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casualty list identifies men who vanished during an invisibility experiment.
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And no credible collection of first-hand testimony establishes that the
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Eldridge's crew experienced the extraordinary events described in the legend.
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These are allegations that grew through books, interviews, and retellings. Still,
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the imagery is powerful. A ship vanishing in a flash
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of green light is strange enough. A ship returning with
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its crew supposedly trapped inside its own structure is something
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else entirely. and the man who brought these claims to
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the public would turn out to be almost as mysterious
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as the experiment itself. The Philadelphia Experiment supposedly took place
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in 1943, but the story didn't become widely known until
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more than a decade later, and it all began with
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a man named Morris K. Jessup. Jessup was an American
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writer and researcher who had become interested in UFOs and
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unidentified flying objects. In 1955, he published a book titled
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The Case for the UFO, exploring reports of strange objects
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in the sky and theories about the possible technology behind them.
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It was this book that attracted the attention of someone
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calling himself Carlos Miguel Allende. Allende began corresponding with Jessup,
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sending him letters describing an extraordinary event he claimed to
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have witnessed during the war. He claimed that the Navy
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had successfully rendered a destroyer invisible and transported it from
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Philadelphia to Norfolk. Allende said he had personally witnessed the
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experiment while serving aboard another vessel, the SS Andrew Furiseth.
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He described the ship disappearing, reappearing, and experiencing bizarre effects
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involving its crew. And he connected the entire operation to
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Einstein's unified field theory. But Allende wasn't simply telling Jessup
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about an unusual military experiment. He was warning him. According
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to the letters, the technology was far more dangerous than
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the public could imagine. The men aboard the ship had
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supposedly suffered terrible consequences. Allende suggested that the experiment had
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opened the door to forces that humanity didn't understand, and
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he appeared convinced that the Navy was hiding something enormous.
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Think about the timing. The United States had just emerged
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from a war in which secret scientific programs had transformed
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the world. The Manhattan Project had produced the atomic bomb.
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Radar had changed naval and aerial warfare. Military intelligence organizations
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were expanding, and classified research was becoming an increasingly familiar
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part of American life. The idea that the government might
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be experimenting with technology far beyond public knowledge wasn't difficult
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for people to imagine. But there was something unusual about Allende.
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His identity was uncertain. He used variations of his name,
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including Carl M. Allen. His claims were difficult to verify,
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and the details he provided were inconsistent. He also claimed
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that a newspaper had reported the Philadelphia incident at the time,
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but the newspaper was never convincingly identified. Jessup was intrigued,
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and then Allende sent him something even stranger. a copy
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of Jessop's own book. But this wasn't an ordinary copy.
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Its pages were covered with handwritten notes in the margins.
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The annotations appeared to contain conversations between mysterious individuals discussing
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UFO technology, extraterrestrial civilizations, and advanced propulsion systems. Some of
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the writing seemed to suggest that the people making the
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comments possessed knowledge of technology far beyond anything publicly available.
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The notes also referenced strange terminology and ideas about the
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movement of unidentified flying objects. Jessup believed the annotations were
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connected to the same mysterious correspondent who had written him
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about the Philadelphia Experiment. And the story was about to
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take another unexpected turn. The annotated book would eventually find
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its way into the hands of the United States Navy.
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In 1956, a copy of Morris Jessup's book arrived anonymously
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at the Office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C. It
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was covered in handwritten annotations. The comments appeared to have
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been written by several different people, and they discussed UFOs,
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extraterrestrial beings, unusual propulsion systems, and advanced scientific concepts. Two
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Navy officers reportedly took a personal interest in the book.
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They showed it to Jessup, who believed the annotations had
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been written by the same mysterious individual who had contacted
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him about the Philadelphia experiment. The officers eventually arranged for
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the book to be retyped and reproduced in a limited
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run of approximately 25 copies. This became known as the
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Vero edition, named after the company that helped produce it.
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And this is where the story takes a fascinating turn.
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the Navy had now become directly connected to the strange book.
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Not because it had confirmed the Philadelphia experiment, not because
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it had admitted that the ship had vanished, but because
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personnel working at the Office of Naval Research had taken
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an interest in the bizarre annotations. For conspiracy researchers, this
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was irresistible. If the Navy was interested in the book,
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perhaps it knew something. Perhaps the annotations contained information that
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the government wanted to investigate. Perhaps the Philadelphia experiment was
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real after all. But there was another possibility. The officers
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may simply have been fascinated by an unusual piece of
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UFO literature. the annotations were strange but their existence didn't
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establish that the claims within them were true in fact
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00:21:09.740 --> 00:21:15.019
the historical record surrounding the annotated book is considerably less
240
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:19.829
mysterious than the stories built around it The University of
241
00:21:19.910 --> 00:21:25.819
Wyoming's American Heritage Center holds papers
associated with Carlos Allende,
242
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:32.789
including correspondence and material relating to the Philadelphia Experiment. Wyoming
243
00:21:32.869 --> 00:21:37.390
public media has reported that the annotations were later understood
244
00:21:37.750 --> 00:21:42.190
to have been written by Allende himself. The book became
245
00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:46.319
a strange artifact of the UFO era, but it never
246
00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:52.799
provided proof of teleportation or an extraterrestrial connection. And while
247
00:21:52.859 --> 00:21:58.150
the Vero edition helped spread the legend, another mystery was developing.
248
00:21:59.099 --> 00:22:03.299
What happened to the man who started it all? Morris
249
00:22:03.400 --> 00:22:07.140
Jessup had become associated with one of the strangest stories
250
00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:13.029
in American conspiracy history. He had written about UFOs, investigated
251
00:22:13.109 --> 00:22:18.950
mysterious claims, received bizarre correspondence, and become involved in a
252
00:22:19.049 --> 00:22:24.069
story that appeared to connect the military with experimental physics
253
00:22:24.529 --> 00:22:32.640
and possibly even extraterrestrial technology. But in 1959, Jessup died.
254
00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:37.819
His death was ruled a suicide. He was found inside
255
00:22:37.859 --> 00:22:42.539
his vehicle in Dade County, Florida with carbon monoxide poisoning.
256
00:22:43.319 --> 00:22:47.859
His death became another point of fascination for people interested
257
00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:53.380
in the Philadelphia experiment. Some began asking whether Jessup had
258
00:22:53.410 --> 00:22:58.200
discovered something that made him dangerous. Had he gotten too
259
00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:03.190
close to classified information? Had the government warned him to
260
00:23:03.309 --> 00:23:08.950
stop investigating? Was his death connected to the mysterious letters
261
00:23:09.329 --> 00:23:14.259
and the annotated book? These questions became part of the
262
00:23:14.359 --> 00:23:19.609
larger mythology. But it is important to be careful here.
263
00:23:20.250 --> 00:23:24.170
There is no established evidence that Jessup was murdered or
264
00:23:24.210 --> 00:23:28.700
that his death was connected to the Philadelphia Experiment. His
265
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:33.220
death is a historical event, but the conspiracy theories surrounding
266
00:23:33.319 --> 00:23:39.779
it remain speculation. Nevertheless, his involvement helped cement the story
267
00:23:40.019 --> 00:23:44.509
in UFO literature. And in the years that followed, the
268
00:23:44.569 --> 00:23:51.289
Philadelphia Experiment would become increasingly elaborate. Books expanded the claims,
269
00:23:52.029 --> 00:23:56.849
researchers investigated the identities of the people involved, and the
270
00:23:56.990 --> 00:24:03.369
legend began attracting a much larger audience. By the late 1970s,
271
00:24:03.690 --> 00:24:08.210
it was ready for a mainstream breakthrough. For years, the
272
00:24:08.269 --> 00:24:14.880
Philadelphia experiments circulated primarily among UFO researchers and conspiracy enthusiasts.
273
00:24:15.630 --> 00:24:21.640
But in 1979, authors William Moore and Charles Berlitz published
274
00:24:21.799 --> 00:24:28.319
The Philadelphia Experiment, Project Invisibility. The book helped introduce the
275
00:24:28.359 --> 00:24:33.009
story to a much wider audience. It explored the alleged
276
00:24:33.150 --> 00:24:39.670
military experiment, the strange correspondence, the USS Eldridge, and the
277
00:24:39.769 --> 00:24:44.920
claims surrounding the crew. The story had everything required to
278
00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:52.180
become a cultural phenomenon, a secret government program, a legendary physicist,
279
00:24:52.859 --> 00:25:00.230
a World War II warship, an experimental technology, a mysterious disappearance.
280
00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:06.359
and alleged human casualties that sounded like something taken directly
281
00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:11.089
from a science fiction horror film. The book also helped
282
00:25:11.190 --> 00:25:16.160
popularize the idea that the Philadelphia Experiment was connected to
283
00:25:16.220 --> 00:25:23.589
a larger program involving advanced electromagnetic technology. Soon, the story
284
00:25:23.670 --> 00:25:30.289
moved beyond books and into popular entertainment. In 1984, the
285
00:25:30.349 --> 00:25:34.529
movie The Philadelphia Experiment brought the legend to the big screen.
286
00:25:35.309 --> 00:25:40.220
The film imagined two sailors transported from 1943 into the
287
00:25:40.319 --> 00:25:48.410
future after the Navy's experiment was military secrets and the
288
00:25:48.490 --> 00:25:53.069
idea that the consequences of the experiment continued decades after
289
00:25:53.109 --> 00:25:57.539
the original event. The movie was fiction, but it helped
290
00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:02.440
introduce the story to an entirely new generation. And that
291
00:26:02.539 --> 00:26:05.900
may be one of the reasons the Philadelphia Experiment has
292
00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:12.250
remained so recognizable. The legend isn't simply about a ship disappearing.
293
00:26:12.930 --> 00:26:17.250
It's about the possibility that humanity might have stumbled onto
294
00:26:17.289 --> 00:26:23.150
a technology it wasn't prepared to control. And that idea
295
00:26:23.450 --> 00:26:28.390
is considerably more frightening than the disappearance of a single vessel.
296
00:26:29.549 --> 00:26:35.029
By now, the Philadelphia Experiment had become a well-established legend.
297
00:26:35.789 --> 00:26:41.160
But there was one problem. The Navy had records. And
298
00:26:41.259 --> 00:26:47.220
those records told a very different story. The Naval Historical Center,
299
00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:51.539
now part of the Naval History and Heritage Command, investigated
300
00:26:51.579 --> 00:26:56.950
the allegations surrounding
the experiment. Researchers examined the ship's records,
301
00:26:57.349 --> 00:27:01.240
including its deck logs and war diary. They looked at
302
00:27:01.279 --> 00:27:06.940
the USS Eldridge's movements from its commissioning in August 1943
303
00:27:06.940 --> 00:27:10.410
through the end of that year, and what they found
304
00:27:10.730 --> 00:27:19.380
was remarkably ordinary. The Eldridge had been commissioned on August 27, 1943.
305
00:27:19.380 --> 00:27:22.269
It remained in New York and the Long Island Sound
306
00:27:22.529 --> 00:27:27.710
until September 16, when it sailed to Bermuda. From September
307
00:27:27.710 --> 00:27:32.319
18 through October 15, it was in the vicinity of Bermuda,
308
00:27:32.619 --> 00:27:38.200
undergoing training and sea trials. On October 15, it departed
309
00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:42.619
Bermuda in a convoy bound for New York, arriving on
310
00:27:42.680 --> 00:27:47.990
October 18. That timeline creates a serious problem for the
311
00:27:48.059 --> 00:27:52.660
Philadelphia Experiment story. The ship was not sitting in a
312
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:59.759
Philadelphia shipyard, disappearing into another dimension. Its movements were documented.
313
00:28:00.500 --> 00:28:06.849
And there was another important detail. Remember the SS Andrew Furuseth?
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00:28:07.509 --> 00:28:10.849
that's the vessel carlos allende claimed to have been aboard
315
00:28:11.009 --> 00:28:15.599
when he witnessed the eldridge disappear the navy examined that
316
00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:20.329
ship's movements too its records showed that the andrew furiseth
317
00:28:20.470 --> 00:28:23.369
was not in norfolk at the same time as the
318
00:28:23.509 --> 00:28:28.250
eldridge the navy also obtained a letter from william s
319
00:28:28.970 --> 00:28:33.019
dodge a retired naval officer who had commanded the andrew
320
00:28:33.099 --> 00:28:39.000
furiseth during the relevant period dodge categorically denied that he
321
00:28:39.299 --> 00:28:43.849
or his crew had witnessed anything unusual involving the eldridge
322
00:28:44.609 --> 00:28:49.150
The two ships' documented movements directly undermined one of the
323
00:28:49.289 --> 00:28:54.059
central claims made by Allende. But the Navy didn't stop there.
324
00:28:54.839 --> 00:29:01.400
It also addressed the supposed project name, Project Rainbow. According
325
00:29:01.420 --> 00:29:05.849
to the Naval Historical Center, researchers could find no evidence
326
00:29:05.910 --> 00:29:13.240
of a Navy project involving teleportation or invisibility under that name. Interestingly,
327
00:29:13.599 --> 00:29:18.359
the word rainbow did appear in American military planning during
328
00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:23.339
World War II. It referred to strategic war plans concerning
329
00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:28.500
the Axis powers. Rainbow V was the plan in effect
330
00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:34.829
when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In other words,
331
00:29:35.190 --> 00:29:38.750
there really was a military use for the term, but
332
00:29:38.789 --> 00:29:42.890
it had nothing to do with making ships disappear. The
333
00:29:42.950 --> 00:29:47.640
official records were beginning to dismantle the story piece by piece.
334
00:29:48.519 --> 00:29:54.339
And then came another important question. If the experiment never happened,
335
00:29:55.059 --> 00:29:58.420
where did the story come from? One of the most
336
00:29:58.599 --> 00:30:02.910
interesting aspects of the Philadelphia Experiment is that it appears
337
00:30:02.950 --> 00:30:07.670
to have been built around real scientific and military technology.
338
00:30:08.490 --> 00:30:13.769
And that is important, because the best conspiracy stories often
339
00:30:13.829 --> 00:30:17.900
contain a small piece of reality surrounded by a much
340
00:30:18.099 --> 00:30:24.210
larger structure of speculation. In this case, that real technology
341
00:30:24.710 --> 00:30:30.599
may have been degaussing. During World War II, naval vessels
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00:30:30.740 --> 00:30:36.920
faced a particularly dangerous threat from magnetic mines. These mines
343
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:41.960
could detect the magnetic signature of a passing ship and detonate.
344
00:30:42.930 --> 00:30:48.380
A ship's steel hull naturally interacts with Earth's magnetic field,
345
00:30:49.019 --> 00:30:54.559
creating a magnetic signature that can be detected by specialized equipment.
346
00:30:55.559 --> 00:31:02.049
De-gaussing was developed to reduce that signature. Electrical cables were
347
00:31:02.109 --> 00:31:05.730
installed around the ship's hull, and an electrical current was
348
00:31:05.829 --> 00:31:10.599
passed through them to counteract the vessel's magnetic field. the
349
00:31:10.619 --> 00:31:13.980
result was a ship that was less likely to trigger
350
00:31:14.099 --> 00:31:21.400
magnetic mines now imagine hearing that explanation without understanding the
351
00:31:21.460 --> 00:31:27.680
technology a ship is fitted with electrical cables Powerful currents
352
00:31:27.829 --> 00:31:33.410
are sent through those cables. The ship's magnetic signature is reduced.
353
00:31:34.130 --> 00:31:39.029
It becomes undetectable to a particular kind of detection system.
354
00:31:39.910 --> 00:31:45.170
Someone might describe that as making the ship invisible. And
355
00:31:45.269 --> 00:31:50.470
over time, the distinction could become distorted. Invisible to magnetic
356
00:31:50.569 --> 00:31:56.670
minds becomes invisible to detection systems. Invisible to detection systems
357
00:31:56.910 --> 00:32:03.319
becomes invisible to radar. And eventually, invisible to radar becomes
358
00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:08.049
invisible to the human eye. But there is another possible
359
00:32:08.109 --> 00:32:12.789
contributor to the story. The Navy's Office of Naval Research
360
00:32:13.069 --> 00:32:18.839
pointed toward experiments involving the USS Timmerman during the
1950s.
361
00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:23.799
That ship was involved in testing a high-frequency electrical generator
362
00:32:24.380 --> 00:32:30.849
operating at 1,000 cycles per second instead of the standard 400.
363
00:32:30.849 --> 00:32:36.910
the generator produced corona discharges and other electrical phenomena associated
364
00:32:36.970 --> 00:32:41.789
with high frequency equipment. These effects may have helped inspire
365
00:32:41.869 --> 00:32:46.210
some of the later descriptions of strange electrical activity and
366
00:32:46.339 --> 00:32:51.380
glowing effects. However, the Navy stated that the crew did
367
00:32:51.539 --> 00:32:57.279
not suffer the extraordinary effects described in the Philadelphia experiment legend.
368
00:32:58.240 --> 00:33:04.339
so we have two potentially important ingredients. Real naval experiments
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00:33:04.519 --> 00:33:10.569
involving magnetic fields, and real electrical equipment capable of producing
370
00:33:10.789 --> 00:33:16.609
unusual visual effects. Neither one remotely demonstrates that a ship
371
00:33:16.730 --> 00:33:22.009
could teleport, but both offer plausible ingredients for a story
372
00:33:22.230 --> 00:33:27.660
that eventually grew into something much larger. And then there
373
00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:33.930
is Einstein. No Philadelphia experiment story would be complete without
374
00:33:34.190 --> 00:33:39.470
Albert Einstein. His name is central to the legend because
375
00:33:39.529 --> 00:33:44.500
the alleged technology was supposedly based on his work involving
376
00:33:44.519 --> 00:33:49.200
a unified field theory. Einstein spent much of his later
377
00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:53.759
life attempting to develop a mathematical framework that could unify
378
00:33:53.819 --> 00:33:58.569
the fundamental forces of nature. His work on general relativity
379
00:33:58.769 --> 00:34:03.809
had already transformed our understanding of gravity, space, and time.
380
00:34:04.349 --> 00:34:09.610
The possibility of combining gravity and electromagnetism into a unified
381
00:34:09.750 --> 00:34:16.019
theoretical structure was an enormous scientific ambition. But Einstein never
382
00:34:16.079 --> 00:34:20.659
completed a successful unified field theory, and the Navy has
383
00:34:20.719 --> 00:34:25.079
acknowledged that Einstein did have a relationship with military research
384
00:34:25.340 --> 00:34:29.019
during the Second World War. According to the Office of
385
00:34:29.119 --> 00:34:33.599
Naval Research, Einstein served as a part-time consultant to the
386
00:34:33.659 --> 00:34:40.489
Navy's Bureau of Ordnance during 1943 and 1944. However, his
387
00:34:40.610 --> 00:34:47.230
research concerned theoretical questions involving explosives and explosions. There is
388
00:34:47.409 --> 00:34:52.929
no evidence that he worked on a project involving invisibility, teleportation,
389
00:34:53.530 --> 00:34:59.070
or the USS Eldridge. Still, his name gives the Philadelphia
390
00:34:59.170 --> 00:35:05.730
Experiment an interesting scientific dimension, because the underlying question isn't
391
00:35:05.889 --> 00:35:13.699
entirely ridiculous. Can electromagnetic fields manipulate the way light behaves? Absolutely.
392
00:35:14.500 --> 00:35:20.619
Can electromagnetic forces affect matter? Of course. Can gravity and
393
00:35:20.739 --> 00:35:27.619
space-time be influenced by physical processes? According to modern physics, yes.
394
00:35:28.289 --> 00:35:31.309
But that doesn't mean we can create a field around
395
00:35:31.369 --> 00:35:36.070
a battleship that makes it disappear or transports it hundreds
396
00:35:36.130 --> 00:35:42.780
of miles. the philadelphia experiment takes legitimate scientific concepts and
397
00:35:42.900 --> 00:35:49.550
stretches them into territory unsupported by experimental evidence and that
398
00:35:49.639 --> 00:35:55.849
distinction matters a theory isn't proof An equation isn't a
399
00:35:55.949 --> 00:36:02.389
working machine, and a real scientific principle doesn't automatically validate
400
00:36:02.690 --> 00:36:07.539
every extraordinary claim attached to it. But the story has
401
00:36:07.619 --> 00:36:12.340
inspired a number of alternative explanations. and some of them
402
00:36:12.619 --> 00:36:18.420
go considerably further than simple invisibility. Over the decades, the
403
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:24.000
Philadelphia Experiment has developed an entire collection of alternative theories.
404
00:36:24.900 --> 00:36:30.829
Some are rooted in science fiction, others involve UFOs, secret
405
00:36:30.929 --> 00:36:37.519
government technology, and experiments with dimensions beyond our own. Let's
406
00:36:37.579 --> 00:36:41.340
take a look at some of the most interesting. The
407
00:36:41.380 --> 00:36:46.639
dimensional portal theory. One interpretation suggests that the Navy didn't
408
00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:52.269
simply make the Eldridge invisible. It accidentally opened a doorway
409
00:36:52.570 --> 00:36:58.590
into another dimension. According to this theory, the electromagnetic field
410
00:36:58.670 --> 00:37:04.340
surrounding the ship created a disturbance in space-time. The vessel
411
00:37:04.429 --> 00:37:09.320
supposedly slipped out of our reality and entered another dimension
412
00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:15.619
before returning. This version is particularly interesting because it attempts
413
00:37:15.659 --> 00:37:20.760
to explain the bizarre stories about crew members becoming trapped
414
00:37:20.980 --> 00:37:24.940
inside the ship. If the vessel had somehow passed through
415
00:37:24.980 --> 00:37:30.280
a different dimensional environment, perhaps the sailors experienced physical changes
416
00:37:30.360 --> 00:37:34.329
as a result. Some believers suggest that the crew became
417
00:37:34.429 --> 00:37:39.469
partially displaced from normal space. Others propose that the ship
418
00:37:39.550 --> 00:37:45.190
was caught between two
realities. There is no scientific evidence
419
00:37:45.230 --> 00:37:48.849
supporting this explanation, but it remains one of the more
420
00:37:48.969 --> 00:37:56.030
popular interpretations of the legend. The Time Travel Theory Another
421
00:37:56.130 --> 00:38:01.000
theory suggests that the Eldridge was briefly transported through time.
422
00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:05.239
Some versions claim that the ship appeared in Norfolk before
423
00:38:05.300 --> 00:38:10.599
it had supposedly left Philadelphia. Others describe the crew experiencing
424
00:38:10.699 --> 00:38:14.019
missing time, as though the vessel had moved through a
425
00:38:14.079 --> 00:38:18.260
period that did not correspond with the normal passage of time.
426
00:38:19.050 --> 00:38:23.199
This theory is sometimes connected to Einstein's work on relativity.
427
00:38:23.900 --> 00:38:27.829
But there is a major difference between time behaving differently
428
00:38:28.010 --> 00:38:33.230
under certain physical conditions and a ship being transported backward
429
00:38:33.389 --> 00:38:39.960
or forward through time. Relativity does allow time dilation. That
430
00:38:40.019 --> 00:38:45.519
effect has been measured and confirmed. However, no known technology
431
00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:49.039
allows us to use an electromagnetic field to send a
432
00:38:49.179 --> 00:38:54.960
naval destroyer into the past. The Secret Weapon Theory Perhaps
433
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:58.809
the simplest conspiracy explanation is that the Navy really was
434
00:38:58.889 --> 00:39:04.199
testing advanced technology, but the details were deliberately concealed. The
435
00:39:04.260 --> 00:39:08.019
United States was conducting highly classified research during the war.
436
00:39:09.019 --> 00:39:13.199
Military secrecy was a normal part of national defense. The
437
00:39:13.239 --> 00:39:18.219
Manhattan Project alone demonstrates how enormous scientific programs could remain
438
00:39:18.320 --> 00:39:22.550
hidden from the general public. Supporters of this theory argue
439
00:39:22.570 --> 00:39:25.389
that the Philadelphia Experiment could have been part of a
440
00:39:25.469 --> 00:39:31.789
classified program whose true purpose remains undisclosed. Perhaps the Navy
441
00:39:31.849 --> 00:39:38.849
was testing experimental radar countermeasures. Perhaps it was investigating electromagnetic propulsion.
442
00:39:39.650 --> 00:39:43.730
Perhaps the technology was real, but the more extraordinary elements
443
00:39:43.769 --> 00:39:48.769
were exaggerated. This theory doesn't require a portal or time machine.
444
00:39:49.429 --> 00:39:54.070
It only requires the possibility that something classified was happening.
445
00:39:54.969 --> 00:39:58.219
But there is still no credible evidence that a secret
446
00:39:58.300 --> 00:40:05.659
invisibility or teleportation project involving the Eldridge existed. The UFO connection.
447
00:40:06.639 --> 00:40:11.860
Then there is the extraterrestrial
angle. Remember those strange handwritten
448
00:40:11.940 --> 00:40:18.039
notes in Jessup's book? They contain discussions of UFOs, alien civilizations,
449
00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:23.929
and unusual propulsion technology. Some conspiracy researchers have connected the
450
00:40:23.969 --> 00:40:29.590
Philadelphia experiment to the broader UFO mystery. The suggestion is
451
00:40:29.610 --> 00:40:33.730
that the Navy may have been experimenting with technology recovered
452
00:40:33.789 --> 00:40:38.280
from an unidentified craft. Others believe the experiment was an
453
00:40:38.320 --> 00:40:43.059
attempt to reproduce an advanced propulsion system that wasn't developed
454
00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:47.460
by humans. In this version, the Eldridge was essentially a
455
00:40:47.539 --> 00:40:53.019
test platform for technology that humanity didn't fully understand. The
456
00:40:53.159 --> 00:40:56.900
annotated book helped fuel this theory, but there is no
457
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:04.449
verified evidence connecting the Navy's alleged experiment to extraterrestrial technology. Still,
458
00:41:04.949 --> 00:41:09.030
the idea of a military attempting to reverse engineer something
459
00:41:09.110 --> 00:41:13.989
recovered from an unidentified object fits neatly into the wider
460
00:41:14.050 --> 00:41:19.599
mythology of secret government research. And once again, the story
461
00:41:19.699 --> 00:41:25.340
finds itself at the intersection of UFOs, military secrecy, and
462
00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:29.690
the unknown. There is one final piece of the puzzle
463
00:41:29.730 --> 00:41:35.019
that deserves attention. What happened to the USS Eldridge after 1943?
464
00:41:35.019 --> 00:41:40.599
If the Philadelphia Experiment had been real, and if the
465
00:41:40.679 --> 00:41:47.889
vessel had suffered such catastrophic consequences, what became of the ship? Well,
466
00:41:48.449 --> 00:41:55.199
the Eldridge continued serving. Beginning in January 1944, it escorted
467
00:41:55.380 --> 00:42:00.409
Allied convoys across the Atlantic and Mediterranean. It made nine
468
00:42:00.489 --> 00:42:05.130
voyages supporting Allied operations in North Africa and Southern Europe.
469
00:42:05.949 --> 00:42:10.409
In May 1945, it departed New York for service in
470
00:42:10.449 --> 00:42:14.739
the Pacific. It continued operating after the war ended and
471
00:42:14.780 --> 00:42:20.190
was eventually placed out of commission in June 1946. Then,
472
00:42:20.610 --> 00:42:24.949
in January 1951, the ship was transferred to the Greek
473
00:42:25.050 --> 00:42:29.869
Navy under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program. It became the
474
00:42:29.949 --> 00:42:34.440
Greek vessel Leon. It served with the Greek Navy for
475
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:39.639
decades before eventually being retired. The ship had an actual
476
00:42:39.800 --> 00:42:43.840
military career, and its history is documented by the United
477
00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:49.289
States Navy. Now, this is where some conspiracy researchers have
478
00:42:49.389 --> 00:42:53.789
raised another question. Why would the Navy transfer the ship
479
00:42:53.849 --> 00:42:56.719
to another country if it had been involved in such
480
00:42:56.760 --> 00:43:01.920
a catastrophic experiment? Some have suggested that transferring the vessel
481
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:05.519
was an effective way to remove it from American scrutiny.
482
00:43:06.539 --> 00:43:10.480
Others have speculated that the ship was simply no longer needed.
483
00:43:11.440 --> 00:43:15.500
But there is a much more straightforward explanation. It was
484
00:43:15.539 --> 00:43:19.929
an aging destroyer escort that had completed its wartime service
485
00:43:20.329 --> 00:43:25.030
and was transferred as military assistance. There is no evidence
486
00:43:25.070 --> 00:43:29.090
that the Greek Navy inherited a ship with mysterious electromagnetic
487
00:43:29.130 --> 00:43:32.489
properties or a crew of men trapped in its structure.
488
00:43:33.389 --> 00:43:37.840
The documented history of the Eldridge is ordinary. And yet,
489
00:43:38.300 --> 00:43:41.980
that ordinary history is part of what makes the legend
490
00:43:42.179 --> 00:43:48.010
so interesting. Because the ship was real. The sailors were real.
491
00:43:48.030 --> 00:43:53.880
The war was real. The science was real. Only the
492
00:43:53.960 --> 00:44:01.289
extraordinary experiment remains unsupported. So, what are we supposed to
493
00:44:01.389 --> 00:44:06.449
make of the Philadelphia Experiment? The official explanation is that
494
00:44:06.510 --> 00:44:10.780
it never happened. The Navy has searched its historical records
495
00:44:11.110 --> 00:44:16.239
and found no evidence of an experiment involving invisibility, teleportation,
496
00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:22.239
or the manipulation of space-time. The USS Eldridge's documented movements
497
00:44:22.619 --> 00:44:28.840
contradict the central claims. The alleged witness, Carlos Allende, left
498
00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:32.969
behind a complicated collection of letters and stories that have
499
00:44:33.139 --> 00:44:37.780
never established the existence of the experiment. and the scientific
500
00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:42.630
principles supposedly responsible for the disappearance have never been demonstrated
501
00:44:42.690 --> 00:44:46.210
to work in the way the legend describes. On the
502
00:44:46.309 --> 00:44:50.780
evidence available, the Philadelphia Experiment belongs in the category of
503
00:44:50.940 --> 00:44:56.099
modern military folklore rather than documented history. But there are
504
00:44:56.159 --> 00:45:00.519
still some fascinating questions surrounding the story. Why did the
505
00:45:00.579 --> 00:45:06.230
legend become so elaborate? How did real naval electromagnetic research
506
00:45:06.550 --> 00:45:11.969
become connected to teleportation? Why did a mysterious correspondent become
507
00:45:12.110 --> 00:45:16.239
so
invested in convincing a UFO researcher that the Navy
508
00:45:16.280 --> 00:45:22.280
had discovered something extraordinary? And perhaps most importantly, why does
509
00:45:22.380 --> 00:45:28.179
this particular story continue to capture people's imaginations? Maybe it's
510
00:45:28.219 --> 00:45:32.960
because the Philadelphia Experiment arrived at exactly the right moment
511
00:45:33.019 --> 00:45:37.090
in history. The world had just witnessed the development of
512
00:45:37.110 --> 00:45:42.110
the atomic bomb. Science was advancing at an extraordinary pace.
513
00:45:43.130 --> 00:45:47.099
Governments were conducting secret research, and the boundaries between what
514
00:45:47.139 --> 00:45:52.239
was possible and what seemed impossible were changing almost every year.
515
00:45:53.260 --> 00:45:56.869
The idea that the military might be experimenting with technology
516
00:45:56.949 --> 00:46:02.489
beyond public understanding wasn't difficult to believe. And perhaps the
517
00:46:02.530 --> 00:46:05.989
most compelling aspect of the story is that it begins
518
00:46:06.050 --> 00:46:12.170
with something real. A real warship. A real military shipyard.
519
00:46:12.889 --> 00:46:19.329
Real electromagnetic research. A real scientist who spent years pursuing
520
00:46:19.389 --> 00:46:23.409
a unified theory of physics. And a real collection of
521
00:46:23.510 --> 00:46:27.320
strange letters that eventually found their way into the hands
522
00:46:27.380 --> 00:46:32.019
of the United States Navy. But somewhere between those facts
523
00:46:32.119 --> 00:46:36.519
and the stories that followed, the USS Eldridge became something
524
00:46:36.699 --> 00:46:42.010
much more than a destroyer escort. It became a ghost ship.
525
00:46:42.909 --> 00:46:47.610
A vessel supposedly capable of disappearing from the world, carrying
526
00:46:47.670 --> 00:46:51.340
its unfortunate crew into a place where the normal rules
527
00:46:51.380 --> 00:46:56.320
of reality no longer applied. Was it an elaborate hoax?
528
00:46:57.019 --> 00:47:01.800
A misunderstanding of classified naval research? Or did the story
529
00:47:01.900 --> 00:47:05.610
somehow preserve a distorted memory of an experiment that we
530
00:47:05.719 --> 00:47:10.469
still don't fully understand? There is no credible evidence that
531
00:47:10.510 --> 00:47:15.469
the ship ever vanished, but the legend itself has certainly survived.
532
00:47:16.210 --> 00:47:20.519
And maybe that's the strangest part of all. Because the
533
00:47:20.579 --> 00:47:26.230
Philadelphia Experiment was supposed to make a ship disappear. Instead,
534
00:47:26.710 --> 00:47:30.389
it made a mystery that has refused to disappear for
535
00:47:30.489 --> 00:47:37.019
more than 70 years. You've been listening to Stranger Things.
536
00:47:37.820 --> 00:47:41.280
Until next time, keep questioning what you think you know.
537
00:47:41.980 --> 00:47:47.630
Keep looking beyond the ordinary. And remember... Sometimes the strangest
538
00:47:47.710 --> 00:47:53.030
things aren't hiding somewhere in the universe. Sometimes they're hiding
539
00:47:53.070 --> 00:47:55.559
in the stories we tell ourselves about it.