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Philadelphia Experiment の真相とデマ捏造者の正体

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▼履歴 展開 (2025-04-24) 書式変換+ 文字起こし 追加。

(2016-09-22) 作成。 フィラデルフィア実験の真相とデマ捏造者の正体 (途中:その1)

はじめに(2016-09-22 begin)

「フィラデルフィア実験」に関するヨタ話は、あまりに愚劣なのでこれまで取り上げなかった。

だが、

  • このヨタ話の荒筋
  • ヨタ話を捏造した人物の正体
  • 当時、問題の船舶に搭乗していた乗員たちの証言

などを手際よくまとめたドキュメンタリー動画を見かけたので紹介する。

抜粋

……途中……
……途中……
……途中……

ドキュメンタリー動画

True Story Of The Philadelphia Experiment (Documentary)

(2016-09-22 end)


前置き

既に 10年近く昔になるので上の動画が消されていた。同じ内容と思しき動画(タイトルは完全に一致。10年前なので記憶は曖昧だが内容もたぶん同じ)を以下に追加した。これもいずれ消える可能性があるので 文字起こし を追加しておく。

和訳は省略。後日、AI による文字起こしの要約を追加するかも。

Youtube 動画(1:06:57)

True Story Of The Philadelphia Experiment (Documentary)

FasterWhisper AI(large-v2 model)

▼展開

Rusted-out warships don't usually make the pages of Playboy. Yet, sandwiched between nude layouts in the October 1996 Greek edition of Playboy, there are pictures of a ship called the Leone. The article is not the usual stuff of Playboy either. It describes how the Leone, originally an American World War II destroyer, is being scrapped after a half-century of service, and nearly four decades with the Greek Navy. But as it happens, this is no ordinary warship. The vessel the Greeks call the Leone has a legendary past life. (0:00:49)

Long ago, she is known as the USS Eldridge, back when she is supposedly the subject of an audacious experiment in teleportation and invisibility. As the story goes, the experiment takes place in the early years of World War II, as a countermeasure against German U-boats. Allied convoys are a lifeline, delivering men, goods and weapons in Britain's hour of need. But they are slow and clumsy, often made up of outdated, decrepit ships. (0:01:30)

The warships protecting them are a step behind enemy subs, as they have wider turning radiuses. A U-boat can easily outmaneuver a destroyer, slip into the convoy, and zero in on a defenseless target. In 1942 alone, more than 1,000 Allied ships are torpedoed and sunk. To combat the subs, the U.S. Navy develops a more maneuverable kind of warship, called a destroyer escort. A destroyer escort is an anti-submarine vessel, and it's sort of like a destroyer, except that it's not as fast. (0:02:18)

It has a much smaller turning circle. Better maneuverability might not be the only thing in the works. Believers in the Philadelphia experiment say there are plans to give the destroyer escort the supreme advantage over submarines, invisibility. The alleged brainchild of none other than Albert Einstein. Einstein, in fact, worked for the Navy at the time. Officially, he is working on ideas for conventional weapons, including torpedoes and underwater mines. (0:02:52)

But this is a cover for Einstein's real project, at least so say believers. Among them, a supposed eyewitness to the experiment named Carlos Allende. According to Allende, the Navy used a variation of Albert Einstein's unified field theory, which at that point in time was supposedly uncompleted. And they used this unified field theory to bend light, to render the ship invisible because it was encased in this electromagnetic fog. (0:03:30)

It is also from Allende that we learn the identity of the supposed test ship, a destroyer escort named the USS Eldridge. This leap into the technological unknown is not without its terrors, for so says Alfred Bielek, who claims to have been on the scientific team. We were all very concerned, and I might add for three days prior, from about the 9th onward, many of us in that crew and working on that project had that strange feeling in the pit of our stomach that something was drastically wrong. (0:04:04)

Nevertheless, in July 1943 in Philadelphia Naval Yard, the experiment is said to go forward. Powerful electromagnetic fields are engaged around the Eldridge, a skeleton crew aboard. (0:04:20)


Scientists and officers watching at a safe distance. The only other reported eyewitness is Carlos Allende, a deckhand on a nearby Liberty ship. And what he claims he saw was a ship that was engulfed in a greenish, almost a sane, almost fire, a green fiery fog. As the electromagnetic fog swallows the Eldridge, strange optical effects manifest themselves. And as he watched, and was able to even insert his arm into what he called the terrific flow of this energy, the ship disappeared. (0:05:02)

To the amazement of all the onlookers, they not only had radar invisibility, they had optical invisibility. The Eldridge reportedly achieves the supreme form of camouflage, invisibility. But then comes an even stranger effect, teleportation. Chroniclers of the Philadelphia experiment are divided on whether this happens that first day or in a follow-up test. But what they do agree on is that as the Eldridge starts to reappear, there is a sudden flash of light. (0:05:42)

That the ship vanishes from sight once again, and simultaneously begins to reappear in the naval yard in Norfolk, Virginia, 300 miles away. After a few minutes, she dematerializes in Norfolk and reappears in the midst of another ozone-laden green fog in Philadelphia. Throughout this miraculous journey, the USS Eldridge emerges unscathed. But for her crew, it is a different story. Men were molecularly attached to the ship, bonded with the ship as it was teleported. (0:06:25)

Men were driven insane, men caught fire, men went invisible. I mean, it was terrible, horrific things that happened to these crew members. As we continue, the nightmare that follows, and the alleged cover-up. Their family was never told the truth. They were told basically that they were lost at sea during the war as part of the war effort, which is of course a very plausible answer. (0:06:48)

The idea of teleportation first surfaced in The Man Without a Body, written by Edward Page Mitchell in 1877. In the story, the machinery breaks in the middle of a teleportation, leaving the subject with his head and body separated. History's Mysteries will return on the History Channel. Philadelphia Naval Yard, summer, 1943. According to legend, the USS Eldridge returns after being teleported hundreds of miles. (0:07:25)

As she rematerializes out of a thick green fog, observers are electrified by the achievement. But their excitement turns to horror. Molecules have been scrambled, human with metal. Limbs have been fused to bulkheads, a gruesome sight. First thing they found was two sailors buried in the steel deck. The bodies were literally buried in the steel, and were dying or near dead. Two more were found standing upright on a bulkhead, also buried in the steel. Fifth man with his hand buried in the steel up to his wrist. (0:08:02)

Other sailors are simply missing, vaporized into thin air. For survivors, there are still other problems, due to the powerful electromagnetic fields they have been exposed to. Men were driven insane, men caught fire, men went invisible. I mean, it was terrible, horrific things that happened to these crew members. (0:08:27)


The problem basically was that the human nervous system could not take exposure to that level of magnetic and electric fields, and would cause neural damage. Nerve damage so severe that some of the victims are reportedly institutionalized, while falsely classified as missing in action. Their family was never told the truth. They were told basically that they were lost at sea during the war as part of the war effort. (0:08:56)

Which is, of course, a very plausible answer. In one version of the story, the men are susceptible to something called freezing, which is fading in and out of invisibility. This leads to the most surreal episode of the story, again, according to Carlos Allende. In a waterfront tavern, a group of sailors from the Eldridge are drinking. One thing leads to another, and a fight breaks out. (0:09:21)

It is a garden variety bar brawl, with one difference. The sailors are fading in and out of sight. The sailors involved in the fracas became invisible, dissipated the thin air in front of frightened patrons and waitresses, and they were there one minute and gone the next. Faced with these bizarre after-effects and the carnage aboard the Eldridge, the Navy, it is said, deep-sixes the whole operation. (0:10:00)

The scientific team is dissolved, further experiments cancelled. The Eldridge's logs are said to be altered to show that she was never in Philadelphia Naval Yard. Witnesses are forced to sign draconian oaths of secrecy. And so closes the Navy's World War II experiment in invisibility and teleportation. Project Rainbow, as it is called, is cancelled. Classified, as some say, beyond top secret. But as legend has it, the Navy hasn't sunk the experiment quite deeply enough. (0:10:41)

A shadowy figure would slip through all their elaborate security precautions to tell the tale of the Philadelphia experiment. As we continue, the Navy's alleged secret is exposed in a legendary book, just one revelation among many. These three writers solved all the mysteries of the universe. They talked about modes and methods of travel used by UFOs. They talked about the behavior and ethos of the beings that man these outer spacecraft. (0:11:25)

Elsewhere in the world, in 1943, in Virginia, the Pentagon, then the world's largest office building, was completed after only 16 months of construction. In Germany, where there was a wartime shortage of morphine, scientists developed methadone as a synthetic painkiller. And across the U.S., federal income taxes were withheld from the paychecks of American workers for the first time. To search any time in history, please visit the World Timeline at HistoryChannel.com. How the story of the Philadelphia experiment originates is a legend in its own right, involving UFOs, visionary naval officers, and the curious life and mysterious death of Morris Cain Jessup. Jessup is a scientist and author, one of the early investigators into the paranormal. (0:12:32)

He was always curious about unexplained things, and he always thought that science should take a look at the exceptions and the erratics, I think he used to call them, the things that didn't fit the theories. (0:12:50)


In 1955, he publishes The Case for the UFO. The book is a brave attempt to legitimize a subject that has already been corrupted by pulp magazines and B-movies. Now you have to understand that the time period Jessup decided to become interested in UFOs was possibly the worst possible time to become involved in UFOs for any reason. The government cracked down tremendously on any, quote, believers. (0:13:30)

This official scorn disguises a real government interest. Reports are coming in from military pilots of flying objects no one can explain. I had a man working for me, a lieutenant by the name of Bill Ditch, who was one of our real bright ones. He was by himself, and he said he looked off to the side, and he said there was something flying formation on him. (0:14:04)

And it was there for about five or ten minutes, and then he said it peeled off. He said it was sort of saucer-shaped, and it was glowing slightly. UFO reports from Navy pilots are forwarded to Project Blue Book, the official Air Force investigation. But the Navy seldom, if ever, hears a word in return. We were never able to find out anything from them at all. It was a one-way street. It was a sink, as far as we were concerned. (0:14:38)

Stonewalled by the Air Force, some Navy officers begin their own unofficial UFO investigation. Among them, Lieutenant Commander George Hoover and Captain Sidney Sherby of the Office of Naval Research. One day in 1955, a mysterious item arrives at ONR headquarters that piques the officer's interest. It comes in a plain manila envelope with a cryptic greeting. There was no return address on it. (0:15:14)

The post office stamp was Seminole, Texas. And on the back side of it, the handwriting was scrawled, Happy Easter. Inside the envelope, a paperback copy of Morris K. Jessup's The Case for the UFO. Its margins are filled with comments in three different colors of ink, and apparently, three different kinds of handwriting. The way these people talked, and if you read the comments that were scribbled into the book, they were talking about being someplace off the surface of the Earth. Aliens, if you want to call them that. (0:15:54)

These three writers solved all the mysteries of the universe. I mean, they talked about modes and methods of travel used by UFOs, they talked about the behavior and ethos of the beings that man these outer spacecraft. The writers also claim knowledge of a top secret project during World War II to make a warship disappear. U.S. Navy's Force Field Experiments, 1943, October, the book reads, produced invisibility of ship and crew. (0:16:28)

Fearsome results, so terrifying. Fortunately, halt further research. It is the first mention of what's come to be known as the Philadelphia Experiment, the birth of a legend. The Navy officers are intrigued by the book. They summon Morris Jessop to ONR headquarters to see if the author can shed any light on its origins. (0:16:55)


Jessop recognizes some of the handwriting in the book. Strangely, he has also received letters in that same unmistakable hand, signed by a man who identifies himself as a former merchant marine, Carlos Allende. The writing style of Carlos Allende fairly screamed crackpot. And yet, maybe the man was simply exaggerating something he had seen or heard about. Ever since, people have been mystified by the apparent top-level military interest in a book about UFOs. Morris K. Jessop, for one, is left shaking his head over the Navy's interest. (0:17:43)

He is said to begin his own investigation into the Philadelphia Experiment. By 1959, he has reportedly made a breakthrough and is about to share his discovery with a colleague named Dr. Manson Valentine. In April of 1959, Morris Jessop called up his friend, Dr. Valentine, and said, I think I found something in regards to the Philadelphia Experiment that I've been researching, and I really want to show you what I found. (0:18:11)

They made an appointment to have dinner and go over his research the following day. On the next day, however, April 20th, 1959, Jessop's car is discovered in a park in Coral Gable, Florida. Its engine is still running. A hose stretches from the exhaust pipe to inside the car. Inside is Morris K. Jessop, still breathing, though he soon expires from carbon monoxide poisoning. An apparent suicide. Or is it? (0:18:44)

It's absolutely interesting that instead of arriving at Dr. Valentine's house, he instead chose to go to a park and allegedly commit suicide. Ever since, there's been controversy about the nature of Jessop's death. Some believe that he was murdered for what he knew about the Philadelphia Experiment. Others say he took his own life because of a recent divorce and the hostile reception his books received. (0:19:18)

Even to his own daughter, it's still a mystery. She believes that he had much to live for, but admits in a candid moment that the opposite may also have been true. His wife, Marjorie, called to tell me that he had died, and my reaction at the time was to say, how did he do it? So I must have been thinking of him as depressed at that time. It's funny, until you ask that, I hadn't thought of that for a long time. (0:19:50)

But she said he was dead, and I said, how did he do it? Whatever the case may be, Morris Jessop's death does add mystery as well as credibility to the Philadelphia Experiment. It's a very sad story, but that act on his part helped to propel and authenticate rumors that there was something to this. After Jessop's death, a reprint of his book with all its strange commentary becomes infamous. It is widely rumored to contain comments by three space aliens. (0:20:33)

The public finds out about this so-called Varro edition, but no one can get a copy. Rumor has it that the Navy keeps the book under wraps. Likewise, everyone has heard of Carlos Miguel Allende, but no one can find him. (0:20:52)


People everywhere were looking for Carlos Miguel Allende, but he kept moving. Towns would change, post marks would change, return addresses would change, he always kept on the move. I thought there was a general consensus that he'd never be found, that he was too much of a mystery man, possibly in fear of his life because of what he had seen. But what does this mystery man really know, and what does the Navy have to hide? (0:21:19)

When we return, the accidental eyewitness to the experiment, exposed. And the crew of the USS Eldridge speaks out on the supposed happenings in Philly. I was on it almost every day, and went on every trip it ever took, and it never went to Philadelphia. The Navy admits that the term rainbow was used during the Second World War, but it was a code name for the three axis powers, Italy, Germany, and Japan. History's Mysteries will continue, here on the History Channel. Extraterrestrials have taken up permanent residence in America, in pop culture, if not yet in person. (0:22:10)

UFOs, the Roswell, UFOs from the 50's, X-Files, aliens, more aliens, Men in Black, Loch Ness Monster, toys, t-shirts, models, books, games. This is all part of the paranormal history of the past 40 years. All in my dungeon. Welcome to my world. Like many other young UFO researchers in the 1960's, Robert Gorman is fascinated by the mystery man of the Philadelphia experiment, Carlos Miguel Allende. But unlike other would-be Allende hunters, Gorman lives in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, the same place from which Allende posts many of his letters. (0:23:04)

So I says, if anybody should be in a position to find Allende, I live in the same town, I don't have that much to travel, I should be able to give it quite a shot. And in the late 60's, I was giving it quite a shot. Gorman and others have little to go on. The only hard piece of information on Allende is his seaman's ID number, which he diligently includes on early letters. (0:23:29)

Men come forward who claim to be Carlos Miguel Allende, but they are imposters who cannot produce the seamanship papers. Throughout the 60's, his underground celebrity grows. It was believed that the Navy had a top secret interest in a book that was mailed to them anonymously by legendary beings. So in an article for Saga magazine in late 67, and in two paperback novels after that in 68, that really became the birth of the Allende Jessup mystery in the minds of the average John Doe on the street. (0:24:04)

Today, a sizable cottage industry grows up around Carlos Allende. Everyone seems to be cashing in, except Allende himself, who also goes by the name Carl Allen. Carl Allen eventually got pretty upset and pretty bitter about the fact that everybody was making money off the Philadelphics, where all these book publishers were publishing and selling books. Everybody was publishing his letters that he had written to Morris Jessup in their books. (0:24:30)

Everybody seemed to be making money off this story, but the person that so-called invented it, Carl Allen. So it was in 1969, in the summer of 69, that Carl M. Allen, a copy of the barrel edition in his hand, walked into the headquarters of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization and confessed the entire thing was a hoax. (0:24:51)


As he said it, the wildest pack of lies I'd ever wrote. His confession is the second major blow to the UFO movement within a year. Earlier in 1969, the Air Force officially closes the books on its investigations into the paranormal. UFOs, they say, do not exist. They close ranks with the Navy, which has abandoned its unofficial quest for strange flying objects. The study of UFOs not only loses its legitimacy with the government, but also its poster child, the alleged space alien, Carlos Allende. But it is by no means the end of the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment. In 1975, the Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz becomes a publishing sensation. (0:25:45)

Among the reports of disappearing ships and planes, there is the story of the invisible ship experiment of World War II. Four years later, Berlitz follows up the success of Triangle with Philadelphia Experiment, Project Invisibility. He and co-author William Moore rehash the familiar accounts of Carlos Miguel Allende. Conveniently, Allende recants his earlier confession and is once again spreading the gospel of the invisibility experiment. (0:26:23)

William Moore, Allende reveals for the first time the identity of the test ship, DE-173, the USS Eldridge. The authors talk to members of the Eldridge's crew, but the interviews do nothing to corroborate the Philadelphia Experiment. I was on it almost every day and went on every trip that it ever took and it never went to Philadelphia. If there was any scuttlebutt, I would have heard it. There was no scuttlebutt about top secret anythings on our ship. (0:27:02)

The authors instead theorize that the experiment took place with a special hand-picked crew before she was officially commissioned. This explanation, too, is disputed by crew members who say they were with the Eldridge from construction to combat. Some of our members of the crew were over in Newark, Port Newark, at the Federal Shipbuilding. And they were there while the ship was put together to learn all the insides and outsides and they sailed on the Eldridge. While crew members ridicule the whole idea of the Philadelphia Experiment, the public embraces it. The book is another success. (0:27:54)

It is during this rekindling of interest in the topic that the man behind it is finally unmasked. It happens by a remarkable coincidence. Robert Gorman and Carlos Allende share the same hometown, New Kensington, Pennsylvania. In 1979, Gorman is talking to a neighbor, a man named Allen, who suddenly reveals that he's the father of Carl Allen, alias Carlos Miguel Allende, and he has the documents to prove it. (0:28:28)

He says, Carl sends us stuff all the time. Let me go get you some of his papers. He disappears and comes out in just a few moments with a rather sizable box, heavy box, two-handed box, and says, here, anything at all here you can use, help yourself. I look down. I'm very skeptical. I don't know why, but I'm very skeptical. And I open it up and there's a batch of seamanship's papers. (0:28:59)

And I look in the one corner and I see those beloved numbers, 7-4-1-6-1-7-5, the same number that he had given in a postscript to a letter to Jessup. And I know that I've got the real deal, that this is not an imposter. (0:29:15)


This was an amazing moment. I knew that I had the real deal. Carlos Miguel Allende. The real deal turns out to be quite different from the legendary Senor Allende. His real name is Carl Meredith Allen, born in this house in Springdale, Pennsylvania, in 1925. Mostly what comes to mind about Carl Allen, my older brother, was the fact that he was very intelligent, but not really smart, if you know what I mean. (0:29:56)

When they had their I.E.Q. tests, he had the second highest I.E.Q. in the county. And that same year he failed ninth grade. Though a poor student, he is a voracious reader, with a quirky habit of annotating almost everything he reads. He'd scratch out what the person had written in a book, and then he would put his own little antidote in the margin. And I think it was basically because he didn't learn how to write, so he dealt more with just chopping up what the other person had to say. (0:30:31)

He'd buy a book, he'd fill it up with comments, and then pop it into the mail to somebody he thought would be interested in what he wrote. That he annotates the case for the UFO and sends it to Navy headquarters is typical of Allen. But this is one shot in the dark that finds a target, setting off a remarkable chain reaction. The Navy just happened to call Jessup. Jessup happened to have the letters. (0:30:59)

The two men, off-duty or not, decided to reproduce the book, which generated rumors that this annotated book was being circulated among the top of the top. And then, of course, Jessup commits suicide. Robert Gorman concludes that the Philadelphia Experiment is nothing more than a phantom. In 1980, he publishes an article in Faint Magazine called Alias Carlos Allende, in which he reveals the man is an Allen, not an alien. (0:31:31)

But he finds that legends die hard. I was sending out queries to different prominent UFO personalities, people that ran magazines, and what I was getting back in return was more than just a runaround. What I was getting back in return was almost being blacklisted. That it was fine when I was writing pro-UFO articles, and articles about the men in black and the mysteries of the universe, but they did not want to hear about Carlos Allende. Allende himself responds with death threats. (0:32:05)

And he even, on the back of an envelope that he sent to his father, mentioned the only reason he hasn't shot Gorman is he hasn't gotten to him yet. In fact, the two do finally come face to face, but Allen in person is anything but intimidating. It was probably the most anti-climatic moment of my life, was meeting Carlos Allende in the flesh, because he couldn't work any magic on me. (0:32:37)

I wasn't involved, and I wasn't intrigued about the disappearing destroyer. I wasn't intrigued that he might be an alien, because I knew the truth. Is the debunking of Allen as an eyewitness the end of the Philadelphia Experiment? Or did something really happen back in 1943? (0:32:54)


When we return, what the Navy says, and how it could have inspired the tale of the disappearing ship. It appeared to us that it was just bar room talk, and these boys were talking about having the ship made invisible. The movie, The Philadelphia Experiment, was a flop when it was initially released in 1984, but later became a cult hit, and even inspired a sequel in 1993. History's Mysteries will be back on the History Channel. Summer, 1996. 53 years after allegedly being involved in an invisibility experiment, the USS Eldridge disappears again. (0:33:49)

Since 1955, the warship has been serving in the Greek Navy, under a new name, the Leone. But Greek officials don't know where she is. They are embarrassed to tell a writer from Playboy magazine that they have lost track of the 1,200 ton ship. The Eldridge, aka Leone, soon turns up in a salvage yard in Crete. Her most recent disappearance is due to a bureaucratic error, not a top secret experiment. (0:34:19)

Her final appearance is in Playboy magazine, before she is taken apart with blow torches and sold for scrap. But what truth is there to the rumors of a top secret experiment during World War II? Way back when, did they have the technology to make something optically invisible? Did they find a way to teleport an object from one place to another instantaneously? During the early 40s, there are invisibility techniques of a sort in practice. (0:34:54)

They range from simple smoke screens to an ingenious plan to camouflage airplanes codenamed Yehudi. Project Yehudi, they equipped two aircraft with seal-beamed headlights, more or less along the wings, to brighten the silhouette of the plane in the open sky. And it was relatively successful. The Navy considers all options to hide their ships from prowling submarines, even the parlor trick of a magician named Joseph Dunninger. Mr. Dunninger, as a way to get publicity, mentioned he could make warships invisible. (0:35:32)

And then when he called the press conference to do this, he said, well, they didn't have a warship in the hotel room, so he would make a photograph disappear. And he did. He made the photograph of the warship disappear. Well, the military got wind of this and approached him, and he was forced to say that no, he did not really have a way to make warships invisible. (0:35:56)

But he did mention there were a couple of techniques he had in the back of his mind that might make them a little harder to see. And whatever he told them was kept secret, and Dunninger took it to his grave. There is another Navy practice that feeds the rumor mill, a technique to hide ships from magnetic mines called degaussing. Degaussing is a method of running wires along the hull of a ship to make the ship invisible, quote, to magnetic mines. (0:36:27)

We always knew degaussing was going to take place because they'd collect all the watches and clocks. Anything that kept time on a ship was taken off and put ashore. (0:36:37)


So the magnetic field wouldn't disturb your watch. During World War II, the Navy operates a little-known testing area in Chesapeake Bay. A warship fitted with demagnetizing gear would have paid a visit. And when a ship was equipped with the degaussing gear, it was run through this range to see whether it was making contact with any of the pickups or not. And when it went through and did not leave a signature, they considered that the degaussing gear was working properly and the ship was released. (0:37:15)

It is the Navy's position that the original source of the legend of a disappearing ship is an exaggeration of the degaussing practice. It appeared to us that it was just barroom talk and these boys were talking about having the ship made invisible. And the invisibility that we were talking about was the magnetic invisibility for the degaussing. As for the rumors of teleportation, some modern work in that field gives some perspective. (0:37:48)

It happens at Caltech in Pasadena on a table floating on a cushion of air. By shooting laser beams through a maze of mirrors, scientists produce an effect called quantum teleportation. It's the realization in miniature of something right out of Star Trek. This is something that is so fantastic at this point in time, scientifically, that it almost is in the realm of science fiction. (0:38:22)

However, scientists have succeeded only in teleporting subatomic particles called photons. What they don't foresee is how they'll ever be able to teleport any kind of solid object, let alone a 1200 ton warship. If I take an arbitrary state of 300 particles, quantum particles, just to write down what is that state requires more bits of information than there are particles in the universe. The notion that one could teleport a material system of any sensible size is just beyond technical capabilities for any foreseeable future. (0:39:06)

There is one small but intriguing link between teleportation and the story of the Philadelphia experiment. Albert Einstein is said to have masterminded the experiment. And quantum teleportation makes use of a principle that Einstein called spooky action at a distance, which is a mysterious interrelationship between distant objects. In fact, it was Einstein who first pointed out this kind of resource in a 1935 paper. (0:39:36)

In a completely different context, not for use for teleportation, he actually brought it up as a counterexample to the theory of quantum mechanics. They began to extricate their creator from his story, and it began to take other... Better maneuverability might not be the only thing in the works. Believers in the Philadelphia experiment say there are plans to give the destroyer escort the supreme advantage over submarines. (0:40:07)

Invisibility. The alleged brainchild of none other than Albert Einstein. Einstein, in fact, worked for the Navy at the time. Officially, he is working on ideas for conventional weapons, including torpedoes and underwater mines. But this is a cover for Einstein's real project. At least, so say believers. Among them, a supposed eyewitness to the experiment named Carlos Allende. According to Allende, the Navy used a variation of Albert Einstein's unified field theory, which at that point in time was supposedly uncompleted. (0:40:52)

And they used this unified field theory to bend light, to render the ship invisible because it was encased in this electromagnetic fog. (0:41:03)


It is also from Allende that we learn the identity of the supposed test ship, a destroyer escort named the USS Eldridge. This leap into the technological unknown is not without its terrors, or so says Alfred Bielek, who claims to have been on the scientific team. We were all very concerned. And I might add, for three days prior, from about the 9th onward, many of us in that crew and working on that project had that strange feeling in the pit of our stomach that something was drastically wrong. (0:41:38)

Nevertheless, in July 1943 in Philadelphia Naval Yard, the experiment is set to go forward. Powerful electromagnetic fields are engaged around the Eldridge, a skeleton crew aboard, scientists and officers watching at a safe distance. The only other reported eyewitness is Carlos Allende, a deckhand on a nearby Liberty ship. And what he claims he saw was a ship that was engulfed in a greenish, almost a sane, almost fire, a green fiery fog. (0:42:14)

As the electromagnetic fog swallows the Eldridge, strange optical effects manifest themselves. And as he watched and was able to even insert his arm into what he called the terrific flow of this energy, the ship disappeared. To the amazement of all the onlookers, they not only had radar invisibility, they had optical invisibility. The Eldridge reportedly achieves the supreme form of camouflage, invisibility. But then comes an even stranger effect, teleportation. (0:42:57)

World War II experiment in invisibility and teleportation. Project Rainbow, as it is called, is cancelled. Classified, as some say, beyond top secret. But as legend has it, the Navy hasn't sunk the experiment quite deeply enough. A shadowy figure would slip through all their elaborate security precautions to tell the tale of the Philadelphia experiment. As we continue, the Navy's alleged secret is exposed in a legendary book, just one revelation among many. (0:43:44)

These three writers solved all the mysteries of the universe. They talked about modes and methods of travel used by UFOs. They talked about the behavior and ethos of the beings that man these outer spacecraft. Elsewhere in the world in 1943, in Virginia, the Pentagon, then the world's largest office building, was completed after only 16 months of construction. In Germany, where there was a wartime shortage of morphine, scientists developed methadone as a synthetic painkiller. (0:44:19)

And across the U.S., federal income taxes were withheld from the paychecks of American workers for the first time. To search any time in history, please visit the world timeline at historychannel.com. How the story of the Philadelphia experiment originates is a legend in its own right, involving UFOs, visionary naval officers, and the curious life and mysterious death of Morris Kane Jessup. Jessup is a scientist and author, one of the early investigators into the paranormal. (0:45:06)

He was always curious about unexplained things, and he always thought that science should take a look at the exceptions and the erratics, I think he used to call them, the things that didn't fit the theories. (0:45:24)


In 1955, he publishes The Case for the UFO. The book is a brave attempt to legitimize a subject that has already been corrupted by pulp magazines and B-movies. Now you have to understand that the time period Jessup decided to become interested in UFOs was possibly the worst possible time to become involved in UFOs. On the next day, however, April 20th, 1959, Jessup's car is discovered in a park in Coral Gable, Florida. Its engine is still running. (0:46:06)

A hose stretches from the exhaust pipe to inside the car. Inside is Morris K. Jessup, still breathing, though he soon expires from carbon monoxide poisoning. An apparent suicide, or is it? It's absolutely interesting that instead of arriving at Dr. Valentine's house, he instead chose to go to a park and allegedly commit suicide. Ever since, there's been controversy about the nature of Jessup's death. Some believe that he was murdered for what he knew about the Philadelphia experiment. (0:46:45)

Others say he took his own life because of a recent divorce and the hostile reception his books received. Even to his own daughter, it's still a mystery. She believes that he had much to live for, but admits in a candid moment that the opposite may also have been true. His wife Marjorie called to tell me that he had died, and my reaction at the time was to say, how did he do it? So I must have been thinking of him as depressed at that time. (0:47:22)

It's funny, until you ask that, I hadn't thought of that for a long time. But she said he was dead, and I said, how did he do it? Whatever the case may be, Morris Jessup's death does add mystery as well as credibility to the Philadelphia experiment. It's a very sad story, but that act on his part helped to propel and authenticate rumors that there was something to this. (0:47:55)

After Jessup's death, a reprint of his book with all its strange commentary becomes infamous. It is widely rumored to contain comments by three space aliens. The public finds out about this so-called Varro edition, but no one can get a copy. Rumor has it that the Navy keeps the book under wraps. Likewise, everyone has heard of Carlos Miguel Allende, but no one can find him. (0:48:30)

People everywhere were looking for Carlos Miguel Allende, but he kept moving. Towns would change, postmarks would change, return addresses would change. He always kept on the move. I thought there was a general consensus that he'd never be found, that he was too much of a mystery man, possibly in fear of his life because of what he had seen. But what does this mystery man really know, and what does the Navy have to haunt? (0:48:57)

A U-boat can easily outmaneuver a destroyer, slip into the convoy, and zero in on a defenseless target. In 1942 alone, more than 1,000 Allied ships are torpedoed and sunk. To combat the subs, the U.S. Navy develops a more maneuverable kind of warship called a destroyer escort. (0:49:27)


A destroyer escort is an anti-submarine vessel, and it's sort of like a destroyer except that it's not as fast. It has a much smaller turning circle. Better maneuverability might not be the only thing in the works. Believers in the Philadelphia experiment say there are plans to give the destroyer escort the supreme advantage over submarines, invisibility. The alleged brainchild of none other than Albert Einstein. Einstein, in fact, worked for the Navy at the time. (0:50:04)

Officially, he is working on ideas for conventional weapons, including torpedoes and underwater mines. But this is a cover for Einstein's real project, at least so say believers. Among them, a supposed eyewitness to the experiment named Carlos Allende. According to Allende, the Navy used a variation of Albert Einstein's unified field theory, which at that point in time was supposedly uncompleted. And they used this unified field theory to bend light, to render the ship invisible because it was encased in this electromagnetic fog. (0:50:49)

It is also from Allende that we learn the identity of the supposed test ship, a destroyer escort named the USS Eldridge. This leap into the technological unknown is not without its terrors, for so says Alfred Bielek, who claims to have been on the scientific team. We were all very concerned, and I might add for three days prior, from about the 9th onward, many of us in that crew and working on that project had that strange feeling in the pit of our stomach that something was drastically wrong. (0:51:23)

Nevertheless, in July 1943 in Philadelphia Naval Yard, the experiment is set to go forward. Powerful electromagnetic fields are engaged around the Eldridge, a skeleton crew aboard. Scientists and officers watching at a safe distance. The only other reported eyewitness is Carlos Allende, a deckhand on a nearby Liberty ship. And what he claims he saw was a ship that was engulfed in a greenish, almost a Seine-Almoz, people that ran magazines. (0:51:58)

And what I was getting back in return was more than just the runaround, what I was getting back in return was almost being blacklisted. It was fine when I was writing pro-UFO articles and articles about the men in black and the mysteries of the universe, but they did not want to hear about Carlos Allende. Allende himself responds with death threats. And he even, on the back of an envelope that he sent to his father, mentioned the only reason he hasn't shot Gorman is he hasn't gotten to him yet. (0:52:31)

In fact, the two do finally come face to face, but Allen in person is anything but intimidating. It was probably the most anti-climatic moment of my life was meeting Carlos Allende in the flesh, because he couldn't work any magic on me. I wasn't involved and I wasn't intrigued about the disappearing destroyer. I wasn't intrigued that he might be an alien, because I knew the truth. (0:53:01)

Is the debunking of Allen as an eyewitness the end of the Philadelphia Experiment? Or did something really happen back in 1943? (0:53:10)


When we return, what the Navy says and how it could have inspired the tale of the disappearing ship. It appeared to us that it was just bar room talk and these boys were talking about having the ship made invisible. The movie, The Philadelphia Experiment, was a flop when it was initially released in 1984, but later became a cult hit and even inspired the movie. (0:53:47)

It even inspired a sequel in 1993. History's Mysteries will be back on the History Channel. Summer, 1996. 53 years after allegedly being involved in an invisibility experiment, the USS Eldridge disappears again. Since 1955, the warship has been serving in the Greek Navy under a new name, the Leone. But Greek officials don't know where she is. They are embarrassed to tell a writer from Playboy magazine that they have lost track of the 1,200 ton ship. (0:54:23)

The Eldridge, a.k.a. Leone, soon turns up in a salvage yard in Crete. Her most recent disappearance is due to a bureaucratic error, not a top secret experiment. Her final appearance is in Playboy magazine, before she is taken apart with blowtorches and sold for scrap. But what truth is there to the rumors of a top secret experiment during World War II? Way back when, did they have the technology to make something optically invisible? (0:54:56)

What the Navy says, and how it could have inspired the tale of the disappearing ship. It appeared to us that it was just bar room talk, and these boys were talking about having the ship made invisible. The movie, The Philadelphia Experiment, was a flop when it was initially released in 1984, but later became a cult hit, and even inspired a sequel in 1993. History's Mysteries will be back on the History Channel. Summer, 1996. 53 years after allegedly being involved in an invisibility experiment, the USS Eldridge disappears again. (0:55:37)

Since 1955, the warship has been serving in the Greek Navy, under a new name, Leone. But Greek officials don't know where she is. They are embarrassed to tell a writer from Playboy magazine that they have lost track of the 1,200 ton ship. The Eldridge, a.k.a. Leone, soon turns up in a salvage yard in Crete. Her most recent disappearance is due to a bureaucratic error, not a top secret experiment. (0:56:07)

Her final appearance is in Playboy magazine, before she is taken apart with blowtorches and sold for scrap. But what truth is there to the rumors of a top secret experiment during World War II? Way back when, did they have the technology to make something optically invisible? Did they find a way to teleport an object from one place to another instantaneously? During the early 40s, there are invisibility techniques of a sort in practice. (0:56:42)

They range from simple smoke screens to an ingenious plan to camouflage airplanes codenamed Yehudi. Project Yehudi. They equipped two aircraft with seal-beamed headlights, more or less, along the wings to brighten the silhouette of the plane in the open sky. (0:57:02)


And it was relatively successful. The Navy considers all options to hide their ships from prowling submarines. Even the parlor trick of a magician named Joseph Dunninger. Mr. Dunninger, as a way to get publicity, mentioned he could make warships invisible. And then when he called the press conference to do this, he said, well, they didn't have a warship, of course, in the hotel room, so he would make a photograph disappear. (0:57:32)

And he did. He made the photograph of the warship disappear. Well, the military got wind of this and approached him. And he was forced to say that, no, he did not really have a way to make warships invisible. But he did mention there were a couple of techniques he had in the back of his mind that might make them a little harder to see. (0:57:52)

And whatever he told them was kept secret. And Dunninger took it to his grave. Imposter. This was an amazing moment. I knew that I had the real deal. Carlos Miguel Allende. The real deal turns out to be quite different from the legendary Senor Allende. His real name is Carl Meredith Allen, born in this house in Springdale, Pennsylvania, in 1925. Mostly what comes to mind about Carl Allen, my older brother, was the fact that he was very intelligent but not really smart, if you know what I mean. (0:58:38)

When they had their IQ tests, he had the second highest IQ in the county. And that same year he failed ninth grade. Though a poor student, he is a voracious reader, with a quirky habit of annotating almost everything he reads. He'd scratch out what the person had written in a book and then he would put his own little antidote in the margin and I think it was basically because he didn't learn how to write. (0:59:07)

So he dealt more with just chopping up what the other person had to say. He'd buy a book, he'd fill it up with comments and then pop it into the mail to somebody he thought would be interested in what he wrote. That he annotates the case for the UFO and sends it to Navy headquarters is typical of Allen. But this is one shot in the dark that finds a target, setting off a remarkable chain reaction. (0:59:34)

The Navy just happened to call Jessup. Jessup happened to have the letters. The two men, off duty or not, decided to reproduce the book, which generated rumors that this annotated book was being circulated among the top of the top. And then of course, Jessup commits suicide. Robert Gorman concludes that the Philadelphia Experiment is nothing more than a phantom. In 1980, he publishes an article in Faint Magazine called Alias Carlos Allende, in which he reveals the man is an Allen, not an alien. (1:00:13)

But he finds that legends die hard. I was sending out queries to different prominent UFO personalities, people that ran magazines. And what I was getting back in return was more than just a runaround. What I was getting back in return was almost being blacklisted. (1:00:30)


That it was fine when I was writing pro UFO articles and articles about the men in black and the mysteries of the universe, but they did not want to hear about Carlos Allende. Allende himself responds with death threats. And he even, on the back of an envelope that he sent to his father, mentioned the only reason he hasn't shot Gorman is he hasn't gotten to him yet. (1:00:57)

And I think it was basically because he didn't learn how to write. So he dealt more with just chopping up what the other person had to say. He'd buy a book, he'd fill it up with comments and then pop it into the mail to somebody he thought would be interested in what he wrote. That he annotates the case for the UFO and sends it to Navy headquarters is typical of Allende. But this is one shot in the dark that finds a target, setting off a remarkable chain reaction. (1:01:29)

The Navy just happened to call Jessup. Jessup happened to have the letters. The two men, off-duty or not, decided to reproduce the book, which generated rumors that this annotated book was being circulated among the top of the top. And then, of course, Jessup commits suicide. Robert Gorman concludes that the Philadelphia Experiment is nothing more than a phantom. In 1980, he publishes an article in Faint magazine called Alias Carlos Allende, in which he reveals the man is an Alan, not an alien. (1:02:08)

But he finds that legends die hard. I was sending out queries to different prominent UFO personalities, people that ran magazines. And what I was getting back in return was more than just a runaround. What I was getting back in return was almost being blacklisted. That it was fine when I was writing pro-UFO articles and articles about the men in black and the mysteries of the universe, but they did not want to hear about Carlos Allende. Allende himself responds with death threats. (1:02:42)

And he even, on the back of an envelope that he sent to his father, mentioned the only reason he hasn't shot Gorman is he hasn't gotten to him yet. In fact, the two do finally come face to face. But Alan in person is anything but intimidating. It was probably the most anti-climatic moment of my life was meeting Carlos Allende in the flesh. Because he couldn't work any magic on me. (1:03:14)

I wasn't involved and I wasn't intrigued about the disappearing destroyer. I wasn't intrigued that he might be an alien, because I knew the truth. Is the debunking of Alan as an eyewitness the end of the Philadelphia Experiment? Or did something really happen back in 1943? When we return, what the Navy says and how it could have inspired the tale of the disappearing ship. (1:03:51)

It appeared to us that it was just barroom talk that these boys were talking about. He put his own little antidote in the margin and I think it was basically because he didn't learn how to write. (1:04:06)


So he dealt more with just chopping up what the other person had to say. He'd buy a book, he'd fill it up with comments and then pop it into the mail to somebody he thought would be interested in what he wrote. That he annotates the case for the UFO and sends it to Navy headquarters is typical of Alan. But this is one shot in the dark that finds a target, setting off a remarkable chain reaction. (1:04:32)

The Navy just happened to call Jessup. Jessup happened to have the letters. The two men, off-duty or not, decided to reproduce the book, which generated rumors that this annotated book was being circulated among the top of the top. And then of course, Jessup commits suicide. Robert Gorman concludes that the Philadelphia Experiment is nothing more than a phantom. In 1980, he publishes an article in Faint Magazine called Alias Carlos Allende, in which he reveals the man is an Alan, not an alien. (1:05:11)

But he finds that legends die hard. I was sending out queries to different prominent UFO personalities, people that ran magazines. And what I was getting back in return was more than just a runaround. What I was getting back in return was almost being blacklisted. That it was fine when I was writing pro-UFO articles and articles about the men in black and the mysteries of the universe, but they did not want to hear about Carlos Allende. Allende himself responds with death threats. (1:05:45)

And he even, on the back of an envelope that he sent to his father, mentioned the only reason he hasn't shot Gorman is he hasn't gotten to him yet. In fact, the two do finally come face to face. But Alan in person is anything but intimidating. It was probably the most anti-climatic moment of my life, was meeting Carlos Allende in the flesh. Because he couldn't work any magic on me. (1:06:17)

I wasn't involved and I wasn't intrigued about the disappearing destroyer. I wasn't intrigued that he might be an alien, because I knew the truth. Is the debunking of Allende as an eyewitness the end of the Philadelphia Experiment? Or did something really happen back in 1943? When we return, what the Navy says and how it could have inspired the tale of the disappearing ship. (1:06:54)

(2025-04-24)