0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: a stormy night, a top-secret experiment, and a naval destroyer with the power to become invisible. 0:18 [SPEAKER_00]: welcome back friend to hometown history. 0:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Some mysteries were perhaps never meant to be solved. 0:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The disappearance of D.B. 0:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Cooper, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Malaysian Flight 370 to name a few. 0:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The longer we go without answers to these questions, the more time the public has to come up with 0:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Not just connected to the cases I mentioned, but other completely random bizarre ones. 0:57 [SPEAKER_00]: The Earth is flat. 0:58 [SPEAKER_00]: We never landed on the moon. 1:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Steve Jobs is still alive in the Titanic never sank. 1:06 [SPEAKER_00]: But the one we're going to explore today truly takes the cake. 1:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Today's episode is about one of the most fascinating conspiracy theories in American history. 1:20 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the Philadelphia Experiment. 1:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The year was 1943, a period overshadowed by the growing intensity of World War II. 1:33 [SPEAKER_00]: What is believed is that the urgency that fueled the Philadelphia Experiment was born out of the dire circumstances faced by the U.S. Navy during the height of World War II. 1:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Basically, German U-boats, better known as submarines, were wreaking havoc on American destroyers, presenting a formidable threat in the waters. 1:58 [SPEAKER_00]: These stealthy and deadly vessels, along with the presence of German mines, created a lethal combination that hindered the success of American naval operations. 2:16 [SPEAKER_00]: And this meant they needed a strong counterattack, or at least a defense strategy to maintain their position in the war. 2:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Conventional war tactics were proving ineffective against the elusive U-boats. 2:33 [SPEAKER_00]: In the unpredictability of mines made navigation much more difficult. 2:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Combat and commerce were both in jeopardy. 2:43 [SPEAKER_00]: demanding a response that went beyond those traditional strategies. 2:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is when the U.S. Navy initiated a top secret program, a program aimed at regaining control of the battle. 2:58 [SPEAKER_00]: And with that, in the heart of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, 3:03 [SPEAKER_00]: an unassuming naval destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, bound itself at the epicenter of a covert experiment that transcended the boundaries of conventional warfare. 3:18 [SPEAKER_00]: So how did it all start? 3:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Now the thing about this idea is that it has a pretty elaborate background, starting from the early 1940s. 3:31 [SPEAKER_00]: with the military eager to explore unconventional possibilities. 3:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Franklin Reno applied Einstein's unified field theory to find a solution. 3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: This theory, connecting gravity and electromagnetism, laid the groundwork for an experiment that will push the boundaries of reality. 3:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The aim to make a military ship disappear from sight 3:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Now here is where things turned practical, or so it is believed. 4:05 [SPEAKER_00]: In the first attempt, apparently the aim was nearly achieved. 4:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The USS Eldridge was able to vanish almost entirely, leaving only a whisp of green fog behind. 4:19 [SPEAKER_00]: It appeared to vanish from sight, which was exactly what they aimed for. 4:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The crew on board suffered severe nausea and in some cases insanity when they reappeared. 4:37 [SPEAKER_00]: This meant revisions were required. 4:40 [SPEAKER_00]: You couldn't have entire troops of men needed for the fight turning insane. 4:46 [SPEAKER_00]: So the US Navy recalibrated its approach. 4:50 [SPEAKER_00]: They modified their plan and now aim to make the ship invisible to radar only. 4:57 [SPEAKER_00]: With that, the equipment was adjusted, and the second test was initiated. 5:02 [SPEAKER_00]: This time they hoped for more controlled and successful outcome. 5:09 [SPEAKER_00]: So on October 28, 1943, the US Navy attempted something extraordinary. 5:16 [SPEAKER_00]: hoping to gain an edge on the ongoing battle of the Atlantic during World War II. 5:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Now according to reports, the experiment, known as the Philadelphia Experiment, didn't quite go as planned. 5:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of mastering time travel, teleportation, and invisibility, like they had intended 5:44 [SPEAKER_00]: As we discussed, the goal was pretty wild, but also important. 5:50 [SPEAKER_00]: To equip American destroyers with the ability to move stealthily through enemy waters, avoiding detection by both radar and underwater mines. 6:01 [SPEAKER_00]: If this were a success, it would have been a game-changing advantage in the battle of the Atlantic, turning the tide of war in favor of the United States. 6:12 [SPEAKER_00]: This experiment worked on two goals, defend against the U-boats, and navigate hostile territories undetected. 6:22 [SPEAKER_00]: The concept of invisibility and undetectability was not merely a technological fascination, who was a strategic necessity, a bold attempt to outmaneuver the enemy, and secure 6:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So on October 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge equipped with powerful generators, was docked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. 6:54 [SPEAKER_00]: This was no ordinary vessel. 6:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Equipped with revolutionary technology centered around electrical field manipulation, this ship was set to possess the ability to become invisible to the naked eye. 7:10 [SPEAKER_00]: So as the moon cast a neary glow on the darkened waters, the ship stood as a silent witness to a condessent operation that aimed to reshape the course of history. 7:23 [SPEAKER_00]: With the full crew on board, the experiment began. 7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The generators hummed to life, and unexpectedly, a murky green fog 7:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Witnesses were left baffled as the eldritch became invisible, not just to military radar, but to humanize. 7:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Witnesses, including government and military officials, looked on as the USS eldritch vanished into thin air. 7:57 [SPEAKER_00]: The air buzzed with a sound of generators, accompanied by an 8:08 [SPEAKER_00]: The onlookers stood baffled, witnessing an event that seemed to fire the laws of nature. 8:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Had the ship been teleported, was it time travel or was it truly invisible? 8:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever this was, it was clearly not what the U.S. Navy had in mind when they initiated this experiment. 8:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey there, history buffs. 8:38 [SPEAKER_00]: As we dive into deeper depths of the Philadelphia experiment, let's not forget to indulge in another kind of exploration, the culinary kind. 8:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Factor Meals brings the excitement of discovery to your dinner table. 8:53 [SPEAKER_00]: with the menu bursting with flavor and 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[SPEAKER_00]: What happened later has been in debate ever since. 10:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Reports claim that this ship reappeared mysteriously in Norfolk, Virginia, over 200 miles away, before returning to Philadelphia. 10:23 [SPEAKER_00]: People aboard the SS Andrew Furuseth, that night, claimed to see the USS Eldridge, plainly before them, only for it to disappear a few seconds later. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It was also claimed that the ship reappeared in Norfolk, 10:40 [SPEAKER_00]: 10 minutes before it disappeared from Philadelphia, which of course points to either time manipulation or time travel. 10:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And with time, more and more conspiracy theories relating to this supposed experiment cropped up. 10:58 [SPEAKER_00]: You would expect that the most reliable account would be from the survivors themselves, but things were a little different. 11:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Reports from witnesses and survivors painted a grim picture of the toll the experiment took on the crew members, as the ship rematerialized in Philadelphia. 11:18 [SPEAKER_00]: It became evident that something had gone terribly wrong. 11:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The once hopeful venture turned into a nightmare for those on board. 11:30 [SPEAKER_00]: According to the accounts, crew members suffered from severe burns, a result of the unforeseen and powerful forces, unleashed during the experiment. 11:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The nature of these burns suggest a level of trauma that went beyond the physical, hinting at the untold complexities of the experiment's impact on the human body. 11:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Even more disturbing was the revelation that some crew members had become fused into the ship's metal walls at a molecular level. 12:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine being stuck inside a wall, parts of your body surrounded by concrete and other parts sticking out of the wall. 12:15 [SPEAKER_00]: That's essentially what happened on board the USS Altridge. 12:20 [SPEAKER_00]: This bizarre and nightmarish outcome indicated a level of interaction between the crew and the ship that defied the laws of conventional physics. 12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Those of the men who couldn't free themselves from the metal surrounding them faced gruesome and agonizing deaths. 12:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, the toll extended beyond physical harm. 12:44 [SPEAKER_00]: This was nothing short of traumatic. 12:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Some crew members who managed to survive the experiment were left in a state of disorientation that bordered on insanity, which is why the reliability of their accounts becomes questionable, leaving things open to speculation. 13:05 [SPEAKER_00]: To add to this perplexing aftermath, some crew members simply disappeared altogether, 13:12 [SPEAKER_00]: They never rematerialized with a ship. 13:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Clearly the aftermath suffered by the crew, was much more severe, compared to the first attempt made by the US Navy. 13:25 [SPEAKER_00]: It was the opposite of a controlled response. 13:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Now this is what we have been told about the event. 13:34 [SPEAKER_00]: All the information presented to us. 13:37 [SPEAKER_00]: If you go and check this up online, it'll be easy to find the details and read the records. 13:43 [SPEAKER_00]: But should a top secret experiment, funded by the government, which went terribly wrong, really be so easy to access? 13:53 [SPEAKER_00]: How did the public learn about the details surrounding that night? 13:58 [SPEAKER_00]: When you dig a little deeper into that question, the reality starts peaking through. 14:04 [SPEAKER_00]: is started when Carlos Miguel Iende, who was a self-proclaimed witness, started writing letters describing the experiment. 14:14 [SPEAKER_00]: These were addressed to Morse Jessup, an astronomer and science fiction writer, and soon Morse Jessup found himself entangled in the web of this story. 14:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Carl was allegedly present on SS Andrew Furus' death, and witnessed the USS Eldridge on the night of October 28th. 14:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Among other things, he claimed that some of the crew members disembarked and came to a local pub, and they got into a bar fight. 14:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And during this bar fight, they vanished before his eyes. 14:56 [SPEAKER_00]: and Carl himself later admitted he was lying. 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: With regard to the reliability of Carl as a person, Robert Goman, an investigative scholar and analyst, wrote and fate magazine in 1980, that Carl's I&A was actually Carl Meredith Allen, from New Kensington, Pennsylvania, who had an established history of psychiatric 15:25 [SPEAKER_00]: but it didn't end with that. 15:27 [SPEAKER_00]: The story took an unexpected turn. 15:30 [SPEAKER_00]: When in 1957, the US Navy's Office of Naval Research received a package. 15:37 [SPEAKER_00]: It contained one of moreous Jess-up's books, adorned with bizarre, scribbled notes, about extraterrestrial technology, and unified field theory. 15:53 [SPEAKER_00]: leading to even more confusion. 15:56 [SPEAKER_00]: It turns out the book was annotated, with notes and three different handwriting's, one of which supposedly belonged to an alien. 16:08 [SPEAKER_00]: According to these notes, the writer had an advanced understanding of physics and extraterrestrial technology. 16:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Even Jessup was confused by this and told the US Navy office that his life had been weird ever since he started getting those letters from Carl about the Philadelphia experiment. 16:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Jessup in the US Navy office believed the bizarre notes in the book were made by Carl Allen. 16:37 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the conspiracy theories to come out of this story was that Carl himself was an alien, trying to feed information to humans about the experiment. 16:50 [SPEAKER_00]: It clearly tells us that the nature of these theories was becoming more and more insane, every time a new piece of information or a new witness came forward. 17:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Things got trickier when the news of Jessup's death came in 1959. 17:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently when in Florida he got into a car accident and was slow to recover, which frustrated him further since his last few books on UFOs hadn't done so well. 17:22 [SPEAKER_00]: But in April of 1959, he was found dead in his car, a longer roadside and date county Florida. 17:30 [SPEAKER_00]: a hose ran from the exhaust pipe into the rear window of his car, which of course, fell the interior up with toxic fumes. 17:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Was this a suicide? 17:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Or did the military orchestrate this because maybe Jessup knew something about the Philadelphia experiment? 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: The conspiracy theories started to roll in. 17:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Even though his friends told people that Jessup had been contemplating 18:01 [SPEAKER_00]: people were convinced that this was yet another cover-up. 18:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Much later, another person came forward, claiming that the Philadelphia experiment was real, and that he was part of it. 18:16 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, there were too many of these cases happening, mostly because the media couldn't stop talking about it. 18:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone wanted to know of it, or be part of it. 18:28 [SPEAKER_00]: A man named Al Bielick came forward, claiming to have personally taken part in the secret experiment, which he had been brainwashed to forget. 18:36 [SPEAKER_00]: He was insistent that only after seeing the movie in 1988, that his repressed memories come flooding back. 18:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But as usual, there was no evidence that could support this claim, and he became one of the many conspiracy theorists to have spoken about the experiment 18:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Many people joined this wave of claims, most fabricating their accounts, in many of them revolving around time travel. 19:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Luckily, some clarification about this experiment came forward in 1994. 19:15 [SPEAKER_00]: astrophysicist and UFOologist, Jock Vali, published an article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration titled Anatomy of a Hokes, the Philadelphia Experiment 50 Years Later. 19:31 [SPEAKER_00]: With this, he asks readers to contact him if they had any further information about the alleged event. 19:39 [SPEAKER_00]: His interest and curiosity in the matter were somewhat satisfied when he received a letter from Edward Dugin, who served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945. 19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Edward attempted to shed light on the military's attempts to make ships as visible. 19:59 [SPEAKER_00]: He acknowledged that the U.S. Navy was, in fact, experimenting with invisibility at the time. 20:10 [SPEAKER_00]: The aim was to deal with underwater threats, through a process known as degossing. 20:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Since there were repeated attacks by German U-boats, which had caused significant damage until that point, a new approach was being taken. 20:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The idea was not to make the ships invisible to radar or in reality. 20:32 [SPEAKER_00]: They just wanted to make their ships undetectable by the Uboats' magnetic torpedoes to save them from attacks. 20:41 [SPEAKER_00]: This was why the boat was wrapped and large cables and zapped with high voltage charges making it a digost ship. 20:50 [SPEAKER_00]: It was simple enough. 20:51 [SPEAKER_00]: So his letters clarified that there was no teleportation or time travel or green fog in the works that night, which means that the confusion must have started when whispers of quote invisible ships transformed a practical wartime strategy into a paranormal narrative. 21:12 [SPEAKER_00]: We all know how these things work, someone's friend works in the Navy, who then tells another, and so goes on the chain, with things being added at every conversation, much like the game of telephone. 21:27 [SPEAKER_00]: The thing that is on our minds can sometimes be biased, toward bizarre or otherwise memorable events. 21:35 [SPEAKER_00]: For example, we're more likely to remember any mention of things that seem exceptional or weird, like a ship that disappears into thin air with no explanation. 21:47 [SPEAKER_00]: There was even an explanation as to how the USS Eldridge was seen in Norfolk that night. 21:53 [SPEAKER_00]: According to them, the ship might have traveled from Philadelphia to Norfolk and back in a single day. 22:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Utilizing the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal in Chesapeake Bay, this route which was kept discrete was crucial during World War II when German submarines posed a significant threat to shipping along the east coast. 22:18 [SPEAKER_00]: to give you some context. 22:20 [SPEAKER_00]: The distance between Philadelphia and Norfolk is over 250 miles one way, which would take around ten and a half to eleven hours. 22:30 [SPEAKER_00]: A round trip would be twenty one hours, which is perfectly doable. 22:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And doubtedly, this explanation made the most sense to the public, providing a logical and rational basis for what happened that night. 22:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Plus, as more details came to light, it started looking unlikely that the USS Eldridge was even present in the shipyard during the experiment. 22:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently the ship was not even commissioned until August 27, 1943. 23:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Surprisingly during the alleged October experiment, the ship was on its first shakedown cruise in the Bahamas. 23:13 [SPEAKER_00]: but skeptics point out that the ship's logs might have been faked, or maybe they are so classified. 23:20 [SPEAKER_00]: There's even an alternative theory suggesting that the USS Hammond was the ship involved in the experiment, arriving at the shipyard on October 20, 1943. 23:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Later in April 1999, a reunion at Navy Vatrons, who had served aboard USS Eldridge, revealed to a Philadelphia newspaper that their ship had never made port in Philadelphia. 23:47 [SPEAKER_00]: This obviously contradicts the basic premise of the Philadelphia experiment. 23:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Adding to this, evidence discounting the experiment's timeline comes from the USS Eldridge's complete World War II action report, including the remark section of the 1943 deck log, which is available on microfilm. 24:12 [SPEAKER_00]: So what does this mean? 24:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Was the entire experiment a hoax? 24:18 [SPEAKER_00]: That remains a mystery. 24:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But it reveals our fascination with the unknown and our inclination towards conspiracy theories. 24:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The quest for answers, even in the face of dubious claims, and have profound consequences on individuals and society. 24:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Because of this quest, following the initial hype of the event, there have been multiple pieces of literature that were based on it. 24:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Considering the intriguing nature of the incident, it became a source of inspiration for various books and movies. 24:53 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1965, Vincent Gattis explored the world of Fortyanna, with his book Invisible Horizons True Mysteries of the Sea. 25:04 [SPEAKER_00]: He or he recounted the experiment based on the Vero annotations. 25:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Basically, more Jessups annotated books, which added a layer of intrigue to the mystery. 25:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Fast forward to 1978, George E. Simpson, and Neil Arborger, released the novel thin air. 25:26 [SPEAKER_00]: It was set in the present day, and the story followed a naval investigative service officer, uncovering threads that connect wartime invisibility experiments to a conspiracy involving matter transmission technology. 25:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And then in 1979, the story's widespread popularity surged, with Charles Berlitz and co-author William L. Moore's book, The Philadelphia Experiment, Project Invisibility. 26:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Berlitz, known for his best-selling work on the Bermuda Triangle, presented the story as a factual account, connecting reports of bizarre happenings. 26:14 [SPEAKER_00]: lost unified field theories by Albert Einstein, and alleged government cover-ups all rooted in the L.N. 26:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Day slash Allen letters to Jessup. 26:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Later that story was brought to the silver screen by the 1984 film, the Philadelphia Experiment, directed by Stuart Rafale. 26:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The film explored the concept of time travel, and although loosely based on the original accounts, dramatized the core elements of the story. 26:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And the intrigue did not fade away with time. 26:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Even as recently as 2012, a film based on the offense of the Philadelphia experiment was released, and I'm sure if Hollywood decided to make another in 2024, we'd want to watch that too. 27:06 [SPEAKER_00]: because it feeds the fascination and curiosity we all inherently have. 27:14 [SPEAKER_00]: So what do you think? 27:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Was this the world's craziest experiment that the government is desperately trying to cover up? 27:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Or was it really nothing? 27:24 [SPEAKER_00]: And the public is solely responsible for the stories and theories. 27:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me know your thoughts. 27:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to hometown history, and be sure to follow along for more interesting stories from America's past.
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