The Philadelphia Experiment 

The Philadelphia Experiment, aka Project Rainbow, is the earliest and most entrenched conspiracy theory about teleportation. It involves a disappearing United States Navy ship and its entire crew, Albert Einstein, a paranormal bar fight and a cover-up.

The story goes that, besides escorting destroyers, the USS Eldridge was used in a series of experiments to test Albert Einstein’s Unified Field Theory as a way to cloak large vessels from enemy view. Believers in the experiment say the ship was outfitted with powerful electromagnetic generators that could bend light around the ship and render it invisible to the naked eye.

The first test took place in July 1943 in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. When the switch was flipped, according to a witness who said he was there, the ship was enveloped in a greenish fog and when the mist lifted the destroyer was gone. The only evidence that the ship was still there was the deep impression its hull made in the water. When the vessel reappeared, the crew were said to be disoriented and violently nauseous.

A subsequent test on October 28, 1943 caused the ship to disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and reappear moments later in the waters off Norfolk, Virginia. The ship’s next trick was to disappear again from Norfolk and rematerialize back in Philadelphia.

In the short time it took the ship to teleport, however, theorists claim the experiment went nightmarishly awry. Many of the crew members were stuck temporarily between dimensions, others disappeared forever, and five sailors became fused with the deck and hull of the ship when it reappeared. Half of the officers and sailors were driven insane by the experience and others supposedly disappeared and reappeared spontaneously years later.

Shocked by the unexpected teleportation and its horrifying results, the Navy shut down the experiment and immediately began covering up any evidence that it took place. Conspiracy theorists say the crewmen who still had their wits about them were brainwashed so they couldn’t tell the tale.

Evidence, A Mysterious Letter-

The story began circulating in 1955 when a man named Carlos Allende wrote several letters in strange handwriting to Morris Jessup, a UFO researcher and writer. In his correspondence, Allende claimed that he witnessed the USS Eldridge suddenly disappear and reappear while he was aboard the nearby civilian vessel, the SS Andrew Furuseth.

 Among other claims, Allende said he knew firsthand that Albert Einstein had solved the Unified Field Theory and that he witnessed a bar fight involving crewmen of the Eldridge who suddenly disappeared mid-punch.

Jessup dismissed Allende’s claims until he was approached by two officers from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with a copy of his book, The Case for UFOs, that they’d received anonymously. The book was heavily annotated with comments about the nature of UFOs, methods of propulsion and alien culture–and Jessup recognized that it was Allende’s handwriting filling the margins of the book.

The Doubters

Paranormal researcher Robert Goerman said he discovered that Allende was actually Carl Allen, a wandering loner known for involved pranks, annotating whatever he could lay his hands on and sending bizarre missives to his family and others. Goerman published a story in the paranormal and UFO research magazine, FATE, claiming that Allen created the hoax and it was more successful than he’d probably ever expected.

Ufologist Jacques Vallee published a 1994 paper entitled “Anatomy of a Hoax” in the Journal of Scientific Exploration about Allen, the pervasiveness of the Philadelphia Experiment story and guidelines for detecting false stories of the paranormal.

Skeptics say the theory has too many holes in it to float. Allen is not a credible witness and he never presented verifiable evidence about a single one of his claims. Some wonder why the Navy would opt to conduct a highly charged, top-secret experiment on a massive boat in broad daylight.

But despite the lack of additional witnesses and hard evidence, the story has had long sea legs, showing no signs of waning after more than 50 years. It has spawned scores of books, conspiracy websites and a 1984 movie, The Philadelphia Experiment, produced by legendary horror director John Carpenter.

The story was bolstered by the rogue investigation by the two naval officers into Allen’s writing in the UFO book, and by the Navy’s official response about their activities. Also, when Morris Jessup committed suicide in 1959, some conspiracy theorists suggested that he was murdered to keep him from revealing secrets. If the teleportation was true, of course, it is unlikely that the Navy would acknowledge its existence.

Does it make sense? Could it have really happened?