The Philadelphia Experiment

You sunk my invisible battleship!

Photo by John Kostyk on Unsplash

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Nautical folklore has always captured my interest. And there's definitely some odd urban legends littering that category related to the United States Navy.

I come from a family with extensive naval ties. My maternal grandfather served in the Pacific theater during World War II. My dad enlisted twice in the US Navy as a Seabee — serving his first tour from 1959 to 1963 and then re-enlisting in 1968, three years after he married my mom. A year into Dad's second tour, he was scheduled to ship out to South Vietnam from Okinawa during the height of the Vietnam War. A few days before his departure date, my dad broke his back. He was sent home instead with a medical discharge.

Dad always shared interesting stories from his time in the service. One of the coolest things I learned about his time as a Seabee is that he served aboard the USS Lake Champlain — an aircraft carrier — when it retrieved Alan Shepard and the Freedom 7 capsule in 1961 after Shepard became the first American to travel into space. Dad once showed me a photo in his possession of Shepard and his capsule being brought to the aircraft carrier.

With that background, you can see why a tale like The Philadelphia Experiment would pique my curiosity.

What is the Philadelphia Experiment?

The US Navy allegedly conducted a series of experiments during World War II to make their ships invisible by bending light around the ship through refraction created by large electrical generators. Stories claim that a newly commissioned destroyer, the USS Eldridge, became the first test subject in late 1943.

Naval crews outfitted the USS Eldridge with all the necessary equipment for the experiment and carried out tests at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Initial tests were deemed successful, with eyewitnesses reporting a greenish fog taking the place of the destroyer for a short time. Sailors on board complained of severe nausea afterward.

The experiment soon took a disastrous turn. On October 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge allegedly disappeared from Philadelphia and was teleported to Norfolk, Virginia more than 200 miles away. It remained in Norfolk for only a few minutes before returning to Philadelphia. When the ship rematerialized, the crew were said to have suffered severe and gruesome side effects. Some sailors were fused to bulkheads and a few re-materialized with their bodies inside out. Other sailors went insane. A small number vanished without a trace.

Naval officials, the tale alleges, covered up evidence of The Philadelphia Experiment and pursued stealth technology as a safer alternative to invisibility.

Origins of The Philadelphia Experiment

The tale of a naval ship disappearing, teleporting, and reappearing sounds like it was ripped straight from the pages of a science fiction novel. Makes sense because nothing about The Philadelphia Experiment is grounded in fact or even possible with what we know about real science.

It falls completely in the realm of urban legend and folklore.

The earliest known recounting of the alleged experiment came from letters sent by Carl M. Allen to Morris K. Jessup in the late 1950s. Allen claimed to be an eyewitness to the experiment and its aftermath. These letters served as foundational material for popular books in the 1970s recounting the same events and a 1984 time travel film titled The Philadelphia Experiment.

One curious footnote about the whole tall tale is the fact the USS Eldridge wasn’t commissioned until August 1943 and remained in port at New York City until September. The ship was on a shakedown cruise in The Bahamas during the time the alleged events took place in Philadelphia.

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Check out the Strange New Worlds archives for previous Folklore Friday features. If you have a specific urban legend, myth, or piece of folklore you want me to write about in the future, feel free to let me know in the comments.

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