The Philadelphia experiment is one of the most bizarre events in recent history. While working on a way to cloak their vessels from enemy radars and mines, the Navy accidentally triggered a chain event involving phase-shifting, invisibility, and even the teleportation of an entire ship.
In 1943, the US Navy conducted an experiment on the USS Eldridge at the Philadelphia Navy yard. There are different rumors concerning the exact nature of the test, some of them involving magnetic invisibility, radar invisibility, optical cover-up, or degaussing – making the ship immune to magnetic mines. The procedure was successful, but because of the unfathomable side effects experienced by the crew members, the project was soon abandoned.
Certain accounts speak of bizarre repercussions felt by most of the people involved. The main idea was to render a ship invisible to enemy radar by wrapping an electromagnetic “bottle” around it. The device, powered by two colossal Tesla coils which served as electromagnetic generators, would then absorb or deflect radar waves. One generator was installed in front of the ship, and the other aback. Together they would generate an electromagnetic field that would push aside radar waves interacting with the Eldridge, making it invisible to radar receivers.
After the technology was tested live, unexpected side effects came into existence. The electromagnetic field stretched as far as 100 yards from the ship, amplifying in power until it formed a considerable sphere. A greenish haze veiled the ship, obscuring it from view. It took over it slowly, until the last visible part of the ship – the outline of the hull, was no longer visible.
Not only that the Eldridge became fully invisible, but it also completely vanished from Philadelphia. Accounts speak of how the ship got teleported hundreds of miles to Norfolk, Virginia, before reappearing in Philadelphia a few minutes later. The Navy celebrated an unusual victory that day. Not only had they made an entire ship invisible to radar, they had turned it optically invisible as well, while also causing it to teleport for several miles in a short span of time. On the other hand, the crew went through a gruesome experience that was about to completely change their lives from there on.
When the Tesla coils powered the electromagnetic field, it grew so strong that it phased out the vessel, thus teleporting it from Philadelphia to Norfolk in a matter of seconds. But the members of the crew didn’t go through this without experiencing peculiar transformations. During this event, they found it possible to step through solid objects, so the men walked through the decks and railings of the ship that were no longer governed by the physical laws of our universe. When the force-field was shut off, some of them remained trapped inside parts of the ship, and it doesn’t take a thorough explanation to understand why most of those who survived went mad.
A few crew members simply vanished into thin air, and there’s a certain story about one who was eating dinner with his family when he simply rose from the table, walked through a wall and was never to be seen again. Other participants in the Philadelphia experiment faded from view, unable to move, speak or interact with the surroundings. At first, the “freeze” lasted for only a few minutes, but over time, the effect turned into a “Deep Freeze” that kept the men in this phasing state for days or even months in a row.
After these unimaginable side effects, the Navy disrupted all research into radar and optical invisibility, and “discharged all crew members as mentally unfit for duty,” placing most of them in asylums. Project Rainbow (as the Philadelphia Experiment is known) came to an end, but there are rumors speaking of the Phoenix Project that furtherly studied electromagnetic fields and their impact on the human mind.
I read that book and always wondered if it were really true and did happen!