Philadelphia Experiment -- Operation Rainbow and Other Code Names
Philadelphia Experiment -- Operation Rainbow and Other Code Names
"Project Rainbow" in the Philadelphia Experiment Mythology
Proponents of the Philadelphia Experiment frequently refer to it by the code name "Project Rainbow" or "Operation Rainbow." This name gives the alleged experiment an air of historical authenticity -- classified military programs routinely have code names -- and creates the impression that official documentation might exist under that name.
The Real "Rainbow" War Plans
The name "Rainbow" was used by the U.S. military for a series of completely unrelated war plans developed between 1939 and 1941:
| Plan | Content |
|---|---|
| Rainbow 1 | Plan for defense of the Western Hemisphere if the Allies fell and the U.S. faced the Axis alone |
| Rainbow 2 | Plan for cooperation with Britain and France while U.S. forces remained primarily in the Western Hemisphere |
| Rainbow 3 | Plan for offensive operations in the Pacific while maintaining hemispheric defense |
| Rainbow 4 | Plan for hemispheric defense with U.S. forces possibly operating in the Eastern Atlantic |
| Rainbow 5 | The plan eventually adopted -- offensive in the Atlantic and defensive in the Pacific; became the basis for U.S. strategic planning after Pearl Harbor |
These Rainbow plans are extensively documented in military archives. They are entirely conventional war planning documents with no relationship to electromagnetic research, invisibility experiments, or the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
Why Using "Rainbow" as a Code Name Creates False Legitimacy
By associating the alleged Philadelphia Experiment with a code name also used by real military programs, the narrative creates a circumstantial appearance of historical documentation. Someone researching "Project Rainbow" in military archives would find extensive real documentation -- but documentation of the unrelated war plans. The failure to find documentation of the electromagnetic experiment could then be attributed to separate compartmentalization rather than to the experiment never having existed.
Other Code Names Used in Variants
Different accounts of the Philadelphia Experiment use different code names:
- "Project Rainbow" -- most common
- "Operation Invisibility" -- used in some accounts
- "Project Seal" -- appears in some variant accounts (note: there is a real Project SEAL that was an Australian tsunami bomb research program; another confusion of names)
The proliferation of code names across different accounts, with no single consistent name, is characteristic of mythology that evolved through multiple independent elaborations rather than a historical event that was consistently described by witnesses.
What "Rainbow" Means in the Conspiracy Context
In the broader conspiracy research community, "Project Rainbow" has taken on a meaning beyond the specific Philadelphia Experiment claim. It is sometimes used as a general term for alleged government projects involving rainbow energy, electromagnetic manipulation, and related exotic physics. This broader usage further dilutes the ability to research the specific claim and contributes to the mythology's overall resilience.
