Editing Philadelphia Experiment -- Master Case File (section)

=== Primary Reference Data ===

{| class="wikitable"
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! Field !! Detail
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| Official name || No official name -- the experiment is alleged to have been called "Project Rainbow" by proponents
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| Alleged date || October 28, 1943 (most common claim); some sources say July 1943 for a preliminary test
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| Alleged location || Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Norfolk Naval Operating Base, Virginia (destination)
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| Ship involved || USS Eldridge (DE-173) -- Cannon-class destroyer escort; commissioned August 27, 1943
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| Alleged result || Optical invisibility; teleportation 215 miles to Norfolk; crew injuries; sailors fused to hull
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| Original source || Carl M. Allen (alias Carlos Miguel Allende); letters to Morris K. Jessup beginning January 1956
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| Alleged witness ship || SS Andrew Furuseth (Liberty ship; Allen claimed to be a deckhand aboard)
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| Scientific basis claimed || Einstein's Unified Field Theory; electromagnetic fields; Zero Time Reference Generator (Tesla)
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| Key scientists alleged || Albert Einstein; Nikola Tesla (died January 7, 1943 -- months before alleged experiment); Dr. John von Neumann
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| US Navy position || Experiment never occurred; Eldridge logs show ship in Bahamas on October 28, 1943; no research into radar or optical invisibility conducted
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| ONR investigation || Office of Naval Research received annotated copy of Jessup's book in 1957; two officers fascinated; 127 copies of "Varo Edition" printed; official conclusion: no experiment
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| The Varo Edition || 127 privately printed copies of Jessup's "The Case for the UFO" with three-color handwritten annotations allegedly by Allende and others; printed by Varo Manufacturing (a military contractor)
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| Key books || "The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility" -- Berlitz and Moore, 1979; "The Case for the UFO" -- Jessup, 1955
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| Al Bielek || Man who claimed to be an amnesiac survivor; real name Edward Cameron; said he recovered memories after seeing the 1984 film; died October 10, 2011
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| Film adaptation || "The Philadelphia Experiment" (1984) -- directed by Stewart Raffill; starring Michael Pare; produced by John Carpenter
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| Montauk connection || The experiment is the claimed origin point for the Montauk Project -- alleged continuation at Camp Hero, Montauk, New York, 1971-1983
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| Degaussing explanation || Real classified technology at the Philadelphia Navy Yard involved degaussing -- wrapping ships in electromagnetic cables to neutralize magnetic signatures against magnetic mines; this is the most credible "kernel of truth" explanation
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| Official Navy statement || September 8, 1996: ONR stated "ONR has never conducted investigations on radar invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time"
|}