An alleged secret U.S. Navy experiment in 1943 in Philadelphia, where the destroyer USS Eldridge reportedly became invisible to radar and teleported, with catastrophic effects on the crew.
The Philadelphia Experiment allegedly took place on October 28, 1943, at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where the U.S. Navy is said to have conducted a top-secret experiment using the destroyer escort USS Eldridge (DE-173). The experiment reportedly aimed to render the ship invisible to radar using an application of unified field theory, but the ship allegedly disappeared entirely and teleported approximately 360 km to Norfolk, Virginia, before returning.
The story originated in 1955, when a man calling himself Carlos Allende (Carl Allen) wrote letters to UFO researcher Morris Jessup. Allende claimed to have witnessed the experiment from a merchant ship and described crew members becoming fused with the ship's structure, catching fire, or suffering mental breakdowns.
The Navy has consistently denied the experiment took place, and the USS Eldridge's deck logs show the ship was not in Philadelphia on the alleged date.
In multiple letters sent to Jessup between 1955 and 1956, Allende described the experiment in detail. However, the letters are rambling and incoherent, containing almost no verifiable information. Allende himself later recanted his claims.
The official deck logs of the USS Eldridge indicate the ship was in New York on October 28, 1943, not Philadelphia. These records have been made publicly available under the Freedom of Information Act.
During World War II, the Navy conducted "degaussing" experiments to reduce ships' magnetic signatures as a countermeasure against naval mines. This may have been the origin of the "invisibility" rumor.
