"The Philadelphia Project"

There are 3 things the the US Navy deny -

1. the Philadelphia Experiment, see http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

2. The film "Hostile Waters" http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/questions/hostlh2o.html

3. This radio conversation:

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Believe it or not...this is the transcript of an actual radio conversation between a US naval ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. The Radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on Oct. 10, 1995.

US Ship: Please divert your course 0.5 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
CND reply: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
US Ship: This is the Captain of a US Navy Ship. I say again, divert your course.
CND reply: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course!
US Ship: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS CORAL SEA*, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!!
CND reply: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

*Note: USS Coral Sea (CV 43) was decommissioned and scrapped 2 July 1993. Other ships' names appearing have been USS Missouri (BB 63) which was decommissioned on 31 March 1992 and USS Nimitz (CVN 68) which is an active ship.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/questions/litehuse.html

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- they will take the rap for the rest.

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Kill, kill, kill the laser mice.

[This message has been edited by Victor (edited 24-07-2001).]

It never happened. I think the whole urban myth started with the release of this movie:

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087910

As the publicity stated it actually happened. But if you follow Conorisco's link you'll get the following message "Sorry! You have tried to reach an object that does not exist."

played!

[This message has been edited by Evil Phil (edited 25-07-2001).]

interesting but inconclusive:

In July 1943, the destroyer U.S.S. Eldridge pulled into the Delaware Bay area for a United States Naval experiment that involved the task of making the ship invisible. The project's official name is Project Rainbow, but was nicknamed and more commonly known as the Philadelphia Experiment.

Much has been written and speculated about the legendary experiment into invisibilty, but sorting fact from fiction is a near impossible task, especially with the recent influx of misinformation and deliberate disinformation that has been spread by those connected to the U.S. Intelligence community and professional skeptics.

There is much controversy over what exactly happened, but one thing is for sure. For some reason, soon after the test was completed, a massive blanket of secrecy and denial was placed over what happened in Delaware Bay. It is thought that a huge scientific breakthrough was made, and the ship was accurately transported over space and time, disappearing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and reappearing in Norfolk, Virginia. Whatever did happen is still not known, but different theories are discussed below:

The "Official" Navy Record:

The Navy admits that the U.S.S. Eldridge took part in an experiment that involved wrapping wire around the hull of the destroyer in an attempt to cancel out the magnetic fields of the metal on the ship. This is known as degaussing. This would render the ship "invisible" to underwater magnetic mines that rely on proximity sensors to trigger the detonation. These sensors operate by detecting magnetic fields around ships. Without the magnetic field, the ship would be able to pass through regions mined with these sensors, invisible to enemy mines, but not to radar or vision.

The Navy's report is very plausible, and doesn't mention any exotic results or circumstances. But could this just be a believable account to drop the interest by the general public, leaving only the true minority of investigators in doubt?

Physical Invisibility:

Some scientists have developed the theory that the Navy was working on a way to make the ship invisible to vision. However, it didn't involve warping space time or any complex task of a similar nature. This theory suggests that the Eldridge was equipped with high frequency generators that would heat up the surrounding air to cause a mirage, making the vessel invisible.

This phenomenon is naturally occurring, and there have been cases where entire islands have disappeared from view in the right weather conditions. The high frequency generator would heat up the surrounding air and the water (creating a green-colored fog that was said to have engulfed the ship), causing a mirage to form, concealing the ship from view.

The generator would also account for the sickness (physical and mental) of the crew after the experiment. A high freqency generator can cause serious harm to a person's wellbeing, especially at close range. This is more plausible than the degaussing theory, and would also explain the crew's sick condition as a result of the test.

The main problem with these theories though, is that it doesn't explain how the U.S.S. Eldridge was seen in Norfolk, Virginia by the civilian crew of the SS Andrew Furuseth, when the ship disappeared from view in Philadelphia in a space of only about fifteen minutes. There are also details such as crewmen being fused to the hull of the ship and some not even reappearing.

Transported across space and time?

The most interesting theory about the Philadelphia Experiment is that the destroyer did in fact disappear and was teleported across space and time. Supposedly, there was a great number of ingenious scientists (including Tesla and Einstein) that were taking part in the experiment. However, Nikola Tesla was supposed to dead at the time of the Naval experiment.

The theory is that light has to be bent around the ship to make it invisible. To accomplish this, the Navy wrapped the ship's circumference in wire and passed a measured current through it. This caused a huge oscillating magnet to form a magnetic field around the ship, not only bending the light, but space and time as well. The physics of the experiment are reminiscent of Einstein's Unified Field Theory that once you bend light, you are also unwittingly bending space and time as well.

The first time this experiment was undertaken, the ship didn't completely disappear, and an imprint of the hull could be seen sitting in the water. The second time, the ship totally disappeared in a green fog and was sighted in Norfolk, Virginia.

A haunting fact is that when the ship reappeared, the crew were all in a state of disorientation. Some were mentally ill, while other crewmen didn't even return. There were also crewmen that returned embedded in the hull. Later accounts arose about the crewmen, including a former crew member who was involved in a bar fight, and all the participants froze in time, as reported by a local newspaper! There were also accounts of people who were on the ship, spontaneously combusting.

The mystery remains

It is still not known what happened that day in 1943, mainly due to the lack of witnesses coming forth who served aboard the Eldridge. There is also no documentation available to the public which details Project Rainbow. It may have simply been a degaussing experiment. But how did the destroyer appear seconds later in Virginia? Its possible the answer will never be known, but the mystery may be solved when scientists rediscover what happened in Delaware Bay.

BobtUO, yeah that article did have a few far-fetched 'facts' flung in there. I don't claim to know whether or not tesla or einstein worked on this, I only reproduced the article as I thought it might be of some interest to the thread readers. Like anything today, don't believe everything (or anything!!) you read!
As you said, this board is to discuss the scientific possibilities of this stuff.
And imho teleporting, time travel, spontaneous combustion, etc. belongs in a 'paranormal/sci-fi' board for the moment!

Here was the picture in question.

How does creating a magnetic field around a boat make it distort time and space? Why doesn't the bits inside my computer distort time and space?

What amazes me about all this is the fact that people actually think this is true.

Did anyone here actually study Physics in school?

Unified Field theory

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Einstein and others attempted to construct a unified field theory in which electromagnetism and gravity would emerge as different aspects of a single fundamental field. They failed, and to this day gravity remains beyond attempts at a unified field theory. </font>

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by bonkey:
The stories of weird things happening to survivors, phase-shifting, blah blah blah are about as scientificallyl credible as "eye-witness" accounts of the existence of Nessie.</font>

Well the stories could be put out by the navy. The Military are always doing things like that. Like telling people carrots make it easier for pilots to see in the dark when it was Radar. Or saying there was UFO's at Area 51 when it was just a weather ballon.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Chaos-Engine:
yeah i heard about the Philadelhia project. I read a few books(no not X-file type ****e) about it... </font>

Given that there is no more proof of the Philly experiment than (say) Roswell or anything like that, coupled with the general complete lack of credibility it appears to have with the scientific community in general, I fail to see how any book on the subject could not be "X-Files sh*te", as you so succinctly put it.

Its relatively easy to publish a book which appears scientific in nature. Its another thing for the book to *be* scientific in nature.

The Philly experiment, from what I recall reading at some point, was either an attempt to mask a ship from magnetic detection, and/or from radar through the use of electro-magnetic fields, either generated from coils wrapped round the hull or from twin pylons (one at each end of the boat).

The stories of weird things happening to survivors, phase-shifting, blah blah blah are about as scientificallyl credible as "eye-witness" accounts of the existence of Nessie.

jc