From psmith@dg-webo.rtp.dg.com (Peter Smith) Thu Jan 9 13:11:27 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!paul.rutgers.edu!dorm.rutgers.edu!rutgers!ub!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!dg-rtp!webo!dg-webo!psmith From: psmith@dg-webo.rtp.dg.com (Peter Smith) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment Message-ID: <1992Jan9.181127.29251@webo.dg.com> Date: 9 Jan 92 18:11:27 GMT References: <3370@ixgch.uucp> Sender: usenet@webo.dg.com (Usenet Administration) Distribution: alt Organization: Data General Corporation, Westboro, MA Lines: 32 In article <3370@ixgch.uucp> chris@ixgch.imp.com (Christoph Eckert) writes: > >i'm looking for any kind of information about the so-called > "Philadelphia Experiment", The Philidelphia Experiment story of a ship and its crew disappearing or demterializing seems to trace back to one Carl Allen, a sailor stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during WWII and A.A. Merritt, who's _American_Weekly_ dealt heavily in the paranormal. Allen appears to have consolidated several rumor threads current at the Navy Yard concerning the activities in a sealed-off, top secret area where large, electricity-hungry machines were installed on one or more ships and shore-side buildings and visited by various scientists and engineers, including Albert Einstein. The Navy's rumor-control cover story was that they were experimenting with de-gaussing equipment to make ships undetectable to magnetic mines. Most rumors around the base speculated that they were trying to make ships radar-proof, or even invisible. After the war, it was revealed that the installation was part of the Manhattan Project, and contained cyclotrons and cloud chambers. Allen clung to the old rumors, however, and wove in the story of the merchant ship Mohecan, which had a strange encounter with a "magnetic cloud" in the Bermuda Triangle. Merritt published an embellished recounting of the Mohecan's bizzarre episode which Allen read and saw as tied to the Navy Yard rumors and began writing to all sorts of publications about "The Philadelphia Experiment", which since attained urban-legend status akin to Flight 19. --- Peter Smith (Peter_Smith@dgc.ceo.dg.com) Data General Corp, Westboro, MA #include From jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Thu Jan 9 13:45:15 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!vanth!jms From: jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? Message-ID: Date: 9 Jan 92 18:45:15 GMT References: <3370@ixgch.uucp> <1992Jan08.013037.1224@pfm.rmt.sub.org> <30511@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: The Search For TERRESTRIAL Intelligence Lines: 24 In article <30511@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hartlemp@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Michael P. Hartley) writes: >beleive it was the Battleship Idaho, disapeared from the radar screens. In fact >the entire ship vanished from visible sight. A few minutes later, the ship reappeared, and they turned off the generators. Then the ship, and the crew even >after they left the ship, continued to disappear and reappear at random >intervals for several years. In all the versions I've heard, except one mentioned briefly in Moore & Berlitz's book, it was the destroyer escort "Eldridge". (I can't remember the one mentioned, but it definitely wasn't the "Idaho". The story is that someone said that the names of the Eldridge and the other ship were switched afterwards to throw people off the trail.) > An interesting sideline is that the Idaho currently is in mothballs, and it >never saw action in WWII. (I think I heard that somewhere. This is all very >hush hush, so I am just repeating heavily biased rumors.) The Eldridge was sold to Greece (minus quite a bit of unidentified weight!) where it was renamed the Leon. I think it's still in service. -- * From the disk of: | jms@vanth.uucp | I'm in a groove now Jim Shaffer, Jr. | uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms | -- or is it a rut? 37 Brook Street | jms%vanth@cbmvax.commodore.com | Montgomery, PA 17752 | 72750.2335@compuserve.com | (Rush, "Face Up") From sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Fri Jan 10 19:20:31 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!paul.rutgers.edu!dorm.rutgers.edu!rutgers!apple!netcomsv!sheaffer From: sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? Message-ID: <1992Jan11.002031.7380sheaffer@netcom.COM> Date: 11 Jan 92 00:20:31 GMT References: <3370@ixgch.uucp> <6JAN199218113406@utkvx3.utk.edu> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Lines: 67 OK, I went digging in my files, and uncovered an article from FATE magazine, Oct. 1980 by Robert A. Goerman, called "Alias Carlos Allende". Summarizing what it says: "In 1955 a Washington, DC auto parts salesman named Morris K. Jessup, who once did graduate work in astronomy at the University of Michigan, wrote a book titled "The Case for the UFO" and embarked on a tour to promote it.... In 1956, "Jessup received a letter from one Carlos Miguel Allende .... (it) scolded Jessup for suggesting continued research into UFT (Unified Field Theory). Allende claimed that in October 1943 the United States navy had used Einstein's theories in an experiment that not only rendered a destroyer totally invisible but also caused it to be teleported from the Philadelphia dock to the Norfolk News-Portsmouth area and back again in a matter of minutes. The experiment succeeded but it left side effects so horrendous that the navy shut down the project immediately..... (in a later letter) "Allende, his name now anglicized to Carl M. Allen, could recall no exact dates, either for the experiment or for news accounts; nor could he remember the names of the crew members or anything else that mattered...." Later, someone at the Office of Naval research in Washington turned up a copy of Jessup's UFO book that had been "annotated", apparently by three different persons, "Mr. A", "Mr. B", and "Jemi". "The writers made little effort to conceal their contempt for mere human beings. Jessup immediately recognized the handwriting, with its bizarre spelling, capitalization and punctuation, as that of his mysterious correspondant Carl(os) Allen(de)... the three writers continually referred to that secret 1943 naval experiment." "On April 20, 1959, Jessup committed suicide." Late in the summer of 1969, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) wrote that Allen(de) "had dropped into its Tucson, Ariz. office and confessed the whole thing was a hoax." But Allen(de) later apparently recanted this confession. Allen's letters carried the return address of a house in New Kensington, PA, the author's home town, so he investigated. "I learned the whereabouts of all three of Allen(de)'s brothers." He also located Carl's father, turned out to be his neighbor. Goerman was given full access to papers that the family had. He concludes, "Carlos loves to play games with those foolish enough to play audience... Carl is described as a 'master leg-puller'. Once he purportedly feigned a heart attack while working ... ". In a letter to his parents, Carl admits annotating Jessup's book, by himself. "In his letters to Jessup, Carl does not mention the name or number of his experimental ship. In Moore and Berlitz' book he states, "It was the DE-173." "It is clear that the legend of Carl Allen/Carlos Allende is mostly fiction. If someone were to write a book telling the *real* story, its title might be 'The Philadelphia Hoax: Project Gullibility." -- Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized! "Simply follow nature, Rousseau declares. Sade, laughing, grimly agrees." - Camille Paglia, "Sexual Personae" From jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Fri Jan 10 15:43:42 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms From: jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment Message-ID: Date: 10 Jan 92 20:43:42 GMT References: <1992Jan9.162108.8676@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> Organization: The Search For TERRESTRIAL Intelligence Lines: 25 In article <1992Jan9.162108.8676@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> fec@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (f.e.carey) writes: > >Ivan Sanderson yalked about this incident in one of his books - probably >in the sixties. I seem to recall that a marked up copy of the book was >received in the mail by the Defense Department and promptly classified >at a high level. Sanderson did talk about it, but the book that Allende marked up and mailed to the Office of Naval Research was Jessup's first book, "The Case For The UFO". The ONR didn't do anything with it *officially* as far as I know, but several individuals in that office made a couple dozen copies of the book. I don't know who they gave all the copies to. Jessup got at least one, and he annotated the annotations. He gave this copy to someone known to Sanderson (possibly Sanderson himself) with instructions to keep it secret. I don't know if anyone knows what happened to it when Sanderson died, if in fact Sanderson is the one who had it. Copies of Allende's annotations, made from one of the extremely rare ONR copies, used to be available from one UFOlogical publisher, but I don't know if they still are. -- * From the disk of: | jms@vanth.uucp | I'm in a groove now Jim Shaffer, Jr. | uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms | -- or is it a rut? 37 Brook Street | jms%vanth@cbmvax.commodore.com | Montgomery, PA 17752 | 72750.2335@compuserve.com | (Rush, "Face Up") From sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Fri Jan 10 19:28:31 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!apple!netcomsv!sheaffer From: sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment Keywords: Sanderson Message-ID: <1992Jan11.002831.8708sheaffer@netcom.COM> Date: 11 Jan 92 00:28:31 GMT References: <1992Jan9.162108.8676@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Lines: 31 In article <1992Jan9.162108.8676@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> fec@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (f.e.carey) writes: > >Ivan Sanderson yalked about this incident in one of his books - probably >in the sixties. I seem to recall that a marked up copy of the book was >received in the mail by the Defense Department and promptly classified >at a high level. >Does anybody remember anything like this? Yes, this "Carlos Allende" character (a.k.a. Carl Allen) marked up a copy of a wild UFO book by Morris K. Jessup, as if by three separate extraterrestrials. It had comments like, "these puny earthlings are getting too close to the secret of Unified Fields!", and other such drivel. If I understand correctly, there was a corporation, probably a defense contractor, called Varo, that for reasons I cannot fathom printed up copies of the annotated book, which came to be known as "the VARO Edition". I don't think that the thing was ever really "classified", but *who knows* what the Pentagon might do when somebody sends them something like that? In any case, for years the late Gray Barker was selling "the Varo edition" at some ridiculously high price (something like $75), hinting that it contains great unearthly wisdom. Caveat emptor. -- Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized! "Simply follow nature, Rousseau declares. Sade, laughing, grimly agrees." - Camille Paglia, "Sexual Personae" From sys6626!inqmind!turtle@bison.mb.ca Mon Jan 13 04:25:30 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Received: from ccu.umanitoba.ca by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA20265; Mon, 13 Jan 92 04:25:27 EST Received: from bison.UUCP by ccu.UManitoba.CA with UUCP (4.1/25-eef) id AA14562; Mon, 13 Jan 92 03:25:19 CST Received: by bison.mb.ca (1.64/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 13 Jan 92 02:58:53 CST for mcgrew@porthos.rutgers.edu Received: by sys6626.bison.mb.ca (1.64/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 13 Jan 92 02:28:51 CST for mcgrew@porthos.rutgers.edu Received: by inqmind.bison.mb.ca (1.64/waf) via UUCP; Sun, 12 Jan 92 23:13:17 CST for mcgrew@porthos.rutgers.edu To: Charles Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? From: turtle@inqmind.bison.mb.ca (Barry) Message-Id: Date: Sun, 12 Jan 92 23:13:16 CST In-Reply-To: Organization: The Inquiring Mind 1 204 488-1607 Charles writes: >Would have saved a ton of money on rocket research if we could just >materialized H-bombs in Moscow :-) GOOD POINT!! --Barry turtle@inqmind.bison.mb.ca The Inquiring Mind BBS, Winnipeg, Manitoba 204 488-1607 From mcgrew@cs.rutgers.edu Sun Jan 12 01:17:24 1992 Flags: 000000000001 Received: from porthos.rutgers.edu by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA25766; Sun, 12 Jan 92 01:17:23 EST Received: by porthos.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.4/3.08) id AA16178; Sun, 12 Jan 92 01:17:21 EST Date: Sun, 12 Jan 92 01:17:21 EST From: mcgrew@cs.rutgers.edu Message-Id: <9201120617.AA16178@porthos.rutgers.edu> To: sheaffer@netcom.com Cc: mcgrew@cs.rutgers.edu Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? In-Reply-To: USENET article <1992Jan11.002031.7380sheaffer@netcom.COM> Hi, Just a quick note to compliment you on your brief (but thorough) message to alt.alien.visitor. Nicely done! Thanks, Charles From jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Sun Jan 12 22:23:04 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!vanth!jms From: jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? Message-ID: Date: 13 Jan 92 03:23:04 GMT References: <3370@ixgch.uucp> <6JAN199218113406@utkvx3.utk.edu> <1992Jan11.002031.7380sheaffer@netcom.COM> Organization: The Search For TERRESTRIAL Intelligence Lines: 47 In article <1992Jan11.002031.7380sheaffer@netcom.COM> sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) writes: >Later, someone at the Office of Naval research in Washington turned up a >copy of Jessup's UFO book that had been "annotated", apparently by three >different persons, "Mr. A", "Mr. B", and "Jemi". "The writers made little >effort to conceal their contempt for mere human beings. Jessup >immediately recognized the handwriting, with its bizarre spelling, >capitalization and punctuation, as that of his mysterious correspondant >Carl(os) Allen(de)... the three writers continually referred to that >secret 1943 naval experiment." Moore & Berlitz only say that it was mentioned a few times in the annotations. Of course, they also let out the part about the writers supposedly being aliens, if that's what they're supposed to be. >Allen's letters carried the return address of a house in New Kensington, >PA, the author's home town, so he investigated. > >"I learned the whereabouts of all three of Allen(de)'s brothers." He also >located Carl's father, turned out to be his neighbor. Goerman was given >full access to papers that the family had. He concludes, "Carlos loves >to play games with those foolish enough to play audience... Carl is >described as a 'master leg-puller'. Once he purportedly feigned a heart >attack while working ... ". In a letter to his parents, Carl admits >annotating Jessup's book, by himself. I wonder why Moore had such a hard time tracking down information on Allende? >"In his letters to Jessup, Carl does not mention the name or number >of his experimental ship. In Moore and Berlitz' book he states, "It >was the DE-173." That doesn't necessarily mean anything. >"It is clear that the legend of Carl Allen/Carlos Allende is mostly >fiction. If someone were to write a book telling the *real* story, >its title might be 'The Philadelphia Hoax: Project Gullibility." *Mostly* fiction. But what about the story of Davis and Huse at the beginning of Moore & Berlitz's book? They apparently heard the story through some route other than Allende. -- * From the disk of: | jms@vanth.uucp | I'm in a groove now Jim Shaffer, Jr. | uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms | -- or is it a rut? 37 Brook Street | jms%vanth@cbmvax.commodore.com | Montgomery, PA 17752 | 72750.2335@compuserve.com | (Rush, "Face Up") From sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Mon Jan 13 11:22:53 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!noao!arizona!arizona.edu!mvb.saic.com!network.ucsd.edu!pacbell.com!decwrl!amdcad!netcomsv!sheaffer From: sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? Message-ID: <1992Jan13.162253.29839sheaffer@netcom.COM> Date: 13 Jan 92 16:22:53 GMT References: <1992Jan11.002031.7380sheaffer@netcom.COM> Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Lines: 25 In article jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes: > >I wonder why Moore had such a hard time tracking down information on >Allende? What kind of "mystery" would he have if the information was obtainable so easily? > >>"In his letters to Jessup, Carl does not mention the name or number >>of his experimental ship. In Moore and Berlitz' book he states, "It >>was the DE-173." > >That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Originally, Allende *didn't know* any names of any ships. Later, he did. Possibly understanible, but sounds fishy. > -- Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized! "Simply follow nature, Rousseau declares. Sade, laughing, grimly agrees." - Camille Paglia, "Sexual Personae" From hackney@wotan.compaq.com (Greg Hackney) Wed Jan 15 09:52:36 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!wotan.compaq.com!hackney From: hackney@wotan.compaq.com (Greg Hackney) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? Message-ID: <1992Jan15.145236.3218@wotan.compaq.com> Date: 15 Jan 92 14:52:36 GMT References: <1992Jan08.013037.1224@pfm.rmt.sub.org> <30511@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Organization: Compaq Lines: 35 In article jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes: > In all the versions I've heard, except one mentioned briefly in Moore & > Berlitz's book, it was the destroyer escort "Eldridge". > The Eldridge was sold to Greece > I think it's still in service. In article <10338@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> tarl@sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter) writes: > According to the 1990/1991 Combat Fleets, Greek Navy frigate D67 > "Panthir" is ex-Eldridge DE 173. Transfered from US navy to Greece > in 1951, still in service at this time though "thoroughly obsolete". > It's one of four ships in it's class, along with D01 Aetos (ex-Ebert > DE 768), D31 Hierax (ex-Slater, DE 766), D54 Leon (ex-Garfield Thomas, > DE 193). In article ewf2@ra.msstate.edu (Eric "JUICE" Fritzius) writes: > almost all material on the Eldridge was classified > and as far as I know remains so to this day. Was the USS Eldridge pre-maturely dry docked for a ship of it's class and age, say in comparison to it's other 3 classmates? Was it sold as an individual ship or a package sale of a class of ships. Was the ship indeed declared off limits and top secret in it's dry docked state. Were the names of the crew members of the Eldridge top secret, and are they still so? If so, is this a standard practice for ships of this class and age? Were there any reports of a loss of crew memebers in action? How many of the original crew members are still alive to talk about it. How about the names and status of the crew members of the alleged observation ship (the Idaho?) ? Also still secret ? From jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Thu Jan 16 13:20:48 1992 Path: aramis.rutgers.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms From: jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment? Message-ID: Date: 16 Jan 92 18:20:48 GMT References: <1992Jan08.013037.1224@pfm.rmt.sub.org> <30511@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1992Jan15.145236.3218@wotan.compaq.com> Organization: The Search For TERRESTRIAL Intelligence Lines: 16 In article <1992Jan15.145236.3218@wotan.compaq.com> hackney@wotan.compaq.com (Greg Hackney) writes: >In article <10338@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> tarl@sw.stratus.com (Tarl Neustaedter) writes: > >> According to the 1990/1991 Combat Fleets, Greek Navy frigate D67 >> "Panthir" is ex-Eldridge DE 173. Transfered from US navy to Greece >> in 1951, still in service at this time though "thoroughly obsolete". That article got lost somewhere on the way to me. I'm curious as to whether it was always called the "Panthir", because Moore & Berlitz say it was called the "Leon". -- * From the disk of: | jms@vanth.uucp | I'm in a groove now Jim Shaffer, Jr. | uunet!cbmvax!vanth!jms | -- or is it a rut? 37 Brook Street | jms%vanth@cbmvax.commodore.com | Montgomery, PA 17752 | 72750.2335@compuserve.com | (Rush, "Face Up")