World War II - a plan to use mirages to hide ships?

Question

I remember reading about this somewhere and now can't find any information.
Does anyone know about a plan during World War II or even World War I to try to make ships "disappear" by using mirage technology. Basically, the enemy wouldn't be able to see a ship.

Answer 1

It was called the Philadelphia experiment.
You can read about it here:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment

Answer 2

Well I do know that great effort went into the effective
painting of camo patterns on ships to make them
hard to recognize from a distance (disguise their
true outline and shape). That is why you see many
WW II photos of naval vessels with these zig zag
gray and black paint jobs.

Any kind of mirage development ideas had to be
rendered futile by the development of the secret
detector equipment called "RADAR." Radar worked
in rain and fog, night or day. It began as a rather
crude arrangement of devices and was quickly
repackaged and refined into a workable system
good enough to track unseen shipping and enemy
vessels.

Regards,
Zah

Answer 3

There was several types of big humongous canvas drawings set to cover up ships and even warehouses from enemy planes etc...they would also use masking methods of different sorts...some called operation cover up....it was used in Great Britain and the US too...during the WW2 they feared attacks from Japan so they disguised buildings in elaborate ways! It was a massive effort by the Allies to camouflage the ships and arsenals as well from enemy attacks!!

Answer 4

you are refering to the Philadelphia Project, a failed experiment

Answer 5

thats grate you like to read me too