Did the Philadelphia experiment really take place?

Question

I read a book about some years ago where the us navy tried to make a warship invisible.This was meant to have taken place in a Philadelphia naval base, and I think it was based on Einstein's Unified Field Theory?
Doeas anybody know if this experiment took place?

Answer 1

It was a hoax.

"Every member of the ship’s crew at that time deny the story as a hoax, except for Al Bielek, whose testimony as a first-hand witness to the experiment was eventually debunked."

Answer 2

If we are to believe [Carl] Allen, our naval hierarchy abandoned sanity and historical precedent by conducting an experiment of enormous importance in broad daylight using a badly needed destroyer escort vessel . . . If someone were to write a book telling the real story, its title might be The Philadelphia Hoax: Project Gullibility (Robert A. Goerman)

The Philadelphia experiment is an alleged United States Navy experiment (Project Rainbow) done on October 28, 1943. According to legend, the destroyer USS Eldridge was made invisible, dematerialized, and teleported from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Norfolk, Virginia, and back again to the Philadelphia Naval Yard. The experiment allegedly had such terrible side effects, such as making sailors invisible and causing them to go mad, that the Navy quit exploring this exciting new technology.

The experiment was allegedly done by Dr. Franklin Reno as an application of Einstein's unified field theory. The experiment supposedly demonstrated a successful connection between gravity and electromagnetism: electromagnetic space-time warping.

The Navy denies that it ever did such a test. The denial is taken as proof by the conspiratorially minded that the experiment must have really occurred. The less gullible ask, Where did this story come from?

The story is a mixture of fact, fiction, speculation, and madness.

The facts are that the Navy does all kinds of experiments, many of them secret. Many of these experiments attempt to find military applications for the latest discoveries or theories in physics, such as Einstein's unified field theory. It seems to be a fact that the Navy was experimenting with "invisibility" in 1943, but not with making ships disappear. Edward Dudgeon, who says he was there on the U.S.S. Engstrom, claims that they hoped to make our ships "invisible to magnetic torpedoes by de-Gaussing them." Dudgeon described the procedure: to UFO investigator Jaques Vallee:

They sent the crew ashore and they wrapped the vessel in big cables, then they sent high voltages through these cables to scramble the ship's magnetic signature. This operation involved contract workers, and of course there were also merchant ships around, so civilian sailors could well have heard Navy personnel saying something like, "they're going to make us invisible," meaning undetectable by magnetic torpedoes....(Vallee)

The Engstrom and the Eldridge were harbored together and, according to Dudgeon, crew members from both ships had parties together on shore and "there was never any mention of anything unusual." Though they did witness some spectacular electric storms, he says. (St. Elmo's fire is common in the area.)

Makes for good books and movies though! You may also want to read "War of the Worlds" that inspired Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast in 1938 that made a lasting impression on American history.
http://members.aol.com/jeff1070/wotw.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds

Take care.

Answer 3

NO it was another one of those hoaxes. Every once in a while the Discovery Science channel runs an hour show on it. Nothing happened. Einstein failed to come up with a unified field theory.

Answer 4

Everyone denies it happened under penalty of the us secrets act. they understand that the missing crewmen whose bodies were never found could have Been them and might still should they reveal the secret.

Some of the technology they experimented with then is being used today to stealth-ify some new warships

Answer 5

There is no evidence to corroborate this conjecture.

See the Navy's official statement at:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

And read a summary of the event here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_experiment

Answer 6

I think it was a book by Clive Cussler, who based his plot on this story and implied that it was based on fact.

Answer 7

I've never even heard of that and my grandfather worked at the shipyard until he retired.

Answer 8

No, it never took place, and the movie wasn't very good.

Answer 9

Crazy ideas do sometimes lead to something useful. I believe they have now made stealth boats, like stealth bombers, which are invisible to radar (though visible to people).