the philedelphia experiment

[seawolfmoose]

anyone know much about this?

[Agent Darkbootie]

I've read about it before, I think a lot of it comes down to misinterpreting the facts. The explanation I heard was that they were using electromagnets to repel mines, which is something that Canadian and British ships were already using.

[StarMountainKid]

There's an explanation here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Experiment

[StarLord]

I could be mistaken but;

No, I don't think it was to "repel" mines, it was a procedure to have the ship keep a very low electromagnetic signature so as to not set off the magnetic mines off possibly? As in Degaussing?

Also, I may have missed it in your Wiki link, but another "secret" was the implementation of the then Classified Weapon called the Hedgehog Anti Sub weapon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_%28weapon%29

The combination of those two things and how scuttlebutt works for those not in the know and their imagination runs amok.

[Agent Darkbootie]

Degaussing's probably the word I was looking for, thanks.

[Rocketgirl33]

I think I saw this on Unsolved Mysteries once but the story has been around for years. The ship was fitted with super magnents to obtain a large enough mangnetic field as to cause the ship to become invisible to raidar. But somehthing whent terribly wrong and the ship and crew disapeared for almost 5 minutes. At the same time is was reported as being seen about a hundren miles away by witnesses and they said the ship sorta appeared then disapeared. When it finally came back it was found that a lot of the crewmen were reported to have become a real part of the ship. One man had half of his body sticking out of the deck and another had become a part of the exhaust system and lots of other half in half out crew members. Of the men that were still alive all were insane and they never did find out exactly what happened. I probably have a lot of the distacne and locations stuff messed up but the story is still the same. The navy never tried it again and the mission was scraped. That is basicly the run down. Very creepy in any event though!

Rocketgirl

[digitalartist]

On October 28, 1943, when this event was supposed to have happened, the Eldredge was tied up in NYC and the Furuseth was 3 days out of Norfolk naval yard, part of a convoy headed to the Mediterranean. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

[JasonExplosion]

This is one of those mystery/conspiracy type stories that has always fascinated me. The bulk of the story has been disproved and a lot of the details regarding the story are quite jumbled, but with stories like this I find it's best to switch off your logical thinking for a few minutes and just enjoy it for what it is.

[+susieice]

I think I saw this on Unsolved Mysteries once but the story has been around for years. The ship was fitted with super magnents to obtain a large enough mangnetic field as to cause the ship to become invisible to raidar. But somehthing whent terribly wrong and the ship and crew disapeared for almost 5 minutes. At the same time is was reported as being seen about a hundren miles away by witnesses and they said the ship sorta appeared then disapeared. When it finally came back it was found that a lot of the crewmen were reported to have become a real part of the ship. One man had half of his body sticking out of the deck and another had become a part of the exhaust system and lots of other half in half out crew members. Of the men that were still alive all were insane and they never did find out exactly what happened. I probably have a lot of the distacne and locations stuff messed up but the story is still the same. The navy never tried it again and the mission was scraped. That is basicly the run down. Very creepy in any event though!

Rocketgirl

This is right. Supposedly using principles developed by Einstein a ship was teleported from Philadelphia to Norfolk,VA. When the ship reappeared the molecular structure of some of the crew members had mixed with the molecular structure of the ship. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=102706

Edited August 26, 2010 by susieice

[KRS-One]

Imagine a thing that wasn't possible.

Then imagine that this impossible thing garnered a name for itself.

Then imagine that this impossible thing that had a name survived for 70 years due to word of mouth of people who didn't understand just WHY it was impossible but seemed exciting and secretive and they felt special for also knowing about it.

Holy crap! You've just conjured up the Philadelphia Experiment!

[TheSearcher]

This is right. Supposedly using principles developed by Einstein a ship was teleported from Philadelphia to Norfolk,VA. When the ship reappeared the molecular structure of some of the crew members had mixed with the molecular structure of the ship. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=102706

The experiment was allegedly based on an aspect of the unified field theory. The Unified Field Theory aims to describe mathematically and physically the interrelated nature of the forces that comprise electromagnetic radiation and gravity. Some believed, that one version of this Unified Field Theory would enable the Navy to use large electrical generators to bend light around an object so that it became essentially invisible.

Now here is a pretty good explanation, about what probably really has happened.

Researcher Jacques Vallée describes a procedure on board the USS Engstrom (DE-50), which was docked alongside the Eldridge in 1943. The operation involved the generation of a powerful electromagnetic field on board the ship in order to degauss it, with the goal of rendering the ship undetectable or "invisible" to magnetically-fused undersea mines and torpedoes. This system was invented by a Canadian, and the Royal Navy and other navies used it widely during the Second World War. British ships of the era often included such degaussing systems built into the upper decks (the conduits are still visible on the deck of HMS Belfast (C35) in London, for example). Degaussing is still used today. However, it has absolutely no effect on visible light or radar. Vallée speculates that accounts of the USS Engstrom’s degaussing might have been garbled and confabulated in subsequent retellings, and that these accounts may have influenced the story of the so-called "Philadelphia Experiment".

(source)

This is found in Wiki. I happen to have an abstract of "Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later" by Jacques F. Vallée, so the Wiki is actually quite trustworthy in this case.