Philadelphia Project: Does anyone actually believe this?

[stratego]

In 1943, Americans were successful in teleporting a ship. Enough said, read if you are interested.

THE PHILADELPHIA PROJECT
PROJECT RAINBOW AND THE USS ELDRIDGE

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.

 

[CurtSibling]

I read the real experiment was a post war project;
involving the USN firing deadly radiation streams at unwitting Allied aircraft and boats as test subjects.

1950's science, nuff said.

 

[Akka]

A bit much too sci-fi for me.

I would like to see the source of all these informations, particularly this "time freeze" in the bar, the "green fog" report, and the "fused in the hull" thing.

 

[ainwood]

I can vaguely remember the movie, and my parents had the book. But both were fictionalised accounts, and made it clear that they were fiction. I actually think the subject matter in the movie might have been different as well....

 

[CurtSibling]

The movies were total nonsense.

 

[Turner]

Great movie...Like the reverse of that, if you will, The Final Countdown....

I recall seeing on a cable channel something about an experiement back around WW2. Could have been during, could have been after, I don't remember. What I do remember is them talking about sailors who went out of phase and ended up off the ship, embedded in the ship, and had all kinds of greusome things happen to it. But truth to tell, it could have been any variety of shows. I don't remember what it was, I just remember them talking about the nasty stuff that happened.

Does the report sound credible? Sure does. But then, a lot of things do. But it is an interesting read.

 

[stormbind]

There probably were attempts to make it invisible, but not in the wacko theories discussed.

I have seen a number of military pieces from the 40s and 50s which have wacky paintjobs, often with sharp zig-zag lines in highly contrasting colours. This is supposed to disguise their true shape, effectively slicing them into smaller objects that won't be recognised by the human eye.

These experiments are, and strangely, often classified. So if a ship was..

1. Involved in experiments,
2. to make it invisible,
3. ... in the 1940s

I would say it's one of those wacky paint jobs, and that the crazy theories about space-time-continuum or whatevers, are just made up fantasies based on the 3 points previously disclosed.

 

[IglooDame]

I like the degaussing theory the best, as it makes the most sense - we actually do degauss Navy ships today for the exact reason of making them "magnetically invisible" to magnetic-sensitive mines and torpedoes. But, the mental leap from magnetically invisible to optically invisible isn't a large one (particularly given 1940s physics knowledge) so perhaps they tried to go a step further with the generators. I don't buy the bending spacetime bit, though.

And Final Countdown is one of my favorite movies.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

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.

Has anyone ever tried to duplicate the experiment? Doesnt seem too difficult to reproduce. All you need is a big metal thing, lots of wire and some electric current.

 

[betazed]

Has anyone ever tried to duplicate the experiment? Doesnt seem too difficult to reproduce. All you need is a big metal thing, lots of wire and some electric current.

Actually, you do not need fancy physics to make something optically invisible. All you need is a whole array of miniature cameras on one side to project an image of the background on the other side and vice versa.

Remember the James Bond car in the last James Bond movie Die Another Day.

The tecnology is nor perfect yet to make it completely optically invisible but with fast progress in nanotech and optics I do not see any reason why we should not have a invisibility cloak (Harry Potter ) in say another 50 years.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

The tecnology is nor perfect yet to make it completely optically invisible but with fast progress in nanotech and optics I do not see any reason why we should not have a invisibility cloak (Harry Potter ) in say another 50 years.

Ive read that theyre working on stuff like monitors that you could literally paint onto a surface, and display video on. Paint a battle ship (or anything else) with that stuff and you could make it look like anything, not just invisible.

About the Philadelphia thing, its impossible, especially with 1943 technology, to create a magnetic field strong enough to bend light, right? Wouldnt you need an enormous amount of energy?

 

[betazed]

About the Philadelphia thing, its impossible, especially with 1943 technology, to create a magnetic field strong enough to bend light, right? Wouldnt you need an enormous amount of energy?

I do not think that a magnetic field however strong will bend light.

It is theorized that the special class of stars called Magnetars are the most powerful sources of magnetic fields known till now in the universe. Even in such cases where the magnetic field is so strong that it cannot be treated completely classically it does not bend light.

 

[IglooDame]

I do not think that a magnetic field however strong will bend light.

It is theorized that the special class of stars called Magnetars are the most powerful sources of magnetic fields known till now in the universe. Even in such cases where the magnetic field is so strong that it cannot be treated completely classically it does not bend light.

Can a magnetic field bend other EM-spectrum radiation? If so, at what wavelength/frequency does it stop being able to bend it?

 

[col]

Did you know that the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary doesnt have the word 'gullible' in it?

Magnetic fields can only 'bend' moving particles with charge.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

I dont believe you, Im not that gullible.

 

[Tassadar]

Here some knowed experiment with magnetic field,


Physicists have not made steady fields stronger than 4.5 x 105 Gauss in the lab because the magnetic stresses of such fields exceed the tensile strength of terrestrial materials. If you try to make stronger fields, magnetic forces will blow apart your electromagnet.
Using chemical high explosives to drive implosions, it is possible to compress a magnetic field and reach higher field strengths, at least for a tiny fraction of a second. This has been done at Los Alamos Laboratory in the U.S., and at a nuclear weapons lab in Sarov, Russia, attaining fields of about 107 Gauss before the equipment was destroyed.



Atoms in very strong magnetic fields (new subsection, Jan. 2003)
The strongest magnetic field that you are ever likely to encounter personally is about 104 Gauss if you have Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan for medical diagnosis. Such fields pose no threat to your health, hardly affecting the atoms in your body. Fields in excess of 109 Gauss, however, would be instantly lethal. Such fields strongly distort atoms, compressing atomic electron clouds into cigar shapes, with the long axis aligned with the field, thus rendering the chemistry of life impossible. A magnetar within 1000 kilometers would thus kill you via pure static magnetism -- if it didn't already get you with X-rays, gamma rays, high energy particles, extreme gravity, bursts and flares...
In fields much stronger than 109 Gauss, atoms are compressed into thin needles. At 1014 Gauss, atomic needles have widths of about 1% of their length, hundreds of times thinner than unmagnetized atoms. Such atoms can form polymer-like molecular chains or fibers. A carpet of such magnetized fibers probably exist at the surface of a magnetar, at least in places where the surface is cool enough to form atoms.

The copy and paste didnt show the right number, its not 109 gauss but 10 exponent 9.

So i dont think they have reach the quantum electrodynamic field strenght.

The link talk about magnetar but there is a lots of information about strong magnetic field.

Link:http://solomon.as.utexas.edu/~duncan/magnetar.html

 

[Dr Jimbo]

Smacks of BS:

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.

If you wanted to heat up the air around the ship, why not use a ... heater! But that wouldn't sound as cool as 'high frequency generator'

 

[IglooDame]

Did you know that the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary doesnt have the word 'gullible' in it?

Magnetic fields can only 'bend' moving particles with charge.

*slapping forehead* Okay, it's Friday, my brain quit early for the weekend...

 

[betazed]

Magnetic fields can only 'bend' moving particles with charge.

I want to point out a few quirks.

In extreme cases like the Magnetars I mentioned earlier a very strong magnetic field can bend a moving particle which is electrically neutral provided it is composed of electrically charged parts. For example a hydrogen atom. The magnetic field can tear it apart and send the proton and the electron on its separate ways.

So, here is the hard question. A proton itself is composed of electrically charged quarks. So can a arbitrarily strong field break it apart? If so then the Col's above statement will be true except in these extreme cases. Do we know the answer to that? I am not sure.

Of course a photon having no internal parts will never be bent by a magnetic field.

 

[Panda]

Sorry, too silly for me to believe.

Didn't they have something like this in the first 'Command & Conquer' game, though?