Anatomy of a Hoax: More on the
Rebuttal The title is featured prominently at the center of their
homepage located at http://www.algonet.se/~ufo/english.
html . "The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later" it says. It had
appeared at a web page for the radio show "Sightings" hosted by Jeff
Rense,whom some say is more credible than Art Bell. He lived up to
that image of credibility by posting the original version of this
report as a rebuttal. You can find it, and the rebuttal, at
http://www.sightings.com/ufo/philahoax.htm because the problem is that
the Jacques Vallee article the rebuttal refers to, has now been
conclusively proven to be a fraud and is under investigation.
Dr. Jacques F. Vallee, scientist and world reknown UFO
researcher, who was the model for the French scientist in the movie
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" has been the target of an ongoing
private investigation now accusing him, and Editor-in-Chief of the
Journal of Scientific Exploration, Bernhard Haisch, of promoting
research fraud. This stems from the 1994 publication in the JSE of the
paper ironically titled
"Anatomy Of A Hoax" which is supposed to be an attempt to debunk the
legendary Philadelphia Experiment story with the new testimony of a US
Navy sailor claiming he was there and the event
never happened. The paper was accepted by many as the "best research"
done on the work yet. Paranet Inc. owner, Micheal Corbin, even got
special permission from Vallee to reproduce the article in its
entirety and it can be seen archived at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/7354/Hoax.txt
The only problem, which Special Civilian Investigator
Marshall Barnes so easily proves, is that the so-called witness lied,
Jacques Vallee had lied about the subject before himself, and when
Barnes presented the proof of this to JSE editor Haisch, he refused to
do anything about it, even though people were believing the witness
was telling the truth. A
bigger hoax even than the alien autopsy film, because where the film
hasn't been conclusively proven to be a fake, Investigator
Barnes proves Vallee's witness sure is one.
"If you go to http://www.jse.com/v8n1a2.html you will
see the abstract for Vallee's article, 'Anatomy of a Hoax,' he begins.
Going to the middle of the third sentence you will see where he states
that claims by witnesses to the event have repeatedly been found to be
"fraudulent". It's here that my case against Vallee begins, using his
own stated standard for truth. You will notice that he follows that by
saying that he has interviewed a man who was on the scene "the night"
that the ship
disappeared and he can explain it in minute detail. By going to http:
//www.access.digex.net/~patin/philaj.html a site where one of those
who has been fooled by the fraud has erected a condensed version of
the article, you can read how this so-called witness, Edward Dudgeon,
meets Vallee. First at the 5th paragraph under the title of What
Actually Happened in Philadelphia, you will read how Vallee states
that he saw Dudgeon's "identification and his disharge papers". In
fact, a discharge certificate is reproduced in the actual journal
version of the article with Dudgeon's name on it. However, there is no
indentication that
Vallee saw anything that proved that Dudgeon was on the ship that he
will claim to be on. We don't even know what kind of 'identification'
papers Vallee saw. Birth certificate? Social Security card? This is
important because it establishes the uncertainty that Edward Dudgeon
is even Edward Dudgeon! When you see the following evidence of his
untruthful testimony, you'll understand why this issue of identity is
critical.
"If you continue reading about Dudgeon you will see at
the 12th paragraph below the title heading, at the beginning of the
5th line of the paragraph, Dudgeon says "Your book Revelations was
wrong about making the ship invisible to radar: the Germans hadn't
deployed radar at the time..." The time period in question is the
summer of 1943. As you can see by clicking on
http://www.picknowl.com.au/homepages/rpy/keilcana.htm and
http://www.cnd.net/~kais/navy/deutsch2.jpg the German navy had radar
on top of their ships before WWII. By clicking on
http://www.cnd.net/~kais/navy/raiders.htm and scrolling down to the
third and fourth pargraphs under the heading: 'The "pocket
battleship" Admiral Scheer', you can read how these same radar systems
were used to kill and sink allied shipping and crew. It is obvious
that Dudgeon's comment is entirely without merit, especially when you
consider that the Germans had radar on their JU88 dive bombers which
attacked and sank ships like the USS ! Lansdale, and these were
outfitted with such equipment in 1942. You can see evidence of this by
going to http://www.cnd.net/~kais/ac/kampflug/ju88.htm and reading
about
these planes and their cousins. By clicking where "BMW equipped
88G-1", "188E-2" and "188E-2" are underlined on that page you can
see for yourself that these plans were armed with radar. The last one
was the type that sank the USS Lansdale and slaughtered the entire 580
man crew of the SS Paul Hamilton (there is some question of that ship
identity being correct but the account comes from the Department of
the Navy. The Lansdale did sink. See this daughter speak of her father
who survived it at http://wae.com/messages/msgs4275html )by blowing it
out of the
water with torpedoe attacks. The same kind that the picture's caption
so plainly describes. Even German submarines had been intended to get
radar in 1941, had radar detectors in 1943 and got radar in 1944.
Around this time of Memorial Day it is a special affront to the
sacrfice of those who gave their lives to keep the world free from
Nazism in the face of weapons guided by the same radar systems that
Dudgeon claims that the Germans had not deployed. And Vallee presents
this liar as though he had checked him out."
If that isn't stunning enough to see that historic
evidence that directly contradicts Vallee's "witness", it gets worse.
Barnes showed us that by going back to
http://www.access.digex.net/~patin/philaj.html and scrolling down to
the tenth paragraph below the heading, we see that Dudgeon claims that
he was on the "DE 50, U.S.S. Engstrom". Remember, Vallee himself has
said nothing about seeing any confirmation of this and we have already
seen direct evidence that this man cannot be trusted. Now he will lie
again four paragraphs further where he claims that the Eldridge(the
shipped allegedly used for the Experiment) and his ship, the Engstrom,
and two other ships went out on shakedown together the first week of
July. Barnes points out that this is the lie that would place Dudgeon
as the so-called witness that nothing happened. But, the official Navy
records for the Eldridge show that the ship wasn't launched until July
25, didn't get a commissioned crew until August 27 and then didn't go
on its shakedown cruise until September. It was the
period between July 25 and August 27 that a skeleton crew would have
been used to do the Experiment, seeing that it would be top secret and
a skeleton crew would not be listed as the official commissioned crew,
making the tracing of them as potential witnesses virtually
impossible.Barnes didn't have a direct link to the Navy records but
sent us to http://www.tricountyi.net/~randerse/asf1.htm to scroll down
where it says "TABLE 1 PX HISTORICAL SETTING" you will see the dates
"1943-July-25--Eldridge launched(13)" and directly below that
"1943-Aug. 27--Eldridge commissioned-- New York (14,15), and finally
directly below that "1943-Sept.-- Eldridge shakedown and escort duties
through to late Dec.(16)". "I assure you that these dates are
accurate because they reflect the same information that I got from
three different published official Navy ship record sources, as well
as other books that have
quoted the same records," he added. We did some checking ourselves at
a local library and found that he was correct by looking in the
Dictionary of Navy Warships from the Naval Historical Center.
"Where is the peer-review that the JSE and Haisch have
so proudly bragged about? " Barnes points out. "Didn't anyone ask
Vallee for any evidence of this man's claims at all?" We guess not.
"This information effectively rules Dudgeon out as a
credible witness and destroys the validity of Vallee's so-called
"research", and his paper's thesis, because the shakedown cruise that
the Eldridge supposedly had with the Engstrom didn't happen. We don't
even know if Dudgeon was on the Engstrom. We don't even know if
Dudgeon is really even 'Dudgeon'!"
For most people that would be enough to convince them,
but Barnes found more. Alot more, and remember, he didn't even supply
us with *everything*.
"As the paper with the ships dates suggests," he
continues, "there was indeed interest in invisibility by the US Navy.
By going back to Table 1 you will see the date of 1941-Dec. 7 where
Dunninger submits a ship invisibility idea to the Navy after Pearl
Harbor. Dunniger was a magician who claimed that he knew a way to make
a ship invisible by using the sun's rays. This idea would become
classified by the U.S. Navy and to this day has never been revealed.
If you go back to http://www.access.digex.net/~patin/philaj.html and
scroll down to the 21st paragraph below the heading you will see
Vallee ask Dudgeon "What about the luminous phenomena he described?"
This question is in reference to the glow that was said to have
enveloped the ship before it became invisible.Dudgeon responds by
saying that the glow was really a coronal discharge phenomena called
"St. Elmo's Fire". Scroll down to the last paragragh before it says
End Of Quotation, and Dudgeon repeats the lie about the shakedown
cruise dates and then repeats his statement about the St. Elmo's Fire.
You'll notice that he makes no mention in either place about a ship
appearing to "be gone" due to St. Elmo's Fire, however in the TV
program, Mysterious Forces Beyond, Dudgeon is asked on camera, by
Jacques Vallee himself, the same question about anything happening to
the ships during shakedown.Dudgeon's response is as follows, and I
quote "Then this ship off to the distance, when that moisture hit and
shorted out the ship, looked like it disappeared. The only thing that
you could see was the white wake off the bow and sliding down along
side the ship, but as far as the ship's concerned, it appeared to be
gone!" I would like your indulgence here since I don't have the
capacity to play you the video of this incident, which I do own a copy
of, but I think that I have earned the right to not have to have every
piece of critical evidence availble here now. However, in reference to
Dudgeon's TV show quote, I would like for you to compare it to this
quote by the original eyewitness to the experiment(whom I find has
credibility problems as well, but many others have made similar
statements concerning this incident)by going to
http://www.tricountyi.net/~randerse/tech1-2.htm and scrolling down the
12th paragraph where it begins with "I watched the air all around the
ship...turn slightly, ever so slightly darker than all the other
air..." In that paragraph he ends by saying "I watched as thereafter
the DE 173 became rapidly invisible to human eyes. And yet, the
precise shape of the keel and the underhull of that...ship REMAINED
impressed into the ocean water as it and my own ship sped along
somewhat side by side and close to inboards..." The similarities
between the two accounts, I feel, are obvious and whether or not the
Dudgeon account is true, the purpose was to give a rational
explanation for the later witness account. In other words, to Mr. and
Mrs. Skeptic at home
it would be a simple matter of 'Oh, Marge. See? It wasn't a top
secret military project that made the ship invisible. It was only St.
Elmo's Fire, a common incident of nature!'"
"Notice, however, nothing of the testimony that Dudgeon
gave on St. Elmo's Fire making a ship invisible is in the JSE account
as we have already seen. Why leave it out? I now refer you to the full
account of the article, reproduced with the direct permission of
Jacques Vallee (an apparent violation of the standard JSE policy of
any article they publish being owned by them and not reproducible
elsewhere)given to one Micheal Corbin at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/7354/Hoax.txt where if you scroll all
the way to the bottom and then scroll up until you
see the word "Acknowledgments" standing alone (I'm sorry but this is
the fastest way to get you there) you will see directly below that
that Vallee thanks various people for their contribution to his
article. One of those is Vice-Admiral William D. Houser, who is
credited with his "willingness to review the manuscript of this
article". Now, without getting into comments attributed to the
Vice-Admiral by Vallee about there not being anything high-tech or
beyond state of the art on the ship(a ludicrous comment because the
state of the art during the war was changing all the time and even
Dudgeon said that they had new types of depth charge launchers
installed, etc and no one has ever said
that the equipment allegedly used for the Experiment was of such a
nature anyway) the issue at hand here is the reviewing of the
manuscript before publication by the Vice-Admiral. Vallee uses this as
if it would give the article more credibility. However, the opposite
is the case. Consider this: if the Philadelphia Experiment did happen,
then it still top secret. After all according to Popular Science
Magazine, May 1996, the Yahudi project to make B24 Liberators
invisible to surfaced submarines by putting special lights on their
wings in the daylight sky was classified until the mid '80s. This
means that the Navy would officially deny that the Experiment ever
took place, which it does as you saw at the ONR web site. More to the
point is the
fact that I checked with US Navy personnel who confirmed for me that
if, an officer was given the opportunity to "review a manuscript" that
contained information that revealed the nature of something that was
classified or top secret, that that officer would be required to
remove that information from the article if he could. Furthermore,
there were actual policies in place, before the article was written,
which were only referred to me in a fax, but that I, with the use of
some snazzy search word "kung-fu", was able to locate for you to see
for yourselves at http://www.dodssp.daps.mil/Directives/table29.html
where you can scroll down to OPNAV 5510.161 (eleven from the top)and
see that that document deals with "Witholding Of Unclassified
Technical Data From Public Disclosure".
"The bottom line is simply this," Barnes emphasized, "If
Dudgeon says that St. Elmo's Fire made a ship invisible, that may fool
skeptics, but for review in a science journal where the purpose of the
article is to persuade the readers into thinking that the whole story
is a hoax so that none of them gets any ideas about trying to
reproduce it themselves
, then Dudgeon's statement becomes an *intelligence* problem because
if St. Elmo's Fire made a ship go invisible then there is no reason
why that couldn't be studied and done as a miltary project! It makes
the ONR statement that "such an experiment would only be possible in
the realm of science fiction" out
to be a lie(which it is anyway)and for that reason Dudgeon's account,
which I know he gave because I saw him in my video tell it right to
Vallee's face in response to a direct question that Vallee asked him,
was removed. This was filmed in 1993, according to another participant
in the program and the article was published in 1994. According to the
article, Vallee met Dudgeon in 1992. When Vallee asked Dudgeon the
question it came off as if it were rehearsed. In other words , Vallee
knew this story about Dudgeon's claim about the St. Elmo's Fire making
the ship invisible before the article was published, and felt it was
so compelling that he had Dudgeon repeat it on TV. So why wasn't it in
the article? I submit it is for the very same reason that I claim, and
if Houser didn't remove it himself I suspect that he told Vallee it
should come out. It is obvious, after all, that Vallee was committed
to disinforming anyone he could about this issue."
So why, when he was confronted with this evidence and
more, did Haisch refuse to put a disclaimer on the JSE web page for
the article abstract? We'll have that answer, supported once again
with Marshall's stunning style of overwhelming evidence, when we
continue this story in a second part. In the meantime, Marshall is
intensifying his investigation to include Bernhard Haisch, the Journal
of Scientific Exploration, the
Society for Exploration, Edward Dudgeon and those credited for
supplying information in Vallee's "Anatomy" fraud. We'll have more as
the events unfold.
Dateline San Francisco, 6/6/98: