First 'Philadelphia Experiment'
Crew Reunion - 'It Never Happened' The Philadelphia Inquirer ATLANTIC CITY -- The truth is out here. It is in a
hospitality room of a boardwalk hotel, with some old salts
sitting around white-clothed tables laughing at reports that their
ship was involved in a top-secret World War II experiment.
Sailors who served on the USS Eldridge, the ship that
legend says vanished briefly in 1943 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard,
met here this week for their first reunion in 53 years and spent part
of their time joking about the so-called Philadelphia Experiment.
The Eldridge, they said yesterday, may well have been
invisible to Philadelphia because it was never in Philadelphia.
The ship's log and several veterans who were on the
ship from its launching on July 25, 1943, at Port Newark, N.J., say it
called on many East Coast ports, but never Philadelphia.
Two movies, two books and several Web sites have kept
the myth about the Eldridge alive. As the story goes, the
destroyer escort was surrounded by a greenish fog, disappeared for a
few minutes, then reappeared.
But none of the veterans believes it.
"I think it's somebody's pipe dream," said Ed Wise,
74, of Salem, Ind.
Ted Davis, 72, of Grand Island, Neb., was more
emphatic. "It never happened," he said.
Bill Van Allen, 84, who was executive officer and
then captain of the Eldridge in 1943 and 1944, said he never saw any
sign of experiments aboard the ship. "I have not the slightest idea
how these stories got started," said Van Allen of Charlotte, N.C.
These former sailors said they sometimes had fun
pretending the experiment actually occurred. "When people would ask me
about it, I would play along with them and tell them I
disappeared. After a while they realized I was pulling their legs,"
said Ray Perrino, 72, of Cranston, R.I.
None of the 15 at the reunion could explain why
writers picked their ship, out of the thousands that sailed in the
war, as the site of invisibility experiments.
Frankly, some are tired of being asked about it.
"We can't wait to put it to rest. We can't because it
keeps coming up," Davis said. "I'm still asked about it now,
mostly by younger people."
"I have a Pennsylvania auto license DE-173 [the
designation and number of the Eldridge] , and every once in a while
somebody will stop and ask me if it was really true," said Mike
Perlstein, 72, of Warminster.
"I tell them I know nothing about it. I've seen the
movie, and it's a good movie, but there's no truth to it," Perlstein
said.
The Navy said it had received so many inquiries
through the years about the Philadelphia Experiment -- the title of a
1984 movie, a 1993 sequel and two books -- that it prepared and sends
out a fact sheet.
The Navy said the myth dated to 1955 with the
publication of The Case for UFO's by the late Morris K. Jessup. It
said Jessup later received letters from a Carlos Miguel Allende, who
gave a New Kensington, Pa., address, and claimed he witnessed the ship
becoming invisible from another vessel. Allende also said the ship was
"teleported" to and from Norfolk, Va., in a few minutes with some
terrible after effects for crew members.
Questions about the experiment probably arose from
"quite routine" research at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard during the
war, according to the Navy fact sheet.
"It was believed the foundation for the apocryphal
stories arose from degaussing [demagnetizing] experiments which have
the effect of making a ship undetectable or 'invisible' to magnetic
mines," the Navy said.
But the Navy said it had never conducted invisibility
experiments, either in 1943 or at any other time.
The legend says the ship became invisible on July 22,
1943, but ship records and the veterans say it was not launched until
July 25. The second experiment, in which the Eldridge was sent to
Norfolk and back to Philadelphia, was supposed to have occurred on
Oct. 28, 1943. The ship's log says it was at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on
that date, but did spend two days in the Norfolk Navy Yard in November
1943.
The gray-haired men, some wearing baseball caps with
"USS Eldridge" printed on them, chuckled as they ribbed
one another about the mental problems the crew supposedly
suffered from the experiments.
"The only part of the book I think is true is the
part about the crew being a little crazy," said Ed Tempany, 75, of
Carteret, N.J. He referred to The Philadelphia Experiment: Project
Invisibility by William L. Moore in consultation with Charles Berlitz.
"When I get home I'm going to apply for disability,"
Perrino said, with a smile.
"Beam me up, Scotty," said Tempany.
By Lacy McCrary
Inquirer Staff Writer
www.phillynews.com
March 27, 1999