The Philadelphia Experiment - What
They Didn't Want You To Know One of the A & E Channel's investigative TV programs has
now found the tables turned on it in the most ironic fashion. "The
Unexplained," a Sightings/Unsolved Mysteries" knock-off that deals
with the paranormal and mysterious, has been the focus of an
investigation led by one of
its past experts. The findings of this investigation, conducted by a
real life "Fox Mulder," firmly place "The Unexplained's" episode,
"Strange Disappearances" in the same context as the Hitler Diaries and
CNN's recent news debacle on nerve gassing Viet Nam deserters. Like
the CNN Viet Nam story, the episode dealt with a military operation. A
test in W.W.II that would have been the latest development in a long
history of military camouflage. Total optical and radar invisibility.
The Philadelphia Experiment.
"...men caught fire, went mad, and - the most bizarre of
all, some were embedded halfway into the deck of the ship. Others
phased in and out of this reality..." Much has been written and
speculated about this legend of an experiment in "electronic
camouflage," both pro and con. Reportedly it
ended with the ship teleporting from Philadelphia to Norfolk with some
crew members becoming embedded in the ship. Sorting the facts from the
fiction has proven an almost impossible task, particularly with the
recent flux of misinformation and deliberate disinformation that has
been injected into the internet by those connected to the U.S.
intelligence community, professional skeptics and arm chair
researchers. Against this confusing tapestry there have been a few
constants. They are that one, Carlos Miguel Allende, claimed in the
1950s to have been a witness to a test at sea of a ship being made
optically invisible using strong electromagnetic force fields when he
was a sailor onboard the merchant marine vessel SS Furuseth in 1943.
He also claimed that during another test that went wrong, some of the
men caught fire, went mad, and - the most bizarre of all, some were
embedded halfway into the deck of the ship. Others phased in and out
of this reality, only kept here by the laying on of hands. Allende
wrote a series of strange letters in 1955 to Morris K. Jessup, a
researcher who had written the book "The Case For The UFO." It was
Allende's fear that the same
technology that was responsible for the disasters of the Philadelphia
Experiment was the secret behind the propulsion method used
successfully by UFOs. Jessup had called for research into such force
fields of UFOs without having any knowledge of the navy experiment,
and this alarmed Allende.
Allende's letters were filled with cryptic references
and mailed from an assortment of locales around America. They can be
read on-line at www.wincom.net/~softarts/PHILEXP/CM_ALLEN.TXT . Jessup
eventually
dismissed Allende as a crank until in 1957 he was contacted by Capt.
Sidney Sherby and Comdr. George Hoover, two officers from the Office
of Naval Research. They had received a copy of Jessup's book with
strange annotations in the margins about a vanishing ship, aliens and
other anomalies. The officers from ONR asked Jessup to travel to
Washington D.C. to meet with them and discuss what the annotations
might mean. When Jessup got there he was surprised to see that the
annotations appeared to be from Allende although they had been written
in three different colored inks as though three separate individuals
had been writing comments.
Jessup had no idea what to make of it and was a little
unsettled by the interest that these ONR officers had in the writing,
especially about the ship that was made invisible and it's crew
severely injured. The officers even paid Varo Inc. to reprint copies
of the annotated version of Jessup's book and had them passed around
ONR for consideration. Jessup confided in his friend Ivan Sanderson
that he felt the officers might want to try the experiment again.
Meanwhile Jessup's life began to be plagued by what he called "strange
coincidences." He began to complain about his health. and his research
efforts took a turn for the worse. In 1959 he was found dead in his
car from carbon monoxide poisoning and declared a suicide without the
benefit of an autopsy. Many believe to this day that he was actually
murdered, with Allende left roaming the country to escape the same
fate.
The Office of Naval Research has created a number of
form "response" letters over the years to handle public inquiries into
the Philadelphia Experiment. The latest version can be found at
www.onr.navy.mil/foia/PhillyExp.htm. Somewhat embarrassed by all the
attention drawn to them by the activities of the now long gone
officers, and having not been in existence at the time of the
experiment, the ONR has had to handle the lion's share of public
requests for clarification and information. Until 1996 they had no
trouble shrugging off accusations of cover-up with simple explanations
about degaussing and misunderstandings about the word "invisible."
They contend that the legend got started based on the routine task of
demagnetizing or "degaussing" the ships so as to be "invisible" to
magnetic mines and torpedoes. Echoing this position on "The
Unexplained," as an official representative of the US. Navy, was US.
naval historian John Reilly. Reilly stated that, as far as he knew,
the navy never experimented with making ships invisible with magnetic
fields. The navy has been long indirectly assisted in these apologetic
efforts by the usual gaggle of disinforments.
"The Unexplained" featured an interview with researcher
Robert Goerman, saying that he solved the mystery of the Philadelphia
Experiment by a discovery he made about Carlos Allende. A writer from
Pennsylvania who penned articles for pulp UFO magazines in the '70s,
Goerman considered himself to be "a player," at least an also-ran
amongst the galaxy of name UFO researchers of the time. When the book,
"The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility," by William Moore
and Charles Berlitz came out in 1979, Goerman was motivated to do his
own investigation but in a different direction. Instead of checking
into the new information and science that the book mentioned, he
latched onto Allende because of a quirk of fate - his parents were
neighbors of the parents of Allende. Furthermore, Allende's real name
was Allen, Carl Meredith Allen. Goerman's daughter used to visit the
Allens and it was just by chance that he discovered that they were in
fact the family of the elusive Philadelphia Experiment "witness."
After agreeing to keep certain information about the
family confidential, the Allens allowed Goerman to review various
cards, letters, and other things that Carl had sent to his family.
They described Carl as "a leg puller," and someone who was very
intelligent but lacked the discipline to achieve his full potential.
It was clear from the items that Goerman looked over that Carl would
annotate everything. He was even quirkier and more eccentric than he
had ever imagined. Armed with this new information, Goerman was
convinced that he had the truth, especially after having conversations
with Carl himself. Ignoring all other available information, Goerman
wrote "Alias: Carlos Allende" and it was published in "Fate" magazine
in
1980, now archived on the internet at
www.parascope.com/en/articles/allende.htm . But Goerman's article was
not well received by others in the UFO community. He has remained
bitter about this, accusing those who ignore or disagree with his
analysis as only being interested in "selling their books." An
accusation that Goerman made on "The Unexplained" and intentionally or
not, inferred this as a motive of the wrong researcher.
"I know the applicable laws, how to operate with law
enforcement, do investigations, have a badge and I.D., weapons, the
whole nine yards and all legal. I'm versed in psy-ops, surveillance,
counter-surveillance, stings, non-lethal weapons. I know how and can
intervene in a felony in progress and execute arrest procedures until
law enforcement arrives. I've actually been involved in cases against
pedophiles, a rouge psychic spy, Men In Black related activity,
potential terrorism related to Y2K that threatens national security.
No cops or state police have complained so far. I think that earns me
the 'special'." So says Marshall Barnes, Special Civilian Investigator
Marshall Barnes who "The Unexplained" had contacted through his book
distributor because he was described as an expert on the Philadelphia
Experiment. Under the pretext of trying to get to the truth, Mark
Caras allegedly got Marshall to agree to appear on the show and not
allow arguments that Marshall had disproved to go unchallenged.
"...the crux of it all came down to the use of an
intense electromagnetic field that would create a mirage effect of
invisibility by refracting light..." Marshall had been in a similar
situation in November of 1996 with the Sci-Fi Channel's version of
Sightings, the magazine format show that the Fox network originally
created. It was the first to break ground
in the field of reporting the strange and paranormal. Marshall used an
eleven point white paper to successfully pitch the idea of doing a
story on how he could prove that the last paragraph of the ONR
information letter was false, that there was in fact a scientific
basis for invisibility known before the letter was written. Marshall
assembled all of the evidence to prove his case along with a physicist
for Sightings' cameras. Six months later, after he and the physicist
had been told separate stories about why the episode hadn't aired yet,
Marshall took things into his own hands and used a bit of his
investigator know how to trick his way into talking with one of the
executive producers. She told him the episode had been canceled
because there were no witnesses to verify the Philadelphia Experiment
had taken place.
"That was not part of the deal," Marshall recalls. "I
never said that I could prove that it happened, only that the ONR's
statement was false about the science and that's what I did. The story
was sold on that basis. It passed muster in a production meeting where
ideas were voted on up or down. Maleka Brown brought it to that
meeting and Ruth Rafiti was the producer it was assigned to. They sent
out a director who hired a two man production crew to shoot all day.
The first excuse
was they ran out of editing money. Then they had to wait to see if
they would be renewed for the next season. Finally someone admitted
the episode was canceled but wouldn't tell me why. Then I tricked my
way in to getting a phone call to one of the executive producer people
who told me it was because there was no witnesses, which had nothing
to do with the idea that Maleka sold at the meeting. This producer
wasn't even in on it until later. It made no sense to kill that story,
except for one thing - I proved I was right, and I did it right in
front of their own cameras with one of my experiments and they were
stunned. It was probably too good. It left no doubts. I had heard that
Sightings had been infiltrated by government types after all the
complaints that they got from the Pentagon when they were on Fox.
Exposing Area 51, and all that. I had no opinion about that before.
Now I'm almost convinced."
Marshall's "experiments" demonstrated that reflected
light from an object could be refracted in such a way to create a
mirage. This mirage would render that object transparent or invisible,
a feat based on the statements made by an anonymous scientist who was
given the cover name of "Dr. Rinehart," by William Moore. Moore
interviewed Rinehart who had met Allende but gave the eccentric the
false name of "Franklin Reno," derived from a road sign describing the
distance from
Franklin and Reno Pennsylvania. Rinehart claimed to have been one of
the men who worked on some of the calculations for the Philadelphia
Experiment and provided detailed scientific data up to a point.
Marshall determined that if this data made no sense, did not 'check
out', then the whole story would lose much credibility. Using the
standard scientific method, Marshall carefully read Rinehart's account
and researched each scientific detail. The crux of it all came down to
the use of an intense electromagnetic field that would create a mirage
effect of invisibility by refracting light. This light would be
refracted by the conditions caused in the air by the field that would
include dielectric breakdown of the air, ionization, and even a
zeemanzing of the atoms. Not having the equipment to cause such
conditions, Marshall calculated that if he could find a material that
would refract light, he could at least prove whether or not the basis
for the Philadelphia Experiment had any foundation in science. As fate
would have it, he did have such a material - a special plastic called
'diffraction film' - and he discovered, much to his amazement, that it
worked.
Marshall found other scientific data to corroborate
Rinehart's account, including a photograph from Sandia National
Laboratories from the cover of the college text book, "Physics: Volume
2." The photograph shows a particle accelerator device, that sits in
water, surrounded eerily by the identical greenish-bluish glow said to
have emanated from the Eldridge as the field generators were being
turned on. The glow is described in this case as the result of the
same condition that Rinehart mentioned - dielectric breakdown of the
air
near the surface of the water. Marshall's scientific research was good
enough that he was invited in 1996 to present his findings in a
scientific colloquium sponsored by the biological and physical
sciences department of Columbus State Community College. This event is
mentioned as part of a press release announcing that it could be
proven that the ONR had in fact been involved in a cover-up since
Marshall's findings directly contradicted the official ONR statement
in the last paragraph of the information sheet. It also mentions that
Marshall was to present his research on the Art Bell radio show. A
copy of that release can be viewed at www.iufog.org/updates/. It was
this event, and the discoveries leading up to it, that the Sightings
episode was supposed to have been based on. If Marshall's research and
experiments were good enough to be presented in a colloquium sponsored
by a college science department, why weren't they good enough for a
cable TV show increasingly becoming known more for its psychic ghost
hunting? When considered in that light, Marshall's suspicions of
governmental interference are quite understandable.
But this was supposed to be different with "The
Unexplained." Segment producer Mark Caras had bought Marshall's book
and liked its focus on hard, documented evidence, instead of the wild
stories and speculation of most of the available material on the
subject. Not only had Caras taken an interest in the story, he also
played a minor role in Barnes' investigation against respected
scientist and UFO researcher Jacques Vallee. Vallee had written an
article debunking the Philadelphia
Experiment called "Anatomy of a Hoax." The basis for the article was
that Vallee found another witness to the event, a witness that said
that he was there at the time that it was supposed to have taken place
and that it never did. The article had been hailed as the best
research on the subject by UFO pundits like Michael Corbin, whose
ParaNet newsgroups host discussions on such topics on the internet.
But Caras knew that Marshall's book exposed the Vallee article as a
fraud since Vallee had not checked Dudgeon's background or
statements - statements that proved to be false when checked against
navy documents and other historical information. Marshall unearthed
admissions made by Vallee himself concerning his being taught on how
to write disinformation, as well as Vallee's links to the shadowy
Aviary. The Aviary consists of various former CIA, DIA, INSCOM, and
AFOSI agents and connected scientists. Allegedly dedicated to
infiltration, studying and disinforming the UFO community as double
agents, links for this group can be found at such sites as
www.nacomm.org/news/1996/aviary.htm. The Society for Scientific
Exploration, that issued last year's report calling for a further
study of UFOs, is an Aviary infiltrated organization, as is their
Journal of Scientific Exploration that published both the report and
Jacques Vallee's fraudulent article.
Marshall sent an eight page report to JSE editor
Bernhard M. Haisch, informing him of his investigation against Vallee,
the evidence that he had acquired and his intention to expose Vallee,
with the suggestion that Haisch put a disclaimer on the JSE web page
for the article's abstract. When Marshall called Haisch to discuss the
matter, Haisch acted as if Marshall's investigation was
inconsequential and flatly refused to inform readers of his findings.
Haisch seemed more concerned about the possibility of Marshall taking
his report to the
internet.
"What are you going to do? Put it on the internet?"
Haisch asked. Sensing a point of consternation, Marshall held his
cards close to his vest.
"It's not a matter of what I'm going to do," he replied,
"It's a matter of what you should do if you want to live up to these
high standards that your publication brags about on your web site."
Haisch hung up.
Caras was intrigued by Marshall's gutsy, 'go get the
truth' attitude. When considering including the Anatomy article in The
Unexplained episode, Caras called Bernhard Haisch and then reported
back to Marshall on Haisch's disposition. "You're really on to
something," he allegedly told the investigator. "Haisch was unnerved
by your call, and nervous about my doing an episode about all this."
Caras also told
Marshall that after failing to return calls to his office, Jacques
Vallee called five minutes after Caras left him a message that he was
going to proceed with the episode featuring Marshall's statements
about him without Vallee's opportunity for rebuttal. During the
ensuing conversation, Vallee said that he was "sorry that he had
anything to do with the Philadelphia Experiment" and worried about his
reputation in the UFO and venture capital communities as a result of
Marshall's investigation. He had forwarded Marshall's report to his
attorney, an action that Marshall considered to be in preparation for
some kind of legal attack to keep him silent by tying the issue up in
court. Based on this new information from Caras, Marshall decided to
strike against Vallee publicly in a information warfare styled
campaign that would only be held back until Caras decided if he was
actually going to include the Anatomy issue in the episode. If he was,
Marshall would wait until Caras had a chance to get his interview in
the can, knowing that once the campaign began, Vallee would be loathed
to talk to anyone.
When the time came for Marshall to be taped for his
appearance, he was handed a release form that seemed to stray away
from Marshall and Caras' prior agreement. Recognizing it as a standard
release giving the show the freedom to edit as they pleased, Barnes
reminded Caras about their arrangement which Caras said he would still
honor. The shoot that day included a demonstration of Marshall's
experiments for the camera and the photos from "Physics: Volume 2" and
a lengthy
interview with Marshall. Jean Claude Ba, a physics professor was also
interviewed. Marshall later sent Caras a copy of his dramatic
experiment showing a sheet of diffraction film causing a full scale
replica of the Santa Maria to look as transparent as a phantom ship.
As the time approached for the episode to air, Caras
began to act cryptically. First was his mention of having a computer
animation appear to 'dramatize' the Eldridge becoming invisible. When
Marshall asked about the use of the video of his experiment with the
Santa Maria, Caras acted like it was almost non-existent. "His
attitude was like it either wasn't good enough of a dub or that it
didn't show what I said it did. Regardless, it was a disingenuous
response but I chose not to push the issue. I know how producers can
be with their production toys."
The next thing to happen was Caras telling Marshall that
the executive producer Jonathan Towers, had him make 'changes' in the
script because it was 'too weird'. "Don't worry," Caras told Marshall,
"you'll still get the truth across." Marshall was beginning to worry
but having been
informed by Caras that there would be no coverage over the Vallee
issue because of lack of available time, Marshall had begun his
campaign against Vallee on the internet, the very medium that Haisch
had apprehensively asked about. Through a network of cyber
journalists, the story about Vallee's fraud and Haisch's attempt to
keep it secret slowly began to appear in various forms until now if
you do a search on the net combining the words 'fraud', 'hoax' and
'anatomy', depending on the search engine, you'll get articles about
Jacques Vallee like www.ufomind.com/updates/1998/jun/m08-010.shtml.
By August 21 the first wave of Marshall's campaign was
over and he was beginning his middle game. But that night he stopped
to see what Mark meant when he said he had to make some 'script
changes'. What he saw was as far from the truth as you could get. In
fact, the Office of Naval Research could have written the script
themselves.
"To this day, there are no credible documents or
witnesses to support the Philadelphia Experiment," Bill Curtis said,
smiling as he closed the episode. Marshall was stunned. What he had
been led to believe would be a show that would finally reveal the
truth, had been just the opposite. None of his evidence was shown, his
experiments weren't even mentioned - they had shown a cheap computer
animation instead that wasn't even an accurate dramatization. There
was no mention of Dr.
Rinehart or Marshall's investigation against the Navy. They portrayed
Rinehart's account of how the experiment was accomplished as a only a
theory that Marshall come up with. They had researcher Andrew
Hochheimer making only skeptical comments when his web site takes one
of the closest looks at how it could have happened and comes up with
much the same information that Marshall did.
Representing the Navy was naval historian John Reilly,
in the role of the apologist, saying among other things, "I have no
knowledge of the Navy ever having tried to make ships invisible using
magnetic fields," as if that were a legitimate statement. Marshall
knew better. So did segment produced Mark Caras. When Marshall wasn't
shown giving his
rebuttal to such typical Navy side-stepping he knew that this had gone
wrong. This wasn't what Caras and he had agreed upon. Neither was
Goerman's completely unchallenged litany about his investigation
against Carlos Allende. The worse was when Goerman made the statement
about how other researchers had ignored his findings against Allende
because they wanted to sell their books. Then the program cut to
Marshall, as if he were one of these researchers, an editorial act
that Marshall refers to as "defamatory".
"I was in complete shock." he recalls. "I felt lied to
and violated. It's one thing to lie to someone in order to find out
the truth, but I was lied to so they could use me for a straw man.
They set me up, gutted my entire argument, took out all my evidence,
and then they lied about what the truth was and presented a completely
false version of the facts. It was the opposite of the slogan, 'the
closest you'll ever get to the truth'. It was the furthest thing from
it."
At first Marshall was worried about damage to his
reputation. The Vallee campaign was beginning to cool down. He was
worried that his enemies may have seen the program and try to use it
against him. Friends on the net assured him that all seemed to be
quiet. It turns out that, along with being merely a knock off of
"Sightings," "The Unexplained" isn't watched much by the professional
research crowd and their associates.
"I was in complete shock... I felt lied to and
violated." Marshall had heard that Bud Hopkins, the abduction
researcher, had received similar treatment from the TV show "Nova" and
decided that he wasn't going to just cry foul. Marshall had a weapon,
the faxed questions for the program on the Towers Productions letter
head. He would use his contacts and skills as a video producer to
create a program that would set the record straight by producing a 60
minute rebuttal that would reveal the truth. He would show how "The
Unexplained" didn't by showing him answering all the questions that he
had originally been asked. Then he got word that he should check
http://www.aetv.com (scroll down to where it says "Unexplained" and
click on 'comments'.) On the second page, under "Strange
Disappearances," Robert Goerman had posted a message proclaiming (in
all caps) that the show had taken "the high road" and that the story
of the "experiment" had cost too much of the researchers time and
resources. That was the last straw.
"I think up to that point Marshall was just wanting the
information that had been missing to come out," a friend remarked.
"But the Goerman thing was it. It was rubbing salt in the wounds and
from that moment on, it was war. Marshall was after all of them and he
wasn't going to stop until he had enough to discredit Goerman, Reilly,
and Towers Productions for setting him up in the first place -
'scorched earth' scenario all the way."
Indeed, the rebuttal program became a full fledged
intelligence operation. It was as if "The Unexplained" hadn't taken
him seriously - not as a researcher, and certainly not as an investiga
tor. So Marshall was going to do what an investigator would do - get
the evidence and nail them to the wall. Goerman had made the same
remarks on the message board for "Quest For The Truth," a Philadelphia
Experiment site with a fair but skeptical tone. It's web master, Mack
Shelton, had posted a veiled reference to Marshall's appearance on the
program, commenting about "people who get on TV making claims without
any evidence..." But Marshall figured that was expected, since that's
exactly what Caras had shown. But when Marshall realized, at the same
time, that Shelton had boldly and falsely claimed in the text of his
site that Moore's 'Dr. Rinehart' was an exact word for word copy of
the character in the sci-fi book, "Thin Air," Marshall decided it was
time to take out all the major detractors, along with "The
Unexplained."
The first step was to set a strategy. He already had the
questions. What he needed was definitive proof that Goerman had
formulated his hoax theory while ignoring evidence that was in his
possession. That would be the William Moore book. To do that he would
have to get Goerman to talk. No problem. A basic 'sting-op' procedure.
He also wanted to do the same to the Navy's John Reilly, because he
needed definitive evidence that nothing the Navy would say about the
Philadelphia Experiment would be the truth. After all, if the
Philadelphia Experiment did happen, it would still be top secret. They
would have to deny it the same way as the Air Force denies the
existence of Area 51. In particular, Marshall wanted to prove Reilly's
comment of "having no knowledge of such a test," was irrelevant.
"I was shocked when he said he had never heard of Area
51...He swore up and down that he had never heard of it and didn't
know what it was." Then there was the Towers Productions and Mark
Caras. Caras had warned Marshall that changes would be made in the
show, but Marshall didn't trust Caras anymore. When Caras acted as if
there was something wrong with the video of his experiment, it didn't
make sense. Marshall never forgot it. Now it seemed that it could be a
clue that Caras may have
been more involved in what happened than he revealed. Jonathon Towers
and Caras would have to be dealt with as well, but Marshall decided to
go after Reilly first.
Contacting a cyber journalist friend for back-up,
Marshall called Reilly, posing as a reporter, and got his permission
to tape the call. The strategy was simple and it worked like a charm.
"I buttered him up first," Marshall explained, "telling him that I saw
him on "The Unexplained" and was working on a follow-up story. Then I
just let him run his mouth, walked him down the garden path 'til I got
him where I
wanted..." Where Marshall wanted him was the same place that the old
TV attorneys got their hostile witnesses under cross examination. The
so-called "Perry Mason" moment when the witness is caught in the
obvious lie or subterfuge. Marshall discovered a few unexpected gems
in the process.
"I was shocked when he said he had never heard of Area
51," Marshall said. "He swore up and down that he had never heard of
it and didn't know what it was." Marshall had brought up the infamous
secret base in the Nevada desert as an example of military denial of
top secret information that is still known in the public domain. "So
I'm thrown off guard by this because I'm thinking 'he's just doing
what the policy dictates' and he was protesting his ignorance so much
that I didn't want to get sidetracked. So I asked him what his
clearance level was and he said it was Secret. Then I said, "So that
means that if something is Top Secret, then you can't know about it,
correct?" He said, "Yes." So I knew I had him, but I went in for the
kill."
Marshall then followed up by asking Reilly point blank
if his Secret clearance also meant that if something was Top Secret
from W.W.II, and was still Top Secret today, that he also would not be
cleared to know about it. "Yes, I suppose you're right." Victorious,
Marshall thanked him for his time, leaving Reilly somewhat puzzled and
apprehensive sounding. He should have been. Marshall had just got him
on tape disqualifying his statement on "The Unexplained." But Marshall
wasn't done with him yet.
Next on the list was Goerman. The same method was used
and yielding equally surprising results. Goerman was cocky, saying,
"You know I used to be a player,..." describing how he had been a UFO
pulp magazine writer in the 70's and ran with high profile
researchers, dropping out after his work exposing Allende failed to
get him the kudos he felt that it deserved. Marshall didn't care. He
asked Goerman if he had written his article exposing Allende before or
after he read the William Moore book. Goerman said that it was after
he read the Moore book because it was the Moore book that caused him
to write the
article.
"So you do remember Dr. Rinehart?" Marshall asked. "Yes,
I remember a character named 'Dr. Rinehart'," Goerman responded,
sounding rather surprised by the question. Marshall ignored the
obvious reference to the idea that Rinehart was just made up by Moore.
When asked if he had checked out the information about Rinehart,
Goerman said 'no'. Marshall pressed on, quizzing the 'player' about
his lack of inquiry into the claims of the scientist. He listened as
Goerman buried himself deeper and deeper. Goerman made it clear that
he felt that
Allende had made the whole thing up and so felt no need to do any
further investigation. In other words, Goerman hadn't done any real
investigation because he hadn't checked out all the available
information. "If Allende made it all up, I don't see what Rinehart has
to do with any of it," he stupidly insisted, oblivious to the fact
that, if Rinehart's statements were found to be accurate, then Allende
didn't make the whole thing up - or at least not all of it.
Slowly but surely, Marshall's contention that "The
Unexplained" allowed irrelevant testimony to stand unchallenged was
being proven. But he wasn't done yet.
Marshall wanted all the evidence he could possibly get.
He had the oversized envelope that Caras had used to mail back the
3/4" video tape of his experiment which succeeded in making a full
scale replica of the Santa Maria look like a transparent mirage. He
filmed a segment for his documentary showing this tape being pulled
from the envelope, going directly into a playback machine and then
showing the experiment saying, "this is what they didn't want you to
see." This wasn't enough though. He had a reference in the questions
about his experiments but he wanted definitive proof that Caras knew
the experiments dealt with invisibility effects and then didn't show
them.
Remembering Caras had bought some of the diffraction
material, Marshall called up the company and was able to get a copy of
Caras' invoice, showing that Towers Productions had paid some $20 for
an 18" by 18" piece of diffraction material plus $10 for the Fed Ex
shipping costs. This proved conclusively that Caras had important
evidence in
his possession and had suppressed it.
Showing the computer animation was a diversion and it
was insulting for Caras to think that Marshall didn't know it. The
plan was obvious - kill any mention of Rinehart as a witness; present
his account of the physics as an idea that Marshall had come up with;
don't show or mention anything about his experiments because, if
people saw them, they would look like more than just a "theory." Then,
having established it as just a "theory," they would introduce Goerman
and Reilly to discredit the only witness left, Allende. Then they
would dismiss the whole thing as a hoax. Finally, edit Goerman's
complaint to reflect badly on Marshall. Now Marshall was turning the
tables on them, and he wasn't done yet.
"Caras told me that Jonathon Towers had told him to
change the script," Marshall recalls, "but I didn't have it on tape. I
needed the evidence." So Marshall got a voice mail number and called
Caras up at a time when he felt he wouldn't be home. "Hi Mark. It's
Marshall Barnes. Gee, you weren't kidding when you said Jonathon
Towers had you change the script. What was the point of having me on
in the first place? Call me..." The call was a ruse to get Caras to
respond to the comment about Towers. Having Caras call the voice mail
would be a legal way of obtaining Caras' response on tape. Caras
called and didn't respond to the comment but just said that he had
been away. He
asked Marshall to call him back.
Marshall did call Caras back, providing a "beep" in the
background which signified that he was taping the conversation.
Marshall repeated the accusation about Towers. "Yeah I ,I infer that
you weren't happy with it or something." "What can I say. It didn't
tell the truth." "You know, you know," Caras stumbled, "I think we did
the best we
could, given the information that existed." Marshall was stunned.
Caras was giving him a completely different story. It was clear that
he didn't care anymore about the truth than the Navy did. Marshall
almost felt like asking if Towers was controlled by the intelligence
community, but he didn't bother. He didn't care anymore. He knew the
truth was finally going to get out - because he was going to do it
himself. Marshall would make sure that the credibility of "The
Unexplained" was exposed in the process. Their conversation began to
get heated as Caras started trying to deny the validity of Marshall's
evidence - the same evidence that he had raved and formatted questions
about before. The phone went dead. But Marshall had all he needed.
Next, Marshall decided to go back after Reilly. He
wanted to confront Reilly directly about his previous comments,
cross-examination style. Reintroducing himself as 'Mr. Barnes' and
checking up on some points from the previous reporter's questions,
Marshall launched into Reilly by getting him to confirm his clearance
status and it's limitations. He asked Reilly about Yehudi, the Navy's
(1943) formerly secret
project to make an anti-submarine plane invisible with special lights.
Reilly acknowledged that he was familiar with it. When asked if Reilly
knew about it before it was declassified, Reilly said "No, because I
had no occasion to." Then Marshall asked him about his denials of
knowing anything about Area 51.
"It appears that when it comes to the truth, if it is
'out there,' ... A&E, Towers Productions and 'The Unexplained' are the
furthest from it that you could ever get!"
"I haven't the slightest idea what Area 51 is," Reilly insisted.
Marshall pressed him. "Everyone has probably heard of Area 51..."
Reilly responded, "I'm not a nuclear test buff, do you see what I
mean?" Marshall actually wouldn't until later. He was going in for the
kill on the issue of Reilly's clearance level and disclosure of
classified information. "My question is then... if the Philadelphia
Experiment took place that means that you wouldn't be allowed to know
about it anyway right?" "Oh yeah, but I think that's getting far
fetched frankly."
"My point is that, if it did take place, you wouldn't be
allowed to know about it anyway, right?"
"If such a thing happened and if it were still
classified..."
"That still means you wouldn't be allowed to know about
it."
"Yeah."
"My point is this: you were on a TV show acting as if
you were an expert on something. But if it had existed, and were still
classified, you wouldn't be able to know about it anyway."
"Yeah." Reilly was feeling the pressure.
"That kind of negates your authority on the subject
because you wouldn't be in a position to know..."
Reilly began to get angry but it was too late. Marshall
was putting the squeeze on. "You and I can hypothesize until the.."
"Well I'm done hypothesizing. Isn't correct that if
something is Top Secret, let's say that you have knowledge of it, you
wouldn't be able to divulge that information anyway. Isn't that
correct?"
"I would, I would not be able to divulge any kind of
classified information, it doesn't have to be Top Secret."
"Right. So let's say that something like that happened
and you did know about it, you wouldn't able, in fact ,nor would
anyone else in the Navy, be in a position to reveal that information
anyway, isn't that correct?"
"And little green men from outer space...", Reilly began
snapping back before Marshall shut him down.
"I'm not talking about little green men from outer
space, I'm talking about the policy for Top Secret information and how
it is handled."
"Yeah."
"So it's true that if something is Top Secret that the
military, whether it's the Navy or anyone else, cannot discuss or
divulge that information. They would have to say it didn't exist or
'no, it didn't happen'."
"No, you don't say that, you simply say 'no I cannot
discuss that'."
Marshall wasn't buying that.
"But I would point out to you, sir, that the Air Force's
position on Area 51 is that it doesn't exist, even though everyone
knows it exists. Their official position is that it doesn't exist.
It's not that they can't talk about it. So if something like this did
happen, the Navy wouldn't be admitting it anyway."
"No," Reilly relented, "they wouldn't be talking about
it. Yeah"
"Right. So that means that your testimony or anyone
else's from the Navy is inconsequential."
"Why of course!... But you're piling one thing on top of
another and another."
Marshall had what he wanted and so went for the 'cool
down', disengaging from the argument and, in the process, reassuring
Reilly that he believed that Reilly hadn't heard of Area 51.
"I'm not a nuclear test buff so..." Reilly repeated as
if it was a rehearsed response.
"Have you heard of Groom Lake before or Dreamland?"
"No. Those things have no particular interest to me."
Later, when Marshall was checking the recording he
realized that he hadn't mention that Area 51 was connected to the
Nevada nuclear test range at all. So if he hadn't mentioned it, and if
Reilly wasn't lying, then why would he think he had to be a "nuclear
test buff" to have knowledge of the secret base in the Nevada desert?
Marshall is now putting the finishing touches on what
has become a feature length documentary with the title, "The
Philadelphia Experiment: What The Unexplained Didn't Want
'X'-plained." The truth that Mark Caras and Towers Productions didn't
want you to know is revealed in its entirety. Mack Shelton is exposed
as a researcher "wannabe" and Vallee, Bernhard Haisch, and other
disinformers get their due. Although this has given Marshall the
opportunity to prove that he is one of the best investigators on the
real X-File scene, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he
had done an
investigative search for Towers Productions on the internet, before
agreeing to appear on their show. At www.realscreen.com under "Towers
leanings: from law to depression," it says,(in the last sentence of
the second paragraph) "The Unexplained seeks to debunk claims of the
supernatural and paranormal."
Regardless, it's ironic that, at the same site on
www.realscreen.com (in the 15th paragraph of the article
"Investigating Bill Kurtis") the host of "The Unexplained" says, "I
spent a lot of time in local television... It's eroded to the point
where I don't think anybody observes any ethical standards anymore."
And so it's not surprising that if you go to
http://store.aetv.com enter 'disappearances' as a search, then click
on that title on the next page, you will be confronted with a page
selling the home video of "The Unexplained" episode in question.
However, a quick review of it's description will reveal an account far
more fantastic than any yarn spun by Carlos Allende or Mark Caras. In
the second paragraph it begins "Another, even more incredible case
involves a top-secret Navy experiment allegedly witnessed by a
self-styled paranormal
philosopher, who is interviewed here. The man claims to have watched
from another ship as a Navy vessel and crew disappeared..." Obvious
false advertising not withstanding, it appears that when it comes to
the truth, if it is "out there," in this case A&E, Towers Productions
and "The Unexplained" are the furthest from it that you could ever
get!
by Joe Turner