By Keith Veronese via io9.com
Popularized by the 1984 film, a bizarre low-budget sequel, and a 2012 Syfy channel movie, tales of the Philadelphia Experiment involves covert U.S. Navy operations that led to time travel, teleportation, and mangled flesh.
According to urban legends, two separate and completely different Philadelphia Experiments took place. Both, however, involved the same vessel, the USS Eldridge. What happened in each of these alleged experiments, and what evidence is there to support the rumors?
Two separate sets of bizarre events make up the “Philadelphia Experiment.” Both revolve around a Navy Destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, with the events taking place on two separate days in the summer and fall of 1943.
In the first experiment, an alleged method of electrical field manipulation allowed the USS Eldridge to be rendered invisible on July 22, 1943 in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. The second rumored experiment was the teleportation and small-scale time travel (with the ship sent a few seconds in the past) of the USS Eldridge from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to Norfolk, Virginia, on October 28, 1943.
Horrible tales of mangled seamen and sailors stuck within the metal of the USS Eldridge often accompany this experiment, with the USS Eldrige reappearing seconds later in the waters around Philadelphia. Recitation of the events surrounding the second Philadelphia Experiment often include a cargo and troop transport vessel, the SS Andrew Furuseth. The lore of the second experiment claims those on board the Andew Furuseth viewed the USS Eldridge and it’s crew as they teleported into Norforlk momentarily before the ship returned to the waters of Philadelphia. (More . . .)
