From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: The Philadelphia Experiment (?)
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 92 14:42:16 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

  I am re-posting my post of three months ago on this subject. I
  have also posted it to "alt.folklore.urban". Contrary to what
  some are saying, I really don't think there's *any* evidence that
  the "Philadelphia Experiment" ever had any real existence outside the 
  fertile imagination of one Carl Allen/Carlos Allende.

Article 19354 of sci.skeptic:
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.energy,sci.electronics,sci.misc,sci.skeptic,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,alt.paranormal
From: sheaffer@netcom.COM (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Philadelphia Experiment?
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 92 15:35:42 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

OK, I went digging in my files, and uncovered an article from FATE magazine,
Oct. 1980 by Robert A. Goerman, called "Alias Carlos Allende". Summarizing 
what it says:

"In 1955 a Washington, DC auto parts salesman named Morris K. Jessup, who
once did graduate work in astronomy at the University of Michigan, wrote 
a book titled "The Case for the UFO" and embarked on a tour to promote it....

In 1956, "Jessup received a letter from one Carlos Miguel Allende .... (it)
scolded Jessup for suggesting continued research into UFT (Unified Field
Theory). Allende claimed that in October 1943 the United States navy had
used Einstein's theories in an experiment that not only rendered a destroyer
totally invisible but also caused it to be teleported from the Philadelphia
dock to the Norfolk News-Portsmouth area and back again in a matter of
minutes. The experiment succeeded but it left side effects so horrendous
that the navy shut down the project immediately.....

(in a later letter) "Allende, his name now anglicized to Carl M. Allen, 
could recall no exact dates, either for the experiment or for news accounts;
nor could he remember the names of the crew members or anything else
that mattered...."

Later, someone at the Office of Naval research in Washington turned up a
copy of Jessup's UFO book that had been "annotated", apparently by three
different persons, "Mr. A", "Mr. B", and "Jemi". "The writers made little
effort to conceal their contempt for mere human beings. Jessup
immediately recognized the handwriting, with its bizarre spelling, 
capitalization and punctuation, as that of his mysterious correspondant
Carl(os) Allen(de)... the three writers continually referred to that
secret 1943 naval experiment."  

"On April 20, 1959, Jessup committed suicide."

Late in the summer of 1969, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization
(APRO) wrote that Allen(de) "had dropped into its Tucson, Ariz. office
and confessed the whole thing was a hoax." But Allen(de) later
apparently recanted this confession.

Allen's letters carried the return address of a house in New Kensington,
PA, the author's home town, so he investigated. 

"I learned the whereabouts of all three of Allen(de)'s brothers." He also
located Carl's father, turned out to be his neighbor. Goerman was given
full access to papers that the family had. He concludes, "Carlos loves
to play games with those foolish enough to play audience... Carl is
described as a 'master leg-puller'. Once he purportedly feigned a heart
attack while working ... ". In a letter to his parents, Carl admits
annotating Jessup's book, by himself. 

"In his letters to Jessup, Carl does not mention the name or number
of his experimental ship. In Moore and Berlitz' book he states, "It
was the DE-173."

"It is clear that the legend of Carl Allen/Carlos Allende is mostly
fiction. If someone were to write a book telling the *real* story,
its title might be 'The Philadelphia Hoax: Project Gullibility."



-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

     "In the 1970's the world will undergo famines - hundreds of millions
     of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs 
     embarked upon now ... in 1985, when it is calculated [under the most
     optimistic scenario] that the major die-back will be over, ..."
       
                       Dr. Paul Ehrlich, "The Population Bomb," 1968

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban