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The Philadelphia Experiment is the popular name for a story of an alleged secret wartime (World War II) experiment which supposedly took place at the Philadelphia Naval Yard in 1943. Tracing the origin of this modern legend is not difficult; it became unexpectedly popular only with the publication of Charles Berlitz’s 1974 bestseller The Bermuda Triangle. The details come from an interview Berlitz conducted with the book’s collaborator, Dr. J. Manson Valentine. Therein Manson Valentine states:
. . .Its purpose was to test out the effect of a strong magnetic field on a manned surface craft. This was to be accomplished by means of magnetic generators (degaussers). Both pulsating and non pulsating generators were operated to create a tremendous magnetic field around a docked vessel. The results were as astonishing as they were important, although with unfortunate after effects on the crew. When the experiment first began to take effect, a hazy green light became evident, something like the reports we have from survivors of incidents in the Triangle who tell of luminous greenish mists. Soon the whole ship was full of this green haze and the craft, together with its personnel, began disappearing . . . The destroyer was subsequently reported to have appeared and disappeared at Norfolk, Virginia, which may have been the result of a trial invisibility run, involving a related time-warp phenomenon.
The original goal of the Navy, apparently, was to render a ship invisible as a form of high-tech camouflage. However, Valentine believes the Navy may have stumbled onto something far more important— inter-dimensional travel. He believes the test results prove his theory that UFOs use a similar means of propulsion. This would explain how they can disappear and reappear. It could also explain the magnetic anomalies reported in the Triangle, as the UFOs enter or leave the earth here. Plus, it may also explain the method of how UFOs kidnap airplanes and ships or whisk them into another dimension. Concerning the disappearance of Flight 19 in 1945, Valentine has always maintained: “They are still here, but in a different dimension of a magnetic phenomenon that could have been set up by a UFO.”
Dr. Valentine declared to Berlitz that his source for the details of the experiment was his friend Morris K. Jessup, who, by a string of unusual coincidences, got pulled into the whole affair. 
Those who have followed the developing mythos of “The Philadelphia Experiment” know how crucial the role of M.K. Jessup has become. He is as crucial as Commissioner Gordon is to the Batman franchise. Yet the Philadelphia Experiment is supposed to be based on facts and not purely comic strip invention. A lot of facts continue to elude researchers, but Jessup’s involvement, to a point, is substantiated by facts.
The hard bound of M.K. Jessup’s book, published by Citadel Press.
Morris K. Jessup had been a relatively obscure astronomer who wrote a book on the subject of UFOs in 1955 called The Case for the UFO. The book, as the title suggests, was to prove the existence of UFOs, but it was not through a recital of current sightings. He went into the past and used oddities and enigmas, mysteries so real and documented but unfathomable by current science, that he could suggest they weren’t natural or incidental. Rather UFOs had been responsible. Among these oddities, of course, disappearance and sudden re-appearances rated highly.
In January 1956 he received a strange letter from a man telling of a secret experiment the Navy did on a destroyer escort (later alleged to be the DE-173 U.S.S. Eldridge), with fantastic and disturbing results. It was an invisibility project based on Einstein’s “Unified Field Theory” that also caused the ship to teleport hundreds of miles away in moments.
My Dear Dr. Jessup,
Your invocation to the Public that they move en Masse upon their Representatives and have thusly enough Pressure placed at the right & sufficient Number of Places where from a Law demanding Research into Dr. Albert Eiensteins Unified Field Theory May be enacted (1925-27) is Not at all Necessary. It May Interest you to know that The Good Doctor Was Not so Much influenced in his retraction of that Work, by Mathematics, as he most assuredly was by Humantics.
His Later computations, done strictly for his own edification & amusement, upon cycles of Human Civilization & Progress compared to the Growth of Mans General over-all Character Was enough to Horrify Him. Thus, We are "told" today that that Theory was 'Incomplete."
This is a crackpot, so it seemed, but then names are dropped which kept Jessup reading.
Dr. B. Russell asserts privately that It is complete. He also says that Man is Not Ready for it & Shan't be until after W.W. III. Nevertheless, “Results” of My friend Dr. Franklin Reno, Were used. These Were a complete Recheck of That Theory, With a View to any & Every Possible quick use of it, if feasable in a Very short time. There Were good Results, as far as a Group Math Re-Check AND as fas as a good Physical 'Result," to Boot. YET, THE NAVY FEARS TO USE THIS RESULT. The Result was & stands todya as Proof that The Unified Field Theory to a certain extent is correct. Beyond that certain extent No Person in his right senses, or having any senses at all, Will evermore dare to go.
Gaping in awe at the revelations, actor Tom Matts played Jessup in the tabloid docudrama “Charles Berlitz’s The Bermuda Triangle” in 1979 produced by Sunn Schick Classic.
He rambles . . . “True, enough, such a form of Levitation has been accomplished as described. It is also a Very commonly observed reaction of certain Metals to Certain Fields surrounding a current. This field being used for that purpose. Had Farraday concerned himself about the Mag. field surrounding an Electric Current, We today Would NOT exist or if We did exist, our present Geo-politicall situation would have the very time-bomish, ticking off towards destruction . . .” before finally coming to the point: “Alright, Alright! The “result” was complete invisibility of a ship, Destroyer type, and all of its crew, While at Sea. (Oct. 1943).”
In his book and in lectures and niche saucer related publications, Jessup had encouraged research into antigravity, which he believed was the power source of the UFOs. The theme of the letter naturally played to that theory. But the letter-writer, Carl M. Allen or Carlos Miguel Allende, was actually discouraging research and decried the Unified Field Theory. He went into details of the deleterious effects of the experiment upon the crew. They would become invisible spontaneously and then reappear. Some went mad. Others had to be locked up. They “froze” and would get stuck, possibly in space and time.
There are only a very few of the original Expierimental D-E's Crew Left by Now, Sir. Most went insane, one Just walked "throo" His quarters Wall in sight of His Wife & Child & 2 other crew Members (WAS NEVER SEEN AGAIN), two 'Went into "The Flame," I.E. They "Froze!" & caught fire, while carrying common Small-Boat Compasses, one Man carried the compass & Caught fire, the other came for the 'Laying on of Hands!' as he was nearest but he too, took fire. THEY BURNED FOR 18 DAYS. The faith in “Hand Laying” Died When this Happened & Mens Minds Went by the scores. The epieriment Was a Complete Success. The Men Were Complete Failures.
Skeptical, Jessup wrote back and asked for more information, especially “proof.”
However, this seemed to provoke his correspondent. In his last letter to Jessup, Allende went into overkill on the proposition of being hypnotized and being given truth serum so that he could recall more details, affirming that in such a state he could not possibly lie. His willingness to undergo all of this reflects the serious nature of the experiment’s horrifying still top-secret results. Obviously, he had no “proof.”
Making a brisk speed, the DE-173 U.S.S. Eldridge underway in the Atlantic. She was commissioned in August 1943. She is of the Destroyer Escort class, smaller and less armored, designed as convoy escort and used for anti sub & anti aircraft. Many were built and often were seen at Philadelphia, since their station of duty was primarily Atlantic convoys. National Archives.
Although Allende didn’t respond to any more of Jessup’s letters, months later in April 1956 an envelope arrived at the Office of Naval Research addressed to Admiral N. Furth. In it was a paperback copy of Jessup’s Case for the UFO. This paperback was annotated throughout with all sorts of scribbles in 3 different ink colors, apparently written by three different men, as they passed it back and forth. They were possibly Gypsies considering how they addressed each other. The annotations concerned many occult topics, including UFOs, their means of propulsion and  operators. The annotators were: Mr. A, Mr. B, and “Jemi.”
The paperback edition of Jessup’s book.
Shortly after this, Jessup was invited to the Office of Naval Research (ONR) where they showed him the paperback and asked him what it all meant. Jessup said he really didn’t know, but he was able to identify one of the annotators, “Mr A,” as Carlos Allende. He explained this was a man who had written him strange fan letters telling him of the ship experiment mentioned in a few of the annotations. Some Naval officers were interested enough to reproduce about 2 dozen annotated copies, with the annotations typed around the text. Apparently, the Office of Naval Research was taking this quite seriously. This naturally piqued Jessup’s curiosity, as it indeed has done every reader of the “legend.” This part of the legend is true. Captain Sidney Sherby and Commander George Hoover, both involved in developmental projects, were the naval officers.
Accentuating the importance of ONR’s interest, Manson Valentine told Berlitz: “Jessup, who received 3 copies, was told that this was for top echelon circulation within the department. The Navy never officially admitted anything about the experiment but they were certainly interested in the book. Jessup also told me that the Navy tried to track down Allende from the return address on his correspondence but had failed.”
The implication is, of course, that Allende went into “hiding” or was an alias for someone quite important who was in-the-know. Put together with the Navy’s unusual interest one can only draw one conclusion: this “Philadelphia Experiment” was truly something quite sensitive, enough to make a witness disappear. Valentine suggests this. He says Jessup had researched the Philadelphia Experiment “pretty thoroughly.” Moreover, “He had been approached by the Navy to continue working on the Philadelphia Experiment or similar projects but had declined— he was worried about its dangerous ramifications. . .”
The legend of the “Philadelphia Experiment” could not have been born merely from fan mail to a writer and the subsequent disappearance of the correspondent. Jessup himself met with a strange fate. By 1959, he had slipped into depression. He had been struggling against the unpopularity of his books; his most recent were UFOs and the Bible and The Expanding Case for the UFO. He had personal and financial disappointments (divorce and failure to fund an expedition). On the night of April 20, 1959, he drove to Matheson’s Hammock ( a Dade County park), where he attached a hose from his exhaust to his car window and committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning (asphyxiation.)
Recalling that night personally, it is not very surprising that Manson begins with a big IF when introducing Jessup’s suicide. The inference was he may have known too much and was allowed to die or was murdered. In Without A Trace (Doubleday, 1977), Berlitz’s sequel to his popular The Bermuda Triangle, this point is accentuated and Valentine’s role is expanded even more. Berlitz writes that: “Jessup told Valentine that he had reached what he considered to be some definite conclusions about the series of reactions implied by the Philadelphia Experiment.” He wanted to talk to Valentine about this, based on a rough draft of his conclusions. Valentine invited him to dinner the night of April 20, 1959. Jessup accepted but never arrived; he is unexpectedly found dead. (In a 1979 documentary based on Berlitz’s books, it shows  an actor portraying Jessup as very excited over a discovery. He must urgently confide in Valentine that night, but then is found dead in his car.
In the most outlandish “docudrama” made, Sunn Schick Classic’s 1979 The Bermuda Triangle (based on Berlitz’s books) actor Tom Matts plays an enlivened Jessup anxious to talk to Valentine over his new discoveries. Instead of arriving he is found dead and the paperwork he wanted to show Valentine is missing.
This is the body of the modern Philadelphia Experiment legend, culminating in 1979 when Charles Berlitz co-authored a book with William L. Moore entitled, appropriately, The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility (Grosset & Dunlap). In this book they express their belief that there was alien contact during inter-warp teleportation. This secret experiment may prove the propulsion methods of UFOs, time-warps and inter-dimensional travel, alien contact, the Bermuda Triangle’s disappearances and related magnetic anomalies. It is a classic plot: witness tells respected scientist; this scientist investigates and is found dead in strange circumstances; the witness goes into hiding. Cover-up, murder, UFOs; it has it all.
However, that is the legend. Although people generally hear this side of the story, they are not aware of the underbelly of the whole affair.
I first wrote these series of pages around 1999, and now in March 2024 I re-upload them and expand upon them. Of those people who actually investigate and have been involved in pursuing the truth of such topics, I am perhaps one of only two people left who had actual acquaintance with a living player in the legend.
Before we continue, I need to place a few things in context. First and foremost M.K. Jessup believed in archeology as having tangible evidence. His actual training in astronomy only underwrote his conviction that UFOs could not have traveled through outer space. He believed they originated from a past Earth culture and remained in proximity to the planet. He was also not the hardcore physicalist. He was more than receptive of psychic influence, if there was some hardcore evidence that bolstered the trance readings. He had held these convictions for decades. He was, in actuality, an “Atlantologist,” impressed at the unexplainable wonders of ancient South American constructions like Tiahuanaco and stories of the Lost City of Z, whose chief enthusiast Percy Fawcett was also a follower of the occult. Later when Edgar Cayce started giving readings on Atlantis (1920s-’30s), Jessup had to ponder psychic readings that mirrored his own convictions there was something more to the past of mankind, especially in South America.
Beginning in the 1930s, the occult tickled the fringes of science or, perhaps equally true, science tickled the skin of the occult, trying to probe into its vast universe to extract any real knowledge that might be there. Duke University’s experiments with remote viewing, ESP and the like, were well publicized and well received in the 1930s, to the extent Amelia Earhart even used her friend, famed pilot Jackie Cochran’s supposed ability at remote viewing as a safeguard on her around-the-world flight. They had agreed should she go down that Jackie would assist in any search for her. George Putnam, A.E.’s husband, knew this and even “burst” in on Jackie Cochran during the search, asking “me for the kind of help I can bring,” as she would write in her own autobiography in 1954 The Stars at Noon.
It was at this time in the 1930s that Jessup was most entrenched in his academic career and comparing his own South American explorations with Cayce’s latest readings on Atlantis.
The discovery of “flying saucers” in 1947, thanks to Ken Arnold, provided a massive influx of data. Here was another tangible proof of Cayce’s psychic readings, for Cayce had spoken about prehistoric Atlantis having such craft that flew in the air and under the sea and had a novel, essentially antigravity drive.
At this time, Jessup was a former professional astronomer involved in a not-so-lucrative export service that at least allowed him to travel to his beloved South America. He was enlivened at the prospects provided by the new phenomenon. I’m guessing a bit, but I surmise he believed he truly knew the origins of the UFOs. His jaunts in South America  and his knowledge of astronomy, his critical reception of Cayce’s clairvoyance, together gave him the key to unlock the greatest mystery in the world.
In 1922, Jessup came to Guatemala as a student to do research. He was more of an adventurer like Fawcett than a classroom scientist.
In his own behind-the-scenes sentiments, he detested “Adamskis” with their angelic contactees and blond Venusians. He declared he was going to limit his own research to pre-Arnold times. Why? There was only one reason. He believed archeology and the past held the evidence. This was tangible evidence, not all the anecdotal and subjective accounts of sightings. He believed he alone could make the case because he had the edge in understanding UFOs had been here before and probably came from here. He was truly the pioneer of the Ancient Astronauts Theory.
As he researched more, he began to accept that UFOs did not have to remain in the vicinity. They could be coming and going through dimensional windows manipulated by their gravity drives. He speculated that ancient Earth civilization was a colony; that after the great cataclysms that destroyed Atlantis, they withdrew and now monitored their distant relations through these windows or from bases nearby. He admitted he would be conservative in his published works, and he would limit himself to case after case of oddities and enigmas in the past. His book was essentially about history and prehistory.
The real M.K. Jessup, 1921. He was not named after Morris Ketchum Jesup, the banker and philanthropist, after whom Cape Morris Jesup is named in Greenland. The “K” was merely an initial. He claimed he had no middle name.
Part 3 of The Case for The UFO (“History Speaks”) was especially important. It began with “Disappearing Ships and Crews.”
Faith does not have to pivot off religion. Those with scientific training who played with the occult world came to believe certain elements of it. They developed their own cross references based on experience. Like any religion, they too seek proof of their beliefs. The religious may seek it in a bleeding statue, the uncorrupted body of a saint, in a miraculous healing or an ethereal voice. For those within the occult, and especially those in the firmament between science and the occult, proof for time warps, inter-dimensional travel, a “higher plane” of existence and collective thought, may be found in disappearances, especially those whose circumstances tempt the rational.
Since science (and Jessup) did not believe that spaceships could travel between solar systems (due to the length of time in travel), either UFOs came from close-by or for those on the fringe of scientific theories they came through inter-dimensional windows. Within a certain erudite level, quite respectable theory. For those on the fringe, anything from Einstein was holy writ. His Unified Field Theory was as yet unproved. Einstein gave it respectability, and the fact it was still unproved gave it wild potential.
Thus the reader must understand that when Jessup was making the “case for the UFO” he was unintentionally making a case for a greater, more invisible world without him really knowing it. It was the existence of this world that was the object of the occult for centuries, and in an unexpected way his work was Beatic for believers. The sum total indicated that only UFOs could explain these hitherto oddities and enigmas of human history.
This is the crowd he more and more associated with. It is the analogy of the frog placed in water and then slowly it is brought to the boil. Jessup didn’t understand how immersed he was becoming in the occult through his very erudite friends. What he also didn’t understand was that his book had also set off the lay reader in the occult, one of whom was Carlos Allende.
Let’s expand upon this now and go behind-the-scenes and have a look at the “Eye Witness.”
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