Ship of the Damned

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Authors: James F. David

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T
hanks to my editor, Bob Gleason, and my agent, Carol McCleary, for their continued enthusiasm for my projects. I appreciate their suggestions and encouragement.
Gale and Abby, thanks for reading and re-reading my manuscript. Is it really true the story gets better every time you read it? Katie, you’re next in line to be your dad’s reader, and then, Bethany, it’s your turn.
This book is for the readers of
Fragments
who weren’t ready to say goodbye to Ralph.
The Philadelphia Experiment
On July 22, 1943, scientists working for the U.S. Navy conducted an experiment that had remarkable and far reaching results, and which continues to generate controversy to this day. The goal of the original experiment was to develop electronic camouflage that would render U.S. warships invisible to enemy radar and even invisible to the human eye. Scientists recruited for the project included some of the world’s finest, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla. Based on extrapolations from Einstein’s unified field theory, these researchers believed that by pulsing magnetic-field generators at certain frequencies, they could cause the fields to resonate, thus generating a magnetic field so intense that it would bend light and radar around a ship, making it invisible. Code-named “Project Rainbow,” the electronic camouflage project succeeded far beyond expectations, and according to witnesses, the Navy released a force they couldn’t control.
The destroyer DE 173, USS Eldridge and its crew were selected for the experiment and the ship was fitted with two large 75KVA degaussers (magnetic-field generators) which had been modified for the experiment. These were mounted in place of the forward gun turrets. In addition there
were four large magnetic coils and three thousand 6L6 power amplifier tubes. The various pieces of equipment were connected with circuits designed for synchronizing and modulating the magnetic fields. The goal was to adjust the modulations (pulses) until the two magnetic fields resonated, thus exponentially magnifying the combined power of the two fields.
At 0900 hours on July 22, 1943, in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, the equipment aboard the USS Eldridge was powered up and the experiment began. At first nothing appeared to be happening, but slowly those on the ship began to feel the build-up of electric charge. The crew had been issued rubber boots and sou’westers to insulate them against severe electric shock. Slowly a green mist formed and the sky darkened. From the outside the ship appeared to be enveloped in a greenish fog spreading one hundred yards in all directions. Then the fog and the ship disappeared. A few seconds later the ship was back, and the experiment ended.
The Navy had succeeded in rendering the DE 173 invisible, but there were deleterious effects on the crew. Many of the men acted as if they were drunk, speaking with slurred speech and staggering. Some were extremely giddy, others were disoriented, and some complained of double vision. Most were nauseous and a few lost consciousness. Despite the effects on the crew, the Navy was excited by the first test of the equipment and ordered continuation of the research.
The second experiment took place on October 28, 1943, at 0715 hours. The equipment aboard the USS Eldridge had been modified to increase its power and adjustments made in the frequency of the modulation. When the equipment was powered up there was again the gradual build-up of an electric charge, and again the ship was slowly enveloped in a green fog which spread out around it. This time, though, just as the ship became invisible, there was a blue flash. Simultaneously, witnesses aboard the SS Andrew Fusureth, which was anchored in the Norfolk, Virginia harbor, reported seeing the USS Eldridge suddenly appear. The Eldridge, which displaced more than 1500 tons, had been instantly teleported from one state to another. Then, just as suddenly, the ship was back in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
This time the effects on the crew were even more powerful. Some members were insane, many were unconscious or violently sick, some were dead, and some were missing. Most horrifying of all was the fact that some of the crew had fused with the metal of the ship, and arms and legs protruded from decks and bulkheads. There appeared to be delayed effects from the experiment, too; one Philadelphia newspaper carried accounts of
a bar brawl in which some of the seamen from the USS Eldridge became transparent while others walked through walls and vanished.
Surviving members of the USS Eldridge’s crew reported that during the experiment, time seemed to slow down, or for some, come to a standstill, and that while they were inside the green fog they felt sluggish. Their movements were labored and they felt like they were pushing their way through molasses. After the experiment the crew continued to experience time distortions, and would occasionally “freeze,” or become stuck in time. (During a freeze the frozen person doesn’t experience the passage of time and remains motionless like a statue, letting time flow around him.) Men who were frozen like this were unresponsive and seemingly unaware of their surroundings. Then, just as suddenly as the freeze had gripped them, the frozen men would thaw and rejoin the time flow, continuing as if nothing had happened.
While the U.S. Government admits that research was conducted at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in the 1940s, it denies that any ships were rendered invisible or that any crew members suffered from the experiments. Curiously, the Navy does confirm that there were experiments using high-frequency generators and that these experiments did create coronas, thus confirming parts of the story. Despite the government’s denials, or perhaps because of them, many people believe that the Philadelphia Experiment did take place and, like the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash and the CIA’s MK-Ultra mind-control experiments, has been covered up by the U.S. Government. Because each of these events has been mythologized in its own complex way, separating fact from fiction is difficult. However, each of these legends seems to be built on the foundation of real events.
While the core of the Philadelphia Experiment story remains the same in most accounts, details of the experiment vary depending on the source. Some sources claim that there was only one experiment in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, which took place in July, with the October experiment taking place at sea. There are reports claiming that the ship wasn’t teleported to Norfolk, but instead to another dimension where the crew encountered aliens. Another variation has the ship appearing in Norfolk three years after it disappeared from Philadelphia, and not instantly.
While not all parts of the story can be confirmed, some of the details can. There was a destroyer escort commissioned the Eldridge, and the DE 173 is listed in
Jane’s Fighting Ships
and other ship registries. The Eldridge survived World War II and was sold to Greece in 1951 and renamed the Léon (there is a web page devoted to the ship). Albert Einstein was indeed
a consultant to the Bureau of Ordnance between May 31, 1943, and June 30, 1944, the period during which the experiments supposedly took place. There are eyewitnesses who say they saw a ship disappear at sea, including the ship’s master of the SS Andrew Fusureth, and there are newspaper accounts of the bar brawl that supposedly included crew members of the USS Eldridge.
For the purposes of my novel I assumed that two experiments took place, and that the second experiment never really ended. I have the first experiment taking place on the Eldridge and the other on the cruiser Norfolk. The CA 137, Norfolk, was designed to be a Baltimore class cruiser and was to be built at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard at about the time of the experiment. Records show that construction of the CA 137 was cancelled in December 1945. I moved the second Philadelphia Experiment to the cruiser Norfolk in order to get more space for the action, and because I was struck by the coincidence between the ship’s name and the location to which the Eldridge was supposedly transported. I admit to wondering briefly whether the details from the eyewitnesses might have become confused over the years; perhaps, in fact, the Eldridge wasn’t transported to Norfolk, Virginia, but rather the cruiser Norfolk was transported somewhere in space and time. Could it be that construction of the Norfolk had proceeded in Philadelphia and that the experimental electronic camouflage equipment was moved to this larger ship for sea trials? The existence of two experimental ships might help explain why there is confusion over the number of experiments conducted and their location. It could be that the Eldridge was the ship that disappeared from the Philadelphia Shipyard, and the Norfolk the ship that eyewitnesses saw disappear in a green fog from the middle of the ocean. Certainly, listing construction of the Norfolk as “cancelled” would be the simplest way to cover up the loss of the ship. Then again, perhaps this is just the kind of speculation that gets passed around and confused for fact, and ends up as part of an urban legend.
If you would like more information about the Philadelphia Experiment there are books, web pages, and a movie devoted to it. Perhaps the easiest way to begin your search is to access an Internet search engine and type in the key words “Philadelphia Experiment.”

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