Customer Reviews

The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Because the navy officially denies that any such experiment ever occurred, there is virtually no information available about the experiment. Therefore the authors rely on second-hand accounts, hearsay, and the recollections of some individuals long after the alleged experiment occurred.

Some of these accounts may or may not be true. The problem with this however, is that the authors do not attempt to document their sources. This means they are either unable or unwilling to document these sources. All of which means many or all of these sources or accounts could either be true or false.

Basically, nobody will ever know, and the authors may have wanted it that way. Admittedly, the book IS interesting, as long as the reader takes in the material with a certain amount of cautious skepticism. But there doesn't seem to be anything here that is strongly substantiated. That doesn't prove it's NOT true, it only proves that it cannot be proven to BE true.

I have read many articles and books about this philadelphia experiment...and i have to say this book is one of the worst. The author claims he has so much new information about this incident..but in actually he doesn't. I found he repeats alot of his arguments and statements alot throughout his chapters.There is better material than this. This book has nothing to do with the philadelphia experiment itself,just about theories if the experiment did actually happen. There is nothing about what actually occured during the experiment, his research is grade D. I suggest reading other books about the philadelphia experiment.

...how it got into print at all. This book is so terribly bad that it should carry a government health warning.

The basic premise of this ill conceived pile of drivel is the notorious Philadelphia Experiment (called PX by those in the flim flam trade), a top secret experiment that supposedly took place in 1943 aboard the USS Eldridge (DE173). Allegedly, the vessel and some crew were exposed to a high level of electromagnetic current designed to make the ship magnetically invisible (to mines), but the experiment went horribly wrong, resulting in the ship becoming optically invisible, teleporting itself to a different location and then crashing through the time/space barrier into a different dimension! Naturally the Navy denies all knowledge of the incident because they, like everyone else with half a brain, know that it didn't happen. Naturally `Bill' Moore and `Chuck' Berlitz know better than the United States Navy, and what's more, they know a government conspiracy when they see one, and in this case when they don't see one.

But before I really sink my teeth into this mindless tome, let's review some obvious facts first. The historical reality of WWII is that it was the first real-time, electronic technology war. The `Battle of the Beams', the cavity magnetron, Oboe, H2S, the Enigma decrypts, Colossus and the Manhattan Project are just a few the more well documented cases of this research and development battle that took place in facilities all over the world. Along with these there were probably hundreds, or even thousands, of other experimental attempts to produce superior technology that would win the war, or at least give the Allied forces the edge in combat. All of these projects would have files stamped with warnings like: `Most Secret', `Top Secret', `Above Top Secret', "So Unbelievably Secret That If You Read This File We Will Have To Poke Your Eyes Out With A Sharp Stick' and `Use As X-Files Script Only'.

`Bill and 'Chuck' construct this brazen and misguided tale upon three main characters. First is Morris Jessup, a self appointed PhD (probably in `applied barbecue maintenance' or some other advanced concept) whose main claim to fame is that he preceded Eric von Danekin by two decades in suggesting that the Mayan temples were constructed by extraterrestials. Talk about gifted! He also wrote a book entitled `The Case For The UFO'. Jessup is a genuinely tragic case, with the last years of his life seemingly spent in despondency, paranoia and depression, resulting in suicide. The second, and the most crucial player, is Carlos Allende. A one-time merchant seaman who wrote a series of letters to Jessup about `The Case For The UFO' in which he claimed to have detailed knowledge of the PX, and that this knowledge came from an informant who was one of the projects lead researchers. If I have given you the impression that Morris Jessup was mentally unstable, then Allende is totally unhinged - you only have to read any of his letters to realise just how completely deranged and deluded this character really is. The third component of this triumvirate of lunatics is Dr Franklin Reno (an alias), who is in reality a Dr Rinehart (also an alias) who claims to have worked on the PX (this is an alias as well) - they would have been better off calling him Dr Alias. The good doctor was terrified that people were watching him constantly and that he was being monitored where ever he went because he 'knows too much'. Dr Alias died before the publication of the book (he was the lucky one).

The `Bill' and `Chuck' roadshow provides no tangible proof for anything. The critical witnesses are always anonymous `for obvious reasons' (I mean, as if I would think they're fruitcakes) and they provide no evidence at all that anything, anywhere ever took place. They allude to a conspirational government cover up and even publish a copy of the letter sent by the Navy (to anyone who asks about the PX), as if to confirm just how deep this conspiracy goes and how much money the Navy is prepared to spend in maintaining this covert gloss. If you read the Navy's letter it is easy to detect just how frustrating it must be for their PR department to continuously respond to oafs like these two. This letter highlights the very obvious point that if any government agency had invented a teleportation device it wouldn't remain secret for long and you don't have to have a post graduate degree to realise what a startling weapon this would be! No more ICBM's, missile crammed submarines or stealth weapons, you simply dial up some co-ordinates and deliver a thermonuclear weapon the size of a Zeppelin hangar straight into the Kremlin's war room. Better still, you can just imagine the look of shock on the face of the Saddam Hussein as you teleport an entire years collection of Jerry Springer episodes into his headquarters - this would soon have him begging for mercy!

The writer unashamedly promotes Berlitz' previous book `The Bermuda Triangle' and makes ridiculous asides like `does this answer the unsolved riddle of the Bermuda Triangle'. Strangely, the `unsolved riddle of the Bermuda Triangle' has been solved so often that its amazing that anyone still believes it. This book has so many holes in it that it would take a book twice its size just to critique it. If you take out all the unproven conjecture, the first two words of this book would read `The End'.

Yet this work is so completely mindless that does have a fascination about it - it's like a 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' in print - somehow it's both lamebrained and beguilingly stupid all at the same time. If you plan to have a portion of your library devoted to the worst books ever printed, then this would make a good start. It is a book written by lunatics, about lunatics, for lunatics (come to think of it - I read it!). Clearly this is the work of anti-talent at its best and is only for the connoisseur of quality hogwash, so you have been warned.

Bill & Chuck - give me a break!

The so-called Philadelphia Experiment, the actual rendering of a navy destroyer invisible to the naked eye but having its crew suffer horrible effects, has been a fascinating ghost that roams on the realm of believability. The authors of this book make a good case for there being an actual experiment conducted in the Philadelphia Navy Yard under the auspices of Albert Einstein during 1943 to render a U.S. destroyer invisible to radar. However, the reader must beware of believing too much data form "scientists involved in the project yet wanting to remain anonymous". People, for whatever reasons, can and do lie. This could be no exception. With that being said, though, it appears that there WAS some kind of strange experiment that occurred. What that experiment exactly was and what the effects were on the crew of the ship will doubtless remain a mystery until whatever government files on the project are released. Do read the book if you have any interest at all in the possibility of humans vanishing from existance or burning for 18 days.

The book, if approached as a work of fiction, is mind-bending. Just think, the United States having discovered the mystery behind Einstein's Unified Field Theory, where combining electromagnetic forces with gravity produces properties that allow time/dimension travel! The author(s) make fine attempts to substantiate many of the claims that are a part of the legend of Project Rainbow, but I found the evidence, as a whole, lacking. The day someone comes out with a book, giving me a complete bibliography (and footnotes with each piece of evidence), exact names, ship logs, dated newspaper articles (with newspaper of origin), and mathematical basis for the event, I will have reason to believe the Philadelphia Experiment took place. But tying the incident with aliens and UFO contact? A little far-fetched.

Nevertheless, a higly-recommended book for those interested in what many believe really happened during World War II, at a now-abandoned navy yard on the Delaware River.

I myself have done much research into the validity of the PX (Philadelphia Experiment). I should probably mention that I did this research before reading the book.

This book is interesting indeed, but you can find out as much, if not more, from websites alone. Marshall Barnes (a private investigator) has also done a considerable amount of research on this subject, and I suggest you try to find transcripts of any interviews he has been in.

So, will this book give you the secrets that the military so dearly holds? No, it won't, but it is worth the read.

If there was a Philadelphia Experiment (PX) or not, you will certainly NOT know after reading this book. The authors have done some research throughout the time, but ended up with stories, which can also easily be discredited and with no real proof. This doesn't mean, however, that the book is poorly written. If there was the PX, it is logical that the documents and proofs were hidden or destroyed and it would be almost impossible to prove it. People's testimonies can be easily discredited (and people as well), so you end up with virtually nothing, as Moore and Berlitz did. So you must take the book in a "What if.." manner. The fact is that people are electromagnetic beings and that they suffer immense damage or die if they are exposed to high electrical current or strong electromagnetic fields. Hardly any scientist in the field of physics does not know that. But on the second hand - almost everywhere military forces are involved, common sense and logic departs the scene. If we could make some forces invisible, the Krauts would bite the dust. Let's do it. All possible scenarios seem equally logical. There probably was a PX (and who knows what else) but majority of us will never know. We will speculate as the authors have. On the cover of this book they promised to convince us, that PX happened. They failed. Therefore one star is gone. Otherwise you got nothing to lose, if you buy and read the book.

Caveat - I wasn't exactly expecting to finish PE a die-hard believer. That said, I was unprepared for how much of my skepticism stemmed from the authors' willingness to believe anything, and mask their suspension of disbelief as objectivity.

According to legend, the US Navy conducted invisibility experiments on one of their ships during WWII. Not simply invisible, the ship actually teleported from its berth in Philadelphia. However, the little-understood process played havoc with the crew - even after the experiment's end, some crewmen would "blink" in and out of existence, become frozen in time or catch fire. One man walked through a wall, never to be seen again. Of course, the Navy denies the whole thing....

While the legend places the story during the dark days of WWII, the legend itself began in the mid 1950's, with the publication of "The Case for the UFO" by Morris Jessup. (Aknowledging that Jessup is no scientist, Berlitz & Moore nevertheless refer to him as "Dr. Jessup".) Believing that propulsion of UFO's (and perhaps future human spacecraft) lay in solving Einstein's "Unified Field Theory", Jessup encouraged readers to press for research in that area. Jessup's book caught the attention of Carl Allen (AKA Carlos Allende), who spent the war in the Merchant Marine. In a series of rambling letters Allen insisted that Einstein had solved UFT, and the solution was successfully used to cloak a USN warship in wartime experiments. Though claiming to have witnessed the event from deck of a nearby freighter, Allen goes further than detailing his observation - exhaustively describing the travails of the crew, Einstein's seeming retraction of UFT, his admission to Bertrand Russel that UFT was complete but had to be suppressed at least until after WWIII, the identity of one of the chief scientists attached to the project, and that UFT had anything to do with the experiment. To get his point across, Allen/Allende even forwarded a copy of Jessup's book (heavily annotated with his own theories, many having nothing to do with the Philadelphia Experiment) to the Office of Naval Research. There it piqued the personal interest of at least 2 officers, and slowly became the story-that-wouldn't-die. A few years later, a depressed Jessup was found dead in his car. Allende/Allen became something of a cult celeb, sometimes retracting what he had previously claimed, often warning against the ominous dangers of UFT even as he seemed to beg others to look into it.

Berlitz and Moore piece Allen/Allende together with what are supposed to be other pieces of a puzzle that will prove the Philadelphia Experiment actually occurred. Instead, the result is far less than the sum of its parts: Berlitz and Moore place far more weight on any of the individual pieces than common sense would allow, and they find a better fit between the different pieces than you'd get in a jigsaw puzzle. Nothing in PE lacks a more reasonable explanation than the authors can provide. At the beginning, and towards the end of the book, the authors mention coming in contact with others who claim to have met alleged crewmembers of the ship involved in the experiment - but neither name nor any other convincing corroborating information comes out (Allende at least included his Merchant Marine ID in his letters). The authors add to the puzzle, but never actually establish that the Philadelphia Experiment actually occurred. An anonymous radar scientist, who doesn't claim to have worked on the project, clairifies how events would have had to occurr if the legend were true. Another scientist - given a psuedonym because it would upset "the status quo" - describes wartime discussions on a project that we're supposed to believe developed into the Philadelphia Experiment. Named "Rinehart" after a similar character in the novel "Thin Air" (a thriller inspired by the legend) the doctor describes discussions but never mentions witnessing the experiment, nor any discussions of its aftermath - obvious details for such a pivotal figure. "Rinehart" never even mentions Allende, even though it had been Allende's letters that clued the authors into Rinehart's existence (under yet another pseudonym). The authors never explain how they managed to find "Rinehart" - they need to protect his identity even though the government obviously knows who he is, and anybody else would have the same difficulty tracking him down as the authors of this book. The authors describe how the experiments of another scientist in "electrogravity" never caught on despite their apparent success - suggesting they were suppressed. Though Allende described reading stories about the Experiment's sailors in Philadelphia newspapers, the only article that could be found is obviously bogus: a xerox of an obviously fabricated article describing a bar-room brawl by sailors who mysteriously vanish - but no mention of date, newspaper, or the reporter, nor
any specific facts in the article about the event, like the name of the bar or those of witnesses. The authors make the barest efforts to answer the questions they raise, and then merely add more pieces to the puzzle, without explaining how one piece corroborates any others. Though appearing critical and objective, it's impossible to believe that the authors haven't already settled on the idea that the experiment actually occurred - they explicitly question Allende, yet never express their doubts, let alone attempt to deal with our own.

But what's the danger of that? I mean, who cares if they can get their readers to believe the legend of the "Philadelphia Experiment". Unfortunately, "Philadelphia" feeds on our prejudices of secret conspiracies, and relies on our willingness to do so with little prompting - never a positive thing. Worse, it's not even interesting - barely substantive enough to raise the sort of questions that would make a more critical investigation a stirring story.

I liked Berlitz's books in young childhood, and have a certain fondness for them now. I appreciate them as purveyors of modern legend, since Berlitz never did any hard research, like looking in archives, official documents, etc. He would just repeat credulously what others had told him or written. But as for the Philadelphia Experiment, Moore and Berlitz fell far short of proving their case. Their star witness, Carlos Allende, is clearly insane and unreliable. Their other chief witness, Dr. "Rinehart," is quite paranoid and possibly insane as well. There really aren't any more witnesses, just a little innuendo. Furthermore, Allende's stories just don't check out when they can be checked out. He says there was a brief article about the experiment in a Philadelphia newspaper about that time - can't be found. Neither Allende nor his ship can be definitely placed in Philadelphia when the experiment supposedly took place. Allende identified the U.S.S. Eldridge as the test ship. There is no evidence of that, and besides, Allende's ship was being escorted a few weeks later in convoy by the Eldridge. To this observor that explains where Allende got the name of the ship - Allende had contact with the Eldridge in the Atlantic, not in Philadelphia, in other words. To sum, there is no hard evidence that the Philadelphia Experiment ever occurred.

The book was originally written in 1979 and for anyone who wants to know more about the Philadelphia Experiment, then this is precisely where you should start because this is the book that got the ball rolling. The Philadelphia Experiment tells the story of the governments attempt at optical and radar invisibility with a navy ship called the US Eldridge that resulted in a catastrophe but may have also uncovered a whole new area of physics - essentially warping space.

William L. Moore and Charles Berlitz simply go in search of the story behind the Eldridge which is based on a series of letters and notes sent by Carlos Miguele Allende in 1955 to a UFO writer called Morris K. Jessup after he published the first and original UFO book called "The Case for the UFO". Allende essentially told Jessup that he had been a navy officer who witnessed what happened to the US Eldridge as part of a government experiment on invisibility. He claimed that the project went wrong, men caught fire, went mad, some were embedded halfway into the deck of the ship and others phased in and out of this reality. Allende claimed that there was a link between this experiment and the technology behind UFOs. Jessup thought that Allende was a crank but after doing a little more research found that there was some background to his story and that it was worth investigating a little more. Eventually a number of Navy officers and commanders became interested in the story and decided to investigate it for themselves. In 1959, Jessup died under suspicious circumstances - dead in his car from carbon monoxide poisoning - and many believe that he was murdered.

Moore and Berlitz cover the entire original story of Jessup and Allende and expose various US military programs that are connected with the Philadelphia Experiment. The investigative reporting is extremely good and current Philadelphia Experiment writers and researchers have this book to thank for their endeavors.

Much more to the story has since been exposed but like anything you would do well to read this book to find out how it all started. Forget about the Montauk boys who claim to have been there when it happened. This is the book that you should start with first well before you even consider looking at the Montauk project.

This is a highly recommended piece of investigative journalism. You don't need to be a UFO buff either to enjoy it.