pwb (03/03/83)
Afew years back a fellow was telling be about a book he had read that
supposedly uncovered (partially) a secret government experiment during
the mid or late 1940's. I think the experiment was refered to as the
Philadelphia {Experiment|Project}. The goal of the experiment was to
render a warship invisible by generating onboard a VERY strong modulated
electro-magnetic field with some `magic' frequency that would refract light.
The hardware was apparrently all the cargo the ship could hold.
As the story goes, when they flipped the switch the ship disappeared from
its berth, reappeared for a few seconds at it's sister berth on the east
coast, then reappeared back at it's home berth again. The effects on the
crew were diverse. Some of the crew died, some went insane, some saw alien
planets, some saw God, some `froze', and some of them wondered what all the
fuss was about. At this point the program was cancelled and anyone that
had a tendency to talk about it was sent to the funny farm. Of course any
documentation was locked up for an eternity.
As for the point of all this, has anyone else heard of this? What would
be the plausibility of such an occurrence and what principles would it be
based on? After all it reads like science fiction, but I'm not one to
discount something out of hand and I'm not a physics expert.
Phil B.JGA@MIT-MC (03/08/83)
From: John G. Aspinall <JGA @ MIT-MC> I would suggest that appropriate journals for further research might include the National Enquirer and the Star.
ltn (03/08/83)
Aw, come on. Was this book written by a guy name Asimov, perhaps? or Bradbury? The best argument against the Philly Experiment is the same as the argument against UFOs being Russian spy satellites: If the Russians could really build something that does what UFOs are reported to do (10,000 mph, instantaneous acceleration, etc.) then we would all be speaking Ruski long ago. Or in this case, with invisible battleships, why worry about Trident submarines? les niles (aluxz!ltn)
sjk%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC (03/09/83)
From: Scott J. Kramer <sjk%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC> If you enjoyed the book (regardless of whether you believe it or not) I recommend "Alternative III" by Leslie(?) Watkins. If you're lucky, you might find it in the SF section, but I haven't been able to find another copy other than the one I bought several years ago. Has anyone else read this book? scott -------