Tag Archives: how to time travel

Black and white aerial view of a military patrol boat sailing on the ocean.

Did the Philadelphia Experiment (Time Travel) Really Happen? – Part 2/2 (Conclusion)

Categories, Time Travel, , ,

Did the Philadelphia Experiment (Time Travel) Really Happen? In part 1, we noted the Philadelphia Experiment is as good as urban legends get, supposedly incorporating the science of Einstein, a government secret experiment, unexplainable phenomena, and brainwashed survivors. It is only natural to ask: How did the Philadelphia Experiment urban legend get started?

The origin of the Philadelphia Experiment urban legend is itself another urban legend. We have one urban legend underpinning another. To quote Winston Churchill, we have “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Again, there are numerous accounts of the origin of the Philadelphia Experiment. We will use the 2002 book by James Moseley and Karl Pflock, Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist, as a reference on the origin of the Philadelphia Experiment urban legend.

According to Moseley and Pflock’s 2002 book, in 1957, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Washington, DC, contacted Morris K. Jessup, an astronomer and author of the 1955 book The Case for the UFO. He was asked to study the contents of a parcel that the ONR had received in a manila envelope marked “Happy Easter.” It was a paperback copy of Jessup’s UFO book that had been extensively annotated in its margins. Moseley and Pflock claim that annotations were written with three different shades of pink ink. The annotations detail correspondences among three individuals: “Jemi,” and two others the ONR labeled “Mr. A.” and “Mr. B.” The annotators refer to themselves as “Gypsies,” discuss people living in outer space, and comment on the merits of Jessup’s assumptions in the book. The annotations also contain a reference to the Philadelphia Experiment.

The ONR asked Jessup if he knew anything about the annotations, including knowledge of those involved. Jessup identified “Mr. A” as Carlos Allende. Supposedly, Allende had sent Jessup a letter in 1955 claiming to have served on the SS Andrew Furuseth and claiming to have direct knowledge of the Philadelphia Experiment. Allende claimed he witnessed the Eldridge appear and disappear. When Jessup requested that Allende provide evidence and corroboration, Jessup received another correspondence. This new correspondence came from a man identifying himself as Carl M. Allen. Allen said that he could not provide the evidence and corroboration Jessup sought. However, Allen implied that he might be able to recall some details via hypnosis. This all seemed highly suspicious to Jessup, and he discontinued the correspondence. (Apparently, Jessup’s suspicions were well founded. The ONR determined the return address on Allende’s letter to Jessup was an abandoned farmhouse.)

Now, the story becomes even stranger. According to Moseley and Pflock’s 2002 book, the ONR decided to fund a small printing, about a hundred copies, of the annotated volume, complete with both letters Jessup had received from Allende/Allen. The Texas-based Varo Manufacturing Company did the printing. Supposedly, the ONR gave Jessup three copies and circulated the rest within the navy. For those interested, I found a copy of the Varo edition online at this website: https://obscurantist.com/files/case-for-ufos-annotated.pdf.

Jessup began to write extensively on the topic in an attempt to make a living, but his follow-up book did not sell well, and the publisher rejected his other manuscripts. Jessup became depressed, and his life took a turn for the worse when he was involved in a car accident. This further added to his depression, and Jessup committed suicide on April 20, 1959.

What gives this urban legend legs are three published books. These are not the only books on the Philadelphia Experiment. However, according to historian Mike Dash, numerous authors appear to take their information from one of the three sources below:

  1. Jessup’s 1955 book, The Case for the UFO
  2. Moseley and Pflock’s 2002 book, Shockingly Close to the Truth!: Confessions of a Grave-Robbing Ufologist
  3. The ONR’s Varo edition of Jessup’s book, complete with annotations and letters Jessup had received from Allende/Allen

However, is any of it true? Do the facts support any portion of the Philadelphia Experiment?

In 1980, Robert Goerman wrote in Fate magazine that Carlos Allende/Carl Allen was Carl Meredith Allen of New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Carl Meredith Allen had a history of psychiatric illness. Goerman speculates that Allen may have fabricated the Philadelphia Experiment as a result of his mental illness. Later Goerman characterized Allen as “a creative and imaginative loner…sending bizarre writings and claims.”

Berlitz and Moore’s book The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility, published in 1979, claims to include factual information, such as an interview with a scientist involved in the experiment. This book is considered a definitive source for information on the Philadelphia Experiment. However, some critics accuse Berlitz and Moore of plagiarizing story elements from the novel Thin Air, by George E. Simpson and Neal R. Burger, which was published a year earlier. However, this criticism may not be fair. Earlier works on the subject likely inspired Thin Air, including Berlitz’s chapter on the experiment in his 1977 book, Without a Trace: New Information from the Triangle. This suggests the criticism of plagiarism is unwarranted. Berlitz and Moore’s book may be the real deal.

Now, let us discuss the science and other facts surrounding the Philadelphia Experiment. From the standpoint of science, light bends, in accordance with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, when it is near the surface of an extremely massive object, such as a sun or a black hole. No known or published scientific apparatus exists that enables us to bend light around an object the size of a navy ship. Could the navy have secretly developed such an apparatus by 1943? I do not think it is likely, but I will not rule it out altogether. The science claimed to be used in the Philadelphia Experiment was unified field theory. Factually, even today, there is no accepted unified field theory, but it is an area of ongoing research. Einstein was working on unified field theory, attempting to unify electromagnetism with general relativity, his theory of gravity. Some accounts of the Philadelphia Experiment suggest that Einstein was successful, but chose not to publish it.

The USS Eldridge was commissioned on August 27, 1943. This is one month after the first experiment was reported to occur. According to official records, it remained in port in New York City until September 1943. Also according to official records, the Eldridge was on its first shakedown cruise in the Bahamas during the time the October experiment was reported to occur. Proponents of the Philadelphia Experiment argue that the ship’s logs have been falsified and the real logs are classified.

In 1996, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) stated, “ONR has never conducted investigations on radar invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time.” In addition, they pointed out that the ONR was not established until 1946, three years after the Philadelphia Experiment. The implication is the ONR did not exist or conduct the Philadelphia Experiment. Further, the ONR denounced the Philadelphia Experiment as “science fiction.” This appears to be corroborated by the navy veterans who served aboard the USS Eldridge. During a 1999 reunion, the Eldridge veterans told a Philadelphia newspaper that their ship had never made port in Philadelphia.

Some critics debunk the Philadelphia Experiment by arguing it was just a case of misinterpretation. They argue the Eldridge was “degaussed” (the process of making a steel ship’s hull nonmagnetic) while in port, and this procedure started the urban legend. It is a fact that the Eldridge was degaussed. This was a common procedure to render a ship undetectable to magnetically fused undersea mines and torpedoes. It required the generation of a strong electromagnetic field onboard the ship. Charles F. Goodeve invented this procedure when he was a commander in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. The Royal Navy and United States Navy used it widely during World War II.

Is the Philadelphia Experiment fact or fiction? Is it possible the United States Navy has been able to orchestrate a consistent set of lies over a period of what is now about seventy years? You will have to be the judge. I have provided the story points proponents and opponents of the Philadelphia Experiment cite. Which side do you favor? Regardless of which way you lean, one thing is certain. The accounts of the Philadelphia Experiment are intriguing, and they are still making the rounds over seventy years since the alleged first experiment. It is, in my opinion, representative of the category of urban legends related to time travel.

The entire case study of the Philadelphia Experiment is also in my new book, How to Time Travel, available on Amazon.com in both a paperback and Kindle version https://amzn.to/1922in4.

Black and white aerial view of a military patrol boat sailing on the ocean.

Did the Philadelphia Experiment (Time Travel) Really Happen? – Part 1/2

Categories, Time Travel, , , , ,

Did the Philadelphia Experiment (Time Travel) Really Happen?

The Philadelphia Experiment is one of the most popular urban legends regarding time travel. For this reason, I have compiled a complete case study of it and included it my new book, How to Time Travel. In my judgment, it is a good representation of the urban legend category. Word of mouth, books, the Internet, motion pictures, and documentaries have popularized it, and it is still making the rounds alive and well today.

The Philadelphia Experiment, also known as Project Rainbow, allegedly had the objective of “cloaking” (i.e., rendering invisible) the United States Navy destroyer escort Eldridge, shown in a 1943-era photograph with this article.

Purportedly, in the process of cloaking the Eldridge, strange phenomena occurred, including time travel. The experiment supposedly took place at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, on or around October 28, 1943.

Like many urban legends, there are numerous accounts of the Philadelphia Experiment. What follows are key story points common to most accounts. Allegedly, the experiment had full navy backing and was based on unified field theory (a term coined by Albert Einstein), which seeks to unite the fields of electromagnetism (in this case, light) and gravity into a single field. The theory was to bend light around the ship using large electrical generators, consequently bending spacetime and rendering the ship an invisible time machine.

There are no reliable attributable accounts, but supposedly, the Eldridge was fitted with the electrical generators in the summer of 1943 by “researchers,” whose identity remains unknown. After being properly equipped, testing began, reportedly with some success. Here are the salient test accounts:

  • July 22, 1943—The Eldridge was rendered invisible, some witnesses reporting a “greenish fog” in its place.
  • October 28, 1943—The Eldridge vanished in a flash of blue light and teleported to Norfolk, Virginia, about two hundred miles away. The Eldridge sat in full view of men aboard the SS Andrew Furuseth, a nearby merchant ship, for an unspecified period of time, whereupon the Eldridge vanished and reappeared at the original Philadelphia site, traveling approximately ten seconds (in some accounts longer) back in time.

According to many accounts, the experiments caused the crew to experience serious side effects. A number of accounts claim some members of the crew were fused physically to the metal structures of the ship, the atoms of their bodies intermixed with the atoms of the ship. For example, one sailor supposedly had his hand embedded in the steel hull of the ship one level below where he was originally standing. Others crew members were said to suffer nausea and mental disorders, and even to vanish completely. To make the story complete, the navy is said to have “brainwashed” any Eldridge survivors to prevent them from revealing the incidents.

The Philadelphia Experiment is as good as urban legends get, supposedly incorporating the science of Einstein, a government secret experiment, unexplainable phenomena, and brainwashed survivors. It is only natural to ask: How did the Philadelphia Experiment urban legend get started?

Stay tuned for part 2. The entire case study is also in my new book, How to Time Travel, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle version https://amzn.to/1922in4.

Image: United States Navy destroyer escort Eldridge

Black and white image of people in vintage clothing, one person wearing a patterned outfit and a hat.

Time Travel Anecdotal Evidence from the Internet

Categories, Time Travel, , , , ,

This post is based on material from chapter 2 of my new book, How to Time Travel.

Let us start with a word of caution. Anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. It may be bogus, and all anecdotal evidence should be treated with skepticism. However, the sheer volume of time travel anecdotal evidence on the internet makes it hard to ignore. For example, if you do an Internet search with Google using the keyword phase “time travel evidence” (without the quotes), you will get about 258,000,000 search returns. Most of the evidence falls into three categories:

  1. Old movie clips: There are a number of YouTube videos of old movies showing people using devices, such as a cell phone, that would not have existed when the movie was made.
  1. Old photographs: Many sites include old photographs that show people out of context, for example, wearing clothing that does not fit the time, such as modern sunglasses, or using devices, such as a 35mm camera, that did not exist at the time the photograph was taken.
  1. Archaeological finds: There are archaeological finds of modern devices, such as a one-hundred-year-old Swiss-made watch found in a four-hundred-year-old Ming dynasty tomb in Shangsi County, Guangxi, in southern China.

Let us examine one piece of anecdotal evidence, from category 1, old movie clips. One example that comes up numerous times is Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 film The Circus, featuring a woman who appears to be talking on her cell phone. Just do a YouTube search using the keyword phrase “time travel evidence Chaplin film” (without the quotes). You will get back about a 100,000 search returns. The first page or two of search results have clips of this video, typically with some commentary.

Debunkers argue that the woman was just holding a primitive hearing aid known as an ear trumpet. Surprisingly, a 1928-ear trumpet looks like a cell phone from a distance. Proponents dismiss this as an explanation because the woman is talking into it. However, you see some people talking aloud to themselves all the time. This does not mean they are crazy. This is just how they process information and think. Almost all of us talk to ourselves privately in our minds. It is called thinking. Does this explain the film clip? Obviously, this explanation does not satisfy everyone.

Where does this leave us regarding time travel evidence from the Internet? In a phrase, it leaves us on “shaky ground.” I examined only one of the most popular pieces of time travel evidence on the Internet, and it is far from conclusive. Evidence that is more conclusive may lie buried in the 258,000,000 Google search returns for the keyword phrase “time travel evidence.” The challenge is finding it. A true scholarly effort would likely take a lifetime. However, in my opinion, the real world, and the universe, is stranger than any work of fiction. Therefore, I am keeping an open mind.

Remember, at the beginning of this article I clearly stated that anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. However, I also stated the sheer volume of time travel anecdotal evidence on the internet makes it hard to ignore. Is this an example of real time travel evidence caught on film? I suggest you do the Google search, view the clip and make up your own mind.

A silhouette of a person with a clock face behind them, symbolizing the concept of time and human existence.

Theoretical Foundations for Time Travel (Why time travel is possible!)

Categories, Physics, Time Travel, , , , , , , ,

This post is based on material from chapter 1 of my new book, How to Time Travel.

Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity underpin the science of time travel. They are briefly presented here as theoretical evidence that time travel is real. In addition, Del Monte’s existence equation conjecture is presented as theoretical evidence that time travel is real.

1. Einstein’s special theory of relativity—The scientific community considers the special theory of relativity the “gold standard” of scientific theories. It has withstood over one hundred years of experimental verification. In addition to yielding the most iconic scientific equation of all time, E = mc2, it also gave us our first insight into the scientific nature of time and predicted time dilation, both conceptually and mathematically. Time dilation is the experimentally verifiable difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers, when either one or both observers are moving relative to each other at a velocity near the speed of light. It is an experimental fact that the second hand on a clock moving at a velocity close to the speed of light moves slower than a clock at rest. Time dilation is real and implies forward time travel. For example, if you board a spacecraft capable of traveling at 650 million miles per hour, a one-day journey measured by a clock onboard the spacecraft would be equivalent to the passage of one year on Earth. Time dilation experiments are routinely performed using particle accelerators, which we will discuss later in this chapter.

2. Einstein’s general theory of relativity—Numerous aspects of the general theory of relativity have been verified. For our purposes regarding time travel, it is important to focus on only two:

* Gravitational time dilation—Gravitational time dilation suggests that two observers differently situated from gravitational masses will observe time differently. For example, a clock closer to the Earth will run slower than a clock farther from the Earth. The stronger the gravitational field, the greater the time dilation. This has been experimentally verified using atomic clocks, and we will discuss the results later in this chapter.

* Closed timelike curves—There are numerous solutions to Einstein’s equations of general relativity that delineate the world line of a particle is closed, returning to its starting point. In the general theory of relativity, the world line is the path the particle traverses in four-dimensional spacetime. For example, when the particle starts out, it has four coordinates, three dimensional coordinates and one temporal coordinate. Here is a simple analogy. You are in a specific place, definable by three spatial coordinates, reading this book at a specific time, a temporal coordinate. If the world line of a particle returns to its starting point, the particle is said to have returned to its past, suggesting backward time travel is theoretically possible. However, to date, we have not been able to experimentally verify that this aspect of Einstein’s general theory of relativity is true. As previously discussed, there is evidence that the “arrow of time” can be twisted, and that events in the future can influence past events. However, this is not conclusive experimental proof that backward time travel is possible.

3. Del Monte’s existence equation conjecture—In summary, the existence equation conjecture is derived from Einstein’s special theory of relativity and predicts that a mass requires energy to move in time. If additional positive energy is added to the mass, for example, by accelerating it in a particle accelerator and increasing its kinetic energy, the mass will move more slowly in time. I interpret this as the fundamental explanation of time dilation. An interesting aspect of the existence equation conjecture is that it suggests adding negative energy to a mass will cause the mass to move backward in time. Since today’s science has been unable to produce and manipulate negative energy, this last point has not been experimentally verified. (Note: An entire chapter is devoted to explaining the existence equation conjecture in the referenced source, How to Time Travel)

Source: From chapter 1 of How to Time Travel: Explore the Science, Paradoxes, and Evidence (September 2013), Louis A. Del Monte (Amazon)

Image: Book Cover How to Time Travel

Close-up of a large clock face with Roman numerals illuminated by warm golden light.

The Time Uncertainty Interval – The theoretical limit to measuring time

Categories, Time Travel, , ,

This post is based on material from my new book, How to Time Travel, available on Amazon.com.

All attempts in science to define time fail. Instead, we describe how time behaves during an interval, a change in time. We are unable to point to an entity and say “that is time.” The reason for this is that time is not a single entity, but scientifically an interval. We cannot slice time down to a shadow-like sliver, a dimensionless interval. In fact, scientifically speaking, the smallest interval of time that science can theoretically define, based on the fundamental invariant aspects of the universe, is Planck time.

Planck time is the smallest interval of time that science is able to define. The theoretical formulation of Planck time comes from dimensional analysis, which studies units of measurement, physical constants, and the relationship between units of measurement and physical constants. In simpler terms, one Planck interval is approximately equal to 10-44 seconds (i.e., 1 divided by 1 with 44 zeros after it). As far as the science community is concerned, there is a consensus that we would not be able to measure anything smaller than a Planck interval. In fact, the smallest interval science is able to measure as of this writing is trillions of times larger than a Planck interval. It is also widely believed that we would not be able to measure a change smaller than a Planck interval. From this standpoint, we can assert that time is only reducible to an interval, not a dimensionless sliver, and that interval is the Planck interval. Therefore, our scientific definition of time forces us to acknowledge that time is only definable as an interval, the Planck interval.

Since the smallest unit of time is only definable as the Planck interval, this suggests there is a fundamental limit to our ability to measure an event in absolute terms. This fundamental limit to measure an event in absolute terms is independent of the measurement technology. The error in measuring the start or end of any event will always be at least one Planck interval. This is analogous to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states it is impossible to know the position and momentum of a particle, such as an electron, simultaneously. Based on fundamental theoretical considerations, the scientific community widely agrees that the Planck interval is the smallest measure of time possible. Therefore, any event that occurs cannot be measured to occur less than one Planck interval. This means the amount of uncertainty regarding the start or completion of an event is only knowable to one Planck interval. In our everyday life, our movements consist of a sequence of Planck intervals. We do not perceive this because the intervals are so small that the movement appears continuous, much like watching a movie where the projector is projecting each frame at the rate of approximately sixteen frames per second. Although each frame is actually a still picture of one element of a moving scene, the projection of each frame at the rate of sixteen frames per second gives the appearance of continuous motion. I term this inability to measure an event in absolute terms “the time uncertainty interval.”

Please feel free to browse How to Time Travel.