Editing Philadelphia Experiment (section)

{{Short description|Supposed US Navy experiment in 1943}}
{{Other uses }}
[[File:USS Eldridge (DE-173) underway, circa in 1944.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|{{USS|Eldridge}} (DE-173), {{circa|1944}}]]
{{Paranormal}}
The '''Philadelphia Experiment''' was an alleged event claimed to have been witnessed by an ex-[[United States Merchant Marine|merchant marine]]r named [[Carl Meredith Allen|Carl M. Allen]] at the United States Navy's [[Philadelphia Naval Shipyard]] in [[Philadelphia]], [[Pennsylvania]], United States, some time around October 28, 1943. Allen described an experiment where the U.S. Navy attempted to make a [[destroyer escort]], {{USS|Eldridge}}, disappear and the bizarre results that followed.

The story surfaced in late 1955 when Allen sent a book full of hand-written annotations referring to the experiment to a U.S. Navy research organization and, a little later, a series of letters making further claims to a [[UFO]] book writer. Allen's account of the event is widely understood to be a [[hoax]].<ref name="Carroll 2015">{{cite web |url=http://skepdic.com/philadel.html |title=Philadelphia experiment |first=Robert Todd |last=Carroll |author-link=Robert Todd Carroll |website=[[The Skeptic's Dictionary]] |date = 2015-11-21 |access-date=2021-07-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210518005522/http://skepdic.com/philadel.html |archive-date=2021-05-18 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Dash 2000">{{cite book |title=Borderlands |first=Mike |last=Dash |author-link=Mike Dash |location=Woodstock, New York |publisher=Overlook Press |year=2000 |orig-year=1997 |isbn=978-0879517243 |oclc=41932447 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/borderlands00dash }}</ref>{{rp|300–301}}<ref name="Adams 1987">{{cite web |url=https://www.straightdope.com/21341696/did-the-u-s-navy-teleport-ships-in-the-philadelphia-experiment |title=Did the U.S. Navy teleport ships in the Philadelphia Experiment? |last=Adams |first=Cecil |author-link=Cecil Adams |website=[[The Straight Dope]] |date=1987-10-23 |access-date=2021-07-10 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111210101/https://www.straightdope.com/21341696/did-the-u-s-navy-teleport-ships-in-the-philadelphia-experiment |archive-date=2020-11-11}}</ref> 

Several different—and sometimes contradictory—versions of the alleged experiment have circulated over the years in [[paranormal]] literature and popular movies. The U.S. Navy maintains that no such experiment was ever conducted, that the details of the story contradict well-established facts about USS ''Eldridge'', and that the physics the experiment is claimed to be based on are non-existent.<ref name="NHHC">{{cite web |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/p/philadelphia-experiment.html |title=Philadelphia Experiment |website=[[Naval History and Heritage Command]] |date=2017-11-20 |access-date=2021-07-10 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210708140858/https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/p/philadelphia-experiment.html |archive-date=2021-07-08 |url-status=live}}</ref>