Alternative Explanations
Researcher Jacques Vallée describes a procedure on board the USS Engstrom (DE-50), which was docked alongside the Eldridge in 1943. The operation involved the generation of a powerful electromagnetic field on board the ship in order to deperm or degauss it, with the goal of rendering the ship undetectable or "invisible" to magnetically fused undersea mines and torpedoes. This system was invented by a Canadian, Charles F. Goodeve, when he held the rank of commander in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, and the Royal Navy and other navies used it widely during WWII. British ships of the era often included such degaussing systems built into the upper decks (the conduits are still visible on the deck of HMS Belfast (C35) in London, for example). Degaussing is still used today. However, it has absolutely no effect on visible light or radar. Vallée speculates that accounts of the USS Engstrom’s degaussing might have been garbled and confabulated in subsequent retellings, and that these accounts may have influenced the story of "The Philadelphia Experiment."
According to Vallée, a Navy veteran who served on board the USS Engstrom noted that the Eldridge might indeed have travelled from Philadelphia to Norfolk and back again in a single day at a time when merchant ships could not: by use of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and the Chesapeake Bay, which at the time was open only to naval vessels. Use of that channel was kept quiet: German submarines had ravaged shipping along the East Coast during Operation Drumbeat, and thus military ships unable to protect themselves were secretly moved via canals to avoid the threat. This same veteran claims to be the man that Allende witnessed “disappearing” at a bar. He claims that when the fight broke out, friendly barmaids whisked him out the back door of the bar before the police arrived, because he was under age for drinking. They then covered for him by claiming that he had disappeared.
Read more about this topic: Philadelphia Experiment, Evidence
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