But, Gaddis continued, Jessup still felt there was a possibility that 'the writer was giving an exaggerated account of an actual occurrence. There were many classified experiments made during World War II. In 1943, research was in progress that led to the creation of the atomic bomb. It had been inspired by Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt. The "Unified Field" theory of this famed scientist could have been the basis for other, not so successful experimentation.'
If indeed the letter was a fabrication of some sort, then why the inclusion of so much detail with regard to names, places, and events? It is hardly usual for a hoaxer to go out of his way to provide his intended victim with the sort of details that might result in exposure of his hoax. Jessup was perplexed.
Finally, moved by an inexplicable sense of urgency and by the same curiosity that had motivated him the first time, Jessup answered the letter - this time by postcard
on which he noted that he considered it of 'the greatest importance' that Allende send him 'at once' evidence of any sort which would serve to support the strange allegations he had made.
As before, months passed without reply. Jessup, still busy with other matters, assumed the incident had finally been laid to rest, and after the first few weeks, he seldom thought about it.
Nearly five months later, however, Pandora's box opened again to disgorge yet another Allende missive - this one every bit as cryptic as the other two. The postmark read 'Dubois. Pennsylyania, May 25. 1956,' and the text (again courtesy of Dr Crabb) read as follows:
Carlos M. Allende
RF 1 Box 223 New Kensington, Pa.
Dear Mr Jessup:
Having recently gotten home from my long travels around the country I find that you had dropped me a card. You ask that I write you 'at once' and So after taking everything into consideration, I have decided to do so. You ask me for what is tantamount to positive proof of something that only the duplication of those devices that produced 'Ihis phenomenon' could ever give you, at least, were I of scientific bent, I presume that, were I of Such a Curiosity about something, the which has been produced from a theory that was discarded (1927) as incomplete, I am sure that I would be of such a dubiousness that I would Have to be shown those devices that produced such a curious interaction of Forces & Fields, in operation & their product Mr Jessup, I could NEVER possibly satisfy such an attitude. The reason being that I could not, Nor ever would the Navy Research Dept (Then under the present boss of the Navy, Burke) ever let it be known that any such thing was ever allowed to be done. For you see, It was because of Burke's Curiosity & Willingness & prompting that this experiment was enabled to be carried out. It proved a White-elephant but His attitude towards advanced & ultra-advanced types of research is just 'THE' THING that put him where he is today. (Or at least, to be sure, It carries a great weight). Were the stench of such an Experiments results EVER to come out, He too would be crucified.
However, I have noticed, that throo the ages, those who have had this happen to them, once the vulgar passions that caused the reaction have colled-off AND further research OPENLY carried on, that crucified ones achieve something akin to Saint hood. You say that this, 'is of the greatest importance'. I disagree with you Mr Jessup, not just whole Heartedly, but vehemently. However at the same time, your ideas & your own sort of curiosity is that of mine own sort and besides my disagreement is based upon philosophical Morality and not upon that curiosity which Drives Science so rapidly. I can be of some positive help to you in myself but to do so would require a Hypnotist, Sodium Pentathol, a tape recorder & an excellent typist-secretary in order to produce material of Real value to you.
As you know one who is hypnotized cannot Lie and one who is hypnotized AND given 'Truth serum' as it is collo-qually known, COULD NOT POSSIBLY LIE, AT ALL. To boot, My Memory would be THUS enabled to remember things in such great detail, things that my present consciousness cannot recall at all, or only barely and uncertainly that it would be of far greater benefit to use hypnosis. I could thus be enabled to not only Recall COMPLETE Names, but also addresses & telephone numbers AND perhaps the very important Z numbers of those sailors whom I sailed with them or even came into contact with. I could too, being something of a Dialectician, be able to thusly talk exactly as these witnesses talked and imitate or illustrate their Mannerisms & Habits of thought, thus your psychologists can figure IN ADVANCE the Surefire method of dealing Most Successfully with these. I could NOT do this with someone with whom I had not observed at length & these men, I lived with for about 6 months, so you are bound to get good to excellent results.
The mind does NOT ever forget, Not really, As you know. Upon this I suggest this way of doing this with Myself but further, the Latter usage of Myself in Mannerism & Thought pattern illustration is suggested in order that the Goal of inducing these Men to place themselves at & under your disposal (HYPNOTICALLY OR UNDER TRUTH SERUM) is a Goal, the Which could Have Far greater impact, due to corelation of Expieriences remembered Hypnotically by Men who have NOT seen or even written to each other, at all, for Nearly or over Ten years. In this, With such Men as Witnesses, giving, irreffutable testimony It is my belief that were, Not the Navy, but the Airforce, confronted with such evidence, (IE Chief of Research) there would be either an uproar or a quiet and determined effort to achieve SAFELY 'that which' the Navy failed at. They did NOT fail to, I hope you realize, achieve Metalic & organic invisibility nor did they fail to, unbesoughtedly, achieve transportation of thousands of tons of Metal & Humans at an eyes blink speed. Even though this latter effect of prolonged experimentation was (to them) The thing that caused them to consider the experiment as a failure, I BELIEVE THAT FURTHER EXPERIMENTS WOULD NATURALLY HAVE PRODUCED CONTROLLED TRANSPORT OF
GREAT TONNAGES AT ULTRA-FAST SPEEDS TO A DESIRED POINT THE INSTANT IT IS DESIRED throo usage of an area covered by: (1) those cargoes and (2) that 'Field' that could cause those goods, Ships or Ship parts (MEN WERE TRANSPORTED AS WELL) to go to another Point. Accidentally & to the embarrassed perplexity of the Navy THIS HAS ALREADY HAPPENED TO A WHOLE SHIP, CREW & ALL. I read of this AND of THE OFF-BASE AWOL ACTIVITIES OF THE crew-Men who were at the time invisible in a Philadelphia NEWSPAPER. UNDER NARCO-HYPNOSIS I CAN BE ENABLED TO DIVULGE THE NAME, DATE & SECTION & PAGE NUMBER of that Paper & the other one. Thus this papers 'Morgue' will divulge EVEN MORE POSITIVE PROOF ALREADY PUBLISHED of this experiment. The name of the REPORTER who skeptically covered & wrote of these incidents (OF THE RESTAURANT-BARROOM RAID WHILE INVISIBLE & AND OF THE SHIPS SUDDEN AWOL) AND WHO INTERVIEWED the Waitresses CAN THUS BE FOUND, thus HIS and the Waitresses testimony can be added to the Records. Once on this track, I believe That you can
uncover CONSIDERABLY MORE evidence to sustain this,--(what would you call
it— SCANDAL or DISCOVERY?) You would Need a Dale Carneigie to Maneuver these folks into doing just what you wish. It would be cheaper than paying everyone of all these witnesses & Much more Ethical. The Idea Is, to the Layman type of person, utterly ridiculous. However, can you remember, all by yourself, the Date of a
Newspaper in which you saw an interesting item more than 5 years ago? Or recall names of Men, their phone #s that you saw in 1943-44.
I do hope you will consider this plan. You will Progress as Not possible in any other way. Of course, I realize that you would need a Man Who can cause people to want to have fun, to play with Hypnotism, one that can thusly those he-you need to: #1 come to His Demonstration & thus call on them to be either or both 'Honored' as Helping with the show' & for doing Him a Great favor, &/or being part of the act for the mite of a small fee He would HAVE to be a Man of such an adroit ingenuity at Manufacturing a plausable story on the-instant-he-sizes-up-his-' personality-to be dealt with THAT had cost PLENTY. The ability to convince people of an outright Lie as being the absolute truth would be one of his prime prerequisites. (Ahem.) Yes, some such skulduggery would have to be thought well out & done. THE ULTIMATE END WILL BE A TRUTH TOO HUGE, TOO FANTASTIC, TO NOT BE TOLD. A WELL FOUNDED TRU
TH, BACKED UP BY UNOBFUSCA-TIVE PROOF POSITIVE. I would like to find where it is that these Sailors live NOW. It is known that some few people can somehow tell you a mans name & His Home address UNDER HYPNOSIS EVEN THOUGH JSIEVER HAVING EVER MET OR SEEN THE PERSON. These folks have a very high or just a high PSI factor in their makeup that can be intensified under stress or strain OR that usually is intensified under extreme fright. It can also be RE-intensified by Hypnosis, thus is like reading from the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Even though that Barroom-Restaurant Raid was staged by invisible or partly invisible men, those men CAN SEE EACH OTHER THUS NAMES, In the excitement, were sure to have been Mentioned, whether last or first Names or Nicknames. A check of the Naval Yards Dispensories or Hospital of aid stations or prison RECORDS of that particular day that the Barroom-Restaurant occurred May reveal the EXACT NAMES OF PRECISELY WHO WERE THE MEN, THEIR SERVICE SERIAL NUMBERS & THUS THE INFORMATION ON WHERE THEY ARE FROM BE SECURED & by adroit 'Maneuvuerings' of those still at Home, THE NAME OF THE PLACE where they are at present can be secured.
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACTUALLY SPEAK TO (or some of THE MEN) A MAN WHO WAS ONCE AN INVISIBLE HUMAN BEING? (MAY BECOME SO IN FRONT OF YOUR VERY EYES IF HE TURNS-OFF HIS HIP SET) Well, all this fantastically Preposterous sort of rubbish will be necessary, Just to do that, the Hypnotist-psychologist & all that. Maybe I suggest something too thorough & too Methodical for your taste but then, I, as first subject, Don't care to be Hypnotized at all, But too, feel that certain pull of curiosity about this thing that, to me, is irresistable. I want to crack this thing wide open. My reasons are simply to enable more work to be done upon this 'Field Theory'.
I am a star-gazer Mr Jessup. I make no bones about this and the fact that I feel that IF HANDLED PROPERLY, I.E. PRESENTED TO PEOPLE AND SCIENCE IN THE PROPER PSYCHOLOGICALLY EFFECTIVE MANNER, I feel sure that Man will go where He now dreams of being - to the stars via the form of transport that the Navy accidentally stumbled upon (to their embarrassment) when their EXP SHIP took off
& popped-up a minute or so later on several Hundred sea travel-trip miles away at another of its Berths in the Chesapeake Bay area. I read of this in another newspaper & only by Hypnosis could any man remember all the details of which
paper, date of occurance & etc., you see? Eh. Perhaps already, the Navy has used this accident of transport to build your UFO's. It is a logical advance from any standpoint. What do you think???
VERY RESPECTFULLY Carl Allen
Hypnosis? Truth serum? UFO propulsion systems? It is certainly not too difficult to imagine the thoughts which must have raced through Jessup's mind after reading this one. Had he somehow stumbled on to one of the biggest stories of the decade, or was he being set up as the patsy for for one of its most elaborate hoaxes?
But if Jessup had been perplexed up to this point, it was nothing compared to what was soon to follow. For as he pondered what his reaction should be to this latest development, even stranger events were beginning to unfold elsewhere.
CHAPTER THREE
THE NAVY TAKES NOTE
Had the story ended here, it seems almost certain that Dr Jessup would have been more than happy to write off the entire matter of these strange letters as the ravings of a crackpot. Several people who knew him agree that in spite of his earlier interest in the matter, he had finally arrived at the very comfortable conclusion that the letters were just too fantastic to put much stock in.
Although it is not known whether Jessup ever bothered to answer the third letter or not, it seems safe to assume that if he eventually did it was probably just to hedge his bet. But whether he answered or not is in itself relatively unimportant to what follows. What is known is that Jessup was much too busy trying to drum up support for another expedition to Mexico to run down fantastic stories about disappearing ships and invisible crews. His immediate goal was obviously to get another look at those craters.
It was, in fact, with this objective in mind that he wrote the following to Gray Barker, one of his less mysterious correspondents, late in 1956:
Of course, you know of my interests in Mexico, and they have suddenly and unexpectedly come to life: (1) Some commercial interests are probably taking me to Mexico on a preliminary survey for minerals under the meteor craters; and (2) it seems very likely that the government may finance an expedition through the sponsorship oi the Univ. of Michigan. On the first, I would leave, probably about Dec. lO, for a five-week trip. On the second, it mignt materialize about April 1 (1957) and last for at least five months—as yet no contracts have been signed.
Although, unfortunately, both of these 'opportunities' later fell through, Jessup was at this point in an exultant state of mind, and a high degree of expectation and anticipation is evident in his letters. Coupling this with the fact that he was working on what he considered to be another major book, (The Expanding Case for the UFO), it is not hard to understand why he would be tempted to postpone
consideration of less pressing matters, and among these would certainly have been the Allende letters. Perhaps when he had more time and wanted something to do he would look into them - but for now, they would keep.
However, in spite of Jessup's confident belief that the letters were a dead issue, things that he had no immediate way of knowing about or controlling were beginning to take place - a series of extremely curious coincidences.
It should be noted here in all fairness that there are several accounts of the story that follows - all differing from one another to a greater or lesser degree depending upon how far from the original sources they managed to stray before being written down by an interested party. Having taken all of this into account, we have attempted to reconstruct the version that follows from what appear to be the most reliable of the sources of information. In so doing, firsthand accounts from those who knew Jessup personally have been given greater weight over versions which are obviously secondhand or thirdhand.
This part of the story appears to have had its beginnings in late July or early August 1955 - which, if this date is accurate, is at least several months before Jessup received the first of his series of perplexing letters from Allende. In any event, it all began with a manila envelope addressed to 'Admiral N. Furth, Chief, Office of Naval Research, Washington 25. D.C.,' which, we are told, was included in the incoming correspondence of one Major Darrell L. Ritter, USMC Aeronautical Project Officer at ONR (Office of Naval Research). This envelope was postmarked 'Seminole, Texas, 1955' and across the face of it had been scrawled the words 'Happy Easter' in ink. Inside, without return address or letter of explanation, was a paperback copy of Morris Jessup's The Case for the UFO. Upon opening the book, Ritter saw that it had been heavily marked up with handwritten annotations and underlinings of a most perplexing sort written in at least three different colours of ink - annotations which seemed to imply that the writer of them possessed intimate knowledge of UFOs, their means of propulsion, origin, background, and history. The book itself was well worn, and whoever was responsible for this work had apparently spent a great amount of time doing it.
Admiral Furth himself does not appear to have been interested in such unsigned rubbish - if indeed he was ever shown the book at all - but Major Ritter seems to have regarded it as something of an interesting curiosity. At least it appears to have been thanks to him that the book was not instantly thrown away. Ritter most likely kept the book himself when he saw that Furth wasn't interested, and must have spent much of his spare time going through it. His immediate reactions to what he found are not recorded, but reading the book along with its collection of bizarre annotations must have left him in a state of wonderment.
The annotations seemed to be explanations of the mysterious disappearances of ships, planes, and people, discussed in Jessup's books, many of the incidents taking place within the area of the mysterious 'Bermuda Triangle'. Further, they elaborated, sometimes in considerable detail, upon the origin of the many 'odd storms and clouds, objects falling from the sky, strange marks and footprints, and
other matters' which Jessup had written about. Mentioned also was the construction
of undersea cities in connection with two groups of presumably extraterrestrial creatures referred to as 'the L-M's' and 'the S M's,' only one of which (the 'L-M's') was to be regarded as friendly. In addition, odd terms - mothership, home ship, dead ship, great ark, great bombardment, great return, great war, little-men, force fields, deep freezes, measure markers, scout ships, magnetic fields, gravity fields, sheets of diamond, cosmic rays, force cutters, inlay work, clear talk, telepathing, nodes, vortices, magnetic net - were found throughout the various handwritten annotations.
It is quite possible that Major Ritter, who knew of the emphasis being placed on antigravity research by the military at the time, felt that perhaps he had stumbled upon some sort of a clue to the matter. But whatever his motives, we can be certain that it was he who preserved the book because it was from his hands that Commander George W. Hoover, ONR's Special Projects Officer, together with Captain Sidney Sherby, a newcomer to the ONR, received the book a few months later, after they had expressed an interest in it. Both of these men were deeply involved in the Navy's then current Project Vanguard, the code name for America's efforts to develop its first earth satellite, and were interested in antigravity research as well.
The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility Page 4