'Why,' he was asked, 'did Jessup kill himself?' Valentine's answer was unexpected and startling. 'If he committed suicide,' said Valentine, 'it was probably due to extreme depression. He had been approached by the Navy to continue working on the Philadelphia Experiment or similar projects but had declinedf! ] - he was worried about its dangerous ramifications ... perhaps he could have been saved. He was still alive when he was found ... Perhaps he was allowed to die.'
Valentine stated that Jessup had researched the question of the Philadelphia Experiment 'pretty thoroughly.' 'You must remember,' he observed, 'that he was not a "crank" writer, but a distinguished and famous scientist.' Valentine recollects Jessup telling him some very strange things about what he had learned concerning this incredible project. The experiment, he said, had been accomplished by using naval-type magnetic generators, known as degaussers, which were 'pulsed' at resonant frequencies so as to 'create a tremendous magnetic field on and around a docked vessel.'
Dr Valentine is of the opinion that Jessup was well informed about the actuality of the Philadelphia Experiment and had had several conferences with Navy officers and Navy-employed scientists on the subject. He once observed to Valentine: 'The experiment is very interesting but awfully dangerous. It is too hard on the people involved. This use of magnetic resonance is tantamount to temporary obliteration in our dimension but it tends to get out of control. Actually it is equivalent to transference of matter into another level or dimension and could represent a dimensional breakthrough if it were possible to control it.'
It is highly significant to note that Valentine's account of the experiment, based on information received directly from Dr Jessup, agreed almost totally with Allende's in that the results of the experiment were 'astonishing' but that the crew suffered severe after-effects. 'When the experiment first began to take effect,' Valentine recounted, 'a hazy green light became evident, something like the reports we have from the survivors of incidents in the Triangle who tell of a luminous green mist. Soon the whole ship was full of this green haze and the craft, together with its personnel, began disappearing from sight of those on the dock until only its waterline was visible.' Valentine said that before his death, Jessup believed he was 'on the verge of discovering the scientific basis for whatever was happening.' The explanation, he felt, was to be found in Einstein's Field Theory.
In practice,' Valentine said, 'it concerns electric and magnetic fields as follows: An electric field created in a coil induces a magnetic field at right angles to the first; each of these fields represents one plane of space. But since there are three planes of space, there must be a third field, perhaps a gravitational one. By hooking up electromagnetic generators so as to produce a magnetic pulse, it might be possible to produce this third field through the principle of resonance. Jessup told me that he thought that the U.S. Navy had inadvertently stumbled on this.'
Although only a small section of The Bermuda Triangle dealt with this topic, the appearance of Dr Valentine's story created a veritable bombshell, the results of which have yet to subside. Did it really happen? According to Valentine's report about what Dr Jessup told him then, the evidence seems strongly suggestive. In any event, public pressure on the U.S. Navy for information about the affair has led to the creation of a standard form letter (see plate section) which is mailed out routinely to any and all who inquire, and it has been estimated that as much as $2 million has been spent trying to put out the fire sparked by the legend.
One officer succinctly summed up the Navy's problem in dealing with the mounting tide of inquiries by stating that he wished Allende were invisible.
In an apparent effort to throw some cold water on the affair. Official UFO magazine published a feature article in its April 1976 issue written by someone calling himself B. R. Strong who claimed to be a close friend of A.P.R.O. consultant and researcher Kevin D. Randle. Although the story is fairly well written, it is basically a put-down which relies rather heavily on Allende's 'A.P.R.O. confession' coupled with the somewhat one-sided testimony of Captain Sherby, whom Strong reported Randle had found and interviewed at Varo. The article says nothing new. and in fact Allende himself says that several of the statements included in it are nothing but 'damn lies.' The fact that the Bermuda Triangle account is not mentioned at all in the article is not particularly significant, since the article may have been written beforehand.
The subject came up again in Berlitz' recent book. Without a Trace:
Toward the middle of April, 1959, lessup told Valentine that he had reached what he considered to be some definite conclusions about the series of reactions implied by the Philadelphia Experiment and had prepared a rough draft he wished to discuss. Dr Valentine suggested that he come to dinner. The invitation was for the evening of April 20.
He never came to dinner. At some time before 6:30 P.M., Jessup. according to police reports, drove his car to Matheson's Hammock, a Dade County park ... and apparently committed suicide—No notes or manuscript were mentioned in the police report, nor, according to a statement by a witness later given to Dr Valentine, were any found inside the car.
Berlitz goes on to say in relation to the Philadelphia Experiment itself that 'a number of persons in and out of the Navy profess to remember the incident and are even willing to furnish more detailed information about it, except that they are unwilling to be quoted by name' - a situation with which all investigators of this mystery can fully sympathize.
But supposing that such an experiment had been planned and attempted - could it have, even partially, succeeded? An examination of the scientific theory involved might offer a possible solution.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE EINSTEIN CONNECTION
If we are to believe the testimony of both Carlos Allende and Dr Valentine as previously set forth, then the foundations of the Philadelphia Experiment project are to be discovered in a rather obscure and highly complicated scientific theory first set forth by Dr Albert Einstein and commonly known as the Unified Field Theory (UFT). Allende. in his second letter to Dr Jessup, begins by saying that Dr Einstein first published this theory in the period 1925-27, and that he then 'withdrew' it out of concern for what Allende refers to as 'humantics.' Although Allende does not specifically state just exactly what he means by this strange word 'humantics,' presumably what he is trying to say is that Dr Einstein was able to foresee certain possible applications of this theory which he came to fear might somehow be put to dangerous use. According to Allende, Einstein discussed these fears with his friend Bertrand Russell, and Lord Russell concurred.
Since Allende himself is not willing to divulge his source of information on this aspect of our topic, we are left with the alternatives of either pursuing the truth on our own, or accepting his word on the matter. Admittedly, trying to substantiate a statement such as this is no easy task even though the people involved are famous, but a reasonably thorough attempt to look into it was made and resulted in several interesting bits of information. Among them the following:
1. Dr Einstein did indeed complete a version of his 'Unified Field Theory for Gravitation and Electricity' in the period 1925-27. The results, published in German, appeared in Prussian scientific journals for 1925 and 1927. Allende is also correct in stating that this work was 'withdrawn' as incomplete, although no published reason is given save that Dr Einstein was not satisfied with it as it stood. Significantly, the theory did not reappear until 1940, at a point after the basically pacifistic Dr Einstein had already become convinced that the Nazi menace must be destroyed at all costs and that warfare was morally justifiable under such circumstances. Also, evidence which we will deal with strongly indicates that 1940 was the year that the Navy first began working on the project which developed into the Philadelphia Experiment.
2. Einstein was indeed friendly with Bertrand Russell, especially in the period after World War II, and frequently discussed pacifism with him. Both men had a horror of mankind's disturbing tendency to use scientific developments for
purposes of selfdestruction, and both devoted a substantial portion of their efforts and personal finances to the cause of world peace.
Allende wrote that Lord Russell considered Einstein's Unified Field Theory complete, but felt that 'Man is not ready for it and shan't be until after World War III,' and that Einstein's judgment of man's 'progress compared with the growth of [his]... character was enough to horrify him.' These statements are most interesting in light of the actual facts concerning these two men and their attitudes towards humanity and world peace. Banesh Hoffmann and Helen Dukas (who was Einstein's personal secretary), for example, report the following in their book Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel:
... when the bomb was exploded over Hiroshima his worst fears were realized. His horror of the bomb, whether in dictatorial or democratic hands, weighed heavily on his conscience. Not because he had written urgently to Roosevelt in 1939, when he feared the Nazis would develop the weapon first and then control the world. Not because, in all innocence, he had propounded the formula E=mc2 in 1907. Not for these reasons, but because ... he felt a moral obligation to use his influence to the utmost to try to save mankind from horrors that, despite Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it did not yet comprehend.
Certainly it is not too far out of line to presume that he had the same feeling about the even more horrifying potentials of his Unified Field Theory.
As for Lord Russell, at least one of his biographers (Roland Clark) reports that he somehow was permitted to see a highly secret British intelligence report on 'new weapon developments' immediately following World War II, and that what he read shocked him so deeply that he was moved to press for a 'manifesto for world peace' which he hoped would eventually be signed by every prominent thinker on earth. Einstein agreed to sign such a document just before he died.
Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer, often referred to as the 'godfather of the atomic bomb' had, like Einstein, considerable doubts about its morality, although it is unknown whether he felt impelled at any tone to cease or destroy research that seemed to go too far. But one recalls his thoughts as he saw the first bomb exploded at Alamogordo in 1945. A passage from the ancient Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, immediately came to his mind:
If the radiance of a thousand suns
were to burst at once in the sky,
That would be like the splendor
of the Mighty One ... I am become Death
The destroyer of worlds.
The notion that Einstein destroyed papers before his death is also an interesting one, although never substantiated beyond the rumour stage. One such story has it that some months before his death Einstein had burned papers relating to some of his more advanced theories on the grounds that the world wasn't ready for such things and would be better off without them. Presumably these had something to do with his conclusions regarding his Unified Field Theory and the possible practical applications of the same.
3. In 1943, during the time Allende states he witnessed a manifestation of the Philadelphia Experiment at sea, Dr Einstein was employed by the U.S. Navy as a scientific consultant, osentibly for the Bureau of Ordnance. Records of the Office of the General Services Administration in St Louis show that Einstein was employed 'intermittently in a Special Services Contract of the Department of the Navy, Washington, D.C. as a scientist from May 31, 1943 to June 30, 1944.'
Einstein's own comments on this association are sketchy, but interesting. In July
1943, Clark quotes him as having written to his friend Gustav Buckley that 'so long as the war lasts and I work for the Navy, I do not wish to begin anything else.' In August he again wrote to Buckley, saying he had developed 'closer relations to the Navy Office of Scientific Research and Development in Washington.' That same month, Dr Vannevar Bush appointed him to 'a committee where it seemed ... his particular skills would be most likely to be of .service.' Neither the exact nature of this 'committee' nor the skills involved have ever been disclosed.
An inquiry to Dr Otto Nathan, Einstein's financial adviser and executor of his estate in New York, concerning the extent of Dr Einstein's involvement with the Navy produced a confusing response. 'Einstein,' he said,'... became a consultant to the Navy's Bureau of Ordinance [sic] in 1943 and, as far as we know, terminated his work with the Navy quite some time before the end of the War—In case you are interested in more details we suggest you communicate with the Navy Department in Washington. Since Einstein's work was in no way secret they may be in a position to give you more information about the consulting work he did which we were unable to obtain [from them] when we prepared [our] volume for publication.' If the reader is confused, he should be; for the very same sentence that tells us that Einstein's work for the Navy was 'in no way secret' goes right on to explain that the Navy wasn't willing to talk about it!
Memories of persons allegedly employed in the project and of others engaged in protecting or watching Einstein at this time offer additional information both fascinating and disquieting. There was, for example, a Miss Blake, a second secretary stationed between the entrance of Einstein's Princeton office and the office of Dr Oswald Weblen, a mathematician, whose function ostensibly was to make appointments, although her employers, presumably Princeton, seem to have had no record of her employment. It may be, therefore, that she was employed by a government agency not only to protect Einstein, but to note his visitors and contacts.
It also appears that Einstein not only was involved with the project's equations but was in actual contact with the experiment itself.
According to one report, when the first test 'misfired' Navy officials brought Einstein personally to the site and, in a sort of scientific confrontation which might be expressed by - 'Now you've seen what happens - what have we done wrong?' proceeded to re-evaluate the experiment through on-the-spot advice. While Einstein was absent from Princeton, a double was assigned to occupy his office, duly checked and observed by Miss Blake, who may or may not have been aware of the substitution.
4. What of the Unified Field Theory itself? It is virtually impossible to discuss it in nontechnical terms, but the general thrust of the theory is to explain mathematically by means of a single set of equations (presumably from which a scientific law could be derived) the interrelationships among the three basic universal forces: electromagnetic, gravitational and nuclear. (Interestingly, in 1974 the simultaneous discovery in New York and California of two elementary particles of matter, known as J or psi particles, seems to suggest that there may be a fourth 'weak' universal force which could be related to gravity in the same way that electricity is related to magnetism. Whether such a 'field' would be interdimensional or 'time-related' is not yet known.) Anyhow presuming that such a theory could be completely developed, it would also have to incorporate light, radio waves, pure magnetism, X-rays» and even matter itself into its final equations. The enormous complexity of such a problem can be envisioned when one considers that Einstein spent the greater part of his life in pursuit of just such a goal, and, in later years,
frequently was heard to complain that he did not have enough mathematics to complete the task.
As early as 1916, Einstein was busy exploring the possibility that gravity is not really a 'force' at all, but rather one of the observable properties of 'space-time' itself - the force that underlies and governs all of the other forces in what we consider to be 'our* universe. Going one step further, he speculated that what we know as substance, or 'matter,' is in reality only a local phenomenon exhibited by areas of extreme field-energy concentration. In more simple terms, he chose to view matter as a product of energy rather than the reverse, and in so doing dared to reject the longstanding concept that the two are separate entities that exist side by side.
During the next thirty-nine years, until his death in 1955 at the age of seventy-six, he continued to refine this concept, occasionally altering his point of view, but never altering his basic premise that gravity could be mathematically proved to be directly related to other forms of energy -principall
y electromagnetism. Taking this concept to its logical conclusion (with apologies for the gross oversimplification necessary to make a point): Since it is demonstrable that electricity can readily be obtained from a magnetic field (the principle of the common electrical generator) and that magnetic fields can be easily derived from electrical ones (industrial electromagnets, for example) then it logically follows that if gravity is related to these it should be possible to obtain (or nullify) a gravitational field through some sort of interaction with either one, or both, of the other two.
Virtually every advantage of our twentieth-century way of life, from automobiles to toasters and microwave ovens, is based on our having learned, in the final years of the last century, how to make the interactions between electricity and magnetism work for us as a source of power. Up to this point, however, we are told that any demonstrable relationship of the third side of this triangle to the other two has largely eluded us.
Even more than twenty years after Einstein's death, much of his life's work still remains largely incomprehensible to even the most brilliant scholars. In general, orthodox science in the 1970s does tend to recognize a loose linking or 'coupling effect' of some sort between electromagnetic and gravitational forces, but few scientists have speculated that this coupling effect is at all applicable. Officially that is the case, although one suspects that some significant advances in this area still remain hidden under the awesome phrase 'Top Secret.' (The authors, for example, have seen a most interesting study dealing with the possibility of generating 'gravitational rays' using laser technology and using these virtually undetectable rays to transmit intelligence from one point to another.)
The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility Page 9