Einstein viewed the universe as an orderly and coherent creation. He was unable to believe that the physical laws governing God's perfection could possibly be a chaotic collection of equations bearing only the remotest of relationships to one another. 'God,' he said, 'does not play dice with the world.' Hence, the forces of the universe must represent an orderly, coherent whole which, if the proper techniques
are employed, can be portrayed to a greater or lesser extent in mathematical terms.
Interestingly enough, Einstein stood nearly alone in the pursuit of this goal. Today most scientists are far too concerned with the press of experimental research to bother with the rigorous mental gymnastics necessary to explore the underlying fundamentals of the Unified Field Theory -not to mention the fact that the task is appallingly difficult and time-consuming and frequently not very rewarding. It is, alas, one of the hard realities of scientific life that research resulting in usable 'hardware' tends to be more profitable than research which leads only to theories. Even further complicating the task is the fact that many scientists today feel that Einstein was pursuing a nonexistent goal in trying to obtain order from chaos. (Indeed, Wolfgang Pauli, a physicist who gave up working in Unified Field physics, is said to have quipped as a reflection of his disgust: 'What God has put asunder, let no man put together.')
Exactly how successful Einstein was may never be known, since so few are able to comprehend exactly what he was up to when he died. If the Philadelphia Experiment did manage to confirm some of his theoretical positions, that knowledge has been so suppressed that even today his concepts of a Unified Field Theory are regarded more as goal than as actual theory. This in spite of the fact that less than two years before his death Einstein announced what he referred to as 'highly convincing' results in his quest to find a mathematical proof of the connection between the forces of electromagnetism and gravity. Keeping in mind Allende's statements concerning the completeness of Einstein's Unified Field Theory in 1925, it is significant to note that this last theory was really a very close cousin to that earlier version which Allende says was 'withdrawn' for reasons of 'humantics.'
The thrust of this theory was a string of sixteen incredibly complex quantities (represented by an advanced type of mathematical shorthand known as tensor equations), ten combinations of which represented gravitation and the remaining six electromagnetism. According to those who have studied the revised version, there is no satisfactory way to explain this final theory in simple terms, since it is so intensely mathematical in its concepts. And, as if to add to the problem, Einstein himself stated that his equations were not necessarily in their final form, thus making the task of trying to reconstruct his effort doubly difficult. One thing that does emerge, interestingly, is the concept that a pure gravitational field can exist without an electromagnetic field, but a pure electromagnetic field cannot exist without an accompanying gravitational field.
Little of any consequence has been added to Einstein's calculations since his final revision in 1953; and indeed it may be a good many more years before anything is added, since there is no easy way of solving the equations involved. Experimental work which bypasses equations in favour of results is either kept secret or ignored, and computers are of only limited help, since they are not designed to solve problems of such an abstract nature.
Possibly of interest at this point, however, is a tiny 'filler' item from an April, 1956 edition of The New York Times, which reported that a Dr Parvis Marat, physicist from the University of Maryland, had 'partly confirmed the late Dr Albert Einstein's famous Unified Field Theory,' and that 'Einstein's newest and most radical theory had come through one stage of critical tests with flying colours.' The nature of those 'critical tests' remained undisclosed.
But however interesting theoretical findings may be, it takes demonstrated practical results to really raise eyebrows. Were these results obtained and the accompanying eyebrows raised as far back as 1943 when the Navy tried to utilize some of the principles we have just discussed to create and perhaps to teleport the invisible ship Allende claimed to have witnessed? Did the experiment somehow go wrong and produce unexpectedly disastrous results - perhaps results of a type which, if we can believe the statements made to Davis and Huse in Colorado, may even have led to contact with aliens from another world?
Was Allende correct when he hinted in the closing words of his final letter to Dr Jessup that the results of the Navy's secret experimentation might have something to do with UFO propulsion? Or was it all merely a 'mirage' of some sort - perhaps one of those elusive 'ghost' ships that seem to appear and disappear at will out of the ocean mists?
Our search for the answer takes us next to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ELUSIVE ARCHIVES
One of the biggest problems that can confront a researcher is that of trying to verify information. If Allende's strange tale is true - if indeed the DE 173 did become invisible as he says it did, and if the experiment was witnessed from the deck of the S.S. Andrew Furuseth - then, failing a knowledge of the actual name of the project, perhaps one of the best ways to try to learn more about it is to check out the available government archives on the ships involved. Once again, however, what began as an honest effort to discredit the tale ended with the uncovering of facts which seem to do just the opposite.
To begin with, there appear to be not one but two S.S. Andrew Furuseths. The first, an ore carrier in the Pacific which is apparently still operating, can be effectively eliminated from our investigation, since it was not in service until after World War II. The second, a Liberty Ship, checks out remarkably well with Allende's information.
The name Andrew Furuseth was actually suggested to the United States Maritime Commission as a name for a ship by the Seamen's Union of the Pacific in July 1942 as an appropriate honour to that organization's founder and longtime president.
The ship itself was launched in October of that same year as Hull No. 491 at Yard No. 1 of the Pennanente Metals Division of Kaiser Industries at Richmond, Calif.
True to Allende's statement to Jessup, shortly after launch the ship was leased to the Matson Navigation Company of San Francisco - a company which was to operate her for the next four years. On October 19 she steamed from that city bound for a five-month tour of duty that was to take her well into the Pacific war zone. March 1943, however, found her at the Pacific Island of Luganville facing orders to transfer to the Atlantic as a much-needed replacement on the dangerous supply run to North Africa. Matson records indicate that the long trip to and through the Canal was begun on March 14, and that the Furuseth finally arrived in New York Harbour on May 6. Twenty-two days later, after a brief overhaul, the Furuseth departed New York in convoy for Oran, Algeria, where she arrived safely on June 17.
After calling at Mosteganem and Gibraltar, she again arrived in New York on July 23 for another three-week stay. On August 13, 1943, the Furuseth left New York to begin a trip down the coast to the Norfolk-Newport News port facilities to load for another trip across the Atlantic. It is here that we begin to become interested in her, for one of the newly assigned members of the deck crew is a young man fresh out of seamen's school who signs on under the name of Carl M. Allen. Of particular interest is the fact that rather than sailing along with the Furuseth on the short voyage down the coast, he receives permission to join the ship at Norfolk, and so makes the journey overland - a trip which results in his stopping in Philadelphia for an overnight on the way. He arrived in the Norfolk Harbour vicinity on the morning of the 16th in time to join the Furuseth before she left Newport News at 10:18 A.M. on her third voyage as part of a convoy bound for Casablanca.
October 4 finds the Furuseth again docking at Newport News for repairs and reloading - a process which takes until October 25. On that date she again departs for North Africa (this time for Oran), and again a Carl M. Allen is listed among the crew. The ship reached port safely on November 12, and did not return to an Americ
an port again until January 17, 1944. A few days later, the crew member calling himself Carl M. Allen left the Furuseth for the final time. He was eventually to transfer to the deck crew of another ship - the S.S. Newton D. Baker.
As for the DE 173, better known as the destroyer escort U.S.S. Eldridge, the official records indicate that the ship had a rather uneventful history. Information in these records indicates that the Eldridge was laid down on February 22. 1943. at Federal Shipbuilding and Drydocks. Newark, N.J., and that she had a length of 306 feet and a displacement of 1,240 tons standard and 1.520 tons full load. Some five months later, on July 25, we are told that the ship was launched. The official commissioning ceremony took place on August 27 at the New York Navy Yard, at which time Lieutenant Charles R. Hamilton. U.S.N.R., took command.
Quoting from the ship's history as recorded by the Department of the Navy:
Wasting no time in getting to the task in hand, U.S.S. Eldridge during the month of September, combined escort duty with shakedown operations in the Bermuda, British West Indies, area. She continued in this duty until December 28, when she took time out for a three day training period in the vicinity of Block Island. From the Block Island area she proceeded down the coast to Hampton Roads, Virginia, there to await her first overseas escort assignment. After brief escort and patrol missions which took her into the Chesapeake Bay during the first week of January 1944, the ship headed out across the Atlantic as one of the escort units to a large convoy of merchant ships----
Between January 4, 1944 and May 9,1945, Eldridge sailed on the vital task of escorting to the Mediterranean men and materials to support allied operations in North Africa and on into Southern Europe. She made nine voyages to deliver convoys safely to Casablanca, Bizerte and Oran.
Following service in the Atlantic, the Eldridge was transferred to the Pacific, where she remained until the end of the war. Upon returning to New York, she was placed out of commission on June 17,1946, and remained in reserve until January 5, 1951, when she was sold under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program to Greece. There she was renamed the Leon ('Lion'), and may be still in service.
All of which sounds so officially normal that one would hardly be motivated to look any further into the matter if it were not for Allende's story about the ship.
However, upon subsequent examination in light of Allende's story, this neat, official history of the Eldridge shows signs of considerable patching and doctoring.
To begin at the beginning: If the Eldridge and the S.S. Furuseth could be shown to have been in the same place on even as little as one single date during the period that Carl M. Allen was a crew member of the Furuseth, then at the very least an air of possibility is added to his story. On the other hand, if no such similarity of positions can be shown, then Allende's tale is seriously (and perhaps fatally) damaged. The first hint that all was not as it should be came when Moore attempted to check this aspect of the mystery by trying to obtain copies of the logbooks of the two ships in question. The result of such a request was the surprising discovery that (1) the deck logs of the Eldridge for the period from date of commission (August 27,1943) through December 1, 1943, were 'missing and therefore unavailable'; and (2) the logbooks of the Furuseth had been 'destroyed by executive order' and thus no longer exist.
Since the only period of time in the history of these two ships which is of any interest to this investigation is that time during which Allende served aboard the
S.S. Furuseth - i.e., from about August 13, 1943 through about January 30, 1944
— the next step was to attempt to arrive at certain sketchy and purely tentative conclusions by falling back upon an examination of information available and already in hand. Such an examination seemed to indicate the following.
According to records still in possession of the Matson Navigation Company, the Furuseth made two complete voyages to North Africa in this time period: the first beginning on August 13, 1943, when the Furuseth left New York to sail down the coast to Norfolk and from there on to North Africa; and the second beginning on October 25, 1943, when she sailed from Lynhaven Roads, Virginia (Norfolk area), bound for Oran, Algeria. The first voyage did not begin for Allende until August 16, when he joined ship at Norfolk after spending a weekend in Philadelphia. The second ended with the arrival of the Furuseth at Hampton Roads on January 17,
1944, and his leaving the ship a few days later.
According to the Navy Department's official history of the Eldridge, that ship was launched July 25, 1943, at Newark, New Jersey, and commissioned August 27,1943, at New York Navy Yard. Her shakedown cruise began early in September, took place in the area of Bermuda, British West Indies, and lasted until December 28. These same records indicate that her first overseas voyage began on January 4,1944, and ended on February 15 with her arrival in New York Harbour.
If we are to base our conclusions on this material, then the two ships do not appear to have been in each other's vicinity at all during this time period. But is this information reliable? The mysterious unavailability of the ships' logbooks casts certain doubts upon it, but is hardly enough to seriously discredit the records. The mystery was no nearer a solution than it was before.
The first missing piece that fitted into the puzzle came quite unexpectedly with the uncovering of a previously classified bit of information about the Eldridge which seemed to discredit the official histories completely. The document in question was a report on Antisubmarine Action by Surface Ship filed by the commander of the Eldridge on December 14, 1943, in accordance with fleet regulations, and concerned an action which took place on November 20 in the North Atlantic. According to official histories, the Eldridge was operating on a shakedown cruise in the vicinity of Bermuda from early Steptember until late December 1943. and her first overseas voyage began on January 4, 1944. According to the action report filed by ship's commander, Lieutenant C. R. Hamilton, the Eldridge dropped seven depth charges against a suspected enemy submarine shortly after 1:30 P.M. local time on the afternoon of November 20, 1943, while steaming westward (towards the United States) in escort of convoy UGS 23. The position of the Eldridge as listed in the report was latitude 34° 03' north and longitude 08° 57' west - a position which places the ship barely 200 miles off the coast of Casablanca, North Africa, and some 3,000 miles from Bermuda!
Then a second piece of information began to complete the picture. While the missing deck logs of the Eldridge had still not turned up, the engineer's log had. While not containing much information related to the search, it did contain a record of the ship's positions for the dates in question, which were missing from the deck-log file. This and other documentation which came to light at about the same time showed that the Eldridge had indeed steamed out of port (Brooklyn) on November 2 to round up stragglers from convoy GUS 22 which had been knocked out of line by a late-season hurricane blowing up from the south in the last days of October. This was a valuable piece of information indeed, since the convoy in question was none other than the S.S. Furuseth's convoy, which had left Norfolk-Lynhaven Roads on October 25! And more important, the Furuseth, steaming along in the last rank of the convoy, is almost certain to have caught sight of the DE 173 as it mothered stragglers back into line. Furthermore, the Eld-ridge's reported position off Casablanca on November 20 seems to indicate that the Eldridge accompanied the Furuseth and her Gus 22 convoy all the way to North Africa (the convoy arrived there on November 12, remember), and was on her return trip home escorting UGS
23 when she encountered the submarine mentioned in the action report. Were it not for the discovery of this action report, which had been kept classified by the Navy for some thirty-four years, none of this would ever have come to light. But now, with the discovery of one glaring 'error' in the official histories, the question had rapidly become: Could there be others?
Clearly the Furuseth and the Eldridge were within sight of each other in a convoy operation on the way to Africa; but would it be logical for the Navy, or Navy scientis
ts, to risk attempting such a dangerous, daring, and obviously Top Secret experiment as electromagnetic invisibility under such circumstances and in full view of an entire convoy? It certainly doesn't seem likely. And then too, Allende seems to indicate explicitly that the experiments took place at dockside in Philadelphia and 'at sea' - presumably off the coast of the mainland. His dates - the latter part of October - coincide with the convoy operation, but the other circumstances do not; especially since the Eldridge steamed out of Brooklyn, not Philadelphia, to join GUS 22. In fact, nowhere in the ship's records for the period in question does it indicate that the Eldridge was ever even in or near the Philadelphia area - except during the time she was under construction at Newark. Note also that Allende tells Jessup that he read of the effects of the experiment on some of the ship's crew in an article which he says appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper. It does not appear that Allende (or Allen) was in Philadelphia in October 1943 either; but he was there in August - coincidentally at about the same time that the Eldridge was supposedly at Newark awaiting orders to transfer to New York for commissioning ceremonies. Yet in his letter he says he feels that the article he read appeared in a fall or winter edition of the paper rather than a summer issue. If we can chalk this final item up to the failings of human memory, then we might be able to make something of the remainder.
The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility Page 10