It was while pondering this problem that the final clues, important ones which appear to cast doubt on the official records, came to light. About this time Moore received a letter from a correspondent who was a former ship commander during the war, and who wrote that he was virtually certain he recalled the Eldridge putting in to Bermuda immediately following the first hurricane of the season in 1943 - a date which he feels would have had to have been in late July or early August of that year! The ship, he said, anchored near his own for a brief period of time and then put out to sea again almost immediately. The reason he recalled the incident, he said, was that the ship was flying no signal flags and made no effort to exchange greetings with his own.
Strange behaviour indeed; but even stranger is the fact that if this ship was the Eldridge, then its appearance in Bermuda took place only days after its launch at Newark -at a time when the final phases of the ship's construction would normally not yet be complete, and fully a month before the ship was even assigned a crew!
The only possible explanation for such an occurrence is that either the officer in question was mistaken, or the Eldridge was launched at Newark before July 25. Certainly the records of the American Navy make no such indications, but what about the Greeks? Here came yet another surprise, for according to the Greek records on the Eldridge (which must, of course, have been obtained from the
Americans) that ship was launched not on July 25, but on June 25 - a full thirty days earlier! Not only that, but the Greek records show that the Eldridge, when transferred to the Greek Navy in 1951, was rated at 1,240 tons displacment standard and 1,900 full load, a discrepancy of some 380 tons. According to one former Navy man, the only way for a ship to gain 380 tons of buoyancy is for something of that weight to have been removed from that ship before the time of its sale to the Greeks. Electronics equipment, perhaps?
The whole story now begins to come together. The Eldridge was launched on June 25 rather than July 25, she was ported in the Newark-Philadelphia area until the time of her transfer in August for the official commissioning; she was at sea at least as far as Bermuda in late July or the first few days of August; and her official history for the period up to January 4.1944, is almost certainly false!
Armed with this evidence, Moore confronted a contact who up to this point had been helpful in small things, but was suspected of knowing more than he was telling. This individual, who must of necessity go nameless, had been employed as a scientist in the Navy's radar programme during the war in a capacity which, had such a project as the Philadelphia Experiment ever occurred, almost certainly would have put him into contact with it. At Moore's urging, and confronted with the evidence above, he finally agreed to speak with the provision that he be guaranteed complete anonymity. He was, and his story follows:
Question: Commander, can you describe the procedure which was followed in obtaining an experimental ship for this project?
You must remember that in '43 ships were hard to come by for experimental purposes. Once the commissioning took place, a ship immediately became part of some admiral's war plans, and to shake it loose from those plans for experimental work was wellnigh impossible. Consequently the easiest, and in fact virtually the only, way to get a ship for use in such a project was to divert one into experimental work for a short period of time between launch and commissioning. Such a process was seldom easy and generally required a certain amount of maneuverings and manipula-tings in high places, but it could be, and in fact was done -provided, of course, that the scientists could convince the necessary brass that the project in question was of sufficient enough promise and importance to warrant it. Nonetheless, it was generally much easier to get a handle on a ship which was not yet assigned and still in the construction phases. There were generally fewer people here that had to be maneuvered around.
Question: Considering that the Manhattan Project was beginning to show marked progress by mid-1943 and was beginning to siphon off a large chunk of the funds available for military research, was 1943 a rather crucial year for a great many of the other Top Secret defence-oriented projects which were then also in progress?
From about 1943 on, attitudes about various experimental projects and ideas in the works began to take on a marked change. By this time there were those who began to see the end of the war in sight, and so the question for all work in progress became, 'Can you get it done before the end of the war so some use can be made of it?' Those teams who weren't sure of certain projects were urged to do some quick experimentation or testing so that they could be more certain of possible uses. If these couldn't be accomplished quickly or if results were still clouded, then a directive inevitably came down to the team in question to the effect that 'your time is perhaps more valuable on more important things.' Projects which had little hope of producing some immediately useful results were almost certain to be shelved 'for the duration.'
Question: Doesn't the very fact that a ship was obtained tend to indicate something about the importance with which this project was regarded by the military-scientific establishment?
I am not what you would call overly familiar with the project you have in question, but I believe what occurred was to the effect that 'if you can do a test this year ('43), we're interested and we'll back you. If not, stop. Whether we will go on or not with this will depend entirely on the results of the tests you do. If immediate results are not forthcoming, shelve it until the end of the war and we'll take another look at it then.'
Question: Concerning the actual project itself, can you recall anything about how it began, who was behind it, or what they were ultimately hoping to accomplish?
Where such a project came from or how it initially got started, I have no idea. As I say, my immediate knowledge of it was largely peripheral. I believe they did succeed in getting a ship out of Philadelphia or Newark for a limited time, probably not more than two or three weeks, and I think I heard they did some testing both along the river [the Delaware] and off the coast, especially with regard to the effects of a strong magnetic force field on radar detection apparatus. I can't tell you much else about it or about what the results ultimately were because I don't know. My guess, and I emphasize guess, would be that every kind of receiving equipment possible was put aboard other vessels and along the shoreline to check on what would happen on the 'other side' when both radio and low- and high-frequency radar were projected through the field. Undoubtedly observations would have also been made as to any effects that field might have had on light in the visual range.
In any event, I do know that there was a great deal of work being done on total absorption as well as refraction, and this would certainly seem to tie in with such an experiment as this.
One thing I can tell you: It is highly unlikely that any experimental work of such a nature as this would have taken place aboard a ship after it was commissioned and had a crew. Such a thing just wouldn't have been done - especially not at sea while on convoy duty. Absolutely no one doing research of this type in '43 would have dared to risk placing several hundred tons of valuable electronics equipment at the mercy of some German submarine commander in the middle of the Atlantic.
All of this is very valuable testimony indeed, since it tells us almost exactly when the Philadelphia Experiment took place, and in fact even seems to indicate that at least part of it took place in or around the Philadelphia-Newark dockyard facilities.
If indeed the two-to-three-week period of availability for research purposes is correct, and if the Greek records on the Eldridge are correct concerning a June 25 launch date (as we must assume they are), then, allowing for several weeks to complete final construction phases after launch, it appears that the Philadelphia Experiment took place sometime between July 20 and August 20, 1943. This not only explains how the former Navy commander mentioned above happened to see the Eldridge in Bermuda in the last days of July (where she may have been forced to go because of the hurricane), but it also explains how Carlos Allende, who was in Philadel
phia during the weekend of August 13-15, happened to catch an item about it in a Philadelphia or Philadelphia area newspaper. The experiments would have had to have been in their final phases at that time, and conceivably the skeleton crew which would have been used to man the ship during research operations might have been granted a shore leave on one of those evenings. If so, then the date of the barroom brawl that Allende mentions was either Friday evening, August 13, or Saturday evening, August 14.
According to records, the Eldridge left Newark bound for Brooklyn on Tuesday, August 17, and arrived there to await commissioning on Wednesday, August 18.
The Fwuseth, which had left the Norfolk Harbor area with Allende on board on Monday, August 16, and was proceeding in convoy up the coast on the 17th prior to turning eastward towards Africa, could easily have encountered the Eldridge as it emerged from Delaware Bay on the morning of the 17th bound for Brooklyn. Any such encounter would most likely have been brief, because of the Eldridge's greater speed and different destination, but if final experiments were still going on at this time, then it is entirely possible that Allende's chance encounter with them took place on this date rather than during the period of his second encounter with the Eldridge, which took place, as we have already described, in November.
Did it really happen? At this point the affirmative evidence seems to be just tipping the scales towards credibility.
CHAPTER NINE
THE UNEXPECTED KEY
Having apparently exhausted the information available in the existing ship records, we must now turn our attention to the one item of the Allende letters that has stopped so many researchers cold in their tracks and that, if ever substantiated, could provide the key to the entire mystery. The reader will recall that early in his second letter to Dr Jessup, Allende made an assertion to the effect that not only was Einstein's Unified Field Theory completed between 1925 and 1927, but the entire theory was subjected by the Navy to a 'complete (group math) recheck ... with a view to any and every possible quick use of it... in a very short time.' If Allende is to be believed, then it was the results of this mathematical process which supposedly provided the theoretical basis for what was eventually to become the Philadelphia Experiment.
The possible key provided here is that Allende takes pains to provide Dr Jessup with the name of the scientist allegedly in charge of this 'recheck.' This man is
identified as Dr Franklin Reno, a man to whom Allende refers quite offhandedly as 'my friend.'
Obviously if this Dr Reno could be found, and if he could be convinced to add his testimony to the research which has already been done, then a great portion of the mystery could conceivably be revealed. The problem up to this point has been that although many have tried, no one has even been able to crack this part of the story
- a fact that has led more than one researcher to conclude that since this mysterious individual could not be produced, then the entire matter must be considered nothing more than a hoax.
Now, after several years of persistent research into this aspect of the affair, the authors at last feel that the riddle surrounding the identity of the elusive Dr Reno has been solved! And with it comes a fantastic tale which seems to provide for the first time some substantial insights into the mystery which for so long has enshrouded the so-called Philadelphia Experiment. Now, for the first time ever in print, we have a sequence of events which appear to have been indisputable forerunners of that Top Secret project which may well have developed into a full-scale ship experiment of the sort described by Allende in his angry letters, to Dr Jessup! The story itself is almost as odd as the Allende letters.
The substance of that story is that the man referred to by Allende as Dr Franklin Reno was not only a very real person but, before his death only a little more than a year before this writing, he personally verified to Moore the substantial truth of Allende's statements concerning the beginnings of the project which came to be known as the Philadelphia Experiment.
The reason why earlier researchers were completely unsuccessful in their efforts to find this Franklin Reno is easily explained by the simple fact that they were looking for a man whose name was not Franklin Reno, although a clue to the name and whereabouts of the man was on a road map of the state of Pennsylvania!
In the oil-producing region of northwestern Pennsylvania, along U.S. Route 62 not far from Oil City, lies the city of Franklin, Pennsylvania - a peaceful little trading centre of about 8,000 population and the county seat of Venango County. Five miles to the east, still on the same road and about midway between Franklin and Oil City, lies the village of Reno, home of a large refinery of the Wolfs Head Oil Company. Just outside this same Oil City, on the westbound side of Route 62, stood until a few years ago, the road sign that explains why so many diligent researchers have been so consistently unsuccessful in their efforts to identify Allende's mysterious 'friend.' Printed on the sign were the words - the same words which inspired a very real scientist over thirty years ago to create a very effective pseudonym.
But if 'Franklin Reno' is nothing more than a pseudonym, then the questions now become: (1) Who is this real person? (2) What is (or was) his connection with Carlos Miguel Allende? (3) What, of anything, can he add to the story?
Unfortunately the matter is so sensitive that these questions cannot be entirely answered even yet for reasons which the reader will come to understand as the story progresses. For even though the man Allende knew as Dr Reno has since died, we have been enjoined to be discreet by those still living who are very interested in maintaining the status quo. Consequently, we have chosen to refer to this individual as Dr Rinehart, the name given to him in a fictionalized version of the Philadelphia Experiment published recently, representing yet another indication of increasing public interest and awareness in the 'impossible' experiment.
What can be told, then, while still safely concealing as much of Dr Rinehart's identity as possible, is that he was born within a few years of Morris Jessup, but in a quite different part of the country. After serving brilliantly in a well-known civilian scientific establishment for a number of years while at the same time successfully completing the requirements for his Ph.D. degree, he was forced during the depression years of the 1930s, like so many other scientists including Dr Jessup, to enter the employ of America's governmental military-scientific establishment. It was here, over the course of the next decade, that he worked himself up to a position as a department head in a well-known research installation; and it was in that capacity that he came into contact with the early phases of the project which all indications point to as the beginnings of the Philadelphia Experiment.
Discovering the real indentity of this individual, however, proved to be a small problem compared to the task of finding him after some twenty-five years and then winning enough of his confidence to convince him that his story should be told. A quarter-century is time enough for a great many changes - especially when someone chooses to use that time to isolate himself from his fellow man.
So it was with Dr Rinehart, who, when he began to suspect he knew too much for his own good (and perhaps for his survival), chose to hide himself away from the segments of society that seemed to threaten him the most. Those years had seen him abandon a brilliant and promising scientific career to install himself in a neat little bungalow nestled between the hills half a continent away and content with living the life of a hermit - venturing out only occasionally for supplies, or even more occasionally to visit an old friend or former colleague.
Moore and Rinehart corresponded for nearly a year before any mention was made of the possibility of doing a personal interview, and it was to be several months more before the necessary arrangements could be worked out. Moore's account of the interview follows:
It was late on a hot July afternoon when 1 parked my car at a discreet distance and walked slowly the rest of the way to his house, trying hard not to attract any undue attention. I recall a foreboding that perhaps my trip would prove useless after al
l; for aside from a disused sprinkler resting forlornly on the scraggly brown uncut lawn, the place had a stark, almost deserted look about it. Why, I wondered, would anyone keep a house so tightly closed up and curtained in such heat?
A striped cat lounging lazily on the railing raised an inquisitive eyelid as I stepped onto the porch, but didn't bother moving. I knocked at the door and somewhere inside, something stirred. Presently the curtain was brushed slightly aside and a pair of spectacled, rabbitlike eyes peered at me suspiciously. A pause, the click of a lock, and the door swung open to reveal a spindly, white-haired, but sharp-eyed old gentleman trying somehow to force a smile through his uncertain expression.
The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility Page 11