The Philadelphia Experiment – Real or Rumor?

I got some great ideas from my shout-out on Facebok for this week's Mystery Monday, but I'm going with the Philadelphia Experiment (suggested by reader and friend Stephanie Pellegrin) because it seems a lot of you don't know about it.

The Philadelphia Experiment is the name for an experiment that allegedly took place in October of 1943. It's said that the US military managed to cloak the US destroyer escort USS Eldridge and its entire crew.

There's a lot of controversy surrounding the Philadelphia Experiment and whether or not it really happened. While the US Navy steadfastly denies the experiment, there are rumors that some of the crew were fused to the ship during the experiment, some suffered mental disorders (I would definitely have a mental disorder if I were fused to a ship, but I presume this refers to separate individuals!), and some went missing entirely.

Although a movie was made about the rumored experiment in 1984, no one knows if the experiment really took place and the mystery is right up there with Area 51 as one of the enduring military mysteries of our time.

All this said, I have to admit that the recent successful cloaking of desert mirages by scientists at the University of Texas Dallas makes me wonder…

I may pull from this week's Facebook suggestions for next week's mystery, but if you have something you'd like to suggest, please send it to prophecypress@aol.com with "Mystery Monday" as the Subject line.