Varo edition of The Case for the UFO

Varo edition of The Case for the UFO

Date	April 1956
Topics	Military encounters (topic), Government programs (topic), Propulsion & physics (topic)
People	Morris K. Jessup, Carl Meredith Allen
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 56
Year	1956 in UFO history
Timeline	1956 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	12

The Varo edition is a privately produced, mimeographed reprint of Morris K. Jessup's 1955 book The Case for the UFO. It reproduces hundreds of handwritten margin notes by apparently three anonymous annotators, who wrote as though they knew about alien races, UFO propulsion and a secret 1943 Navy experiment that made a ship invisible.^[1][3] The annotated paperback was mailed anonymously to the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR). Officers there took an interest in it, and the Varo Manufacturing Company of Garland, Texas, a Navy contractor, retyped the book and notes and ran off copies, together with letters Jessup had received from a "Carlos Miguel Allende".^[1][2][3] The notes were later traced to Carl Meredith Allen, who confessed several times to writing all of them, and recanted. The Varo edition became one of the founding documents of the Philadelphia Experiment legend.^[1][2]

The annotated copy

The three-page introduction to the Varo edition, reproduced on the DE-173 website, describes how the book reached the Navy.^[3][10]

• The package. The annotated paperback was addressed to Admiral N. Furth, Chief of Naval Research, in a manila envelope postmarked Seminole, Texas, 1955, with "Happy Easter" written across the front.
• At ONR. In July or August 1955 the book turned up in the incoming correspondence of Major Darrell L. Ritter of the U.S. Marine Corps, an aeronautical project officer at ONR. When Captain Sidney Sherby arrived at ONR he obtained the book from Ritter. Sherby and Commander George W. Hoover, ONR's special projects officer, "indicated direct interest in some of the material therein".
• The notes. The notes were written in three distinct colours of ink, blue, blue-violet and blue-green, and in different handwriting. The introduction therefore attributed them to three people, called "Mr. A", "Mr. B" and "Jemi". "Jemi" was a name used in salutations, and the introduction allowed that it might be merely a salutation. References to a "twin" suggested two of the writers might be twins. Lines such as "Show this to a Brother Gypsy" and "we are a discredited people, ages ago" suggested they might be Gypsies. The book appeared to have passed between them many times, with replies, deletions and additions.
• Contents. The notes described two kinds of people living in space and under the sea, the peaceful "L-M's" and the hostile "S-M's". They used terms such as "mothership", "great ark", "great bombardment", "force-fields", "deep-freezes", "undersea building", "scout ships", "magnetic 'net'" and "telepathing". They offered explanations for vanished ships and planes, odd storms, falling objects and strange footprints. The writers felt it was too late for humanity to achieve space flight, because humans were too egotistical, materialistic and warlike.

The 1943 experiment. Several notes referred to a Navy experiment. "Mr. A" wrote on page 7 of "U.S. Navy's force-field experiments, 1943, October", which "produced invisibility of crew & ship. Fearsome results." Other notes mentioned "force-Field invisibility, 1943", a "Navy D-E" (destroyer escort) testing an invisibility "gadget", and Einstein's supposed retraction of his unified field theory in the light of the Navy's "uninformed tinkering".^[3]

Jessup and the Allende letters

• The letters. Shortly after his book came out, Jessup received a letter from a Carlos Miguel Allende, received in Miami on Friday 13 January 1956. It was postmarked Gainesville, Texas, and sent in an envelope from the Turner Hotel there. A second letter came postmarked Du Bois, Pennsylvania, 25 May 1956. Jessup said he "had felt from the first that this man was the one who mailed the book to the Navy".^[3]
• The claim. In the letters, according to the Wikipedia account, Allen described an experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in October 1943, based on unpublished theories by Albert Einstein. A destroyer escort was made invisible, vanished to Norfolk, Virginia, for several minutes and reappeared, and its crew suffered terrible side effects. He said he had watched from the SS Andrew Furuseth. When Jessup asked for corroboration, Allen said his memory would have to be recovered, and pointed to an apparently non-existent Philadelphia newspaper article.^[2] The researcher Kevin Randle reproduced a news story of the kind associated with the tale, about a tavern brawl near the Navy docks in which two sailors were said to have "vanished into thin air". It does not name a city or date.^[7]
• Jessup at ONR. Jessup was invited to ONR to examine the annotations. He recognised one hand: "I feel certain that I have two letters from one of the commentators." ONR officers compared the letters and concluded that Allen's style, wording and punctuation matched the first commentator, "Mr. A".^[1][3] An officer told Jessup that the book and notes would be reproduced in a limited edition "for circulation among some of our top people".^[3] Accounts date the meeting differently. The Wikipedia account of Allen says it came a year after the package arrived, while the Obscurantist site and the blog Swallowing the Camel place it in 1957.^[2][5][6]

The reprint

• Varo's role. According to the Wikipedia account, Hoover discussed the annotations with Austin N. Stanton, president of Varo, during meetings about Varo's contract work for ONR. Stanton became so interested that Varo began producing mimeographed copies of the book with the notes and Allen's letters.^[1] The introduction says Varo "offered to re-publish the book together with all notations in a very limited edition as a prelude to consideration of further pursuit of this unconventional material". It states that, because of "the importance which we attach to the possibility of discovering clues to the nature of gravity", no item should be overlooked, however disreputable.^[3]
• The typist. The introduction credits Miss Michael Ann Dunn with retyping the book. The original text was printed in black and the handwritten additions in red, keeping the notes' positions, with footnotes where words could not be read.^[3] A former ONR official, Jack G. Smith, told the skeptic Larry Kusche in 1979 that Stanton hired a high-school girl to type the jumbled annotations after school. Smith said many at Varo were interested in UFOs "basically as a lunchtime hobby", and that everyone concerned, including ONR, concluded that the annotations "made no sense at all".^[3]
• Format. According to the DE-173 site, the edition ran to close to two hundred mimeographed pages on letter-size paper, bound in plastic covers. It included the Allen letters and the ONR-written introduction. Jessup received a copy and added his own notes on slips of paper about every ten pages.^[3]
• How many copies. Accounts differ. The Wikipedia accounts say "first a dozen and eventually 127".^[1][2] The DE-173 site says twelve were reportedly made, with about 127 eventually produced and circulated.^[3] Michael Shellenberger's 2024 UFO timeline says 25 copies were printed.^[11] Swallowing the Camel says Sherby sought Jessup's permission in 1957 to print "several hundred".^[5]
• Ruppelt's copy. In a letter of 1 April 1959, Stanton sent a copy to Edward J. Ruppelt, the former head of Project Blue Book, describing it as "a book we reprinted about a year ago". The DE-173 site suggests that Stanton may have run off extra copies himself.^[3]
• Gray Barker. In 1973 the UFO publisher Gray Barker produced and sold facsimile copies.^[3] A transcription is available online, and a modern reprint titled The Case for the UFO: The Varo Edition has been offered for sale.^[4][6]

Michael Shellenberger's timeline lists the episode under April 1956. It says Ritter, Sherby and Hoover received the annotated book, and that Sherby and Hoover had it reprinted with "government contractor Varo Manufacturing".^[11] It calls ONR's link to Jessup "curious" given the Allende letters that year. It also notes that the Philadelphia Experiment rumour surfaced four years after T. Townsend Brown proposed Project Winterhaven, an electrogravitics project, though it calls the link to Brown "an unproven claim".^[11][12]

Authorship and confessions

• Carl Allen. According to the Wikipedia account, Carl Meredith Allen (1925–1994) was a merchant mariner from Pennsylvania. His family called him brilliant but a drifter and "master leg-puller". He used many aliases, including Carlos Miguel Allende and, once, "Dr. Karl Merditt Allenstein".^[2]
• The 1969 confession. In 1969 Allen gave Jim Lorenzen of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) a copy of the Varo edition with an attached "confession". It said underlined passages were false and that part of his account was "the craziest pack of lies I ever wrote". His stated object was to encourage ONR research and to discourage Jessup from going further.^[9] Swallowing the Camel describes a gaunt man appearing at APRO's Arizona headquarters in summer 1969, declaring the notes "the wildest pack of lies I ever wrote".^[5] Twelve years after the package, the Wikipedia account says, he claimed he had written all the notes "to scare the hell out of Jessup".^[1][2] Shellenberger's timeline adds that he later said the CIA had "coerced" him into calling it a hoax.^[12]
• Varo visit. Also in 1969, according to the DE-173 site, Allen visited Stanton and demanded a copy of "his book" and a small payment to leave Varo alone. The site notes that Stanton had retired from Varo in 1967.^[3]
• The 1978 letter. On 30 March 1978 Allen wrote to his parents enclosing "a book I Co-authored with professor Morris J. Jessup", written "alone by myself with no 'Mr. or Mr. B.'"^[3]
• A habit. Allen annotated other books and sent them to people. The researcher Joel Carpenter found a heavily annotated copy of Coral and Jim Lorenzen's Flying Saucers: The Startling Evidence of the Invasion From Outer Space in the Condon Committee archives. It bore Allende's autograph and came with postcards to Dr. Low on UFO propulsion and the Navy.^[3]
• Keel's view. In a 1983 letter quoted on the DE-173 site, John Keel wrote that Jessup "personally regarded the Varo document as a joke" and scoffed at it. Keel said everyone, including Jessup, Ivan Sanderson and himself, knew Allende had written the annotations, probably using his other hand for a second set. In Keel's view, Varo was behind the "hoax", because its introduction tried to make a bigger mystery of the matter.^[3]

The Navy's position

Hoover later explained that his job required him to look into many publications, and that he found nothing of substance in the alleged invisibility experiment.^[1] A Navy information office letter, signed by Betty W. Shirley, stated that ONR "never conducted an official study of the manuscript" and did not have even a file copy. ONR has also said it never investigated invisibility, in 1943 or any other time, noting that it was only established in 1946.^[3] According to the Wikipedia account, the Navy maintains that no such experiment took place, that the story contradicts well-established facts about the destroyer escort USS Eldridge, and that the physics it relies on does not exist.^[1] Commenters on Kevin Randle's blog noted that the Navy's non-involvement with the Varo edition, and the Allende hoax as the primary source, were by then well known. One cited Keel's suggestion that a 1904 incident involving the ship Mohican inspired Allen's tale.^[8]

Legacy

• Jessup's death. Jessup failed to publish further UFO books, lost his publisher and suffered personal setbacks. He died by suicide in Florida on 30 April 1959.^[1] Swallowing the Camel notes that he had written to several people about ending his life. Gray Barker and others nonetheless promoted the idea that his death was sinister.^[5]
• Books and films. Vincent Gaddis's 1965 book Invisible Horizons asked what in the notes could have justified the cost of producing the Varo edition.^[3] In 1979 William Moore and Charles Berlitz published The Philadelphia Experiment.^[5] The DE-173 site says the typist's work launched a mystery that eventually spawned two films, several books, television documentaries and dozens of articles.^[3]
• Stanton. Varo's founder Austin N. Stanton died on 27 November 1994, aged 91. A tribute entered in the Congressional Record in 1995 credited Varo with early night-vision devices, inverters and microcircuits.^[3]

Notes on the earlier version

• Date of the edition. The earlier version described the Varo edition as a "1957 version". The sources read here do not fix the printing date. The infobox follows Shellenberger's April 1956, other accounts place Jessup's ONR meeting in 1956 or 1957, and Stanton's April 1959 letter speaks of a reprint "about a year ago".^{[2][3][5][11]}
• "Produced for officers". The earlier version said the edition "was produced for officers of the U.S. Office of Naval Research". The introduction says Varo offered to republish it. Jessup was told it would circulate "among some of our top people", and Stanton later sent copies to others, including Ruppelt.^[3]
• "Several times". The earlier version said Allen confessed and recanted several times. The Wikipedia account supports this, and Shellenberger's timeline records his later claim that the CIA coerced the confession.^[2][12]

People and topics

• U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
• Morris K. Jessup — Astronomer and author of The Case for the UFO (1955), linked to the Varo edition and the Philadelphia Experiment.
• Unidentified flying object — An object in the sky that can't be identified; the older term for UAP.
• Office of Naval Research — The U.S. Navy's research funding office.
• Carl Meredith Allen — Letter writer behind the Philadelphia Experiment story and the Varo edition annotations.
• Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment — Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment

On the Timeline

• Electrogravitics Systems report (1956) (25 February 1956) — A study of electrogravitics, the link between electricity and gravity, is delivered to Wright-Patterson.
• Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment (April 1956) — Morris Jessup receives letters claiming a secret Navy experiment at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

See every 1956 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Philadelphia Experiment”, “Carl Meredith Allen”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.