Allende letters and the Philadelphia Experiment
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 9
| Date | April 1956 |
|---|---|
| Topics | Military encounters (topic), Disinformation & hoaxes (topic) |
| People | Morris K. Jessup, Carl Meredith Allen, William Moore |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 57 |
| Year | 1956 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1956 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 9 |
The Allende letters were a series of letters written from January 1956 to the astronomer and UFO author Morris K. Jessup by a man signing himself "Carlos Miguel Allende" — in reality a merchant seaman named Carl Meredith Allen. They are the origin of the Philadelphia Experiment, the legend that in 1943 the U.S. Navy made a warship invisible and teleported it.[1][2]
The letters
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Allen told Jessup that around 28 October 1943 the Navy, using Albert Einstein's unified field theory, had made the destroyer escort USS Eldridge invisible at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and transported it to Norfolk, Virginia, and back, with terrible effects on its crew. When Jessup asked for corroboration, Allen pointed to a newspaper article that researchers have never found.[1][2]
Carl Allen
Allen (1925–1994) was born in Springdale, Pennsylvania. He joined the Marine Corps in 1942 but was discharged within a year, then served in the Merchant Marine on the SS Andrew Furuseth and more than two dozen other ships until 1952. Relatives described him as a brilliant drifter and prankster. He later claimed to have met Einstein and received physics lessons from him.[2]
The Navy connection
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In 1955 the Office of Naval Research received an anonymously annotated copy of Jessup's book The Case for the UFO; when Jessup was shown it in 1957 he recognised the handwriting as that of his correspondent. ONR officers had a defence contractor print copies, now known as the Varo edition, giving the story an aura of official interest. Jessup died by suicide in Florida on 30 April 1959.[1][3]
The legend grows
The story was popularised by the 1979 book The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility by Charles Berlitz and William Moore and by a 1984 film. In 1989 Alfred Bielek claimed he had been aboard the Eldridge during the experiment.[1]
Debunking
The Navy says no such experiment took place, and in 1996 ONR noted that it had not existed until 1946. The Eldridge was commissioned in August 1943, and its action report and deck log place it elsewhere at the key times; veterans at a 1999 reunion said it never docked in Philadelphia. Researchers suggest the legend grew out of wartime "degaussing" work to protect ships from magnetic mines. In 1969 Allen said he had written the annotations to scare Jessup; he confessed several times and recanted, and he died in Greeley, Colorado, in 1994.[1][2][4]
People and topics
- Morris K. Jessup — Astronomer and author of The Case for the UFO (1955), linked to the Varo edition and the Philadelphia Experiment.
- U.S. Navy — The U.S. naval service, whose pilots reported the UAP encounters revealed in 2017.
- Carl Meredith Allen — Letter writer behind the Philadelphia Experiment story and the Varo edition annotations.
- William Moore — Researcher who admitted in 1989 that he cooperated with intelligence agents in the Bennewitz affair.
On the Timeline
- Varo edition of The Case for the UFO (April 1956) — Navy researchers receive an annotated copy of Morris Jessup's UFO book with strange handwritten notes.
- Air Force Manual 190-4 (1 May 1956) — A former Air Force spokesman says a manual governed all official statements about UFOs.
See every 1956 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- Philadelphia Experiment — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Carl Meredith Allen — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- "Carlos Miguel Allende / Carl Allen", DE-173.com · de173.com · archived copy
- "The Philadelphia Experiment", The Skeptic's Dictionary · skepdic.com · archived copy
- Carlos Allende (Carl Allen) — Obscurantist · obscurantist.com · archived copy
- Hoaxes from space: the Philadelphia Experiment, part I · swallowingthecamel.me · archived copy
- files.afu.se · files.afu.se · archived copy
- kevinrandle.blogspot.com · kevinrandle.blogspot.com · archived copy
- kevinrandle.blogspot.com · kevinrandle.blogspot.com · archived copy
Further reading
- UFO documents — CIA Reading Room · cia.gov · archived copy
- NICAP — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- NICAP archive · nicap.org · archived copy
- Thomas Townsend Brown — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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