MadSci Network: Physics
Query:

Re: Einstein's Theory of Invisibilty/Philadelphia Experiment

Date: Wed May 19 14:12:08 1999
Posted By: William J Bray, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Area of science: Physics
ID: 926489487.Ph
Message:



I know this question was forwarded to me because this has come up before 
in some prior question, I will therefore essentially re-iterate my former 
answer.

My father and his brother were both engineer/scientists at the 
Philadelphia Ship Yard at the time.  If anything of a secret nature were 
happening, they would have been the one's who were directly on it.  I've 
heard so much fuss, and saw a sci-fi movie entitled, "The Philadelphia 
Experiment," that it finally dawned on me that people took this seriously, 
(I thought it was just a story) or believe it really happened.  What 
seemed more interesting to me have been the descriptions people rendor of 
this design, mostly based on Tesla's work.  I asked both of them (my 
father and uncle) point-blank what people were talking about, since they 
were there, designing and building these things, and why or how people 
came up with this story.

The Eldridge, among other ships, were being fitted for 'de-gaussing,' 
which means that the large magnetic fields produced by the ships (as a 
result of being long, metal, and pulsing with electricicty) were being 
'cleaned up' to make them less visible 'to their own radar and navigation 
systems.'  In other words, the massive metal hulls, loaded with electric 
current from the ship's operations, interfeared with the ship's own radar 
and navigation systems.  And now the radar technology was changing, to use 
shorter wavelengths of the radar range, and more susceptable to being 
distorted by the ship's large electric fields.

They engineered a way to cancel these fields out by running large Tesla 
coils along the length of the entire ship in very specific locations, even 
changing wire diameters from very thick to hair-like thin in some places, 
to absorb the fields by magnetic inductance and thereby cancel the ship's 
electric fields out.  This technology is now over five decades old, gone 
common knowledge and later abandoned for better ways, although back then, 
it was regarded as secret, with the logic that the enemy might not be able 
to engineer a way to clean up their own ships magnetic interference, and 
therefore not be able to use the newer technology of radar – which gave us 
an advantage.  They might not even be able to detect our radar emissions 
for the same reason, and not even know, therefore, that we were watching 
by a wavelength of radar they could not work with. Some of the scientists 
and engineers referred to this process as 'making the ship invisible.'

Apparently, some workers (not educated in science) misunderstood what they 
were hearing when the scientists and engineers would refer to making the 
ship 'invisible,' refering to making the ship's massive metal hull 
invisible to it's own radar, or rather, making the hull so that it would 
not interfere with the ship's own radar.

Some fifty years later, the rumor/fantasy has evolved, thanks to some 
media and the internet, to all of the sci-fi it appears as today.  But 
most of us probably don't want to believe that.  It's infinitely more 
amusing to believe that a ship became invisible, travelled through time 
and space, etc…  What actually happened will not change regardless of what 
we choose to believe.  I therefore recommend whichever reality you find 
more amusing.




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