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In 1955 a UFO book by a previously little-known author was published. The book was The Case for the UFO, and the author was Morris K. Jessup. Jessup was a 55-year-old Indiana farm boy who had dreamed all his life of being an astronomer. He had, in fact, studied astronomy at the University of Michigan and later been an instructor there, being part of the University’s 1926 expedition to Mexico to view and photograph the solar eclipse.

However, by the 1950s, to his great disappointment, Jessup’s life had taken an unexpected turn away from astronomy. He was making his living at other things, including a job in Washington that, although he had to be present, consisted of long periods of boring idleness. To fill these periods, Jessup spent a lot of time reading, and his astronomy background led him into the area of UFOs. He began writing his own book about the subject, which became The Case for the UFO. He found a publisher for the book and actually realized some acclaim and income from it, being in demand as a speaker on the subject of UFOs. He wrote more books, but none of his other efforts were very successful. He also tried to put together an expedition to Mexico to investigate UFO sightings there, which was to be followed by a book on the expedition, but the deal fell through. Jessup’s life seems to have been a series of disappointments.

In July of 1955, a copy of The Case for the UFO was received by the Chief of the Office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C. The book was sent anonymously, but was postmarked Seminole, Texas. The odd thing about the book was that it had been heavily annotated in the margins, either by three different writers or by one writer using three pens with different colors of ink and disguising his handwriting to make it appear that three writers were involved.

The annotation writers, referred to as Mister A, Mister B, and Jemi seemed to know all about UFOs, writing in a rambling and sometimes incoherent way about “magnetic nets”, “vortices”, “home ships”, “statis fields”, and also about a 1943 U.S. Navy experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Yards in which a Navy ship was supposedly made to disappear.

The Navy itself was not impressed and chose to ignore the annotated book, but the book caught the interest of three of the officers in the Office of Naval Research: Major Darrell Ritter, Captain Sidney Sherby, and Commander George Hoover, who was Special Projects Officer. On their own, they contacted Morris Jessup, who was amazed when he saw the annotations, because he had received three letters written in the same rambling style and in similar handwriting. The letters were posted from Pennsylvania and were from a man who called himself both Carl M. Allen and Carlos Miguel Allende. Jessup was not, however, inclined at this point to pursue the letters, thinking them a waste of time. Hoover and Sherby were interested, though, and they made unsuccessful attempts to locate Allende at the several addresses that he had used. They also commissioned the Varo Manufacturing Company of Garland, Texas to privately reprint about 100 copies of the annotated book, with several of Allende’s letters printed in the introduction.

Here’s a sample from one of the letters:

Carlos Miguel Allende
R.D. No. 1 Box 223
New Kensington, Penn.
My Dear Dr. Jessup,

Your invocation to the public that they move en Masse upon their Representatives and have thusly enough Pressure placed at the right & sufficient Number of Places where from a Law demanding Research into Dr. Albert Einsteins Unified Field Theory May be enacted (1925-27) is Not at all necessary. It May Interest you to know that The Good Doctor Was Not so Much influenced in his retraction of that Work, by Mathematics, as he most assuredly was by Humantics.

His Later computations, done strictly for his own edification & amusement, upon cycles of Human Civilization & Progress compared to the Growth of Mans General overall Character Was enough to Horrify Him. Thus, We are “told” today that that Theory was “Incomplete.”

Dr. B. Russell asserts privately that It is complete. He also says that Man is Not Ready for it & Shan’t be until after W.W.III. Nevertheless, “Results” of My friend Dr. Franklin Reno, Were used. These Were a complete Recheck of That Theory, With a View to any & Every Possible quick use of it, if feasable in a Very short time. There Were good Results, as far as a Group Math Re-Check AND as far as a good Physical “Result,” to Boot. YET, THE NAVY FEARS TO USE THIS RESULT…
… The “result” was complete invisibility of a ship, Destroyer type, and all of its crew, While at Sea (Oct. 1943)….

The last line quoted refers to what has become known as “The Philadelphia Experiment”. Allende claimed to have been in the Navy and to have been present at the Philadelphia Navy Yards when the experiment took place. He claimed to be a witness to the disappearance of the ship, the USS Eldridge, and to the horrible side-effects that it produced on the sailors on board.

Jessup, who at first had ignored Allende’s letters, gradually became obsessed with them and began an investigation into their claims. In 1958, he turned over much of his material, including a copy of the Varo edition of The Case for the UFO with Jessup’s own annotations of the annotations, to his good friend and fellow researcher, Dr Ivan T. Sanderson.

The letters, along with marital difficulties and an automobile accident that Jessup was involved in, sunk him deeper and deeper into depression, and on April 29, 1959, Jessup was found dead in his car in a park in Dade County, Florida. The coroner ruled it a suicide.

Years later, Allende would visit APRO (Aerial Phonemena Research Organization) headquarters in Tucson, Arizona and confess that the whole thing was a hoax. He said that Jessup’s book scared him, and that he wanted to frighten Jessup so that he would stop writing about UFOs. He even signed a statement to that effect. He was on his way to Denver for medical treatment, thinking that he was dying of an incurable illness. He left some of his belongings at APRO headquarters, which he picked up later, after his medical treatment, which apparently had cured him.

In 1967 - 1968, Allende corresponded with another UFO researcher, Jacques Vallee, beginning soon after Vallee published Anatomy of a Phenomenon. He tried to sell Vallee a copy of the Varo edition of Jessup’s book, which Vallee declined. In 1983, the elusive Allende showed up in Boulder, Colorado, where he was interviewed and photographed by science writer Linda Strand. He has not been heard from in recent years, although some people claim to have received anonymous correspondence that may have been from him. If he is still alive, he would be in his seventies by now. No one who has met Carlos Allende has ever characterized him as anything more than a harmless eccentric.

In 1979, the stories that Allende told in his letters to Jessup and in the annotations to Jessup’s book, of a ship made invisible by the Navy, were published as factual in a book called The Philadephia Experiment by Charles Berlitz and William Moore(Who else?)

After Allende’s confession to APRO, and the statements of the Navy, there is little reason to believe that there is any truth to the events known as The Philadelphia Experiment. No other witness among the many that Allende said were present has ever come forward. Naval records show that the USS Eldridge, which was actually a destroyer escort rather than a destroyer, was not at the Philadelphia Naval Yards at the time.

A Twisted Tale: The Philadelphia Experiment

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