Naval History
USS Eldridge (DE-173) was a Cannon-class destroyer escort of the United States Navy, commissioned in 1943 and named after Lieutenant Commander John Eldridge Jr. She is best known for the Philadelphia Experiment, an alleged 1943 naval test in which the ship was supposedly rendered invisible and teleported from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Virginia. The Navy and most historians dismiss the story as a hoax, but it remains a staple of conspiracy lore.
The Eldridge was laid down on 22 February 1943 at the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Newark, New Jersey, and launched on 25 July 1943. She was commissioned on 27 August 1943. As a Cannon-class destroyer escort, she was designed for anti-submarine warfare and convoy protection, armed with three 3-inch/50-caliber guns, two 40 mm Bofors, eight 20 mm Oerlikon cannons, and depth charge projectors. She served in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, escorting convoys and participating in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France in August 1944. After the war, she was decommissioned in 1946 and later transferred to Greece in 1951, serving as the HS Leon (D-54) until 1991.
The Philadelphia Experiment, also known as Project Rainbow, allegedly took place on 28 October 1943 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. According to the story, the Eldridge was made invisible to radar and human eyes, and then teleported to Norfolk, Virginia, and back, with crew members reportedly suffering from madness or being fused into the ship's structure. The tale was popularized by Carl M. Allen, who claimed to have witnessed the event, and later by authors like Charles Berlitz in his 1979 book The Philadelphia Experiment. The U.S. Navy has consistently denied any such experiment, and the ship's logs show she was in port or on convoy duty on the alleged date. Historians attribute the story to confusion with a real Navy project on degaussing, which made ships invisible to magnetic mines, and to Allen's fabrications.
After the war, the Eldridge was placed in reserve at the New York Naval Shipyard in 1946. She was transferred to Greece on 15 January 1951 under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program, and renamed HS Leon. The Greek Navy used her for anti-submarine patrols and training until she was decommissioned in 1991 and sold for scrap in 1999. During her Greek service, she was modified with additional anti-aircraft guns and modern sonar. The ship's bell and a model are preserved at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, and a memorial plaque exists at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
One lesser-known fact is that the Eldridge was named after John Eldridge Jr., a naval aviator who was killed in action during the Battle of Midway in 1942. The ship's crew included a young officer, M. K. Morris, who later became a prominent naval historian and debunked the Philadelphia Experiment in a 1990 article. The alleged teleportation story may have been inspired by a 1943 experiment at the University of Chicago involving the invisibility of objects to radar, but no official records link the Eldridge to such tests. Additionally, the ship's wartime service included rescuing survivors of a torpedoed tanker in the Mediterranean, a fact often overshadowed by the myth. The Greek Navy's official history notes that the Leon was one of the last Cannon-class escorts in service, and her crew in Greece was unaware of the legend until the 1970s.
The Philadelphia Experiment is widely considered a hoax, but the Eldridge's real service record is well documented.
Help improve the encyclopedia. Reports go straight to the site manager.