Bielek traces the project back to 1931 and the work of Nikola Tesla, Dr. John Hutchinson, and Dr. Emil Curtinow at the University of Chicago. He describes how rotating electromagnetic and electric fields, driven by massive generators and Tesla coils, were designed to bend light and radar around the USS Eldridge. The first test on July 22, 1943, achieved radar and visual invisibility for twenty minutes. Bielek explains in remarkable technical detail the ship's quadraphase antenna, the 160 megahertz RF transmitters, and the 8-megawatt diesel generator that powered the system. The catastrophic second test on August 12, 1943, allegedly caused the ship to physically vanish from Philadelphia harbor for four hours. Bielek claims crew members were found fused into the ship's steel, others went insane, and he and his brother Duncan were transported through time to 1983 Montauk, Long Island.
A deep dive into one of the most controversial military legends ever told on late-night radio.
Key Moments
Tesla traced as the project's true origin in 1931: Bielek pushes the Philadelphia Experiment lineage back to 1931 work by Tesla, John Hutchinson, and Emil Kurtanow at the University of Chicago, then moved in 1934 to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton with von Neumann and Einstein on staff.
1940 Brooklyn Navy Yard invisibility test: Bielek claims the first fully successful radar-and-optical invisibility test happened late 1940 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on a small unmanned tender, with two flanking ships carrying the heavy equipment.
Bielek reveals he was born Edward Cameron: Bielek states his real birth identity as Edward Cameron, born August 4, 1916, son of Navy man Alexander Duncan Cameron Sr., and that he and his brother Duncan both earned physics PhDs (Harvard and Edinburgh) before being assigned to the Institute project in January 1940.
Tesla deliberately sabotaged the first big-ship test: Bielek claims Tesla, denied a schedule extension after warning the Navy that the rotating fields would harm sailors, intentionally detuned the equipment so the first battleship test would fail with no casualties, then quit or was pushed out of the project.
Von Neumann picks DE-173 off the drawing board: Bielek says von Neumann took over the project after Tesla, switched the design from continuous-wave to pulsed RF, and selected hull number DE-173 mid-build at Newark shipyards in July 1942 with two 75 KVA generators driven by 750-hp motors and an 8-megawatt diesel generator buried in the hold.