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Volume 8: Number 1: Article 2

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Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later

Jacques F. Vallee, 1550 California Street, No. 6L, San Francisco, CA 94109

The "Philadelphia Experiment" concerns the allegedly paranormal disappearance of a Navy destroyer from the docks of the Philadelphia Navy Yard in the late Summer of 1943, followed by disclosures of official contact with extraterrestrial powers. Claims made by purported witnesses of this supposedly secret test directed by Albert Einstein have been repeatedly found to be fraudulent. The author has now interviewed a man who served on a companion ship to the destroyer in question, and who was on the scene the night of its supposed disappearance, which he is able to explain in minute detail. Yet the features of the story are such that it survives in the UFO literature and that it is now being revived under a novel form for the benefit of a new generation of readers. Using this incident as a model of a successful hoax, the present article extracts thirteen parameters that have been instrumental in its remarkable survival over the last fifty years; it compares the features of this fabrication to other questionable episodes of UFO lore; finally, it attempts to draw up a list of suitable measures for their detection, challenge and ultimate exposure.

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