March 20, 1997: The Philadelphia Experiment - Al Bielek

Al Bielek, self-described survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment, delivers a meticulous technical account of the Navy's alleged 1943 attempt to render the USS Eldridge invisible. Beginning with the project's origins in 1931 under Nikola Tesla, Bielek details the interplay of rotating RF fields at 160 megahertz, pulsed magnetic fields driven by massive alternators, and their interaction with gravity and time fields.

Bielek describes a successful 1940 test on a small tender at Brooklyn Navy Yard that achieved full optical invisibility, then traces Tesla's departure after he sabotaged a battleship test to protect the crew from lethal biological effects. Under John von Neumann's direction, the project shifted to pulsed systems with dramatically increased power. The August 12, 1943 test produced catastrophic results, with sailors fused into the ship's steel decking and the vessel allegedly displaced through time.

The account reaches its most extraordinary claim when Bielek describes jumping overboard with his brother Duncan and landing at Montauk, Long Island in 1983, where an aged von Neumann tasked them with returning to destroy the equipment. At 70 years old, Bielek presents himself as one of the last living witnesses to an experiment that merged physics with nightmare.