“It’s a good Grade B movie,” a friend of mine told me several years ago when I admitted I’d never seen the 1984 film “The Philadelphia Experiment.” Accordingly, I rented a video and sat down in front of the TV. I had two questions on my mind as I watched: first, would the film make any … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – Carl Allen and the Esoteric Tradition
This week's post I owe entirely to a man named Marco Mucci, whose acquaintance I've made over the past two weeks. Marco lives in Rome, where Journal of a UFO Investigator has just been published in Italian, as La Voce Smarrita del Cielo ("The Lost Voice of Heaven"). He's made a series of … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – “Almost As If She Vanished”
One of the more curious items in the Gray Barker Collection is a letter, on NASA stationery, addressed to “Dr. Karl Merditt Allenstein, 1316 Leishmann Strasse, New Kensington, PA.” The letter is dated August 6, 1975, and is obviously a response to an inquiry. It’s also obvious that the said … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – “Carlos Allende Speaks”
When did Carl Allen begin to grasp that he was no longer an invisible, insignificant drifter but an exotic mystery man, earnestly sought after by “those who ponder the elusive disks” (Gray Barker’s phrase), himself as elusive as any of them? That Hispanicized Carlos Allende had become a hero of … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – Finding Carlos Allende
He wasn’t lost, at least initially. Except perhaps in a figurative sense. The files in the Barker Collection contain a letter from one Austin N. Stanton of the Varo Mfg. Co, Garland, Texas, addressed to Carl M. Allen at RFD #1, Box 223, New Kensington, Pennsylvania. The letter, dated 5 August … [Read more...]
