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...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – “No Mystery Whatsoever About His Death”
One of the my more fascinating discoveries in the Gray Barker Collection was a carbon copy of a long letter, dated February 18, 1976, telling the story of M. K. Jessup, the “Allende letters,” and the mysterious annotated copy of Jessup’s Case for the UFO. This was the book that a group of Navy … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – The Mysterious Señor Allende
“So what have I learned from my first day in the Barker archive?” I wrote in my diary on Tuesday evening, September 7, 2004. “That Carl Allen, far from being an elusive and mysterious figure (as I once fondly imagined), was a tedious and persistent lunatic who bombarded Gray Barker with tons of … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – The “Allende Mystery”–Part 2
Part 1 of the “Allende Mystery,” described in my last post, is the strange series of letters which UFOlogist Morris K. Jessup received in 1956 from someone calling himself variously “Carlos Allende” and “Carl M. Allen.” The letters tell of what’s come to be known in American folklore as the … [Read more...]
The Philadelphia Experiment – The “Allende Mystery”
I first heard about the “Allende Mystery” in 1963, when my good friend Jerome Clark—whom to this day I’ve never met face to face—laid out the details for me in one of the multi-page letters the two of us exchanged as teen UFOlogists. It intrigued me from the beginning. I was 15 years old; Jerry … [Read more...]
