it was originally a project to make a ship radar invisible. It worked. Then it worked too well. But i think that's where the answer really is. Sitting right there on the USS Eldridge. Hmmmm, I feel a campaign Idea coming on. Yup my muse is slapping me around right now...gotta write this stuff down.
ok, i read the book about 20 years ago. I won't say which is right, the book or the article. But there are some marked differences.
1. the experiment was using an electromagnetic field to literally bend radar waves around the ship, thus making it invisible.
2. It wasn't an experiment in Invisibilty.
3. the first that i heard about the deguassing was only 4 years ago.
4. The invisibilty was an unfortunate side effect. Also, for the first three minutes that the eldridge was gone from view, it was still leaving a depression in the water.
5. for the second three minutes that it was gone, it left no depression in the water.
6. while it was invisible, and gone, during those three minutes, bulkheads (walls), overheads (ceilings), and decks were dissappearing as well.
7. while that was happening the crew was going frantic. And when they shut down the field generator, everything slammed back all at once. Some crew members were caught in the same place where a bulkhead suddenly reappeared, or where a deck/overhead reappeared. They were not cut in half, but actually integrated into these items, and very much alive. Albeit dieing. half on one side of a bulkhead, half on the other, that sort of thing. We aren't talking about being stuck, we are talking about actual molecular bonding. Some of the crew was never seen again. accounts from the ship state that while she was in darkness, as they put it, some men jumped over the side. Maybe they live in bermuda.
8. Four hours later she appeared in Norfolk, and guess for how long, 3 minutes. During which time eyewitness accounts claim that parts of the ship were dissappearing. Then she vanished again.
like i said, i don't know which is more accurate....if either is the truth. But those are the differences as i read them.
we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.