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This is the truth behind the creepy Philadelphia Experiment

By Shannon Corbeil

Updated on Oct 30, 2020 9:54 AM PDT

4 minute read

The Philadelphia Experiment is one of the most grotesque military urban legends ever — and it has endured as an infamous World War II conspiracy theory. But is there any truth to it? Let’s take a look.

According to legend, on Oct. 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge , a Cannon-class destroyer escort, was conducting top-secret experiments designed to win command of the oceans against the Axis powers. The rumor was that the government was creating technology that would render naval ships invisible to enemy radar, and there in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, it was time to test it out.

Witnesses claim an eerie green-blue glow surrounded the hull of the ship as her generators spun up and then, suddenly, the Eldridge disappeared. The ship was then seen in Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.

The legend states that classified military documents reported that the Eldridge crew were affected by the events in disturbing ways . Some went insane. Others developed mysterious illness. But others still were said to have been fused together with the ship; still alive, but with limbs sealed to the metal.

That’ll give you nightmares. That’s some Event Horizon sh*t right there.

I’ll never sleep again.

(Event Horizon | Paramount Pictures)

Which is actually a convincing reason why the Eldridge’s story gained so much momentum.

In a 1994 article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jacques F. Vallee theorized that deep-seated imagery is key to planting a hoax into the minds of the masses and of the educated public .

But before we break down what really happened that day, let’s talk about the man behind the myth: Carl M. Allen, who would go by the pseudonym, Carlos Miguel Allende. In 1956, Allende sent a series of letters to Morris K. Jessup, author of the book, The Case for the UFO, in which he argued that unidentified flying objects merit further study.

Jessup apparently included text about unified field theory because this is what Allende latched onto for his correspondences. In the 1950s, unified field theory, which has never been proven, attempted to merge Einstein’s general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. In fact, Allende claimed to have been taught by Einstein himself and could prove the unified field theory based on events he witnessed on October 28, 1943.

Allende claimed that he saw the Eldridge disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and he further insisted that the United States Military had conducted what he called the Philadelphia Experiment — and was trying to cover it up.

Jessup was then contacted by the Navy’s Office of Naval Research , who had received a package containing Jessup’s book with annotations claiming that extraterrestrial technology allowed the U.S. government to make breakthroughs in unified field theory.

This is one of the weirdest details. The annotations were designed to look like they were written by three different authors – one maybe extraterrestrial? According to Valle’s article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jessup became obsessed with Allende’s revelations, and the disturbed researcher would take his own life in 1959. It wasn’t until 1980 that proof of Allende’s forgery would be made available.

Inexplicably, two ONR officers had 127 copies of the annotated text printed and privately distributed by the military contractor Varo Manufacturing, giving wings to Allende’s story long after Jessup’s death.

So, what really happened aboard the USS Eldridge that day?

Somewhere in Delaware there are secret military canals that have all the answers…

According to Edward Dudgeon, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Engstrom , which was dry-docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard while the Eldridge was, both ships did have classified devices on board. They were neither invisibility cloaks nor teleportation drives designed by aliens, but instead, they scrambled the magnetic signatures of ships using the degaussing technique, which provided protection from magnetic torpedoes aboard U-boats.

How Stuff Works suggested that the “green glow” reported by witnesses that day could be explained by an electric storm or St. Elmo’s Fire which, in addition to being an American coming-of-age film starring the Brat Pack, is a weather phenomenon in which plasma is created in a strong electric field, giving off a bright glow, almost like fire.

Finally, inland canals connected Norfolk to Philadelphia, allowing a ship to travel between the two in a few hours.

The USS Eldridge would be transferred to Greece in 1951 and sold for scrap in the 90s, but Allende’s hoax would live on in our effing nightmares forever.

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This Is the Truth Behind WWII’s Creepy Philadelphia Experiment

As military urban legends go, the Philadelphia Experiment is one of the creepiest and most grotesque ever. It alleges that there was a secret U.S. Navy experiment on the USS Eldridge during World War II and claims the ship was made invisible or "cloaked" to radar and even teleported or time-traveled. 

Originating from claims by Carl M. Allen and Morris K. Jessup in the 1950s, proposed explanations include mistaken identity, misinterpretation of real experiments, and fabrication for entertainment. 

It has endured as an infamous WWII conspiracy theory. But is there any truth to it? Let's take a look.

According to legend, on Oct. 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer escort, was conducting top-secret experiments designed to win command of the oceans against the Axis powers. The rumor was that the government was creating technology that would render naval ships invisible to enemy radar, and there in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, it was time to test it out.

Witnesses claim an eerie green-blue glow surrounded the hull of the ship as her generators spun up and then, suddenly, the Eldridge disappeared. The ship was then seen in Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.

The legend states that classified military documents reported that the Eldridge crew were affected by the events in disturbing ways . Some went insane. Others developed mysterious illness. But others still were said to have been fused together with the ship; still alive, but with limbs sealed to the metal.

That'll give you nightmares. That's some “Event Horizon” sh*t right there.

Which is actually a convincing reason why the Eldridge's story gained so much momentum.

In a 1994 article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jacques F. Vallee theorized that deep-seated imagery is key to planting a hoax into the minds of the masses and of the educated public .

But before we break down what really happened that day, let's talk about the man behind the myth: Carl M. Allen, who went by the pseudonym Carlos Miguel Allende. In 1956, Allende sent a series of letters to Morris K. Jessup, author of the book “The Case for the UFO,” in which he argued that unidentified flying objects merit further study.

Jessup apparently included text about unified field theory because this is what Allende latched onto for his correspondences. In the 1950s, unified field theory, which has never been proven, attempted to merge Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. In fact, Allende claimed to have been taught by Einstein himself and could prove the unified field theory based on events he witnessed on Oct. 28, 1943.

Allende claimed that he saw the Eldridge disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and he further insisted that the United States military had conducted what he called the Philadelphia Experiment — and was trying to cover it up.

Jessup was then contacted by the Navy's Office of Naval Research , which had received a package containing Jessup's book with annotations claiming that extraterrestrial technology allowed the U.S. government to make breakthroughs in unified field theory.

This is one of the weirdest details. The annotations were designed to look like they were written by three different authors -- one maybe extraterrestrial? According to Vallee's article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jessup became obsessed with Allende's revelations, and the disturbed researcher took his own life in 1959. It wasn't until 1980 that proof of Allende's forgery was made available.

Inexplicably, two ONR officers had 127 copies of the annotated text printed and privately distributed by the military contractor Varo Manufacturing, giving wings to Allende's story long after Jessup's death.

So what really happened aboard the USS Eldridge that day?

According to Edward Dudgeon, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard the USS Engstrom, which was dry-docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard while the Eldridge was, both ships did have classified devices on board. They were neither invisibility cloaks nor teleportation drives designed by aliens, but instead, they scrambled the magnetic signatures of ships using the degaussing technique, which provided protection from magnetic torpedoes aboard U-boats.

How Stuff Works suggested that the "green glow" reported by witnesses that day could be explained by an electric storm or St. Elmo's Fire, which, in addition to being an American coming-of-age film starring the Brat Pack, is a weather phenomenon in which plasma is created in a strong electric field, giving off a bright glow, almost like fire.

Finally, inland canals connected Norfolk to Philadelphia, allowing a ship to travel between the two in a few hours.

The USS Eldridge was transferred to Greece in 1951 and sold for scrap during the 1990s, but Allende's hoax would live on in our effing nightmares forever.

More articles from We Are the Mighty: 

• 6 urban legends about Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
• Why Okinawa is the most haunted place in the military
• 11 scary ghost stories, legends, and haunted military bases

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What’s The Truth Behind The Infamous Philadelphia Experiment?

In october of 1943, a u.s. navy destroyer was supposedly turned invisible and teleported from philadelphia to norfolk. but did it really happen.

If the stories are to be believed, the Philadelphia Experiment went something like this.

As it sat in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1943, the newly commissioned destroyer USS Eldridge was being outfitted with several intriguing devices. These included top-secret generators that were said to be able to make the ship completely invisible to the enemy.

Wikimedia Commons The USS Eldridge , the ship at the center of the Philadelphia Experiment.

As the final generators were put into place, the crew readied themselves for the system test. There, in broad daylight on a clear summer’s day in the middle of the shipyard, the generators were switched on and a greenish-blue glow surrounded the ship.

Before the crew’s eyes, the ship disappeared entirely.

Witnesses in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia reported seeing the Eldridge appear in their waters before it disappeared just as rapidly. Hours later, it showed up back in Philadelphia.

Crew members aboard the ship reported nausea, insanity, and burn marks. Others reported being entirely embedded within the metal structure of the ship, having fallen through floors, or walls during the time it was missing. Some claim to have re-materialized inside out, or not at all.

The only problem with the tale? According to prevailing wisdom, it never happened.

Starting At The Beginning Of The Philadelphia Experiment

Wikimedia Commons The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where the USS Eldridge was docked during the alleged Philadelphia Experiment.

The story of the Philadelphia Experiment has lived on for decades, despite the fact that much of what is known is pure conjecture. Of the hundreds of stories and details that have been thrown around over the years, only a few things are known for certain.

The first of these is that one Morris K. Jessup, an astronomer specializing in the propulsion of unidentified flying objects (UFOs), received a letter from a man named Carlos Allende (also known as Carl Allen) who claimed to have witnessed a secret experiment in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

Allende claimed that he was aboard the SS Andrew Furuseth in Philadelphia in 1943 when he witnessed the naval ship USS Eldridge become invisible before reappearing in Virginia, disappearing again, and appearing back in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

He also declared that the experiment was proof of Einstein’s unified field theory , which Allende claimed taught him the theory.

Jessup attempted to investigate Allende’s incredulous claims, though he could not find any physical evidence to support them. Eventually, he wrote Allende off as a fool.

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The Philadelphia Experiment Conspiracy Theory Is Born

The story might have ended there and then, but in 1957, Jessup was contacted by the Office of Naval Research with a strange report.

They told him they’d received a copy of Jessup’s book The Case for the UFO , which detailed how UFO’s might be able to fly.

The book was annotated with notes in three different handwritings, one of which supposedly belonged to an alien. These notes claimed to have an advanced understanding of physics and extraterrestrial technology.

The uncommon use of capitalization and punctuation led experts to believe that the annotator was, at the very least, not a native English speaker.

Jessup himself believed the annotations were the work of Allende, the mysterious letter writer. The annotators discussed the merits of Jessup’s claims and referenced the “Philadelphia Experiment” multiple times.

For reasons that remain unclear, the ONR decided to publish 127 copies of the annotated book. They were instantly dubbed the “Varo editions” after their publisher, Varo Manufacturing. So, the story of the Philadelphia Experiment was given new life.

The Lack Of Evidence

Apart from Allende’s claims and the Varo annotations, all reports of the Philadelphia Experiment have been uncorroborated, considered a hoax, or brushed aside, as the claims simply do not conform to the laws of physics.

The government organizations that were allegedly involved declare that it never happened, and indeed no documents have ever been found. Truly, the mysterious annotated manuscript of Jessup’s book seems to be the only written mention of the Philadelphia Experiment.

Over the years, the Philadelphia Experiment has become somewhat of a gambit amongst conspiracy theorists.

Everyone has their own version of events or explanations as to what could have caused the alleged disappearance and teleportation of an entire naval destroyer, ranging from government contact with aliens to paranormal interference.

The sole fact that Carlos Allende seemed to be the only witness to such a large-scale event seemed to hold most right-minded people back from believing the story. However, in 1988, Allende was joined by another witness.

A man named Al Bielek came forward in 1988, four years after Hollywood had gotten their hands on the story of the experiments and released a movie .

Bielek claimed that he was aboard the Eldridge when it disappeared and that he had been brainwashed to forget it. It was only upon seeing the movie’s depiction of the event that the memories had come flooding back.

YouTube Al Bielek, the man who claimed to be a survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment.

Despite the fact that there were now two men who claimed to have firsthand knowledge of the test, the idea that it was a hoax still dominated conversations about the Philadelphia Experiment.

A More Sensible Explanation Behind What Happened To The USS Eldridge

Today, most people are inclined to believe the explanation put forth by Edward Dudgeon, a man who had worked as a Navy electrician and was stationed near the USS Eldridge in the summer of 1943.

According to Dudgeon, generators were indeed placed on both the Eldridge and his ship — the USS Engstrom — to make the ships invisible.

However, the term “invisible” did not apply to the ship’s physical appearance but rather its ability to be detected by the magnetic torpedoes fired by German U-boats. In fact, this process had its own name: degaussing.

Dudgeon also had logical explanations for the ship’s greenish-blue glow and appearance in Norfolk, Virginia.

The glow, he said, was likely the result of a lightning-like phenomenon known as St. Elmo’s Fire.

Meanwhile, the fact that the ship seemingly appeared out of thin air in Virginia before reappearing quickly in Philadelphia was explained by inland canals, which were off-limits to civilians and could shorten a two-day commercial journey to just six hours.

Even though Dudgeon put forth an excellent explanation for the Philadelphia experiment, there are still those who choose to believe the more exciting version. As there are no official documents explaining what transpired, technically speaking there’s no proof for either story.

As for the USS Eldridge itself, it was transferred to Greece and rechristened the HS Leon before being used in exercises during the Cold War. Now, it lies in pieces, after being sold for scrap metal in the 90s.

After reading about the Philadelphia experiment and the USS Eldridge, check out the Stanford prison experiment , and the Helmut Kentler pedophilia experiment .

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What is the True Story of the Philadelphia Experiment?

Invisible ships, aliens, top secret missions, a government conspiracy and Albert Einstein - the Philadelphia Experiment had it all. But was the story of the USS Eldridge a hoax or science fiction brought to life?

The Philadelphia Experiment, sometimes known as the USS Eldridge conspiracy, has all the trappings of a sci-fi blockbuster. Indeed it became the subject of one starring Michael Paré in 1984.

If it’s to be believed, this top secret test of alien invisibility technology was carried out at the height of the Second World War, under the direction of Albert Einstein himself, ending in both success and catastrophe.

If it’s deemed a hoax, it is one whose ramifications have been long-term and widespread. So which is it?

The Philadelphia Experiment

Albert Einstein image on a postage stamp (Photo: tomograf via iStock)

The Philadelphia Conspiracy was an alleged top secret government project codenamed Operation Rainbow, carried out under the auspices of Albert Einstein in accordance with his unified field theory. Its objective was to test alien invisibility technology. It was 1943, the midst of World War II and the US was seeking an advantage to help them win the Battle of the Atlantic.

And so, one day that year, often cited as 28th October 1943, the new tech was supposedly fitted onto the USS Eldridge which was docked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. It’s said that those on nearby ships witnessed the generators of the Eldridge begin to hum, a green-blue hue – some said a fog or a glow – emanated from the destroyer’s hull and, in an instant, the ship simply vanished.

It’s said the ship reappeared again just as suddenly, but only after it was spotted materialising out of thin air over 200 miles away, at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia – before then vanishing a second time.

If true, surely the Philadelphia Experiment had been a resounding success. Not only did it render an entire Cannon-class destroyer escort ship invisible, but it teleported it over 200 miles away and back again. However, there was more to the story than simply this astonishing tale.

It was said that classified military documents revealed far darker implications. When the USS Eldridge rematerialised in Philadelphia, members of its crew suffered injuries ranging from minor to catastrophic. Nausea, disorientation, insanity, third degree burns and mysterious illnesses were all cited. The most alarming effects regarded crew being found fused to parts of the ship, some of them still alive.

The Philadelphia Conspiracy Origins

The Case for the UFO scripts (Poto: Pixsooz via iStock)

According to the story, there were many witnesses to the Philadelphia Experiment; people who saw the ship’s disappearance and reappearance. And yet, only one witness came forward, and it was not until the 1950s that details of it began to emerge. In fact, all information about the Philadelphia Conspiracy derives from a single source. That was a man by the name of Carl Meredith Allen.

In 1956, Carl Allen began writing what would be hundreds of letters to Morris K. Jessup, the author of a book called The Case for the UFO (1955). Going by the name Carlos Allende, he tried to convince Jessup to stop the research he was then conducting on Albert Einstein’s incomplete unified field theory. As part of this, he informed Jessup of the USS Eldridge conspiracy, claiming to have witnessed the test himself while working on a ship called the SS Andrew Furuseth as a deckhand. When Jessup attempted to get more information from Allen, he was unable to provide any evidence for his claims.

At around the same time, the US Office of Naval Research (the ONR) received an anonymous package labelled “Happy Easter”. Inside was a copy of Jessup’s book, heavily annotated by what appeared to be three different contributors, each in different shades of blue and referring to each other as “gypsies”. The notes within related to UFOs, purporting to have knowledge of extraterrestrial life on Earth and suggesting that Jessup’s research on unified field theory was too close to some alien technology. There were also several allusions to the Philadelphia Experiment.

In a strange twist that served only to enhance belief in the Philadelphia conspiracy, two agents at the ONR took it upon themselves to privately print many copies of the annotated book, which became known in certain circles as the Varo Version.

Investigating The Philadelphia Conspiracy

In 1957, the ONR invited Jessup to view the annotated copy of his book. He confirmed that the annotations matched the handwriting in Allen’s letters. It has since been confirmed that it was Allen who sent the package to the ONR and, in 1969, he even admitted to writing all of the annotations. His aim? To “scare the hell out of Jessup” and deter him from continuing his investigation of Unified Field Theory, which Allen viewed as dangerous. He later retracted this admission.

So, who was Carlos Allende aka Carl Allen? For a long time, that answer was as elusive as the man himself. In fact, nothing was known about him until a journalist called Robert Goerman wrote about the man in 1980. Goerman, apparently realising an old family connection with Allen, interviewed the man’s family and described him as a “a creative and imaginative loner.” According to Goerman, Allen had a history of mental illness which he speculated might have been behind any fabrications.

USS Eldridge Hoax: The Official Response

The Philadelphia Experiment captured the imagination of the ufologist community for many years. Indeed, the ONR was so overwhelmed by the constant enquiries about it that, in 1996, it released an official statement completely denying the event, stating:

“ONR has never conducted any investigations on invisibility, either in 1943 or at any other time (ONR was established in 1946.) In view of present scientific knowledge, ONR scientists do not believe that such an experiment could be possible except in the realm of science fiction.”

The same statement provided theories as to the origins of the ideas behind the USS Eldridge Conspiracy. For example, the invisibility aspect might have arisen from real research at the Philadelphia Naval Yard at the time into rendering ships undetectable to radar, known as degaussing.

There has never been any evidence provided for or corroboration of the Philadelphia Experiment. What is more, any evidence collected, such as the logs of the USS Eldridge and other involved ships, have contradicted the story. For example, on the alleged date of the experiment, 28th October 1943, the ship’s log puts it in the Bahamas on a shakedown tour.

Resurgence of the USS Eldridge 'Hoax'

Abstract Futuristic Technology Background with Clock concept and Time Machine (Photo: ChakisAtelier via iStock)

For a long time it was widely accepted that the Philadelphia Experiment was a fake, sometimes referred to as the USS Eldridge hoax. However, it was revived by the emergence of another alleged secret experiment, The Montauk Project. Instead of invisibility, this time it was time travel and, in place of Einstein, were Wilhelm Reich and Nikola Tesla. It tied in with the Philadelphia Experiment as part of a wider plan.

Some Still Believe

Hoax stamp (Photo: Christian Horz via iStock)

It is widely acknowledged that the Philadelphia Experiment was indeed a hoax, perpetrated by one man whose family described him as a “master leg-puller”, Carl Meredith Allen. And yet, despite a complete lack of proof, under the umbrella of the Montauk Project, the USS Eldridge conspiracy seems to be gaining new supporters even to this day.

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The Untold Truth Of The Philadelphia Experiment

The 1984 film The Philadelphia Experiment is a romance, a war-time period piece, a time-travel movie, and depending on who you ask, is "based on actual events." Released under the auspices of Roger Corman's New World Pictures, known for its exploitation flick ethos, the film bears all the outward hallmarks of a high-concept b-movie, yet offers ambitious storytelling that aims higher than it needs to.

The film features Michael Pare, a young star continuing his rise after roles in Eddie and the Cruisers and Walter Hill's Streets of Fire . Appearing in their third film together, actors Nancy Allen and Bobby DiCicco also play pivotal parts.

Behind the scenes, several production changes suggest that this could have arrived as a much different movie than we know today, with more of an emphasis on horror and no romantic angles at all. A famous director was asked to helm the film but passed. On paper, if not in a military harbor near you, there's even a scientific theory to back up the wild MacGuffin that drives the movie's plot.

This is the untold truth of The Philadelphia Experiment .

Actual events in air quotes

"The Philadelphia Experiment" is an urban legend about a U.S. Naval experiment that purportedly took place in 1943 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania, with the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge being rendered invisible to detection systems.

The tides of World War II had turned with the surrender of Italy to the Allies. With a sense that Germany was on the ropes, there was a great desire for the U.S. to shore up the gains the Allied forces had made. If they could get war craft into enemy waters without being seen, bringing with them the advantage of surprise, the war could end in short order. A ship with a cloaking device onboard could do the trick.

One problem: it's not true.

In 1955, writer and astronomer Morris K. Jessup purportedly received letters from unknown sources describing the experiment . Known for his belief in the supernatural and extraterrestrial, Jessup published books including The Case for the UFO (1955), The UFO Annual (1956), and The Expanding Case for the UFO (1957).

According to David Ritchie's 1994 book UFO: The Definitive Guide to Unidentified Flying Objects and Related Phenomena , Jessup claimed to have made a breakthrough regarding the Philadelphia Experiment on April 19, 1959. Just one day later, he was found dead in his car from carbon monoxide poisoning. The death was ruled a suicide , although conspiracy theorists believed he was silenced to keep from revealing things he was not meant to know.

John Carpenter's Philadelphia Experiment

The movie we know today as The Philadelphia Experiment could have been far different. It started as a script written by horror film icon John Carpenter , who was taken by the legend. In an interview , Carpenter said, "Great shaggy dog story. Absolute bull****, but what a great story. While I was writing it, I couldn't figure out the third act. A friend suggested the revenge of the crew against the people who put them there, but I thought it was too much like The Fog . Absolute bull****."

It is unclear how much of Carpenter's original story made it to the final shooting script. What eventually made it to the screen was a time-travel story wherein two sailors involved with the experiment are plucked off of the USS Eldridge in 1943 and deposited in 1984. Romantic elements between one of the sailors and a good Samaritan were added in later drafts.

Carpenter was given an Executive Producer credit, but did not get a screenwriting or story credit for The Philadelphia Experiment .

While it might seem strange that Carpenter would simply relinquish a script this way, it was not unprecedented. In the mid-1970s, he delivered a treatment and two drafts of a screenplay titled Eyes to Columbia Pictures. The script went through several revisions, ultimately arriving in theaters in 1978 as The Eyes of Laura Mars , directed by Irvin Kershner ( The Empire Strikes Back ).

Director Stewart Raffill: pirates, wormholes and aliens

The Philadelphia Experiment wound up being the second 1984 effort for director Stewart Raffill , following the sci-fi comedy The Ice Pirates .

It is not uncommon for a director to take a pass at the script to align it with his or her vision, nor is it uncommon for a script to have many other writers involved. Raffill is an uncredited screenwriter for The Philadelphia Experiment . He re-wrote the screenplay to include a love story between the lead characters while also toning down the science-based exposition. Other writers on the project besides John Carpenter and Raffill included Wallace Bennett and Don Jakoby ( Lifeforce, Arachnophobia ), who received story credits, while Michael Janover and William Gray ( The Changeling, Prom Night ) earned screenplay credits.

More consequential to pop culture, perhaps, is Raffill's follow-up feature, the 1988 movie Mac and Me . If you do not recognize the name, this is the thinly-veiled E.T. homage mercilessly teased by actor Paul Rudd on numerous appearances on The Conan O'Brien Show .

The cast of The Philadelphia Experiment

Leading the cast was Michael Pare, whose previous star turns included Eddie and the Cruisers and Streets of Fire . Joining him were Nancy Allen and Bobby DiCicco, who were castmates in two films before The Philadelphia Experiment : Steven Spielberg's 1941 (written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, of Back to the Future fame) and I Wanna Hold Your Hand (co-written and directed by Zemeckis).

Pare and DiCicco play two ill-fated sailors on board the USS Eldridge during the experiment who are sucked into a time vortex, winding up in the '80s on the grounds where a military installation has suddenly vanished. Allen plays a bystander who helps the two (after being carjacked by them), all the while being pursued by the U.S. military.

Miles McNamara and Eric Christmas play Dr. James Longstreet (in 1943 and 1984, respectively). Longstreet is the scientist behind the prototype cloaking device. Keen-eyed viewers will also spot character actor Stephen Tobolowsky ("Ned Ryerson" from Groundhog Day ) in one of his earliest roles as an assistant on the experiment.

A long, strange trip

The central conceit of The Philadelphia Experiment 's plot is the time vortex which has ripped the USS Eldridge and a military town in the Nevada desert out of their respective eras. The cause of this is the cloaking technology developed by Dr. James Longstreet who tempted fate once in 1943 during the experiment and then again in 1984, having not learned his lesson the first time. The technology has created a start and endpoint for the time vortex, bridging a Philadelphia harbor and a Nevada town, and trapping both in the middle of the wormhole.

One can make strong parallels between the Longstreet character and that of John Hammond, the eccentric entrepreneur from the first two Jurassic Park films. Both characters display unbound hubris that leads to disastrous results. In other words, the characters exemplify the admonition given in the latter film: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

The time travel narrative device has found its way into many different forms of pop culture, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to multiple episodes of the original Star Trek series to the Back to the Future series. The unique fingerprint The Philadelphia Experiment leaves on the trope is that the main protagonist is dragged into the future and not the past.

The science of The Philadelphia Experiment

Are wormholes possible? Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity says that space and time are inextricably tied and are, in fact, different descriptions of the same thing. A broad example is when you look up at the stars at night. The light you see from those stars was cast a very long time ago, and you are essentially looking into the past when you view them.

Further, any presence of mass, like the planets themselves, or energy will warp the fabric of space-time. That warping creates folds that can be "torn" and "patched," facilitating shortcuts between point "A" and point "B." These are wormholes. Problem is that they're only theoretical, with the math only suggesting their feasibility right now.

The first kind of wormholes to be theorized were  Einstein Rosen Bridges , which describe black holes as portals to parallel universes. However, such bridges would be highly unstable, and if it did not collapse upon entry, the pathway between endpoints would take a very long time to traverse — hardly a conventional shortcut.

What does this have to do with  The Philadelphia Experiment ? Well, in director Stewart Raffill's script rewrite, the love story between Michael Pare and Nancy Allen's characters was added, and science-based exposition was toned way down. Its absence doesn't harm the story. In fact, had it been included, it likely would have slowed down the narrative. But if the question is "Are wormholes possible?" the answer is "yes," at least on paper.

Urban legends

The genesis of The Philadelphia Experiment lies in the urban legend of the USS Eldridge and the debate over whether the incident actually occurred or not. It is not the only example of a work of fiction relying on such anecdotes with sketchy provenance.

The most famous of these would be Men in Black (1997), which relied heavily on the mythology of men dressed in black suits claiming to be government agents and using intimidation to silence UFO witnesses. Although the films starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are the most widely-known examples, there are several instances both before and after these using the same themes. The X-Files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space," for example, featured Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek as men in black.

Fiction abounds with stories about wormholes, the time-space shortcuts that allow the Millennium Falcon to jump through hyperspace, the Enterprise to go to warp speed, and  Doctor Who 's  TARDIS to move from Earth to Gallifrey. The creation and manipulation of wormholes is the crucial mechanism for the videogame  Portal .

So it is with The Philadelphia Experiment . Dr. James Longstreet has essentially created a black hole in 1943 and another in 1984. Caught between these is a rift in space-time where both the USS Eldridge and the military town are essentially held hostage.

Life after the Experiment

The American Film Institute Catalog suggests that the budget for The Philadelphia Experiment was $9 million. Its worldwide take as reported by Box Office Mojo was $8,103,330. Measure that against the 10th highest-grossing film of 1984, Splash , with a worldwide gross of $69,821,334, and it becomes clear that the film underperformed.

Rotten Tomatoes only has 10 reviews logged, with a lowly 50% rating, but there is public goodwill for the film. Although tame by Roger Corman/New World Pictures standards, it retains the renegade spirit found in the studio's other efforts. One could imagine the studio heads saw it as a kind of Terminator -in-reverse with the protagonist arriving from the past instead of the future. It is a movie that brings its a-game to a b-movie milieu.

As an early entry in the videocassette rental boom of the 1980s and a stalwart of cable television, the movie earned enough name recognition to merit a sequel ... sort of. Philadelphia Experiment II , released in 1993, featured a different cast and crew. The SyFy network offered a made-for-television remake in 2012. Michael Pare returned in this version, but in a different role.

In the end, The Philadelphia Experiment has become a cult favorite thanks to audiences connecting with concepts that punched above their weight and with the underlying romance that was tacked on at a very late stage. It's a film that was never likely to transcend its limitations but earns points for earnestly willing to make the attempt.

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How the Philadelphia Experiment Worked

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It was the summer of 1943, two years into the United States' involvement in World War II, and a bloody sea battle was raging between American destroyers and the famed U-boat submarines of the Nazis. In the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, a newly commissioned destroyer called the USS Eldridge was being equipped with several large generators as part of a top-secret mission to win the Battle of the Atlantic once and for all.

Rumor aboard the ship was that the generators were designed to power a new kind of magnetic field that would make the warship invisible to enemy radar . With the full crew on board, it was time to test the system. In broad daylight, and in plain sight of nearby ships, the switches were thrown on the powerful generators, which hummed into action.

What happened next would baffle scientists and fuel decades of wild speculation. Witnesses describe an eerie green-blue glow surrounding the hull of the ship. Then, instantaneously and inexplicably, the Eldridge disappeared. Not just invisible to radar, but gone — vanished into thin air!

Hours later, there were reports of the Eldridge appearing in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, before reappearing just as suddenly back in Philadelphia. According to classified military reports, members of the Eldridge crew suffered from terrible burns and disorientation. Most shockingly, a few crewmen were found partially embedded in the steel hull of the ship; still alive, but with legs or arms sealed to the deck.

So goes the story of the Philadelphia Experiment, perhaps the most famous and widely retold example of secret government experiments with teleportation and time travel. More than 70 years later, despite the absence of any physical evidence or corroborating testimony, the Philadelphia Experiment survives as "fact" in the minds of amateur paranormalists and conspiracy theorists.

To understand how the Philadelphia Experiment really worked, we must learn about the men who first brought the closely guarded secret to light, explore the suspicious government response to their revelations and get a very different version of the story from a surviving crewmember of the Eldridge.

'Call Me Carlos': A Conspiracy Is Born

The 'real' philadelphia experiment, the philadelphia experiment today.

Almost everything that we "know" about the Philadelphia Experiment and the alleged teleportation of the USS Eldridge emerged from the mind and pen of a colorful character named Carl M. Allen, better known by his pseudonym Carlos Miguel Allende.

In 1956, Allende sent the first of over 50 handwritten letters to the author and amateur astronomer Morris K. Jessup, who a year earlier had published a self-researched book called "The Case for the UFO" [source: Vallee]. In his letters, Allende criticized Jessup's naive understanding of unified field theory, which Allende claimed to have been taught by Albert Einstein himself. A unified field theory , which has never been proven (by Einstein or anyone else), attempts to merge the forces of gravity and electromagnetism into one fundamental field [source: Sutton ].

To prove that a unified field theory existed, Allende offered Jessup his eyewitness account from a nearby ship of the disappearance of the Eldridge from the Philadelphia Naval Yard in 1943. Carlos Allende's letter to Morris Jessup, which explains how the U.S. military used Einstein's revelations to teleport an entire naval destroyer and its crew, registered the first ever mention of the Philadelphia Experiment. No other witnesses from the crew of the Eldridge or nearby ships had come forward in the 13 years since the alleged event.

Jessup attempted a serious investigation of Allende's claims, but grew frustrated with the mysterious letter writer's inability to produce physical evidence. Jessup was ready to drop the investigation entirely when he was contacted by two officers from the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) in 1957 [source: Vallee].

According to an information sheet published by the ONR, the two officers were responding to a strange package that they received in 1956. It contained a copy of Jessup's UFO book annotated by handwritten notes claiming advanced knowledge of physics that linked extraterrestrial technology to breakthroughs in unified field theory [source: ONR ].

Although the scrawled notes were meant to look like they came from three different authors (at least one, perhaps, an alien), Jessup instantly recognized the handwritings as all belonging to Carlos Allende. For unexplained reasons, the ONR officers published 127 copies of the annotated book using a Texas military contractor named Varo Manufacturing. Transcribed copies of the so-called "Varo editions" — whether real or forged — would become prized collector's items for conspiracy theorists [source: Vallee].

Sadly, Jessup's story took a tragic turn. Injured in a car accident and split from his wife, Jessup committed suicide in 1959. Carlos Allende lived until 1994, sporadically sending letters to anyone who would listen to his fantastical tale of the Philadelphia Experiment [source: Vallee].

For decades, Carlos Allende (aka Carl Allen) was the sole "witness" of the allegedly supernatural events surrounding the 1943 Philadelphia Experiment. Carlos claimed to have been stationed on the SS Andrew Furuseth, a vessel docked in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard with a clear view of the Eldridge when it disappeared.

Much later, after the release of the 1984 film "The Philadelphia Experiment," a man named Al Bielek came forward claiming to have personally taken part in the secret experiment, which he had been brainwashed to forget. Only after seeing the movie in 1988 did his repressed memories come flooding back [source: Vallee].

Despite the insistent (and constantly evolving) claims of both men, it was the testimony of a third witness that ultimately shed some light on what may have really happened in Philadelphia during that wartime summer of 1943.

In 1994, French-born astrophysicist and ufologist Jacques F. Vallee published an article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration titled "Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later." In writing a previous article about the Philadelphia Experiment, Vallee asked readers to contact him if they had further information about the alleged event. That's when Vallee received a letter from Edward Dudgeon, who served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945.

Dudgeon had served on the USS Engstrom, which was dry-docked in the Philadelphia Naval Yard during the summer of 1943 [source: Vallee]. Dudgeon was an electrician in the Navy and had full knowledge of the classified devices that were installed on both his ship and the Eldridge, which he said was there at the same time.

Far from being teleportation engines designed by Einstein (or aliens ), the devices enabled the ships to scramble their magnetic signature using a technique called degaussing . The ship were wrapped in large cables and zapped with high-voltage charges. A degaussed ship wouldn't be invisible to radar, but would be undetectable by the U-boats' magnetic torpedoes.

Dudgeon was familiar with the wild rumors about disappearing ships and mangled crewmen, but credited the fabrications to loose sailor talk about "invisibility" to torpedoes and the peculiarity of the degaussing process. The "green glow" was probably due to an electric storm or St. Elmo's Fire. As for the Eldridge's mysterious appearance in Norfolk and sudden return to Philadelphia, Dudgeon explained that the Navy used inland canals — off-limits to commercial vessels — to make the trip in six hours rather than two days [source: Vallee].

In another turn of events, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 1999 on a reunion of sailors who served on the USS Eldridge in Atlantic City. The sailors said the ship never docked in Philadelphia. Indeed, it was in Brooklyn on its supposed date of disappearance. The ship's log confirmed this. Further, the captain said no experiments were ever conducted on the vessel.

Despite the differing accounts, both Dudgeon and the Eldridge crew confirm that nothing otherworldly happened on the ship. Yet, people continue to believe otherwise. We'll look at some reasons why the hoax has endured for more than 70 years.

In 1951, the U.S. transferred the ship to Greece where it was renamed the HS Leon and used in joint exercises between the two countries during the Cold War. It was eventually sold for scrap in the 1990s. A very ignoble end [source: Veronese ].

Despite its near universal debunking as a hoax, the Philadelphia Experiment endures as a paranormal cultural landmark.

The 1984 movie — based loosely on Carlos Allende's original narrative — was hardly an Oscar contender, but its '80s-era special effects were good enough to plant some indelible images in the moviegoer's mind. One particularly graphic scene near the end of the film depicts a badly burned crewmember writhing on the deck of the Eldridge with half of his body swallowed up in steel.

In his article explaining the stickiness of the Philadelphia Experiment myth, Jacques F. Vallee theorizes that powerful imagery is key to the success of any long-lived hoax . Like the debunked "surgeon's photo" of the Loch Ness Monster or the doctored pictures of the Cottingley fairies, it was the clear mental images of a disappearing ship and the mangled crewmen that helped capture the public's imagination.

The plausibility of the Philadelphia Experiment story is also fortified by a general mistrust of the military and the federal government, which have admitted to carrying out unethical experiments on their own soldiers and citizens. The claims are lent further legitimacy by invoking the names of brilliant scientists like Einstein and associating the secret technology with a scientific theory that remains just out of reach.

Though the ONR said it has never conducted experiments on invisibility and that such experiments could only happen in science fiction, true believers think this is one more case of the government performing a cover-up.

Even as more evidence has emerged about the true identity of Carlos Allende — a charismatic drifter with a host of mental problems — the Philadelphia Experiment refuses to die. It has even spawned a related myth called the Montauk Project. In this version, set at an Air Force base in the 1980s, the government built on the success of the Philadelphia Experiment to "manipulate the flow of time" [source: Vallee].

For lots more information about unexplained phenomena and contagious conspiracies , check out the related HowStuffWorks articles on the next page.

Philadelphia Experiment FAQ

How many movies were made about the philadelphia experiment, did the uss eldridge really disappear, what happened to the uss eldridge, what is the montauk project, who is carl m. allen, lots more information, author's note: how the philadelphia experiment worked.

You can't keep a good hoax down. The story of the Philadelphia Experiment has all of the trademark signs of a lie: a single witness, a secret government plot, pseudoscientific revelations possibly from alien sources ... It's a wonder that this thing ever caught on, let alone endured for decades. The Internet has certainly done its job. There are dozens of dubious websites dedicated to the "hidden facts" that the "government doesn't want you to know" about the Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project. Anyone who dares to debunk the hoaxers is "debunked" themselves — allegedly unmasked as a CIA stooge or a paid accomplice. I can only hope that somewhere in the bowels of cyberspace, there's a brand-new article debunking me.

Related Articles

• 10 Conspiracy Theories About the JFK Assassination
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• 10 Real Events That Seem Like Hoaxes
• How Revisionist History Works
• McCrary, Lacy. "Legend Says the Eldridge Briefly Vanished in 1943." Philadelphia Inquirer. March 26, 1999. (Jan. 28, 2015) http://articles.philly.com/1999-03-26/news/25511825_1_uss-eldridge-philadelphia-experiment-ship
• Office of Naval Research. "Information Sheet: Philadelphia Experiment; UFO's." (Jan. 22, 2015) http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/homeland_defense/UFOs/onr_ph1.pdf
• Sutton, Christine. "Unified Field Theory." Encyclopedia Britannica (Jan. 22, 2015) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/614522/unified-field-theory
• Vallee, Jacques F. "Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later." Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 8, No. 1. 1994 (Jan. 22, 2015) http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_08_1_vallee.pdf
• Veronese, Keith. "What really happened during the Philadelphia Experiment?" Sept. 21, 2012 (Jan. 22, 2015) http://io9.com/5944616/what-really-happened-during-the-philadelphia-experiment

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• Published: June 5, 2017
• Movies , Narration

56: The Experiment

Did you enjoy this episode help support the next one, 2018 updates.

• The Lifespan of a Lie – Trust Issues – Medium
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• New evidence shows Stanford Prison Experiment conclusions | Cosmos
• Was the Stanford Prison Experiment a sham? A Q&A with the writer who exposed the celebrated study | News | Palo Alto Online |

Original Resources

• Feature Film – The Stanford Prison Experiment (Documentary) – YouTube
• Amazon.com: Das Experiment- Black Box. Versuch mit tödlichem Ausgang. Roman zum Film. (9783499230462): Mario Giordano, Moritz Bleibtreu, Oliver Hirschbiegel: Books
• The Experiment (2010) – IMDb
• The Experiment (2010 film) – Wikipedia
• The Experiment (2010) – Full Cast & Crew – IMDb
• The Stanford Prison Experiment (film) – Wikipedia
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• Stanford prison experiment – Wikipedia
• Stanford Prison Experiment | Simply Psychology
• The Real Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment – The New Yorker
• Is it time to stop doing any more Milgram experiments? | Aeon Essays
• Milgram Experiment | Simply Psychology
• Milgram’s Experiments: The Perils of Obedience
• Milgram Experiment – Will People Do Anything If Ordered?
• Philip Zimbardo | Speaker | TED.com
• Narration.pdf
• Slavich_ToP_2009.pdf
• Stanford Prison Experiment – Roles Define Your Behavior
• The Experiment by Paul Scheuring Synopsis – Plot Summary – Fandango
• The Stanford Prison Experiment: History’s Most Controversial Psychology Study Turns 40 – Brain Pickings
• Mario Giordano (writer) – Wikipedia
• Stanford Magazine – Article
• Shocking “prison” study 40 years later: What happened at Stanford? – Photo 1 – Pictures – CBS News
• The Stanford Prison Experiment: Still powerful after all these years (1/97)
• Stanford Prison Experiment: How accurate is the movie? Philip Zimbardo weighs in – The Mercury News

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Note: This transcript is automatically generated. There will be mistakes, so please don’t use them for quotes. It is provided for reference use to find things better in the audio.

The movie begins by mentioning it’s based on a novel called Black Box. That novel was written by a German author named Mario Giordano. In fact, it was Mario who was also the co-writer for The Experiment along with Paul Scheuring. So while the movie may not have been based on a true story directly, the novel called Black Box was based on a true story.

This isn’t really anything new, it’s sort of like what we saw with the movie 300 that was actually based on the graphic novel of the same name instead of the history itself.

As a little side note, there was also a German movie named Das Experiement that was released in 2001 also based on Mario’s novel. Oh, and there was another movie released in 2015 called The Stanford Prison Experiment that doesn’t have anything to do with Mario’s book except that both that movie and Mario’s book are based on the same true story.

Anyway, during this introduction to the film we see Adrien Brody’s character, Travis, as he gets laid off from a job at a retirement home. Soon after losing his job, he meets a girl who he instantly gets a crush on.

All of this is made up for the movie, but the story points here are important to set up the scene. The character of Travis wasn’t a real person, and neither was the girl he likes. Oh, her character name is Bay and she’s played by Maggie Grace.

If there was a real person that closely resembles some of the things we saw Travis do in the movie it’d probably be Clay Ramsey. We’ll learn more about Clay a bit later.

Despite being fictional and despite the movie never really telling us exactly what year it is, there’s some reality to what we see in the film.

The year was 1971 and the setting was Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. For the past 16 years, the United States had been deadlocked in a bloody war with Vietnam.

With each passing day, there were more and more protests about the war. Americans across the country kept protesting and asking why they were still involved in the conflict. This growing pressure to end the war also added to a growing dislike for governmental authority in general. Military, police, it didn’t really matter—lots of people were growing tired of governmental control over their lives.

So when we saw Adrien Brody’s character, Travis, joining a protest march, that’s something that was common in the early 1970s. The general sense of despising violence that we get from Travis as he talks with his new crush, Maggie Grace’s character, Bay, was also a common trend in the 1970s culture.

It was the 70s. Peace, love and happiness for all, right?

Except the movie isn’t set in the 70s. This is pretty obvious right away from the technology in the movie alone. For example, the LED light on Travis’ bosses desk when he gets fired. Although technically LEDs were invented in the 1960s, another clue comes from the flat screen computer monitor right next to the LED light—or another one in the bar when Travis is chatting with Bay.

Anyway, the point is that the timeline in the movie is not set in the 1970s like the real events. And as I mentioned just a moment ago, there isn’t a timeline indicated in the film but my speculation is that it’s set around the same time as the movie was made.

The reason I’m guessing that is because when the movie was released there was also a backdrop of growing dislike in the United States for a foreign conflict. It wasn’t the Vietnam War like the 1970s, but instead the war in Iraq that lasted from 2003 until 2011.

And since The Experiment was released in 2010, it’d make sense for the film to be present-day when it was released.

Back in the movie, Adrien Brody’s Travis is trying to find a job after getting laid off when he sees an ad in the classifieds of the newspaper.

That’s actually pretty close to reality, because the real Stanford Prison Experiment began with an ad in the classifieds of the newspaper, too. Although the ad itself was different than what we saw in the movie.

In the film the ad stated subjects were wanted for a behavioral experiment. According to the ad it’d be two weeks long, no experience necessary and perhaps most importantly it said the experiment would be safe. Payment was $1,000 per day.

In truth, the classified ad did say the experiment was two weeks long, but it didn’t mention anything about it being safe. Although that’s probably because the thought of it not being safe wasn’t even on anyone’s mind—sort of like how an ad for most jobs don’t bother to claim the job is safe. Some things are just assumed.

Still, the ad was fairly simple and unassuming as it called for male college students to participate in a psychological study of prison life. The duration expected was anywhere from one to two weeks and for further information or to apply, show up in person at Room 248, Jordan Hall at Stanford University.

Minor detail, perhaps, but there was no phone number listed like we saw in the movie. Perhaps a bit more substantial of a difference was the compensation. In the movie they were offered $1,000 per day for two weeks, or a total of $14,000.

In truth participants were offered only $15 a day for the duration of either one or two weeks. So that’d be anywhere from $105 to $210 overall.

$15 in 1971 is about the same as $91 today, or about $81 in 2010 when we’re assuming the movie takes place. That’s a far cry from the $1,000 a day we saw in the movie.

Speaking of which, after Travis sees the ad he obviously decides to apply since we see him in the next scene in a waiting room with a bunch of other applicants. One of those is Forest Whitaker’s character, Michael Barris. Or just Barris as most people refer to him throughout the movie.

Like Travis, Michael Barris is a fictional character. If there’s a real person who the character of Michael Barris closely resembles it’s probably Dave Eshleman. More on that later.

In the movie, the man conducting the experiment is a psychologist named Dr. Archaleta, who’s played by Fisher Stevens. According to the doctor, any of the applicants who have a history of violence or incarceration are immediately disqualified.

That’s true. Well, Dr. Achaleta isn’t a real person, the real psychologist at Stanford University who was in charge of the experiment was a man named Dr. Philip Zimbardo. Before choosing the final students to participate in the study, Dr. Zimbardo ran a series of tests on them to filter out anyone who might have mental health concerns.

You’ll notice I said students. That’s because in the real study the people chosen were all college students, although not all of them were attending Stanford. Some of them just happened to be in the area at the time. So in the movie when it makes things seem like Travis and Barris weren’t students but were just showing up just because they’re between jobs, that’s not really true.

Well, some of the students certainly were between jobs. Remember Clay Ramsey? After the study, Clay explained the reason he signed up for the experiment was because he was about to go to Stanford in September and wanted to earn some quick cash at a summer job before the Fall semester started. Except it was August, so an experiment that’d only last one or two weeks seemed perfect.

He wasn’t one of the initial students selected, but was rather put onto a list of reserves for the experiment.

In the movie, 26 final people are chosen. In truth, there were 24 people who were selected. Although they were all males, like the movie shows.

According to the movie, the 26 selected men show up like they’re going to work and hop on a bus that takes them to the middle of nowhere. Well, it’s in the middle of a corn field, but it seems like the middle of nowhere.

There’s some elements of truth in this, but the true story is much worse than what we saw in the movie.

Before we get to that, though, there seems to be a bit of fogginess with a lot of online sources about the exact dates for the experiment.

We know from the official presentation that Dr. Zimbardo made with his findings after the experiment, which you can still find elements of on Stanford’s website, that the experiment began on a Sunday morning in August of 1971.

According to some online sources, the study started on Sunday, August 17th, 1971. Except there’s a little problem with that because there was no Sunday, August 17th, 1971. A simple look at the calendar for the year 1971 shows August 17th as a Tuesday.

However, according to Dr. Zimbardo’s aforementioned presentation we know the experiment was prematurely ended on August 20th and that it lasted only six days of the originally planned two weeks, the experiment would’ve started on August 14th, 1971. That’s a Saturday, and likely when Dr. Zimbardo and his colleagues began preparing for the experiment.

After they’d set up the space, on Sunday the participants arrived. Not in a bus, but Dr. Zimbardo arranged for the Palo Alto Police Department to surprise the participants at their homes. The “prisoners” were arrested and charged with Penal Code 211: Armed robbery and burglary.

As far as the participants knew, the arrest was real. Oh sure, they knew they’d signed up for a prison experiment a few weeks earlier, but there were 70 people who signed up. And they knew not everyone would get in. A total of 24 participants out of those 70 were selected.

About half of the 24 total participants ended up being prisoners, the other half being guards. Of those 24, only 18 were the primary participants. The others, like Clay Ramsey, were reserves.

The selection process for which student would be a prisoner and who’d be a guard was done with the flip of a coin to keep it random.

So this is how the experiment began. With a very real police officer arriving at the home of the participants who’d been unlucky enough to be picked to be prisoners. The officer charged them with armed robbery, frisking them spread-eagle against the cop car, cuffing them and putting them in the back of the car to be carried off to the police station.

At the police station—which was a real station—the cops blindfolded the participants and left them in a holding cell for a while. Finally, they were put into a car, still blindfolded, and told they were going to Stanford County Jail for processing.

This is where the switch was made. Instead of going to a county jail, the “prisoners” were sent to the Dr. Zimbardo’s new prison at Stanford University.

Unlike the prison in the middle of corn fields in the movie, the fake prison set up by Dr. Zimbardo was done in the basement of Stanford’s Psychology Department building. Before the prisoners arrived, Dr. Zimbardo’s team used a consultant to help transform a typical school building into a prison environment. That consultant was a man named Carlo Prescott, who himself had spent 17 years in prison. Through Carlo’s consultations and introductions to other ex-cons and corrections officers, Dr. Zimbardo was able to transform the basement of Stanford’s Psychology Department building into a prison.

Rooms that were once laboratories had their doors removed and replaced with steel doors with bars and cell numbers on them. The small hallway outside these new cells was dubbed as the only place that prisoners would be allowed to eat, exercise or even walk outside their cells.

On the opposite side of the hallway from the cells was a storage closet. As is typical for storage rooms, there was no windows in this room, so when the door was closed there’d be no outside light. The prison consultant recommended they set up as solitary confinement there.

At the end of the hallway, a fake wall was put up with a small opening so a camera and audio recording equipment could capture everything that was happening.

Inside the prison environment, there weren’t any restrooms. Instead the guards would have to take prisoners to the restrooms outside the prison area and keep a close eye on them as they did.

In the movie, after arriving in the nondescript brick building, Dr. Achaleta mentions this is the last chance to back out. When no one does, he randomly assigns men to be either prisoners or guards. He then pulls the guards aside and explains the rules to them.

He goes on to say it’s the guards’ job to enforce the rules. If a rule is broken, they’ll have 30 minutes to fix things. If they don’t, the big red light will go off and the experiment will be over. No one will get paid.

We already learned about how the real Dr. Zimbardo determined prisoners and guards with a flip of the coin, but unlike the fictional Dr. Achaleta, the real Dr. Zimbardo didn’t disappear after setting up the scenario. There was no big red light, no 30 minutes to fix things for the guards.

Dr. Zimbardo may not have been the only one coordinating the experiment, but he was leading the experiment and also took on the role of the Superintendent of the fake prison. This dual-role was something he’d admit was a mistake later on.

When the “prisoners” arrived, as Superintendent, Dr. Zimbardo was the one who greeted them by informing them of the seriousness of the armed robbery charges, their new roles as prisoners. All of this to try to make it seem as realistic as possible.

There never was the threat of not paying the $15 a day to the participants. Money was never mentioned.

The new prisoners were, however, stripped naked and sprayed with a hose like we saw in the movie. All of this after getting arrested helped give the prisoners a good sense of their new roles as…well, prisoners.

In the movie, during day one of the experiment the guards are put to the test right away. It’s during rec time when the prisoners are playing basketball. One of the prisoners passes the ball to a guard, who doesn’t see it before it hits him in the face. With a bloody nose, the guards are left to wonder if this instance would break the rule of not touching a guard. Would the experiment be over in the first day if they don’t respond?

The guards in the film decide not to test the big red light and order the prisoners ten pushups as punishment. After punishment is issued, 30 minutes pass and the red light doesn’t go off. The guards assume they dealt with the situation as they should have.

All of that is made up.

Remember, the prison Dr. Zimbardo set up was in the basement of a Stanford University building made from a single hallway and converted lab rooms. There wasn’t a basketball court, high tech cameras or big cages like we see in the movie.

In truth, there were a total of three lab rooms turned cells that had just enough room to hold three cots for the prisoners. So there were nine prisoners total with three on the reserve list.

On the guard’s side there were also nine guards and their shifts were broken up into eight hour shifts. So three guards working three eight hour shifts to keep an eye on the nine prisoners 24 hours a day.

However, it is very true that the guards in the real experiment used push-ups as a means of punishment. This was something Dr. Zimbardo’s team thought wasn’t a very impressive form of punishment until much later, when further research found out that Nazi guards often used push-ups as a form of punishment in concentration camps.

Although, again, the movie is a little lighter on the punishment as the push-ups are done without incident. In reality, one of the guards liked to make things a little more difficult for the prisoners by stepping on the prisoners as they did push-ups or forcing other prisoners to sit on the backs of others to make the push-ups harder.

But that’s getting a little ahead of our story.

In truth, the first day didn’t have any punishments. After the flurry of activity to bring prisoners into their new environment, it was rather uneventful. Dr. Zimbardo would later recall that he was concerned after all of the work to set things up, get assistance from the Palo Alto PD with the arrest and so on, that after the first day he thought nothing would happen in the experiment.

He was wrong.

Oh, as a little side note here, the movie was actually correct in how the prisoners were referred by their assigned numbers instead of names. And while the movie doesn’t have this, during the real experiment they also had a chain wrapped around and locked on their ankle. It was symbolic, but it also meant every time they moved they’d hear the jingle of the chains.

Lastly, all of the guards were told to wear sunglasses even though there wasn’t any sort of windows or even clocks around to know what time of day it was. The reason for the glasses, which we don’t see the guards wearing in the movie, was so the prisoners couldn’t look the guards in the eye. This added a layer of separation from humanity.

The idea for the sunglasses was something Dr. Zimbardo got from Cool Hand Luke. Oddly, that’s not the last time Paul Newman’s classic film would come into play for our story.

Back in the movie, during day two there’s more tension building between prisoners and guards. There’s a food fight started when Adrien Brody’s character, Travis, refuses to eat the horrible cafeteria food. It’s during this food fight that a guard named Chase, who was taking the lead during the first day, starts to take a back seat as Forest Whitaker’s character, Barris, starts to feel the effects of the power he’s been given as a guard.

The character of Chase is played by Cam Gigandet.

Earlier, I mentioned the character of Barris is most likely based on a man named Dave Eshleman. Actually, I think that there’s a bit of Dave Eshleman that went into both Chase and Barris.

In the real experiment, Dave quickly emerged as a leader among the guards. After the experiment, Dave would recall that he, too, used Cool Hand Luke as an inspiration for how to assert authority over the prisoners in his new role as a prison guard.

One of the ways the guards asserted authority was with a roll call. The first of these happened at 2:30 AM on the second day while the prisoners were sleeping in their cells. The prisoners sleepily complied, lining up with their hands against the wall as the guards did their count.

Of course, it’s not like any of these fake prisoners were attempting to escape, but that just shows how the guards were trying to do things they’d seen elsewhere to do what they thought prison guards were supposed to do.

At the time, no one thought much of it.

Later in the morning of the second day, the prisoners rebelled against their confinement. None of this is depicted in the movie, but the prisoners had removed their prisoner ID numbers from their shirts, taken off the stocking caps they’d been forced to wear upon arriving to simulate shaving their heads—no one actually had their head shaved like we saw in the movie—and jammed their beds up against the doors to prevent the guards from entering the cells.

It was only the second day, and already the guards were faced with a predicament. How do they respond?

Unfortunately, they responded with force. But before they did, they waited to bolster their ranks. They called in the three off-duty guards from their homes. Also, the guards from the night shift volunteered to stay extra hours to help with the revolt. So there were all nine guards to deal with the revolt from the nine prisoners.

To get past the barricaded cells, the guards then made use of a tool that’d been left because of a concern for fire threats during the experiment. Using fire extinguishers, they sprayed them into the cells to get the prisoners away from the doors. As they did this, other guards forced the doors open.

Once inside, the guards removed the beds that the prisoners used to barricade the cell doors. They also stripped the prisoners naked yet again, forcing some of the prisoners they thought were the leaders of the rebellion into the storage closet they used as solitary confinement.

After this, the guards decided to try psychological tactics since they couldn’t keep all nine guards on staff the entire time. To do this, they decided to change the cells. Instead of having three prisoners in each of the three cells, they put all of the prisoners into two of the cells and dubbed the third cell a special privilege cell.

Prisoners who had the guard’s favor were allowed into the special privilege cell. In there, the beds the guards had removed from the other cells were replaced. They could also brush their teeth and use the sinks to wash—both things the guards wouldn’t let the prisoners in the other cells do. They’d also restrict any but the prisoners in the special privilege cell from eating from time to time so as to help give the sense that it was, well, a special privilege to be in that cell.

In the afternoon of the second day, the guards really messed with the prisoners heads by taking all of the “good” prisoners in the special privilege cell and putting them back in the other “bad” cells. Then they took a few of the former “bad” prisoners and put them in the special privilege cell.

This tactic, which is something that real prison guards do, was successful in making the prisoners who had led the rebellion think that perhaps some of the other prisoners who were transferred from the “bad” to “good” cells must’ve done something to earn that transfer. Obviously they must’ve snitched on the other prisoners.

Of course, they’d done nothing of the sort, but it didn’t matter. The prisoners began to break apart into groups that didn’t trust each other. As a result, it was much easier for only three guards on shift at any given time to keep all nine prisoners from rebelling together.

So while the specifics of what happened in day two might’ve been different from what we saw in the movie, the gist of guards exercising their power over the prisoners pretty quickly was very true.

And just like what we saw in the movie, by the end of the second day it was more than just an experiment. In the minds of all participants, it was a real prison with real guards and real prisoners.

In the movie, on day three we learn that one of the prisoners, Benjy, is sick. He’s played by Ethan Cohn in the film, and after falling ill he admits to Adrien Brody’s character that he’s diabetic. He needs insulin.

As you can probably guess, Benjy isn’t real. Neither is the situation of one of the prisoners secretly being diabetic. Dr. Zimbardo and other doctors at Stanford had effectively scanned all of the participants for health before being selected, so there were no immediate health threats like we saw in the movie.

However, that doesn’t mean the intense situations didn’t cause mental health issues. And like the movie implies, that started to show itself on day three.

It was a student named Douglas Korpi. Of course, inside the experiment he wasn’t Douglas. He was Prisoner #8612, and by the third day he started to break down into intense fits of crying and screaming uncontrollably. He asked Dr. Zimbardo if he could leave the experiment.

Interestingly, the guards and prisoners weren’t the only ones who had started to conform to their new roles. Dr. Zimbardo had himself taken on the role of prison Superintendent, and along with his prison consultants—the former ex-cons who’d help design the experiment along with some other Stanford University professors—had all started to feel like they were actually controlling a prison.

So when Prisoner #8612 came to them asking to leave, their first instinct was distrust. They thought he was faking his mental breakdowns just so he could be released.

Instead of offering to release Prisoner #8612, they offered a deal. In exchange for being an informant on the other prisoners, Dr. Zimbardo and his team would make sure the guards didn’t harass Prisoner #8612 anymore. They asked him to go back to his cell and think over their offer.

An unintended consequence of this was that when Prisoner #8612 returned to his cell, he told the others in his cell that he wasn’t allowed to leave. The message quickly spread that they couldn’t leave the experiment. What kind of experiment is this that you can’t leave? Maybe it actually is a prison.

Throughout the day, Prisoner #8612 continued to scream and go into fits. Finally, Dr. Zimbardo was convinced he wasn’t faking and let him be released.

The movie doesn’t mention this at all, but it was also on day three when Dr. Zimbardo’s team had set up a family visitation as part of the experiment. Since things had started to get bad, they were afraid the parents would pull their kids from the experiment if they saw how things really were.

So all of the prisoners washed, shaved and were ordered to clean their cells. About a dozen visitors came to see the “prisoners”, and were made to wait for about half an hour before being let in. They were also limited to ten minutes of visiting time—again, trying to keep things as realistic as possible.

None of the parents tried to pull their kids. Instead, to the surprise of Dr. Zimbardo and his team, after seeing how distressed they were, some of the parents tried to appeal to the prison authorities to make the situation better. Never did they question “the system”, and instead they complied with the rules.

Back in the movie, the events during day four continue to escalate matters. In an attempt to make an example out of Travis, Barris and the other guards force him to clean the toilet. Meanwhile, another guard, Chase, tries to get one of the prisoners named Oscar, who’s played by Jason Lew, to give him oral sex.

That didn’t happen.

Well, the second thing. The cleaning the toilet thing happened.

After Prisoner #8612 was released on the third day, one of the guards overheard prisoners talking about Prisoner #8612 returning to break out the rest of the prisoners. Immediately, the guard thought that Prisoner #8612 had been faking all along and reported this to the rest of the authorities.

Dr. Zimbardo would later admit this is where he started to fail in his duty as a psychological doctor. Instead of merely recording the events, after hearing of the supposed return of Prisoner #8612 to help the prisoners escape, he acted like a prison Superintendent.

He went back the Palo Alto Police Department who had helped arrest the participants to begin with, and asked if he could transfer his prisoners to their jail. They refused due to insurance reasons.

Later, Dr. Zimbardo would recall how upset he was that two corrections institutions couldn’t help each other out. The mere fact that he put his little prison on par with an actual police station shows how much he’d fallen into the role. It wasn’t just a role anymore. It was real.

Without the help of the police, Dr. Zimbardo returned to his prison and with the guard’s help chained all of the prisoners together, put bags over their heads and moved them to the fifth floor of the building. Meanwhile, as the prisoners were being watched by some of the guards in a storage room, the rest of the guards along with Dr. Zimbardo and the other prison authorities got to work disassembling the prison.

The plan was for when Prisoner #8612 arrived to break his fellow prisoners free, he’d arrive to Dr. Zimbardo sitting alone in the hallway. After explaining the experiment was over and everyone was sent home, Dr. Zimbardo would send Prisoner #8612 away. Then they’d bring the prisoners back, set up the prison again and double the guards on duty.

That never happened.

With the plan ready, Dr. Zimbardo waited in an empty hallway. Prisoner #8612 never came. The rumored escape plan was just that, a rumor. It never happened.

What did happen is that one of Dr. Zimbardo’s colleagues at the Stanford Psychology Department entered. He’d apparently heard about the experiment and wanted to check in on his friend and colleague, Dr. Zimbardo, to see how it was going. On the other hand, Dr. Zimbardo got really upset with the psychologist for interrupting him right at the moment when he was expecting a prison break.

After explaining what was going on, Dr. Zimbardo recalled his colleague, a psychologist named Gordon Bower, asked one simple question. What’s the independent variable in this study?

That set Dr. Zimbardo off. He ushered Dr. Bower out and without a prison break he and the other guards brought the prisoners back and set about forcing them to clean toilets with their bare hands.

But that question kept nagging at the back of Dr. Zimbardo’s mind.

In the movie, during day five things start to spiral out of control. One of the guards, Bosch, who’s played by David Banner, is beaten by the other guards for trying to help get Benjy’s insulin. Barris then announces that Bosch will be joining the prisoner population.

This causes Travis to protest, who rushes to a camera to exclaim the experiment is over. In a flurry, the guards pull Travis down and Benjy rushes the guards to get off his friend. It’s an instantaneous reaction when Barris hits Benjy on the head with a nightstick. A bloodied Benjy falls to the ground.

None of that’s true. None of the guards became prisoners and none of the prisoners were bloodied with a nightstick.

But things did continue to escalate.

Like the movie shows, there was a new prisoner added. But he wasn’t a guard. After Prisoner #8612 left, another prisoner was brought in immediately from the reserve list. This was Clay Ramsey, or Prisoner #416.

Coming into the situation from the outside world, Prisoner #416 immediately wanted back out. Told by the other prisoners that it was a real prison and once he was in he couldn’t get back out, Prisoner #416 staged a protest by refusing to eat.

So I guess in some ways that’s similar to what we saw Adrien Brody’s character do on day two in the movie.

The guards tried to get Prisoner #416 to eat by putting him in solitary confinement and even turning other prisoners against him. While he was in solitary, Dave Eshleman said he’d release Prisoner #416 from solitary if they gave up their blankets. None of the prisoners were willing to do that.

Later that day, on day five, Dr. Zimbardo asked a former prison chaplain to come to his prison and talk to the prisoners. During the questioning, it became even more clear how realistic the situation had become. When asked how the prisoners would get out, the response was that the only way to get out of prison was to get help from a lawyer. Some prisoners went so far as to ask the chaplain to help them get legal assistance.

Oh, and none of the prisoners introduced themselves to the chaplain as their real names. They all used the prisoner ID numbers without being prompted.

Well, not all of them. One of the prisoners, Prisoner #819, claimed he was sick and wanted to see a doctor instead of the chaplain. After much persuasion, he agreed to go talk to Dr. Zimbardo, who was always referred to as the Superintendent, and the chaplain. Then he broke down.

As Dr. Zimbardo was taking Prisoner #819 to get something to eat, guard Dave Eshleman orchestrated a chant with the rest of the prisoners. They kept chanting that Prisoner #819 is a bad prisoner over and over.

He heard it and began sobbing. Dr. Zimbardo suggested he leave, but now it was Prisoner #819 who refused to go. He wanted to show to his fellow prisoners that he wasn’t a bad prisoner.

Dr. Zimbardo explained he’s not Prisoner #819. Those are students, not other prisoners. This isn’t a prison. This is just an experiment.

After this, he agreed to leave and Dr. Zimbardo started to realize the experiment wouldn’t last the full two weeks.

Day six is when everything comes to a climax in the movie. There’s a prison riot, the guards flee and poor Benjy dies. As you can probably guess, none of that is true.

No one died during the experiment.

What happened was that on the evening of day five, Dr. Zimbardo got a visit from parents of one of the prisoners. They demanded he contact a lawyer to get their son out. Apparently the chaplain had told the parents a lawyer was the only way they’d be able to get their son out. Considering the chaplain had been there that day, that tells you how fast they responded.

And understandably so—none of the students had done anything wrong!

In the movie, everything ends much in the same way it began. After the brawl between prisoners and guards, the red lights go off and a garage door opens. Then a bus comes and picks them all up and takes them away from the prison.

I’m sure I don’t even need to say it, but I will anyway: all of that is made up.

In truth, the final straw was when Dr. Christina Maslach, a colleague of Dr. Zimbardo’s at Stanford, came to help with the experiment. Her role was to conduct some interviews with the guards and prisoners. She knew about the experiment, as did many others at Stanford, but this was her first time going into the prison environment.

When she saw the prisoners being chained together and bags put on their heads for a simple toilet run, she spoke out immediately. Dr. Zimbardo would later recall that they had about 50 people outside the experiment interact with the prison. From police to the parents to chaplains, Dr. Maslach was the very first to speak up.

Later, Dr. Maslach said she was in tears over what she saw. Even worse, her colleagues involved in the experiment mocked her for speaking out. She recalled having second thoughts about her relationship with the man who was leading the experiment—yes, she was seeing Dr. Zimbardo at the time.

After six days, on August 20th, 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo finally put an end to the Stanford prison experiment.

Although the experiment may have ended prematurely, it’s affects live on to this day.

The year after the study’s end, in 1972, Dr. Christina Maslach and Dr. Philip Zimbardo were married. Although in recent years, Dr. Maslach has transitioned into studies around why and how people get burned out at their jobs, Dr. Zimbardo has continued to publish books, interviews and a wide range of influential materials from the experiment.

I wish I could say everyone lived happily ever after, but this is a story that has a rather conflicting ending.

While many of the participants in the study have understandably wanted to stay anonymous, it was an experience that had effects on everyone involved.

Prisoner #8612, the very first prisoner who was released from the experiment, would go on to become a respected forensic psychologist in San Francisco, then a consultant for judges trying to determine if they should approve a prisoners motion for release.

Perhaps the biggest change that the Stanford prison experiment has brought about was when Congress was directly influenced by the experiment to change the law so juveniles accused of federal crimes can’t be put into cells with adult prisoners prior to their trial.

Along with undergraduate students, Dr. Zimbardo also produced a documentary called Quiet Rage about the experiment that’s still used in military and law enforcement entities as a means of training their personnel about what prison life is really like.

Despite these positive changes, Dr. Zimbardo has endured an onslaught of criticisms from peers and the general public alike. Many have likened the prison experiment to an experiment Stanley Milgram did in 1965 to see if people would be willing to deliver electric shocks to others simply because they’re being told to do so—it’s their job. This study found eerily similar results to Dr. Zimbardo’s in that, as it turned out, two thirds of those involved in Milgram’s experiment were willing to deliver fatal levels of electric shocks to a stranger.

As a little side note, Stanley Milgram was a high school classmate of Dr. Zimbardo.

To this day, the Stanford prison experiment is considered a highly controversial topic. Were guards like Dave Eshelman and even Dr. Zimbardo evil, sadistic people?

Or is this an example of how good people can drift into doing evil things when they’re “just doing their job”? Should we be allowed to perform human experiments like this?

It might be easy to say an experiment like the one done at Stanford was unethical and should’ve never happened in the first place, let alone ever have a similar study take place again. Some would argue that’s not a question so easily answered.

Even Dr. Zimbardo has admitted to being conflicted about the ethical nature of the experiment. On one hand, he explained in an article in the Stanford News that a lot of research is becoming pencil and paper tests, and it’s really hard to truly understand how humans behave in certain situations if you simply ask them the questions.

At one speech, Dr. Zimbardo stated that he believes the prison experiment was simultaneously ethical and unethical. He went on to explain that it was ethical because it was fully approved by the university. There wasn’t any deception about what was being done, everyone was told that if they were picked to be prisoners they’d have their rights stripped and likely only have minimal food for the duration of the study.

Everything was explained as much as possible and everyone agreed. Moreover, as we learned about a little bit ago, there were some 50 or so people who were outsiders and came to check on the progress at some point. What more could you ask of a study?

On the other hand, Dr. Zimbardo readily admits that the study was unethical because, “people suffered and others were allowed to inflict pain and humiliation on their fellows over an extended period of time.”

Probably one of the more recent comparisons to the Stanford prison experiment was in 2003 when the prisoner torture and abuse came to light at the Abu Ghraib prison. After damning evidence of abuse by way of photos of prisoners subjected horrific conditions—naked prisoners, rape, sodomy, even murder by the guards—when this started to be released to the media, the public demanded that someone had to be held accountable.

A number of international trials began, spanning multiple years and accusations started, going all the way up to the then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. One of the expert witnesses called on to testify about human behavior in prison during those trials?

Dr. Philip Zimbardo.

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The Quiet Ones: History vs. Hollywood

Is the girl in the movie, Jane Harper, based on a real person?

Did the real experiments take place at Oxford University?

No. The Quiet Ones true story reveals that the real experiments were conducted in Toronto, Canada under the patronage of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research (TSPR), founded in 1970 and not affiliated with a university. The group was led by participant Iris May Owen and was operated under the scientific advisement of her husband, Dr. Alan Robert George Owen (Dr. A.R.G. Owen), a former fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge where he was a professor of mathematics. He had also worked as a lecturer in genetics at Cambridge until 1970, the year he acted on an invitation for his family to immigrate to Canada, where he was to direct the parapsychology research of the Toronto-based New Horizons Research Foundation. Together with his wife Iris Owen, they agreed to conduct full-time research for the foundation for a period of five years. Dr. Owen specialized in psychic research with an emphasis on poltergeists.

What year did the real experiment (the Philip Experiment) take place?

Dr. A.R.G. Owen and the eight participants of the research group began conducting the Philip Experiment in 1972. In the movie, Professor Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris) conducts his experiments in 1974. George Owen's wife, Iris, who was the leader of the group involved in the Philip Experiment, wrote the 1976 book Conjuring Up Philip: An Adventure in Psychokinesis , which chronicled the experiment and its findings in detail. Fellow participant Sue Sparrow was her coauthor.

Who were the members of the real research group?

What was the purpose of the Philip Experiment?

In researching The Quiet Ones true story, we discovered that the purpose of the real experiment was to prove that the supernatural is a manifestation of what already exists in the mind. Proving such a hypothesis true doesn't necessarily mean that ghosts aren't real. It just means that they are created by us, instead of coming from somewhere else. For example, if you grew up fearing that an evil old woman lurks under your bed and will grab your ankles when you step onto the floor, you imagining the woman in detail could be enough to manifest her into an actual demonic spirit. Basically, thinking of a ghost and providing it an identity might be enough to conjure it into existence. Taking that theory even further, the researchers behind the Philip Experiment gave the character they were imagining a full life, including a name, a nationality, a past and a personality. During their séances, they tried to converse with Philip, their once fictional character. They believed that giving Philip such realistic traits and attempting to communicate with him would help to conjure up an actual ghost.

Is Philip, the entity from the real experiment, anything like Evey, the entity in the movie?

Did the professor's son really die in an asylum?

No. Dr. A.R.G. Owen, a former professor of genetics at Cambridge, never had a son who died in an asylum from self-inflicted wounds. Dr. Owen did have a son, Robin E. Owen (born May 21, 1955), who observed and assisted the Philip Experiment as the recorder and photographer. Unlike the professor in the movie, Dr. Owen was trying to help the researchers prove that it's possible for a group of focused participants to create an apparition. In the movie, Professor Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris) plays a more central role and is trying to prove that poltergeists aren't real. He believes they exist solely in the mind of a seemingly possessed subject and are expressed through the negative telekinetic energy projected by the subject. Of course, Coupland eventually discovers he's wrong.

Did they really hold séances to communicate with the entity?

Did the true story involve a cult?

No. Not only didn't the true story behind The Quiet Ones movie involve a girl, it also never involved a devil-worshiping cult, which is part of the girl's past in the movie's story.

Did the real professor use unorthodox methods?

Did the spirit really become violent like in the movie?

No. The spirit of Philip, real or not, never branded members of the team with a demonic symbol, nor did he ever cause their bodies to levitate, slam into doors, etc. The apparition Philip also never caused bathwater to boil, a doll to start burning, a girl to catch on fire or a demonic spirit to spiral out of a possessed girl's mouth (the real Philip never possessed anyone). And as you probably guessed, the alleged ghost Philip never killed people.

Are photos of the real people shown during the movie's end credits?

No. The vintage looking photos shown during the end credits of The Quiet Ones movie are not the real people who inspired the movie's story. The photos, which are fake, are intended to represent real people, but they are actually just actors. As you've probably realized by now, the movie is almost entirely fiction.

Did they really videotape the experiments?

Yes, like in The Quiet Ones movie, the true story confirms that the séances were often filmed. Watch footage from several Philip Experiment séances . Dr. Owen's son, Robin E. Owen, often took the photos and did the filming.

Did the real Quiet Ones experiment work?

If by work, we mean, did the spirit of Philip ever actually materialize? Then, no, the Philip Experiment did not work. However, the Owen group believed that the experiment let them achieve far more than they'ed ever imagined possible.

Is it possible that the Philip Experiment was a hoax?

Have any other experiments been done that were similar to the Philip Experiment?

Yes. The Philip Experiment has been replicated several times. The most notable of these efforts is the Skippy Experiment, sometimes called the "Sydney Experiment," conducted in Sydney, Australia in the 2000s. The researchers devised the story of a 14-year-old girl named Skippy Cartman. She was impregnated by her Catholic schoolteacher, who later murdered her so the church wouldn't find out. After the initial table used by the researchers didn't produce any results, they found success sitting around a light, three-legged card table. They reported similar knocking and scratching sounds heard during the Philip Experiment. They also said that the table moved and spun around on one leg. However, they never managed to capture any audio or visual evidence.

Watch real Philip Experiment footage and witness the table-tilting phenomena for yourself. Is a spirit to blame or are the group's members perpetuating a hoax? Also view a dramatized documentary that chronicles the details and findings of the Philip Experiment.

• Biography of Paranormal Researcher Dr. A.R.G. Owen
• Welcome to the Experiment - An Interactive Quiet Ones Website that Sets Up the Movie
• The Quiet Ones Official Lionsgate Website

• Cast & crew

The True Story of the Philadelphia Experiment

• Episode aired 2002

A dangerous experiment with time and space. A mystery more live than ever. A dangerous experiment with time and space. A mystery more live than ever. A dangerous experiment with time and space. A mystery more live than ever.

• Craig Constantine
• David Ackroyd
• Andrew Hochheimer
• Robert Goerman

Top cast 13

• (archive footage)
• Craig Constantine (uncredited)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews

• 2002 (United States)
• United States
• A+E Networks
• History Channel
• Weller/Grossman Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 45 minutes
• Black and White

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Stanford Prison Experiment

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• BBC News - Stanford prison experiment continues to shock
• Official Site of Stanford Prison Experiment
• Grand Valley State University - Twenty-Five Years after the Stanford Prison Experiment
• American Psychological Association - Demonstrating the Power of Social Situations via a Simulated Prison Experiment
• Verywell Mind - The Stanford Prison Experiment
• Stanford Libraries - Stanford Prison Experiment
• Simply Psychology - Stanford Prison Experiment: Zimbardo’s Famous Study
• Academia - Stanford Prison Experiment

Stanford Prison Experiment , a social psychology study in which college students became prisoners or guards in a simulated prison environment . The experiment, funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, took place at Stanford University in August 1971. It was intended to measure the effect of role-playing, labeling, and social expectations on behaviour over a period of two weeks. However, mistreatment of prisoners escalated so alarmingly that principal investigator Philip G. Zimbardo terminated the experiment after only six days.

More than 70 young men responded to an advertisement about a “psychological study of prison life,” and experimenters selected 24 applicants who were judged to be physically and mentally healthy. The paid subjects—they received $15 a day—were divided randomly into equal numbers of guards and prisoners. Guards were ordered not to physically abuse prisoners and were issued mirrored sunglasses that prevented any eye contact. Prisoners were “arrested” by actual police and handed over to the experimenters in a mock prison in the basement of a campus building. Prisoners were then subjected to indignities that were intended to simulate the environment of a real-life prison. In keeping with Zimbardo’s intention to create very quickly an “atmosphere of oppression,” each prisoner was made to wear a “dress” as a uniform and to carry a chain padlocked around one ankle. All participants were observed and videotaped by the experimenters.

On only the second day the prisoners staged a rebellion. Guards then worked out a system of rewards and punishments to manage the prisoners. Within the first four days, three prisoners had become so traumatized that they were released. Over the course of the experiment, some of the guards became cruel and tyrannical, while a number of the prisoners became depressed and disoriented. However, only after an outside observer came upon the scene and registered shock did Zimbardo conclude the experiment, less than a week after it had started.

The Stanford Prison Experiment immediately came under attack on methodological and ethical grounds. Zimbardo admitted that during the experiment he had sometimes felt more like a prison superintendent than a research psychologist. Later on, he claimed that the experiment’s “social forces and environmental contingencies” had led the guards to behave badly. However, others claimed that the original advertisement attracted people who were predisposed to authoritarianism . The most conspicuous challenge to the Stanford findings came decades later in the form of the BBC Prison Study, a differently organized experiment documented in a British Broadcasting Corporation series called The Experiment (2002). The BBC’s mock prisoners turned out to be more assertive than Zimbardo’s. The British experimenters called the Stanford experiment “a study of what happens when a powerful authority figure (Zimbardo) imposes tyranny.”

The Stanford Prison Experiment became widely known outside academia . It was the acknowledged inspiration for Das Experiment (2001), a German movie that was remade in the United States as the direct-to-video film The Experiment (2010). The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) was created with Zimbardo’s active participation; the dramatic film more closely followed actual events.

Philip Zimbardo reflects on ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ movie

Today, Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford, will see the story of his famously controversial Stanford Prison Experiment unfold on the big screen.

Conducted in 1971, the experiment simulated a prison environment with a group of 22 male college students. The young men, hand-picked for their physical and mental maturity, among other factors, were randomly assigned the role of “prisoner” or “guard.” While the students were specifically instructed against the use of physical punishment, they were given no further instructions. Throughout the six-day study , half of the prisoners suffered from “extreme emotional depression, crying, rage, and acute anxiety” and had to be excused from the experiment.

Since the study was conducted, Zimbardo has written “The Lucifer Effect,” a book in which he discusses the gradual changes experienced within the subjects and himself throughout the experiment. The research has been widely studied by psychology students and beyond, serving as a controversial but poignant example of the effect of a prison environment.

With “The Stanford Prison Experiment” set to premiere today, Zimbardo spoke with The Daily about the original study, as well as his thoughts about the motion picture.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): What were your initial expectations for the original experiment?

Philip Zimbardo (PZ): [We wanted to expand on] Milgram’s experiment on obedience through authority, in which he showed that situational factors can get good people to do bad things… Our study was a follow-up of that, in which we focus less on powerful authority and obedience…

In the earlier research – in most psychological research – it [the study] only goes for a single hour. We wanted to observe the gradual transformation of people into their character, into their role… What’s dramatic about the research – and now what’s dramatic about the movie – is that you see for the first time character transformations – people becoming their role, becoming guards, becoming prisoners – in a relatively short time.

TSD: Why did you decide to conduct the study with college-age males?

PZ: I wanted to have bright, intelligent college students. And unlike Milgram’s study, we gave them personality tests. We only picked the most normal and healthy. The bottom line is, I want to say, here we have normal, intelligent, bright, college students who should understand things about [themselves]. Even more than ordinary, uneducated people. And the point is, it works for them as well as for the ordinary men in Milgram’s study.

TSD: In some of the interviews after the experiment, students explained that the prison became more than just an experiment, that they really grew into their roles as prisoners and guards. Did you also grow into your role as prison superintendent? How did this it affect your research?

PZ: Oh, absolutely. I made the mistake of playing two roles simultaneously. One role was principal investigator of the research project, and in that role I am objective; I am distant; I am emotionally neutral. But then I made the mistake of also being the prison superintendent, and my undergraduate assistant David Chassey played the role of the warden, and my two graduate students…played the two attendants. But we all had a prison-life role to play.

Over time, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, I fell into that role, and in that role I observed guards brutalizing prisoners – in some cases sadistically… And I did not stop it. The only thing I stopped was physical force, but I didn’t stop psychological force, which, in the long run is much worse. I had become, without my awareness, the indifferent superintendent of the Stanford Prison Experiment. And in my book “The Lucifer Effect,” I write about it in great detail – that this was a mistake I made. I should have had someone else play that role.

PZ: When I finished this study, I wrote a few articles about it, because it was really, to me, not a big deal… And then what happened was Abu Ghraib in 2004 – there were obvious parallels with the prison study. Military guards put bags over prisoners’ heads, stripped them naked, humiliated them, just as our guards had done. And so I became an excellent witness to one of those military guards and got to know everything about that horrendous military situation in Iraq. And then I decided I should really go back and review what happened in the Stanford Prison Study, which was 30 years earlier.

And so what I did is I looked at 12 hours of our videotape along with two students who didn’t know anything about this study… And what I decided to do is write a book in which we basically detail what happened in the study. We basically have a chapter of each day, and of course a chapter of setting it [the experiment] up, and other chapters on other things and other kinds of evil situations. My book, “The Lucifer Effect,” [has] been a great success. It’s been in 20 different languages around the world; it’s being used not only by college students and psychologists but in military situations and even in mental hospitals.

TSD: Was there a particular time when your role started to shift from principal investigator to prison superintendent, or was it gradual?

PZ: It’s totally gradual. The point is that we all – I mean I lived there, I slept in my office – hadn’t noticed [the changes] at all. That is, we lived the experiment.

The other problem was we – we meaning my research team – were really not prepared for the intensity an experiment that goes 24/7. Because there are endless logistical things to do – prisoners have to be fed morning, lunch, evening. In order to make it realistic we had parole board hearings two times, with an ex-convict heading it. The secretaries had visiting days two times, with parents, boyfriends, girlfriends. We had a visiting by a prison chaplain…

But the changes are gradual. The changes occur, as I said, a little bit more each day. It’s not a single dramatic thing.

TSD: You mentioned that your two-week study was terminated after just six days; why did you make the decision to conclude the study at the point that you did?

PZ: It’s a critical dramatic instance of heroic action by a young woman, who brought me to my senses…On Thursday night, one of those former graduate students [coming to help with the study], a young woman named Christina Maslach [Ph.D. ’71] – she had been my graduate student at Stanford and also my teaching assistant, and she had just graduated in June – had gotten a job at Berkeley as an assistant professor in psychology and was on her way [to Stanford]…

We had just decided in addition in the beginning of August that we would move in together. We were having a romantic relationship…  So she happened to be at Stanford on Thursday working in the library, and contacted me and said, “Hey, can we get together for dinner at the end of the night shift?” And I said, “Sure, why don’t you come down and just check out what’s happening.”

And she comes down and observes guards brutalizing prisoners with bags over their head, yelling, screaming, chaining their legs together, and when I looked at what was happening on the monitor it was nothing more than the 10 o’clock toilet shift – because 10 o’clock was the last time prisoners could go to a real toilet… She begins to tear up, and runs out and says “I can’t look at this”…

I’m arguing about why this is such an important study, and then she [asks], how could I not see the suffering that was so obvious to her? And if this was the real me, because what she had known me before – the professor, who was a caring, loving teacher… I’m not sure I want to continue my romantic relationship with you. And at that point it was really stunning because it was exactly what I needed to shake me loose from my fantasy, from my craziness… At this point it’s like 11 o’clock at night, and I say, “All right, I’m going to end the study tomorrow… ” We ended the study on Friday, the next day.

TSD: Shifting focus from the actual study to the film that’s coming out, how accurately do you think the film portrays your experiment?

PZ: It’s a remarkably accurate portrayal. Now, the only issue of course is they’re compressing six days into two hours – it is a two hour film. So in fact, they had to leave out many traumatic scenes. There are no scenes that were put in that didn’t happen in the real study. There were no scenes that had to be put in for the drama. If anything, they left out a lot of what I consider powerful scenes, which they actually had in and it just went too long so they had to cut it out. I’d say it’s roughly 90 percent accurate.

Now in addition, when I was writing “The Lucifer Effect,” I was sending to the scriptwriter Tim Talbott all of the dialogue between prisoners and guards. So in the movie almost all of what the guards say to prisoners, prisoners say to guards, came exactly from “The Lucifer Effect” (and I got a screen citation).

TSD: What was your involvement with the making of the movie?

PZ: From the beginning, I was the consultant. I reviewed the script; I made significant changes in the script; I contributed to the script. And I was on the set a couple of days. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there all the time because I was in Europe. And even when the film was shown at Sundance, there were several parts of the movie which were just wrong psychologically, and then also we added the screen credits. Several things which are now in the movie.

TSD: There have been several documentaries and informational videos made about the experiment, but this is more of a motion picture than a documentary. How do you think the dramatization of the experiment affects the events and conclusions that are presented? Are they easier to relate to for the audience?

PZ: Our movie sticks essentially to the facts… So the movie, then, is a dramatic recreation. It’s dramatic in that it’s highlighting some things and not getting into details about something else. But it has the visiting days. It has the parole board hearing. It has at least one scene of the police arrest. It has the interaction of me and my staff making group decisions about what we should do with certain prisoners. At least more than half of the movie is just prisoner and guard interaction with no one else present.

What’s dramatic is, the audience, in looking at the movie – it’s as if they’re looking through a one-way screen, as we were doing. They are taking the place of the observers looking at the drama unfolding. But they are also observing the observers. Observing the changes in me and my graduate students as these things unfold.

I think it’s a unique movie; it’s the only movie I know where the whole movie is about a psychological experiment.

TSD: If you could change something about the movie, what would you change?

PZ: The confrontation I had with Christina is the reason we ended the study – and it makes her a hero. Because in doing what she was doing, she was willing to say two things. She doesn’t know these boys, doesn’t know anything about them. But she’s just saying “I see human suffering, and you are responsible. I don’t want to have a relationship with somebody who could do that… ” That’s heroic. Heroes defend their moral cause aware of the risk.

But they didn’t use that to end the movie. They had a confrontation, and then I go down to the dungeon, and I’m looking at the video, and the video is the worst thing that happens… They wanted a traumatic scene, wanted to have the biggest traumatic impact – which it does… And then I go down, I enter the yard and say, “Okay, this study is over.” So the way the movie does, it doesn’t give her the heroic status that she deserves.

TSD: You mentioned that the audience will be encased in the basement as well. What do you hope viewers will take away from that experience?

PZ: It’s: What kind of guard would I have been if I was in that study? Would I have been a cruel guard; would I have been a good guard; would I have stopped what the bad guards did? What kind of prisoner would I have been? Would I have been defiant? Would I have stood up for my rights? Would I have helped other prisoners who were breaking down? If I would have been the prison superintendent, what would I have done to make the situation not erupt so horribly?

Essentially, we would like them to identify with the prisoners, the guards and me and my staff. And then also the question is: Would you have allowed it to go the second week, or would you end it earlier?… The point is to reflect. We’ve got all this stuff happening, prison riots in New York and Rikers Island – it’s really about abuse of power. Abuse of police power we see everywhere.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Contact Lea Sparkman at 16lsparkman ‘at’ castilleja.org.

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• Senator Film

Summary Inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment, this psychological drama focuses on twenty paid recruits who are divided into groups "prisoners" and "guards" and are let loose in a controlled prison-like environment.

Directed By : Oliver Hirschbiegel

Written By : Mario Giordano, Christoph Darnstädt, Don Bohlinger

The Experiment

Moritz Bleibtreu

Tarek fahd nr. 77, christian berkel, robert steinhoff nr. 38, oliver stokowski, günther schütte nr. 82, wotan wilke möhring, joe maier nr. 69, stephan szasz, häftling nr. 53, häftling nr. 40, danny richter, häftling nr. 21, ralf müller, häftling nr. 15, markus rudolf, häftling nr. 74, peter fieseler, häftling nr. 11, thorsten dersch, häftling nr. 86, sven grefer, häftling nr. 94, justus von dohnányi, nicki von tempelhoff, timo dierkes, antoine monot jr., lars gärtner, jacek klimontko, markus andreas klauk, ralph püttmann, critic reviews.

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Why the Horrors of the 'Russian Sleep Experiment' Probably Didn't Happen

This animation investigates the facts behind this pervasive urban myth.

Especially if you haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately, you might wonder just how long you can go on like that. Exactly how long could you stay awake without cracking as a result of sleep deprivation? Some people say there was an over-the-top experiment for that. Experts are quick to debunk it.

The Russian Sleep Experiment is a popular urban myth which began to circulate online in "creepypasta" forums (so-named for the ease with which you could copy-paste spooky content) in the early 2010s. But could this deeply unsettling legend have had some roots in fact?

The story goes that Soviet-era scientists created a stimulant which they believed would enable soldiers to not require sleep for up to 30 days. They decided to test their new gas on five prisoners, promising them their freedom upon completion of the experiment. They locked the five men in a hermetically sealed chamber and began pumping in the gas. Within a few days, the men were exhibiting the kind of paranoia and psychosis that is a typical symptom of sleep deprivation. But as time went on, they began to act even more strangely.

15 days into the experiment, when scientists could no longer see the men through the thick glass of the chamber, or hear them through the microphones, they filled the room with fresh air and unlocked it. There, they discovered that one of the men was dead, and the four surviving test subjects were all sporting horrendously violent injuries, some of which appeared to be self-inflicted.

Attempts to sedate the men were either unsuccessful, or led to their deaths the moment they lost consciousness. Finally, when one of the researchers asked what exactly these men had become, the last surviving test subject told him that they represented the potential for evil that exists in all human beings, which is usually contained by sleep, but had been unleashed by their constant wakefulness. Chilling stuff.

Is any of the Russian Sleep Experiment actually true?

According to a video from The Infographics Channel on YouTube, which provides animated summaries of events from history, current events and literature, the Russian sleep experiment almost certainly has its basis in fiction. For one thing, there's the fact that the story's sole original source seems to be a website dedicated to telling creepy (made-up) stories. But even the science doesn't hold up.

Experts are quick to refute this myth as well. There's no scientific ground proving that gas (or any other substance, for that matter) can keep a person awake for 30 days, says Po-Chang Hsu, MD , an internal medicine physician and medical content expert at SleepingOcean. “Some drugs and high caffeine dosages may grant a couple of days without shut-eye, but 30 is impossible,” he says.

Additionally, this experiment is unlikely because of the effect sleep deprivation has on the brain, Dr. Hsu says.

“Even after a few days, a person can start hallucinating, which would make it extremely hard for them to perform simple daily actions, let alone deal with military assignments that require extreme focus,” he says.

So how long can someone truly stay awake?

The current documented world record for staying awake is a bit longer than 11 days , which was achieved by Randy Gardner in 1963. Gardner experienced severe behavioral and cognitive changes during those 11 days (even though he wanted to prove that nothing bad would happen when a person doesn’t sleep), Dr. Hsu says. He also experienced mood swings, memory issues, severe difficulty focusing, paranoia and hallucinations.

While there is some truth to the claims that amphetamines have been used to keep soldiers alert in historical times of war, there is no scientific evidence of a gas existing that could keep anyone awake for 15 days. And studies have found that after just 48 hours without sleep, people tend to become slower, disoriented, prone to making mistakes, and ultimately less effective as a soldier.

“Since the brain can’t function properly after being sleep-deprived for 11 days, it’s safe to assume things would get much worse if one tries to stay awake longer,” he says. “Consequently, those soldiers would’ve been useless even if they miraculously managed not to sleep for 30 days.”

Still, whoever came up with the story of the Russian sleep experiment in the first place deserves points for their creative writing... if not for medical accuracy.

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Is The Russian Sleep Experiment A True Story

Is The Russian Sleep Experiment A True Story? Exploring the Mystery Behind the Urban Legend

The Russian Sleep Experiment is a chilling tale that has captivated audiences with its horrifying narrative. It has become a popular subject of discussion among horror enthusiasts, sparking debates about its authenticity. While many believe it to be a true story, the origins and veracity of this urban legend remain shrouded in mystery. In this article, we will delve into the eerie world of the Russian Sleep Experiment, examining its origins, exploring unique facts, answering frequently asked questions, and presenting insights from professionals in the field of cinema and literature.

Origins of the Russian Sleep Experiment:

The Russian Sleep Experiment originated from an anonymous Creepypasta story posted on the internet in 2010. Creepypasta refers to horror stories or legends that are shared through online platforms. Although the story was presented as a true event, there is no concrete evidence to support its authenticity. It quickly gained popularity and became a viral sensation, captivating readers with its disturbing and unnerving plot.

7 Unique Facts about the Russian Sleep Experiment:

1. The story revolves around a group of researchers who conduct an experiment on five individuals, exposing them to a gas that eliminates their need for sleep. As the experiment progresses, the subjects descend into madness, exhibiting horrifying and inhumane behaviors.

2. The anonymous author of the Russian Sleep Experiment claims that the story is based on a classified Soviet experiment conducted in the 1940s. However, there is no historical evidence to substantiate this claim.

3. The story often refers to the subjects as “test subjects” or “prisoners,” creating an atmosphere of despair and claustrophobia.

4. The Russian Sleep Experiment gained significant attention when it was adapted into a short film in 2015. The film, directed by an aspiring filmmaker, garnered millions of views on various online platforms, further perpetuating the urban legend.

5. Many readers and viewers of the story have reported experiencing fear, anxiety, and sleep disturbances after engaging with the Russian Sleep Experiment, highlighting the impact of this chilling tale on its audience.

6. Despite the lack of evidence supporting its authenticity, the Russian Sleep Experiment has sparked numerous conspiracy theories and speculation about secret government experiments.

7. The urban legend has become a popular subject for fan fiction, with various authors creating their own continuations, adaptations, and alternate endings to the original story.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

1. Is the Russian Sleep Experiment a true story?

No, there is no concrete evidence to support the claim that the Russian Sleep Experiment is based on a real event. It originated as a Creepypasta story, a form of online horror fiction.

2. Who wrote the Russian Sleep Experiment?

The author of the Russian Sleep Experiment remains anonymous. The story was originally posted on the internet in 2010.

3. Are there any documents or records about the experiment?

No, there are no official documents or records that verify the existence of the Russian Sleep Experiment.

4. Has anyone tried to recreate the experiment?

There is no credible evidence to suggest that the Russian Sleep Experiment has been recreated or replicated.

5. What is the purpose of the experiment in the story?

In the story, the purpose of the experiment is to explore the effects of sleep deprivation on the human mind and body. However, this is purely fictional.

6. Are there any real-life experiments similar to the Russian Sleep Experiment?

While various sleep deprivation experiments have been conducted throughout history, there is no evidence to suggest any experiments similar to the Russian Sleep Experiment.

7. Why has the Russian Sleep Experiment gained so much popularity?

The Russian Sleep Experiment captivates audiences with its terrifying narrative and psychological horror. Its popularity can be attributed to the collective fascination with the macabre and the chilling nature of the story.

8. Is there a possibility that the experiment was covered up by the government?

There is no evidence to support the theory that the Russian Sleep Experiment was covered up by any government. It remains an urban legend without any substantiated claims.

9. Can reading or watching the Russian Sleep Experiment have psychological effects?

Engaging with horror fiction, including the Russian Sleep Experiment, can evoke emotional responses such as fear and anxiety. However, any long-term psychological effects would vary from person to person.

10. Are there any other urban legends similar to the Russian Sleep Experiment?

Yes, there are numerous urban legends and stories that revolve around experiments gone wrong or secret government projects. The Russian Sleep Experiment is just one example of this genre.

11. Has the Russian Sleep Experiment been debunked?

Given its origins as a work of fiction, there is no need to debunk the Russian Sleep Experiment. It is widely accepted as a fictional horror story.

12. Can the Russian Sleep Experiment be considered a classic in horror literature?

While the Russian Sleep Experiment has gained popularity in the horror genre, it does not hold the status of a classic. Its influence on the genre is notable, but its fictional nature prevents it from being classified as a classic work.

Insights from Professionals in Cinema and Literature:

1. A renowned horror filmmaker states, “The Russian Sleep Experiment taps into our primal fears and showcases the terrifying potential of human experimentation. Its impact lies in its ability to blur the lines between fiction and reality.”

2. A prominent horror author shares, “The Russian Sleep Experiment represents the power of storytelling to evoke strong emotional responses. The narrative grips readers and keeps them on the edge of their seats, leaving a lasting impression.”

3. A film critic highlights, “The popularity of the Russian Sleep Experiment demonstrates the appeal of horror as a genre. It engages our morbid curiosity and allows us to explore the darkest corners of our imagination.”

4. A well-known literature professor remarks, “The Russian Sleep Experiment reflects the enduring fascination with the unknown and our desire to explore the limits of human endurance. It taps into our collective fears and pushes boundaries.”

5. A celebrated screenwriter notes, “The Russian Sleep Experiment serves as a cautionary tale, reminding us of the ethical implications of scientific experiments and the potential consequences of unchecked human curiosity.”

Unique Final Thoughts:

The Russian Sleep Experiment continues to captivate audiences with its chilling narrative and enigmatic origins. While the story itself is fictional, its enduring popularity highlights the power of horror fiction to captivate and disturb. Whether it serves as a cautionary tale or a thrill-seeking experience, the Russian Sleep Experiment remains an intriguing urban legend that blurs the line between fact and fiction, leaving a lasting impression on those who dare to engage with its eerie tale.

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