The 'Philadelphia Experiment' urban legend and the Navy Yard

A widely circulated mid-20th-century urban legend claims that a World War II-era experiment at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard rendered the destroyer escort USS Eldridge invisible and caused crew members to suffer bizarre effects; the story was popularized in the 1950s and has been extensively debunked by historians and navy records. The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (often cited in these accounts) is a real naval and industrial facility that later became the modern Philadelphia Navy Yard. The tale remains a prominent piece of Philadelphia-related paranormal folklore rather than documented naval history.