USS Eldridge, subject of the Philadelphia Experiment
Photo Source: U.S. Navy

I usually don't write articles about anything that is currently in the news, but once in a long while something so interesting comes along that I can't resist. This is one of those times. It looks like we have a modern day Philadelphia Experiment in the works. Researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Imperial College London are working on creating an invisibility cloak. For those of you that don't know about the Philadelphia Experiment, many claimed that it had the same purpose. The USS Eldridge was a ship that was used in some type of experiment in World War II. The experiment was most likely the avoidance of magnetic mines by sending a current through cables around the ship, but many think that it was really an experiment that was intended to cloak the ship and make it invisible. It was said that the experiment went wrong and instead of the ship becoming invisible it was transported through time to a different location with dire consequences. The story goes on to say that some of the crew were fused to the metal plates of the ship. A movie was even made about it.

The scientists at Pratt are claiming they have a plan and have drawn up a blueprint that will allow them to cloak anything and the cloak will be so effective that you could stand next to an object and never see it. This reminds me of one of the Star Trek movies I saw. The Federation was observing people on another planet by cloaking their building and cloaking their individual suits. Have we reached the point where this could become possible in the near future? You have to wonder how such a thing would work. They say that it actually seems to create a hole in space. Scientists are talking about using metamaterials to make the cloak. These are exotic man made composite materials. So how would this work exactly? A simple explanation would be that the cloak deflects light waves and magnetic waves and forces them to go around it.

Unfortunately this cloak would be perfect as a weapon of sorts. The first use that comes to my mind is a small scale use, a sniper. Can you imagine being in a jungle somewhere and being stalked by a sniper with one of these cloaks. Terrorists would love to have one of the beauties, they could walk right up and into an installation, plant a bomb and be on their way without ever being noticed. Worse yet, the bomb could be cloaked, making it almost impossible to find. For larger objects, a more rigid cloak could be made or perhaps an exotic paint with the qualities of the cloak could be manufactured that would hide a plane or vehicle. Again I have to refer to a Star Trek Movie. Remember the one about the whales, where the spaceship landed in a park and was cloaked? As with all of these things, we will regret having made it because there are so many enemies that surely one of them will gain the secret. Another use might be for spies. Follow this scenario, the president has a secret cabinet meeting and unbeknown to anyone there is a spy in the room listening to and recording everything. Maybe they would also be at top secret weapons labs getting all the data they could. I think this will do us more harm than good.

We were unable to protect our Atom Bomb and Hydrogen Bomb secrets, how in the world will we be able to protect this secret. Even if we do, someone will get caught and the cloak will fall into enemy hands, it is only a matter of time. There just is nothing as fleeting as military secrets. We are proceeding anyway and it is said that within 18 months the cloak will be ready. A patent has been applied for by a man in North Carolina who wants to patent a "three dimensional cloaking process and apparatus" for concealing objects and people. It looks like a race by several people who want to be the first to do this. This patent calls for creating invisibility a different way. This cloak would contain tiny light emitters on the front and tiny cameras on the rear. What was behind the cloak would be projected on the front of the cloak. This technology is already being used in a much larger way on experimental planes. The have cameras on the top and screens on the bottom and the plane is rendered invisible to the human eye this way. This is high tech but I don't consider it invisibility. This type of cloak is already in use in Japan and a Japanese man has been given credit for inventing it there. This cloak does not give invisibility on all sides. The back is visible since it contains the tiny cameras.

Invisibility cloaks are the things of stories. Man has dreamed of having one for thousands of years. If one were to do a search for invisibility cloak on the internet, hundreds of results would come up. Stories from the Arabian Nights, with the cap of invisibility to Harry Potter with the cloak of invisibility. Yes I know a cap is not a cloak, but for our purposes it is close enough. I remember also seeing a movie, when I was a kid, that depicted an assassin in some fairytale land wearing a cloak of invisibility. That would be a scary thought wouldn't it? I guess the cloak could have some good uses too. Is unwanted company coming to your door? Just throw on the old cloak until they leave. This way they can look into the windows and see that no one is at home. You have gotten rid of them without insulting them.

Could it be possible that the cloak might turn out not to be safe for humans? You never know. Maybe we are dependant on some sort of radiation that we get from light or some other wave and we don't even know it. Once we put on the cloak and deprive ourselves of these waves it might be harmful. Right now this doesn't seem to be the case. I base this on astronauts traveling to the moon. But were they really deprived of all magnetic and light waves? We think so, but we can't be sure.

I guess we will know all the answers in about two years. By that time the cloak should be perfected. We may never know when this happens however. It seems to me the cloak will fall into the realm of military secrets.