On November 7, 1998, we welcomed author and researcher Marshall Barnes for a chat session on the mythical Philadelphia Experiment.
What makes Marshall Barnes such an interesting paranormal investigator is that he approaches his work like a detective and actually tries to recreate paranormal phenomena. He is a frequent guest on the Art Bell show and has been featured on the Art & Entertainment network's Unexplained.
We hope to have Mr. Barnes back in the coming months to answer more of your questions.
This transcript has been edited so that questions match up with responses.
Marshall Barnes - All right, well here I am, the biggest pain in the ass that the PX cover-up boys could ever have imagined. Any questions?
Friend Owl - How does the Philadelphia Experiment tie in with the Montauk Project?
Marshall Barnes - According to Preston Nichols and Al Bielek, there was a time lock-up on August 12, 1943 to 1983. It gets pretty weird after that. I'm not sure how much of it to believe, but I think there is some serious things going on with Montauk.
Dustin2 - I am interested in the effects on the original PX crew. Do you have any information as to what happened to them?
Marshall Barnes - Dustin2, as far as I know they very well could have become part of the ship if the electrical forces that work on the atomic scale in their bodies was interfered with for just a split second.
Dustin2 - Sorry, allow me to be more specific. Do you think that the crew suffered from effects of high intensity magnetic fields, and if so, do you feel that this will continue to be a problem for researchers?
Marshall Barnes - Yes, there have to be SERIOUS precautions taken with dealing with this kind of technology. Stan Deyo did some experiments but had to quit because of ill effects, but was able to get some invisibility to work.
Friend Owl - Do you know Helga Morrow?
Marshall Barnes - Yes Owl, I know of Helga Morrow.
mr_magoo - can you briefly explain how invisibility works?
CiscoKidd - so is invisibility and time-travel related?
[after some technical problems - everybody had to log on again and only chatters with fast connections were able to ask questions - the chat got underway again]
Marshall Barnes - There's been a major problem here folks. Is this working for you? I'm not sure what happened, but everything suddenly locked-up. I guess it's working now. How's everybody doing?
Dustin2 - OK, I have also read the accounts of sailors fused to the hull of the Eldridge. But alongside those accounts are ones which relate to the mental state of the other sailors. Do you have any information about this?
Marshall Barnes - The only info I have on sailors is the same as everyone else but I'm getting it from guys that were in the war back then and remember hearing about it.
Kahealani - How accurate [were] Preston Nichols & Keith Moon? [authors of The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time]
Marshall Barnes - Preston has some interesting information. I'm not sure on all the accuracy. Keith Moon was the drummer for The Who. Powerful but sloppy. I think you mean Peter Moon.
CiscoKidd - LOL!
CiscoKidd - OK, is there any link between invisibility and time travel? Like in the movie?
Adrain - Did Tesla do a successful small-scale experiment before trying it on the Eldridge?
Marshall Barnes - Tesla would have been a good man to have involved because of his electrical power knowledge. There is no conclusive proof though for his involvement that I've seen. The FBI did take military related papers from his safe when he died however.
DEKBooks - So how accurate was the movie regarding the time travel portion of the experiment?
Marshall Barnes - Forget the movie. And there is no conclusive evidence supporting the time travel link between Montauk and the PX. Just some interesting anecdotal and weird synchronistic stuff.
Dustin2 - I guess my next question is academic. A whole crew must have been admitted to a military hospital suffering from any number of symptoms. My guess is that the Dept. of War covered this up by admitting the men but falsifying the reason that made them sick. Has anyone checked the records of local hospitals for this?
Marshall Barnes - That's getting into the next phases of my investigation, which I can't discuss or they'll be preempted.
DEKBooks - What was or were the specific goals of the experiment?
Marshall Barnes - The goals of the PX were to make the ship invisible so that it could strike undetected.
Dustin2 - Hey, take a second and hawk your book and/or video that we've heard about! I'm interested!
Marshall Barnes - OK. You can get the book from Skybooks in Westbury, NY. The video will be available for Christmas. The video will be pretty heavily promoted and will prove that the PX naysayers have been lying. Right now I'm in the end phases of demolishing the cover-up. Nailing the ONR [Office of Navel Research], Jacques Vallee, the JSE, etc, etc, for fraud, lies, etc. so that it will be well known that there is no evidence that proves the PX was a hoax.
Dustin2 - Marshall Barnes - TOO HOT FOR T.V.!
Marshall Barnes - There will be a TV version as well.
Dustin2 - TOO HOT FOR VALLEE!
Marshall Barnes - One of the things we did in the video is sting the ONR guy that was on the Unexplained. [A&E cable show about the Philadelphia Experiment] We got him real good.
Marshall Barnes - He completely disqualified himself as a expert witness, on tape. Legally on tape.
Marshall Barnes - The Unexplained TV show on the PX, for those of you who saw it, was a complete sham.
Dustin2 - This may sound absurd, but do you think Chris Carter would be interested in a story like this? Its not like the PX debate would be hurting from the publicity.
Marshall Barnes - Actually there was a weak tie-in to the PX in an episode of the X-Files during the second season.
mr_magoo - You think the X-Files would have already done a full episode?
Marshall Barnes - I think the X-Files should do a lot of things, like get better script writers, for one.
JimS - Marshall, have you, or anyone, looked into Moore & Berlitz's claim that a California psychiatrist told them that the government is still experimenting with invisibility and teleportation?
Marshall Barnes - No. I haven't. I wouldn't be surprised though. BTW, Moore's gone over to the other side. It happened about the time that Bielek came out.
Dustin2 - Really? that sucks, because I thought Moore's book [Project Invisibility] really gave a lucid discussion of the experiment. Without it, I would never gotten interested in the first place.
Marshall Barnes - The thing that I find amazing is that there has been such a sloppy but concerted effort to deny the validity of this thing. It's completely amazing and somewhat scary too.
JimS - Yeah, I heard about Moore. Of course, he also admitted to taking part in a government operation against Paul Bennewitz over the whole Dulce alien base thing.
Marshall Barnes - JimS, that's right. That's when he became a member of the Aviary. Vallee's a member now too.
Marshall Barnes - Moore's book was good. Without it none of us would be anywhere understanding this. He went over way after he did the book. Fortunately he interviewed Dr. Rinehart who stands as the one credible witness to the PX.
Dustin2 - You mentioned earlier that others have been trying to duplicate this experiment. Who are they, and what, if any, successes have they seen in replicating the experiment?
Marshall Barnes - Stan Deyo is one. The others always want to remain anonymous. I think that's a problem.
Marshall Barnes - I'm almost not even as interested in going with invisibility testing as I am with ideas about replicating the Montauk Project. The beauty of the Montauk Project is that it mirrors what the universe is probably like and even as Vallee described it in Messengers of Deception.
Dustin2 - I think it's great that you endorse actually replicating the experiment. Any hardcore scientist would agree with you that the only way to validate an experiment is to replicate it in some way.
Dustin2 - Now if only I could replicate MY experiments! ( - ^ P
Marshall Barnes - Exactly, Dustin2, but that's exactly what Vallee and all the other "scientists" have worked against by claiming that it was a hoax. There was no scientific analysis of the story at all in Anatomy of a Hoax, and Vallee lied about it in his book Revelations without even considering it.
Dustin2 - If you don't mind, I'd like to hear what you think we could benefit from by making the PX public, and recreating the experiment. Do you think that the science behind the PX will be useful in the health sciences, or transportation...?
Marshall Barnes - We wouldn't really benefit from replicating the PX per se. It would just be like proving a point, flipping off the skeptics. However, I think we could all benefit greatly from replicating the Montauk Project. It would give us a way out [of] here and to the worlds that we all individually dream of.
Dustin2 - I have to admit that I have a lot of trouble accepting the claims about the Montauk experiment. Maybe its just that I have little faith in testimonials.
Marshall Barnes - The most misunderstood thing that Preston has about Montauk is that he presents it like that's all there was. What they found was it. That's not even half of it.
Marshall Barnes - I don't care about testimonials. I knew about the principles behind it before I ever heard of it. That's why it got me interested.
Marshall Barnes - That's also why I don't accept everything from Nichols verbatim.
Marshall Barnes - Besides, he and Duncan and Bielek all admit that they had been brain washed so the possibility of screen memories is there.
Dustin2 - Do you even consider Allende [who claimed to have witnessed the PX] as a source? He sounds like a hack to me.
Marshall Barnes - I couldn't care less about Allende. I don't need him. I've got Rinehart [pseudoname for a scientist who claims to have worked on the PX] and he's worth a billion Allendes.
Kahealani - What is the other half [of the Montauk Project]?
Dustin2 - Do you mean principles behind the PX, or behind the MP? If so, then what is the difference between the two projects (in principle?)
Marshall Barnes - PX was simply invisibility. MP was the very nature of the universe and how it relates to consciousness. They just happened to decide to lock up with the PX that one day, that's all.
Dustin2 - So you're saying that they revised the technology to do....?
Marshall Barnes - The MP tech is not really related to the PX at all. They just allegedly started dealing with consciousness because they were trying to fix the mental problems that they ran into with the PX. That's about it. The other half is a whole lot of quantum theory, Bell's theorem, cybernetically enhanced bio-feedback...
Dustin2 - My hometown is very near Oil City/Franklin, PA. Am I wrong in guessing that Rinehart taught or did research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh?
Marshall Barnes - Yes, you're probably wrong because Rinehart wasn't his real name and there was no indication of him being a teacher anywhere. But Rinehart did live in that area.
Dustin2 - I know that Moore used a pseudonym for Rinehart, but I guess I figured that CMU was the only place near enough for a physicist/engineer to go. CMU, being one of the first universities to be tied into the military's early attempt at the Internet, would have been ideal. I mean, the guy had to work, right?
Marshall Barnes - I know what you mean, but then how would you confirm? He's dead now anyway, as far as I know.
Marshall Barnes - When Moore found him, he was pretty old. That was in 1979. If you go to the school look for the physics instructors who came along after WWII. Then see if you can track down any of their writings anywhere. Dig hard.
Dustin2 - Hard to say if I would find anything. CMU has always been up to its gills in military grants.
Dustin2 - There is something called a travel cult, the "Incunabula" which I have found reference to on the Web. They allege the same type of thing in order to travel to parallel universes. Any connections?
Marshall Barnes - Lots, but through a convoluted pathway. The Incunabula is probably the most important underground research document that I've ever come across.
Dustin2 - Thanks for confirming my suspicions about the Incunabula. A couple of us on the PX mailing list had been discussing whether THAT was a hoax or not.
JimS - So, do you feel that the Incunabula documents are genuine? I like the theory, being familiar with Crowley and Leary and all, but my gut feeling was that the document itself was some sort of surrealist joke.
Marshall Barnes - The Incunabula info preceded the release of the MP stuff and was what gave the MP stuff credibility for me. The Incunabula is the key to the whole ball of wax and is what those of us who are on the good side of the Secret Faith keep our focus on.
JimS - Any leads on the 'Levinson time equations'?
Marshall Barnes - Well listen, I'm going to have to get going. Thanks everyone for showing up and dealing with the tech problems. And no, I haven't dealt with the "L" time stuff for awhile.
The Eldridge before
