The Philadelphia Experiment, aka Project Rainbow, is the earliest and most entrenched conspiracy theory about teleportation. It involves a disappearing United States Navy ship and its entire crew, Albert Einstein, a paranormal bar fight and a cover-up.
The story goes that, besides escorting destroyers, the USS Eldridge was used in a series of experiments to test Albert Einstein’s Unified Field Theory as a way to cloak large vessels from enemy view. Believers in the experiment say the ship was outfitted with powerful electromagnetic generators that could bend light around the ship and render it invisible to the naked eye.

The first test took place in July 1943 in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. When the switch was flipped, according to a witness who said he was there, the ship was enveloped in a greenish fog and when the mist lifted the destroyer was gone. The only evidence that the ship was still there was the deep impression its hull made in the water. When the vessel reappeared, the crew were said to be disoriented and violently nauseous.

A subsequent test on October 28, 1943 caused the ship to disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and reappear moments later in the waters off Norfolk, Virginia. The ship’s next trick was to disappear again from Norfolk and rematerialize back in Philadelphia.

In the short time it took the ship to teleport, however, theorists claim the experiment went nightmarishly awry. Many of the crew members were stuck temporarily between dimensions, others disappeared forever, and five sailors became fused with the deck and hull of the ship when it reappeared. Half of the officers and sailors were driven insane by the experience and others supposedly disappeared and reappeared spontaneously years later.

Shocked by the unexpected teleportation and its horrifying results, the Navy shut down the experiment and immediately began covering up any evidence that it took place. Conspiracy theorists say the crewmen who still had their wits about them were brainwashed so they couldn’t tell the tale.