Ball Lightning, the Genesis

We have long running discussions going on over at the Quonset Hut,  discussions that have been carried on from forum to forum. One of our favorite topics is the Moore/Berlitz story of  the alleged 1943 Philadelphia Experiment which implies that  Townsend Brown had something to do with a disappearing ship called the USS Eldridge.

Some of us Brown Hounds are on the trail of an entirely different rabbit, ball lightning, and a reported accident aboard the USS Cutlass (SS 478) marks its starting point.

This event purportedly occurred when that Tench Class submarine's generators or, more specifically, the reverse current function was being tested.  In Ball Lightning and Bead Lightning:Extreme Forms of Atmospheric Electricity by James Dale Barry). attributes a 1974 date to the event.   

But according to Wikipedia, the Cutlass was decomisioned and sold to the Republic of China in 1973. Oddly, though, the Wiki chronology of the ship ends with "she entered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in February 1960 for an overhaul which continued until August."  

It has been rumored that that The USS Argonaut (SS 475), a sister ship to the Cutlass, carried the next generation of Townsend Brown's technology. According to Wiki's  apparently complete and detailed log she, too, would have been in the shipyard at the same time as the Cutlass in 1960, but she would be decommissioned and sold to Canada in 1968.

So there you have the "factual" history of these two ships, disconnected by years of time  from the Eldridge or the Moore/Berlitz story in any way, except for a pair of odd, coincidental commonalities.

(1) Moore and Berlitz claimed that the experiments aboard the USS Eldridge were conducted under the guise of a "Project Rainbow."  Wiki reports that the Cutlass also participated in a (completely different) Project Rainbow, this one testing paint schemes on crew morale.. And the when her sistership,  the Argonaut, was sold to the Canadians  she was.renamed the CMS Rainbow

As for the second connection to "TPX" it is even more tangential, but possibly more significant.What awakens my spidey sense here is that if I follow the 'shadow language' here,  I find myself  at a researcher in  the space propulsion field by the name of Dr. Franklin Mead.

(2) In the Moore/Berlitz story a Dr. Franklin Reno was responsible for re-examining the math theories behind the experiment. As the section of their book reproduced at Unusual Science show,  They go to great lengths to explain that the mathematician chose this pseudonym from a "Franklin 3 Reno 8" roadsign that was once found on Rte. 62 in Western Pennsylvania.  From downtown Franklin, one road leads to Meadville, the other to Reno, Meadville  is where Townsend was developing his 'flame jet generator' during the fall and winter of 1960/61.


Wired Magazine has this to say about  him:

For those of you not familiar with Franklin Mead, of the Air Force Research Laboratory, let me refresh your memory. Mead’s been around the "breakthrough propulsion" crowd for years, and even holds his own patent for a zero point energy invention. He was also the deep-thinking government official who funded the now infamous Air Force teleportation study (you can see the full PDF of the study here). Yep, that’s right, this was the study that looked at, among other methods, ways to transport objects through walls using psychic powers. That, too, could be a breakthrough for space travel, I suppose.

Forum friend Griffin remembers Dr. Mead being quoted in a TV documentary he saw back in the ninties, as saying the airforce "re-evaluated TTB’s early work that the Navy had supposedly bypassed and found it viables."

Supposedly bypassed. Indeed, Dr. Mead, indeed.

(Edited for clarity 10/12/13)