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.

Going for a Two-fer

I might as well go for a two-fer by following my previous post with one on UFOs, the second biggest hot-potato on the Townsend Brown topic list. Townsend cemented his role in UFOdom for all time by founding NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) in 1956.  Personally, I believe his interest in the subject dated further back, at least to the spring of 1945 when he "jumped" at the chance to parachute behind the lines and vet a German scientist claiming expertise in "ball lightning,"  the suspected root cause of the early foo-fighter sightings reported by Allied pilots.