Loki’s Ship True Story: What Happened To The USS Eldridge?

Warning: SPOILERS for Loki episode 5, “Journey into Mystery”. 

The USS Eldridge met a horrifying fate at the hands of Alioth in Loki episode 5 – but what is the true story behind the ship? Before the destroyer became one of Loki episode 5’s Easter eggs, it was part of a legend known as the Philadelphia Experiment.

Loki episode 5 gave viewers a first look at the Void, the place that exists at the end of time, where everything goes after being pruned because nexus events can’t happen there. The landscape is littered with a slew of debris from various timelines that have been sent to the Void to be recycled by Alioth, the beast that reigns over the area. When the USS Eldridge falls from the sky, it is almost instantly devoured by Alioth despite the crew’s valiant attempts to save their ship – but after Alioth was through with them, there was nothing left but the shell of the Eldridge.

Related: Loki Episode 5 Ending Explained: Where Are Sylvie & Loki?

The destroyer was built by the US Navy in 1942 and launched on July 25, 1943, and was commissioned under the command of Lieutenant C.R Hamilton later that year. The ship was named after Lieutenant Commander John Eldridge Jr., who died during an invasion of the Solomon Islands in August 1942. The Eldridge’s purpose was to escort men and materials through the Mediterranean Sea to the Allies in North Africa and southern Europe. She later served as a local escort and patrol around Okinawa, Japan, before being transferred to the Greek Navy, where she served as Leon until 1992. In 1999, she would be sold for scrap metal.

So, how did an ordinary escort ship become a real-life mystery, particularly in Loki? It all began when Carlos M. Allen – pseudonym Carlos Miguel Allende – sent a series of letters to UFO author Morris K. Jessup. Allen provided Jessup “eyewitness accounts” of how the Navy used Einstein’s unified field theory – electromagnetism and gravity – to conduct an experiment to teleport and render the Eldridge invisible in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. This experiment would become known as the Philadelphia Experiment. The letters claimed that witnesses saw an eerie blue-green glow around the ship and that some of the crew met horrifying ends – some were even fused into the ship hull while still alive. Different theories surrounded the experiment; light refraction, teleportation, and interdimensional travel were all mentioned throughout Allende’s letters.

Fortunately for the crew of the Eldridge, this is widely accepted as a hoax. Most importantly, the Eldridge wasn’t even in Philadelphia at the reported time of the experiment; it was on a test cruise down to the Bahamas at the time. In 1999, veterans who had served on the Eldridge confirmed the ship had never docked in Philadelphia. While the Eldridge carried some modern tech, it was designed to scramble its signal from enemy ships, not render the ship invisible. In 1969, Allende confessed that it was all a hoax and that he’d hoped to make a financial gain, but he would later rescind the confession. While the truth around the Philadelphia Experiment might remain a mystery, Loki offers a perfectly valid explanation for its fate — the Eldridge was simply sent to the Void.

About The Author