Cover of physics text book shows dielectric breakdown of the air over water as linked to the Philadelphia Experiment.

Representing the Navy was naval historian John Reilly, in the role of the apologist, saying among other things, "I have no knowledge of the Navy ever having tried to make ships invisible using magnetic fields," as if that were a legitimate statement. Marshall knew better. So did segment produced Mark Caras. When Marshall wasn't shown giving his rebuttal to such typical Navy side-stepping he knew that this had gone wrong. This wasn't what Caras and he had agreed upon. Neither was Goerman's completely unchallenged litany about his investigation against Carlos Allende. The worse was when Goerman made the statement about how other researchers had ignored his findings against Allende because they wanted to sell their books. Then the program cut to Marshall, as if he were one of these researchers, an editorial act that Marshall refers to as "defamatory".

"I was in complete shock." he recalls. "I felt lied to and violated. It's one thing to lie to someone in order to find out the truth, but I was lied to so they could use me for a straw man. They set me up, gutted my entire argument, took out all my evidence, and then they lied about what the truth was and presented a completely false version of the facts. It was the opposite of the slogan, 'the closest you'll ever get to the truth'. It was the furthest thing from it."

At first Marshall was worried about damage to his reputation. The Vallee campaign was beginning to cool down. He was worried that his enemies may have seen the program and try to use it against him. Friends on the net assured him that all seemed to be quiet. It turns out that, along with being merely a knock off of "Sightings," "The Unexplained" isn't watched much by the professional research crowd and their associates.

"I was in complete shock... I felt lied to and violated."

Marshall had heard that Bud Hopkins, the abduction researcher, had received similar treatment from the TV show "Nova" and decided that he wasn't going to just cry foul. Marshall had a weapon, the faxed questions for the program on the Towers Productions letter head. He would use his contacts and skills as a video producer to create a program that would set the record straight by producing a 60 minute rebuttal that would reveal the truth. He would show how "The Unexplained" didn't by showing him answering all the questions that he had originally been asked. Then he got word that he should check http://www.aetv.com (scroll down to where it says "Unexplained" and click on 'comments'.) On the second page, under "Strange Disappearances," Robert Goerman had posted a message proclaiming (in all caps) that the show had taken "the high road" and that the story of the "experiment" had cost too much of the researchers time and resources. That was the last straw.

List of questions for Marshall. The "x"s mark the ones that prove the show's prior knowledge of information that was left out.

"I think up to that point Marshall was just wanting the information that had been missing to come out," a friend remarked. "But the Goerman thing was it. It was rubbing salt in the wounds and from that moment on, it was war. Marshall was after all of them and he wasn't going to stop until he had enough to discredit Goerman, Reilly, and Towers Productions for setting him up in the first place - 'scorched earth' scenario all the way."

Indeed, the rebuttal program became a full fledged intelligence operation. It was as if "The Unexplained" hadn't taken him seriously - not as a researcher, and certainly not as an investigator. So Marshall was going to do what an investigator would do - get the evidence and nail them to the wall. Goerman had made the same remarks on the message board for "Quest For The Truth," a Philadelphia Experiment site with a fair but skeptical tone. It's web master, Mack Shelton, had posted a veiled reference to Marshall's appearance on the program, commenting about "people who get on TV making claims without any evidence..." But Marshall figured that was expected, since that's exactly what Caras had shown. But when Marshall realized, at the same time, that Shelton had boldly and falsely claimed in the text of his site that Moore's 'Dr. Rinehart' was an exact word for word copy of the character in the sci-fi book, "Thin Air," Marshall decided it was time to take out all the major detractors, along with "The Unexplained."

The first step was to set a strategy. He already had the questions. What he needed was definitive proof that Goerman had formulated his hoax theory while ignoring evidence that was in his possession. That would be the William Moore book. To do that he would have to get Goerman to talk. No problem. A basic 'sting-op' procedure. He also wanted to do the same to the Navy's John Reilly, because he needed definitive evidence that nothing the Navy would say about the Philadelphia Experiment would be the truth. After all, if the Philadelphia Experiment did happen, it would still be top secret. They would have to deny it the same way as the Air Force denies the existence of Area 51. In particular, Marshall wanted to prove Reilly's comment of "having no knowledge of such a test," was irrelevant.

 

"I was shocked when he said he had never heard of Area 51...He swore up and down that he had never heard of it and didn't know what it was."

Then there was the Towers Productions and Mark Caras. Caras had warned Marshall that changes would be made in the show, but Marshall didn't trust Caras anymore. When Caras acted as if there was something wrong with the video of his experiment, it didn't make sense. Marshall never forgot it. Now it seemed that it could be a clue that Caras may have been more involved in what happened than he revealed. Jonathon Towers and Caras would have to be dealt with as well, but Marshall decided to go after Reilly first.

Contacting a cyber journalist friend for back-up, Marshall called Reilly, posing as a reporter, and got his permission to tape the call. The strategy was simple and it worked like a charm. "I buttered him up first," Marshall explained, "telling him that I saw him on "The Unexplained" and was working on a follow-up story. Then I just let him run his mouth, walked him down the garden path 'til I got him where I wanted..." Where Marshall wanted him was the same place that the old TV attorneys got their hostile witnesses under cross examination. The so-called "Perry Mason" moment when the witness is caught in the obvious lie or subterfuge. Marshall discovered a few unexpected gems in the process.

"I was shocked when he said he had never heard of Area 51," Marshall said. "He swore up and down that he had never heard of it and didn't know what it was." Marshall had brought up the infamous secret base in the Nevada desert as an example of military denial of top secret information that is still known in the public domain. "So I'm thrown off guard by this because I'm thinking 'he's just doing what the policy dictates' and he was protesting his ignorance so much that I didn't want to get sidetracked. So I asked him what his clearance level was and he said it was Secret. Then I said, "So that means that if something is Top Secret, then you can't know about it, correct?" He said, "Yes." So I knew I had him, but I went in for the kill."

Marshall then followed up by asking Reilly point blank if his Secret clearance also meant that if something was Top Secret from W.W.II, and was still Top Secret today, that he also would not be cleared to know about it. "Yes, I suppose you're right." Victorious, Marshall thanked him for his time, leaving Reilly somewhat puzzled and apprehensive sounding. He should have been. Marshall had just got him on tape disqualifying his statement on "The Unexplained." But Marshall wasn't done with him yet.

Next on the list was Goerman. The same method was used and yielding equally surprising results. Goerman was cocky, saying, "You know I used to be a player,..." describing how he had been a UFO pulp magazine writer in the 70's and ran with high profile researchers, dropping out after his work exposing Allende failed to get him the kudos he felt that it deserved. Marshall didn't care. He asked Goerman if he had written his article exposing Allende before or after he read the William Moore book. Goerman said that it was after he read the Moore book because it was the Moore book that caused him to write the article.

"So you do remember Dr. Rinehart?" Marshall asked. "Yes, I remember a character named 'Dr. Rinehart'," Goerman responded, sounding rather surprised by the question. Marshall ignored the obvious reference to the idea that Rinehart was just made up by Moore. When asked if he had checked out the information about Rinehart, Goerman said 'no'. Marshall pressed on, quizzing the 'player' about his lack of inquiry into the claims of the scientist. He listened as Goerman buried himself deeper and deeper. Goerman made it clear that he felt that Allende had made the whole thing up and so felt no need to do any further investigation. In other words, Goerman hadn't done any real investigation because he hadn't checked out all the available information. "If Allende made it all up, I don't see what Rinehart has to do with any of it," he stupidly insisted, oblivious to the fact that, if Rinehart's statements were found to be accurate, then Allende didn't make the whole thing up - or at least not all of it.

Slowly but surely, Marshall's contention that "The Unexplained" allowed irrelevant testimony to stand unchallenged was being proven. But he wasn't done yet.

Remembering Caras had bought some of the diffraction material, Marshall called up the company and was able to get a copy of Caras' invoice, showing that Towers Productions had paid some $20 for an 18" by 18" piece of diffraction material plus $10 for the Fed Ex shipping costs. This proved conclusively that Caras had important evidence in his possession and had suppressed it.

Photograph showing the diffraction film and its invisibility effect upon a ship.
The Philadelphia Experiment caused a similar effect with electromagnetic fields. This was suppressed from Marshall's report on "The Unexplained."

Showing the computer animation was a diversion and it was insulting for Caras to think that Marshall didn't know it. The plan was obvious - kill any mention of Rinehart as a witness; present his account of the physics as an idea that Marshall had come up with; don't show or mention anything about his experiments because, if people saw them, they would look like more than just a "theory." Then, having established it as just a "theory," they would introduce Goerman and Reilly to discredit the only witness left, Allende. Then they would dismiss the whole thing as a hoax. Finally, edit Goerman's complaint to reflect badly on Marshall. Now Marshall was turning the tables on them, and he wasn't done yet.

"Caras told me that Jonathon Towers had told him to change the script," Marshall recalls, "but I didn't have it on tape. I needed the evidence." So Marshall got a voice mail number and called Caras up at a time when he felt he wouldn't be home. "Hi Mark. It's Marshall Barnes. Gee, you weren't kidding when you said Jonathon Towers had you change the script. What was the point of having me on in the first place? Call me..." The call was a ruse to get Caras to respond to the comment about Towers. Having Caras call the voice mail would be a legal way of obtaining Caras' response on tape. Caras called and didn't respond to the comment but just said that he had been away. He asked Marshall to call him back.

Marshall did call Caras back, providing a "beep" in the background which signified that he was taping the conversation. Marshall repeated the accusation about Towers. "Yeah I ,I infer that you weren't happy with it or something." "What can I say. It didn't tell the truth." "You know, you know," Caras stumbled, "I think we did the best we could, given the information that existed." Marshall was stunned. Caras was giving him a completely different story. It was clear that he didn't care anymore about the truth than the Navy did. Marshall almost felt like asking if Towers was controlled by the intelligence community, but he didn't bother. He didn't care anymore. He knew the truth was finally going to get out - because he was going to do it himself. Marshall would make sure that the credibility of "The Unexplained" was exposed in the process. Their conversation began to get heated as Caras started trying to deny the validity of Marshall's evidence - the same evidence that he had raved and formatted questions about before. The phone went dead. But Marshall had all he needed.

Next, Marshall decided to go back after Reilly. He wanted to confront Reilly directly about his previous comments, cross-examination style. Reintroducing himself as 'Mr. Barnes' and checking up on some points from the previous reporter's questions, Marshall launched into Reilly by getting him to confirm his clearance status and it's limitations. He asked Reilly about Yehudi, the Navy's (1943) formerly secret project to make an anti-submarine plane invisible with special lights. Reilly acknowledged that he was familiar with it. When asked if Reilly knew about it before it was declassified, Reilly said "No, because I had no occasion to." Then Marshall asked him about his denials of knowing anything about Area 51.

"It appears that when it comes to the truth, if it is 'out there,' ... A&E, Towers Productions and 'The Unexplained' are the furthest from it that you could ever get!"