"...find out as much as possible about a ship called the S S Maylay and its voyage of late May and early June of 1947, during which, according to Allende, 'it was nearly capsized by a kilotomic [sic] explosion … it is the only ship to have survived the explosion of a UFO. It is the only ship to have had holes (tiny ones) burnt through its metal plates by a UFO of about 1600 feet in diameter… It was covered, next day, by the so-called "Angel Hair." I ought to know, I was a crew member, steering the ship at the time.'"

Carlos Allende drifted around the U.S. from job to job, but he apparently had at least four main places to which he returned again and again. One was West Texas, where he often went to work in the oil fields. Another was, of course, the home of his parents in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. He often gave this as his return mailing address, and seems to have been there often enough to respond to letters addressed to him at that location. He seems to have spent lot of time in Mexico. That's where he changed his name from Carl M. Allen to Carlos Miguel Allende. Some of his letters to Jacques Vallee were mailed from Mexico. Finally, when he was ill and when he got older, he went to Colorado.

After 1956, Carlos decided to lay low for a while. He may have heard that the Navy was trying to locate him and decided that his name was becoming too well known. William Moore says that he went to south central Mexico for several years. In 1967, when writer Brad Steiger wrote an article about the Allende letters and the Varo edition for Saga magazine, Carlos wrote several angry letters to Steiger's publisher, hoping to prevent Steiger from publishing a book on the subject. It didn't work. The book came out in 1968, titled The Allende Letters, New UFO Breakthrough. Ivan Sanderson also wrote about Allende in his 1967 book Uninvited Visitors.

In his book Revelations, Jacques Vallee relates that, beginning in 1967 after the publication of his book Anatomy of a Phenomenon, he began receiving letters from Carlos Allende, too. The style of the letters was the same as those Jessup had received, and one long letter repeated the story of the Philadelphia Experiment. Allende also offered to sell Vallee a copy of the Varo edition of The Case for the UFO. For me, the most interesting letter Vallee received from Allende is one in which he told Vallee to:

find out as much as possible about a ship called the S S Maylay and its voyage of late May and early June of 1947, during which, according to Allende, "it was nearly capsized by a kilotomic [sic] explosion … it is the only ship to have survived the explosion of a UFO. It is the only ship to have had holes (tiny ones) burnt through its metal plates by a UFO of about 1600 feet in diameter… It was covered, next day, by the so-called 'Angel Hair.' I ought to know, I was a crew member, steering the ship at the time."

Vallee says that he consulted the Coast Guard about the S S Maylay, but they were unable to find any record of it and the search for the Maylay later "died for lack of information." (More on the Maylay in the last installment of this series.)

After 1968, the letters from Allende to Vallee apparently stopped.

"All words, phrases, and sentences underlined on the following pages in brown ink are false. The below page and the top part of the following are the carzyist (sic) pack of lies I ever wrote. Object? To encourage ONR Research and to discourage Proffessor(sic) Morris K. Jessup from going further with investigations possibly leading to actual research. Then I feared invisibility and force-field research; I don't now."

In 1969, according to Moore in The Philadelphia Experiment, Allende went to Varo and demanded that they give him a copy of the Varo edition, then he went to APRO headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, and confessed to perpetrating a hoax on Morris K. Jessup. He even wrote the following on the top of page two of the appendix in the copy of the Varo edition that he had wrangled from Varo:

All words, phrases, and sentences underlined on the following pages in brown ink are false. The below page and the top part of the following are the carzyist (sic) pack of lies I ever wrote. Object? To encourage ONR Research and to discourage Proffessor(sic) Morris K. Jessup from going further with investigations possibly leading to actual research. Then I feared invisibility and force-field research; I don't now.

In spite of the "confession", Jim Lorenzen of APRO said later that Allende told him privately that he really did see a ship disappear. According to Kevin Randle in The UFO Casebook, Allende said he had a terminal illness and was on his way to Denver, Colorado for treatment. Later, apparently cured, Allende came back through on his way home. Allende may have continued to write to Lorenzen over the years, but the content of those letters has never been made public.

The next time Carlos is heard from is during William Moore's the research for the book The Philadelphia Experiment. Moore says that, during the course of his research for the book, he corresponded heavily with Allende, spoke to him on the phone several times, and had two face-to-face meetings with him. However, after all that contact, he said that …it is still virtually impossible to say very much about him with any great degree of certainty. At the time of the publication of The Philadelphia Experiment William Moore says that Carlos was living in Mexico.

Just after the release of book The Philadelphia Experiment by Moore & Berlitz in 1979, Robert Goerman made contact with Allende's parents in New Kensington, Pennsylvania. Carlos had sent them a copy of the Varo edition for "safekeeping", calling it "his book." He had also sent them annotated copies of other books, including The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz.

Jacques Vallee says that Carlos showed up in Boulder, Colorado in 1983, where he was photographed and interviewed by a science writer named Linda Strand before he drifted off again.

What finally happened to Carlos Allende? The Social Security Death Index has this information:

Carlos Allende
SSN 196-20-5789
Residence: 80631 Greeley, Weld, CO
Born 31 May 1925
Died 5 Mar 1994 Issued: PA (Before 1951)

The birth date is the same as Carl M. Allen's, and the social security number was issued in Pennsylvania before 1951. This Carlos Allende died in Colorado, where our Carlos Allende apparently went when he needed medical attention. So, it seems likely that our Carlos Allende passed away in Colorado at the age of 68.

"The magnetic mine was the most dangerous and destructive type. All steel ships have magnetism built into them. When a steel vessel passes over a magnetic mine, the magnetic forces in the ship trigger a mechanism in the mine that sets off an explosion under the hull. To counteract these mines, some ships were degaussed. Thick bands of electrical wire, aligned with the main deck, were fastened around the length of the vessel. The wire was energized with an electric current that neutralized the ship's magnetism. This system saved countless numbers of ships from destruction."

Who was Carlos Allende?
Is there any doubt remaining that Carlos Allende was Carl Meredith Allen? Not for me. Carlos Allende used both names in his letters to Morris Jessup. He also gave the number "Z416175" from Carl Meredith Allen's "Able Seaman" certificate. After he left the Merchant Marine, he became a wanderer, drifting from job to job in the United States and spending a lot of time in Mexico.

What happened to Carlos Allende?
He died in Colorado in 1994 at the age of 68. His address at the time was Weld County, Colorado.

Why was the U.S. Office of Naval Research so interested in the annotated copy of The Case for the UFO and in the Allende letters?
They weren't. Two of their officers, George Hoover and Sidney Sherby, were privately interested, and spent their free time investigating the annotations and letters. There is no evidence that Navy itself had any interest whatsoever. If it had, would it have allowed copies of the Varo Edition to be handed out willy-nilly? Years later, Sidney Sherby told Kevin Randle that the Navy itself had no interest, as Randle recounts in The UFO Casebook.

Did Morris K. Jessup commit suicide?
There's no real evidence that he didn't, conspiracy theories notwithstanding. He was extremely depressed over his sagging career, his family troubles, and his automobile accident.

What is degaussing?
Degaussing makes a ship invisible to magnetic mines:
The magnetic mine was the most dangerous and destructive type. All steel ships have magnetism built into them. When a steel vessel passes over a magnetic mine, the magnetic forces in the ship trigger a mechanism in the mine that sets off an explosion under the hull. To counteract these mines, some ships were degaussed. Thick bands of electrical wire, aligned with the main deck, were fastened around the length of the vessel. The wire was energized with an electric current that neutralized the ship's magnetism. This system saved countless numbers of ships from destruction.
American Merchant Marine Heroes and their Gallant Ships in World War II

Is degaussing what Carlos Allende witnessed?
This is the favorite answer of those who want to straddle the fence and say Carlos saw something but not complete invisibility of a ship…. Go back and read the letters Allende wrote. What he describes is not simple degaussing. He either saw a ship become invisible or he made the whole thing up. If he made it up, then what he had heard about degaussing may have given him the germ of the idea.

Did the U.S.S. Eldridge become invisible or did Carl Allende make the whole thing up?
If the Navy was testing such technology, would they test it at sea, where Carlos says the event took place? We tend to think that the experiment took place in the Philadelphia Naval Yards, but the one Carlos says he saw took place at sea. He just heard about the other one. He never said in his letters or in the annotations that it was the Eldridge. He supposedly told William Moore that it was the DE-173, which was the i.d. of the Eldridge. The crew of the Eldridge says it didn't happen.

In 1969 Carlos said that he made it all up, but told Jim Lorenzen privately that he did, in fact, see a ship vanish.

If he did make it up, Why did he do so?
Don't forget, Carlos was a bit eccentric, to say the least. He said in his "confession" that he did it because he was afraid of invisibility and force-field research. He was afraid The Case for the UFO and Jessup's lectures would stimulate research in those areas. Does that sound weird? Go back and read the letters. No one said Carlos was normal.

What about other things that Carlos said?
Funny you should ask that. I was intrigued by Carlos' letter to Jacques Vallee in which he mentioned the S. S. Maylay

find out as much as possible about a ship called the S S Maylay and its voyage of late May and early June of 1947, during which, according to Allende, "it was nearly capsized by a kilotomic [sic] explosion … it is the only ship to have survived the explosion of a UFO. It is the only ship to have had holes (tiny ones) burnt through its metal plates by a UFO of about 1600 feet in diameter… It was covered, next day, by the so-called "Angel Hair." I ought to know, I was a crew member, steering the ship at the time.
(quoted in Revelations by Jacques Vallee)

Vallee said the Coast Guard could find no record of such a ship. If so, they didn't look very hard. Carlos was a poor speller in his letters to Morris Jessup, so why not in this, too? There may not have been an S.S. Maylay but there was indeed a tanker named the S.S. Malay. On 1/19/42, it was torpedoed, but it was brought into port under its own power. It was repaired and saw continued duty. It's master, John M. Dodge, was awarded a medal for meritorious service in the line of duty for this feat.
So what was the S.S. Malay doing in May/June 1947? There should be records somewhere. Carlos says it was damaged by an exploding UFO...

The Astronomer and the Sailor, Part 1

This article was previously published in 2000. It has been edited slightly.

Print References: • The Case for the UFO by Morris K. Jessup • Cosmic Test Tube by Randall Fitzgerald • The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility by William Moore & Charles Berlitz • Revelation by Jacques Vallee