# What is the Third City project? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [June 22, 2000, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219 "2000-06-22T18:44:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2000, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/1 "2000-06-22T18:44:39Z")
Someone asked a question in the “General Questions” forum relating to the Philadelphia Experiment; a question which Cecil answered [here.](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_293.html) In perusing the column cited, I see that the original question states: > [@](#): > > [T]he “Philadelphia Experiment”… was supposedly conducted by the U.S. Navy during World War II as one of the **three** “city projects.” The Manhattan Project, of course, was the development of the atomic bomb. The Philadelphia Experiment supposedly involved the use of magnetism to bend light rays and thus make objects invisible… > > (emphasis mine) OK, assuming this isn’t complete bunkum, what is the third “city project”? [Note: I asked this question [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28224), but didn’t get much response. I hope reposting it in this forum, where it’s a little more on topic (and not buried in someone else’s thread) will generate more interest.] ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2000, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/2 "2000-06-22T20:30:12Z")
I don’t know what (or if) the “city” name was, but the other major project during WWII was the development of RADAR. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/3 "2000-06-23T02:56:42Z")
This is fun. You put in “Philadelphia experiment” and you end up cruising around Google with the conspiracy theorists, throwing beer cans out the car windows. Was it maybe the Montauk Project (mind control experiments)? [http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/montauk.html](http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/montauk.html) [http://www.umf.net/umf/library/montauk.htm](http://www.umf.net/umf/library/montauk.htm) Re radar: this [website](http://www-paoc.mit.edu/Radar_Lab/nscp/history.html) says that most radar research during WWII took place at MIT. Where is that? ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/4 "2000-06-23T03:38:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > This is fun. You put in “Philadelphia experiment” and you end up cruising around Google with the conspiracy theorists, throwing beer cans out the car windows. Was it maybe the Montauk Project (mind control experiments)? > > [http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/montauk.html](http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/montauk.html) > > [http://www.umf.net/umf/library/montauk.htm](http://www.umf.net/umf/library/montauk.htm) > > Re radar: this [website](http://www-paoc.mit.edu/Radar_Lab/nscp/history.html) says that most radar research during WWII took place at MIT. Where is that? > > \*\* MIT=Mass. (abbreviated b/c I have no idea how to spell it) Institute of Technology ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/5 "2000-06-23T04:39:27Z")
The column can also be found on pages 293-295 of Cecil Adams’ book “[_More of the Straight Dope_](http://www.straightdope.com/otheroutlets/books.html)”. MIT is in Cambridge, Massachussetts. So RADAR would have been the Cambridge project. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/6 "2000-06-23T13:51:10Z")
**DDG** : Is there a city named “Montauk”? I was assuming that the third “city project” would have a name related to a major city (as **ChuckForbin** suggested [earlier](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28224), like the “Miami Sound Machine” [which by the way, is pretty funny]). **Arnold** : I admit radar is a plausible answer, but was it ever called “The Cambridge project”? Even if it was the third hush-hush “city project,” seems like it’d be named after something other than the city in which it’s actually located. ---
**Author:** ![JonF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JonF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonF)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/7 "2000-06-23T16:15:52Z")
> [@](#): > > MIT=Mass. (abbreviated b/c I have no idea how to spell it) Institute of Technology [singing] M-A-S-S-A-C-H-U-S-E-T-T-S I-N-S-T-I-T-U-T-E-O-F-T-E C-H-N-O-L-O-G and Y comes after Geeee! Massachusetts Institute of Technology! [/singing] I guess you have to hear it to get the full effect … ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/8 "2000-06-23T17:00:29Z")
> [@](#): > > but was it ever called “The Cambridge project”? Even if it was the third hush-hush “city project,” seems like it’d be named after something other than the city in which it’s actually located. After all, the A-bomb project wasn’t called the Los Alamos project, or the Oak Ridge project. I don’t think that any of the actual work was done in or near the city of New York. Besides, wasn’t radar an English invention? At least, I think that’s what my history books way back when said… ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/9 "2000-06-23T17:38:10Z")
> [@](#): > > wasn’t radar an English invention? Yes, but development moved here early in WWII, before the US even entered. [Here’s](http://rlewebserver.mit.edu/radlab/radlab.HTM) a site with a very brief description of the origin of the Radiation Laboratory. IIRC, England transfered it’s knowledge of radar to the US as part of Lend-lease. I can’t find anyhing that confirms this, however. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/10 "2000-06-23T18:24:13Z")
What I should have said is: “If RADAR were a city project named after the city in which the research were being done, it would have been called the ‘Cambridge project.’” My post was in answer to Duck Duck Goose’s question “Where is MIT?” I don’t know that I buy the story that there were three top-secret “city projects” in World War II in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/11 "2000-06-23T18:52:42Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t know that I buy the story that there were three top-secret “city projects” in World War II in the first place. Or at least, three interesting “city projects”. There was probably a project to try to make more efficient carbeurators for American tanks, too, and that project might have been named after a city, for all I know. There definitely couldn’t have been more than one _big_ project, because all of the best scientific minds in the country were already occupied on Manhattan (unless you buy the idea that the Government has a secret “brain trust” of even smarter guys, led by Brent Spinner, hidden away in some underground compound for the _really_ important projects, like teleporting ships and reverse-engineering UFOs). ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/12 "2000-06-23T19:45:27Z")
**Arnold** opines, > [@](#): > > I don’t know that I buy the story that there were three top-secret “city projects” in World War II in the first place. Well dang! Maybe I don’t either. I was expecting better of **Cecil** , though. He _could_ have eliminated my ignorance with a simple, scathing yet poignant sentence in his original column, yet he chose not to. I had assumed that his failure to do so implied that the third “city project” was somehow a nugget common knowledge that I missed, but I guess not. If no one comes forward with the straight dope, any chance of kicking this question upstairs? ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/13 "2000-06-23T19:58:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > Is there a city named “Montauk”?\*\* Yes. Montauk is the town at the easternmost tip of Long Island. I think “city” is a bit of a stretch, but it’s a municipality of some sort, and pretty well known in the NY Metro area. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/14 "2000-06-23T20:59:01Z")
> [@](#): > > originally posted by Chronos: > unless you buy the idea that the Government has a secret “brain trust” of even smarter guys, led by Brent Spinner, hidden away in some underground compound for the _really_ important projects, like teleporting ships and reverse-engineering UFOs). This, on the other hand, has been well-documented by researchers Emmerich and Devlin. A popular account of their research may be found [here](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0116629). However that project originated after World War II. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2000, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/15 "2000-06-23T22:16:27Z")
Manhatten isn’t a city, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![SilentKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@SilentKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SilentKnight)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2000, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/16 "2000-06-24T00:00:52Z")
What about the Colorado Report (also known as the Condon Report)? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2000, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-third-city-project/23219/17 "2000-06-24T01:30:19Z")
Re: the third city, I was thinking of the Hanford project, but I guess that was part of Manhattan . . . the project, not the moderator. Although I suppose it could, er, heat up GQ a bit if Manny contained thousands of pounds of rad waste.