The very weird “history” behind the USS Eldridge

The real-world ship made a special appearance in the latest episode of Loki.

At the top of the second-to-last episode of Loki, we discover that those who have been "pruned" haven't actually been killed off (yet), but merely transported to The Void, a place within space and time where all of the TVA's unwanted people and things end up. And then there is Alioth, a big angry cloud that devours all matter and energy that is transported to The Void and has been eating up all the stuff that the TVA has sent its way. Scattered throughout the landscape, fans will have picked up on plenty of eye-catching items from throughout the MCU history, including the ruined Avengers tower, what looked like Ronan The Destroyer's starship, a quick glimpse at Throg (a frog who happens to be Thor) and... is that a Thanos helicopter? We could literally go through the episode frame-by-frame to uncover every hidden easter egg available, but quite frankly, we'll let the rest of the internet do that, because we've got some real world stuff on our mind. On the fifth episode of TBR Spotlight: Loki [LISTEN from 30:15 below], Eoghan and Rory discuss the creepy "history" behind the sudden arrival of an infamous warship: So once Loki (Tom Hiddleston) comes up with the idea to distract Alioth so he can sneak up on it and kill it, Kid Loki (Jack Veal) and Classic Loki (Richard E. Grant) use a device to locate when and where the next arrival into The Void will be. And suddenly, falling out of a portal in the sky, is the USS Eldridge, which in the real world (as in you and me and the actual world) was reported to be a part of the Philadelphia Experiment. Some time in 1943, at the height of World War II, there were rumours that the US government was testing a new device on board the Eldridge that would effectively make it invisible. While there were some grains of truth to this - there were magnetic devices on board hoping to be used to disrupt radars and the like - it started off a long history of rumours and theories, including one that involved the US government using technology from crashed alien ships that allowed them to transport the Eldridge in the blink of an eye. Reports began circulating that the Eldridge was consumed by a glow before disappearing completely and reappearing at another shipyard, hundreds of miles away. These same reports stated that some of the crew on board had subsequently gone insane following the "transportation", while others still stated that when the Eldridge re-appeared, some of the crew had become fused with the ship itself. All of this was subsequently debunked, but it also allows the Loki show to take one of America's biggest "mysteries" and fold it into the plot of the show, much like they did with D.B. Cooper in the very first episode. Will we get any more famous myths appearing? The Loch Ness Monster? Bigfoot? The Bermuda Triangle? We'll know more when the sixth and final episode of this season of Loki arrives on Disney+ on Wednesday, 14 July.