Pellegrino Ernetti's Chronovisor: From the Astronautical Torus to the Philadelphia Experiment—Chrononauts, Black Projects, and the Hypothesis That the Past Still Exists

 

Pellegrino Ernetti's Chronovisor: From the Astronautical Torus to the Philadelphia Experiment—Chrononauts, Black Projects, and the Hypothesis That the Past Still Exists

A historical thread of ideas weaves through science fiction, fringe technology, ufology, and physics: the possibility that time is not merely something that "passes," but rather a dimension in which different states of reality can be accessed through tuning, displacement, or observation.

An investigation into this lore reveals that Robert Charroux’s 1963 work Histoire inconnue des hommes depuis cent mille ans explicitly outlines these concepts in its chapter on time travel. Charroux describes participating alongside engineer Émile Drouet starting in 1946, detailing an astronautique tore (Astronautical Torus), frequency-modulation radar, and the concept of a longueur d'onde-temps (time-wavelength). Furthermore, Charroux discusses temporal harmonics—suggesting that distinct historical trajectories might unfold along different harmonic frequencies.

This historical investigation explores the ideas surrounding the observation of the past, structured through documented facts, historical claims, and theoretical physics.

Pre-Introduction: What If Time Is a Frequency?

What if the past is still happening somewhere? Not as a memory, a historical record, a photograph, or a document, but as a physical reality that continues to exist—a bandwidth of the Universe that could, in principle, be tuned into once again?

This hypothesis gained technological language during the twentieth century. H. G. Wells envisioned a machine capable of moving an observer through time. Albert Einstein demonstrated that space and time form a unified continuum, where time elapsed depends on relative motion and gravitational fields. Modern physics continues to debate concepts such as spacetime, causality, relativity, the block universe, and quantum interpretations of reality.

Parallel to academic science, a far stranger narrative emerged: the claim that the past could be observed without physically traveling through it.

Within this realm lies the legend of Father Pellegrino Ernetti’s alleged Chronovisor. Decades earlier, French engineer Émile Drouet conceived an equally peculiar concept. His design was not aimed at physical backward travel. Instead, Drouet posited time as a cosmic structure traversed by Earth as it moves through space. To reach a specific historical moment, one would need to locate the spatial position Earth occupied at that instant and, according to Charroux, use frequency modulation to lock onto a specific "time-wave."

Charroux described harmonics within this temporal chain, where different harmonics might correspond to alternate historical developments. Under this framework, the Universe operates like a vast composition; time acts as a frequency, and the apparatus serves as a receiver tuned to a specific band of reality.

Part I — The First Problem: Does Time Really "Pass"?

In daily experience, time feels like a unidirectional stream: yesterday \rightarrow today \rightarrow tomorrow.

Relativistic physics altered the classical view of a universal clock ticking identically for all observers. Space and time are bound within spacetime, where different observers measure distinct time intervals depending on velocity and gravity. This does not mean relativity permits practical backward time travel, nor does it imply that physics has constructed a time machine. However, it demonstrates that the intuitive model of time as a absolute cosmic clock is incomplete.

This raises a central philosophical question in theoretical physics: if past, present, and future form parts of a single spacetime structure, in what physical sense can the past be said to have "ceased to exist"?

Part II — Émile Drouet and the Astronautical Torus

In Histoire inconnue des hommes depuis cent mille ans, Robert Charroux dedicated a section to the French engineer and astronomer Émile Drouet. Charroux claimed that beginning in 1946, he participated in Drouet’s research alongside chemist Lucile Berthelot and an officer of the French Air Force. Charroux included a conceptual schematic attributed to the project:

\text{Zero Speed} = \text{Eternity} 300,000 + x = \text{Past} \text{Zero} - x = \text{Future}

Drouet’s interpretation diverged from standard modern relativity. The project was based on a specific view of Earth's spatial motion. Earth does not sit stationary while time passes; it rotates, orbits the Sun, and moves with the Solar System through the galaxy. Therefore, reaching Earth as it was in 1789 would require locating the exact spatial coordinates Earth occupied during that year.

This premise birthed the Astronautical Torus (Tore astronautique)—a massive circular structure equipped with gyroscopes and a frequency-modulation radar system. Charroux claimed a scale model was constructed during that era and referenced by the publication Jeudi-Magazine (No. 19, October 10, 1946). Independent of Charroux, author Andrew Tomas later detailed Drouet's account in Beyond the Time Barrier (1971).

Part III — Time as a "Wavelength"

In Drouet’s model, the past is not merely a physical destination; it functions as a temporal state identifiable by frequency. Charroux wrote of a longueur d'onde-temps (time-wavelength) and temporal harmonics.

Consider a radio receiver. Numerous stations broadcast simultaneously through the environment. Turning the dial does not create the broadcast; it merely tunes the receiver to a specific frequency. Drouet’s speculative model applied a similar logic: the year 1000 represents one band, the twentieth century another. A device would not need to recreate the past, but rather align with its corresponding frequency.

While conceptually rich, no experimental evidence exists demonstrating that historical events emit tunable temporal frequencies in this manner.

Part IV — Pellegrino Ernetti's Chronovisor

Decades later, a related narrative emerged involving Benedictine monk, musicologist, and ancient music scholar Pellegrino Ernetti.

In May 1972, the Italian magazine La Domenica del Corriere published an article detailing Ernetti's claim of a device capable of viewing past events: the Chronovisor. Ernetti claimed the equipment was developed by a team of scientists, with later accounts alleging the involvement of figures such as Agostino Gemelli, Enrico Fermi, and Wernher von Braun—though these claims remain unverified by independent historical documentation.

The underlying premise posited that physical events leave residual electromagnetic and acoustic traces in the Universe. The Chronovisor was reportedly designed to capture and reconstruct these signals into visual and auditory displays. Ernetti claimed to have observed historical events, including speeches by Cicero, scenes from ancient Rome, a performance of Quintus Ennius's lost tragedy Thyestes, and the crucifixion of Jesus.

Part V — The Photograph of Jesus and Critical Analysis

The published photograph alleged to be an image of Jesus captured by the Chronovisor became the most widely circulated aspect of the story—and its primary vulnerability.

Subsequent comparisons revealed that the image matched a wood carving of Jesus by sculptor Lorenzo Coullaut Valera at the Sanctuary of Merciful Love in Collevalenza, Italy.

Additionally, the text Ernetti presented as the recovered Thyestes text faced severe philological criticism. Academic classicists noted that the linguistic style and composition differed from known surviving fragments of Ennius's work, leading scholars to reject the text as an authentic ancient recovery.

Part VI — Analysis of Claims and Counter-Claims

Following the debunking of the evidence, secondary narratives emerged. Writers such as François Brune suggested that the invalid evidence may have been introduced deliberately to discredit the findings or protect the underlying research.

Logically, demonstrating that specific evidence is fraudulent proves that the evidence itself is invalid, though it does not empirically prove the non-existence of a broader apparatus. Conversely, asserting that evidence was falsified to conceal a functioning device remains an unverified hypothesis.

Part VII — Information Machines vs. Transport Machines

A clear distinction exists between traditional time travel concepts and observation devices:

• Physical Time Machine: Hypothetically shifts matter through spacetime.
• Chronovisor / Observation Device: Functions as an information-retrieval system, observing past states without physical displacement.

In physics, light arriving from distant stars represents historical information; observing a galaxy millions of light-years away displays that galaxy as it existed in the past. However, capturing localized, dissipated historical information from Earth's past presents vastly different physical challenges than astronomical observation.

Part VIII — Project Pegasus and Black Budget Allegations

The Chronovisor narrative intersects with fringe accounts of secret American technological programs, notably Project Pegasus, popularized by claims from Andrew Basiago. Basiago alleged that during the late 1960s and early 1970s, DARPA conducted tests involving teleportation and temporal displacement technologies.

While written documentation detailing these personal claims exists, no verifiable public records or independent military documentation validate the existence of operational temporal displacement programs under Project Pegasus.

Part IX — The Philadelphia Experiment

The story of the Philadelphia Experiment remains a prominent narrative regarding military force-field research and space-time anomalies. According to urban legend, the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge (DE-173) was subjected to radar-evasion experiments at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1943, resulting in teletransportation or temporal displacement.

Official records from the U.S. Navy and the Office of Naval Research indicate no such experiments occurred. Naval logs show the USS Eldridge was not in Philadelphia during the period in question. Historians note that real military research conducted during WWII involving degaussing—a process using electromagnetic coils to reduce a ship's magnetic signature to evade magnetic mines—likely served as the historical basis that was later embellished into the teleportation myth.

Part X — Comparative Analysis

Concept / Narrative	Core Claim	Primary Sources / Key Figures	Historical / Scientific Status
Astronautical Torus	Time as spatial coordinates and frequency modulation.	Émile Drouet, Robert Charroux (1963), Andrew Tomas (1971).	Speculative theoretical framework; no physical prototype verified.
Chronovisor	Audio-visual capture of past residual energy waves.	Pellegrino Ernetti, La Domenica del Corriere (1972), Peter Krassa.	Alleged device; primary photographic and textual evidence debunked.
Project Pegasus	DARPA-led child teleportation and time-travel program.	Andrew Basiago.	Unverified personal claims; no independent documentation.
Philadelphia Experiment	Naval ship rendered invisible and teleported via fields.	Carl Allen (Letters to Morris Jessup), Charles Berlitz.	Urban legend; rooted in historical naval degaussing operations.
Spacetime Relativity	Space and time form a single four-dimensional continuum.	Albert Einstein, modern physics.	Documented, empirically verified scientific framework.

Final Philosophical Reflection

The persistent interest in these narratives stems from a fundamental question in the philosophy of physics: Is the past an erased state, or does it persist as an inaccessible configuration of the Universe?

If the Universe is viewed as an evolving system, every event alters physical states, distributing energy, light, and entropy throughout the environment. Standard physics views this information as dissipated beyond practical recovery. However, theoretical discussions regarding quantum information preservation continue to explore whether information is ever truly destroyed.

Whether viewed through the lens of early mystery literature, speculative engineering, or theoretical physics, the concept of reading the past remains one of humanity's most compelling intellectual frontiers.

Methodological Classification

To maintain analytical clarity, concepts within this domain are categorized under three distinct classifications:

• Documented: The publication of Robert Charroux’s and Andrew Tomas’s works; the 1972 news reports regarding Ernetti; historical military research into ship degaussing; and established relativistic physics.
• Alleged: The functional existence of the Chronovisor; the involvement of Fermi and von Braun; Drouet’s working Torus prototype; and Project Pegasus claims.
• Unproven / Falsified: The authenticity of the Collevalenza photograph as a Chronovisor image; empirical claims of "temporal harmonic frequencies"; and physical human time travel.

Bibliography and Primary Sources

• Charroux, Robert. Histoire inconnue des hommes depuis cent mille ans. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1963. (Primary source detailing Émile Drouet's Astronautical Torus, frequency modulation, and temporal harmonics).
• Charroux, Robert. Le Livre des secrets trahis. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1965.
• Krassa, Peter. Father Ernetti's Chronovisor: The Creation and Disappearance of the World's First Time Machine. Boca Raton: New Paradigm Books, 2000. (Comprehensive English-language account of Ernetti's claims).
• Russo, Alessandro. La tragedia latina in streaming. Padre Pellegrino Ernetti tra fantascienza e fake news. Un giallo filologico. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2025. (Philological analysis examining Ernetti's claim of recovering Ennius's lost tragedy Thyestes).
• Teodorani, Massimo. Il Cronovisore: sogno del futuro o esperimenti reali? Cesena: Gruppo Editoriale Macro, 2006. (Italian perspective and investigative summary of the Chronovisor legend).
• Tomas, Andrew. Beyond the Time Barrier. London: Sphere Books, 1971. (Features accounts of Émile Drouet’s theoretical designs).
• U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command. "Philadelphia Experiment." Official Navy Archives. (Official records and historical analysis regarding the USS Eldridge DE-173).
• U.S. Office of Naval Research. "Philadelphia Experiment Information Sheet." ONR Fact Sheet. (Documentation detailing naval degaussing operations and the origins of the Philadelphia legend).