In 1943 a secret government cloaking project goes awry vanishing a navy destroyer. In 2012, the destroyer reappears, setting off a series of events threatening to destroy the world.

In 'The Philadelphia Experiment', a secret government research project tries reviving the World War II "Philadelphia Experiment," which was an attempt to create a cloaking device to render warships invisible. When the experiment succeeds, it brings back the original ship (the Eldridge) that disappeared during the first test in 1943 - which brings death and destruction to the 21st century. It's up to the sole survivor (Lea) of the first experiment and his granddaughter (Ullerup) to stop it.—SyFy Official Press Release

Military arms manufacturer Grey Water has purchased the rights to a top secret WWII government project called The Philadelphia Experiment which was tasked with discovering the secrets behind invisibility. They have resurrected the project, with the current project team believing they now have the capability. However, in the demonstration, what happens is that the Eldridge, a WWII warship that mysteriously went missing in 1943 and that was associated with the original project, suddenly appears. With the Eldridge comes its one sole survivor on board, Lieutenant Bill Gardner. Gardner is able to escape from the confines of the warship. A secondary side effect of the experiment is that the Eldridge now, on a whim, disappears and then reappears elsewhere on the globe. Gardner's current task is to figure out what happened so that he can make his way back to 1943. Helping him is who he learns is his now adult granddaughter, Molly Gardner, whose fiancé, Deputy Sheriff Carl Reed, is trapped inside the now traveling Eldridge, he who was the first responder on the scene when the Eldridge first appeared. Kathryn Moore, the ruthless administrator of the project for Grey Water, wants to make the Eldridge and everything associated with it go away to protect her name and that of the company, which means destroying the Eldridge and killing Gardner with the help of the singularly minded mercenary for hire, Hagan. However, the chief contracted scientist on the team, Richard Falkner, does whatever he can to stop Moore and save Gardner since he knows that destroying the Eldridge will have catastrophic consequences.—Huggo