Which ship appears in the prologue of Stranger Things: The First Shadow?

The ship in the prologue of Stranger Things: The First Shadow is the USS Eldridge. The play opens in 1943 with a secret experiment intended to make the vessel invisible and undetectable.

In the story’s supernatural version of the Philadelphia Experiment legend, the experiment goes disastrously wrong. Instead of simply disappearing, the ship is transported to the Abyss, a terrifying other dimension connected to the wider mythology of Stranger Things. Most of the crew are killed by monstrous creatures.

The ship’s captain survives and returns to the normal world with severe injuries and a changed blood type. He is Dr. Martin Brenner’s father, linking the prologue to the scientist who later studies Henry Creel and turns him into Hawkins Lab’s first numbered subject.

The USS Eldridge can be confused with famous real-world naval vessels such as the USS Enterprise or USS Indianapolis. Those ships are not the vessel named in The First Shadow’s opening sequence.