The Real Stranger Things?

About this episode

This episode explores the Montauk Project and its connections to real historical events and urban legends.

What if Stranger Things wasn't science fiction? What if the show that became one of the biggest cultural phenomena of the last decade started as a real story, set in a real place, about a real abandoned military base on the eastern tip of Long Island. In this episode, we walk the full length of one of the strangest legends in modern American folklore. The Montauk Project. A claimed black operation hidden beneath a decommissioned Air Force radar station, involving mind control, time travel, psychic experimentation, kidnapped children, and a creature that supposedly tore through reality on August 12th, 1993. We start where the story actually begins, with the documented history of Camp Hero. A coastal defense base built in nineteen forty-two and disguised as a quiet New England fishing village, complete with fake churches, fake gables, and concrete bunkers buried in the bluff. We trace its life from sixteen-inch naval rifles aimed at German U-boats, to its rebirth as a Cold War radar station, to the giant AN/FPS-35 antenna that still stands rusting on the Montauk skyline today. We talk about why that antenna kept turning long after the base was officially shut down on the…

Topics covered

• Montauk Project
• urban legends
• military history
• psychic experimentation
• true crime

Keywords

• Montauk Project
• Stranger Things
• Camp Hero
• USS Eldridge
• Philadelphia Experiment

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: USS Eldridge

Books & works: Stranger Things

Places: Long Island, Camp Hero

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