Did you know that the popular Netflix TV series Stranger Things was inspired by real-life events? Well, almost not quite. The show's creators, the Duffer Brothers, have stated that they were heavily influenced by the conspiracy theories surrounding the so-called Montauk Project when developing the show's plot and Montauk was used as its first working title. The original logline read: “Described as a love letter to the ’80s classics that captivated a generation, the series is set in 1980 Montauk, Long Island, where a young boy vanishes into thin air. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange little girl.”
The Montauk Project is a supposed series of secret experiments that were conducted by the US government in the 1970s at the Montauk Air Force Station in Long Island, New York. The project involved research in areas such as mind control, time travel, and interdimensional travel. Although the existence of the project is still disputed, it has gained a significant following among conspiracy theorists.
In Stranger Things, the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, becomes the site of secret government experiments involving interdimensional travel and psychic abilities. The show's plot also features a character known as "Eleven," who possesses powerful telekinetic and telepathic abilities similar to those rumored to have been developed in the Montauk Project.
The stories and rumors abound the Montauk Project largely originated from the Montauk Project series of books by Preston Nichols who claimed that he was involved in the project and later periodically abducted to continue his participation against his will.
Stranger Things is not the only reference to the Montauk Project in the movie world. In 2015, Montauk Chronicles, a film adaptation of the conspiracy featuring Preston Nichols, Alfred Bielek, and Stewart Swerdlow, was released online and on DVD and Blu-ray. The film was directed by Christopher P. Garetano and won the Best Feature Documentary/Singularity and Beyond award at the Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York City.
There also was an earlier short film called Montauk (2011) whose director Charlie Kessler claimed the Duffer Brothers had stolen his ideas about government secrets to create Netflix’s Stranger Things. He even filed a lawsuit claiming he pitched the Montauk concept to Matt and Ross Duffer at a Tribeca Film Festival party and later presented “the script, ideas, story and film” to the duo that they allegedly used to develop their hit series. The Duffer brothers have denied Kessler’s claims, and he later decided to drop the suit admitting that “documents from 2010 and 2013 prove that the Duffers independently created their show”.
The Montauk Air Force Station was decommissioned in 1981 and is now owned by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation as Camp Hero State Park. The park was opened to the public in 2002. There are plans to create a museum and an interpretive center that will focus on World War II and Cold War history inside the radar tower. Some parts of the camp remained closed off and guarded, especially the areas near the old satellite installations.
