“Stranger Things: The Montauk Project”

By Tommy Truthful.

Exploring the Enigma of the Montauk Project: A Tale of Alleged Mind Control by the US Military

During the Cold War, an enigmatic and clandestine experiment known as Project Montauk was said to have taken place on the eastern tip of Long Island. Its aim? To develop psychological warfare through the use of abducted children.

The Montauk Project stands as a treasure trove of lesser-known conspiracy theories. Its narrative weaves together elements of time travel, teleportation, mind control, extraterrestrial encounters, and even the staging of the Apollo moon landings. Surprisingly, this captivating story remains obscure mainly despite inspiring the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.

So, why has the Montauk Project, a tale of shadowy U.S. military factions transforming remote Long Island installations into hubs of eerie paranormal research, evaded widespread attention?

One reason could be its dubious origins, even within conspiracy theories. However, whether the Montauk Project itself is a work of fiction — a likelihood that many accept — the documented history of unsettling experiments conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency lends an air of intrigue to this enigma.

With the enduring popularity of Stranger Things, the Montauk Project’s moment in the spotlight may be just around the corner.

Unraveling the Peculiar Genesis of the Montauk Project Legend

The Montauk Project saga gained substantial traction in 1992 when Preston B. Nichols self-published a book titled “The Montauk Project: Experiments In Time” [available as a PDF].

Rumors of American military experiments in psychological warfare on the eastern tip of Long Island had been circulating since the mid-1980s. Nichols’ book further stoked the flames of this preexisting speculation.

Camp Hero and the Montauk Air Force Station, with the Army transferring a part of Camp Hero to the Air Force post-World War II, were identified as the epicenters of this enigmatic research. Nichols initiates the book by asserting that he penned it after “recovering” memories of his tenure as a project researcher. Subsequently, he provides an elaborate account, delving into the facilities’ interiors, procedures, cutting-edge technologies, and numerous purported paranormal occurrences he claimed to have experienced.

Following the book’s release, others began to surface, asserting their involvement in the covert research associated with the Montauk Project. This initiated a cyclical reinforcement process inherent in conspiracy theories.

Nichols’ book is marked by many audacious claims, encompassing mind control and telepathy experiments, creating space-time portals to alternate dimensions, interactions with extraterrestrial beings, and the alleged abduction of runaway children. All these activities supposedly fell under the jurisdiction of a U.S. military program funded by Nazi gold recovered during World War II.

Given the extensive array of claims, deciphering this complex narrative represents an arduous task. Nevertheless, there is a clear starting point: the Philadelphia Experiment.

The Montauk Project narrative becomes entwined with a longstanding and relatively well-known conspiracy theory related to the Philadelphia Experiment of 1943. According to this lore, the U.S. military experimented with ways to elude Nazi radar during World War II by employing electromagnetic fields.

Various versions of the story claim that the military successfully developed a technique that rendered the USS Eldridge, stationed at a Philadelphia naval shipyard, invisible to radar and utterly invisible to the naked eye. Furthermore, the ship allegedly traversed a rift in space-time, relocating from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Virginia, over 200 miles away.

Upon Eldridge’s reappearance in the Philadelphia shipyard several minutes later, some crew members were said to have fused into the ship’s bulkheads or rematerialized inside-out. Those who escaped this gruesome fate were left mentally unhinged due to the disorienting experience of being in a “hyperspace bubble” outside the bounds of space-time.

Most of the crucial details in the Philadelphia Experiment story are contradicted by apparent chronological inconsistencies or violate established laws of physics. Moreover, no two accounts of the experiment are the same, and individuals who served on the USS Eldridge in 1943 vehemently dispute the narrative. Nevertheless, this conspiracy theory had been circulating for several decades before it became linked to the Montauk Project narrative.

In 1984, a rather unremarkable B-movie, “The Philadelphia Experiment,” was made, ” centered around this conspiracy theory. However, it was when a 57-year-old man named Al Bielek watched the movie in 1988 that things took a peculiar turn. Bielek claimed he experienced intense déjà vu while watching the film.

Using new-age therapies and practices, Bielek asserted that he unlocked a trove of repressed memories regarding the Philadelphia Experiment and something called the Montauk Project, announcing a deep connection between the two. He suggested that his memory had been erased using the CIA’s MK-Ultra techniques to maintain the programs’ secrecy.

Bielek went further, claiming that his real name was Edward Cameron, and he and his brother Duncan Cameron served as crew members on the USS Eldridge in 1943 when they were in their 20s. He asserted that the Philadelphia Experiment was genuine and that he and his brother were aboard the ship during the event. According to his account, Nikola Tesla had engineered the “equipment” responsible for Eldridge’s departure from space-time, even creating a wormhole to the future, which landed the two brothers amid Montauk’s Camp Hero on August 12, 1983.

At this juncture, Bielek’s narrative takes on a complex twist. Still, its core revolves around his and his brother’s involvement with the Montauk Project, which had its roots in the electromagnetic experiments of the Philadelphia Experiment. According to Bielek, he and his brother joined the Montauk Project, an outgrowth of the Philadelphia experiment’s research. In the 1970s, he claims to have befriended Preston Nichols, and together, they developed the “Montauk Chair,” a mind-reading device central to the entire project, shedding light on the project’s alleged research.

Nichols elaborates on his work with the Montauk Chair in his book, suggesting that it harnessed electromagnetism to enhance the psychic abilities of the person occupying it. Coincidentally, Duncan Cameron possessed remarkable psychic powers, including the capability to materialize objects through the device using only his mind.

This may ring a bell for fans of “Stranger Things,” where a similar device is employed by the character Eleven, portrayed by Millie Bobby Brown, to create a portal to the parallel dimension known as the Upside Down. In the Montauk Project mythology, Cameron and other project researchers purportedly used the Montauk Chair to open portals through space-time similarly.

Nichols recounted an experiment in his book that closely resembles remote viewing. The CIA studied This paranormal phenomenon (and featured in “Stranger Things”). In Nichols’ narrative:

“The first experiment was called ‘The Seeing Eye.’ With a lock of a person’s hair or other appropriate object in his hand, Duncan could concentrate on the person and see as if he was seeing through their eyes, hearing through their ears, and feeling through their body. He could see through other people anywhere on the planet.”

However, of all the claims made by Nichols, the one regarding the abduction of young children, some as young as four years old, for use in the Montauk Project’s various experiments is undoubtedly the most shocking. Nichols referred to these abducted minors as the “Montauk Boys, ” claiming they were taken off the streets or removed from their homes.

According to Nichols, the Montauk Project subjected these children to severe psychological trauma that most would forget during their time at Camp Hero.

The Montauk Boys’ stories were even more intriguing when individuals began to step forward to corroborate them.

At least one man has come forward claiming to have “recovered” traumatic memories of the Montauk Project, much like Bielek and Nichols did. Stewart Swerdlow, a 52-year-old man residing in Michigan, told The Sun in 2017 that he was one of the Montauk Boys described by Nichols. He alleged that he and others like him were subjected to horrific abuse:

“When the experiments started, they’d target ‘expendable’ boys like orphans, runaways, or the children of drug addicts. The kind of kids no one would really come looking for.

The aim was to fracture your mind so they could program you… they would change the temperature from very hot to very cold, starve you, then over-feed you. I remember being beaten with a wooden pole.

And they loved to hold your head underwater until you nearly drowned. That was effective — it makes a person likely to listen to and obey their ‘rescuer.’ They also used LSD to put our brains into an altered state.”

Swerdlow further claimed that he witnessed project staff sexually abusing the children to break them down. He even alleged that he and other Montauk Boys were sent to Mars and transported back to Biblical times through the project’s portals.

“In the early days, as they were perfecting the coordinates, many boys were simply lost,” he said. “I still have nightmares about it today. I wasn’t there when the Montauk Chair was shut off, but I felt it, like I had suddenly been unplugged from electricity.”

The Montauk Project allegedly ended when the Montauk Chair was finally turned off. But the project’s story continued to thrive in the realm of conspiracy theories, inspiring works of fiction like Stranger Things and captivating the imaginations of those who continue to explore the mysteries of the Montauk Project.

The Montauk Project reportedly ended in the early 1980s when the experiments took a sinister turn that even the researchers found too much to bear.

Nichols claimed that the Montauk Chair allowed individuals to visualize their thoughts on a transmitter screen before manifesting them in either solid or transparent form in the real world. The project reached its breaking point when something particularly evil was brought into existence:

“We finally decided we’d had enough of the whole experiment. The contingency program was activated by someone approaching Duncan while he was in the chair and simply whispering, ‘The time is now.’ At this moment, he let loose a monster from his subconscious.

“And the transmitter portrayed a hairy monster. It was big, hairy, hungry, and nasty. But it didn’t appear underground in the null point. It showed up somewhere on the base. It would eat anything it could find. And it smashed everything in sight.

“Several people saw it, but almost everyone described a different beast.”

According to Nichols, they had to dismantle all the equipment to banish this creature back to its original dimension or take other actions to remove it from existence. This narrative appears to have inspired a similar storyline in Stranger Things, where Eleven summons a monster that subsequently goes on a rampage.

According to Variety, the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, were initially so inspired by the Montauk Project that the original title for their Netflix hit was simply “Montauk.”

However, a lawsuit filed by filmmaker Charlie Kessler, who alleged that the Duffer brothers had plagiarized his short film, The Montauk Project, led to a change in the show’s setting from Long Island to the suburbs of Indiana. Despite the legal dispute with Kessler, it’s clear that the Netflix series drew heavily from Nichols’ work.

As for the integrity of the Montauk Project story, Preston Nichols claimed that the basement levels of Camp Hero were filled with cement after all the equipment was destroyed and the project was terminated. Anyone involved in the project allegedly had their memories suppressed using MK-Ultra techniques.

The decommissioned facilities at Camp Hero still stand today, attracting curious visitors and locals. The SAGE Radar facility, in particular, remains a notable landmark for boats sailing around the area, adding to the site’s eerie and unsettling presence.

The U.S. military has consistently denied the existence of the Montauk Project on Long Island, but such denials often fail to dissuade believers. The government also denied its research into mind control and remote viewing until documents related to MK-Ultra and similar projects were declassified.

While many locals view the Montauk Project story as a fabrication, they aren’t entirely convinced by the military’s claims that the Camp Hero and Air Force station facilities were entirely above-board. The ongoing patrolling and surveillance of the base today add to the mystery surrounding its history.

Filmmaker Christopher Garetano, known for his documentary “The Montauk Chronicles,” suggests that before dismissing the Montauk Project entirely, it’s essential to consider some precedents. He points out that there was indeed military interest in paranormal phenomena, as evidenced by Project Stargate, which started in 1978 and was later declassified. Project Stargate explored whether psychics could perform “remote viewing” and perceive events from great distances.

Garetano also mentions MK-Ultra, which used vulnerable individuals like prisoners for experiments. Given this, he questions whether it’s far-fetched to believe that orphans or runaway boys could have been targeted, as they would be easier to take. Montauk, with its relative isolation, could have been an ideal facility for such activities, especially during the winter when it was less populated.

While these ideas are chilling, it’s crucial to remember that the Montauk Project and its extravagant stories are firmly rooted in the realm of fiction. Whether any evidence will emerge from government archives in the years or decades to come remains uncertain. Only time will tell.

After exploring the alleged time travel, teleportation, and mind control of the Montauk Project, you might want to delve into the story of the supposed Philadelphia Experiment. Additionally, you can read about the infamous Project MK-Ultra experiments for more insights into covert government research.