Inside the Real-Life Time-Travel Experiment That Inspired 'Stranger Things' Series

Inside the Real-Life Time-Travel Experiment That Inspired 'Stranger Things'

The hype surrounding Netflix's Stranger Things is proving harder to kill than that creepy Demogorgon monster, and it's only going to grow now that Season 1 2 an 3 is out in the world (with Season 4 inevitably coming The fan frenzy is a testament to the megahit's intricately layered details. While we've gone deep on many aspects of our favorite show from this summer, one element of the series' backstory bears closer examination: a real-life government experiment that inspired Stranger Things, known among paranormal buffs as the "Montauk Project."

The cultural phenomenon that we now know as Stranger Things was sold under the working title Montauk, and before producers switched the setting to a small town in Indiana, the eerie action of Season 1 was going to take place way out at the eastern end of Long Island. But the thread looped through the eight Stranger Things episodes, the idea that contact between Eleven and the Demogorgon may have opened the portal to the Upside Down, has roots in an incident that conspiracy theorists believe occurred in Montauk in 1983, and ended secret experiments that the US military had been conducting on children for four decades.

That far-fetched scenario that corresponds to Stranger Things is only part of the Long Island legend. So hold on to your Eggos -- the story of the so-called Montauk Project gets even weirder than what we've seen on the Netflix gem so far.