STRANGER THAN FICTION
The real-life secret projects that inspired Stranger Things including LSD mind control experiments and bizarre claims that governments tested teleportation on foster kids
STRANGER Things has attracted a global audience of over 20million viewers who love the show for its eerie plot lines involving secret government experiments and monsters from other dimensions.
But the alleged real-life stories that inspired the Netflix show - which was confirmed for a forth series on Monday - are more terrifying than anything in the fictional town of Hawkins, where the series is set.
13
Stranger Things stars Millie Bobby Brown and Winona Ryder and follows a group of children in the 1980s who uncover supernatural phenomena connected to a secret government laboratory in their town.
In 2017, a filmmaker unbelievably claimed a US military base that directly inspired the TV show was using secret mind control experiments to trigger deadly shootings by a worldwide army of brainwashed assassins.
Chris Garetano, who grew up close to the base called Camp Hero, bizarrely claims he uncovered eerie goings-on over decades including child abductions and even time travel.
The former Cold War radar station in Montauk, New York, has been the subject of rumours and conspiracy theories since it shut in the 1980s.
Locals have heard talk of government scientists conducting experiments on snatched foster kids and making contact with aliens.
And it's claimed the base's Sage radar tower broadcast at frequency that can affect human consciousness, allowing scientists to control people's minds.
A former worker also described operating the Montauk Chair — a mind-reading device — and said once the computer accidentally summoned up a monster from a subject's imagination, which then went on a rampage through the air base.
The chilling rumours about the base in Montauk are the original inspiration of Stranger Things — which was originally called "Montauk".
Stewart Sweadlow, who claims he was abducted as a child and forced into the Montauk Project, said: "It was a continuation on the experiments that the Nazis carried out in concentration camps."
But there are other legendary and terrifying projects that inspired Stranger Things.
Abandoned secret base
Preston Nichols, an electrical engineer who claims to have worked on the Montauk Project, bizarrely told The Sun there were time-travel portals that sucked people to a different place and time.
Which is an idea that made it into the very first series of Stranger Things and has been a constant ever since.
Most of the base is now a state park - but some parts near the old military installations and concrete bunkers remain sealed and guarded.
Two years ago, filmmaker Chris took a fresh look at the creepy site amid claims some of the sinister activities could still be happening.
13
13
Assassins programmed to kill
He told the Daily Mirror: "The more you find out it's a little heartbreaking, as it's terrifying.
"I wouldn't be surprised if this site and these experiments are connected to mind control. The worst thing I can imagine is they were developing a mass mind control situation.
"There's new random shootings happening increasingly across the world now.
"And each time people say 'I didn't expect that person to do this.'
"It's very strange and it's happening far too much now."
13
13
Chris said government operatives could have set out to cause mayhem, "to get the public to see things in a certain way, to persuade them or scare them".
And he incredibly claims assassins could have been psychologically programmed at the site and then activated to carry out secret missions years later.
He said: "If this is true, that is terrifying. I don't want to believe it."
After the Second World War it is claimed the US government experimented on its own citizens, including in the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
This horrific medical study allowed black patients with syphilis to go untreated to see what the long-term effects of the deadly disease were, even when a cure was available.
And some point to Project Stargate, a CIA mission to see if psychic phenomena such as clairvoyance could be used by spies.
Accomplished spoon bender Uri Geller was one of the psychics who took part.
13
13
13
Kidnapped kids to conditioned killers
Another theory claims thousands of vulnerable children were kidnapped from the local area and subjected to mind control techniques to create an army of sleeper cell soldiers called the Montauk Boys.
Stewart Swerdlow amazingly claimed that, in 1970 when he was 13, he was regularly abducted for the Montauk Project.
He said: "They used derelicts, foster children and drug addicts and then ultimately they decided that people with certain genetics, people with certain backgrounds were conducive to the more advanced experiments and that’s when I was taken in.
"With all of these children their memories were wiped, their genetics were altered and they couldn’t always remember what happened. It would be in the form of nightmares or flashbacks.
"But with me, they could not erase my memory. I became an anomaly for them.
"I witnessed children being beaten, murdered, injured in horrible ways. I was also the subject of some of these horrible things.
"It was a continuation on the experiments that the Nazis carried out in concentration camps.
"The ultimate goal was for global mind control and programme, to have a robotic borg-type population who does what they want to."
The creators of Stranger Things decided to switch the action to the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, but have not revealed why.
13
13
Secret LSD mind control
The chilling story behind Eleven's mum in Stranger Things, Terry Ives, is based on a real top secret mind-control project.
In the 1950s, the CIA created Project MKUltra: a series of experiments to develop drugs and techniques to control people's minds.
Some test subjects, who included terminally ill cancer patients, were drugged with LSD for weeks at a time as scientists tried to erase their memories.
And in other cases, scientists tried to control the subjects' behaviour — including making them give up secrets in interrogations.
In Stranger Things, Terry takes part in MKUltra as a college student, being administered psychedelic drugs by Dr Martin Brenner.
When her daughter Eleven is born, she's taken away to Hawkins Laboratory and experimented on further because of her special powers.
In a desperate bid to free her daughter, Terry storms the lab with a gun, but she's captured and has her mind wiped by the evil scientists.
Destroying memories and wiping people's minds into becoming a "robot agent" is exactly what the CIA tried to do to people in MKUltra.
13
Real Russian sci-fi experiments
The series has long established portals between different dimensions, with the ending featuring one of the main characters appearing to have teleported from one country to another.
And although teleportation sounds like science-fiction, it's actually something Russia is researching right now.
In 2016, Vladimir Putin announced a multi-trillion pound project to invest in the country's technological development with the aim to develop teleportation by 2035.
And Soviet Union scientists might not have pulled monsters into the world from another dimension, but they really did try to manufacture their own.
One abomination was the "humanzee" — human/chimpanzee hybrids, created by putting human sperm into female chimps.
But arguably the most horrific were the 20 or so two-headed dogs that transplant pioneer Vladimir Demikhov made.
The Cold War creations could walk, drink water and even bark, and one lived for almost a month.
13
MORE IN TV
Demikhov amputated a puppy's lower body so that it kept its heart and lungs.
He then stitched its blood vessels to another dog's circulatory system with a needle and thread.
And the resultant double-dog was even more distressing than the Demogorgon itself.
13
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.
Topics