Stranger Things is one of the wildest shows we’ve seen in recent times that combines the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres. In Season 4 Part 1, released last week, the show’s science and horror aspects have been praised by the masses.
While the story is an incredible work of fiction, it is rooted in reality. We’ve all heard that cliché, ‘Reality is stranger than fiction.’ Well, in this case, it is absolutely true.
While the show itself is based on a conspiracy theory involving the US military, the prequel book is based on a real-life CIA experiment that is the work of an insane mind—as insane as Dr. Martin Brenner.
Here’s everything you need to know about the true story behind the universe of Stranger Things.
The Stranger Things franchise (TV Series and books) is based on the Montauk Project and Project MKUltra. While one is merely a conspiracy theory, the other is an actual project conducted by the CIA between the 50s and 70s.
The Montauk Project—Stranger Things: TV Show
Stranger Things was initially going to be called Montauk. This is because of the inspiration the Duffer Brothers took from a conspiracy theory on which an entire book, called The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time, has been published.
Project Montauk is every conspiracy theorist’s fantasy. Here’s how it goes. In the 1980s, two people came to the media and told the world that they had worked on a US government/military project called The Montauk Project.
These two people, Al Beilek and Preston Nichols, said that their memories had been repressed for a long time but now they had returned. They spoke about how under the project, kids were abducted and experiments were performed on them to see if they could get psychic abilities. In fact, some experiments even led to time travel.
There are numerous portals and news publications on the internet that capture many of the things narrated by these two people. However, none of this has any solid proof. Irrespective of that, the Duffer Brothers seem to have taken a great deal of inspiration from these tales, whether they are real or merely a hoax.
Even Gaten Matarazzo, in an interview, spoke about the inspiration from The Montauk Project. When the Duffer Brothers were in talks with Netflix, the working title was Montauk, and it was set in that place. However, it was later changed to Stranger Things.
Matarazzo said that there is a place called Camp Hero, where there are numerous fences and signs that read ‘Danger,’ and people aren’t supposed to go inside. However, this wasn’t the only inspiration for the show. There was yet another sinister program involving government agencies such as the CIA. It was called Project MKUltra.
Project MKUltra—Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds
The Stranger Things franchise also has three prequel novels. The very first book on the list, Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds, is based on the origins of Eleven, her mother, and the entire program.
This book is heavily inspired by Project MKUltra, an actual project conducted by the CIA between the 1950s and 1970s. It was a program deemed necessary for psychological warfare during the cold war.
However, under the guise of research, kids and people were abducted and were made to undergo electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and more. In fact, the scientists even used drugs such as LSD to see how they could be used to torture prisoners of war and spies.
In the early 1970s, the program was brought to light and people saw how brutal these experiments were. They involved different forms of torture, including verbal and sexual abuse.
As a result, the entire program was shut down and most of the documents were destroyed. However, a cache of about 20,000 documents was recovered when an investigation was launched against the agency. In this, you can read the scope of the research and how each experiment and test is more horrifying than the next one.
Overall, Stranger Things is inspired by The Montauk Project and Project MKUltra. Besides this, it also blends genres such as horror and fantasy into the series, making it a compelling watch. Stranger Things Season 4 Part 1 is now on Netflix, and you can stream it before July 1, when Season 4 Part 2 will be released.
About Stranger Things
Stranger Things is an American sci-fi horror TV series created by The Duffer Brothers for Netflix.
Set in the 1980s in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, the show follows the story of a young girl called Eleven, who has superpowers and her adventures with her group of friends. These dangerous adventurers include surviving in and saving a town that has an evil parallel universe attached to it called the Upside Down.
It stars Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, Sadie Sink, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Maya Hawke. The show has been renewed for a fifth and final season.
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