Stranger Things Had A Wild Backstory Of How It Was Made

Netflix recently renewed their wildly popular series Stranger Things for a second season. Of course, you probably knew that already, but what you most likely did not know is that the hit show is loosely based on a true story!

When we say it’s “true,” the story comes from the “crackpot conspiracy theory about time-traveling battleships, recovered memories, and personalities being transferred between bodies.” So, that version of the truth.

The inspiration behind the Duffer brothers’ Stranger Things was a real-life experiment conducted by the government known as the “Montauk Project.” The working title for the series actually was “Montauk” before the producers decided to switch the show’s setting to Hawkins, Indiana. Season 1 was originally going to be set on the eastern end of Long Island, according to Thrillist.

Most of the information available from the Montauk Project comes from a handful of books and interviews by Preston B. Nichols. In 1982, he released The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time, which revolved around the recovery of memory via new-age techniques and therapy, according to Refinery 29.

One man who has corroborated Nichols’ claims is named Al Bielek. The story that Bielek has reported is one that he says he recovered through the new-age therapies. Bielek believes that his memories had been repressed and locked away by scientists to keep the experiment secret. Also, he says that his real name isn’t even Al Bielek, it is actually Edward Cameron.

Bielek claims that he and his brother, Duncan Cameron, were sent forward in time after a 1943 battleship was transported through a wormhole. The battleship surfaced in the year 1983, and Bielik and Cameron escaped the ship and swam to the nearby shore. When scientists were made aware of what happened, they sent them back in time to prevent the battleship from sailing into the wormhole.

Sounds reasonable enough, right?

If you read the entire story on Thrillist, apparently the wild tale makes claims of children being abducted, people switching bodies, and a psychic child summoning a monster through a wormhole.

Check out Al Bielek giving a lecture in 1990 in the video below:

Do you think this project was the inspiration for Netflix’s Stranger Things?

[H/T Refinery 29, Thrillest]