The Claim
According to a series of 1990s books, the U.S. government secretly used the decommissioned Camp Hero Air Force Station in Montauk, New York to conduct experiments in time travel, psychic mind control, and interdimensional portals, allegedly using teenage subjects and building on technology from the earlier Philadelphia Experiment.
The Evidence
- Camp Hero's genuine history as a real, formerly classified radar installation.
- A series of books by Preston Nichols and Peter Moon claiming firsthand and recovered-memory accounts.
- The site's abandoned, overgrown state through the 1980s and 90s, which fed its eerie reputation.
The Official Story
No physical, documentary, or corroborating evidence beyond the original authors' own claims has ever surfaced, and historians note the story closely mirrors, and explicitly builds on, the already-debunked Philadelphia Experiment legend. Camp Hero's real declassified history involves conventional Cold War-era radar and air defense work, now confirmed by released military records.
File Notes
Camp Hero is a public New York State park today, and its genuinely spooky abandoned radar tower is exactly the kind of location that inspired the Upside Down in Stranger Things — the show's creators have cited the Montauk Project legend directly as an influence.