Sightings Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: The Montauk Project: The Chilling Story That Inspired STRANGER THINGS

Date: November 17, 2025
Hosts: McLeod Anders & Brian Sigley
Produced by: REVERB | QCODE

Episode Overview

This episode of Sightings delves into the legend of the Montauk Project, a set of alleged government experiments involving psychic abilities, child abductions, time travel, and monsters at the decommissioned Montauk Air Station in Long Island. Widely understood as the inspiration for the Netflix series Stranger Things, the story is presented here as a gripping, immersive audio drama, followed by a fact-versus-fiction breakdown and discussion of the real claims, evidence, and subsequent cultural impact.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Immersive Storytelling: The Disappearance of James Carrington

• [01:26–23:47]
  • The episode opens with a dramatized set of voicemails to the New York Times tip line from Mike Carrington, a father searching for his missing son, James.
  • James, portrayed as gifted with psychic abilities ("He'd always know when someone was calling before the phone rang." – Mike Carrington, [04:39]), vanished after attending a special "gifted program" and suffering from disturbing nightmares involving a "humming chair," "Humpty Dumpty," and a radar tower with an American flag.
  • Mike connects with another parent, Dawn, whose daughter, Casey, disappeared under similar circumstances. Both children had similar psychic talents and nightmares.
  • The narrative uncovers mysterious security personnel at the supposedly closed Montauk Air Station. Mike and Dawn encounter a polite but evasive "Commander Reese" and later discover a children's Humpty Dumpty book at the radar tower, hidden among "electrical supplies."
  • With the help of Paul Marsh, an engineer experiencing vivid dreams of working at the base on psychic experiments, the trio infiltrates the base’s underground levels.
  • They find evidence that James has been there, witness chaos and the appearance of a monstrous creature during an apparent containment breach, and flee, convinced of a government cover-up.

2. Debrief & Real-World Context

• Discussion resumes [26:19]
• Hosts recap the episode’s plot and begin to separate fabricated details from elements based on real-world lore.
  • Stranger Things was originally inspired by the Montauk Project mythos and was even called “Montauk” early in its development ([26:31]).
  • Host Brian Sigley admits the narrative is dramatized, but core elements—like psychic children, government cover-ups, and the monster—are drawn directly from legends and the book "The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time" ([28:13]).

3. Montauk Project: History & Claims

• Location & Background

  • Montauk Air Station is a real Cold War-era facility on the far eastern tip of Long Island, featuring a distinctive radar tower. Officially closed in the early 1980s, local rumors of ongoing activity continued for years ([29:51–30:25]).
  • Anecdotal incidents, such as “weird storms” and animal stampedes, add to the area’s mystique ([30:29–30:38]).

• Origin of the Montauk Project Story

  • Preston Nichols’s “Experiments in Time”
    • The legend traces to the book by Nichols, an electrical engineer, who claimed he and “Duncan Cameron” uncovered suppressed memories of working at Montauk.
    • Experiments included amplifying psychic powers via an elaborate chair connected to the radar. Subjects allegedly visualized objects into existence, and at advanced stages, psychic-induced portals (“wormholes”) were reportedly opened ([32:38–33:29]).

• Link to Other Conspiracy Lore

  • Ties to MKUltra: While this was a real CIA mind control project using LSD, the psychic elements are less substantiated ([35:27–35:34]).
  • Connections to the Philadelphia Experiment—another alleged government time-travel experiment—are referenced ([33:57–34:02]).

• Children & Abuse Claims

  • Subsequent to the book, others claimed to remember childhood abductions and experimentation at Montauk. These stories closely mirror Stranger Things’ narrative of Eleven, yet none have been independently verified ([34:39–35:01]).

4. Analysis: Hype vs. Evidence

• Physical "Evidence" & Urban Exploration

  • In the 1990s, a teen explored Montauk with a camera and found receipts for post-closure food purchases and underground bunkers ([37:30–37:56]).
  • Security presence and oddities at the base feed speculation, but "none of this in any way, shape or form has been verified" ([38:11]).

• Authors’ and Witnesses’ Credibility

  • Claims of degrees and timelines by self-appointed “witnesses” (like Nichols) don’t check out; no evidence for claims such as the use of Nazi gold or large-scale child disappearances ([39:29–39:43]).

• Cultural Impact

  • Although the core story remains unsubstantiated, its influence is profound—fueling Stranger Things and the ongoing appetite for supernatural media ([42:12–43:13]).

5. Memorable Quotes

• Mike Carrington on his son’s abilities:

  • "He'd always know when someone was calling before the phone rang. He'd know what I was thinking before I said it. His grandmother joked that he was tuned like a radio.” — Mike Carrington, [04:39]

• Linking narrative and reality:

  • "So just to be crystal clear...I did make up the character that you read and the circumstances surrounding his missing son, like the whole gifted program, things like that. But as we'll see in this discussion...all of the elements that I pulled in the story and which Stranger Things pulls into their story...were based on the accounts that came out in the 1990s." — Brian Sigley, [28:13]

• Summing up the allure:

  • "But I also think it's just a really cool example of how you can see a story snowballing from, oh, there's a weird base at the end of Montauk that might be open to, oh, let me build on that and write this whole story about monsters and time travel and telekinesis and things like that to, oh, where you want to do a television show that's kind of nostalgic and 80s feeling. Why not kind of use Montauk's lore as a launching point?" — Brian Sigley, [42:12]

Important Timestamps

• [01:26–23:47] – Immersive dramatization: Mike Carrington’s search for his son, discovery of the Montauk conspiracy, infiltration, and encounter with the monster.
• [26:19] – Transition to fact-versus-fiction breakdown and host discussion.
• [28:13] – Host clarification about dramatization vs. elements based on “real” stories.
• [29:51] – Explaining the real Montauk facility and introduction to the myths.
• [34:39] – Discussion of children, psychic experimentation, and parallels to Stranger Things.
• [37:30] – Physical "evidence" and analysis of plausibility.
• [42:12] – Cultural impact and how the story snowballed.

Host Perspectives

• Brian Sigley: Fan of Stranger Things, foregrounds the Montauk Project’s influence, and finds it a compelling, if unproven, modern myth.
• McLeod Anders: Has not seen Stranger Things; approaches the material with skepticism but fascination, and highlights the thrill and creativity of such modern legends.

Conclusion & Listener Takeaway

This episode of Sightings masterfully meshes fact, fiction, conspiracy, and pop culture, giving listeners both a chilling narrative experience and a critical breakdown of the Montauk Project’s origins, claims, and cultural legacy. While the show reinforces that the fantastical claims remain unsubstantiated, the thrilling blend of government secrets, psychic phenomena, and monstrous horrors ensures the Montauk Project’s enduring place in paranormal lore and pop entertainment.

Next Episode

The podcast will take a break for Thanksgiving but promises new ghost, alien, and creature stories in December.
Closing Thought: "True or not, plausible or not...I'm so glad this story exists because it's fascinating and kind of, like, mind-expanding." — McLeod Anders, [43:13]