Stranger Things takes place during the Cold War, a dangerous era when the US and Russia were locked in a nuclear arms race and a ‘psych ops’ race. SPYSCAPE looks back at the real-life drama.
Millie Bobby Brown stars in Stranger Things
1. Project MKUltra
During the Cold War, the CIA ran Project MKUltra mind-control experiments, including tests to see if LSD could be weaponized against US enemies. The US was concerned that the Soviet Union had developed its own mind-control methods and that America was falling behind in the ‘psych ops’ war. One of the most enduring mysteries in MKUltra’s dark history involves the death of scientist Frank Olson, a biological warfare expert, CIA officer, and married father of three who 'fell' - or was pushed - from the window of his Manhattan hotel room in 1953 at about 2 am. The official verdict was suicide, but a second autopsy raised questions - although not proof - of a possible homicide.
‘Papa’ (Matthew Modine, center) at the Hawkins National Laboratory
2. Hawkins National Laboratory
The blood-curdling Hawkins National Laboratory is inspired by the real-life Camp Hero military base in Long Island’s Montauk (the original name of the show). While no one is 100 percent certain what happened at Camp Hero - aside from a handful of spies with security clearance - conspiracy theory followers believe the US government conducted projects to develop psychological warfare techniques and research paranormal activity, time travel, mind control, and contact with extraterrestrial life. Christopher Garetano, the New Yorker behind the 2014 documentary Montauk Chronicles, investigated allegations brought by three men who claim they were brainwashed and forced to take part in experiments at Camp Hero in the ‘70s and ‘80s. “Forget all the alien and MKUltra crap,” Garetano told the New York Post. “I think there was some type of experimentation out there using kids or teenagers.”
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Stranger Things takes place during the Cold War, a dangerous era when the US and Russia were locked in a nuclear arms race and a ‘psych ops’ race. SPYSCAPE looks back at the real-life drama.
Millie Bobby Brown stars in Stranger Things
1. Project MKUltra
During the Cold War, the CIA ran Project MKUltra mind-control experiments, including tests to see if LSD could be weaponized against US enemies. The US was concerned that the Soviet Union had developed its own mind-control methods and that America was falling behind in the ‘psych ops’ war. One of the most enduring mysteries in MKUltra’s dark history involves the death of scientist Frank Olson, a biological warfare expert, CIA officer, and married father of three who 'fell' - or was pushed - from the window of his Manhattan hotel room in 1953 at about 2 am. The official verdict was suicide, but a second autopsy raised questions - although not proof - of a possible homicide.
‘Papa’ (Matthew Modine, center) at the Hawkins National Laboratory
2. Hawkins National Laboratory
The blood-curdling Hawkins National Laboratory is inspired by the real-life Camp Hero military base in Long Island’s Montauk (the original name of the show). While no one is 100 percent certain what happened at Camp Hero - aside from a handful of spies with security clearance - conspiracy theory followers believe the US government conducted projects to develop psychological warfare techniques and research paranormal activity, time travel, mind control, and contact with extraterrestrial life. Christopher Garetano, the New Yorker behind the 2014 documentary Montauk Chronicles, investigated allegations brought by three men who claim they were brainwashed and forced to take part in experiments at Camp Hero in the ‘70s and ‘80s. “Forget all the alien and MKUltra crap,” Garetano told the New York Post. “I think there was some type of experimentation out there using kids or teenagers.”
Stranger Things: Shopping at the Starcourt Mall in Hawkins
3. Stranger Things: Capitalism vs Communism
Communist and capitalist ideologies clash in Stranger Things Season 3 where the action centers around the Starcourt Mall in all of its neon and RadioShack-inspired glory. Starcourt gave Hawkins’ ‘mall rats’ a place to see and be seen in the ‘80s, much like the indoor malls springing up around America in a frenzied decade of Yuppie consumerism. Filming for Stranger Things takes place at the Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth, Georgia which has its own dark past (no, not linked to the Russians). A 19-year-old woman was found murdered in a vacant Subway restaurant but it would be two weeks before her body was discovered. A man was arrested and the mall was unsettlingly abandoned when Stranger Things began filming.
4. Stranger Things: US-Russia Cold War Tension
The tension between the superpowers in Stranger Things Seasons 3 and 4 is palpable, as it was in real life. The stand-off between Washington and Moscow initially began with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 which threatened to escalate into a nuclear war when the USSR secretly installed missiles in Cuba capable of attacking the US. The confrontation brought the US and USSR to the brink of war before a deal was brokered. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw Soviet missiles and bombers. US President John F. Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba and to remove US missiles from Turkey. Despite the pledge, the Cold War and brinkmanship between the superpowers carried on right up until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The tension continues even today.
5. Dungeons & Dragons
A shadow grows on the wall behind you, swallowing you in darkness. Is it the Demogorgon? Stranger Things begins with a game of Dungeons & Dragons and the tabletop game is a geek favorite throughout the series, even inspiring the Duffer brothers’ own creative endeavors. The boys use the fantasy role-playing game as a metaphor to understand the horrors in Hawkins. D&D is also a metaphor for the ‘80s, however. The disgust for Hawkins High School’s D&D-playing Hellfire Club mirrors Ronald Reagan-era Cold War politics and the ‘Satanic panic’ reaction to sex, drugs, and punk rock. An activist group, BADD - Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons - was even formed in 1983 to fight the roleplaying game, claiming it featured “sex perversion, satanic type rituals, sadism, demon summoning” and even insanity.
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