The Montauk Project refers to a series of conspiracy theories linked to alleged secret experiments purportedly carried out by the United States government at Montauk Air Force Base (also known as Camp Hero) in Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island in New York. According to the legend, the Montauk Air Force Station is a planetary energy point linked to Mars, Egypt, and the legend of mythical Atlantis. The experiments supposedly carried out there were conducted for the purposes of developing psychological warfare and investigating fringe research areas. Although the project is widely regarded by mainstream sources as fictional, there remains a small group of conspiracy theorists who steadfastly maintain that the project actually was carried out—albeit in secret—to develop time travel and refine psychological warfare techniques such as mind control and mental manifestation.
Some believe the Montauk Project to be an extension or continuation of the Philadelphia Experiment, which allegedly took place in October 1943 (the U.S. Navy maintains that no such experiment was ever conducted). According to legend, the Philadelphia Experiment (also known as Project Rainbow) was an attempt to cloak the USS Eldridge, a U.S. Navy warship, so that it would be made invisible to torpedoes. Many versions of the story describe serious side effects for the onboard crew with some crew members reportedly suffering from mental disorders, while other crew members were said to have been physically disfigured (according to some reports, certain crew members were actually fused to the ship’s bulkheads), and yet other members of the ship’s crew supposedly simply disappeared. Some claim that the crew may have been subjected to brainwashing by the U.S. government to protect the secrecy of the experiment.
The Montauk Project was started to further investigate certain of these areas of fringe research. According to the story, during the 1950s, surviving researchers from Project Rainbow began to discuss the project with the aim of continuing their research. Consequently, government-trained psychics such as Duncan Cameron were recruited to assist with the program to study mind control, time travel, and mental manifestation. The legend goes on to say that a report was prepared and presented to Congress but was rejected for being too dangerous. Afterward, a proposal was made directly to the Department of Defense, which detailed plans for creating a powerful new weapon that could induce the symptoms of mental illness (such as schizophrenia) in its targets. The Department of Defense approved the project, but without congressional approval, the project would have to remain top secret and be secretly funded. The initial funding for the project allegedly came from a cache of Nazi gold (worth US $10 billion), which was recovered from a train found by U.S. soldiers in a tunnel in France.
Work began at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York, under the name Phoenix Project, but since the project required a large radar dish, and installing one at Brookhaven would jeopardize the project’s security, the project had to be moved elsewhere. The Air Force had a decommissioned base nearby at Montauk, New York, which had a complete SAGE radar installation. The abandoned site was large and remote with access to water, which would allow equipment to be moved in and out undetected.
In the late 1960s, equipment was transported to Camp Hero at the Montauk base and installed in an underground bunker. Though the site was supposedly closed in 1969 and donated for use as a wildlife refuge (with the provision that everything underground would remain the property of the Air Force), conspiracy theorists maintain that, in reality, the base remained in operation until the 1980s. The legend goes that experiments began in earnest in the early 1980s.
They claim that during this time the facility was expanded to as many as twelve levels, and hundreds of workers conducted wide-ranging experiments at the site. According to some reports, the facility may have extended as far as under the town of Montauk itself. Conspiracy theorists claim that transients (such as runaways and the homeless) and orphans were abducted and subjected to high doses of electromagnetic radiation and/or mind control experiments as part of the project. There were a number of other experiments allegedly conducted there as well with participants trained to enhance their psionic or psychic faculties; other experiments involved attempts in teleportation and time travel (in fact, a stable time tunnel, which enabled researchers to travel anywhere in time or space, was supposedly created as part of the project). Allegedly, mass psychological experiments were also carried out, such as the use of subliminal messages.
According to legend, during this same time contact was made with alien extraterrestrials and technology was exchanged with them, which further enhanced the project. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Nikola Tesla’s death was faked as part of a conspiracy and that he was not only alive but working there as the base’s director of operations.
Now owned by and operated as Camp Hero State Park (part of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation), the site was opened to the public on September 18, 2002. Speculation about the site continues today and remains linked to a popular series of books about the project written by Preston B. Nichols (born 1946) and Peter Moon. Some believe that the history of the Montauk Project story is not only closely associated with, but also believed to have originated in, this book series, which began with a book first published in 1992 entitled The Montauk Projects: Experiments in Time.
In these books, Nichols claims to have recovered repressed memories of his own involvement with the project. Nichols also goes into detail about United States military experiments in fields such as time travel, teleportation, mind control, contact with alien life, and staging the Apollo Moon landings (which he believes to have been faked).
Nichols’s book series inspired a film adaptation about the conspiracy produced by Christopher P. Garetano called Montauk Chronicles. Released online and on DVD and Blu-ray in 2014, the documentary film Montauk Chronicles features Preston Nichols alongside Al Bielek and Stewart Swerdlow. Garetano worked on the film for almost a decade, during which time he traveled around the country to personally interview the men who started the legend. The final film, which is a culmination of Garetano’s investigation of the alleged experiments and the connected conspiracy, tells the story of three men who claim that between 1971 and 1983 secret experiments were carried out deep beneath the surface of the Camp Hero Air Force base. In 2015, the film won the Best Documentary Award at the Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York City and has been featured on Coast to Coast AM and the Huffington Post.
Heather Duerre Humann
See also Area 51; Atlantis; Conspiracy Theories; Philadelphia Experiment; X-Files
Further Reading
Berlin, B. A. 2001. “Science: Fact or Fiction: Wading through the Conspiracies Surrounding the Montauk and Philadelphia Projects.” Poptronics 2 (11): 28–30.
Nichols, Preston B., and Peter Moon. 1992. The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time. New York: Sky Books.
Uscinski, Joseph E., and Joseph M. Parent. 2014. American Conspiracy Theories. New York: Oxford University Press.
Vallée, Jacques F. 1994. “Anatomy of a Hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment Fifty Years Later.” Journal of Scientific Exploration 8 (1): 47–71.