Montauk Project

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This article is about the military experiments. For the book series, see Montauk Project (book)

<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center; background-color: #f9f9f9;">Image:Montauk1.jpg
This AN/FPS-35 Radar at Camp Hero State Park in Montauk, New York, is the centerpiece of the Montauk Project conspiracy. The decommissioned radar is still behind a fence but you can walk around the grounds in the state park. The radar (which is the only one of its kind still in existence) was not torn down because boaters on Long Island Sound preferred the massive radar as a daymark rather than the Montauk Lighthouse nearby.</td></tr>

AN/FPS-35 Radar at Camp Hero

The Montauk Project was purportedly a series of secret United States government projects conducted at Camp Hero and/or Montauk Air Force Station on Montauk, Long Island. It was claimed by a small number of conspiracy theorists to be secretly developing a powerful psychological war weapon. The Project is widely regarded by mainstream sourcesas fictional.

1 The Mythology of the Project
2 Specific claims
3 Montauk in the media
4 Further reading
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] The Mythology of the Project

The Montauk Project is believed by small numbers of people to be an extension or continuation of the probably fictitious Philadelphia Experiment, which supposedly took place in 1943—also known as Project Rainbow.

Montauk Project

Associated Projects

Operation Paperclip

Rainbow Project

Philadelphia Experiment

Project Stargate

People

Nikola Tesla
Al Bielek
John von Neumann
Russell Targ
Stewart Swerdlow

<edit>

According to the myth, sometime in the 1950s, surviving researchers from Project Rainbow began to discuss the project with an eye to continuing the research into technical aspects of manipulating the electromagnetic bottle that had been used to make the USS Eldridge invisible, and the reasons and possible military applications of the psychological effects of a magnetic field.

The myth goes on to say that a report was supposedly prepared and presented to Congress, and was soundly rejected as far too dangerous. So a proposal was made directly to the Department of Defense promising a powerful new weapon that could drive an enemy insane, inducing the symptoms of schizophrenia at the touch of a button. Without Congressional approval, the project would have to be top secret and secretly funded. The Department of Defense approved. Funding supposedly came from a cache of US$10 billion in Nazi gold recovered from a train found by U.S. soldiers in a train tunnel in France. The train was blown up and all the soldiers involved were killed. When those funds ran out, additional funding was secured from ITT and Krupp AG in Germany.

Work began at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York under the name Phoenix Project, but it was soon realized that the project required a large radar dish, and installing one at Brookhaven would compromise the security of the project. Luckily, the U.S. Air Force had a decommissioned base at Montauk, New York, not far from Brookhaven, which had a complete SAGE radar installation. The site was large and remote (Montauk was not yet a tourist attraction) and water access would allow equipment to be moved in and out undetected.

Equipment was moved to Camp Hero at the Montauk base in the late 1960s, and installed in an underground bunker beneath the base. According to conspiracy theorists, to mask the nature of the project the site was closed in 1969 and donated as a wildlife refuge/park, with the provision that everything underground would remain the property of the Air Force (although, in reality, the base remained in operation until the 1980s). The park has never been opened to the public, under the excuse of environmental contamination. (see Addendum below)

[edit] Specific claims

Various conspiracy theorists claim that experiments began in earnest in the early 1970s. They claim that during this time one, some or all of the following occurred at the site. No evidence has ever been provided that any of the following is true:

The facility was expanded to as many as twelve levels and several hundred workers, without anyone in the town noticing the tons of building materials or hundreds of workers required. Some reports have the facility extending under the town of Montauk itself.
Homeless people and orphans were abducted and subjected to huge amounts of electromagnetic radiation. Few survived.
People had their psychic abilities enhanced to the point where they could materialize objects out of thin air. Stewart Swerdlow claims to have been involved in the Montauk Project, and as a result, he says, his "psionic" faculties were boosted, but at the cost of emotional instability, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other issues.
Experiments were conducted in teleportation.
A "porthole in time" was created which allowed researchers to travel anywhere in time or space. This was developed into a stable "Time Tunnel."
Contact was made with alien extraterrestrials through the Time Tunnel and technology was exchanged with them which enhanced the project. This allowed broader access to "hyperspace".
An alien monster traveled through the time tunnel, destroyed equipment and devoured researchers. The tunnel was shut down and the creature destroyed.
Mind control experiments were conducted and runaway boys were abducted and brought out to the base where they underwent excruciating periods of both physical and mental torture in order to break their minds, then their minds were re-programmed. Many were supposedly killed during the process and buried on the site.
On or about on August 12, 1983 the time travel project at Camp Hero interlocked in hyperspace with the original Rainbow Project back in 1943. The USS Eldridge was drawn into hyperspace and trapped there. Two men, Al Bielek and Duncan Cameron both claim to have leaped from the deck of the Eldridge while it was in hyperspace and ended up after a period of severe disorientation at Camp Hero in the year 1983. Here they claim to have met John von Neumann, a famous physicist and mathematician, even though he was known to have died in 1957. Von Neumann had supposedly worked on the original Philadelphia Experiment, but the U.S. Navy denies this.
Cameron used the mind enhancing system at Camp Hero to manifest a "Bigfoot" or "Yeti" which destroyed large parts of the facility.
Staff from the Camp Hero site traveled to the USS Eldridge and shut down the generators, causing the ship to return to Philadelphia navy yard in 1943 and causing the time tunnel to collapse and the Yeti to disappear.
Metahumans and experiments in special serums to create such individuals were tested there.
Filmmakers were brought to the facility to begin work on a project that would culminate with the Moon landing hoax.
The military personnel in charge were in fact cultists who built a 50-foot ziggurat or step pyramid out of titanium for some esoteric reason.
Sex Reassignment Surgery techniques were developed and perfected in the facility for undercover operatives.
Early work on inventing the Internet and its implementation were undertaken there.
Nazi scientists from Operation Paperclip were involved in some of the experiments there.
Experimental "flying saucer" aircraft prototypes were created there, and shipped to other secret bases for testing.
Black helicopters were manufactured and flown there.
Nikola Tesla, whose death was faked in a conspiracy, was the chief director of operations at the base.
Mass psychological experiments, such as the use of enormous subliminal messages projects and the creation of a "Men in Black" corps to confuse and frighten the public, were invented there.
Early development of Project Stargate was developed from the remote viewing techniques developed by Montauk Project researchers.
The lost city of Atlantis was discovered in another galaxy, via the Time Tunnel.

After the experiments were completed or the destruction of the facility, depending on which story you read, the facility was closed for good, all the staff were brainwashed, shot or sworn to absolute secrecy, and all records destroyed. Some people claim research continues at the site to this day with enhanced security, however the base officially closed in 1980 and was given to the New York State Department of Parks.

The site was opened to the public on September 18, 2002 as Camp Hero State Park. The radar tower has been placed on the State and National Register of Historic Places. There are plans for a museum and interpretive center; focusing on World War II and Cold War era history.

Despite rumors, no traces of secret underground facilities have been found; although on the grounds of Camp Hero there is a hill with concrete sealed doors.

Further there are rumours about an overhead powerline (see discussion), which ends at a small cabinet and which is high-stretched.

[edit] Montauk in the media

The D20 Menace Manual, a sourcebook for the D20 Modern role-playing game by Wizards of the Coast contains a creature called the Montauk Monster. It is an elemental comprised of living energy that can cause its victims to fatally fuse with nearby matter.

The Montauk Project has appeared in a number of TV shows and films including:

A 2005 issue of the Pulse[1] notes that the Jim Carrey movie which was filmed in Montauk, New York, entitled Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was a thinly disguised description of the time travel popularized by the series. The issue notes an effort was made to film at Camp Hero State Park but that officials tried to discourage them with higher filming fees.

The Philadelphia Experiment film follows the adventures of the two sailors through time, which touches on the project even if the details differ.

The album Of One Blood by the band Shadows Fall includes a song called Montauk which deals with the conspiracy.

The album "Juturna" by the band Circa Survive includes a song titled "Meet Me in Montauk" which is a reference to the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which itself references the Montauk Project.

The song Memory Motel by The Rolling Stones was written about a motel in Montauk with the same name.

The popular computer game Half-Life features an extensive underground facility called Black Mesa, which suffers from a similar fate as the Montauk facility when aliens attack through a portal through space.

[edit] Further reading

A lot of books have been published on this subject, in particular the Montauk Project book series. There is also considerable crossover with the Philadelphia Experiment, so see that entry for more books on wider setting. Books that discuss aspects of the Montauk Project include:

Berlitz, Charles, William Moore (1979). The Philadelphia Experiment - Project Invisibility. Souvenir Press, 288 pages. ISBN 0-285-62999-9.
Steiger, Brad, Alfred Bielek and Sherry Hanson Steiger (1990). The Philadelphia Experiment and Other UFO Conspiracies. Inner Light Publications & Global Communications, 160 pages. ISBN 0-938294-97-0.
Nichols, Preston B., Peter Moon (1992). The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time. New York: Sky Books, 160 pages. ISBN 0-9631889-0-9.
Nichols, Preston B., Peter Moon (1993). Montauk Revisited: Adventures in Synchronicity. New York: Sky Books, 254 pages. ISBN 0-9631889-1-7.
X, Commander (1994). The Philadelphia Experiment Chronicles: Exploring the Strange Case of Alfred Bielek and Dr.M.K.Jessup. Inner Light Publications & Global Communications, 137 pages. ISBN 0-938294-00-8.
Nichols, Preston B., Peter Moon (1995). Pyramids of Montauk: Explorations in Consciousness. New York: Sky Books, 257 pages. ISBN 0-9631889-2-5.
Moon, Peter (1997). The Black Sun: Montauk's Nazi-Tibetan Connection. New York: Sky Books, 295 pages. ISBN 0-9631889-4-1.
Swerdlow, Stewart (1998). Peter Moon: Montauk: The Alien Connection. New York: Sky Books, 250 pages. ISBN 0-9631889-8-4.
Wells, K.B. (1998). The Montauk Files: Unearthing the Phoenix Conspiracy. New Falcon Publications, 220 pages. ISBN 1-56184-134-X.
Nichols, Preston B., Peter Moon (2000). Music of Time. New York: Sky Books, 234 pages. ISBN 0-9678162-0-3.
Bruce, Alexandra (2001). Peter Moon: The Philadelphia Experiment Murder: Parallel Universes and the Physics of Insanity. New York: Sky Books, 244 pages. ISBN 0-9631889-4-1.
Gordon, Wade (2002). Peter Moon: Brookhaven Connection. New York: Sky Books, 250 pages. ISBN 0-9678162-1-1.
Moon, Peter (2005). The Montauk Book Of The Dead. New York: Sky Books, 456 pages. ISBN 0-9678162-3-8.