A warning to our listeners, this episode contains descriptions of child abuse and deadly scientific experiments. Listener discretion is advised, especially for listeners under 13.

In 1974, a gifted electrical engineer named Preston Nickols discovered a strange phenomenon, he claimed to be researching mental telepathy by working with a group of psychics. And at the exact same time, every day, the psychics minds would just go blank. Nichols was determined to find out why. So the next time the psychics mysteriously jammed up, he took out his radio equipment. And sure enough, he spotted a powerful frequency blasting through the airwaves.

This signal, whatever it was, disrupted the psychics minds and his research. Nichols decided to investigate. He grabbed his radio receiver, which picked up the sound of very high frequency radio waves. Then he jerry rigged a TV antenna to the roof of his car and took off down the road looking for the source of the signal. Nichols sped down the coast, his receiver Ledingham, like a tuning fork. The journey took him to Montauk State Park, a sprawling land of forest and beaches on the very easternmost tip of Long Island.

The signal was coming from the Montauk Air Force Base, where a radar tower loomed over the treeline giant imposing a ghost of the Cold War. What was going on at this highly secretive military compound?

The answer would change his life forever. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a power cast original every Monday and Wednesday, we dig into the complicated stories behind the world's most controversial events and search for the truth. I'm Carter Roy. And I'm Ali Brandenberg. And neither of us are conspiracy theorists, but we are open minded, skeptical and curious. Don't get us wrong. Sometimes the official version is the truth, but sometimes it's not.

You can find episodes of conspiracy theories and all other cast originals for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to stream conspiracy theories for free on Spotify. Just open the app and type conspiracy theories in the search bar. This is our first episode on the Montauk Project, a secret U.S. government operation that supposedly used a radar system equipped with special technology to study mind control and time travel. Scientists allegedly experimented on children inside a network of underground tunnels where no one would hear their screams.

This episode will detail the secretive military history of Montauk. State Park will also discuss the strange technology that may have created a terrifying monster. Finally, we'll dive into the painful testimony from an alleged former Montauk boy who was tortured in the name of science.

Next time, we'll explore a few conspiracy theories about the Montauk project, including one that suggests aliens provided the technology that made the research possible. We'll also dive into the claims that Montauk was a continuation of Project M.K. Ultra, a declassified CIA mind control program, and that Monteux experiments turned children into a secret army of brainwashed soldiers.

We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. With its sprawling coastline less than three hours from New York City, Montauk, New York is a popular tourist destination on Long Island. At the very end of the peninsula sits the picturesque Montauk Point Lighthouse commissioned by George Washington in 1792. But travel a mile into the forest and you'll find an eerie, decommissioned military base. Above it looms a rusted relic from the Cold War.

It's a giant radar system nearly 30 yards tall.

The base is plastered with signs that say no trespassing danger and do not enter security patrols the area. And if they catch you on the premises, they won't hesitate to lock you away.

Quite a bit of secrecy for a state park. The station has a storied history defending New York from a Nazi invasion, detecting Russian bombers during the Cold War and an unconfirmed conspiracy conducting mind control experiments.

It's no wonder that the popular Netflix show Stranger Things was originally titled Montauk.

Before we dive into the project itself. Let's examine why this tiny plot of land is one of the most mysterious parts of the United States. According to one legend, when European settlers first reached Long Island in the early 60s, hundreds, a local Algonquin tribe, the Montauk, greeted them conspiracist John a Quinn claim that the Montauk people were a special tribe designated to guard a very powerful part of the island.

Quinn wrote that the tribe believed that Turtle Cove, the beach that is currently home to the Montauk Point Lighthouse, was a vortex of interdimensional energy like a bubbling volcano. This portal leet power from other worlds.

Centuries later, during World War Two, the U.S. Navy set up a base on Turtle Cove. They renamed it Campero and erected a coastal defense station perfectly situated to protect New York City from a Nazi U. Boat invasion.

Then, in 1947, the Cold War began. The U.S. military no longer needed to sink U. Boats. Now they worried about Soviet missiles. And Campero got a new name, the Montauk Airforce Station, in 1960. The Air Force installed a high powered antenna, the A.N. FPS 35 radar that still looms over Montauk today.

It was part of the larger radar system connected to an early computer network that scanned the airspace over the United States. And it was powerful enough to give cities a warning before a Soviet aircraft reached American shores.

Only 12 radars of this type were built in the U.S. All of them have been dismantled except for the one at Montauk. The base closed down on January 30, 1st, 1981, at least officially, then three more years passed before the military finally handed the land over to the state of New York for a closed base.

Security at Montauk is reportedly still tight today. It's totally locked down, meaning it's impossible to deduce its official purpose. Instead, we'd need to look at unverified testimonies to get a sense of what the base was really used for.

Electromagnetic engineer Preston Nichols was an authority on Montauk project conspiracy theories. In his book The Montauk Project Experiments in Time, Nichols said that in 1984 he explored the abandoned property. Debris and equipment were strewn everywhere, as if everyone had left in a hurry.

He claimed he came upon a homeless man who sputtered what at first sounded like nonsense. The man said he used to work on the base until a huge beast supposedly tore through the complex.

And most alarming of all, the man said that Nichols had once worked there to Nichols, of course, had no recollection of having ever worked at the base himself. He later wrote, This was just the beginning of my discovery that the Montauk project was real. Just to be clear, there's no evidence that confirms Nichols stories, and we can assume that the government denies all his claims. Even Peter Moon, who helped Nichols write his book, said that you can take his book as fact or as science fiction.

Nichols was a strange character, allegedly. He first appeared on the conspiracy theory scene in a 1988 underground video. In a more recent appearance in the History Channel documentary, The Dark Files, Nichols set in a big recliner and gave a speech about Montauk while wearing sunglasses.

Like some sort of mad scientist, he used technical jargon, making him sound quite knowledgeable. He also claimed to have an engineering degree from University of Tampa. But there's a record of that. That said, rumors about the eerie Air Force base have circulated as far back as the 1970s, long before Nichols book or video ever came out. So while we could dismiss him entirely, we'll keep an open mind, examine his claims and come to our own conclusions, according to Nichols.

In 1984, a psychic named Duncan Kamryn began working with him on his telepathy research. Cameron was exceptionally gifted, and Nichols invited him to visit the abandoned Montauk Air Force station with him.

Cameron had never been there before, but according to Nichols, he knew the place like the back of his hand.

Cameron recalled strange details like where to find the bulletin board in the mess hall. And once he and Nichols entered the transmitter room, Cameron fell into a trance, in Nichols words. Cameron began spitting out information about secret experiments he'd been involved with right there at the base. It was as if something had been blocking his memories. And now it all came flooding back. But Cameron didn't know the whole story, even with his recovered memories, if Nichols was going to get answers, his own current workplace was a good place to start.

Nichols never said why he assumed his job was related to Montauk, but he just so happened to work for a well-known defense contractor on Long Island. In his book, he called the employer BGM a pseudonym. However, there are a number of similarities between the so-called BGM and the Real Life Airborn Instruments Laboratory, or AKL, like BGM.

A-L is a military defense contractor based in Long Island. Another clue lays in the initials Take a move. One letter down the alphabet and you get B I one letter down is J. L do the same thing and you get B..

J. And based on this, Nichols was pretty clearly alluding to Eigil.

On the other hand, we couldn't find any record that Nichols ever worked at AOL. He may have lied, but with a pseudonym he had plausible deniability. No one could ever fact check him. Either way, Nichols claimed he began to notice strange things around BGM following his tour of the base with Camron. He was only an engineer, but he received the sort of mail and executive might get. People he didn't know seemed to recognize him, and he was invited to conferences well above his paygrade.

Strangest of all, one time the back of his hand became suddenly saw. When Nichols looked down, he saw a Band-Aid covering the spot, but he couldn't remember ever applying it.

Then one day, Nichols had what he called an intuitive urge to explore the BJA and grounds. He said he spotted a building with unusually tight security. Nichols didn't have authorization to enter it, but he figured he'd give it a shot.

To his surprise, the security guard allowed him through. The guard even handed him a new badge with high level security clearance. Nichols later explained, I had a hunch and it worked.

He walked through the underground complex like he knew where he was going. He said he let the turning in his gut determine his direction, and eventually he came to an office door and opened it.

The room was stylish. Nichols walked inside and saw a nameplate at the edge of the desk. Curious, he took a few steps closer. He read the name Preston B Nichols assistant project director.

According to Nichols, this was the moment his repressed memories trickled in.

He realized he'd somehow been living an alternate life, existing in two realities simultaneously one an engineer at BGM, another a project director for a twisted science experiment, the Montauk Project.

Coming up, what Nickols remembered. Before we get back to the show, I want to introduce a new Spotify original from Park Cast called Incredible Feats. It's a short daily podcast hosted by comedian Dan Cumins every weekday. Dan explores an account of physical strength, mental focus or bizarre behavior that's sure to leave at least some of you in pure disbelief. But there's no question these unbelievable stories are all true, like the 350 mile nonstop run of Dean car, NASA's back in 2005 and Jose Salvador Alvarenga.

Extraordinary tale of survival at sea. And let's not forget Annie Edson Taylor, the first person to go over the Niagara Falls in a barrel. Incredible feats covers people and events that pushed boundaries, broke records and revealed new sources of all its offbeat entertainment that will send your mind reeling. So don't miss out. Follow incredible feats free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the story in 1984, Preston Nichols and his psychic colleague, Duncan Kameron, uncovered memories of a sordid experiment.

None of Nichols claims have been verified outside of his circle, so it's important to take them with a grain of salt while reviewing his story. Nichols didn't explain how, but he somehow managed to deprogram his and Cameron's minds. And in 1990, all their key memories about the Montauk project returned. Cameron also claimed he had been part of the Philadelphia experiment in 1943. Conspiracy theories about the unconfirmed Philadelphia experiment first appeared in the 1950s. According to these stories, during World War Two, the U.S. military attempted to develop cloaking technology that could hide a battleship called the USS Eldridge from enemy radar.

Unfortunately, the experiments went horribly wrong. The USS Eldridge disappeared entirely, teleporting the entire crew miles away. When the ship returned, the men on board were in bad shape. Their limbs had fused with the ship. Their minds were erased. According to ex naval officer Al Baylock, he and his brother escaped this gruesome fate just before the ship vanished. They jumped into the ocean. Unfortunately, they experienced something even stranger than teleportation. Baylock claims he and his brother launched through a wormhole that sent them not only through space, but through time.

They were spit out exactly 40 years later. In 1983, Montauk and Duncan Cameron remembered that day because he was al bollix brother. The two men returned to their own time and reported what had happened. Their tale of teleportation and time travel allegedly intrigued researchers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island. And Nichols claimed that by 1967, the scientists at Brookhaven realized they'd stumbled onto an even more exciting discovery. The man who'd been on board the Eldridge were susceptible to mind control.

When the teleporting technology activated, it created a reality where time did not exist, something a human mind was unable to process. The bizarre situation broke the crewmen who experienced it, destroying their ability to think for themselves.

This discovery had clear military applications. American officers could simply flip a switch and an enemy would surrender.

Eager to harness this ability, the Brookhaven scientists allegedly conducted experiments in total secrecy at the Montauk Air Force station. The base was already outfitted with the equipment these researchers needed, especially its unique radar antenna. It was powerful enough to broadcast on the frequency they could open the portal and alter the human mind. This was the beginning of the Montauk project, according to conspiracy theorists. Congress refused the outlandish proposal for the Montauk project, so its funding had to come from private sources.

Nichols thought much of it came from a train filled with Nazi gold that American forces seized during World War Two. He claimed the haul was worth 10 billion dollars. But it seems that even the 10 billion dollar figure wouldn't cover all of Monteux expenses. Nichols suggested the rest of the budget came from the infamous Krupp family dynasty, a major weapons supplier, or the Nazis. At any rate, the Montauk project allegedly received the funding it needed, and Nickols began working there in 1973, two years after he joined BGM.

His official work there is unclear, while his own book says he was an assistant project director. We don't know exactly what this entails. Based on his account, Nichols seem to have been a high level engineer, creating the technology that made the experiments possible. It was a convenient claim, he said. He was directly involved in some of the projects, amazing achievements and yet blameless for the atrocities that occurred. If he was an engineer, he was only following orders.

Nichols argued that Duncan Kamron also played a pivotal role. His innate psychic abilities a. Allowed him to withstand intense electromagnetic frequencies, though Nicole says Cameron's body was eventually damaged by the sessions. Cameron would sit on what they called the Montauk chair inside a shielded room above him. The radar generated gigawatts of electricity enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes. It crackled through an array of coils into the metal chair.

The researchers wanted to see what would happen if Cameron was electrocuted with different frequencies. According to Nichols, certain combinations could make a person cry, feel agitated and even fall asleep. And the experiments had some unintended consequences. Wild animals were at the mercy of the radar as powerful frequencies.

According to legend, deer would crash through windows in downtown Longtop Nichols maintain that this happened because of the Montauk experiments, and soon the scientists set their sights on another impossible task reading human thoughts. This may sound farfetched, but we know for a fact that the military explored telepathy with other programs. Take, for example, Project Stargate, a declassified U.S. Army operation that investigated so-called psychic intelligence for military use.

Allegedly, Stargate did have some successes, but we also know that some Stargate researchers falsified reports to make the program look more effective than it was. So maybe Project Stargate was a failure or maybe the researchers just needed different equipment and a new location to keep experimenting. The Montauk project could have been a continuation of the research. In any case, in his book, Nichols claimed the radar transmitter succeeded in reading Cameron's thoughts. He picture an object, say an apple, and sure enough, an apple would appear on the computer monitor.

Then Nichols claims things got weirder using the power of the transmitter camera and began conjuring objects out of thin air. Sometimes these so-called thought forms were solid and sometimes holographic.

Cameron would imagine an everyday object like a baseball, then a real baseball or an insubstantial image of a baseball would materialize in front of him, at least according to Nichols. He claimed the scientists pushed Cameron further and further, honing his psychic senses to bend the rules of space and time.

Nichols said that in 1980, the scientist made their greatest leap. Yet using a gigantic new antenna and two transmitters, Cameron could concentrate on a particular point in time. Then a spiral like wormhole would erupt from the antenna, allowing for time travel. According to Nichols, this portal looked similar to science fiction style renditions of a vortex. And he says the Montauk research team had specific reasons to explore time travel. Nichols also claims in his book, then on August 12th, 1983, Dr.

John von Neumann, a Hungarian mathematician who Nichols believed secretly worked on the original Philadelphia experiment, created a portal to access the USS Eldridge on the day it disappeared in 1943. Apparently, von Neumann knew that the ship's generators, the equipment responsible for sending it through hyperspace, had mysteriously broken during the experiment. Nichols believed that the Eldridge had returned to its original time in location after the equipment stopped working. It is important to note that there's no evidence that von Neumann worked on these experiments and the mathematician died of cancer in 1957.

Yet, according to Nichols, this death was faked and Nichols was able to meet the disguised von Neumann and ask him questions. Based on this, Nichols offered several explanations for why von Neumann believed destroying the on board equipment would have sent the ship home. These include something called zero time planetary biorhythms and the witness effect. None of it makes much sense.

Even so, Nichols claimed von Neumann had a problem. The crew of the Eldridge wouldn't think to damage their own generators. Someone had to deliver instructions 40 years in the past.

Von Neumann solution time travel.

At his recommendation, the scientists at Montauk supposedly opened a portal to the 1943 crew of the Eldridge. A past version of Cameron and his brother, Al Baylock flew from the portal onto the cold concrete floor, still wet with saltwater, von Neumann rushed them out of sight and gave them their mission, returned to the Eldridge and shut the generator off by any means possible.

Cameron and Baylock followed his orders. They returned to the ship and cut every generator and transmitter cable. Within seconds, the Eldridge teleported to the Philadelphia Naval Yard.

The endeavor was a success, but it didn't sit right with Nichols. He and a few colleagues realized the time travel experiments had gone too far. So they decided to put an end to the project for good. They strapped Cameron into the chair and whispered a simple phrase into his ear. The time is now. Using his spontaneous creation technology, Cameron unleashed a monster from his subconscious when he goes describe the monster as hairy and nasty, about 10 feet tall.

It tore through the base, destroying everything in sight.

While the monster distracted the researchers. Nichols destroyed the base's equipment. He saved the transmitter for last, expecting the beast to vanish without the machine's energy. But even though he turned off the transmitter, power somehow kept churning and the monster kept killing.

Finally, Nichols grabbed and acetylene torch and crept into the power station. He cut all the wires he could find the equipment chugged to a halt, according to Nichols, you can still see the torch marks next to where he made his cuts.

Instantly, the beast faded into the ether, the portal closed.

And that was the end of the Montauk project, at least according to Nichols.

The time travel, the mind reading and the horrifying monster all feel like something out of a movie. But he still has a few fans who accept his theories.

But the most disturbing allegations aren't about what the Montauk project discovered, about the sickening ways they did it. Supposedly, the scientists kidnapped, tortured and even murdered innocent children. Coming up, an alleged Montauk boy tells his harrowing story.

Now back to the story. Preston Nichols, author of Montauk Experiments in Time, claimed the Montauk Air Force Base conducted far fetched scientific experiments throughout the 1970s until 1983, using a radar transmitter and an array of psychics, they even discovered time travel.

As outlandish as this might sound, Nichols' isn't alone in his allegations. Other people have come forward to verify his claims.

One of these is Stuart Swerdlow. In his book, Montauk The Alien Connection, Swerdlow laid out his own traumatic story in the early 1970s when Nichols said the Montauk project began, a young Swerdlow began experiencing strange visions. After he went to bed each night, he'd wake up strapped to a table, naked, paralyzed, unable to speak. The room he found himself in were dark, grimy and surrounded by rock walls, water huddled on the floors.

This lines up with Nichols account that the Montauk project was conducted mostly underground and secretive tunnels and dark bunkers. As an adult, Swerdlow believed Montauk researchers had been kidnapping children in order to develop a global mind control program. Their main weapon was an army of highly trained, brainwashed civilians they could activate at the drop of a hat.

Supposedly, the scientists abducted children from nearby towns, breaking down their wills and destroying their minds. That way, they could be programmed to do whatever the U.S. government wanted.

When the time came, these children were stripped naked, beaten and tortured. Their heads were submerged in buckets of water. They were prodded with sharp instruments and electrocuted with painful shock devices.

Swerdlow wasn't the only long Islander to recall the horrifying experiences in the depths of Montauk, a man using the alias James Bruce said researchers forced him to ingest LSD in what is now known as the acid house on the Montauk Air Force Base.

Bruce believed the drugs made his mind more susceptible to programming.

Swerdlow also mentioned how scientists used the bodies and minds of subjects like battery packs to literally power their mind bending time travel experiments. You would sit close to the psychic in the Montauk chair, usually Duncan Cameron. Then using computers, Swerdlow and Cameron would link telepathically and energetically as the experiments commenced.

Cameron Draine Swerdlow of his energy. It was the only way he'd have enough power to open portals to other dimensions. And while Swerdlow was a skilled power source, he said other children didn't fare so well. Many of them died from torture, insanity or sheer exhaustion.

It's hard to take sward those claims at face value. There's no hard evidence to back up his allegations. And it seems like he only started remembering his time at Montauk after Nichole's suggested he could have been one of the subjects.

So it's possible that Swerdlow simply adopted Nichols' story and put his own troubling spin on it. Still, there are too many coincidences for us to write off his accounts entirely. After Nichols' released his first book in 1991, a never ending trickle of men and women came forward with their own disturbing memories about Montauk. One even claimed to have been kept in chicken wire cages.

Curious explorers have since infiltrated the highly guarded Montauk Air Force Base. They claim they've discovered hints to back up Swallow's account. One report came from lifelong Long Islander Christopher Gangitano when he was eight years old in 1983, Catano found strange objects in the sand during a family trip to the state park. He describes them as large iron globes with spikes sticking out of them before he could ask his father what they were. Someone dressed in a military uniform appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

The stranger told Garito family that they couldn't go any further.

This puzzled itano why would a decommissioned base have such a strict military presence? And what were those other worldly objects the situation sparked?

A lifelong fascination in Guantanamo has been making trips to investigate Montauk for over 10 years.

On one visit, he noticed manhole covers throughout the area, which seems to back up the legend that the Montauk experiments took place in a network of underground tunnels.

On another trip, Dareton, in a team of geophysicists, used electrical resistivity imaging, essentially an MRI for the ground to literally peer into the earth. What they found was astonishing 20 feet underground laid a concrete reinforced structure about 30 feet in diameter.

Another report came from Brian Minnick, who lived nearby. Minnick says he and his friends regularly visited the desolate Montauk Air Force Base between 1993 and 1995 while he was a teenager.

The teens were mostly having fun, but one thing separates their account from others video evidence.

Armed with a camera, Minick and his buddies snuck onto the base through crumbled concrete, even though the official blueprints for the Montauk Air Force Base show nothing underground, Minox video evidence clearly suggested otherwise. They made their way through dingy basements, dark bunkers and a vast underground system. Down in the recesses, Minick and his friends saw a mysterious padlocked door sealed like a bank vault. It seemed like one of the rooms that Nichols mentioned in his book. Unfortunately, the teens weren't able to access most of the underground areas.

The rooms were flooded with dark, murky rainwater polluted with floating debris.

Surprisingly, the footage also confirmed the existence of the acid house where scientists allegedly gave LSD to their subjects. It's a small building with walls covered in colorful psychedelic shapes. His designs weren't graffiti. The paint job was too neat, and the ceiling had been precisely taped off.

Last but not least, Minnick found receipts. They showed that 80000 dollars worth of food had been purchased per month during the late 1980s. This was well after the base was decommissioned in 1981.

In Minsk's footage, several clips ended with him and his friends being chased off base. But this wasn't ordinary park security or even the police. Rather, the video seemed to show government issued black SUVs.

Again, if this was just an abandoned base with nothing to hide, then why would heavy government security patrol it nearly 15 years later? And how far would they go to keep their secrets hidden? In our next episode, we'll discuss conspiracy theory number one, that the Montauk project used alien technology from the Orion Constellation and even visited Mars. This extraterrestrial knowledge made their mind control and time travel experiments possible.

Conspiracy theory number two. The LSD experiments at Montauk were a direct continuation of an ultra, a top secret CIA project that administered mind altering drugs to non consenting subjects. It was officially halted in 1973, the same year that the Montauk Project's experiments allegedly began.

Conspiracy theory number three. The Montauk boys weren't just test subjects, but a government created army of brainwashed sleeper cells. They were behind everything from the Oklahoma City bombing to Columbine.

There's still no official statement about why Montauk secrets are so carefully guarded by the U.S. government, and the only reasonable explanation may be the hardest to accept.

Thanks for tuning into conspiracy theories, we'll be back with part two of the Montauk Project for more information on the Montauk Project. We found the Montauk Project Experiments in Time by Preston Nickols helpful to our research.

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Conspiracy Theories was created by Max Cutler and is a podcast studio's original. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, Sound Design by Russell Nash with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Joshua Kern. This episode of Conspiracy Theories was written by Ben KERO with writing assistants by Ali Whicker and stars Molly Brandenberg and Carter Roy. Remember to follow incredible feats, four mind reeling stories of strength, focus and achievement, comedian and podcast Dan Cummins hosts bringing his signature humor to these extreme accounts.

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