Montauk project

[[File:Camp hero radar ANFPS-35.jpg|thumb|165px|right|Boooring.]]{{conspiracynav}}
The '''Montauk Project''' is an odd [[conspiracy theory]] with the premise that at Montauk [[United States Armed Forces#Air Force|Air Force]] Base, at the far end of Long Island, [[New York]], the [[US]] government created some kind of interdimensional portal<ref group=note>Um, like in the [[science fiction]] franchise {{wpl|Stargate||.}}</ref> with the help of [[Nikola Tesla]] and some friendly [[Extraterrestrial|aliens]]. This whole load of [[bullshit]] was [[PIDOOMA|fabricated]] by the author and engineer Preston Nichols.<ref name=vallee>Jacques F. Vallée, [https://web.archive.org/web/20091222023540/http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_08_1_vallee.pdf Anatomy of a hoax: The Philadelphia Experiment fifty years later]. Archived from Journal of Scientific Exploration 8 (1): 47–71 (1994).</ref><ref name=melanson>G. Melanson, [https://www.unitedstatesnow.org/what-is-the-montauk-project.htm What is the Montauk Project?] unitedstatesnow.org, 25 February 2022.</ref>

==What the hell==
Events supposed to have occurred there include:

*[[Experiment]]s in [[teleportation]], {{wpl|parallel dimension||s}} and [[time travel]].<ref group=note>Wait, now it's sounding like something from a Valve game…</ref>
*On or about on August 12, 1983 the time travel project there interlocked in hyperspace with the original [[Philadelphia Experiment]] work 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 USS ''Eldridge'' while it was in hyperspace and ended up after a period of severe disorientation at Camp Hero in the year 1983 at Montauk Point. Here they claim to have met {{wpl|John von Neumann||,}} the famous [[physicist]] and [[mathematician]], even though he died in 1957. Von Neumann had supposedly worked on the [[Philadelphia Experiment]].
*A "porthole (portal) in time" was created which allowed researchers to travel anywhere in [[time]] or [[space]]. This was developed into a stable "Time Tunnel." Underground tunnels with abandoned cultural archives were explored on [[Mars]] using this technique where apparently some kind of "Martians" had once lived many thousands and thousands of years earlier.<ref group=note>This is in [[sarcasm|no way related]] to H.P. Lovecraft's ''{{wpl|The Shadow Out of Time||,}}'' which also involved aliens projecting themselves into the minds of individuals across space and time and storing their collective knowledge in a gigantic underground archive.</ref> across space and time and storing their collective knowledge in a gigantic underground archive.
*Contact was made with alien extraterrestrials through the Time Tunnel and advanced kinds of "[[Luminiferous aether|etheric]] technology" was exchanged with them which enhanced the Montauk Project. This allowed broader access to hyperspace. Stewart Swerdlow also developed the "[[language]] of hyperspace", whatever that is.
*Enrico Chekov, a [[Spanish]]-[[Russian]] dissident, reported in 1988, after defecting to America, that satellite surveillance captured during the 1970s showed the formation of a large bubble of space-time<ref group=note>no way related to H.P. Lovecraft's ''{{wpl|The Shadow Out of Time||,}}'' which involved aliens projecting themselves into the minds. While the question of what characteristics specifically identified this bubble as a bubble <i>of space-time</i> were never answered, the pedantic amongst us may point out that, technically speaking, all bubbles are bubbles of space-time. </ref> centered on the site, lending further support to the "D1 Base Time Tunnel" research. After Chekov shared photographs with a reporter from ''[[The New York Times]]'', his apartment in Manhattan was burgled and the photos were all that was taken.<ref group=note>Of course.</ref><ref name=melanson />
*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 [[Insanity|emotional and psychological instability]], [[PTSD|post-traumatic stress disorder]], and other issues, including being programmed with [[RFID|microchips]], and also through the use of "[[parapsychology|psychotronic]] [[mind control]]." An alien supposedly designed a chair, which an individual could sit in to boost his mental and prescience powers. A prototype duplicate was given to [[United Kingdom|Britain]] and put in a facility on the River Thames.<ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Montauk-Alien-Connection-Stewart-Swerdlow/dp/0963188984 Montauk: The Alien Connection by Stewart Swerdlow]. Sky Books, New York, 1998. ISBN 0963188984.</ref>
*The facility was expanded to as many as twelve levels and several hundred workers. Some reports have the facility extending under the town of Montauk itself and interconnected with vast maglev tunnel networks to other “Deep Underground Military Bases,” also known as "D1 Bases."
*Nikola Tesla, whose death was faked in a conspiracy, was the chief director of operations at the base (which, if they started in the 80s, would make him 120+).
*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.

The fitting of a SAGE radar system (apparently experiments with time travel need an anti-bomber radar), and the donation of the entire site as a wildlife park, have been worked into the conspiracy theory &mdash; it's all a cover, you see.

===Truther fan fiction===

Much of the "evidence" for all these claims comes from a book, ''The Montauk Project'', by Preston B. Nichols and Peter Moon, which also claims that time travel was used to, for example, alter the outcome of the [[American Civil War]].<ref>Peter Moon and Preston B. Nichols, [https://www.amazon.com/Montauk-Project-Experiments-Time/dp/0963188909 The Montauk Project: Experiment in Time], Sky Books, 1 June 1992. ISBN 0963188909.</ref> Sequels include claims that the [[Moon landing hoax]] was partially organized at Montauk; that scientists there formed a [[cult]] and made a 50-foot titanium ziggurat; bioengineering projects created the [[Jersey devil]]; [[black helicopters]] were manufactured there; and that the [[AIDS]] [[virus]] was created there (rather than being a virus found in [[Africa]]n [[ape]]s transmitted to [[human]]s when someone in {{wpl|Cameroon}} ate a chimp in the mid-20th century). 

If you were to read further into the books, it soon becomes clear that Nichols and Moon had just taken already existing conspiracy theories and sci-fi tropes but cobbled them together into a single narrative centered around the Montauk base—not too dissimilar from a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up#Other_genres fix-up novel] or even like a truther version of Alan Moore's ''League of Extraordinary Gentlemen''. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed really interested in believable or consistent worldbuilding, as many of these tall tales are poorly thought out and hastily intertwined with each other, leading to numerous plot holes and contradictions in the process. Notable absurdities include:

*How could a well-funded, scientific research facility that has not only managed to invent time travel and teleportation, but also has unlimited access to advanced alien technology be incapable of sending astronauts to the Moon in 1969? They couldn't have figured out how to reverse-engineer their spaceships for NASA? Was there a budget cut that year? Why did the scientists resort to faking the Moon landing despite obviously having more than enough resources and talent to pull off a real mission?
*The Jersey Devil is supposedly a by-product of mad scientist experiments at the base (which was built in 1942), yet reports and folktales about the creature go far back as early as the mid-to-late 18th century, including an alleged sighting by [[Napoleon]]'s own brother Joseph Bonaparte in 1812.<ref>https://www.atlanticcountynj.gov/government/government-information/history-of-atlantic-county/jersey-devil-fact-or-fiction#:~:text=Joseph%20Bonaparte%2C%20the%20brother%20of,buried%20treasure%20in%20Barnegat%20Bay.</ref> How does this timeline make any sense or even remotely possible? Was the Jersey Devil sent back in time, intentionally or by accident? If so, what is it doing in southern New Jersey and not Long Island where it was born? 
*If there really are psychics out there with the power to read minds and materialize objects, why haven't there been any real-life supervillains roaming the streets and causing chaos, like a bank robber who can blow up a safe using their mind or serial killers who can telepathically force people to mutilate themselves? Why is there no documented proof of these incredible abilities being using in society? Why hasn't the world become a superhero universe by now?
*Why is it necessary to build the black helicopters at Montauk specifically instead of any other government-owned base? Wouldn't it be simpler (as well as less expensive} to buy ordinary ones and just paint them black? What's so special about these helicopters in particular?
*Nicola Tesla (at the age of 86) faked his own death in 1943 and was the head of operations at Montauk for decades, even though Tesla would have more than 120 years old by time Nichols and Moon supposedly met him in the 1980s. Did Tesla became immortal or something? Is he a vampire?

==Anything good come out of it?==
It did provide the inspiration for some plot points in [[sci-fi]] (''[[The X-Files]]'', ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'', ''Stranger Things'', ''Men in Black'', '' Incident at Montauk''<ref>[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8717296/ Incident at Montauk (2019)], imdb.com.</ref>) and some nice electronica.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGGPCKLHujI Signal Runners - Meet Me In Montauk], YouTube, 25 March 2009.</ref> The  Bielek Debunked website clearly proved, after 10 years of research, that the Philadelphia Experiment and the Montauk Project were completely false.<ref>[https://archive.ph/IGNO Al Bielek Debunked], archived from bielek-debunked.com, 19 July 2012.</ref> The individual known as Stewart Swerdlow has also been clearly exposed as a liar and a charlatan. The more people became interested in the Montauk Project, the more people questioned the validity of the scientific claims made by Preston Nichols and Stewart Swerdlow. Now many people know that Swerdlow always tells everyone that Yakov Sverdlov was his great-uncle. Well the good that came from the Montauk Project disinformation has revealed Yakov Sverdlov was never the great-uncle of Stewart Swerdlow. Here is the PDF weblink, which shows the actual genealogy of Stewart Swerdlow.<ref>[http://www.ldorvdor.net/sverdlov/SVERDLOVE-Movsha_Sverdlov-20050324.pdf The Genealogies of Sverdlov from Sverdly]. ldorvdor.net.</ref> Yet, that huge lie which Stewart Swerdlow made up is a foundational part of his dubious back story as to why he was recruited to work on the Montauk Project in the first place. His actual family originated from Belarus and Poland, not Russia. The constant lies and disinformation that Stewart Swerdlow spouts are farcical and easily provable deceptions that he promotes to make himself look important. Yet gullible people want to believe in the ludicrous absurdity of the Montauk Project.

==External links==
*[https://www.de173.com/the-montauk-project/ The Montauk Project: Stranger Times]
*[https://www.de173.com/the-montauk-project-gallery/ The Montauk Project Gallery]
*[http://web.archive.org/web/20121101061235/http://old.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id95/pg1 A good read about the "project"]

==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Conspiracy theories]]
[[Category:New York]]

Categories: Conspiracy theories, New York