The top secret US air base that inspired Stranger Things… where conspiracy theorists say mind control experiments, LSD tests and child abductions took place (and it’s NOT Area 51)

FANS of Stranger Things are gearing up for a return to the weird and wonderful happenings of Hawkins, as series two hits Netflix.

The first series, set in Indiana, centred on the disappearance of a young boy called Will and a telekinetic girl called Eleven who was helping to find him.

As viewers know, the finale centred on strange experiments being carried out on gifted children in the top secret Hawkins Lab – and an ultimate showdown with a monster in a parallel universe.

But a new documentary has explored the real life conspiracy theories surrounding an army base which inspired the hit show – with accusations of child abduction, mind control experiments, LSD tests and time travel.

Camp Hero, a US army base built in World War 2 to defend the coast, sits in 400 acres of woodland near in Montauk, near the coast of Long Island, in New York.

In the Cold War, the top secret base was the centre of a series of radars trained on the Atlantic to detect incoming Russian attacks.

But after closing in 1981, it became shrouded in mystery as rumours of secret government experiments emerged – and people claimed to have been abducted as children and subjected to violent beatings and forced drug-taking in the “Montauk Project.”

Filmmaker Chris Garetano, who grew up in the area, has been obsessed with the theories since he was a child.

He said: “I started hearing these strange and bizarre stories about Montauk, things that were not normal.

“Every 12 seconds the radar would rotate and there would be animals freaking out and people getting headaches and bad dreams.

“People’s electrical devices would go haywire, there would be covert military vans and helicopters zipping around the perimeter.”

In 1983, two years after the base shut, he was eight years old and collecting shells on the beach when he was stopped by military personnel and sent away.

He said: “That’s when my curiosity began.”

Together with former CIA operative Barry Eisler and award-winning writer Steve Volk, a sceptic, he set out to investigate the truth about Camp Hero

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