See inside the eerie, abandoned Air Force base that spawned conspiracy theories and inspired 'Stranger Things'

"Stranger Things," which dropped its first season in July 2016 and has become a pop-culture juggernaut in the years since, began as the story of a group of pre-teens who, after one of their best friends goes missing, become tangled in a dangerous web of government conspiracies, alternate dimensions, the Cold War, and more.

One of the show's breakout characters is Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown), a young girl born with telekinesis. Immediately after she was born, she was abducted by a scientist whom she calls Papa (Matthew Modine) and taken to Hawkins Lab, where she and other children were experimented on.

The upcoming fifth season will also be its last.

In 2016, Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that "Stranger Things" was originally sold as "Montauk" before they decided to switch the name and the location to the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana.

"We liked Montauk, because we liked the coastal setting," Matt Duffer said, adding that Montauk is the basis for Amity Island, the fictional location of "Jaws," which is one of their favorite movies.

But the setting changed when they realized "it was really going to be impossible to shoot in or around Long Island in the wintertime," Matt Duffer continued.

A filmmaker, Charlie Kessler, sued the brothers in 2018, claiming they stole the idea of "Stranger Things" from his script "The Montauk Project," Thrillist reported. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the Duffers denied his claims, and Kessler dropped the lawsuit in 2019.

According to signs in the park outlining Camp Hero's history, the US Army commissioned Camp Hero in May 1942 — five months after the US joined World War II in December 1941 — to defend against German submarines and boats.

The Army deactivated the base in 1947 and turned it over to the US Air Force in 1951, which remained there until 1982.

The New York Times reported following a 2006 visit that Camp Hero, named for Major General Andrew Hero Jr. — who served as the chief of coast artillery from 1926 to 1930, according to Arlington National Cemetery — opened to the public in 2002.

As a huge fan of "Stranger Things" with a mild interest in secret governmental conspiracy theories, I figured I'd drive out east and laugh with my mom (who made the trek with me) about the wildest things we'd learn about Camp Hero.

Instead, I came away feeling like "Stranger Things" got the atmosphere of this place exactly right.

Montauk is commonly known as The End. It's the last town on Long Island, making it the perfect spot for an Army base scanning the oceans for submarines hiding in the depths below.

When there's no traffic, it can be a fun drive. You pass through picturesque towns that are worth a stop, like Amagansett, East Hampton, Southampton, Wainscott, and more.

Curbed reported that celebrities including Julianne Moore, Ralph Lauren, and Robert De Niro have owned real estate in the town.

I grew up on Long Island and have been to Montauk dozens of times, but I've never really explored Camp Hero before.

Montauk Lighthouse, according to the Montauk Historical Society, was the first lighthouse to be built in New York after George Washington commissioned it in 1792.

It's also the fourth-oldest working lighthouse in the US and just one of 12 lighthouses to be named a National Historic Landmark.

Or, if you're a New York resident with an Empire Pass like I am, it's free.

According to New York State's Parks Department, the Empire Pass "permits unlimited vehicle access to most facilities operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation."

Essentially, it gets you into most New York state parks for free. A card costs $80 per year (or $72 a year for a digital card), or you can purchase a lifetime pass for $750 (or $742 for a digital card). Three-season and five-season passes are also available, as shown on the parks' website.

As my family are big fans of Jones Beach, another state park, we've had an Empire Pass for as long as I can remember.

I was surprised to learn that a decent chunk of land is off-limits to visitors and is a wildlife and plant sanctuary.

There are a few parks in the Montauk area that offer a good view of the bluffs, including Shadmoor State Park, Montauk Point State Park, and Ditch Plains Beach.

This wouldn't be the last warning sign I'd see that day.

The Patch reported that the town of East Hampton, which includes Montauk, was given a $350,000 federal grant to address the erosion issues along the coastline in December 2022.

Officials told The Patch that, according to measurements by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Montauk's shoreline "eroded more than 44 feet inland between 2000 and 2012."

In the years since the erosion has only continued — so I heeded the sign's warnings.

The radar tower looms over Camp Hero. I knew I needed to make my way over there to get a good look.

According to signs in the park, the Army built batteries throughout the base. Batteries 112 and 113, which are both still standing, contained two 16-inch guns each. The artillery was removed in 1947.

Even from a distance, you can see just how big it is.

According to signs in the park, the "giant" radar, specifically an AN/FPS-35, was built in 1960, and it remained operational until 1980.

Its radar dish was built to detect an attack on the US. As The New York Times reported in 2006, it was once "able to detect airborne objects more than 200 miles from shore."

The radar tower is central to many of the conspiracy theories surrounding Camp Hero.

Filmmaker Christopher Garetano, who directed a docudrama about Camp Hero called "Montauk Chronicles" in 2014, spoke about the radar dish during a History Channel documentary called "The Dark Files."

"Every 12 seconds the radar tower would rotate and there would be animals freaking out and people getting headaches and bad dreams," says Garetano in "The Dark Files," claiming "people's electronic equipment would go haywire" when the dish rotated.

"I don't want to add fuel to the fire because I don't believe all the zombie stuff," one resident of 40 years told The New York Post in 2020. "But the impact that tower had on the town was real. I don't know if it affected our thoughts like some people say, but it was a force."

Ticks are frequent carriers of Lyme disease. That was more than enough to keep me away from any heavily wooded areas.

The New York Times reported in 2006 that visitors to Camp Hero were given pamphlets about what to do in case they spotted an undetonated grenade or other unexploded ammunition — it did use to be an active military base, after all.

It was spookily silent as we walked through the woods, even though we weren't too far from the beach or a busy highway. I felt like we were in the middle of nowhere.

But as you can see, it looks like we were just about to walk in a heavily wooded forest.

In the first episode of "Stranger Things," Mike, Lucas, and Dustin search the woods for their friend Will after he goes missing while biking home. The trio are searching on a rainy night when they suddenly come across Eleven, who had just escaped Hawkins Lab.

At the end of season one, Eleven returns to the woods to escape the Lab's clutches.

I've read one too many stories about tourists falling to their deaths while trying to take the perfect selfie. Staying on the flat path was enough for me.

This rock was helpfully in the perfect place for me to pose for a photo.

Fishing is one of Camp Hero's biggest draws, and I saw a few fishermen on the beach casting their lines.

I didn't even have the presence of mind to take a picture of this dog — that's how you know my mom and I were truly freaked out.

The sign in front of this roped-off structure explained more about downtown Camp Hero. When the base was built in 1947, 600 men and 37 officers lived in this area and the structures were disguised as a "seaside fishing village," with artificial wood siding and fake windows.

This structure, the gym, was designed to look like a church. It's the only structure left from the original "downtown" Camp Hero, though other newer buildings are still standing.

I was half-convinced that someone was just going to pop out of the windows if I got too close.

We didn't want to scare the deer away, so we kept our distance while exploring the buildings.

According to a comprehensive summary of the conspiracy theories surrounding Camp Hero written by Thrillist in 2016, the events that conspiracy theorists claim happened in Camp Hero were actually pretty similar to what happens in "Stranger Things."

Author Preston Nichols brought the theories into the mainstream when he published "The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time," which detailed his reported experiences working at Montauk Air Force Station — he claimed he'd recovered repressed memories of his time at the base in the '70s and '80s. 

Nichols claimed he worked with another former employee on something called the "Montauk Chair," which used electromagnets to strengthen psychic powers. In season four of "Stranger Things," Eleven uses something similar to recover her powers.

Nichols also claimed scientists at the base used abducted children (like Eleven and her "siblings") to perform experiments on and that some were even sent to an unknown dimension (like the Upside Down).

Eventually, these experiments were shut down when one of the children summoned an interdimensional monster, Nichols wrote — just like Eleven bringing the Demogorgon to our world.

Joe Loffreno told the Post in 2020 that he believes he's one of the children who was abducted and experimented on and who were mentioned in "The Montauk Project."

"I didn't believe it until two years ago," Loffreno said. "I was hypnotized [by a certified hypnotist] for about 40 minutes and all these memories flooded back. They did a very bad thing to us out there. We were just little kids. They had no right to experiment on us. It was a very dark, very evil thing."

Garetano, director of "Montauk Chronicles," spoke with Newsday in 2017 about the reported tunnels. He said that when the History Channel was filming for "The Dark Files," they found proof the tunnels existed.

"Something extraordinary was found, which goes against all the official statements that there isn't anything there," Garetano said. "We didn't get into them, but we have footage of them that was taken by someone else." He added that they saw something on the "electric resistivity imagery tests" that were conducted.

Another local, Paul Fagan, told the New York Post that he believes a nuclear reactor might've secretly been buried at the base in the '50s, and that any conspiracy theories are actually meant to distract from the reactor's existence.

The New York Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The Army and the Air Force have never appeared to go on the record about the claims either, and they did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

When the Army built the base, it was used to surveil the surrounding area for German submarines, and it was also an antiaircraft artillery training station. At the time, according to the sign, all antiaircraft units in New York were sent to Camp Hero for a few weeks to train.

The sign also said it was home to other surveillance and height-finding radar that "guarded the New York City area against a surprise attack by Soviet bombers or other missiles."

The base was also used "extensively" as a live-fire training range until it was shut down in the '80s.

The lack of lights is why the park closes at sunset.

Even though it was just a few minutes down the road, the atmosphere was completely different. The parking lot was bustling and I could hear kids laughing as they explored the beach. I felt like I had just been to a completely different world.

I'd recommend making the drive if you're already in Montauk or the Hamptons.

Do I really believe that there were scientists using abducted children to contact a different dimension at Camp Hero?

No.

But I understand the fascination with Camp Hero — the fact that the radar tower and other disguised buildings are still standing decades later, the secluded location, and the idea that there could be secret tunnels underground are all compelling fodder for urban legends.

Anyone interested in military history or conspiracy theories would learn a lot at Camp Hero, and I'd recommend visiting — during the day, and not on your own.