This week, Maddi shares her insights on the top Netflix series, Stranger Things, and the possibility of some truth behind this seemingly fictional universe…
I know what you’re thinking. There is absolutely no way Stranger Things can be based on a true story.
Telekinetic powers, a parallel universe and kids fighting monsters. While the Upside Down and Mind Flayer may just be the workings of fiction and cinematography, aspects of truth are peppered throughout the plot.
Premiering on Netflix in July 2016, this juggernaut show was streamed all over the world, inciting many viewers to begin collating rumours regarding the show’s foundational basis. Eventually these were supported by the series creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, explaining to Rolling Stone magazine that they “wanted the supernatural elements to be grounded in science in some way”. Subsequently, the experiments that Eleven endured in the Hawkins National Laboratory in Season 1 found inspiration from leaked government files and are indeed based on real life events…
In 1953 the CIA conducted a series of highly confidential human experiments within a covert government operation, coded as Project MKUltra. They aimed to develop mind control and brainwashing strategies that could be used when interrogating soldiers, providing America with an advantage over Russia in the Cold War of 1944-1991.
Now you may be wondering who would want to volunteer to take part in months of torture, but that’s just it, no one did. Through engagement with illegal activities, MKUltra used unwitting American and Canadian citizens like prisoners and hospital patients as “people who could not fight back”. Participants were forced to undertake months of physical and psychological abuse through the administration of highly dosed psychoactive drugs, electric shocks and sleep deprivation.
Guised as ‘warfare research’, the experiments were concealed by the government and went under the public radar. The clandestine program was allegedly terminated in 1965 due to the dangerous side effects participants were experiencing, prompting the CIA director, Richard Helms, to attempt to cover their tracks by destroying all of the documents in 1973 and ensuring that participants were sworn to secrecy by the government. It wasn’t until 2001 where the Freedom of Information Act demanded the government to release 20,000 documents relating to MKUltra and other government experiments. Enough information was leaked from declassified files to inform the public and inspire the creators of Stranger Things.
On the show, Dr Brenner’s experiments on Eleven emulated the same form and techniques as that of MKultra. Eleven’s mother was also a test subject. Whilst pregnant with Eleven, Brenner administered her with LSD and conducted sensory deprivation to keep her sedated and narcotised in a catatonic state, inadvertently giving Eleven telekinetic, psychic powers.
So while you sit down to watch Season 4 in a few weeks time, just remember, not everything you see is fictional…
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