#the uss eldridge

[conflictofthemind]

Montauk, The Project Rainbow, and Experiments in Time

It’s fairly common knowledge that Stranger Things is based on Montauk. The unfortunate part is that Montauk has been attributed to another ‘vaguely MK-ULTRA mind control related side project’ and not the big narrative that it is, with details incredibly close to plot points in Stranger Things that resulted in an attempted lawsuit years back. Montauk does not just set the general ‘spooky scientific experiments on kids’ tone for ST - it is the backbone of the whole lore. 

‘The Montauk Project’ Book / Conspiracy explained simply is that the US government unofficially experimented on humans with ‘great psychic ability’ to allow their psychic brain waves to interact with the normal electromagnetic waves of our world. The end goal being manifesting thoughts into reality, and opening up wormholes in time. This would give the military great advantage and potentially control over the outcomes of war. It then turns out the whole narrative of Montauk occurs within a time loop from 1943-1983, when the disappearance of a ship called the USS Eldridge opened up a wormhole which was connected with by a research subject in 1983. The time loop is self-causing - the entire reason the Montauk experiments take place are to further study the events that occurred on this ship, but part of the reason the ship disappears is because of the Montauk Project. Due to all of the other time travel references within the series - trust, we will get into those - this leads me to believe it’s very unlikely there isn’t time travel / a time loop involved. Here I hope to posit the basic information about Montauk/The Philadelphia Project, how the powers work within ST, Will’s clear involvement in all of it, and the time travel element. 

Ahahaha why does that look like a bowl-cut…

Let’s put this out of the way first: the idea that Montauk/Philadelphia is the direct inspiration for the show is not based on flimsy grounds. The original series the Duffers planned to make was going to be an actual retelling of Duncan Cameron’s (think El and Henry - main research subject of Montauk) story. This was later changed to become the story we know today with the characters we know today, although with different names and the title remaining Montauk. Some of the characters had names from Montauk too… like Mr. Clarke being Mr. Nichols. I’ll save that for a later post. The entire design of HNL is based off of the ‘Camp Hero’ / Montauk lab with the iconic banana-shaped radar disk. El’s Void ability comes from the ‘Seeing Eye’ power Duncan has in Montauk, where focusing on a personal item belonging to a person lets him see into their mind. The research subjects’ power is amplified by white noise and a sensory deprivation chamber - again, seen with El. 

The Rainbow Ship and the Electromagnetic Connection:

The Electromagnetic Spectrum is usually mentioned at least a little in every season. Joyce’s magnets falling off, El needing the radio, etc. Lights are another focus, with the kids in the Rainbow Room being tested on how they can manipulate lightbulbs, and the emphasis on lights flickering whenever powerful forces are being used or the Upside Down is interfering with Hawkins. I expect them to really start pushing it in Season 5, and we can already see evidence of this (below: the WSQK Squawk Van). They’re at a radio station, the Middle School kids are learning about light from Scott Clarke most likely, and you can see the abundance of rainbows everywhere. It’s my opinion that rainbows and light are the mechanism in which these gates open, and also when at high enough power, how time can become warped. ‘Project Rainbow’ is another title basically interchangeable with the USS Eldridge and Philadelphia Project. This was because “the mechanism involved was the generation of an incredibly intense magnetic field around the ship, which would cause refraction or bending of light or radar waves around the ship”. However as we remember, this had the unintended effect of teleporting the ship across space-time. In the ST Universe, this results in the Eldridge being teleported to Dimension X temporarily (without a gate being opened).

The eagle shoots out beams of a rainbow which are meant to represent the radio waves being broadcast. 

It’s a commonly asked question as to how Will ‘blinked’ out of that shed without a gate, considering only El was able to open them at that time. The close-up on the lightbulb is the last shot we see before he just vanishes. It’s not just powers interfering with the surrounding electricity; this bending of light is what took him to the UD. But when this happens, it doesn’t result in a gate. I also believe this will end up being the mechanism for the eventual time-travel plot we’ll be seeing. Again in Montauk, there is a ‘time-tunnel’ made between the Eldridge and 1983 Montauk that was caused by the disappearance. My original post investigating this was me hypothesizing that being able to bend light to travel faster than it could result in temporary anomalies that allow one to time travel. 

Anyway, back to the rainbows. Rainbows are one of the most common recurring symbols in Stranger Things. The Rainbow Room exists of course, and there’s a deliberate costuming choice, especially in later seasons with the brighter atmosphere, to have characters wearing rainbow patterned items. Holly’s room is full of rainbows, and there are multiple rainbow props scattered around other locations (Mike’s basement, Erica’s room, etc). Scott Clarke (seriously what is up with him) is introduced in Season 1 doing a lesson on ROYGBIV. The BTS pictures of S5 Hawkins Middle School have him teaching yet another lesson on the visible light spectrum. And space for some reason. This brings us back to the Rainbow Ship.  Now we know the USS Eldridge is a marine ship, not a spaceship. But for the characters who seem to have some connection to it, it is represented as one regardless.

Will drew something representing the USS Eldridge (which it is mentioned was not from a movie i.e. he came up with it using his own memory and mind). The main fixture of Henry’s playground, where a ‘significant’ memory took place also features this representation of the Eldridge. I suspect there might also be a larger reason it took the form of a spaceship, but for now, consider that the ST Universe’s version of aliens are the Demogorgons. And outer space is Dimension X. The ship ‘flew’ to ‘outer space’ (D-X) and encountered ‘aliens’. In Montauk, that is kind of what happens. It’s more metaphorical in Stranger Things. The comic book Henry is obsessed with in TFS is seemingly changed from the real life Captain Midnight who was an airplane pilot, to be an astronaut. I think there is some kind of “alien abduction” theme with both Henry and Will being suddenly transported to another dimension that is alien in itself. Even when the lab scientists enter the UD in the first few seasons, they use hazmat suits that are deliberately similar looking to spacesuits. Stranger Things is a story about UFOs and aliens that also isn’t exactly about UFOs and aliens. 

And then, I’ll mention the weirdest part of this all - Will knows about the Eldridge somehow. And he knew about it before he was ever kidnapped and attached to the hive-mind. 

This is either possible because 1) he was in fact involved in research projects at HNL, and maybe the Project Indigo before the age of 8 like the original “rainbowshipgate” suggests. Or 2), there is an element messing with time in this situation, just like in the original Montauk book series. Montauk is literally named ‘Experiments in Time’. They’ve nabbed Linda Hamilton from Terminator (a movie about time travel) for this final season. They’re referencing a Wrinkle in Time with the Episode 6 title and Holly plot. Then we have everything else involving Henry’s clock theming that hasn’t exactly explained itself yet. Thinking time travel is a far-fetched idea at this point is a bit ridiculous. 

It really depends on how crazy they go with the whole concept. One of the other main characters from Montauk I haven’t mentioned yet is Al Bielek. Al Bielek was the original “whistleblower” who came forward with his story after supposedly recovering his repressed memories of the events. He claims to have been on the crew of the USS Eldridge in a previous life as Edward Cameron, Duncan Cameron’s brother. When he was sent forward in time he ended up staying in 1983 whereas Duncan Cameron was effectively sent back to where he came. Very confusing. But the story is, the man’s a time traveler. 

I do wonder if Al Bielek is loosely the inspiration for Will’s part in the story. Will who has seemingly repressed memories of many points in his life and has been suggested to be a time traveler many times. His name appears on the grandfather clock. He wears Marty McFly’s outfit in the first season. He has knowledge of an event that happened in 1943. He has lines about “seeing into the future” and Mike calls him a time-traveler in the VR Game where the writing staff had access to scripts and a writer from the show. The Upside Down is stuck on “the day of Will’s disappearance” (in the Duffers’ words), though that one probably has a slightly simpler explanation. 

The exact mechanics of how that would work are unclear. Right now, as young as an eight year old Will needs to have the knowledge of the Eldridge - so this isn’t something he will only end up connecting with this season. My theory is that there is a time loop involved, and Will’s actions in the future of Season 5 have him interfere in some way with the 1943 Philadelphia Project / Project Rainbow. The time loop is cyclical and self-causing. Our Will Byers already has a past iteration in yet another timeline where he already went back and tried to interfere with the past (and likely died trying in 1943). Then he is reborn again in 1971, and awakes a very small portion of his past memories of the previous loops. If that doesn’t make sense, I created this handy-but-ugly flowchart to help you out: 

Basically there is no beginning, since the future causes the past and vice versa (a bootstrap paradox). Every Will would then have memories of a past self(selves). The time loop also gets more complicated than this. Did Henry create the mindflayer? It’s presented like that within the show, but let me remind you that shows with heavy mystery elements can and will purposely deceive you. In the First Shadow, Mr. Newby is attacked by the Mindflayer and produces a drawing of the entity - it’s purposely not shown to the audience, but considering the Mindflayer was supposedly just a black mass then why is that? And regardless, in order to have Henry become possessed by it, the Mindflayer was definitely not created by him in 1979. A few have written up theories about this already, I’ll link to my friend's two posts on this element of the time loop.  

I don't have anything else super definitive yet. But I believe wholeheartedly that this is the right direction to search in and I hope we can put more attention on the subject. All of this makes sense, from the military connections they keep pushing in the show, the time travel hints we have been getting, the origin story of Brenner (whose dad died aboard the ship) and the Rainbow Room, everything ties back to the Eldridge events being incredibly incredibly important going forward.

Here's a link where you can read through Montauk Experiments in Time for free.

[vinisar]

Goretober 2024 - Day 19: Accident

I did that real quick because I didn't have much time to draw today too unfortunately. Based on Philadelphia experiment. Teleportation gone wrong. My bf forced me to do that xD ─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ─── Time spent: 1 hour 19 minutes Sessions: 1 Tools used: Krita, GIMP ─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ─── Art ~ @Vinisar ─── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───

You are not allowed to use this art in any way.

Not for sale, not for rp, not for AI generators, crypto, NFT etc.

Do not use, copy, edit, redistribute etc., This art is glazed for protection.

The character(s) on this art do not belong to any worlds besides mine and they can not be used in rp, MAPs etc..

[hassiegfrieddoneanythingwrong]

Periodically I'm reminded of that ask imagining what characters from other media outside of Fate/Type-Moon stuff, and remembering that I have several Fan Servants who, outside of figuring out what Class they would be, have at least some level of personality I've made for them.

[finalgirlwillbyers]

I have to hear your thoughts on byrhop's cc ask earlier. Clearly from a Will anti, about how his whole storyline is just a "wrong place, wrong time" situation, he's not special or targeted, and its actually just all about his connection to El and the Wheelers, who are the big targets/center of the story.

I was so mad I actually saw stars. Her response sucked ass, too.

(https://x.com/byrhop/status/1820940178925502909)

Look, the Stranger Things VR game is not-- I've discussed the implications of that game before (HERE), in terms of canon (the tv show).

Stranger Things VR does have a higher degree of canonicity than expected, due to the Tender Claws team receiving early versions of the Stranger Things 4 scripts and having access to staff writer Paul Dichter (HERE). This means, to me, that fans shouldn't treat whole scenes as real per the official show timeline, but there are certain consistencies about characterization (fears, desires, motivations, relationships, etc.) that could and should be interrogated.

Why would a VR game reveal important details about Will's abduction? Details that were saved for the final season to explore.

Below is what I had to say about what Will's abduction, per the game, which I know some people read, though it may have just been the people I already block <3

To be clear, El isn't the reason for Will's kidnapping. That reason is still left ambiguous. The only thing Vecna discovers is that Will is an unexpectedly useful victim, not just in his quest for vengeance but in his (and the Mindflayer's) grander plan for world domination.

Will is, frustratingly, just a means to an end. His importance is as Vecna's tool. However, this is consistent with the Duffers' writing MO: people are collateral damage to weaken El, physically and emotionally, ex. possessed Will and Billy in Stranger Things 2 and Stranger Things 3 respectively, as well as Max in Stranger Things 4.

Anyways, there's a reason behind most things on Stranger Things. Mike's not an asshole just cause he's a teen boy. El's speech wasn't stunted just cause she grew up in a lab. It's because she had the supernatural equivalent of a seizure after sending Vecna to superhell. If the writers crafted a plot relevant reason for El's speech patterns, then I'm sure they crafted a plot relevant reason for Will's abduction.

There's some suggestion that Will's connection to Hawkins National Lab is a bit more complex than the audience is originally led to believe. Joyce's car was shown in a flashback in 1972; the same flashback in which Terry Ives tried rescuing El from the Rainbow Room. The Lab had enough background information on Will to remember his birthmarks on a life-sized doll. That's not just coincidence. Maybe they looked into his annual check-up notes? But, there's a level of detail here that begs the question as to whether his abduction was so random after all.

Will even has some level of knowledge--whether preternaturally or naturally acquired--of the USS Eldridge (Project Rainbow). That "rainbow ship" Joyce so proudly displayed at Melvald's. Something is afoot, in terms of why Will. It's a telling that this anon dismissed these bits, probably didn't even register them, as well as the "Will has powers" speculation.

Personally speaking, this makes a lot more sense than Vecna going after Will just cause he made some vague reference to Joyce's future suffering (in reference to being kind, I believe). In the past, Kate Tefry implied one can understand Stranger Things 5 without the play (supplemental material). It seems unlikely this inchoate beef is the why behind Will's traumatic experience.

[cultfaction]

Cult Faction Podcast Ep. 92: The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)

Stewart Raffill’s The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) goes under the spotlight this week alongside our chat about everything that has been happening down our endz…. https://cultfaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Episode-92.mp3

[willbyersabyss]

Edward Creel is El, Henry Creel is Will. No seriously.

I was reading the Montauk book and well... I have evidence that Eleven is a "reincarnation" of Edward Creel. And Will could be a reincarnation of Henry.

In "The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time," we hear about a man named Duncan Cameron. He has psychic abilities much like the lab kids and was clearly the inspiration for Henry. Duncan also has a brother named Edward Cameron. They both were working on the USS Eldridge and were later involved in time travel experiments.

At some point during their time travel shenanigans, Edward decided to stay in 1943 while Duncan stayed in 1983. This caused Duncan to start aging rapidly and in order to preserve his abilities, they figured out that they carry a unique electromagnetic signature. This signature is basically their entire personhood, their mind and memories. Both Duncan and Edward's signatures were transferred onto new people, reincarnating them. The children they transferred their minds to have no recollection of who they were before the "reincarnation" process.

And I think this happened to Will and El.

As other people have theorized, Edward Creel is Henry's brother who got lost in another timeline. I think that the lab found him and his mind was transferred into El, much like Edward Cameron's mind was transferred. In Montauk, Edward was replicated through age regression, but it doesn't have to be one-to-one.

Edward and Duncan got stuck in a side time tunnel at one point and encountered aliens. This could be where the timeline split for Henry and Edward too.

How do I know they'll use this part of the Montauk experiments? Well... they already did. Edward was renamed Al Bielek after his transfer. In the play and in Eddie's book, we find out that Eddie (Edward) Munson's dad is named Al Munson. There's no way it's a coincidence that they paired up an Edward and an Al together. It's a reference to this part of Montauk.

Ok so why do I think El has part of Edward Creel's mind? First off, El and Al's names sound very similar. Hm. Their backstories also connect. Al was taken in by a family who had a baby that died young. Two of El's parental figures had children who died young. Hopper's daughter died at the age of 6. Terry was told she "miscarried" in the third trimester. Al's parents were brainwashed after they stuck Edward into their family. Terry was also brainwashed.

In the Edward Creel version of the Creel murders, Edward was found without eyes and mutilated limbs. Could be lab interference, or they could be telling us that Edward is actually dead. In Montauk, they only wanted to transfer signatures when their star subject was dying. This could be why they transferred Edward Creel's signature into El. He was killed before his time.

Edward’s version of events happened on March 21st. This is the same night Chrissy was murdered in Eddie’s trailer. The bodies were found on the 22nd, just like Chrissy. El was accused of wanting to kill Angela after the assault that happened on the 22nd. Eddie was later killed by bats. Is this another hint that Edward Creel is dead? The vampire references surrounding Eddie might also link to Edward Creel becoming “undead” through El.

Side theory that kind of relates: Was Edward the boy Henry put in a wheelchair? This could explain why the Creels have the wheelchair in their attic. Maybe they left Edward behind to stay with other relatives for his safety. Or Edward is related, but not a sibling? A cousin?

Vecna slash Henry says that there was a time when he wanted El by his side. In Montauk, Edward and Duncan (aka Henry) went back in time together to save the USS Eldridge and complete the time loop. It could be that after the signature transfer, El and Will work together to fix the time loop, so Vecna is referencing future events where they do work together, but through a different time.

There isn't much information about Edward Cameron in the Montauk book, so that part of the evidence ends here.

If El had Henry's timeline brother transferred into her mind, this could explain why Henry felt so connected to her compared to the other lab children. In the play, it's evident that he felt connected to her upon her birth! He even says she reminds him of someone he knew and while he was talking about himself here, it could be another hint at El literally being someone he knew: his brother Edward.

This isn't to say El isn't her own person, she is, but she does have the mind and memories of Edward in her too. She's both!

Now onto the Will of it all. Will has Henry's electromagnetic signature. Like, this is confirmed. They literally say so.

Seriously.

As I said earlier, the signature transfer causes the original person to lose all sense of who they were before the transfer. This is basically what the Mind Flayer did to Will when he was possessed. The lines between Will and whatever was taking over his mind were being blurred, but they got him back. Not without consequences, though. The "signature" wasn't removed, Will still has Henry in him. He is both Will and Henry.

Will and Henry's backstories are nearly identical. Henry got lost in another dimension, got possessed, and now has powers, all things that happened to Will. And we know the iconic parallel of them both being described as sensitive. Their family dynamics are also similar. Virginia and Lonnie are abusive, Jonathan and Alice are older siblings to their brothers (not to mention their dead bunny parallel), Joyce and Victor have a few similarities too. Will and Henry even dress similarly in their plaid shirts.

Will is described to have personality changes in s2, but the most significant changes we see before his possession are just extensions of himself. He became more reserved, more quiet than he usually is. Henry also seemed to be quiet, so their personalities combining exacerbated Will's behavior.

I'm not the first to point this out, but Will draws a zombie that looks very similar to Henry when he enters Dimension X. When questioned, Will says that the drawing is him and doesn't expand on why (we know why, but still). Henry is zombie boy, zombie boy is Will, Will is Henry.

And that wasn't even scratching the surface of the Henry Will parallels.

It's also worth noting that the kid Duncan transferred his signature to was 12 years old. You know, the same age Will was when he got kidnapped. Duncan was in the year 1983 (before time traveling) when this happened.

This could be why Vecna slash Henry sought out Will in the first place. Like Duncan, Henry was dying, and needed a replacement to preserve himself. Will was the perfect subject. This connects back to my theory that Henry's physical body is already dead and the Vecna we see is his soul/mind.

It's possible that Henry's soul/body is now just a puppet for the Mind Flayer, abandoned of Henry's previous traits. When Henry tells his backstory, he has no recollection of the better aspects of his personality we are shown in the play, he only remembers the dark parts. This might be because the good parts of Henry aren't with him, but with Will.

Henry’s Creel murders happened on March 25th. It’s interesting how on March 25th, we see Will burying a body in the desert. Will is linked to death on the 25th? Same scene, Mike says “It’s the number. We’ve had it this whole time (looks at Will).” Will is the number… 001.

Duncan couldn't die due to time paradoxes, which is why they transferred his mind to a new body. Maybe this is why the Mind Flayer wants to keep Will alive. Will and Henry need to live as one (haha) to keep the timeline stable. This could provide time travel scenarios in s5 where Will has to go back in time and cause future events...

Something interesting that I haven't seen discussed before is how Will's comment about Vegas actually connects to Henry. Patty, the one person Henry ever really connected to, was on the search for her biological mother. Patty found out that her mom was working at a casino in Vegas, so she left Hawkins to meet her there. Will references Vegas casinos in the van! This could be a subconscious desire from Henry's side of Will to seek out Patty. Honestly I hope Wills little reference is alluding to Patty coming back in s5 too.

One more thing, Will's relation to Henry and/or Dimension X started before 1983. Will drew the rainbow spaceship in 1979, a reference to the USS Eldridge. I think the transfer happened when Will was attached to the vine in the UD, so there are likely time shenanigans here. Or... the lab implanted Henry's mind into Will in 1979 when his physical body died, but even that doesn't align with Will's birthday ship!

Edward Cameron's memories of his time on the USS Eldridge were wiped, but Duncan still recalls the experiment. El also seems to have no recollection of the rainbow ship, but Will does. Edward didn't regain these memories until the mid 1980s. Could El begin to recall these events in s5?

El and Will having Edward and Henry's respective signatures also explains their weird sibling connection in s1.

El recognized Will because she knew him in another body in another timeline. They were meant to be siblings because they already were. Through Henry and Edward's memories of each other, El feels drawn to Will like she's always known him, despite never meeting.

Will and El switch places with each other too many times in the series for me to even provide examples (here's one). They swap places, go through parallel yet contrasting scenarios, much like their henward counterparts. This seems to be hinting at them having a higher connection than siblings by chance.

Circling back to Montauk, this line could be referencing Will and El completing/ending the time loop together, like Henry and Edward were supposed to before Edward's early demise.

The time loop goes from 1943 when the ship disappeared, to 1983 when Will was kidnapped. I think Will is the key to time travel and this might be unlocked when he and El work together to reach it. Their powers can combine to save the world. Will and El's connection transcends time and will fix time.

[reality-detective]

* * * Las Vegas Shooting * * *

Part 3

On the Thursday night that followed, the White House press pool was unexpectedly called in to witness a “photo op” that was taking place with President Trump…and included various military officials & their spouses.

As cameras were rolling, President Trump said, “Maybe it’s the calm before the storm. Could be, the calm…the calm before the storm.”

As reporters shouted questions, he said,

“We have the world’s great military people in this room, I will tell you that. And uh, we’re gonna have a great evening.”

Then, when asked what he meant by “storm,” he ominously answered,

“You’ll find out.”

MEGANON, the anonymous 4chan poster that I referenced the other day posted this on 4Chan after Trump made his “Calm Before the Storm” warning...

Then 👇

It is interesting to point out that the very next day after Trump made his cryptic remark, a fire broke out at the Federal Reserve Bank Building.

Here is an excerpt from a 10/7/17 Zero Hedge article titled “Fire Breaks Out on the Roof of the NY Fed.”

“Dozens of firefighters are fighting a blaze which broke out on the top of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, NBC New York reports.

Contrary to recurring rumors that the fire was created from excess money creation, the FDNY said that a generator on the roof of the building caused the fire in a chimney, although the severity of the damage to the building is not known.”

☝️ Was it possible that Trump’s warning “You’ll find out” was taken seriously enough…that it lead to an emergency bonfire of incriminating documents right on the roof of the Federal bank building?

Guess what happened after that???

On October 26th, 2017

The JFK FILES WERE RELEASED by PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP!!!

Funny that he releases the files on October 26th!! That’s the birthdate of Hillary Rodham Clinton!!

Reversing the curse!!

By the way, October 28th is a date with a lot of significance.

By choosing this date,

God/Trump/The Alliance/White Hats are reversing the curses that were placed on our society by ((these)) people.

((THESE)) people are the Occult/Witches/Warlocks/Satanists/Luciferians/Illuminati/Jesuits/Crypto Jews/Khazarian Mafia/Banksters/Deep State/Cabal/Black Hats/Rothschilds/Rockefellers/Clintons/Bushes etc. etc.etc!!

Löök up famous people born on October 28th you'll get a better picture of what I'm saying. 🤔

FUN FACT: Remember, Q started posting on October 28, 2017.

Facebook was originally launched as FaceMash on... you guessed it... October 28, 2003, (before changing its name to Facebook on February 4, 2004).

THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES!!!

The PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT began during the summer of 1943.

On OCTOBER 28th, 1943,

The Navy Destroyer—USS Eldridge—was placed in an electromagnetic field and disappeared…not only from the screens…but also from our reality.

During this second experiment, the ship disappeared from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

Simultaneously, sailors stationed 375 miles south at the Norfolk Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia, reported the ship’s appearance for several minutes before it vanished.

Many believe that the USS Eldridge traveled through time.

Time traveling is a real thing and so is "Project Lööking Glass"

I hope this sheds some light on the Las Vegas Shooting Event, it was no random solo shooter acting out. It was all a staged event.

All links connected 👇

[aemiron-main]

You Are Nothing: The Voice Of Saruman, The Wizard Of Oz’s Voice and Henry’s Shadow Voice (Ft The Brenners)

So, it’s interesting to me that in TFS, Henry has these lines to Patty that he says in the shadow voice:

But then, right after that, Brenner (who supposedly did not hear that convo between Patty and Henry because it was happening kind of in the void/supernaturally/Brenner didn’t react to it at the time/he shouldnt have any way of hearing it), says this:

Why is Brenner Jr basically saying the exact same thing to Henry that the shadow said to Patty via Henry?

Which, this all connects to what I said right after I saw TFS about how Henry’s shadow voice sounds quite a lot like Brenner (both Brenner Sr and and Brenner Jr tbh).

Which, this makes me think of The Wizard of Oz, and all of the Wizard of Oz references in TFS (such as Patty being dressed like Dorothy), versus The Wizard Of Oz/The Man Behind The Curtain, and the way he amplifies his voice and how it sounds quite similar to Henry’s shadow voice.

And speaking of wizards, Henry’s shadow voice also reminds me of The Voice of Saruman, who is also a wizard, which is especially interesting considering the parallels between Brenner Sr and Saruman.

And so, here’s a video showing The Voice of Saruman vs The Wizard of Oz Wizard’s Voice vs Henry’s Shadow Voice vs Brenner Sr and Brenner Jr’s Voices- and when you listen, it becomes really clear that Brenner Jr snarls his words the same what that Shadow Voice Henry snarls his words:

And it doesn’t come across as well on the video as it did IRL, but Henry’s shadow voice has the same booming sound and echo as Saruman’s voice and The Wizard of Oz’s voice- and also a very similar booming sound to the way that Brenner Sr and Brenner Jr yell, which is extra interesting considering the whole “you have to be your dad” thing in TFS and how Brenner Jr/Martin doesn’t yell in-show.

The only time we see Brenner yell in-show is in S1, when Shepard dies, which also seems to be Richard rather than Martin, which is interesting considering the constant connections between Brenner Sr and Richard and the idea that Richard might be Brenner Sr.

And also, I know that you cant hear quite a smuch of the booming effect with the clip of Brenner Sr because it got dampeneed for some reason on the video- like when I listen to the rest of the video, that whole section with the ship and Brenner Sr is dampeneed, including the VERY loud noise when they cut to the destroyed USS Eldridge which was so loud you could FEEL the boom sound in-person but for some reason my phone didnt quite capture the audio properly. But point is, the way he yells is VERY similar to Saruman and The Wizard of Oz and Henry’s Shadow Voice.

And also, interestingly enough, during that scene where Henry used the shadow voice towards Patty, the ST OST track “a memory within a memory” plays- which also plays when Brenner talks about Brenner Sr and Project Rainbow- so yet again, Brenner Sr is connected to the shadow voice even via the music choices.

Brenner Sr and Jr, quick, why are you the shadow but also Vecna???

[skyfullofpods]

205 is ars PARADOXICA!

Dr. Sally Grissom is a badass scientist from 20[REDACTED] who accidentally discovers time travel. She arrives in 1943, on the deck of the USS Eldridge. Stranded in the past, she becomes entangled in a secret government organisation.

Completed series, a total of 36 full episodes across three seasons.

[numinousmysteries]

Dancing the Tandava (5/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Long Island, NY 1993

They fly as far as a small airport in Islip, near the middle of Long Island, but still have to drive another hour and a half to reach Montauk.

Scully’s been quiet on the flight over, no doubt digesting the news from the phone call he received earlier in their office. He has to admit, the idea of the two of them one day having a son who’s visiting them from the future is a little far-fetched, but he’s heard the lore about Camp Hero and is eager to see it for himself.

“You were a Navy brat, Scully,” he says, breaking the silence. “Have you ever heard about the Philadelphia experiment?”

“I’ve heard about the cream cheese,” she says, absentmindedly gazing out the passenger window.

“Well,” he goes on, “in 1943 a Navy destroyer, the USS Eldridge, disappeared from a Philadelphia shipyard. It reappeared in Norfolk, Virginia, more than 200 miles away with no evidence of how it got there. The crew members weren’t as lucky—some were never found and others were discovered physically fused to the walls of the ship. It’s suspected that the Navy was testing out extraterrestrial technology, possibly stolen from the Nazis, that could make ships invisible to radar detection. Of course, the Navy maintains no such experiment was ever conducted, and no living crew members have any recollection of the event.”

“You think that has something to do with this case?” she asks.

“Apparently, the military continued experiments using this same technology at Camp Hero. I’ve heard stories of a foot of snow falling in the middle of a hot, August afternoon in Montauk, or residents experiencing episodes of mass mind control with dozens of unrelated people feeling sudden surges of anger or sadness simultaneously. Plus, there are reports of a time tunnel in Camp Hero that researchers have used to go forward or backward in time.”

Scully turns to face him. “And that’s where you think this guy came from?”

“I guess we’ll see.” Mulder shrugs, cracking a sunflower seed in his teeth. “Do you ever think about having children, Scully?” He chews hard, hoping the personal question hasn’t crossed a boundary.

“Well, sure,” she hesitates, staring at her hands in her lap. “But I’d like to be further along in my career and, well, with a significant other. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “In an ideal world, I think it would be nice to have a family, but I didn’t have a great childhood myself and I’m not sure I had the best parenting models. Besides, the instability of this job isn’t conducive to settling down. I think you’d be a great mom, though.”

Scully laughs.

“I’m serious, Scully. You’re patient, caring, and you’ve kept me out of trouble so far which is no easy feat.”

“I suppose being your partner is pretty good practice for parenting,” she says.

Her warm smile encourages him to test the limits even more. “I know we’ve only been working together for a few months, but I think we have a good rapport. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that one day our friendship evolves into something more and that we have a child together.”

Scully doesn’t respond and he regrets his words. It’s a step too far. She probably doesn’t consider him as anything more than a coworker and, to be honest, he’s only now realizing he sees her as a friend. When she first walked into his office, she was a curiosity to him—a spy with the confidence to rewrite Einstein; the intestinal fortitude to dissect a corpse, handle its oozing organs, and walk away hungry for lunch; and constellations of freckles on her cheeks that she hides under makeup but that delight him whenever he catches a glimpse of them.

He tried to keep his guard up around her, but he’s slowly learning to trust her loyalty. At first, he didn’t expect her to last long on the X-Files but recently he’s been hoping she sticks around.

“Sorry,” he says after another beat of silence on her end. “I didn’t mean to imply or insinuate anything. I’m sure if you do have children one day it’ll be with some hotshot surgeon or the future head of the FBI, not your crackpot partner.”

“I assume there have been worse cases of Stockholm Syndrome,” she says, grinning at him.

“Stockholm Syndrome? Really, Scully?” He smiles back at her in relief that she’s playfully teasing him and isn’t totally repelled by his comments.

“I’m kidding,” she replies. “I enjoy working with you, Mulder. In just a few months I’ve seen things that have tested my beliefs in concepts I’ve considered to be invariables, and you’ve taught me the power of maintaining an open mind—even if our theories don’t always align. And sure, it’s not possible to say where we'll be a decade from now, but it’s also not possible to travel backwards in time. This is just someone playing a prank on us.”

He nods and turns his attention back to the road unfolding in front of them. As they get closer, the highway narrows to two lanes lined with bare trees. Finally, they turn off onto a dirt road, eventually reaching a tall, barbed wire fence with a guardpost outside. In the distance, he can see the radar tower from his file.

A uniformed officer leans out of the post to inspect their vehicle. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI,” Mulder says as he shows his badge. “We received a phone call that there’s a young man here asking to speak with us.”

“One moment,” he says.

As the guard goes back inside his post and picks up a phone, Mulder turns to Scully. “Doesn’t seem so decommissioned after all?” he asks with a smile.

Before she can respond, the guard turns his attention back to them. “They’re bringing him out now.”

“We can’t enter the base?” Mulder asks.

“No sir,” the guard says. “This area is restricted to authorized personnel only. The person who asked for you, we would have arrested him ourselves for trespassing if the bureau wasn’t taking care of it.”

Mulder doesn’t add that the FBI hasn’t sanctioned any of the day’s activity. He convinced Scully to claim they were responding to a missing person report when they requested their travel expenses, but they didn’t elaborate on where this person had gone missing from—or who he claimed to be.

“We can’t come in and take a look around?” Mulder presses. “We’ve been told this man has appeared under mysterious circumstances and it would assist with our investigation.”

The guard shakes his head gruffly. On the other side of the gate, another military officer approaches escorting a younger man in handcuffs. As they get closer, Mulder feels a shock of recognition. The handcuffed man could pass for him in his Oxford days. They share the same long, lean frame, bulbous nose, and angular jawline. He feels Scully turning toward him but he can’t take his eyes off this young man. Once they reach the gate, the guard enters the post and presses a button to open it just wide enough for the office and the young man to pass through. The military officer pushes the handcuffed man in front of him towards Mulder and Scully’s rental car.

“You want him cuffed?” he asks.

“Um, no,” Scully says absently, her mind working to process what she sees.

The young man is smiling at them now as if he recognizes them. In his eyes, Mulder sees Scully’s bright blue irises.

“Whatever,” the officer says. He unlocks the handcuffs and guides the young man into the backseat of the car. “Now you all need to get out of here. Authorized personnel only.”

“We’ve heard,” Mulder says, although he’s looking at the young man’s face in the rear view mirror and not at the officer. He’s cataloging his features, assigning some to Scully and some to himself. The resemblance is uncanny.

As Mulder turns the car around and starts pulling away their passenger exclaims, “This is crazy! You guys look so young!”

“I’m sorry,” Scully says. “Do we know you?”

“Mom, it’s me, it’s William,” he says, confused. “Oh shit, it’s 1993. I don’t exist yet. But listen, it’s me, William, your son. Mom, you’re a doctor, you have two brothers, Bill and Charlie, and had—have—a sister, Melissa. Your mom’s name is Maggie and your father’s name is Bill. Dad, you had a sister Samantha who went missing when you were a kid. Your parents are Teena and Bill. You two used to—well I guess, as of now, still do—work at the FBI investigating paranormal cases in the X-Files department.”

“This is all public information,” Scully says, although Mulder can hear the doubt creeping into her usually confident delivery. “You could have researched us. We don’t have a child together.”

“No, not yet you don’t,” he says. “I’m not surprised you don’t believe me. But I can prove it. You can do a DNA test, right? Wait, can you do a DNA test in 1993?”

“Yes, I can do that. And I’m confident that the results will prove that you’re lying.”

“Look, I have pictures of the three of us together on my phone. Shit, I don’t have my phone with me.”

“You have pictures on a phone?” Scully asks doubtfully.

William falls quiet in the backseat. Mulder catches his sad eyes in the mirror.

“Let’s go somewhere we can talk and figure this out,” Mulder says.

Back on the highway, they find a chrome-sided diner. Mulder and Scully secure a booth while William excuses himself to use the bathroom.

Mulder can only sit and grin dumbfoundedly at Scully.

“What?” Scully asks, exacerbated.

“You see it, don’t you?” He asks. “You have to admit the resemblance is undeniable.”

“It’s the power of suggestion,” she counters angrily. “We were told he was our son, so we’re looking for similarities. If anything, this could be a setup. Maybe someone found this guy, who looks a little bit like both of us, and is using him to lure us into something.”

“That doesn’t add up. They’d have to be assuming we would believe in this whole time travel angle as well.”

“Mulder,” she sighs. “You do believe William, or whoever he is, traveled back in time.”

“I’m not ready to rule it out,” he replies. “You’ll do the DNA test. That’ll give us some answers. Let’s hear what he has to say in the meantime.”

From across the diner Mulder sees William emerging from the restroom. “Your parents are right down at that end, hun,” a waitress tells him, pointing in their general direction.

Mulder glances at Scully and she rolls her eyes.

William slides into the booth across from them, still smiling wide, with Scully’s blue eyes lit up on his face.

“I can’t believe this,” he says with excitement in this voice. “You guys used to tell me about going to all these random diners while you were on the road for cases and now I’m getting to see it myself. How long have you two been working together now? Did you find Tooms yet? That was one of your first cases, right?”

“Slow down,” Scully says. “We need you to tell us who you are and where you came from.”

William laughs. “I feel like I should be the one asking you two that,” he says playfully.

“Give us the benefit of the doubt here, William,” Mulder says.

“Okay, well, where do I start? I’m your son, William Scully Mulder, I was born on May 20, 2001. I’m currently a research intern at CERN in Geneva. You two were actually supposed to come visit me today—well, 2023 today. I was assisting this physicist with an experiment on the large hadron collider when all of a sudden things got hazy and I came to in some sort of tunnel at that military base you picked me up from.”

“The large what?” Mulder asks.

“The large hadron collider,” Scully answers. “It’s a particle accelerator but it doesn’t exist. International scientists have proposed plans for its development, but right now the only particle accelerator at CERN is the large electron–positron collider.”

“Yeah,” William nods. “But the LEP was dismantled like 20 years ago to make room for the LHC, which is magnitudes more powerful. Mom, you’ll love this. They discovered the Higgs boson in 2012.”

He’s interrupted by the waitress who comes to take their order.

Scully starts to speak but William reaches out his hand to stop her.

“Watch,” he says. “I know what you want. Mom, you probably think the crispy chicken sandwich sounds good but you’ll order the Greek salad, no feta cheese, with dressing on the side. Dad, you’re going to get the Reuben with fries. And two black coffees.”

Mulder turns to glance at Scully, befuddled.

“Sounds like your kid’s got you down pat,” the waitress says. “And what about you, young man?”

“Um, I’ll have the crispy chicken sandwich—you can have a bite, mom—and an iced tea.”

As the waitress walks away, William asks, “Do you believe me now? Dad, you probably have a bag of sunflower seeds in your pocket that you’ll snack on before the food comes.”

Mulder laughs, pulling out an opened bag of seeds. William reaches over and takes one, opening the shell with his teeth, mirroring the movement Mulder knows he does himself.

“Well, before we eat, I’d like to take a sample of your saliva for a DNA test,” says Scully. “You can take a lucky guess on our lunch orders but genetics don’t lie.”

As she opens her briefcase to get testing swabs and evidence bags, Mulder sees a look of resigned disappointment flash across William’s face. It’s as if he’s sad Scully won’t believe him, but also not surprised.

“May I?” Scully asks, pointing an elongated Q-tip in William’s direction. “Just a cheek swab.”

He nods and opens his mouth, letting Scully get a sample of his saliva and zip it into an evidence bag. She does the same for Mulder, and then herself, before packing all three plastic bags into her briefcase.

“I can drop these off at the nearest field office and have them start sequencing the DNA.”

“Why don’t you tell us how you think you got here,” Mulder says.

“I told you,” William starts impatiently. “I was working on the collider with Dr. Bellona—wait, shit, it must have been Dr. Bellona.”

Mulder and Scully stare at him in confusion.

“He’s a physicist at CERN,” William continues. “His office is next door to Dr. Farber who I actually work for, but he called me in last night to assist on a project. That’s kind of weird, for an intern to work directly on the LHC, but it’s not even the weirdest part. Dad, you’re going to love this.”

Mulder leans in across the table. He can’t help but feel drawn to William’s energy.

“When I was coming back from work yesterday it was just getting dark and I saw Dr. Bellona outside this statue near my apartment. It’s a big statue of the Hindu god Shiva. And Bellona wasn’t alone. He was with about a dozen other people and leading them in a chant. I couldn’t make out any of the words but I also saw he was scattering something on the ground as he chanted. And I kind of stopped to look because it seemed so odd, and then Bellona saw me and he gave me this ice-cold stare. It was kind of creepy, actually. Then, just a couple of hours later, he calls me in to assist on an LHC run. That’s strange, right?”

Mulder looks over at Scully, her brow furrowed as she tries to make sense of the story.

“Did you tell anyone what you saw?” Mulder asks.

“Just Hannah, but she wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Who’s Hannah?” Scully asks.

William’s about to answer when the waitress comes and sets their plates down in front of them. He waits for her to walk away to continue.

“She’s, um, my friend, and my roommate. We went to MIT together and we both got internships at CERN. She’s the best. You guys met her last summer, and you really liked her. And like I said, she didn’t tell anyone about the Bellona thing. We were together the whole time in between me seeing him and when he called.”

“So you suspect this Dr. Bellona caught you witnessing something you weren’t supposed to see and then, to keep you quiet, sent you back in time?” Scully asks hesitantly.

“It’s possible,” he says.

“It’s really not,” Scully responds wearily.

WIlliam shrugs and takes a sip of his iced tea. “I know it sounds crazy, but dad, back me up here. You must’ve heard about something like this happening before. Maybe in one of your cases?”

“Physicists have theorized about wormholes and time loops—” Mulder starts.

“Yeah, of course, like Stephen Hawking,” William interrupts. “He said the possibility of time travel was more likely than the existence of God. And mom, didn’t you even write about it in your senior thesis?”

Mulder smiles and turns toward Scully. “That’s what I said, mom,” he says.

“Well, as I explained to Agent Mulder, time travel is only a theory, and even if it were somehow possible, the human body wouldn’t be able to withstand the extreme forces and temperatures that would be required to create a transversable wormhole and manipulate space-time.”

“And yet, here I am.”

Mulder makes eye contact with William from across the table. William flashes a smirk at him that, if it didn’t come from a face with Scully’s eyes, could be like looking in a mirror.

“How old is this Dr. Bellona?” he asks William.

“I don’t know,” he says in between bites of his sandwich. “Probably around your age, 60-something.”

Scully stifles a laugh.

“Well,” says Mulder. “Then he must be around our age now, too. Maybe we can track him down and see if he plans on creating a time machine thirty years from now. Any idea where he might be in 1993?”

“I don’t know,” William says. “He’s American, which narrows it down a little. I know that’s not much, but it’s not all that common at CERN so at least we’ll be sticking within your jurisdiction.”

He holds out his half-eaten sandwich to Scully. “It’s really good, mom. You sure you don’t want a bite?”

Mulder watches as she squints at William, then slowly reaches out to take the sandwich. He winks at William who smiles back.

[conflictofthemind]

Whenever I mention Montauk, I need to re-iterate that Will drew the rainbow ship. Will has memories of Project Rainbow / Project Philadelphia and the USS Eldridge that he should not have because that happened in 1943 and the amount that this goes under the radar drives me nuts!!! In a show where the basis of this lore is that time travel and body swapping events happened at the event of the USS Eldridge's disappearance! And Will is involved!!

[henrysglock]

Hi! You said I could ask you questions if I had any (I’m sure you explain stuff I’m about to ask in other posts but I don’t have the time to go through alll of them rn SORRY IF IT FEELS REPETITIVE TO EXPLAIN)

So I read your big timeloop post (super super cool post btw LIKE OMGGG MY BRAIN IS BRRING) and you mentioned some stuff that I don’t rlly know about (guessing it’s TFS stuff) anyways! I wanna know what you’re talking about because I wanna make sure I fully understand everything you’re talking about. And I’m sure I could look some of this up but I’d prefer hearing your thoughts/personal takes on it because it helps me understand stuff better

Anyways I was wondering if you could explain more about “The Attack on Mr Newby” ? As well as tell me what we know about Brenners dad so far? you explained quite a bit of it in that post- I’m not sure if you covered it all, and sense Brenners dad seems to have to do quite a bit with his motives I wanna know as much as I can abt him

ALSO whose inmate 58361 and what purpose did they have in the story? Was it just someone Henry killed to appease the MF?

Okay yes!! Absolutely. Buckle in. So the attack on Mr. Newby was an event in The First Shadow. Patty and Henry are in the Creel attic using his powers to search for her mother. Midway through, the Mindflayer attacks and possesses Henry/puts him into a vision. Hearing Patty's distress, Mr. Newby comes up to help. He ends up being the target of Henry's powers (while he's possessed, much the same as it was with Prancer earlier on). Although Henry fights the Mindflayer off (with some help from Definitely Not Patty), Mr. Newby loses his eys and breaks several bones falling through the attic floor after he's dropped when the possession connection is severed. He later tells Patty, who was completely convinced that Henry did all of that of his own accord out of malice, that she has to save Henry from the Mindflayer because he was fighting it/it wasn't his fault at all.

All we know about Brenner's dad is that he was the captain of the USS Eldridge, which was the ship in the Philadelphia Experiment. It vanished into Dimension X when our Brenner turned 15 (October of 1943...yes, on our Brenner's birthday), and Captain Brenner was the sole survivor. He returned to our dimension with an altered blood type (the same weird blood type Henry has...which sounds like a development that came about when he went missing in a Nevada cave system about a year before moving to Hawkins, around the same time that he began having hallucinations and violent tendencies from the Mindflayer) that caused his body to reject all transfusions of normal blood types. We're not given a reason that the blood type changes after exposure to Dimension X, just that it happens. Captain Brenner told our Brenner everything he knew about Dimension X, and succumbed to his injuries shortly after. Evidently, our Brenner didn't like his father very much, given that Captain Brenner tells us that our Brenner told him he hates him. However, Captain Brenner's disappearance and death is, supposedly, our Brenner's motivation irt Henry and the lab kids: Finding someone who will let him into Dimension X so he can solve the mystery of what, exactly, happened to his father.

Inmate 58361 was a prisoner that Brenner brought in for Henry to "feed" on, since he surmised that Henry gains strength from killing Vecna-style after hearing about the animals. Henry refuses to hurt 58361, and Brenner makes a pitch at him about how animals can't consent to testing the way people in the prison system could. Fucked up, huh? Anyway, all this happens after Henry agrees to break out of HNL to meet Patty at the school play so they can run away from Brenner together. Henry, still resistant to Brenner's demands that he kill and worked up by Brenner's psychological tormenting (the hollering, the insults, the Everything), lashes out to escape. 58361 gets caught in the crossfire as Henry goes after Brenner and the guards (though mind you—Henry stops short of killing Brenner or the guards, despite EVERYTHING). 58361's eyes go, which we can see in the bloodstains on the sack over his head when the attack happens. This makes him super important, because it shows that Henry's natural killing style is not Vecna-style. It's actually far more similar to El's style that we see in ST1 with Connie and the lab goons, which has major implications about what we see in the massacre irt One's kill-style. tl;dr: 58361 was meant, by Brenner, to be a food sacrifice to the Mindflayer/Henry. Henry refuses to kill him, but ends up hurting him by accident while trying to free himself from the lab.

Whew. LOTS of stuff. Saw the play 4 times in person (and like 5 more times on tape...for legal reasons this is a joke) and it's STILL a lot to take in especially when it comes to fitting it into filmed canon.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

Philadelphia Experiment, UFOS?

According to legend, on Oct. 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer escort, was conducting top-secret experiments designed to win command of the oceans against the Axis powers. The rumor was that the government was creating technology that would render naval ships invisible to enemy radar, and there in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, it was time to test it out.

Witnesses claim an eerie green-blue glow surrounded the hull of the ship as her generators spun up and then, suddenly, the Eldridge disappeared. The ship was then seen in Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.

The legend states that classified military documents reported that the Eldridge crew were affected by the events in disturbing ways. Some went insane. Others developed mysterious illness. But others still were said to have been fused together with the ship; still alive, but with limbs sealed to the metal.

Carl M. Allen, who went by the pseudonym, Carlos Miguel Allende. In 1956, Allende sent a series of letters to Morris K. Jessup, author of the book, “The Case for the UFO,” in which he argued that unidentified flying objects merit further study.

Jessup apparently included text about unified field theory because this is what Allende latched onto for his correspondences. In the 1950s, unified field theory, which has never been proven, attempted to merge Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. In fact, Allende claimed to have been taught by Einstein himself and could prove the unified field theory based on events he witnessed on Oct. 28, 1943.

Allende claimed that he saw the Eldridge disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and he further insisted that the United States military had conducted what he called the Philadelphia Experiment — and was trying to cover it up.

Jessup was then contacted by the Navy's Office of Naval Research, which had received a package containing Jessup's book with annotations claiming that extra-terrestrial technology allowed the U.S. government to make breakthroughs in unified field theory.

This is one of the weirdest details. The annotations were designed to look like they were written by three different authors -- one maybe extra-terrestrial? According to Vallee's article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jessup became obsessed with Allende's revelations, and the disturbed researcher took his own life in 1959. 

[bylerposting]

12 year old Will Byers in the vents of the USS Eldridge while the entire crew is brutally massacred by a demogorgon

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Philadelphia Experiment, UFOS?

According to legend, on Oct. 28, 1943, the USS Eldridge, a Cannon-class destroyer escort, was conducting top-secret experiments designed to win command of the oceans against the Axis powers. The rumor was that the government was creating technology that would render naval ships invisible to enemy radar, and there in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, it was time to test it out.

Witnesses claim an eerie green-blue glow surrounded the hull of the ship as her generators spun up and then, suddenly, the Eldridge disappeared. The ship was then seen in Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia before disappearing again and reappearing back in Philadelphia.

The legend states that classified military documents reported that the Eldridge crew were affected by the events in disturbing ways. Some went insane. Others developed mysterious illness. But others still were said to have been fused together with the ship; still alive, but with limbs sealed to the metal.

Carl M. Allen, who went by the pseudonym, Carlos Miguel Allende. In 1956, Allende sent a series of letters to Morris K. Jessup, author of the book, “The Case for the UFO,” in which he argued that unidentified flying objects merit further study.

Jessup apparently included text about unified field theory because this is what Allende latched onto for his correspondences. In the 1950s, unified field theory, which has never been proven, attempted to merge Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity with electromagnetism. In fact, Allende claimed to have been taught by Einstein himself and could prove the unified field theory based on events he witnessed on Oct. 28, 1943.

Allende claimed that he saw the Eldridge disappear from the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and he further insisted that the United States military had conducted what he called the Philadelphia Experiment — and was trying to cover it up.

Jessup was then contacted by the Navy's Office of Naval Research, which had received a package containing Jessup's book with annotations claiming that extra-terrestrial technology allowed the U.S. government to make breakthroughs in unified field theory.

This is one of the weirdest details. The annotations were designed to look like they were written by three different authors -- one maybe extra-terrestrial? According to Vallee's article for the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Jessup became obsessed with Allende's revelations, and the disturbed researcher took his own life in 1959. 

[willbyersabyss]

The Upside Down is Will's Mindscape REVISED

I've been wanting to make a revised version of this theory to fit the updated canon so here it is! Most of this is a repeat of what I said in parts one and two (and three but I'm disowning her), but there’s a lot of new stuff too!

Dimension X is the origin of the democreatures, the Mind Flayer, and the powers. Gates to this dimension have been opened since 1943 when the USS Eldridge disappeared thanks to government experiments. El opened one of those gates in 1979. Then in 1983, she opened a gate to somewhere else. A different place to the dimension already explored for decades. This caused elements and monsters from Dimension X to spill over into this new dimension. So what is the Upside Down?

I think it's Will's mindscape.

Why do I think it's a mindscape in the first place?

When El entered Billy's mind, a huge red storm was visible from the beach memory. When the Mind Flayer/Vecna is in someone's mind, his mindscape combines with theirs, leaving his red storm behind. If this storm is from Vecna's mind, why is that storm in the Upside Down?

As El goes further into Billy's mind, she ends up at the place where he got flayed. This location is like a snapshot of that night. There's also a swirling red storm above it that creates a funnel. In the UD, the bats and Vecna's red storm spin in a circular motion above his house, just like Billy's Mind Flayer storm.

In Vecna's mindscape, he has his victims strung up on the pillars. This is identical to the makeshift graveyard in the UD library. His mind is also a snapshot of the broken Creel house due to lifelong possession. Billy and Vecna's minds are stuck in their traumatic memories and so is the Upside Down. The UD is stuck on the day Will went missing, Will's most traumatic memory.

Vecna's mindscape is overrun with vines for the same reason. In TFS, we find out Henry was possessed by the Mind Flayer. The vines come from Dimension X, so his mind mirrors these characteristics because it's corrupted. This is why the Upside Down has the vines. When El opened the gate, she connected Dimension X with someone's mindscape, causing the vines to spread throughout their mind.

The spores that infest the UD are especially interesting to me. Spores are not a characteristic of Dimension X or Vecna's mind. They're only from the UD. So why do the spores appear in both Max and Billy's mindscapes when they're being attacked? Unless there's another mind combining with theirs...

And then there's the fact that psychic contact opens gates to the Upside Down. Why would that occur? So a psychic connection with someone's mind opens a gate to... a random dimension? Nuh uh. It has to be a mindscape!

The first gate to Dimension X was opened using technological equipment, not psychic contact. Even El's Dimension X gate didn't use psychic contact. There's a difference for a reason! The Upside Down needs psychic contact to reach. But wait, the Russia gate! We'll get to that later...

They literally refer to the Upside Down as a brain multiple times as well. "If the brain dies, the body dies." It would make perfect sense for the Mind Flayer to call a mindscape its home.

And my favorite piece of evidence: Music opened a gate to the Upside Down not once, but twice.

To be fair, the second gate may have been opened by El when she connected Will to the radio. The thing that makes me think otherwise, though is the thumping sound in that scene. It sounds like it started before El reached him. Will was trying to get through the gate. El contacted Will through radios several times with no gates as a result, so why is this one different? It was the music.

What was the reasoning behind music saving them from Vecna again?

Music can reach parts of the brain that words can't... right. So why would music open gates to the Upside Down? Music is reaching into someone's brain! That dimension is a mindscape. But whose?

Will! Will! Will! The music need to have significant meaning to the listener. Should I Stay or Should I Go is consistently shown to have significant meaning to Will. They give us an entire flashback emphasizing it's importance! So a meaningful song to Will just happens to open a random gate? Unlikely. It was Will's lifeline out of his mindscape.

Vecna's red mind storm didn't appear in the UD in s1. It wasn't until Will's possession that the UD was taken over by this storm. Why is there a correlation between the storm forming in the UD and Will's possession? The UD is his mind. Will still feels the Mind Flayer and the storm haunts the UD after the particles were exorcised from him. This is because the Mind Flayer resides in his mind.

Multiple movies the writers named as inspiration support that the UD is a mindscape:

Peter Pan: In the original Peter Pan novel, Neverland is a map of a child's mind, or a dreamland

The Neverending Story: Fantasia is a physical manifestation of imagination

Alice in Wonderland: Wonderland is a dreamland

The Wizard of Oz: Oz is a dream

There are probably more movies with similar concepts on the inspo boards, but these are just the ones I've seen! Maybe these dreamlands clue us into the origin of the UD. The Neverending Story has been inspiration for ST since s1, with Will being a direct reference to Bastian, the creator of Fantasia. Why compare these characters at all? Will has also made a world through his imagination.

This fits extremely well with Will's characterization. We constantly see Will trying to hang onto DnD because he uses the game as escapism. DnD is literally an imagination game! In s3, we never really see the UD. This is the same season where Will fails to use his imagination because his friends deem it childish. It's connected! We don't see Will's imagination land because he's losing grasp of it.

This also explains how Will was able to shadow walk in s2. It's easy for him to slip into the UD because it's his mindscape. If now-memories and shadow walking were symptoms of possession, Billy would have experienced it too, but he didn’t. Will is special. Will even felt the Mind Flayer in his neck BEFORE it possessed him. Why would he feel it before possession? It was already in his mind.

I haven't seen TFS myself so this is based on what other people said happened, but when Henry was controlled by the Mind Flayer, the smoke would be spinning around in the void. Weird how Will's Mind Flayer influence was shown in the UD, not the void.

Yeah, you could say that Will’s visions in s2 were just visions, not the real UD, but I beg to differ.

And Owens would agree with me. He asked if Will felt cold to the touch when he was in his episode. Why would he feel cold during a vision? It was pretty obvious Will meant that he felt scared... unless Owens knows more than he lets on. He knows that the Upside Down is Will's mind. That's why he asked. That's also why after watching his men fix the UD communication, he went to rewatch Will's tapes.

Speaking of other people in the UD, wouldn't Will be able to tell when people venture there if it's his mind? Nope! Max couldn't tell El was in her mind until she flung Vecna across the room. Will probably can't feel them either. Ok but wouldn't Will feel the burn? Also nope! The vines in the UD are not from there, they're from Dimension X, so Will needs to be connected to the hive mind to feel their pain. The UD is just the background, not the hive mind. Oh and that whole hive mind thing is another UD-mind comparison.

Back to Owens, he said that the anniversary of Will's disappearance opens up neurological floodgates. Gates? Meanwhile, the giant gate downstairs is getting bigger and leaking out into the world. Yeah. He knew.

Now I need to talk about the VR game for a second. I'm not sure how canon this game is to the show, but I'm going to cover it just to be safe. Considering Jamie Campbell Bower did voice acting for it, I'm guessing a good chunk is canon. It has A LOT of proof for this theory. Like a lot. But still take it with a grain of salt since the game doesn't align 100% with the show.

Here's a link to the gameplay I watched (I skipped around but still)

The VR game is about Vecna wandering around mindscapes. Creatures from Dimension X seem to be infesting these mindscapes and the player has to fight them off. Interesting. So democreatures can go into minds? Dimension X critters wandered into the UD when El made the connection! The UD could very well be a mindscape.

There's a point in the game where Vecna reaches at Will's head and claims him as his own. This transitions into Vecna being inside the UD version of the Wheeler house. It's implied that he went into Will's mind. So he went into Will's mind and ended up in the UD. Which could mean nothing.

Then he goes even further into Will's mind to possess him. There, he sees Castle Byers with spores around it. Not the UD Castle Byers, the real world one. Will's void is the only one that has spores. A few other minds like Alice Creel and the demogorgon have floaty things, but they're more green and glowy, so I don't think they're the same thing. Spores are the staple of Will's mind.

As I said before, the spores are not present in Dimension X or Vecna's mind, so these are solely Will's. And they're in the UD. But why would Will have spores in his mindscape?

Joyce mentioned in s1 that Will loves Christmas. This is important enough that the season ended with the Byers celebrating the holiday. So what if Will tried to imitate Christmas by making it snow? Even Holly mixed the two up! Vecna may have taken this and put a dark twist on it, making the snow into diseased spores. This would tie into the stigma around gay men at the time because of the AIDS crisis. Vecna made Will's mind diseased to reflect his internalized homophobia.

Vecna's first glance at Will in this game prompts him to believe Will is the key. Alexei described the machine that opens gates as the key. Will is the key, he is related to the gates.

Will is the one to say they're going to miss the opening. The opening of the gate! The Russians just happened to open the gate once Will got to the mall. Were they waiting for him? They passed through a huge crowd of people, it's possible that one of the Russian spies were watching. They knew they had to be in Hawkins for the gate to properly open. Will being near was the key. The scene Will is watching here is a dream sequence, yet another Upside Down dream link. Later on when Alexei says that the door is opening, they cut to this scene of Will. Will is an important piece of the equation.

So while there was a gate opened using technological equipment, they still needed Will for this to be done.

That begs the question, why does the Upside Down only sit beneath Hawkins? Why couldn't they open a gate in Russia? A gate to Dimension X was accessed in the middle of the ocean in 1943 and was also opened in Nevada. The Upside Down is different... they need Hawkins. Why? Let's ask Mike.

Right... Hawkins isn't the same without Will!

Will's mindscape is bound to Hawkins. When El opened the gate, it altered his mind and made it stuck there. This is why Will doesn't feel Vecna until he gets to Hawkins. The giant gates didn't rain spores for two days, but when Will is there, they suddenly start. He's even warned before it happens!

I think Will's distance from his Hawkins-bound mindscape is the reason for his forgotten memories (birthdaygate). He's losing himself and the others are losing him too. He goes fairly unnoticed in Lenora. No new friends, Jonathan drifts away, Joyce is less protective, Mike never calls. He didn't even become a target for bullying even though he's visibly gay and friends with El (the new "weird" girl). It's like he's invisible. This may be symbolizing how a piece of him is missing.

There was a scene in TFS where Brenner was able to use equipment to see into Henry’s mind and from there, he could see Dimension X. Since I haven’t seen the scene myself I’m not sure how exactly it went down, but if it means what I think it means, Brenner used Henry’s mind as a bridge to reach Dimension X. It doesn’t feel crazy to assume the UD works the same way!

And I think that's what the whole “blue meets yellow” thing was about. Dimension X is the yellow dimension, the Upside Down is blue. There's probably a border where these dimensions meet. They meet in the west! The west is where Will is (California) and where a Dimension X gate was previously opened (Nevada). The UD is spreading to Will.

This is what Dustin says on the other side when they're messing with the lights (a Will creation btw). Interesting how he compares the mind attacks to crossing dimensions. Mindscapes are other dimensions!

There's emphasis on this being just like Mother Gate... but is it really? El wasn't in the demogorgon's mind, she just poked it from the outside. Unless it was the same and El entered someone's mind.

The name Mother Gate has a lot of implications, one being El's mother. Terry Ives' mind is stuck in a memory loop. Perhaps the Mother Gate title hints at the owner of the Upside Down suffering the same fate. Very convenient that Will's kidnapping parallels Terry's entire memory sequence (see here).

Speaking of stuck memories, this relates to my theory that Will has creation powers and time traveled through memories (read here). Why would Will have the power to create objects in the UD? Where did it come from? Well if the UD is his mind, we have our answer. There's clearly some form of creation power in these mindscapes and Will harnessed this power by memory hopping in s1. Now it's stuck in his memories. And because of an incident, his mindscape is physical, so these creations are real.

So what happened exactly? How did El open a gate to Will's mind?

We're led to believe that contact with the demogorgon is what opened the gate to the Upside Down, but did it really? In that scene, El touches the demogorgon, it roars at her, she's pulled out of the void, and THAT'S when the gate opens. There's a few seconds between the contact and the gate. So what if something else happened that we didn't see?

The demogorgon was eating an egg when El touched it. This egg is found right outside of Castle Byers in the UD. Coincidence? When Hopper finds this egg, it’s almost like he's in a trance. Then he gets interrupted by Joyce screaming Will's name over a destroyed Castle Byers. El was in a trance-like state, then the demogorgon screamed at her, much like this scene of Hopper and Joyce. What if this is hinting at El connecting with Will after touching the demogorgon?

Maybe when the demogorgon screamed, it startled El, and she overshot her contact. Will could have been inside Castle Byers in the real world, next to the demogorgon on the other side. El ripped a tear through the real world, Will's mind, all the way to Dimension X where the demogorgon was. This made Will's mindscape a physical location. (I made a longer post about El thumping Will’s head here!)

Will was then targeted by Vecna because of this connection. Think about it! Why are there such heavy implications that Will was in a Vecna vision that night, only for him to be taken to the UD? That place is his mind.

So there you have it, all the reasons why I think the UD is Will’s mindscape. If you want to read more little tidbits about this theory, check out the Will's Mind Theory tag!