WEBVTT 00:00:01.520 --> 00:00:04.299 What if I told you the government tore open a 00:00:04.299 --> 00:00:07.099 hole in time and sent young guns right through 00:00:07.099 --> 00:00:12.060 it? Not just stories neither Folks say it happened 00:00:12.060 --> 00:00:15.439 under a rotten radar tower up in Montauk, New 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:18.739 York Said there's tunnels down there where men 00:00:18.739 --> 00:00:22.260 twisted mines like wire Wiped memories clean 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:25.920 and made people vanish like fog at first light 00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:30.780 Most call it fiction, but some Some still wake 00:00:30.780 --> 00:00:34.179 up sweating, remembering metal rooms and voices 00:00:34.179 --> 00:00:37.380 that weren't their own. They say the Montauk 00:00:37.380 --> 00:00:41.159 Project was real, and what happened down there, 00:00:41.479 --> 00:00:46.840 it weren't natural. Welcome to Kentucky Melodies 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:50.479 America's Scariest Stories, where we bring you 00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:54.320 ghostly legends, spooky haints, and bone -chilling 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:58.420 tales from all over this great land. These stories 00:00:58.420 --> 00:01:00.600 will have you looking over your shoulder all 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:04.459 night, so pull up a chair, dim them lights, and 00:01:04.459 --> 00:01:10.060 let's dive into the eerie and unexplained. Our 00:01:10.060 --> 00:01:12.959 tale winds its way up to the far edge of Long 00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:17.359 Island, New York, quiet little place called Montauk, 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:20.739 where the sea's always crashing and the wind 00:01:20.739 --> 00:01:24.379 never quite settles. Tucked into them woods, 00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:28.280 just past where the tourists stop, stands an 00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:32.480 old wartime relic folks call Camp Hero. Built 00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:35.620 back in the days of World War II, they say it 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:39.079 was meant to guard the coastline. And from a 00:01:39.079 --> 00:01:42.140 distance it still looks like just that, a forgotten 00:01:42.140 --> 00:01:47.180 base. Sidewalks busted up like old bones, a radar 00:01:47.180 --> 00:01:50.359 tower reaching into the sky but long since stopped 00:01:50.359 --> 00:01:53.900 spinning, doors rusted over and chained like 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:56.480 they're keeping something in rather than out. 00:01:56.840 --> 00:02:00.900 But ask around, and you'll hear a different tale. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:06.920 The locals, they whisper, always have. They say 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:10.699 that place ain't empty at all. That deep beneath 00:02:10.699 --> 00:02:13.740 them, crumbling towers and weeds, there's a hidden 00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:17.060 world carved into the bedrock. An underground 00:02:17.060 --> 00:02:20.180 maze where dark things happened. Things that 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:24.039 was never meant for daylight. Experiments, secrets, 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:28.509 horrors. Even Congress never caught wind of and 00:02:28.509 --> 00:02:31.810 the fella who spilled them secrets He claimed 00:02:31.810 --> 00:02:35.009 he weren't just telling stories. He said he worked 00:02:35.009 --> 00:02:39.310 down there in the belly of the beast Come the 00:02:39.310 --> 00:02:43.250 1980s a man by the name of Preston Nichols stepped 00:02:43.250 --> 00:02:46.129 out of the shadows with a tail that rattled folks 00:02:46.129 --> 00:02:50.210 to their core Said he'd started remembering things 00:02:50.210 --> 00:02:55.180 dark things buried deep in his mind claimed he'd 00:02:55.180 --> 00:02:57.979 worked on secret projects beneath Camp Hero, 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:01.080 where the government weren't just playing with 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:04.400 people's thoughts, they was tearing holes in 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:08.340 time itself. Preston said them scientists was 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:11.620 using what the CIA cooked up in that MK Ultra 00:03:11.620 --> 00:03:16.500 mess, mind control, LSD, all that, but taking 00:03:16.500 --> 00:03:19.479 it a whole step further. They weren't just bending 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:23.979 minds, they was bending reality. talking teleportation, 00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:26.919 thought projection, folks disappearing into thin 00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:30.819 air like they was never born. Then another fella, 00:03:31.259 --> 00:03:34.659 Al Belek, came forward with a story that tied 00:03:34.659 --> 00:03:37.840 it all together like something out of Fever Dream. 00:03:38.699 --> 00:03:41.419 Said what happened at Montauk was connected to 00:03:41.419 --> 00:03:46.740 an older experiment way back in 1943. The Navy 00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:49.460 tried to make a warship vanish, but it didn't 00:03:49.460 --> 00:03:52.810 go like they planned. said some of them boys 00:03:52.810 --> 00:03:55.830 got melted right into the steel, screaming the 00:03:55.830 --> 00:03:59.710 whole way down. Al claimed he was on that ship, 00:04:00.289 --> 00:04:02.810 that he and his own brother jumped off in the 00:04:02.810 --> 00:04:05.990 middle of that madness, expecting to hit ocean, 00:04:06.569 --> 00:04:11.129 and instead landed in Montauk in the year 1983. 00:04:12.509 --> 00:04:15.810 Now you tell me, friend, if that ain't the stuff 00:04:15.810 --> 00:04:20.449 of nightmares, what is? Now, what Preston Nichols 00:04:20.449 --> 00:04:24.069 and Al Belek claimed happened under Camp Hero. 00:04:25.189 --> 00:04:28.209 Well, it'll make the hair on your neck stand 00:04:28.209 --> 00:04:31.250 straight up. They said them scientists weren't 00:04:31.250 --> 00:04:34.529 just studying brains, they were rewiring them. 00:04:35.290 --> 00:04:38.550 Sitting folks in dark rooms, strapping coils 00:04:38.550 --> 00:04:41.629 to their heads, then bathing their skulls in 00:04:41.629 --> 00:04:45.009 radio waves till thoughts started coming unglued. 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:48.620 They didn't want control over just a person's 00:04:48.620 --> 00:04:53.899 body. They wanted the mind. The soul. Said they 00:04:53.899 --> 00:04:56.339 could plant memories or tear them out clean like 00:04:56.339 --> 00:04:59.939 pulling a root. And the worst of it? They used 00:04:59.939 --> 00:05:03.519 children. Gifted ones. Ones that didn't show 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.639 up in no records. Took them from foster homes, 00:05:06.860 --> 00:05:09.600 poor families, anywhere they wouldn't be missed. 00:05:10.199 --> 00:05:12.480 Some of them could move objects without touching 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:15.740 them. Others could speak without using words, 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.439 and when they cried at night, the walls would 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:21.860 hum. Now, sitting right at the heart of it all 00:05:21.860 --> 00:05:24.259 was something they called the Montauk Chair. 00:05:24.939 --> 00:05:29.060 It weren't just a seat, it was a machine, a contraption 00:05:29.060 --> 00:05:32.459 hooked up to wires and amplifiers and God knows 00:05:32.459 --> 00:05:35.939 what else, and when certain folks sat in it, 00:05:36.259 --> 00:05:39.480 especially one boy they called Duncan, something 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:43.300 terrible happened. Said Duncan had a mind so 00:05:43.300 --> 00:05:45.560 powerful he could bring whatever he imagined 00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:49.399 into the real world If he dreamt up a monster, 00:05:49.420 --> 00:05:52.680 it didn't just stay in his head. It stepped into 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:58.600 the room full -grown real teeth real breath real 00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:02.819 hunger Some say that chair tore a hole in the 00:06:02.819 --> 00:06:07.000 air itself a shimmer like heat waves on pavement 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:11.029 But you could step through it And when you did, 00:06:11.649 --> 00:06:15.310 you weren't here no more. Folks called it a portal, 00:06:15.889 --> 00:06:19.449 a doorway through time and space. They said men 00:06:19.449 --> 00:06:21.850 and women walked through that rift and ended 00:06:21.850 --> 00:06:26.889 up years away, or somewhere else entirely. Some 00:06:26.889 --> 00:06:30.850 came back babbling, broken in the head. Most 00:06:30.850 --> 00:06:34.149 didn't come back at all. And it wasn't just time 00:06:34.149 --> 00:06:37.189 they was messing with. According to Preston, 00:06:37.339 --> 00:06:41.019 They wasn't working alone down there. No, sir. 00:06:41.579 --> 00:06:44.279 He swore the US government was talking to something 00:06:44.279 --> 00:06:48.160 else. Beings from beyond this world, cold -eyed 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:51.120 things that walked upright but weren't human. 00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:55.420 They traded secrets, gave knowledge, but every 00:06:55.420 --> 00:06:58.720 deal's got its price. And nobody ever said what 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:02.879 we gave in return. All of it, every experiment, 00:07:03.540 --> 00:07:06.610 every vanished soul. was part of what they called 00:07:06.610 --> 00:07:11.170 Operation Phoenix. A project so secret, even 00:07:11.170 --> 00:07:14.569 Congress didn't have eyes on it. They funneled 00:07:14.569 --> 00:07:18.029 black budget money into Camp Hero, hid it behind 00:07:18.029 --> 00:07:21.750 Cold War defense spending. Officially, it never 00:07:21.750 --> 00:07:26.310 existed. But underground, that place was alive 00:07:26.310 --> 00:07:29.009 with wires and screams and machines humming like 00:07:29.009 --> 00:07:32.509 they were breathing. And if even a shred of it's 00:07:32.509 --> 00:07:36.800 true, then Camp Hero wasn't just a base, it was 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:41.060 a wound in the world. Come the summer of 2008, 00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:44.259 something washed up on the sands near Montauk 00:07:44.259 --> 00:07:46.660 that folks still whisper about when the fire 00:07:46.660 --> 00:07:49.459 burns low. There weren't nothing you'd ever seen 00:07:49.459 --> 00:07:52.800 before, not even in the worst parts of the woods. 00:07:53.939 --> 00:07:57.759 I had no fur to speak of, just leathery gray 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.600 pink skin stretching too tight over a bloated 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:05.240 body. Its teeth looked wrong, sharp, jagged, 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:09.079 almost human in the way they set. Its claws was 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:12.459 long, too long, and the thing's face had this 00:08:12.459 --> 00:08:16.160 twisted snarl like it died angry. They called 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:20.500 it the Montauk Monster. The newspapers laughed, 00:08:21.060 --> 00:08:23.639 said it was a raccoon or maybe a dog bloated 00:08:23.639 --> 00:08:27.879 from the sea, but the old timers, the ones who 00:08:27.879 --> 00:08:32.039 grew up near Camp Hero, they didn't laugh. Not 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:35.700 once. They said that thing came from under the 00:08:35.700 --> 00:08:40.279 ground. That it weren't born, but built. Some 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:43.059 kind of experiment that clawed its way out through 00:08:43.059 --> 00:08:46.059 the tunnels and died gasping in the salt air. 00:08:46.820 --> 00:08:49.340 A mistake from the labs that weren't supposed 00:08:49.340 --> 00:08:52.480 to exist. But that weren't even the worst of 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:55.779 it. Preston Nichols talked about the last test 00:08:55.779 --> 00:08:59.559 they ever ran with the Montauk chair. By then... 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:02.559 They'd been using Duncan for months, sitting 00:09:02.559 --> 00:09:05.340 him in that chair, letting his thoughts take 00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:09.820 shape. But on that final day, something went 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:14.539 wrong, real wrong. He said Duncan's mind opened 00:09:14.539 --> 00:09:18.320 up like floodgates in a storm. Whatever they'd 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:22.919 kept bottled inside him, fear, rage, maybe just 00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:26.259 too many years of being used, came pouring out. 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:30.090 He didn't just imagine something that time. He 00:09:30.090 --> 00:09:33.809 birthed it. The beast he conjured wasn't no flesh 00:09:33.809 --> 00:09:38.070 and bone animal. It was shadow, hate, hunger. 00:09:38.950 --> 00:09:42.210 A shape too big to understand, with eyes like 00:09:42.210 --> 00:09:44.610 burning coals and a body that shimmered like 00:09:44.610 --> 00:09:48.929 heat waves off pavement. But it could touch things. 00:09:49.470 --> 00:09:52.669 It did touch things. It tore through the facility, 00:09:52.990 --> 00:09:56.129 smashed walls, crushed machinery like tin cans. 00:09:56.789 --> 00:10:00.009 Some say it killed people. Others say it never 00:10:00.009 --> 00:10:03.090 laid a hand on a soul just scared him half to 00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:07.429 death by being there and then it vanished not 00:10:07.429 --> 00:10:12.090 walked away not ran just Flickered out like it 00:10:12.090 --> 00:10:16.009 had never been but the damage was real Concrete 00:10:16.009 --> 00:10:19.350 busted wires ripped clean from the ceilings whole 00:10:19.350 --> 00:10:22.850 rooms collapsed After that they say the entire 00:10:22.850 --> 00:10:27.470 project was shut down on the spot sealed buried 00:10:27.799 --> 00:10:30.360 covered up with enough concrete to keep hell 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:34.500 itself from crawling back out. But, every now 00:10:34.500 --> 00:10:37.500 and then they say, folks hear a low hum near 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:40.860 Camp Hero, like the power's still running down 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:44.340 there. And sometimes, when the wind blows just 00:10:44.340 --> 00:10:46.860 right through the pines, you can hear something 00:10:46.860 --> 00:10:50.379 breathing beneath the ground. Now, this is where 00:10:50.379 --> 00:10:53.299 the trail starts twisting like a snake in tall 00:10:53.299 --> 00:10:58.220 grass. See, according to the US government, Camp 00:10:58.220 --> 00:11:02.259 Hero was nothing more than a radar station, just 00:11:02.259 --> 00:11:06.639 a Cold War relic left to rot. They claim there's 00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:10.220 no underground base, no experiments, not a single 00:11:10.220 --> 00:11:13.879 file to prove any of it ever happened. And on 00:11:13.879 --> 00:11:17.700 paper, they're right. Nothing official turns 00:11:17.700 --> 00:11:20.919 up. Just a few yellowed records and even them 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:24.740 are clean as a preacher's Sunday suit. But out 00:11:24.740 --> 00:11:29.009 there in Montauk, Folks ain't so sure. Some say 00:11:29.009 --> 00:11:31.690 if you stand near that old radar tower when the 00:11:31.690 --> 00:11:34.490 sky's heavy and the tide's just right, you'll 00:11:34.490 --> 00:11:38.710 hear it. A low hum, deep in the earth. Not the 00:11:38.710 --> 00:11:43.110 wind, not the waves. Something else. Mechanical. 00:11:43.870 --> 00:11:47.129 Alive. They've seen lights too, dancing through 00:11:47.129 --> 00:11:50.470 the trees long after midnight. Not flashlights 00:11:50.470 --> 00:11:54.590 neither. These lights float. Flicker. Vanish 00:11:54.590 --> 00:11:57.279 when you blink. Then there's the ones who dared 00:11:57.279 --> 00:12:01.039 go exploring. Urban explorers, they call them. 00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:05.500 Brave or stupid, maybe both. They've found sealed 00:12:05.500 --> 00:12:09.399 doors hidden behind brush, old concrete stairwells 00:12:09.399 --> 00:12:12.720 that vanish into the dirt, ventilation shafts 00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:16.700 that lead down into pitch black. One fella swore 00:12:16.700 --> 00:12:20.019 he found a hatch with a keypad, still beeping 00:12:20.019 --> 00:12:23.299 like it was waiting on a code. Said he turned 00:12:23.299 --> 00:12:26.110 around. and it was like the woods themselves 00:12:26.110 --> 00:12:29.470 had shifted. Took him three hours to find his 00:12:29.470 --> 00:12:33.870 way out. And for the skeptics, the ones who say 00:12:33.870 --> 00:12:38.070 it's all just talk? Well, Preston Nichols hooked 00:12:38.070 --> 00:12:42.009 himself up to a lie detector not once, but multiple 00:12:42.009 --> 00:12:47.769 times. And he passed. Every time. His heart never 00:12:47.769 --> 00:12:50.450 skipped when he talked about Duncan, about the 00:12:50.450 --> 00:12:54.440 chair, about the thing they let loose. Even some 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:58.120 researchers, real paper -pushing types, claim 00:12:58.120 --> 00:13:02.000 they dug up scraps of blueprints and files. Stuff 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:05.039 that hinted at mind -controlled trials and frequency 00:13:05.039 --> 00:13:08.059 tests, stamped with dates and signatures that 00:13:08.059 --> 00:13:11.960 line up awful close with what Nichols said. Funny 00:13:11.960 --> 00:13:16.320 thing is, all this got folks talking, got the 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:19.399 attention of some storytellers out West. And 00:13:19.399 --> 00:13:22.230 wouldn't you know it, a few years later, a little 00:13:22.230 --> 00:13:26.450 show called Stranger Things hit the screen. Hawkins 00:13:26.450 --> 00:13:30.450 Lab, government boys snatching kids, opening 00:13:30.450 --> 00:13:34.870 gates they couldn't close. Looks mighty familiar 00:13:34.870 --> 00:13:38.009 to anyone who's ever heard the name Montauk whispered 00:13:38.009 --> 00:13:43.029 on the wind. So, was the Montauk Project real? 00:13:43.610 --> 00:13:46.490 Or was it nothing more than Cold War jitters, 00:13:46.909 --> 00:13:49.950 bad dreams, and stories that took on a life of 00:13:49.950 --> 00:13:54.009 their own? Truth is, we may never know for sure. 00:13:54.629 --> 00:13:57.649 The paper trail's been scrubbed clean, the folks 00:13:57.649 --> 00:14:01.129 who talked, most of them either gone quiet or 00:14:01.129 --> 00:14:05.090 just gone. But when there's a rusted radar dish 00:14:05.090 --> 00:14:07.970 as big as a house sitting silent in the woods 00:14:07.970 --> 00:14:11.190 like it's waiting to wake up, when government 00:14:11.190 --> 00:14:14.850 projects get buried deeper than coal seams, and 00:14:14.850 --> 00:14:18.029 when folks from different walks of life, folks 00:14:18.029 --> 00:14:21.870 who never met... Start remembering the same horrors? 00:14:22.149 --> 00:14:25.750 Well, it makes a body wonder, because if even 00:14:25.750 --> 00:14:29.450 one sliver of this tale is true, then we cracked 00:14:29.450 --> 00:14:32.110 open a door that wasn't meant to be touched, 00:14:32.669 --> 00:14:36.529 and what came through it might still be out there. 00:14:37.490 --> 00:14:41.090 Now, I reckon it's your turn. What do you believe? 00:14:41.769 --> 00:14:45.710 Was Montauk a nest of time travel and mind control? 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:49.179 Or just an old ghost story wrapped in government 00:14:49.179 --> 00:14:53.179 shadows? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. 00:14:53.740 --> 00:14:57.299 We read every single one. And if you've ever 00:14:57.299 --> 00:15:00.659 been near Camp Hero or caught something strange 00:15:00.659 --> 00:15:03.779 out the corner of your eye, don't keep it to 00:15:03.779 --> 00:15:08.100 yourself. Be sure to like, subscribe, and tap 00:15:08.100 --> 00:15:10.980 that bell so you don't miss what's coming next. 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:14.379 We've got more tales stirring just beneath the 00:15:14.379 --> 00:15:19.090 surface. And remember, some secrets ain't buried. 00:15:19.690 --> 00:15:24.009 They're still broadcasting. This is Kentucky 00:15:24.009 --> 00:15:27.929 Melody, and something tells me we ain't done 00:15:27.929 --> 00:15:28.730 digging yet.