Here's What Some People Think Happened At Montauk Air Force Station

On the easternmost tip of Long Island, New York, lies what remains of the Montauk Air Force Station. Once a hub for the U.S. military, the base was created by the U.S. Army in 1942. Known then as Fort Hero, according to All That's Interesting, the U.S. Army upgraded the base after World War II, re-naming it Camp Hero and inviting the U.S. Air Force to form a joint base. Establishing the Montauk Air Force Station, the U.S. Air Force used the base as a Cold War defense against the Russians. By the late '50s, however, the Army shuttered Camp Hero, allowing the U.S. Air Force to completely take over the base.

And while the Montauk Air Force Station was officially closed in 1981, wild stories about the base continue to circulate this very day. Rumors from the early '80s began to swirl that the military was conducting unusual experiments on Long Island. Everything from mind control to teleportation was supposedly being conducted at Camp Hero and/or the Montauk Air Force Station (via Thrillist) over the years of the base's operations.

In 1982, the book "The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time" was published. Written by Preston Nichols, the book details many of the secret experiments that supposedly took place at Montauk. Nichol's claims throughout his book center on repressed memories from his time at the Air Force Station that he claimed he recovered. According to Thrillist, Nichols' recovered memories involved being experimented on at the base. Some of his wilder claims include something called the Montauk chair — a chair that could increase psychic powers through the use of electromagnetics that the U.S. government developed. 

Nichols' book even ties Montauk to time travel in a supposed experiment that happened at the Philadelphia Shipyard in 1943. All sorts of unethical experiments, psychological and otherwise, were allegedly performed at the Air Force Station. According to Nichols, thousands of boys were abducted, abused, and experimented on; "the Montauk Boys" were said to have been regularly subjected to powerful frequencies that scientists used to control their minds.

Over the years, Nichols' claims, and his book, have led others — all who had claimed they had recovered memories from being held captive at Montauk Air Force Station — to come forward. Joe Loffreno, a Long Island native, believes that he's one of the Montauk Boys (via New York Post). Through the use of hypnotherapy, Loffreno claims he was able to recover long-repressed memories of the Montauk base. "I was hypnotized [by a certified hypnotist] for about 40 minutes and all these memories flooded back. They did a very bad thing to us out there. We were just little kids. They had no right to experiment on us. It was a very dark, very evil thing." Loffreno claims to have remembered being brought underground the base, through tunnels established by the military that had been sealed off since World War II. In these underground chambers, Loffreno claims to have remembered being hooked up with electrodes, along with 50 other kids, and experimented on.

And while many others have come forward over the years with very similar experiences, most of Preston Nichols' book has been debunked to one extent or another. He died in October 2018, still maintaining the veracity of all his claims, however.