The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time

1992 fictional book by Preston B. Nichols and Peter Moon

The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time by Preston B. Nichols and Peter Moon is the first book in a series detailing fictional time travel experiments at the Montauk Air Force Base at the eastern tip of Long Island as part of the Montauk Project. The 1992 book and its follow up books are written in a first person style and have been classified as science fiction. The real photographs of the base and crude drawings of the project electronics in the book contribute to the authentic feel. This prompted the project to assume a cult status whereby websites declare it is true or false. Using a time travel theme, the characters alter history with visits to Jesus Christ, as well as altering the outcome of American Civil War and World War II battles.

The book's narrative is centered around the Montauk Project, which is believed to be an extension or continuation of the Philadelphia Experiment (also known as Project Rainbow), which supposedly took place in 1943. Sometime in the 1950s, surviving researchers from the original Project Rainbow began to discuss the project with an eye to continuing the research into technical aspects of manipulating the electromagnetic bottle that had been used to make the Eldridge invisible, and the reasons and possible military applications of the psychological effects of the magnetic field. A report was supposedly prepared and presented to the United States Congress, and was soundly rejected as far too dangerous. So a proposal was made directly to the United States Department of Defense promising a powerful new weapon that could drive an enemy insane, inducing the symptoms of schizophrenia at the touch of a button. Without Congressional approval, the project would have to be top secret and secretly funded. The Department of Defense approved. Funding supposedly came from a cache of US$10 billion in Nazi gold recovered from a train found by U. S. soldiers in a train tunnel in France. The train was blown up and all the soldiers involved were killed. When those funds ran out, additional funding was secured from ITT and Krupp AG in Germany.

Work was begun at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York under the name Phoenix Project, but it was soon realized that the project required a large radar dish, and installing one at Brookhaven would compromise the security of the project. Luckily, the U. S. Air Force had a decommissioned base at Montauk, New York, not far from Brookhaven, which had a complete Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) radar installation. The site was large and remote (Montauk was not yet a tourist attraction) and water access would allow equipment to be moved in and out undetected. Equipment was moved to Camp Hero at the Montauk base in the late 1960s, and installed in an underground bunker beneath the base. According to conspiracy theorists, to mask the nature of the project the site was closed in 1969 and donated as a wildlife refuge/park, with the provision that everything underground would remain the property of the Air Force (although, in reality, the base remained in operation until the 1980s).

Filmmakers were brought to the facility to begin work on a project that would culminate with the Moon landing hoax. The military personnel in charge were in fact cultists who built a 50 feet (15 m) ziggurat or step pyramid out of titanium for some esoteric reason. Early work on inventing the Internet and its implementation were undertaken there. Nazi scientists from Operation Paperclip were involved in some of the experiments there. Experimental "flying saucer" aircraft prototypes were created there, and shipped to other secret bases for testing. Bioengineering projects undertaken there eventually created the Jersey Devil. Black helicopters were manufactured and flown there. Nikola Tesla, whose death was faked in a conspiracy, was the chief director of operations at the base. Mass psychological experiments, such as the use of enormous subliminal messages projects and the creation of a "Men in Black" corps to confuse and frighten the public, were invented there. The AIDS virus was created there.

The authors have never officially declared their books to be fiction and have encouraged speculation that it is true on their publisher's website. They publish a newsletter The Pulse which continues to extend the myth and promises new books. Believers in the project regularly visit Camp Hero. A March 2006 article in the East Hampton Star noted that a rock with ornate carvings found just below the base had been pushed over a cliff by a neighbor rather than time traveling.

The massive AN/FPS 35 radar (more than wide, weighing 70 to 90 tons), sitting atop an 80 feet (24 m) high blast resistant concrete bunker, was built in the 1960s as part of a coastal defense for New York City during an era when airplane bombers were considered a primary threat. The early computers of this era were massive in size and housed in the bunker. Both the radar and the computers quickly became obsolete. Although the radars were dismantled elsewhere, the Montauk radar was subject to an intense petition drive by boaters on the crowded Long Island Sound who thought it was a more obvious landmark than the nearby Montauk Lighthouse. The site was also full of massive gun emplacements from World War I and World War II, built in blast resistant concrete bunkers. There is also a modern ghost town of support buildings. All of this was intentionally disguised to hide it from the air. The site was opened to the public on September 18, 2002, as Camp Hero State Park. The radar tower has been placed on the State and National Register of Historic Places. There are plans for a museum and interpretive center focusing on World War II and Cold War era history.