According to UFO researcher Jacques Vallée, the Montauk Experiment stories seem to have originated with the highly questionable account of Preston Nichols and Al Bielek, who both claimed to have recovered repressed memories of their own involvement.
These center on topics including United States government/military experiments in fields such as time travel, teleportation, mind control, contact with extraterrestrial life, and staging faked Apollo Moon landings, framed as developments that followed the 1943 Philadelphia Experiment.
Both Peter Moon and Preston Nichols have encouraged speculation about the contents; for example, they wrote, "Whether you read this as science fiction or non-fiction you are in for an amazing story" in their first chapter,[citation needed] describing much of the content as "soft facts" in a Guide For Readers and publishing a newsletter with updates to the story.
In 2015, Montauk Chronicles, a film adaptation of the conspiracy featuring Preston Nichols, Alfred Bielek, and Stewart Swerdlow, was released online and on DVD and Blu-ray.
[9][10][11][12] The Montauk Experiment was featured on a season 8 episode of Discovery Channel's Mysteries of the Abandoned on October 23, 2003.