Did Severance Season 2 just reference the infamous Montauk Project? Speculations discussed 

Apple TV+’s series Severance is a show that keeps viewers guessing with its creepy puzzles and corporate secrets, and it seems to have waded into the murky waters of a real-world conspiracy theory in its most recent episode — Season 2 Episode 4, titled Woe’s Hollow.

This episode hints at the Montauk Project, which Wikipedia describes as:

a conspiracy theory that alleges there were a series of United States government projects conducted at Camp Hero or Montauk Air Force Station in Montauk, New York, for the purpose of developing psychological warfare techniques and exotic research including time travel.

In the show, the mention of "Montauk 3% complete" during a particularly unsettling vision of Irving, played by John Turturro, suggests it may not just be a random shout-out.

The Montauk Project became known through the 1992 book The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time by Preston Nichols and Peter Moon. it is a tale of hidden experiments that have inspired a whole genre of storytelling, including hits like Netflix's Stranger Things and episodes of The X-Files.

Now that Severance has brought the reference into its narrative, fans wonder what it could mean for characters dealing with their reality-bending workplace.

---

Severance's connection to the Montauk Project

Severance's mention of Montauk is more than playful — it might be the series' most daring connection to actual conspiracy theories yet. The Montauk Project's supposed experiments would appear disturbing, and they strangely mirror the severance process seen in the show.

A well-known figure in the Severance analysis community, JBuck Studios, suggests the rumored experiments involved putting people through severe emotional and physical pain, as well as sensory isolation. The goal was to split their minds into parts that could be controlled and manipulated, which is eerily similar to what Lumon does with its employees on the show.

JBuck Studios' YouTube video mentioned:

The goal of this was to fracture the mind into various pieces, reprogram them, and piece the person's mind back together while hooked up to various wires and machines."

In Severance, Lumon Industries has a peculiar practice. They break a person's mind into two distinct parts: Their "innie" is the version of themselves at work, and their "outie" is who they are when they are not at the office. It's like having two different personalities, with no memory of each other.

This idea seems even more eerie when you think that certain conspiracy theories have suggested that the Montauk Project was a real-life set of experiments where researchers supposedly used special sounds such as high-frequency waves, to control people's thoughts and actions.

Severance suggests something like this could be happening, too, with a feature in their technology called the "freeze frame." This feature can 'freeze' a worker at Lumon just like a photograph, whenever the company wants. It's as if the show is telling a fictional and scary story based on ideas that are rumored to be true.

---

Severance’s pattern of reimagining real-world conspiracy theories

The Montauk Project isn't the first conspiracy theory that Severance has utilised. The show has revealed a knack for mixing such reported theories from real life. It throws in bits from history and how humans think, to make its fictional world seem more believable.

Take that "Cold Harbor" file in the show. It could be pointing to an actual battle from the Civil War in 1864, which fits with how often the series shows us images of ancient battlefields. Then there is Kier Eagan's "Four Tempers" idea. It appears to be a nod to ancient Greece, where the theory is said to have prevailed that people's personalities could be put into categories based on the Four Humors.

However, when the show mentions Montauk in the episode Woe’s Hollow, it might mean Lumon Industries is playing with more than just the brains of their workers. Maybe they are engaged in all sorts of experiments beyond what we have seen so far. The show hints that the company's reach is much bigger than we could ever imagine.

As Pauli Poisuo pointed out on Slash Film,

"Seeing the word on Severance and knowing its history adds no small amount of weight to the possibility that Lumon's severed floor is actually a major experiment of the psy-ops or even paranormal variety."

If true, Lumon's ultimate aim could be something much darker than just corporate domination — perhaps something akin to mind control on a grand scale, or even dabbling in interdimensional research, reminiscent of conspiracy theories surrounding the Montauk Project.

Considering that only a fraction of "Montauk" has been realized in Irving's imagination, the true extent of Lumon's aspirations is still shrouded in mystery on Severance. Given the plot, viewers should prepare themselves for even more profound revelations.

---

Severance Season 2 is on Apple TV+, with new episodes every week.

If you can't wait to unravel Lumon's secrets, SoapCentral recommends that you should start watching Severance.

Nerd out on Severence with: The Glasgow Block | Dieter Eagan | ORTBO