Stranger Things is set in the fictional rural town of Hawkins, Indiana, during the early 1980s. The nearby Hawkins National Laboratory ostensibly performs scientific research for the United States Department of Energy, but secretly does experiments into the paranormal and supernatural, including those that involve human test subjects.

 

Inadvertently, they have created a portal to an alternate dimension called "the Upside Down". The influence of the Upside Down starts to affect the unknowing residents of Hawkins in calamitous ways

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