Military agency makes Stranger Things joke, internet gets nervous

Stranger Things is a Netflix show where the US government performs nefarious scientific experiments in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana and accidentally tears open a hole to an alternate reality, letting in interdimensional monsters who want to invade our world and eat our children. The government doesn’t come across looking too good on this show, particularly in the first season.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why people on Twitter got nervous when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which develops weapons technology for the military, tweeted out a message looking for “a human-made underground environment spanning several city blocks” capable of hosting “research & experimentation.”

Based on movies and TV shows alone, there’s just no way to look at that and not get a little nervous, as several of Twitter’s finest did:

And it didn’t take long for someone to make the Stranger Things connection:

Funny joke. Golf clap for you. What’s surprising is that DARPA clapped back:

You’re free to look up the responses yourself, but they basically run the gamut from “Well played, DARPA, you social media savants” to “Don’t trust the shady government agency trying to act like your friend!”

It IS always a little weird for me when I see a big company — or in this case a government agency, which is ever weirder — tweet like they’re any other sarcastic meme-loving Twitter user. I mean, should an agency like DARPA even tell jokes? But I AM looking out for a response from @ENERGY, so mission accomplished.

For the record, DARPA gave a statement to Gizmodo regarding why they’re looking for an underground space:

"Complex urban underground infrastructure can present significant challenges for situational awareness in time-sensitive scenarios, such as active combat operations or disaster response.DARPA is interested in exploring this domain for researchers to analyze and enhance approaches to improve situational awareness and response times in emergency scenarios. Locations submitted could help the research community identify relevant sites for further field experimentation to accelerate their development of such technologies."

No Demogorgons here.

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h/t New York Post