A hiker in New York's Adirondack Mountains near the hamlet of Indian Lake in 1997 stumbled onto a metal box that led to a mystery of hidden, secret structures deep in the Adirondack Park and allegations of government experimentation on children. Was it Internet fiction or New York's creepiest conspiracy theory? Delve into the Indian Lake Project.

Indian Lake Project: Origins

The first anyone ever heard of the Indian Lake Project came from a blog first published online in October of 2005. The author states his uncle stumbled upon a metal box buried in the woods in 1997. The box contained photos of children, 8mm movies and a trove of documents. The evidence pointed to a government program of experimentation on children. On the passing of the author's uncle, the author took possession of the box.

Where is Indian Lake?

Indian Lake is a town in New York's Hamilton County, the least populated county in the state. The town has a population of 1352 and is located about 90 minutes northeast of Utica, the largest city of any significance. Just a few roads traverse the town and there are no stop lights. A good portion of the town's area is claimed by the namesake lake. People live in the small hamlets of Blue Mountain Lake and Indian Lake and there are dozens of seasonal camps scattered through the wilderness.

The Heart of the Indian Lake Project Conspiracy

The contents of the metal box led the author to believe the Indian Lake Project was a part of Operation ARTICHOKE, a very real CIA project that studied advanced interrogation methods and experimented with hypnosis, drug addiction and mind control.

The author begins to believe he has gotten to close to something he shouldn't have, posting this on October 26, 2005

Since my last post a lot of things have happened to me which make me believe that posting anymore items from the box would not be in my best interest. I have had numerous phone calls, only to hear silence on the other end (as many as 20 times a day). My house was broken into and "searched", but nothing was taken. The box, and it's [sic] contents, had been securely hidden outside of my home. I did this shortly after the phone calls began. It is obvious to me that I hit a nerve when I mentioned the documents I have, and that I was considering perhaps posting them at some point. I am no longer going to post anything. I am done.

Is This Just Internet Fiction?

There is a long-standing internet genre known as creepypasta, online horror stories. The best creepypasta includes multimedia like photos and videos, links to websites that perpetuate or substantiate the story. Heard of Slenderman? That's creepypasta. The website Crushable took a look at the Indian Lake Project and while they couldn't make any definitive decision, felt the Indian Lake Project had all the hallmarks of an elaborate piece of internet fiction.

Conclusion

Perhaps we've never know the truth behind the Indian Lake Project. The blog has not been updated in two years (as of this article's publication in March of 2015). A final posting says

I will begin posting updates to the new Indian Lake Project twitter account soon.

Please follow @IndianLkProject to stay connected to the latest information.

The ILP Twitter was only updated once with the promise of more updates. Did the author of the story lose interest or did some more sinister happen?

Images of Indian Lake

Bonus Video - New York's Happy Valley Ghost Town

In a rural area of New York State north of Syracuse sits the ghost town of Happy Valley. Today only a few seasonal roads lead to the former town site which is now a state forest. The Haunts and Legends of NY Crew set out to find out what happened to the residents and what remains of Happy Valley today.