Intelligence history within Stranger Things Part 4 - Chekov's Radar Domes
Or; Why the hell is telemetry mentioned so many times in the fifth season
[radomegate?]
Update: Cold war Telemetry goes straight into modern day Telemetry. 3.15 was mentioned in the book that just came out.
There's allusions to the cyber security world and various updates to cyber triaging under "3.15" now even though that section for windows defender was updated in 2025, the practice of cybersecurity Telemetry goes back decades.
You can read about it here:
Telemetry transmits data about the health, security and performance of applications to software developers. Learn how to use it and why it i
The book, red october came out after the US tracked one of the Soviet's newest missle platforms. Telemetry was one of several things gathered. To me, 315 is solved this was a cybersecurity war game disguised as something else.
When we first see Hawkins National Laboratory we are chasing a scientist out past a sealed door, down the hall way and straight into a service elevator. everytime I rewatch that scene with my husband he says the same thing: they really should have invested in a faster elevator. It is the DOE after all. But maybe this was the pinnacle of Elevator Technology at the time.
As the scientist gets chased down by a demogorgon we are back outside the lab in what I can only describe as a shot both Spielberg and John Ford would be proud of:
We see the satellite dishes on top of the lab and what I can only assume are maybe power stations towards the center before looking into the night sky.
And that's just season 1 ep 1. By the time we get to season 5 something weird has happened. The dialogue seems off, the word telemetry is being used just about every twenty minutes and now there is a god damn NSA (or CIA if you'd rather) radome in the upside down.
Now. I am sort of rehashing my other posts I made on the cast photos and ELINT being a thing but as conformity gate has gone on I can't help but think: That radome in the upside down and satellite communication really hasn't come into play yet but I think it may. Even if it doesn't, it's important historically. The US (and fwiw NATO) won the cold war due to the radomes and a multitude of other fronts. Infact a lot of cold war info was declassifed within the past ten years or so. There's a documentary on Netflix called Turning Point The bomb. There's an episode that hits close to home for me, anyway about the Naval exercises in the mid 80s. Psych warfare at its best.
The historical context slots so well into the background history of stranger things I can't imagine it won't come up.
In my own family I suppose you could classify spook dad as a cross between Hopper and Ted. I just get the feeling the radomes are going to be useful trying to wake folks up.
Snap cut to everybody wants to rule the world and we see Ted at his NSA analyst computer with his russian linguist SIGINT headphones telling Vecna to screw off.
Things I promise to do later when I am not freezing: link the three previous intelligence history related posts.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN TEUFELSBERG, NOAH? WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING WITH THAT RADOME!! LOL
One more thing I want to bring up is the honey comb pattern we see at least twice. once in a baby blanket in El's room another is the monitors in season 4 in the tanks are set up like honeycombs. which could be ELINT related more likely it's some sort of programming array.
and I'll just leave this here if anyone wants to read about satellites, NSA, and ELINT/TELINT
https://www.nsa.gov/portals/75/documents/about/cryptologic-heritage/historical-figures-publications/publications/misc/telint-9-19-2016.pdf
HOLD ON HOLD ON
the triangle. in the icbm thing. yes the triangles can stand for gay/lgbtq rep bc this is a multi faceted story.
But it could also be pointing to the radome patterns as well.
but man. i don't know if i trust robin.


















