What do you get when you take 1970s counterculture, mix in some psychopharmacology, some far-out

science fiction, and a little bit of conspiracy theory culture?

Well, one thing you might get is the famous urban legend of Ong's Hat.

A place in New Jersey said to be the setting for some wild and crazy, trans-dimensional

travel by a bunch of spaced-out scientists.

Luckily, today we have the resources to track down what this was really all about.

Ong's Hat is coming up today on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid.

I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.

Ong's Hat.

Today, we're going to go way down a rabbit hole with some seriously unexpected twists and turns.

It began as an urban legend you'd only find out about if you subscribed to certain

male-order newsletters.

It grew and became a local legend centered around a place called Ong's Hat New Jersey, the

setting for the mind-blowing events described in the legend.

We're traveling not just into this deep green forest, but much farther indeed, perhaps

even into another dimension.

This is the story of a story, either one or both of which you may have heard.

And if you haven't, then prepare for a storytelling experience unlike anything you've heard

before.

The story goes that in the late 1970s, a commune formed on 200 acres of land in New Jersey's

Pine Barons, a flat expanse of coastal plain thick with forests at a spot known as Ong's

...