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Last weekend I binge-watched a new Netflix sci-fi horror series called Stranger Things.†It's set in fictional 1980s Hawkins, Indiana, a small town where a boy named Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) mysteriously goes missing. His mother Joyce (Winona Ryder) is desperate to find him, and Hawkins police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) launches his own investigation into the matter. A girl with supernatural abilities shows up. She knows where to find him, but the search leads them to an alternate dimension, gruesome monsters and … the Energy Department.

Yes, that's right, the Energy Department, where I — and thousands of my closest friends — work. And while I really enjoyed Stranger Things†as a mashup of Goonies and X-Files with some amazing 80s music mixed in, the show's portrayal of the Energy Department was a little less than accurate. Here's why (spoilers ahead!):

HAWKINS NATIONAL LABORATORY DOESN'T EXIST.

In the show, Hawkins National Laboratory is a tightly secured Energy Department facility in the middle of a deep, dark forest. The truth is Hawkins National Laboratory — just like the fictional town of Hawkins —  doesn't exist. However, one of the National Laboratories has a forest connection! Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois is named after the surrounding Argonne Forest. Established in 1946, Argonne is America's first designated National Lab and was founded to continue Enrico Fermi's work on nuclear reactors. Argonne is now a multidisciplinary science and engineering research center that focuses on important energy, environment, technology and national security issues. Learn more about the Energy Department's 17 National Laboratories.

THE ENERGY DEPARTMENT DOESN'T EXPLORE PARALLEL UNIVERSES.

There are several scenes in the show where Hawkins Laboratory researchers don full body suits and protective gear to walk through a peculiar portal, which transports them to an alternate dimension known as The Upside Down.†While the Energy Department doesn't chart parallel universes, it does help power the exploration of new worlds. We're talking outer space, not the bizarro cosmos in Stranger Things.† For instance, the Energy Department makes nuclear batteries called View Full Article