This 'Stranger Things' Season 2 Theory Could Explain So Much About The Upside Down

It's still a few months before we here in 2017 get to return to Hawkins, Indiana, in the 1980s and the world of Stranger Things. But with the arrival of the new full-length trailer at San Diego Comic-Con, and new looks at the world known as the Upside Down, along with glimpses of what our characters are up to, people have started asking themselves questions. Some of the answers they're coming up with are quite disturbing, including one Stranger Things theory about the Upside Down that should worry residents of the entire Midwest.

While in the early episodes of the show, the Upside Down seemed like a weird, scary place that people sort of slipped in and out of. But due to where most of those sliding downs between realities were located, it was never clear how much of a mirror universe we were looking at until the end of the season.

Now with Will Byers able to slide between realities with a blink of an eye, it's becoming more and more obvious that the Upside Down and Hawkins are far too alike for anyone to feel comfortable. Is the Upside Down just a dark mirror image of the world around us? Or is it something more sinister? Could it be... part of a multiverse?

For those who are not well acquainted with the theories of multiverses, a quick breakdown: The idea is that there are millions of universes all happening all the time right next to us, on other planets that we can't reach, based on choices we've made throughout our lives (see also: "The Butterfly Effect.") While some assume this is merely science fiction, it's actually a theory championed by respected theoretical physicists like Stephen Hawking and astrophysicists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

If so, the Upside Down could actually *be* Hawkins. Just a different version of Hawkins. (I know, I just heard you all say "One with a Demogorgon? Really?") But hear me out! What if this version of Hawkins is one that underwent a massive invasion from yet another dimension? It's a Hawkins that's desperately crying out for help.

Another theory is that it's the same universe, but one that's just further along in time. Eleven has serious psychic powers that the U.S. government was testing as a weapon. What if, in their testing, Eleven tore a hole through space and time, and what we're seeing is Hawkins' future? One where the town underwent a nuclear holocaust in order to well, prevent residents from passing through time?

That would be a heck of an irony -- what we're seeing is the future to come committed by the present to erase the past.

While the rest of y'all break your brains on that, I'mma watch the trailer again. Stranger Things returns to Netflix this Halloween.