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With the release of the Stranger Things 4 trailer, fans immediately began poring over the scenes searching for potential clues about the upcoming season. The show’s creators, Ross and Matt Duffer, are known for hiding hints in their promotional material, including everything from posters to teasers to trailers. The full-length trailer, which dropped on Apr. 12, 2022, is no different. One scene, in particular, caught the attention of viewers, but we’re at a loss at what it means.

'Stranger Things 4' scene where Max sits in front of Billy's gravestone.
Sadie Sink as Max Mayfield | Cr. Courtesy of Netflix

The timestamps hidden in the ‘Stranger Things 4’ trailer

As fans obsessed over every second (literally) of the Stranger Things 4 trailer, some caught some numbers hidden at the 1:59 timestamp. Four sets of numbers floated in the flash, and they appeared to be timestamps themselves.

The numbers are:

  • :33
  • :52
  • 1:46
  • 2:30

Viewer theorized the numbers might indicate important moments in the trailer, so we started there. This is what we found:

  • The :33 mark | Netflix
  • The :52 mark | Netflix
  • The 1:46 mark | Netflix
  • The 2:30 mark | Netflix

There seems to be zero connection between the Stranger Things 4 trailer scenes. Then we took a look at the four teasers to see if anything came from those timestamps. However, they’re only teasers and don’t run for very long, so that was a dead end. 

Stranger Things previously hid coordinates in marketing material, but that doesn’t line up either, considering those numbers use commas and not colons. Plus, you only need two for a location. We ran into yet another dead end.

An eagle-eyed fan on Reddit found something suspicious with the numbers

Leave it to the Stranger Things fandom to leave no clue unturned, and it looks like one fan on Reddit may be on to something. One Redditor used each still from the timestamps in the Stranger Things 4 trailer and marked up the places the numbers had blurred out around them.

At the 33-second mark, they found the letters I, A, and M. They discovered the word “hell” at the 52-second mark and an S at the 1:46 mark. In the final spot, they found the word “master.”

Put them all together, and you get, “I am Hell’s Master.” It’s a chilling sentence on its own, but Stranger Things focuses quite a bit on Dungeons and Dragons. Mike and Dustin are seen wearing Hellfire Club shirts in the Stranger Things 4 trailer, alluding to their membership in the Hawkins High School Dungeons and Dragon’s club. Is this a play on the new character Eddie’s role as the president of the club and the official Dungeon Master?

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The Hellfire Club might symbolize a couple of different things in ‘Stranger Things 4’

The series has hinted at connections between Jean Grey from the X-Men comics since season 1. Stranger Things 4 continued the trend with the name the Hellfire Club. It’s the title of the first episode in season 4 as well. In the comics, Jean, maybe the most powerful member of the X-Men, is captured by men in a group known as the Hellfire Club. However, we did some digging on our own.

Britain formed several different groups for men of high society in the 18th century. These groups allowed wealthy and established men of society to gather for various reasons. However, there were rumors that the members of these clubs also performed satanic rituals. Overall, it appears the clubs just had very dark connections. 

Stranger Things Season 3 hinted that upcoming seasons of the show would deal with the Satanic Panic of the ’80s. The phrase “I am Hell’s Master” might serve as a tie-in to Vecna as well. 

Regardless, we’ll be here continuing to obsess over clues until Stranger Things 4 arrives on May 27. Catch up with the first three seasons, currently streaming on Netflix.

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