Murray’s Phone Number In ‘Stranger Things’ May Have A Hidden Meaning

After watching all of Stranger Things Season 3, fans have been on the lookout for any tiny clues or easter eggs that may help explain that cliffhanger ending. It turns out, all that careful searching may not have been in vain, because the Stranger Things team appeared to drop a hidden message that could confirm a major fan theory about Season 4. Murray's phone number in Stranger Things may provide an answer to the questions that every fan has been asking since finishing the recent season.

Spoiler alert: This post contains Stranger Things Season 3 spoilers. In the new season, Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper teamed up with conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman), whose ideas about there being a covert Russian invasion in Hawkins turned out to be right all along. During their efforts to infiltrate the Russian base, Hopper enraged the typically very private Murray when he revealed his phone number: (618) 625-8313. As fans of twisty sci-fi movies and TV shows probably know, whenever a non-555 phone number is mentioned in a scene, it could very well be an easter egg just waiting for viewers to dial up and discover.

On July 8, Gelman doubled down on the importance of the phone number when he posted a photo of it on his Instagram.

If you call the number IRL, you are informed that you have reached the answering machine of Murray Bauman. In the recording, Murray includes a cryptic message for Joyce, which has sparked tons of theories about the next season, many having to do with whether Hopper is dead or alive. However, this is not the only significance Murray's phone number could have. A post on Reddit revealed an alternate use for the digits in the phone number.

Now hang tight, because this theory takes a bit of explanation: The idea is that the digits in the phone number actually represent coordinates of a specific location, so (618) 625-8313 turns into a latitude point of 61.86258313. But what about the longitude? To figure out that part, the theorizer separated each number in the sequence into pairs (so it would look like: 61, 86, 25, etc.) and then flipped them (16, 68, 52, etc.) so that the longitude would be 166.8523831.

Still with me? Good, because this is where it gets interesting. If you look up those coordinates, you'll be pointed to the approximate location of Kamchatka, Russia... the location of the end credits scene in the Stranger Things 3 finale!

Coincidence? Maybe, but if it's not, this could help prove the theory that Hopper is in fact alive, and he is in fact the American prisoner being held in the Russian prison depicted in the credits scene.

David Harbour even seemed to confirm this phone message was about his character, too. After the season aired, Harbour changed his Instagram profile picture to various numbers over the course of several days, and fans were able to piece together that Harbour was spelling out Murray's phone number.

While this phone easter egg does sound a lot like confirmation of the Hopper theory, nothing is officially confirmed yet... and that includes a fourth season of Stranger Things. Although it feels inevitable that Netflix will renew the sci-fi hit for at least one more season, fans will have to keep waiting to get the official word on if there will be more episodes.