Stranger Things 4: Does David Harbor leave clues about Hopper's fate on Instagram?

David Harbor, the star of Stranger Things, could well tease the return of his character, Jim Hopper, in the fourth season to come. And all this thanks to Harbor's Instagram account. As Uproxx has reported, fans have noticed strange updates from Harbor's Instagram account over the past week. Harbor has quietly changed his profile picture to display various numbers. Until now, the profile picture has gone from 6 to 1 to 8 and back to 6.

What does it mean? The theory (which becomes increasingly plausible with each update) is that Harbor slowly lists the phone number of Brett Gelman's character, Murray Bauman, as it appears in Season 3, Episode 6. The Bauman's full number was (618) 625-8313. And it turns out that if fans make up this number, they can hear an answering machine message in which Bauman urges Joyce Byers of Winona Ryder to meet him in person to discuss something important. The message is cut before Bauman can elaborate, but many speculate that it has to do with Hopper's fate.

Hopper seemed to die in the last episode of season 3, sacrificing his life so that Joyce could destroy the Russian machine by opening a portal on Upside. Down. But given the lack of body and encrypted reference to an American prisoner of Russian nationality in the sequence of mid-credit credits, many believe that Hopper is still alive and will return in season 4. This little Unusual social media marketing only adds to the essence.

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Will Bauman's Answering Machine Message Change in the End? Is everything becoming a big revelation? For the time being, we will have to wait a few days and see what happens when Harbor's account finishes going through the numbers.

To learn more about the new season of Stranger Things, read our explanation of the surprise ending, then learn more about Hopper. go out and see our theories about the mysterious American prisoner. And after that, check out all we know about Season 4.

Jesse is a sweet-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket of as a result of @jschedeen on Twitter .