To recreate the stranger things intro, I used tweening on the separate letters positions and a glow effect. I then added a zoom and a grain effect, but it only showed a preview of it.
I used unreal engine to create this effect, by creating a simple ufo in maya and importing it, then creating a green screen material and adding this to a backdrop. I then used a level sequencer to move the ufo and rendered it. I then put it in after effects and used keylight to chroma key, overlaying a background.
To do this effect, I used a mask that moves with the slide, giving the elusion it has a real presence as well as using position and rotation tweens.