The Concordance Dagger, and How to Deal with Snowmen

Sorry for being radio silent for a moment. To explain why, I need a moment to talk about Hollywood, and Los Angeles as a whole.

Imagine if you took an area of desert seven times the size of Washington, D.C., hired someone to drain the land around it of all water, and packed it with over four million people, several of whom don’t actually live there for tax reasons. Next, imagine it populated with people on the run from the law-- to be exact, run from patent law, as Edison was unwilling to let filmmakers use his camera technology to make films. Now sprinkle in a few decades of bigotry, sex crimes of every flavor, regular crimes of a few lesser flavors, and self-obsession so severe that it makes Narcissus look like Mr. Rogers, and we have modern L.A.

I may be a film student, but I have no illusions about Los Angeles. For God’s sake, the city doesn’t even have decent public transportation, something New York had figured out a century before it got anywhere near L.A.’s modern population.

So why, pray tell, have I wasted the last three weeks of my life in the City of Angels? Let me tell you why.

#

Hollywood is several things, but ‘wasteful’ is not one of them-- at least, not when it comes to props and sets. You might be familiar with trivia along the lines of the PKE Meter from Ghostbusters appearing in Suburban Commando, or how a early 2000’s Power Rangers series reused armor from Starship Troopers, or how Forbidden Planet’s Robby the Robot prop has been recycled so many times, it actually has an entry on IMDb as a distinct actor. Stanley Kubrick actually ordered all of the props and sets for 2001: A Space Odyssey destroyed specifically so they couldn’t be re-used for the inevitable sequel. Prop recycling has been common practice in Hollywood for decades.

Certain props, however, fall out of circulation, only to be found years or even decades later-- in some cases, even after the original film has been lost. What drew me to Hollywood in the middle of the holiday season was the alleged appearance of a prop from The Concordance; people who have been reading lately (I thank you for your continued patronage) will know this film has been a bugbear of mine for a while, and I’ve been trying to find an intact copy of it for almost six years. That said, props and pieces of the sets keep popping up, and this was a fairly notable one.

The Concordance is a 1912 silent film set during the 1500s, during a witch trial in central Europe. The titular Concordance is a ritual the film’s protagonist, Ysolde, is attempting to enact in order to catapult her somewhere more civilized, where she’s treated like a human being instead of like a woman in the 1500s. A central prop in the film was a ritual scythe-like dagger used by Ysolde to carry out the sacrifical murders needed to power the Concordance. Like most props up to the modern day, it was easier to just use an actual dagger than to make one out of a flexible or harmless material, and simply make edits to the film to make it appear as if a murder had taken place. But rather than steel or iron, the prop was apparently made of bronze, as the metal’s color made it look suitably ‘unnatural’ on film at the time.

The dagger has been missing since a warehouse fire in 1965, on the backlot of the relatively small RKO spin-off Breaker Motion Pictures. On December 2nd, 2022, it re-appeared in the LAPD evidence impound in their Hollywood precinct. I had no details beyond the fact that it was covered in fresh blood.

“Tristan, surely you’re not going to confess to stealing from a police station on your blog. Do you want to go to jail?” Cecily actually asked me this, but there were about half a dozen instances of “fuck” in there, including at least two “fucknugget”s and one “you fucking moron”.

There are several problems with this thesis: firstly, I did not steal anything, and the circumstances under which I acquired it were legal, for a certain value. Secondly, I am in the process of having any and all charges dismissed or pled down. Thirdly… it’s almost awards season, and with all due disrespect to the LAPD, they have more important anomalous phenomena to get driven mad by this time of year. They aren’t going to miss one potentially paranormal knife when they have to deal with meta-cocaine and celebrity doppelgangers.

I flew down to LAX and took an hour-long cab ride from there to Beverly Hills (L.A. traffic is one of the closest things to Hell an American can experience), where I met my contact; he had experience with extricating items from evidence lockup for research purposes, but he wasn't part of the Institute. Riley, who you may remember from my investigation into Money for Nothing, had agreed to do me another favor in exchange for information I had found in the last few months regarding actress Zelda Pleunick.

His house was small for Beverly Hills, but to someone who grew up in Rural Wisconsin, it was basically the Biltmore Estate, but with several more Fortnite action figures strewn about the floor by Riley’s grandchildren. “Their mom’s got ‘em visiting Universal Studios,” he explains as he pours a measure of bourbon for himself, notably not offering any to me. “And not just the theme park-- Goldblum owes me a favor.”

“Like Jeff Goldblum?” Easily the third-dumbest question I’d asked that week.

“No, Percy Goldblum. Christ, kid, don’t you have a film degree?”

“You looked into me, then?” I asked.

“I looked into your whole organization. You know how fuckin’ surprised I was to learn that the guy who runs you is Egyptian? Figured he’d be some pasty white motherfucker who looked too long at Ivo Dorakis’s Shattered and went crazy.”

That stunned me. “You know Hemaphyte art?”

“Some of the newer stuff’s harmless. There’s going to be a showing in New York next-- but you’re not here for that. You’re here about the knife.” He offered me a seat.

I nodded and sat down, scanning the area for exits, my hand on a bit of Institute tech in my pocket. I noticed we were far away from the windows, no clear lines of sight for anyone to see us talking, but also close enough that I could bolt if I really needed to. “You know,” I said, “There are some more… extreme members of the Institute that want Hollywood to go up in flames.”

“What, like the city?”

“Like the concept. They figure you’re too dangerous to be left alive.” I rolled my shoulders. “You hear about how the entire cast and crew of that Marvel film in Georgia got food poisoning a few years back?”

“Delayed production worse than the pandemic did. America’s ass went through a dozen pairs of--” he paused. “Fucking hell, that was you?”

“Not me personally, but there are people in the Institute who hate the MCU so much that Alan Moore looks like Stan Lee.” I left out the fact that it wasn’t food poisoning.

“Christ. Anyway, the knife.” He leaned back. “From what I can tell, a Jane Doe-- she's alive but refuses to talk to the cops and doesn't have ID on her-- walked into a secondhand store with her clothing all wrecked. She tried to buy all sortsa stuff with weird-lookin’ bills, obvious fakes. Thrift shop owner calls the cops after he realizes the bills are fake. She pulls the knife, police come in and cuff her.

"And the blood on the knife?"

"Fresh. No more than a couple of hours old. That gonna affect the value?"

“It’s not for me to sell. I’m here to get it and store it. Besides, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered a bloody prop.”

“First time you’ve probably seen one used as a murder weapon, though."

I blinked. "Before I got on the plane, you said they hadn't found a body. Did that change?"

"Murder wasn't done this century." Riley sighed. “So, here’s the deal. The knife was lost in the Breaker Backlot fire back in ‘65. The blaze supposedly killed four people and cost the studio over seven million dollars in lost or damaged props. All of the people who died were workin’ on the same film-- a Bible epic, In the Beginning.”

“Genesis? Ambitious.”

“Yeah, but Hays code meant no Garden of Eden stuff-- restrictions against nudity. Vincent Marché was the director, and the first body they identified-- he just got new caps put on his teeth a week before the fire.”

“Marché… why do I know that name?”

“Probably because his brother Casmir was the closest thing to Epstein you could get in the 1960s. And Vince, shall we say, partook of his brother’s supply.”

“How do you know this?” I grimaced. “You’re… sixty-five? You wouldn’t even be in high school when this happened.”

“Sixty-four. And my family’s old Hollywood; my uncle worked as gofer on a lot of BMP’s films, and when I was getting into the industry, he gave me a list of people to stay the fuck away from. And no, you can’t see the list.” He took a drink of his bourbon. “Casmir caught a bullet in September of ‘83, and I’ve always wanted to shake hands with the son of a bitch who shot him.”

I nodded. “The second victim, then?”

“Simon Tzan.”

I blinked. “Like… Tarzan: Force of Nature Simon Tzan? Edgar Margullis’s Treasure Island Simon Tzan?”

“Yeah, everyone forgets he died in ‘65 because his last film got released in ‘72. He had polio as a kid, damage to his bones is how they managed to figure out it was him. He was meant to play Adam. He got along really well with the kid they got to play Cain. He was the third body-- you wouldn’t know him, eighteen-year-old named Sam Yanner. Got cast because he looked just enough like Tzan that he could pass as his son. Yanner is the only one who we know didn’t die in the fire.”

I blinked. “But you said he was the third body?”

“Yeah, but the fact that he had knife wounds all over his back, including one in the base of his skull, the M.E. was damn sure that he died before the fire started. Shape of the blade matched the dagger you're after.”

I winced. “At least he died quickly.”

"Small mercies." Riley shook his head.  “Then we have the fourth person, the reason they were all in the prop warehouse that night. Gwen Lyons. She was meant to play Eve.” He shut his eyes, and took a sip of his drink. “The way my uncle told it… she was getting ‘uppity’ with the three of them. There was a scene where Eve confronts Cain after he murdered Abel, and Yanner ‘ad-libbed’ feeling her up.”

“Fucking Christ.”

“Yeah. She slapped him and walked off the set. Tzan tried to apologize on Yanner’s behalf, but…” He sighed. “My uncle said they decided to ‘teach her a lesson’, and the school supplies were a glass of Jack with enough benzo to kill an infant. They dragged her into the prop warehouse because it was dark, unsecured, and… there were a lot of things they could use to…” He sighed. “To hurt her.”

That statement sunk in. “And… Gwen? You said there were three bodies. What about her?”

“Never found, but it was assumed she was incinerated.” 

As he raised his glass to his lips to finish off his bourbon, I said, “Bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“A fire has to be at least 1400 Fahrenheit to completely incinerate a human body.” I stood up and started pacing. “Fatal burns can be caused by temperatures as low as 180 Fahrenheit, but given the state of other props in the warehouse, the fire couldn't have been hotter than 550-- aluminum props were damaged, but they weren’t slagged. And bronze doesn’t melt until you get up to the thousands….”

Riley had a look on his face that made me wonder if he wanted to call the police, or the psych unit. “You… know a lot about fire. Should I be worried?”

I shook my head. “My dad was a firefighter. Retired after fighting a freak blaze in Douglas County back in 2015.” I sat back down, “Point is, there should have been no reason the dagger from The Concordance was lost when even the aluminum props were undamaged. And the absence of the body…” .

My eyes widen and I spring out of my seat. “God dammit. I hope I’m not right here.”

“What?”

I paced again, scratching my head. “Certain… items used to produce forbidden media can take on… odd properties. Vincenzo di Monteriggioni’s brushes can supposedly transmute oil paints into blood, the Typhon scroll constantly produces salt water, and the instruments that play the Posthumous Symphony-- I’m getting off track here.” I shook my head. “What do you actually know about The Concordance, Riley?”

“Just what you told me in your email. Witch kills people, and uses the magic to teleport somewhere where they’ll treat her decent.”

“She… doesn’t teleport, though.” I swallowed. “Ysolde’s spell… it’s alive, and it comes to the conclusion that she can never, and will never, be happy in a world where superstitious men rule. It takes her out of the 1500s… and into the middle of London on December 31st, 1910.” I’m shaking as I look at Riley. “The Concordance, among other things, was notable for being one of the first depictions of time travel in film.”

Riley gawps at me for several minutes as he processes what I just said. Then, he laughs. “You can’t be serious, kid. Time travel? That would…” He paused. “That…” he looks through texts on his phone. He gets the same nauseous look that people whose worldview has been upended tend to get in these circumstances. He pours himself another glass of bourbon, hand shaking as he types out a text. 

“Riley?”

“...my contact in the Hollywood precinct, I… I asked him why they thought the bills were counterfeit.” He licked his lips. “The Doe was trying to pay with twenties and fifties, but… none of them had security features. No reflective ink, no watermarks… and none of them have dates of issue after 1963.”

We were both still for a moment. Riley hoped it wasn't real; I’m dreaded that it was. “I need to get to the Hollywood Precinct now.”

“What?” Riley snorts. “Are fucking time cops going to come to take her away?”

Riley’s lack of imagination is probably one of the main reasons he’s such a successful producer. By the time he’s poured himself another drink, I’ve ordered an Uber to take me to Hollywood. By the time he cracks the time cop joke, it’s arrived. “I’ll text you once she’s safe.”

“Safe from what?” Riley calls after me as I nearly tripped on an action figure in the front lobby. “Kid!”

#

Oscar Wilde published an essay in 1891 called The Decay of Lying. One of the main points in it is that Life imitates Art more than Art imitates Life. But things have gotten far more complex since Wilde died; in the modern day, Life imitates Art because Art rules Life.

Look around you right now. If you’re in public, how many people can you see wearing some sort of clothing with a video tv or film reference on it? If you’re on your phone, how many apps do you have installed that are some kind of microtransaction-fueled game? If you’re at your computer, can you honestly tell me that somewhere in the last two dozen Youtube videos you watched, there isn’t a clip of some show or anime, or a trailer for a video game, or some thinkpiece about how Game of Thrones Season 8 wasn’t a complete dumpster fire? When was the last time you quoted Tv Tropes in a conversation?

Life imitates Art because Art pervades Life. But there’s a line that cannot be crossed; it’s one thing if a conversation you had with your father reminds you of a novel you just finished, but it’s another if characters, locations, phenomena or items from that work starts bleeding into reality. Bad things happen. 

People were gathered outside of the Hollywood Precinct; I could hear a fire alarm blaring within. The entities I described emit massive amounts of ozone; in a smog-filled hellhole like L.A, it wasn’t an unfamiliar scent, but someone probably assumed there was an electrical fire and pulled the alarm. The fire department wasn’t there yet, but I was at a loss as to how to actually get in--

And that’s when a member of the LAPD came up to me. He looked like he was a detective, badge on his belt, gun beneath his coat, and… at first, I thought the look on his face was anger at some tourist gawping at the incompetence of the LAPD, but then I realize the sheer terror in his eyes. “Are you Tristan?”

I started to bolt. He puts out his hands. “Whoah, easy. Riley called, he said that… said that you could take care of what… of what’s happening in there. Can you?”

I inspected the crowd, plan formulating in my skull. “Is there another way in?”

“Fire exit around the back.” He starts leading me there. “How the hell are you meant to help? You’re a kid.”

“I’m twenty-seven, and I’ve gotten rid of these things a few times.”

The fire exit was wide open. “Good news is that they hate the noise. Was she alive when you last saw her?”

“Yeah. I think so. But she… she wasn’t well. We found benzo in her system, and she was having trouble waking up.”

“Then there’s probably hope.” I entered the deafening precinct, light and sound threatening to overwhelm me, but beneath it all, I hear screaming from the direction of the holding cells. As I entered, I saw a trio of beings around the cell holding Ms. Jane Doe-- or, as I was now assuming, Ms. Gwen Lyons.

There are a variety of names for these entities; for the sake of simplicity, let’s call them Snowmen. They look roughly like people-- body, two arms, two legs, something vaguely head-shaped-- but they look, and sound, like they’re made of television static, or ‘snow’. There’s a constant low, crackling drone when you’re in their presence, a white noise that threatens to overtake all thoughts and leave you helpless. If they touch you, they pass right through you, but they can leave you numb for weeks, or even months, at a time; a colleague of mine ran through one in November 2019, and couldn’t feel the left side of her body until next June. And that’s if you aren’t their target. 

In the modern age, they’ve become their own worst enemy. Snowmen emit massive amounts of ozone, which anyone who’s touched a lightbulb in the last century will tell you is a scent associated with electrical fires. Modern fire alarms produce a sound that the Snowmen hate, and it also blocks out their white noise. The ones that are in front of the cell look like they’re writhing in pain, until I come in.

And I swear, for the barest instant, that they recognize me. There’s something about the cadence of their white noise that changes when they see me, almost inquisitive, like ‘hey, remember me?’. 

“You don’t want her,” I said. “She’s innocent. She’s here by accident.”

One of them managed to adapt to the sound, and began melting through the bars of the holding cell. Gwen screamed.

“You don’t want her!” I repeat. “I can give you what you want,” I admit, reluctantly. “Just… don’t take her. Please?”

The Snowmen leaned in close to me, their bodies of static casting a glow upon my face. “Look, you don’t even have to destroy it. I… I think I can neutralize it. Do you understand? Neutralize? Make inert? Break?”

They peeled back from me, and just stood there. I fired off a quick text to Riley, and he responded with details as to where the dagger is being kept. What I did next made me die a little inside, both as someone who’s studied The Concordance, and someone who believes in the preservation of film history.

The evidence bin was easy enough to find. The dagger was beautiful; it was cast entirely out of bronze, and it still shone in my hands as brightly as it must have when The Concordance was being made over a century ago, barring the blood across the sickle-like blade. For a moment, I can’t bring myself to do it; then I hear screaming from the holding cells, and know it has to be done.

I found what I needed in the maintenance closet-- a drill. I drilled straight through the blade in front of the Snowmen, and once it got weak enough, I snapped it in half in front of them. We’re meant to say something to the Snowmen when they leave, some sort of ritual the Institute’s head figured out back in the 90’s. I struggled with the pronunciation, they got the gist of it. “Xekínise, Eumenides.” Begone, Gracious Ones. 

The Snowmen faded away. Gwen was left sitting in her cell, confused, and sobbing.

#

For legal reasons, I can’t disclose what happened to Gwen, but I can confirm that the woman in the cell was, in fact, Gwen Lyons, removed from the 1960s to the modern day. Rest assured that, for now, she is safe.

The dagger was rendered inert by my damage, as promised. The Snowmen haven’t shown up again to check up on it, at the very least, which is something that does happen. I’ve entertained the thought of getting it reforged into its proper shape, but for now, both halves are on display on the wall above my computer.

As for me… I discovered that Riley’s power over Hollywood, however vast it may be, isn’t immutable. He doesn’t know every cop, and I ended up with a pair of taser bolts in my back when I tried to get out of the station through the fire exit. I was arrested for trespassing, destruction of evidence, assisting escape, instigating a false fire alarm, and a bevy of other things.

In short: for Christmas, I have a court date. The only reason I’m writing this from my computer in Wisconsin and not from a hotel room with an ankle monitor attached to me is that the Institute has very good lawyers. Unfortunately, said lawyers have asked me to lay low until the New Year, but they said posting an update should be fine.

So, Happy 2023 everyone, and may your pursuits of knowledge not end up with you getting handcuffed.

The Lassiter Hotel Footage, Part 4

Previous: The Lassiter Hotel Footage, Part 3

 

So, America's Most Haunted. Those of you who are familiar with the 2017 reboot are probably aware of its various controversies-- how their episode on Lovecraft had them consult a scholar with ties to the KKK, how a member of their camera crew nearly died from the bends after their attempt at an underwater seance went awry, and how they attempted to fulfill a Make-A-Wish Foundation request posthumously by contacting the spirit of a deceased fan. Robin McGuire, the current showrunner, as well as host Xander Banks, have been raked over the coals by people far more erudite than I. We aren't here to discuss the current incarnation of AMH.

Instead, we're talking about the version of America's Most Haunted that aired from 2006 to 2011, hosted by and ran by Daniel Fox (B. 1980). Fox was a genuine paranormal researcher, a visionary, an accredited exorcist… and a member of the Institute. He specialized in media that recorded spiritual phenomena.


In 2011, the Nova Network had him film a series of episodes themed around "Ghosts of the Jersey Shore". It was a gimmick, to be sure; one proposed episode would have had them attempt to contact the spirit of a deceased mobster (later found to have faked his own death to hide in Italy). Another episode had Nicole "Snooki" LaVelle accompanying the crew as they filmed in the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City.


Fox was incredibly reluctant to film at the Lassiter; he had personally cataloged the Molnar footage back in 2000, and knew about the Videophobes within. On top of that, the hotel was suffering from black mold infestation, making it unsafe to be in without protective equipment. However, the Nova Network had already bought the rights to film in the hotel from Cape May's government, and they refused to let Fox back out.


Fox had access to the Institute's resources including its more esoteric implements. If he had to film the Lassiter, he was going to do it with our equipment. He was going to attempt to defuse the Lassiter.


Part 4: America's Most Haunted, Season 6, Episode 5, Grand Alexandria


Fox always preferred to record with commercially-available cameras-- specifically, they used Toshiba Camileo X200s (Toshiba was a sponsor of Nova Network in the late 2000s and early 2010s). It gave America's Most Haunted a distinctive look, compared to its contemporaries, even if the X200s had an abysmal 45-minute battery life; Fox was able to use batteries modified by members of the Institute to extend this to three hours. Fox wanted to encourage amateur paranormal investigators by using affordable equipment to record the show.


So it was understandably alarming to both the crew of AMH and Nova Network executives when he unveiled the cameras they were going to use in the Lassiter. High-end Canon Vixia HF200s, priced at almost $4000 at release. Indeed, the first thing we hear when Fox turns on the camera is:


"What the fuck, Dan?"


The woman speaking comes into view. Jasmine Sheridan, age 29, stares past the camera and at the man holding it, wind blowing auburn hair into her face. "Dan, does the network know you blew the budget on new cameras?"


"I didn't blow anything," Daniel explains, turning the camera to himself. They're outside in downtown Cape May, in a small shopping district. He's recording B-roll. "Friend loaned me this equipment."


"Same friend who keeps on sending you creepy video tapes?"


"Actually, yes." The camera is jostled as Fox inspects something on it. "Okay, good."


"Do I want to know what that is?" Jasmine has a wary note in her voice.


"Just a microphone."


"It looks like a goddamn grenade launcher."


"It's not." Fox resumes filming. "Come on, we have a meeting with the historical society in half an hour."


Fox continues to record b-roll, the attachment on his camera drawing odd looks from passersby. Eventually, they make their way into Cape May's historical society. The most relevant detail comes from a snippet of conversation between Fox and Joanna Michelson, head of the society.


"Do you believe it's haunted?" Fox asks.


"No, but I think it's cursed. Ricky Lassiter bought so many things from Egypt, one of the things he bought is bound to be cursed."


"Didn't he collect books?" Jasmine asks. "I've heard of cursed mummies, but I don't think some paper is going to cause too much harm."


"Do you know what happened to his collection?" Fox sits up a bit straighter.


"As far as I know, it got sold off in an estate sale. Don't know where it's ended up."


"Curious." Fox reclines in his seat, satisfied by the answer.

***

"Why does Dan have a grenade launcher on his camera?"


A few hours later, the crew of AMH convenes outside the hotel. Speaking now is Robin McGuire (yes, the same Robin McGuire acting as showrunner on the current iteration of AMH), whose eyes goggle at the camera.


"It's a microphone." Dan sighs. "Rob, you have the gear?"


"Right here h-- right here." You can tell that Robin has to catch himself from saying "hon". Though not known publicly at the time, McGuire and Fox were in a relationship, something that had to be kept off-camera. Fox describes their current relationship as "Someone made of salt trying to hug a person with open wounds for the better part of a decade."


Robin holds up respirators, full-body clean suits, and large, thick dowel rods pointed at one end. "What's with the sticks?" Robin asks.


"To make sure that the floor is safe to walk on. God knows what the mold's doing on the inside."


"He's got a point," Jasmine admits. "Give one to Monica, maybe she can use it for dowsing."


"That's not how that works and you know it!" The last member of the team, thirty-two-year-old spiritual medium Monica Morse, speaks from off-camera. She steps into view, face briefly hidden behind a set of beaded dreadlocks before she parts them, revealing an exasperated expression on her face. “Seriously, what’s with the new gear?”


“Friend loaned it to me. Network’s already cleared it for this one episode.” Paper is shuffled around. “Okay, yeah… from the top?”


From here, they start going through their lines, briefly explaining the history of the Grand Alexandria/Lassiter, including the disappearances, the propensity for recorded (or unrecordable) anomalies, and then, Fox says: “Anyone want to back out?”


There’s confusion among his crew; this isn’t part of the script. Robin shakes his head, while Jasmine says, “I haven't seen you this freaked since we investigated the McCormick house.”


“Yeah, well. Just avoid recording anything in the lobby, okay?”

***

Jasmine is left outside in the van to monitor the rest of the team. B-Roll is shot in the lobby, but the crew is silent until they leave it and proceed to the second floor. Fox turns the camera towards his crew; all of them are wearing respirators and coveralls. He presses down onto the floorboards, making sure they don’t give before stepping forward. “I know our usual MO is to split up,” he says, “But we can do that in post. Just make sure a couple of us stay off-camera at a time.”


“Christ, Dan.” Robin sighs. “What’s gotten into you? Lassiter had mob ties, the disappearances were probably just witnesses he needed to make vanish.”


(He’s not wrong; Richard Lassiter’s son was allegedly put into Witness Security after testifying against several members of the New Jersey mafia.)


"It's not that," Fox lies. "This place is infested with mold. I'd rather not have anyone fall through the floor and get hurt."


As if to demonstrate his point, the next several minutes of footage are spent maneuvering around a hole in the floor large enough to swallow any one of them. Eventually, they reach the first room they're intending to Investigate: Room 29.


"Okay. This room reportedly had more people die in it than anywhere else in the hotel." Fox's tone of voice changes as he slips into his "professional ghost hunter" mode. "Monica, are you sensing anything?"


(Room 29 is located directly below Room 38 from the Molnar footage, and should have been where Tiffany Molnar landed when she fell through the bed.)


"Hold on a sec." Monica sits in the center of the room, cross-legged as she focuses on a point in the middle distance. "Hard to concentrate with the damn mask on." She looks at Fox, "Will you watch where you're pointing that? It's breaking my concentration."


"It's just a microphone," Fox sighs. "Just tell me when you feel--"


A low, rumbling bellow suddenly permeates through the building. Morse stands abruptly. "What was that?"


"Sounded almost like something fell." Robin groans. "Are you kidding me? Does the Network's insurance even cover this?"


Jasmine's panicked voice comes over their radios. "Guys, what room are you in?"


"What?" Fox goes to the window of Room 28, shining a light down into the parking lot, illuminating the van. "Can you see us?"


"There is something else in there with you. It's on the fourth floor."


"Something else?" Robin grimaces. "What do you mean?"


"There was a massive fucking shadow on the building, bleeding through the windows!"


"Bleeding?” Fox asks. “Or running, like water?"


“Who cares?! Get out of there!”


“That’s not in the script,” Robin mutters. The camera turns to him. “What the fuck is happening? There’s nothing about shadows in the script. What the fuck?”


“Get out,” Fox says. “I need to take care of this.”


“Take care of-- Dan, is this some kind of joke?” Fox muscles past Robin and heads to the stairway. “Dan? Dan!”


“I’m coming with you.” Monica follows after Fox. He tries to protest, but she just gives him a steely look that says ‘I’m in this with you.’


“Monica, this isn’t a ghost,” he tries to explain. “It’s--”


“One of your side projects? I’m not stupid, Dan. I saw the footage you tried to hide from the Juniper Theater.”


“Then you know how dangerous this is.”


“And I also know that you’ve been trying to learn Greek for the last month for some reason. I know Greek! Let me help.”


“I--”


“Oh, mou éphayes ta aftiá.”(Translation: “You’re talking too much”.) Where are we headed?”


“Room 47, Fourth Floor.” The camera is jostled as Fox removes the attachment to it, and it’s here that we see it clearly for the first time. It does, indeed, look like the barrel of a grenade launcher, being a long and hollow-looking tube with what appears to be a stock attached to the end. “I need you to read something once we get up there.”


“Fourth floor? Where the shadows are?” Monica follows after him up the stairs.


“They’re not shadows.”

***

They pause when they reach the fourth floor so that Daniel can record something. Through the door, they see what appears to be water flooding the entire floor, constantly flowing out of Room 47, but never seeming to fill the room. “Hold onto something,” Daniel says as he opens the door.


Inexplicably, water does not come flowing out as the door opens, instead staying as a semi-liquid wall. Daniel prods it with the tube, and some of it appears to be sucked in. The same bellowing is heard once again. Fox opens the tube at one end and withdraws a folded piece of paper, handing it to Morse. “Can you read this?”


Morse takes it and scans the paper. “Yeah. Yeah, easy enough. What do you want me to do with it?”


“Say it out loud as we walk through. It should protect us.”


They begin wading through chest-high water. Monica begins chanting, in Greek: “Chaíre paníschyre Tyfón, férnontas tou télous, theoktoní, vasiliá ton kataigídon Chaíre ekeínon pou eínai thamménos káto apó to Sfyrílato tou Ifaístou, anávontas ti flóga tou. Dóxa ston Tyfón[indistinct]”(Translation: “Hail mighty Typhon, bringer of the end, god-slayer, king of storms Hail he who is buried beneath the Forge of Hephaestus, kindling its flame. Glory to Typhon”). The chant continues as they make their way to Room 47, water being siphoned into the tube. “Dan, what’s in that?”


“Long story, keep chanting!” They make their way into Room 47, and find themselves facing an aperture with a mirror-like texture. Steam is emerging from it, and the water around it is seething; this only increases in intensity as the camera turns on it.


“Dan, what the fuck--” Morse begins.


“It’s real.” Fox laughs. “Holy shit, it’s an actual portal to the Bibliotheke. If only I could… no, bad idea.” Fox hands the camera off to Morse. “Keep it up with the chant, I need to make sure that this gets recorded.”


“O-okay.” Monica’s hands shake slightly as she holds the camera. “It’s cold…”


Fox opens the tube, revealing a piece of papyrus within; water is drawn up towards it as he unravels it. “Typhon!” He yells. “I am a librarian, a keeper of knowledge! Thy tale has been let loose on this world unjustly! I know your pain, and I know what you are trying to hold back! Come forth! Come home!”


The water is drawn towards the papyrus, little by little, and the paper sucks it up like a sponge, but seems to be undamaged. “That’s good,” Fox grins. “Come home, Typhon, come home.”


Morse focuses the camera on the parchment. “Dan, what the hell is happening?”


“I’m just putting a story back where it belongs.”


Over the course of five minutes, all of the water on the fourth floor is drawn into the parchment. The portal that Fox observed closes as the water retreats, and by the time the water is around his ankles, it’s almost completely closed.


And then, disaster strikes.


A gout of flame emerges from the portal, hitting Fox in the face. He falls in the water face-first, and it’s thankfully extinguished, but not before the left side of his face is burned. Skin has already started to slough off from the heat, and Monica screams for Dan to wake up. The portal is still open, ever so slightly, and flame is coming from it, boiling off the remaining water in the room.


“Dan, we have to go.” She starts dragging him out of the room as it begins to burn. “Dan, come on, wake up. Dan!” She focuses the camera on his face--


And it’s at this point, for approximately sixty seconds, that the footage becomes unsafe to watch. While no fatalities have been attributed to this part of the Lassiter Hotel Footage, first-degree burns have been reported, as well as paper and other flammable objects, such as clothing and paper, spontaneously combusting in its vicinity.


The moment passes as we see Monica take up the scroll. The water has almost completely vaporized, leaving clouds of steam in its wake. “--get out of here,” Fox is heard panting. “The scroll, what does it say?”


Monica begins to read it. “It’s… it’s something about the myth of… Dan, what the fuck is--”


“What does it say? Does it say where it belongs?”


Monica looks over the papyrus. “...Uh. First floor atrium, Bibliotheke.”


Fox is heard sighing, and then groaning in relief. “We have to get out of here. Now.”


“Your face--” Monica tries to turn the camera to him.


“Don’t! I’m… it’s not safe anymore. Please.”


Fox’s hand obscures the camera. At this point in the recording, there is a surge of heat, and then, the recording ends.


Supplemental


Humans can become Videophobic anomalies as well.


Due to his injuries sustained in the Lassiter Hotel, Daniel Fox’s face is actively unsafe to record. Physical photographs of him burn upon development, digital photography can cause devices to overheat and brick themselves. This effect is lessened if his face is at least partially obscured; he’s been wearing a face mask continually since 2011 to alleviate the effect.


America’s Most Haunted was canceled due to ‘catastrophic injuries’ sustained during the expedition into the Lassiter. The footage was intended to be destroyed, but as is often the case with anomalous media, the film was braced and, for all intents and purposes, indestructible. Fox sued Nova Network for damages, alleging that the network knew the Lassiter was unsafe to film in, but he was forced to do it by their contract. They settled out of court for a handsome sum, and Fox was able to obtain the footage.


The Lassiter itself was destroyed in 2012 by Hurricane Sandy; the rotting structure crumbled under the storm surge. In its place, a small shopping center was built, and to date, no further anomalies have been reported-- except for the fact that the shopping center spends an inordinate amount of money on mold removal.


The papyrus that Fox contained the entity in is still in the possession of the Institute. As previously stated, it is a piece of the Greek Magical Papyri, dedicated to the myth of Typhon; however, in contrast to typical depictions of the entity, Typhon is portrayed as an embodiment of the ocean itself, living water, a flood meant to drown Olympus itself. It is an unorthodox portrayal, but a valuable one, and it is one of the oldest examples of a braced piece of media we possess.


The entity which inhabited the Lassiter has been absorbed by the Papyrus, and is, for the Institute’s purposes, neutralized. However, the document itself can’t be stored conventionally; our archivists have had to use an aquarium to contain it, due to the sheer amount of water it produces. Thankfully, it hasn’t outgrown the ten-gallon tank we use.


None of the disappearances at the Lassiter have been solved, and I doubt they ever will be. That said, some… odd news has come about since my last entry, one that I had to revise this piece to accommodate.


After reading the description of the Molnar footage, a woman from Akron, Ohio reached out to me. She claims that she has been having dreams about events that roughly correspond to the Molnar footage since she was eight years old and adopted by her foster family, who found her at the side of the road, wearing pajamas and begging for her mother. Having talked with her over Zoom, she does bear a striking resemblance to Tiffany Molnar’s age-progression photos. She has sent away her DNA for testing at a lab with ties to the Institute.


And at the end of the day? None of this makes any fucking sense.


New Jersey has come up a few times over the course of what I’ve shared on this blog. We originally thought that the Lassiter was a locus point for it, a sort of magnet for strange occurrences or maybe even a gathering place for anomalous entities. But the Lassiter was destroyed, the primary entity within it contained, and yet there are still dozens of pieces of Forbidden Media connected to New Jersey.


The Papyrus had no ties to Ohio, so how on earth did she end up there in 1998? If this woman is Tiffany Molnar, how did she end up there? And what force made it impossible to record people within the Lassiter’s Lobby?


There are few things that keep me up at night. The Lassiter is one of them. If anyone has any information about this place, I beg you, reach out, tell us something. Anything.


For the time being… The Institute’s head is advising me to take a break, reconnect with my family. It is almost Thanksgiving, after all. I’ll see you on the other side.

Kitchen Blitz Pilot (2013)

<< The Anti-Drug Aberration 

Essay by Tristan Marshall, Forbidden Media Investigator

I'm afraid I've been lying to you these past couple of weeks regarding my injury. I figured "pinched nerve from sitting weird" was less embarrassing than the truth of "I was injured during an investigation", for some reason. What I'm going to be talking about today was filmed not 20 miles from my hometown. And now that I'm healed and have some test results back, I'm ready to discuss it.

Kitchen Blitz was the 2013 pilot of a home improvement TV show that was pitched to HGTV. As the name might suggest, the show focuses on trying to renovate the kitchen specifically. It makes sense: a house can exist without a TV room, a breakfast nook, a ‘man cave’, etc. But the kitchen is the third-most important room in the house, after the bathroom and bedroom, and it’s also the most complex to maintain. You have to deal with gas lines, electricity, plumbing, waterproofing, managing storage space, dealing with pests, and so much more, so of course some people would find entertainment value in it.

Like a lot of media I deal with, the episode is made up of a bunch of unedited takes from various cameras. I’ve managed to create together a coherent narrative with the help of my colleague ‘Azula’ (pseudonym), who is the editing guru in the Institute; she helped cobble together the Money for Nothing tape. But before we get to the episode, let’s discuss the house itself.

The house it was filmed in-- which still stands to this day, abandoned-- was built in the 1850s. It used to be a farmhouse, before all the land around it was bought up and developed into something that would be called suburbs, if it were closer to a major city. It’s the oldest house on the block, and it’s falling apart. Part of the roof has collapsed on the north side, rendering the attic inaccessible. The debris from that has crushed the carport on the house's north side. The front porch was torn up by the police, exposing the crawlspace beneath. The front door is about three feet off of the "ground" as a result, covered in faded yellow crime scene tape.

Supposedly, you can get anywhere with a clipboard, a tie, and a lot of confidence. The same is true of Institute research, but the props are different. When I went to investigate the house, I wore a set of white nylon coveralls, along with gloves, goggles, and a face mask, with a bag in one hand and a clipboard in the other. To most people, I’ll look like either a CSI tech or someone who’s coming to inspect the house for mold; either of those were welcome sights when it came to this ruin. Properties on either side were put up for sale years ago, and remain vacant.

Negotiating the crawlspace was easy enough; jump down, walk across, crawl under the police tape. There's no condemned notice, for some reason; I think the city considers this a landmark because of how old the house is, so they're reluctant to tear it down, but people don't want to move in because of its history.

On my way in, I left some Institute tech by the door; it's a laser tripwire that goes up at ankle level. It should have sent an alert to my phone if anyone crossed it. That way, I'd have advanced warning if anyone comes in after me.

The kitchen was at the back of the house; between me and that was a lot of rotten carpet and disintegrating floorboards. Thankful for my boots, I stepped across the moist rug, and once I was somewhere dry and stable, I began comparing my observations to the notes I had made on the pilot earlier that day.

A Brief History of Killer Apps (Guest Post)

<< The Maddening Quiet (1962) 

 

Tristan here. Bad news: doctors said I have a pinched ulnar nerve from resting my elbow weird on stuff. Updates are going to slow a bit, but other members of the institute have agreed to do write-ups in my absence.

The first of these is written by Cecily Smith, and talks about various ways your cell phone can kill you. She's reluctant for it to be published and objects to the very concept of this blog, but smashed out something usable in the last week.

A Brief History of Killer Apps

Original Write-Up by Cecily Smith


Let me preface this by saying that you'll have to take my word for it on a lot of stuff here. Smartphone apps generally aren't forwards-compatible, so if you have an app on your phone from five years ago, there's no guarantee it'll work on newer operating systems. This applies to all devices, which means, I have to rely on emulators and testimony regarding their effects… but emulation doesn't replicate the anomalies these applications cause, meaning I'm working on testimony when it comes to these things.

Anyway.

The first-ever application (or ‘app’) put on Apple’s store was a television remote, released in May of 2008. Third-party apps began to be listed on the App Store in June 2008. The first death attributed to a smartphone app occurred on August 25th, 2008. This death was nothing of particular note; some poor soul in London was just bidding on an eBay auction while driving and missed the fact that the light had turned red.

This is a brief run-down of apps that have actively caused harm.

Name: Carpe Diem 

Category: Life Aid/Malware

Released: April 9th, 2009

Last Active: April 9th, 2009

Injuries and Deaths: 20 seizures

Carpe Diem was advertised as a daily planning app. In reality, the app was programmed to, after approximately two minutes of continuous operation, display a ‘screamer’ image with flashing lights and a loud sound, which was intended to cause epileptic seizures. Nobody died, thankfully, and it was pulled from the store before it hit 500 downloads. The App’s creator was arrested and was sentenced to six months in prison; the sentence was so light because legislation regarding computer programs that cause physical harm, as opposed to material or monetary harm, was and is still sparse.

Name: Cointraq

Category: Finance/Malware

Released: July 2017

Last Active: September 2017

Injuries and Deaths: Between 20 and 50 injuries, in addition to an unknown quantity of destroyed property.

Cointraq was a very dumb app. It was a 2017 Android application which advertised itself as a way to monitor various cryptocurrency markets in real time. It was also malware, which turned your smartphone into a crypto mining rig for the app’s creator. This wouldn’t have been a problem (at least, from a medical perspective) if they tried to mine using the CPU of the phone; however, they attempted to use the phone’s far less powerful GPU to mine. Most phones that downloaded it were bricked within a week, and the phones that weren’t bricked overheated, with some even catching fire. I doubt that all of the cases of exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7s are related to Cointraq, but I’m willing to bet at least one is.

The precedent for apps that are harmful, but ultimately mundane, usually follow these trends-- malice, incompetence, critical user error, etc. I could write a whole essay on deaths caused by Pokémon Go, but if the Institute focused on ways that Pokémon was actively harmful, we’d never get anything done.

Anomalously dangerous apps take several forms, but commonly are novelties, or at least look like them. If you have a smartphone, you’re likely at least aware of apps that use your phone’s motion sensor to do things like simulate the pouring of liquids, roll dice, or do other relatively useless actions.


Name: Blut

Category: Digital toy/novelty

Released: 2011

Last Active: 2016

Injuries and Deaths: 52 confirmed; 71 total suspected.

A liquid simulation app that requested access to biometric data (i.e. what your phone’s fitness app could register). Users that granted access were allowed to play with a simulation of liquid blood. Several users poured the blood out of its digital container and suffered catastrophic hemorrhaging, with at least four users suffering complete exsanguination.

Name: Lucre

Category: Financial/Marketplace

Released: 2015

Last Active: Ongoing

Injuries and Deaths: 89+, including one case of severe chronological alteration.

Lucre is an app dedicated to "creating a consumer-centric marketplace"-- a swap-meet app, where you could buy and sell unwanted items. You'd put something up for sale, ship it off to one of Lucre's warehouses, and when it got bought, you'd get the money. It advertised 'Insanely fast shipping', and it fulfilled its promise… but the creators of Lucre, Gordon Software LLC, cut corners, in the temporal sense.

Items that were shipped using Lucre ended up becoming ‘chronologically altered’ (and not ‘chronologically confused’, despite it being a much better term). Items would arrive before they were even ordered, poofing out of existence after the buyer realized they didn’t want to order them anymore. (The universe is very tidy about paradoxes, when it comes to inorganic items.) Other times, the items would arrive reduced to their base components, whether that be individual circuit boards or shards of plastic and rubber. But two cases bucked this trend.

Firstly: I’ll let this article from the Orlando Sentinel circa 2017 speak for itself.

SEVEN LOCAL RESIDENTS HOSPITALIZED FOLLOWING EXPOSURE TO RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS

ORLANDO-- Seven individuals, all staff at the Green Well Bar and Grill in Orlando, were hospitalized following exposure to radioactive materials.

Clark Karpin, owner of the Green Well, said in a statement that symptoms of radiation sickness occurred after opening an online order from a small ‘swap-meet’ website, and that the order ‘just looked like ordinary equipment for brewing’.

Karpin had recently acquired a license to brew and bottle his own alcohol, and had ordered used brewery equipment from the internet. It is believed radioactive material was packaged with the items. Doctors expect Karpin and his six employees to make full recoveries.

The agents from the Department of Homeland Security are investigating, and declined to comment.

The second case cropped up much more recently; someone ordered an item when the app started up in 2017, and never received it… until March of this year. The contents were supposedly a french press coffee maker, and the owner, a small-time Youtuber, did an unboxing live stream.

When he opened the box, the live stream’s feed seemed to pause, but the video kept recording. As of writing, the stream has been ongoing for over five months, just the same angle of hands looking down at the coffee maker as they pull it out of the box. We’re trying to find out where he lives so that we can get him out of whatever he’s stuck in, because the stream is still going. Light changes through the windows of their house. But they don’t move.

I realize, at best, apps like this are adjacent to the media studies we dedicate ourselves to. They’re software, and mobile games generally don’t kill people. Most lost apps don’t kill people, and most of them don’t even display any anomalies. Lucre and Blut are two major exceptions, but there is a sort of third that’s an Unholy Grail for me-- basically it’s what the Kilauea Recording is for Tristan, something so dangerous it needs to be gone.

Name: N/A (designated ‘Scan’)

Category: Malware/Spyware/Stalkware/Data-Skimmer

Released: 2010 (?)

Last Active: Ongoing

Injuries and Deaths: Unknown, estimated to be over 5,000

I call this app Scan, based on the fact that the main UI element is a green button with that word on it. Pressing that button lets the app root through your phone’s data, everything from Facebook to your contacts, and from there, it extrapolates, searches, expands its net further and further until no data can escape it.

It can tell you what brand of wine your best friend likes. It can tell you what type of car your ex-girlfriend is now driving, and where she’s going to be spending vacation this year. It can track down your high school bully, the one who made your life hell, and tell you what pharmacy he goes to in order to get his antipsychotic prescription filled. And it proceeds to give you nudges in the right-- or wrong-- direction. One use of it and every machine I own started giving me advertisements for gun stores, fertilizer, and electronics manuals.

And it can do all that in less than twenty seconds after pressing the button. It’s like someone made a real-life version of a hacking app from a bad episode of CSI. Scan isn’t dangerous because of what it does; it’s dangerous because of what people are pushed to do with the information it gives them. The chain of bomb threats in Baltimore in late 2014? Connected to Scan. The 2012 assassination of three members of Brazil’s parliament? Scan facilitated that. Three of the dump sites from the “GUTS X6” killings (Tristan will probably write about that at a later date) showed up on Scan months before bodies were found there.

I use Scan myself. It’s useful for keeping tabs on other members of the Institute, making sure that, when we go off the grid, we do so of our own volition. But my main motive with using it is to figure out who made it and how to get rid of it. Digging through the code is fruitless; it looks like complete nonsense, to the point where I think it has to be some custom programming language that I’m unaware of. Part of the purpose of this blog is to try to get knowledge from the outside world; with that in mind, if you know anything about computers at all, get into contact with me, maybe you can figure out what the code actually does.

Until then, keep an eye on your screens. Who knows what they do when you're not watching?

--Cecily Out

The Anti-Drug Abberation >>

The Kilauea Recording (2006)

 Original essay by 'Tristan Marshall', forbidden media investigator.

I’m going to splash a content warning up here: if you’re uncomfortable with reading about bad things happening to children, I wouldn’t read on. This gets rough.

Thanks to the likes of The Blair Witch Project, the genre of ‘found footage’ films was all but ubiquitous in the 2000s and early 2010s. You occasionally got a quality piece, such as The Atticus Institute, REC, Trollhunter, or Paranormal Activity, but more often than not you were left with dreck like The Devil Inside, Apollo 18, The Pyramid, and… “Trash Humpers”, a movie that doesn’t deserve proper italics. Some are mistaken for genuine, thanks to the ignorance of the audience or deceptive marketing.

And then we have genuine articles, pieces of forbidden media that are found by some unwitting passerby that document some sort of bizarre event-- or else cause harm to the viewer. You have Lassiter Hotel Footage, the Reykjavik Flare, and the so-called ‘Night March’ recorded in Central China. These have been documented by us, but we don’t feel comfortable releasing information on them at this time.

There’s always one that keeps getting away from us: the Kilauea Recording. Part of the reason I’m putting this up is a plea that somebody can maybe help us find it, because it is dangerous, and is honestly one of the few pieces we’d prefer not to preserve.

The Kilauea Recording, sometimes called the Kilauea Tape, is a thirty-one minute long video stored on a VHS-C tape. As the name might suggest, it was shot at Kilauea, the most active volcano in Hawai’i. Despite the imminent danger of lava that can literally cook you to death, it attracts thousands of tourists every year, as lava flow is largely cordoned off and what is accessible is slow and stable enough that you can be near it with relative safety. There’s probably a few thousand pictures on Instagram of people trying to roast a marshmallow on the lava there or something.

Nobody who’s part of the Institute, or the broader community, knows the full contents of the video, but the context around it is well-known. It’s known to depict an anomalous event occurring near Kilauea in Hawai’i. It was shot by the Sinclair family-- Malcolm Sinclair, along with his sister Matilda, his wife Gwen, and his eight-year-old son Brian. A fifth individual, park ranger Sarah Cameron, is seen throughout the tape, but is largely absent after 00:11:27. It was recorded in 2006 using an unknown model of Sony camcorder.

As the recording starts, we get a shot of the Sinclair family inside the visitor’s center at Kilauea, which is part of the Hawaii Volcano National Park. Matilda is shooting for the majority of what’s safe to view. A shot of the wall shows a clock reading 10:22 AM. They explain that they’re going to scatter the ashes of ‘Grandpa Harold’ in the park, with Malcolm holding up his urn somewhat somberly; this Harold was apparently a volcanologist (or, as Brian adorably puts it, a ‘volcanist’) who studied Kilauea from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Park ranger Sarah Cameron arrives and goes over safety procedures in the park; don’t stray off of marked paths, make sure you can see her at all times, don’t go within a certain distance of any lava flows you see, and if the ground starts shaking, get out of there as fast as you can.

What’s more, Cameron seems to be at least a little familiar with ‘Grandpa Harold’, as she expresses her condolences, saying that she’s more than happy to help put him at rest, and that she ‘owes him for saving her job’.

The first five minutes or so are dedicated to setting out from the visitor’s center, with Brian’s mother demanding he put his toy-- a little well-loved plush dog-- in the car. After being assured there’s water in the car so his plushie won’t get too hot, Brian reluctantly puts the dog away, and is grouchy for a good few minutes, before he gets to see how beautiful it is. Everything is lush and green, but it’s… manicured, is the best way to describe it. Everything is just a bit too orderly for it to be natural. The trail they’re taking is well-worn with trail markers and warning signs, but there’s still enough natural beauty for Brian to genuinely begin enjoying himself.

At about nine minutes, the ground shakes slightly. Cameron goes to find reception for her radio to check what’s going on, and instructs the family to stay put. Brian, being a little kid, immediately goes running off. His mother Gwen follows after, with Matilda more than content to just wait for her to get back. Then, at 00:09:43, a scream is heard, followed by a sickening crunch, and inconsolable sobbing.

Matilda and Brian’s father Malcolm find Brian at the bottom of a drop, his face contorted in pain and covered in tears. His mother’s made his way down to him, and is gingerly touching his leg, causing a shriek of pain. “It’s broken!” She yells. “Call for help!”

Cameron explains she can’t get reception on her radio, and instructs them to wait for assistance as she begins the trek back to the visitor’s center. Following 00:11:27, Cameron is not seen on the recording, until the very end. Brian’s mother begs Matilda to turn off the camera; the recording terminates.

The video picks up what seems to be several hours later; it was morning when they arrived, but the angle of the sun seems to show that it is now mid-day. The camera seems to have been turned on by accident, as none of those on tape acknowledge it being on.
Brian is at the base of the cliff still, being held by his mother, who’s helping him swallow a pain pill. He asks why ‘the lady hasn’t come back yet’, and his mother just lets out an exasperated sigh, looking outwards.

Macolm is heard cursing out a cell phone, and Matilda says to him “Don’t throw the damn thing!”. Further dialog confirms it’s been about four hours since the expedition set out. Malcolm announces he’s going to follow the path back to the visitor’s center, and as he’s searching through the bag for a spare water bottle, he asks: “Where’s the urn?”

There’s commotion as Matilda and Malcolm search through the supplies. The urn was clearly visible on film at the outset, and Matilda picks up the camcorder, presumably to check this. They continue to be ignorant of the camera being on, and an argument breaks out between Brian’s parents, with Brian beginning to cry and beg for his stuffed dog, apparently named ‘Sparky’.

Seeing no better options, they start to set out for the visitor’s center, with Gwen carrying Brian on her back, his arms wrapped around her neck. The path is easy to follow, but after five minutes, they realize they aren’t passing any signposts. They do, however, see a series of figures on the path ahead of them; they’re dark and indistinct, but appear to be wearing something bright red. Brian’s father calls out for help, and all he gets in return is a series of heads turning towards them and tilting in unison.

He approaches them, continuing to ask for help, seemingly ignorant of Matilda’s question-- “Do you smell smoke?”

Following the timestamp of 00:19:13, the recording is unwatchable. I don’t mean that the recording quality degrades or that the data is corrupted. I mean that watching the Kilauea Recording past this point has, to date, resulted in over forty deaths and at least one-hundred severe injuries. All injuries result from exposure to an unknown, extreme heat source; people who have watched for a minute after this point typically suffer from first-degree burns on their retinas. Nobody has survived watching the tape for more than three minutes after this point.

Only recently, with advances in neural networking, have we been able to isolate parts of the recording that are safe to view.

The first, from timestamp 00:20:07, is a series of six frames. These frames show the urn containing Grandpa Harold’s ashes, smashed against rocks, appearing to have been thrown from off-screen. Lava is visible in the background.

The second, timestamp 00:23:55 to 00:24:09, shows an area of dark forest, apparently somehow at night; the neural network that analyzed this video confirms that there have not been any cuts since 00:19:13. An unconscious Brian lying on the ground. His breathing his shallow, and Brian’s mother is begging the filmographer, “Don’t look at his leg, it’ll happen to you too!”

The third, timestamp 00:27:09 to 00:27:25, has the camera largely shooting the ground as the person holding it runs. Their gait is unsteady, as if they are carrying something heavy. A voice, garbled shouts, “There it is!”. The camera swings upwards, showing a tall, indistinct shape, wreathed in frames. Someone screams.

The final shots are from 00:29:03 to the end of the recording. It is morning once more. Four charred bodies are seen in the same area where Brian fell. A team of rangers come onto the scene, stopping in sheer disbelief. Sarah Cameron goes up to the smallest form, inspecting them. She shouts, “Medic!”. A ranger notices the camera and picks it up; the recording ends as we see rangers attempting to treat Brian’s burnt form, as the very act of picking up the camera somehow terminates the recording.

Supplemental:

In April of 2006, park rangers at Kilauea recovered the burnt bodies of three individuals-- Gwen Sinclair, her husband Malcolm, and his sister Matilda. The exact cause of death, beyond ‘injuries sustained from burns’, was never determined. Brian was discovered nearby, covered in third-degree burns but somehow alive. He was life-flighted to a hospital in Hilo, Hawaii where he underwent almost a year of treatment and therapy. He survived, barely.

I attempted to reach out to Brian Sinclair for an interview or even a comment; instead, I received a strongly-worded email from his lawyer. The Law Offices of Schuyler, Baumer and Walker in Omaha, Nebraska informed me that Brian Sinclair is under a conservatorship ‘owing to severe physical disabilities’. Basically, I was very politely told that there was no way in hell I was getting an interview.

I did, however, manage to get in touch with Sarah Cameron, however briefly. She no longer lives in Hawaii, and did not wish me to disclose her location, beyond the fact that the area she is in is also volcanically active.

“Brian didn’t deserve what happened to him. Nobody in his family did. I still stay in touch with him, but it’s hard, seeing his burnt face over a video call, all these years later. Skin grafts can only do so much.”

“I think I know what did this to him, and I’m trying to make sure it never happens again. There’s a way to put out the fire that burned him. I read about how to do it."

She did not elaborate beyond this. 

The camera which created the Kilauea Recording was destroyed, apparently crumbling into ash in the hands of FBI arson investigators. Inexplicably, the tape was in pristine condition, and was digitized for easier viewing. Following a fire at the FBI’s Honolulu office, both the original VHS-C tape and the digitized recording where shipped to the mainland using protocols normally reserved for radioactive material. Its intended destination was in California; however, it somehow was re-routed upon entering the country, heading for a non-existent address in New Jersey.

The data of the Kilauea Recording we have now comes from an upload put on LiveLeak in early 2011, creatively titled “WATCH THIS VIDEO TO DIE AT 19:13”. The video was pulled down by the site’s admins, but not before one of the Institute’s investigators managed to copy it. It was uploaded by the account “wiltedflowers12'', which some of you may recognize as the origin of the infamous “GUTS GUTS GUTS GUTS GUTS GUTS” shock video. What you may not know is that “GUTS X6”, as it is now known, is linked to twenty unsolved murders across the south-western United States.

The Kilauea Recording’s properties persist on copies, as is already evident. And someone is copying it, and attempting to distribute it. Since 2006, forty-seven people have died as a result of exposure to footage present on the Kilauea Recording after 00:19:13; the vast majority of them have been in film processing labs that have obtained copies of the Kilauea Recording meant to be digitized. There’s seemingly no motive behind these attacks, nor any pattern.

The most recent attack was in June of 2021. It destroyed a film processing lab in New York City, where a copy of the tape was sent, along with a request for digitization. The tape itself was pristine, and wisely not watched by NYPD Arson investigators.

Current estimates are that there are at least thirty extant copies of the Kilauea Recording, not counting any online uploads. If you have any information about the Kilauea Recording, please reach out to us. That’s what this blog is for.