d25 anomalous media

A bunch of TRPG blogs (rememberdismove, Archons March On, etc) have been doing stuff like this, so I figured I'd revive the blog with one. I ended up reviving it with a bad card game, though. But I'm still posting these because I'm very happy with how they turned out. 

1. Abbot And Costello Meet The Xenomorph (film reel): This reel of film contains a parody of the film Alien starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, with plot, dialogue, and jokes typical of the duo's other horror movie parodies. While both comedians had passed away years before Alien's 1979 release, the film appears to star the duo as they appeared in the prime of their careers.

2. "Jujutsu Hamlet" (video file): A video file containing a torrented iteration of the Jujutsu Kaisen episode "Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event - Group Battle 1". If this video file is watched when only one viewer is in the room, the characters will abandon the plot roughly halfway through the episode and begin reciting random lines from the Tom Stoppard play Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead. The characters seem to choose their lines randomly with the exception of Mechamaru, who always recites Hamlet's lines from the original Shakespeare.

3. Recipes For Lovers (cookbook): This book normally displays only an endless repetition of the preparation instructions found on Hot Pockets packages, but will instead display recipes involving human flesh if read by someone who has committed an act of cannibalism at least once in their lives.

4. The Hammertree Woodcuts (woodcuts): A series of woodcuts made by Pennsylvanian engraver and lay preacher Homer Hammertree (1832-1877) which depict characters and passages of narration from the webcomic Homestuck. Discovered by a Haverford College professor investigating 19th century folk art, who was unfamiliar with Homestuck and simply concluded that Hammertree was insane.

5. "Union Barbecue LBI 1975" (video file): This video, which has been dated to the 1970s, and shows no signs of tampering, shows a group of men standing around a barbecue grill on a beach, presumably somewhere on Long Beach Island based on the title. The men seem to near-perfectly resemble a number of Union generals from the American Civil War. Men resembling Samuel Beatty, John Joseph Abercrombie, Robert Anderson, Nathaniel Prentice Banks, John Gross Barnard, Silas Casey, Abner Doubleday, Cadwallader Colden Washburn, Charles Champion Gilbert, Rufus Saxton, and William Tecumseh Sherman appear in the video. There is no sound.

6. Amaranth Tracks (cassette tape): A cassette tape containing a previously unknown album by obscure "psychedelic prog" rock band Aqua Regia. The eighth and final track contains a loud harangue from an unknown individual (his voice does not resemble those of any of the band members), the words of which are as follows: "Gilgamesh quested for immortality, but gave up after he failed again and again. Today, we have a word for people like Gilgamesh. We call them quitters! Are you a goddamn quitter, son? Do you want to live forever, or do you want to be a pansy like Gilgamesh? You know what I think of Gilgamesh? I think he's the kind of loser who tries get football banned just because he couldn't make the team in high school! I think Gilgamesh can go fuck himself!".

7. Al-Shamshoon Season 43 (DVD boxed set): These DVDs contain episodes of The Simpsons, specifically in the form of the ill-fated Arabic dub of the series. The "Season 43" episodes are so heavily censored as to be nearly incomprehensible, but seem to contain content typical of later-season Simpsons episodes. Via reverse-engineering some of the editing techniques used, it has been found that many of the censored lines and scenes involve the characters referring in some way or another to "the mesopelagic war", "manehivi's tears", and a "new dominion of pale fishscales" that now encompasses almost all of the east coast of the United States. It is unknown whether these are simply elements of the plot or references to "real world" events.

8. "Blackbeard's Blog" (.txt file): This file contains many pages of text copied and pasted from forum posts, youtube comments, and a WordPress blog (none of these accounts or their posts remain on the internet, not even via services such as the Wayback Machine, but many other users of these websites have attested to having read them), all posted by a user known as "queenannesevenge" between the years of 2004 and 2011. This person claimed on several occasions to be Edward Thatch (also known as Edward Teach or Edward Drummond), better known as the pirate Blackbeard. He displayed an exhaustive knowledge of seamanship, 17th and 18th century history, and Caribbean piracy. While many of the details he mentions regarding their own experiences match up with what is known to historians regarding Blackbeard's life, he makes several claims not documented in any surviving historical source, such as that Blackbeard's mentor Benjamin Hornigold was "corrupted" by  Woodes Rogers (the first British governor of the Bahamas) and "the eye of the sleepless god" and attempted to massacre his own crew.

9. Ben Lear And The Strawhat Pirates Perform Your Favorites (CD): This album of unknown origin features cover artwork depicting a cartoon rendition of folk musician Ben Lear performing music alongside the cast of the anime and manga One Piece. The 25 songs contained on it are all performed by Lear and the English voice cast of Funimation's dub of the series, and are all either live versions of songs by Lear (Soul Swimmer, Underwater Sounds, The Great Plastiki, etc), songs from the One Piece anime (Binks' Sake, We Are!, etc), and traditional sea shanties (10,000 Miles Away, Fire Marengo, Fish In The Sea, etc). The album comes with extensive liner notes which describe a series of rituals that if properly performed can supposedly control the weather. Included are magical procedures for calming storms, calling hurricanes, and controlling waves. Lear, Toei Animation, the English voice actors, and One Piece creator Eiichiro Oda have all denied any knowledge of this album.

10. "Kate Wilhelm's book" (paperback book): A copy of the Star Wars novel Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn. "Property of Kate Wilhem" is written on the inner side of the cover in red pen. Words and letters have been covered with marker in the manner of blackout poetry, with the resulting text appearing to be instructions for constructing an Alcubierre drive propulsion system.

11. dyatlov.mov (video file): This seven minutes and ten seconds long video shows two men and an unseen camera operator hiking through an unidentified stretch of taiga forest. The three talk in Russian throughout the video about a variety of casual topics, though they occasionally refer to an "objective" or allude to searching for something or someone. At the five minute mark, the camera operator claims to have heard a loud crashing noise, which cannot be heard in the video. The other two men claim to not have noticed it. At six minutes and thirty-five seconds, trees can be seen creaking and twisting in the distance, though there is a lack of any other visible signs of wind. The three do not appear to notice this. At six minutes and fifty-two seconds, one of the men yells "Did you see that? What the fuck was that?" After this, all three appear to be on edge, and the camera operator rapidly moves the camera around. Several frames appear to have been edited out of this section of the video. At seven minutes and six seconds, a loud rumbling can be heard. One of the men, now off camera, screams. The camera operator turns around rapidly as the sound increases in volume just before the video ends.

12. My Summoning Trainer (iOS and Android app): This app, made by "Scholomance Software" was present on the iOS and Android stores for six hours before being removed. It was represented by an icon showing the Seal Of Solomon and promised to "make demon summoning easy" by providing numerous organizational services for coordinating summoning rituals. The interface allows the user to enter the details of the demon they are trying to summon or choose from a list of preloaded demons. According to reviews of the app, it is well suited for use with Goetic demons but is less effective when used to try to summon demons from other mythologies.

13. Resident Evil: Apostasy (videogame): This game was first found on the website Emuparadise, where it had been posted on the form of an ISO file for the Dolphin GameCube emulator. The begins with a similar premise and opening sequence to Resident Evil 4, though a title screen refers to this as "Part 1". However, Leon S. Kennedy is shown to be much more philosophical and reflective and seems to be deeply effected by PTSD from his experiences in Raccoon City in the second game. There are several digressions from the plot depicting either flashbacks to Kennedy's life or scenes in which he directly addresses the player and describes his growing perception and fear of his own mortality and the "beauty" of the Tyrant bioweapon that pursued him during Resident Evil 2. The plot and gameplay proceed as normal apart from these digressions until the second boss battle against El Gigante, where a stray bullet fired by Leon ricochets and strikes Ashley Graham, killing her. This sends Leon into a mental breakdown, most of which is shown through crying and wordless screams, though at several points during the scene he quotes lines from Paradise Lost. The rest of the plot is somewhat different, as instead of destroying the Los Illuminados cult Leon instead kills only their leaders and takes control of the organization, choosing not to have the Plaga parasite inside him removed. The boss battle against Osmund Saddler is followed with a second title screen that introduces "Part 2" of the game, an entirely new story in which Leon's former comrades, lead by Chris Redfield, attempt to eliminate him. Chris, like Leon, addresses the player at several points and attempts to justify his actions to them. Those who have played the game have describes it as excellent, though the scenes in which Leon must avoid BSAA attack helicopters were criticized as unforgiving and overly challenging.

13. Catherine Baker's phone number (phone number): This phone number has an area code corresponding to northern New York and was found to be registered to a Nokia 5210 phone. For a period of three months in 2008, anyone who called the number after sunset and before sunrise would usually reach a woman who identified herself as Catherine Baker. Catherine would usually answer by first asking if the call was "about a job", and would become annoyed and hang up if callers attempted to ask about other topics. Those who asked about "jobs" claim that Baker would then ask them who or what they wanted "chomped" or "grilled". Baker also displayed familiarity with numerous paranormal events and phenomena, and also claimed to be available to hire for exorcisms.

14. Ludoacademic Bookbag (satchel of books): This bag was found abandoned in the common area of Princeton University's Rockefeller College dorm in 1989. It contained pencils, pens, erasers, notecards, blank notebooks, a graphing calculator of an unknown model and suspected anomalous technological basis, several packages of gum and cookies with branding not matching any known company, a printed-out schedule, and three books: Theory Of Play by Oji Mak, The 1985 Genesistrine University Encyclopedia Of Games, and Fool's Wager: A Life In Cards And Dice by Jennifer Ssskthakhtkhaa. The schedule lists what appear to be college classes, including "Introduction to Teratology", "Astral Sailing", and "Advanced Placement Ludology". The books are all on the topic of board, card, and dice games, covering the subject from philosophical, historical, practical, and biographical perspectives. While some familiar games such as poker, hnefatafl, and GURPS are mentioned, the bulk of the contents covers either obscure chess variants or other previously unknown games, such as the card game Six Knights, the mahjong-like game Teletabula, and the extremely complicated Orrery Chess, which requires a rotating clockwork model of a solar system, which each planetary body having its own attached gameboard and tracks running between them to allow "aetherliners" to transport pieces between them. The books do not appear to have been written on earth, as they frequently make reference to unknown countries, cultures, species, and planets, though only in the context of discussing games and gambling.

15. Ambient Cretaceous (vinyl record): This record contains two hours worth of what appear to be recordings of a forest or jungle, with sounds of wind, water, and animals periodically audible. None of the birdsong-like sounds, calls, or roars have been definitively matched with any extant animal species.

16. No Fear Voynich (book): This book is a heavily annotated version of the Voynich Manuscript, featuring side by side translations of the text into english and numerous notes describing both the process of the translation and clarifying the manuscript's contents. The version of the manuscript used in the translation includes numerous pages not found in current publicly available copies. According to the translation, the manuscript contains both alchemical formulas and brief descriptions of the cultures, terrain, features, and animals of various planets. These planets appear to correspond to the planets of the solar system, though they are referred to by alternate names and are all implied to be able to support life. The back pages feature an ad for "No Fear Seraphinianus", presumably a similar book that translates the Codex Seraphinianus.

17. The Skylands Homunculi (semisapient humanoids): The homunculi number at least three, and are eyeless, pale, five foot tall humanoid creatures created through unknown means who reside in remote areas of the New Jersey Skylands, primarily in forests and caves, where they pursue a hunter-gatherer existence and seek to avoid any contact with humans. Tattooed on their bodies are fragments of maps that, when combined are said to lead to the location of the secret underground laboratory where Thomas Edison kidnapped other inventors and drank their cerebrospinal fluid to steal their ideas.

18. orcus.exe (program): This readme file for this program describes it as an emulator designed to run ROMs of games made for the Sega Pluto, a handheld system rumored to be in development during Sega's heyday but never released. The compatibility and performance section of the readme mentions several games, including previously unpublished spinoffs of the Sonic The Hedgehog, Phantasy Star, Burning Rangers, and ChuChu Rocket series.

19. Mosenkov's Journal: This leather-bound journal, found in an unused sub-basement of Voronezh State University, contains the personal notes of doctor Dmitri Mosenkov, who refers to his involvement with numerous covert Soviet-era projects. The journal focuses on his work on "Project Koschei", a series of top-secret experiments, heavily influenced by Russian Cosmism and its focus on immortality and human resurrection, intended to create "superhumans". According to Mosenkov's notes, the project involved the kidnapping and intense interrogation of several men claimed to be part of an ancient order of vampire hunters and the theft from the British Museum archives of a collection of personal correspondence between the legendary Count Of Saint-Germain and musician Jim Morrison.

20. OctoChat (website feature): A short-lived feature of the Boston Aquarium's website, which supposedly allowed visitors to chat online with the aquarium's octopuses. The feature was seen as somewhat cheesy, as most people assumed that the "octopuses" were simply aquarium employees pretending to be cephalopods and answering questions under their names. However, all past and present employees of the acquarium have denied any knowledge of the feature. Website visitors who chatted with the octopuses while the site was active have said that the octopuses frequently asked them questions about the aquarium itself, often regarding its layout and security precautions.

21. Spiral Jetties (podcast episode): This episode of the conspiracy and paranormal-focused podcast Fortean Frequency was removed from podcast apps and the show's website shortly after it was posted. It features an extended discussion between host Dwight Wallman and an unidentified caller regarding "spiral Jetties", spiral -shaped structures built on beaches and coasts that extend out into the the sea, resembling Robert Smithson's famous Spiral Jetty sculpture. The host and guest discuss Smithson at one point, with the host calling him a "psyop" and claiming that Smithson was commissioned to make his sculpture by the goverment so that any other spirals could be dismissed as similar artworks. According the guest, "the real ones" are only found in saltwater and are "much older" than Smithson's work. In his words, "if you walk out onto one, it's, like...you're in her church. You don't even know she's there, but you're part of the congregation. It's a tentacle and an eye at the same time. Down there under it there's something looking up. If you see one, you know, you don't walk on it, you don't even look at it. You stay out of that fucking water."

22. Goanna Gourmet (blog): This blog, started on blogspot in 2007, periodically re-emerges online despite attempts to remove it, usually accompanied by a post from the blog author complaining about "the suits taking my blog down again". The blog is focused on food reviews, and covers a wide variety of cuisine, including restaurants, fast food, prepared and instant foods, food at theme parks, and so on. The author, known as "the goanna", "Anna", or "Sschak-Thssska", claims to reside in Australia's Gold Coast area but travels frequently. According to her descriptions of herself, she is part of an unknown extraterrestrial species of reptilian humanoids. Anna's species are parthenogenetic and reproduce asexually through self-cloning, making them all female but with no native conception of gender. According to Anna, she her species does not have any notable involvement in human politics or secret organizations and she is unsure where this theory came from. Anna frequently describes having difficulty with human gender norms and alludes to romantic and sexual interest in human females. She also periodically describes having hunted and eaten humans. While she primarily covers these hunts from a culinary perspective, each of these posts has a brief description of her prey that indicates that all the humans she has eaten have been sexual predators, far-right conservatives, or advertising executives. Anna sometimes responds to comments posted on her blog and interacts with her followers, who describe her as affable and gregarious, with several claiming she has donated to their GoFundme campaigns.

23. Codex Prophetissima (vellum manuscript): This manuscript is said to have been written at some point in the sixth century AD by the legendary Maria The Prophetess, the first known alchemist in western history. The text contains mostly alchemical recipes, including the procedures that Maria used to become immortal and an extended reference section describing the properties of various magical substances including aqua regia, adamant, electrum, scarletite, and red mercury. The Codex also includes extensive sections on principles of physics and chemistry that would not be formally discovered until centuries later, such as instructions for constructing steam engines, electrical circuits, and atomic weapons.

24. The Cousteau Tapes (set of cassette tapes): This set of tapes contains an extended series of interviews with Jacques Cousteau, done near the end of his life. Most of the content covers his career and discoveries and concerns publicly available information, though Cousteau alludes several times to having "something big" planned. On second to last cassette, Cousteau describes a wondrous "sunken city" he discovered during a diving expedition near the Pacific Pole Of Inaccesibility. He claims that it will "rise upon [his] death" to "cull the primate herd" and "cleanse the seas of our sins".

25. "Cydonian Students" (mural): This mural, carbon-dated to pre-imperial Rome, shows a group of individuals gathered in front of a robed figure in a red, rocky landscape. The gathered "students" appear to be heavily augmented with cybernetic and biological alterations, including additional arms, tails, armored plates, and gills. The positions of the figures imply that the robed one is watching the others as they practice. They are in aggressive poses with their fingers extended, short jets of gleaming blue flame emitting from their fingers.