Hi guys, it's Daisy. So Pacific is out sick. I asked him if he had anything he wanted to share with you, and he responded, tell them that I'm dying. So we will be continuing the show on in Pacific's memory. It's what he would have wanted. Aside from our period of mourning, we're busy bees over here at SCP. Our season 8 finale, a feature-length two-parter, is coming at the end of the month, with season 9 hot on its heels. Our sister show Mayfair Watchers Society is well into season 3, with a new episode dropping today. Check it out if you haven't already. You might recognize a few familiar names. Lastly, I want to give the heads up that this episode contains discussions of suicide. Full content warnings can be found in the show notes. Listener discretion is advised. The game has only just begun. Radio Silence directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillette are back for round two with their new horror comedy film, Ready or Not 2, Here I Come. Samara Weaving returns as Grace, the battle-worn and bloody bride, and is joined by stars Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sean Haddesey, Nestor Carbonell, David Cronenberg, and Elijah Wood. After Grace marries into a mysterious family and is forced to play a life-or-death game of hide-and-seek, she emerges victorious. But what she didn't know is that by winning, she triggered a whole new twisted battle, this time with her estranged sister Faith at her side. The duo faces a shadowy group of rival devil-worshipping families who control the world, and they must fight to the bloody death for the ultimate prize. Two times the kills, two times the satanic rituals, and two times the human combustion. Don't miss the full tilt insanity. Ready or not to, here I come. When it hits theaters, March 20th. This week's episode is sponsored by the retro supernatural slasher, Blood Barn. Set in the summer of 85, Blood Barn follows Josie and her six closest friends as they gather for one last weekend at her family's secluded barn before college. But when a long-buried family secret is disturbed, a malevolent spirit awakens, possessing them one by one in a brutal quest for revenge. Critic Jesse Hobson of Citadum calls it a splattery love letter to 80s DIY horror. Once it gets going, it works. blending the cabin in the woods paranoia of the evil dead with the possession-fueled chaos of the exorcist blood barn delivers practical gore escalating dread and a race to survive until sunrise don't miss blood barn watch the trailer and learn more now Okay. Item number SCP-8670 Containment class, safe Disruption class, vlam Risk class, caution Special containment procedures A flash drive containing SCP-8670 is to be kept in a standard anomalous item locker at storage site 02. This locker should feature cognitohazard warnings and level 3 access restrictions. Any appearance or reference to SCP-8670 online is to be removed automatically by Foundation artificially intelligent conscripts and should be investigated to locate offline copies of the anomaly. Individuals exposed to SCP-8670 are to be made aware of its effects and observed until symptoms subside. Due to their lack of efficacy and the risk of undiscovered interactions, use of amnestics to tree exposure is not recommended so long as symptoms are present. Due to its special clearance restrictions, most information regarding SCP-8670-A, including interview SCP-8670-1, and anything except a general description, has been kept in separate documents or addendums. Description SCP-8670 is an MP3 audio file of a short melody consisting of nine notes. Those exposed to SCP-8670 appear to be unable to forget the tune. Furthermore, SCP-8670 cannot be removed from a subject's long-term memory through any means, including Foundation amnestics. This effect on memory is not observed with recordings or musically identical recreations. Following exposure, REM sleep increases the potency of the subject's memory of the anomaly. As the subject undergoes multiple days of regular sleep, increasingly frequent memories of the tune will become a nuisance and progress until subjects feel like it is playing constantly nearby. After around 15 nights of sleep, individuals will awake, having completely forgotten SCP-8670, although memory of the effects of exposure remain intact. Discovery SCP-8670 was brought to Foundation attention on July 13, 2024, due to its use in an unpublished sleep study conducted by Dr. Ashley Berkmeyer at the University of California, San Diego. See Foundation agent Stephen Wozniak's interview with Dr. Berkmeyer for more information. SCP-8670-A is a non-anomalous phenomenon inherent to human sleep. It is not related to SCP-8670, except that the use of SCP-8670 is the only known method by which SCP-8670-A can feasibly be detected. Addendum. Interview 8670-1. Special clearance restrictions. The following file is classified Level 1. Unrestricted access is limited to computers located within Foundation sites that contain Class A or B amnestic treatment capabilities. The contents of this file should not be discussed with staff who are not already familiar with SCP Preface The following is an interview conducted by Foundation agent Stephen Wozniak with interviewee Ashley Berkmeyer a research professor of neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Berkmeyer was transferred to Foundation custody from the San Diego police following her arrest for a fiscal altercation with a member of her research team. Preliminary questioning with witnesses indicated the possible presence of a cognitohazard, so Foundation personnel were unable to read any documents recovered from the scene. This included a shredded, somewhat singed manuscript soaked in liquor that is now known to discuss SCP-8670-A. Begin log. I am Sergeant Stephen Wozniak with the California State Police. Could you please state your full name for the record? Dr. Ashley Berkmeyer. Thank you. Now, do you know why you're here, Dr. Berkmar? Because the university police can't be bothered to do their own job. Any other questions you already know the answer to? No, just the other kind from now on. For instance, what happened in your office at 10 a.m. yesterday? I see. The other kind of questions are the kind I've already answered multiple times. times. I met with one of my grad students to discuss the publication of our recent study. Any disagreements occur? Any raised voices? We disagreed about whether to publish, and yes, the discussion got passionate. Are you the one pushing for publication? No. Any elaboration would be appreciated Our results are pretty clearly botched due to some machine error Journals don't publish inconclusive results Look, are you going to keep asking questions you don't care about? Or are you going to ask questions that I can answer with I would like to call a lawyer now As you wish Did you assault this grad student when she attempted to grab the manuscript? I would like to call a lawyer now. Fair enough. But before you do, I would actually like to hear more about the research. Call it personal curiosity. Sure. I guess I've got nothing better to do with my time. We were studying brain activity and sleeping subjects. It's a fairly standard study in my field, but we recently got allocated time on this high-precision fMRI machine and software, which allowed us to image very specific parts of the brain, so we were looking at how areas associated with specific memories lit up during sleep. We had this royalty-free jingle one of the post-docs found online, and we wanted to see if we could get it to appear in dreams. And see what that looked like. Quantitatively, if we could. Labs on the East Coast were already getting attention just for imaging memories alone, so we figured something as novel as seeing someone's dreams would be a breeze to get published. Cool. But, uh, what's an FMRI? Sorry. It stands for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. It uses a big magnet to align the spins of the... Just think of it as a brain activity scan. If an area in the brain is used, we can measure that. And did this one work? Yeah, the software was a pain, but everything worked great. We got clean data, and the scan showed us the... Well, the subjects never dreamed of the jingle as far as we can tell, but that's what we expected. Still, nothing new to be published. Hmm. Nice, clean data for results you said had completely messed up measurements. If you're going to lie, at least be consistent. I would like to call a lawyer now. Oh, come on. I'm just here to clear up what happened. No, fuck off! I bet you already knew what an fMRI was, you asshole! If you work with me, I can work with you. And maybe we can avoid the storm that's veering toward your career. I can't imagine too many universities appreciate their good name being associated with violent crime. The state troopers are now in the business of advising academic careers. I'm not an idiot. Lawyer. Now. Just hear me out and I... I know my damn rights. I want my lawyer. You're right to not like state police. We're a bunch of vultures. But that just means you need someone on your side. If you don't get someone to advocate for you, it'll be a quick trial ending with 15 years in a state penitentiary. 15 years? What the hell are you talking about? I wouldn't get that much if I beat someone half to death with a baseball bat. The charge here is misdemeanor assault. Give me a phone call now. Doctor... Or don't. I could use the settlement money. You're even dumb enough to record evidence for me. Lawyer or lawsuit. Your choice. Dr. Berkmeyer, allow me to be frank. There will be no phone call. Wrong choice. There will be no phone call because you are not under arrest. I am not a state trooper, and I have no interest in you assaulting a grad student. My personal interest in your research is secondary to my professional national security interest. What are you, military or something? Something like that. And you're interested in me because... We are looking for what you found. Consider the dropped charges a token of goodwill. There's also no reason for this incident to meaningfully impact your career. You really just want the research? Yes. Well, I'm sorry, but I can't help. It's just... It's better off if what we found is forgotten. Hell, I'd quite like to forget it myself. Things best forgotten are exactly the things I'm looking for. Look, it's not information that can be used as a weapon or anything. Whatever enemies of the state you're worried about, this is useless to them. It doesn't help spread propaganda or encourage rebellion. It just bad news for everyone It information you want to get rid of the moment you know it Can you give me anything Trust me. You don't want to know. The world is better if nobody knows. Doctor, cards on the table here. We just want your interpretation of what you found. We have the manuscript, so hiding things isn't preventing anything. It's just a mild inconvenience. Bullshit. That manuscript was shredded and burned. Burned is an exaggeration. Soaking it in weak gin was not the best way to burn it. As for the shredding, all that costs us is time. If you really had the document, you'd just read it and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Treating me like an idiot doesn't do much for the goodwill you're trying to earn. I would like to leave. Let me out of here. I want to go home. Do you have any idea where here is? Are you having a stroke? I'm quite well, thank you. If I'm not under arrest, I'm leaving. I only meant to point out that you don't know where you are. In fact, only three people in the world do, myself included. You never wondered why your transfer to state police involved a two-hour van ride? It's so there's no trail anyone can follow. You're threatening me? What, are you planning to disappear a prominent professor from the University of fucking California? I bet you wish you had that power. But you don't. Unlock this goddamn door. Actually, the threat has already been implemented. it. You've disappeared. Past tense. I have no intention of harming you, but you can only leave after telling me exactly what you found. You know what? Fine. You want to know so bad? I'll tell you. If anyone deserves to hear it, it's you, you fucking prick. We discovered that you're going to die in your sleep tonight. Threats are productive. Please just... And so will I. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the jingle. That damn jingle. The jingle that a colleague... Just let me fucking speak. It will be hard enough to explain this to an imbecile like you without constant interruption. Yes, that jingle. the one we looked for in the study. It's not... It's not normal, somehow. It's the ultimate earworm. Mike, the colleague in question, wouldn't stop humming it and seemed to suggest its use for the study out of compulsion. I heard it the next day when we started the sleep study, and I swear to God, it has not left my head. It's getting worse over time. If I stop talking for too long, it creeps up into my mind. You can't forget it. And it only gets louder. Though at some point, I'd wager your neurons would just fry, so I'll be free of it eventually. That peace would come with minor brain damage, though. Is that all? Why try so hard to hide this? no that's not the part i want you to hear because it gets worse you see we thought the jingle would be hard to spot typically memories like that are small and ebb and flow in intensity not this one this one was bright and steady but the weirdest thing was that once the subject fell asleep It started getting brighter Not continuously, but in five steps over the course of the first night One step for each REM cycle Same thing happened the next night And all the others I was lead on this study, so I took it upon myself to stay late every night To see why the jingle signal was growing I zoomed in on one of the jumps in signal right at the peak of REM sleep and saw the jingle wasn't just growing. It was doubling along with every other signal in the brain. I don't mean that it was doubling in intensity. I mean there were two signals virtually identical with a tiny but measurable gap between them. But then, microseconds later, everything except the jingle would return to normal levels It happened in such a small blip that there'd be no way to catch it if it weren't for the jingle marking the exact spot it happened It was intriguing, but I couldn't explain any of it It took me two more nights to figure out why Any ideas? I'm afraid I'm not following Of course you aren't Let me get to the point Or, actually Let me put it to you Another way Let's say I was making a clone machine You go in And both you and an exact copy comes out Same body, same memories, same personality When you come out, do you see through your own eyes or the clone's? My own? Yeah, the clone is a separate consciousness However, that difference only matters to you and the clone If I didn't tell you it was a cloning machine and you and the clone never saw each other both you and the clone would think that they were the real you. The clone may never have experienced what you did, but it has the memories all the same. If a loved one met the clone, do you think they would know it wasn't you? You said it was an exact copy. Glad you can follow a simple analogy. Okay so if I killed you as soon as you got out of the machine and then the clone went along with its day your day it would be a perfect replacement As you noted, you never see through the clone's eyes, so you'd be properly dead. But to any outside observer, nothing changes. There's no way to tell that you died at all. unless you're you. Are you saying that when people who hear the jingle sleep? No, I'm saying that, unrelated to that jingle, whenever anyone sleeps, their brain uses this hypothetical cloning machine on itself. It could be why humans need sleep at all. Neuron signals degrade over time, so maybe you need a clean wipe every so often. Your brain creates a new consciousness, a new you and kills the old one like copying a file and deleting the original. So, Steven, when you fall asleep tonight I hope you ponder how the man who will wake up won't be you. You'll die and cease to experience anything Your loved ones won't notice Your death will be unmourned because to them, it didn't matter Of course, your loved ones will also die in their sleep So, it will just be copies, loving copies The original's dead with no corpse You're laying it on a bit thick, don't you think? Oh, and by the same token, you aren't the real Stephen Wozniak. The original died the day he was born when he took a fucking nap. The memories you have aren't yours, really. They belong to 10,000 different Stevens over however many years. If a sad piece of shit like you managed to find love, the partner you wake up to isn't the partner you fell in love with. And they'll be dead tomorrow. You don't have evidence to prove any of this. I proved it already. Remember the jingle. Its jump and signal shows the exact microsecond where you should look. Once you know exactly where to look at the measurements, the mind wipe is plain as day. I have dozens of scans of it and a paper full of analysis. If you weren't bluffing about having the manuscript, it's all there in rigorous detail. But before I forget, I haven't gotten to the best part yet. The part that's really been fucking with me these last few days. It's the part I want you to hear most. You're one of the lucky ones. What? Think about it. The wipe happened every REM cycle. You have five to six of those every night, assuming you sleep well, which I certainly doubt you will now. So, you must have been the product of cycle five or six. because you're here now. In other words, over 80% of the Stephen Wozniaks that are and will ever be created won't have the luxury of ever waking up before they die. You're one of the lucky few who won the dice roll, but you can't win more than a day of life. You can try to stay up, but you'll slip eventually. And then you'll die. So, I hope you enjoy knowing all this. I hope you got your answers. Answers? This is bullshit. You didn't question a magically unforgettable song, Sergeant. And yet it's impossible that sleep doesn't work exactly as you thought. What's wrong? not used to being on the receiving end of dark secrets? I think we're done here. As I said before, we can just read that paper of yours. Well, when you're done reading it, I have some advice for you. Suicide isn't a good option. You'll die tonight anyway. And then... this knowledge won't be your problem anymore. All you'd be doing would be removing the lives of another 10,000 Stevens. That will be all, Doctor. On second thought, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing. End Log Class A amnestics are only effective for memories formed in the last six hours. If their use is desired, please account for as much as a 30-minute delay at your site's amnestic pharmacy. Thank you all so much. Your support is what makes all of this possible. SCP Archives was created by Pacifica Sobidaya and John Grylls. SCP-8670 was written by Inactivity. Script is by Kevin Whitlock. Our narrator was Jesse Hall. Berkmeyer was Shelby Novak. Wozniak was Sam Stark. The dialogue editing was done by Daisy McNamara Art is by Eduardo Valdez-Hebbia Music was by Newt Shuttlecock With our theme song by Maddie Royberger Sound design was by Brad Kohlbrook I'm your showrunner, Daisy McNamara Our creative director is Pacifica Sobidaya And our executive producer is Tom Owen A Bloody FM show Thank you.
