Unreliable Oracles
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SCP-1435

Item #: SCP-1435

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1435 is to be kept wrapped and sealed in a containment locker at Site-██, and may only be viewed by D-class personnel for purposes of testing or recruitment. At any given time there should be three D-Class personnel, designated SCP-1435-A, B and C, who have been exposed to SCP-1435. These individuals should be kept in human containment facilities. All are to be given unrestricted access to a television, radio, and daily periodicals. Subjects are to be interviewed daily, with any reports of possible future events cataloged and reported immediately. Access to these individuals is limited to personnel ranked class 2 or higher.

Description: SCP-1435 is a heavily damaged wooden bust of an adult human female. Direct observation of the bust by a human subject causes the unusual properties associated with it to manifest. Subsequent to exposure, typically 2-3 days after the initial viewing, the subject will report receiving messages through various forms of mass communication such as televisions, radios, newspapers or cell phones. These messages are always in the form of predictions which warn of some impending disaster. The nature of these disasters appears to be entirely arbitrary, from predicting a nearby car accident to a major earthquake across the world. The individual receiving the warning need not have any personal connection to the events described. Subjects suffering the effects of SCP-1435 have often reported being warned of threats to specific individuals or locations they have no prior awareness of. In most cases the existence of these entities has been subsequently authenticated.

Messages manifest according to the medium in question. If watching a television, the regular broadcast will be briefly interrupted and a verbal warning issued. If reading a newspaper, the subject will report finding passages in the text addressed to them, (these later vanish.) Phones will ring, sometimes incessantly until answered, at which point the the warning is delivered. Where there is an audio element, subjects report hearing several voices, sometimes talking over one another, which seem distressed and out of breath. When a visual medium ilke television is used, subjects typically report the display reduced to static or digital noise, although occasionally they have reported seeing hazy background images similar in appearance to the statue. Subjects often report receiving the same warning more than once over the course of several days. The tone of these messages always indicates a sense of urgency and desperation.

Subjects report that they only receive messages so long as no other person can view or hear the specific medium, although the presence of other people itself doesn’t seem to be a deterrent. To date, any remote monitoring equipment positioned to observe the phenomenon suffers some type of failure or lapse during these experiences. In instances where contact was made via phone, the ringing of the phone is apparent to independent observers. Attempts to tap or trace these calls have so far been unsuccessful. Exactly when a prediction will be received appears to be random, although subjects have never reported a gap of longer than 30 days between messages.

The majority of these predictions appear to be baseless, with the events described failing to manifest at all. Some of the predictions are implausible, bordering on the impossible. However the ratio of accurate predictions, about 12%, is statistically significant. A further 10% (approximate) of the warnings have been partially accurate, such as predicting the correct location of an event but the wrong date, or describing scenarios that appear to have been prevented due to actions taken as a consequence of the warning itself. As a result, all predictions reported by subjects exposed to SCP-1435 are to be investigated as if they were serious threats. SCP-1435-A, B and C are to be kept as a potential early warning system for events which may threaten the Foundation.

Once exposed to SCP-1435, there appears to be no way to counter the condition, including the application of amnesiacs. A subject can be isolated from media, but this seems to result in more aggressive attempts to 'make contact'. Some subjects have reported receiving warnings on nearby testing monitors, in books, even scrawled in the dust of windows. In most cases the constant harassment and foreboding nature of the messages causes the mental health and happiness of those exposed to deteriorate rapidly. Depression and schizophrenia-like symptoms are common. Subjects exposed to SCP-1435 should undergo regular psychological evaluations.

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