2d10 Anomalous Media

A continuation to my previous entry with d10 Anomalous Media. Throw another die, or roll a d20 and add 10 to these.

1. Руководство США для домохозяек
2017 Russian language e-book published on Amazon. Name translates as "Housewifes' Guide to the United States". Author is given as Общество мирной ассимиляции (Society for Peaceful Assimilation) without any person directly named; no other information regarding this entity has been found.. The book is a very complete and pragmatic guide to living in the United States, seemingly directed towards Russian nationals emigrating, and touching on a very wide range of subjects, including public transportation, finance, politics and etiquette. Despite the title, all advice is general and not specific to housewives.
The description above, however, only applies to roughly the last 30% of the book, which is listed as the beginning of the text if it is opened through an Amazon app. It is a common scam to have a book start several 'pages' after its actual beginning, as such skipped pages count as read for the purposes of Kindle Unlimited payments. Most authors use either public domain content or other works of their own authorship for padding in this manner. Руководство США для домохозяек, however, contains a great deal of additional content, written in the same pragmatic style as its 'official' section. However, these chapters contain explanations that would only be necessary for someone unfamiliar with human beings. Subjects include how to operate a motor vehicle, what is the nature of dreams and how often they are normally remembered, how much should one eat and what are the effects of eating too much or too little, and the different kinds of clothing used in different moments (casualwear, formalwear, pajamas etc) with pointers to tell them apart.

2. The Topeka print
Large reams of dot matrix print, found in a storage unit in Topeka, Kansas, United States, on September 2001, after its contents were auctioned due to lack of payments. Original source unknown. The only contents of the unit besides the print were a dot matrix printer and an Apple II computer, too damaged for any data to remain stored. The print is written in an unknown language resembling Romanian; a tentative translation for the document has been possible due to its repetitive, standardized sentence construnction. (Some linguists working for the Club suspect that the language uses accent marks, which were unavailable in the font or program used to create this media.)
The document consists of a series of "secventia" (sequences), numbered 3603 through 4098. Sequences 3803 through 4097 consist of a date in YYYYMMDD format, followed by the denial of a historical event that happened on that day. For an example, the shortest sequence is printed on its entirety below:

SEQUENCE 3989
20140813 EDUARDO SANTOS SURVIVES PLANE CRASH
20141121 MONCEF MARZOUKI WINS ELECTION
20150511 NEW HORIZONS MANOUVER FAILS
20160107 SAUSAGE PARTY DELAYED -- NEVER RELEASED
20170122 BOUGAINVILLE EARTHQUAKE CLAIMS NO VICTIMS
20190606 FURNICALIESIMENT [translation unkwnown]
20220806 COMPLETE EXTINCTION OF HUMAN RACE [tentative translation]

The longest sequence, 4006, contains 143 events, starting from 1886 (18860613 VANCOUVER FIRE QUICKLY CONTAINED). Most sequences contain about fifty events and start between the early thirties and the early sixties. Events on each sequence are in chronological order, but other than that there is no known connecting thread between events on each sequence, or from one sequence to another. Events depicted have a slight bias towards political significance, but a very large variety of events are mentioned. As this artifact was discovered on 2001, many sequences contained predictions of future events (or rather, predictions of events that didn't happen, allowing one to infer the correct event).
The penultimate entry on each sequence is the unknown term "Furnicaliesiment", always on June 6th 2019. The final entry on each sequence is believed to mean "complete extinction of human race", and it happens on a changing date; the earliest shown date is September 2019 (sequence 3688), the latest is January 2068 (sequence 3990). No event of note known to the club took place on June 6th 2019.
The final sequence, 4098, is different from the others. It is the only one to only list events that have actually happened in history. It also includes some events of doubtful historical import, including its first one, WILLIAM JOHN BERRIMER DIES IN TITANIC. The name matches a person who is known to have died in the Titanic sinking from the passenger manifests, but is otherwise of no historical interest. This sequence is also the longest by far, including nearly 400 entries.
The final event in the list is "Furnicaliesiment", on its usual date. It is not known if it continues, as it is printed on the very last line of the page.

3. There Are More Things Amongst Ourselves
16-page zine distributed in England during the early eighties; no author is named and none has ever been found, though pattern distribution suggests they were based on Liverpool. Zine contains a comic about a scientist that develops a special equipment that should allow him to see things beyond normal human vision. Upon testing this equipment, he discovers a species of child-sized vampires that live amongst human beings, using psychic powers to remain undetected, and feeding off humans' intellectual, emotional and sexual energy. Knowning no one will believe him, the scientist vows to find a way to stop this newfound menace. The last double page in the issue consists of two pages of the scientist's notebooks, showing a series of mental exercises meant to protect one from the vampires' influence. The final page is quite ambiguous; the scientist is slumped in the chair, and it's unclear if he is unconsious, dead or merely asleep, and if the vampires are somehow responsible, specially given that they have been shown to be so used to being unnoticed they appear to be unable to conceptualize human beings aware of them, let alone acting against them.
The zine gained fame amongst comic book enthusiasts for its bizarre and unique ending, and amongst occult enthusiasts for what were believed to be references to magickal practices - the exercises shown bear great similarity to beginner exercises for magick, as they include motionlessness, mindfulness, visualization, etc. People who perform the exercises described often report great changes to their mental state, reporting vastly increased alertness, attention spans and libido, as well as much diminished need to sleep, with many reporting feeling fully rested on six or even five hours' sleep. Performing the exercises as directed for two weeks causes the effects to continue for up to six months, and they remain without ill effect as long as the exercises are continuously executed. Furthermore, people who have initiated magickal practice after perfoming the exercises report finding it quite easy, and are often capable of entering gnosis at will, in a manner similar to Austin Osman Spare. This reverse is not true; initiated personal who perform the zine's exercises rarely report an increase in their magickal abilities beyond those conferred by the increased mental prowess.

4. RPG session recording
88-minute long MP4 file recording a Google Meets call of five people playing a tabletop RPG. Accents suggest they come from the Toronto metropolitan area, in Ontario, Canada. Game being played is unremarkable.
About 55 minutes into the recording, a large black dog with bright yellow eyes, resembling a German shepherd, appears outside of a window behind the man acting as 'game master'. No one in the call seems to notice. At about 75 minutes, the dog appears again, this time inside the room, directly behind the game master. All other people in the call go silent. After a pause, the game master says "I know this is hard for everyone, but we talked about this. We planned for this. We know what to do." He continues playing the game. After some hesitation, so do the other players, albeit in a much more muted manner. The dog remains motionless during the video, except for blinking. This pattern continues until the 86 minutes mark, at which point the dog moves out from the frame. The players then go silent again. One of the other players says it would be a good time for a break, to which everyone else agrees. Video ends at this point.
No one on the video has been identified so far.

5. The Bible Bible
Snippet of book intended to be released by Norwegian philosopher Ferdinand Hansen. The book would be a brand new translation of the Bible, remade from earliest known sources, and with commentary from a large number of experts, including not only religious personnel from a vast array of religions - including not only thirty-two different Christian religions, but also some from Muslim and Jewish faiths - as well as theologians and historians. He revealed his project on January 2021, showing the first chapter of the book (corresponding to the Book of Genesis) and stating he had found collaborators from all around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, only for most of those contributors to state they had never heard from Hansen. The philosopher was very confused about this, and made public email messages with many of them. Many collaborators stated that, while they had indeed never received Hansen's messages, the content of the messages was consistent with their actual communications. The only logical explanation would be that someone was passing as every single one of the over fourty contributors Hansen had approached, and spoofing messages from them directly to his email. (Jansen uses a self-written Linux shell that includes a safe e-mail application of his own design. Due to travel restrictions, he had not been able to speak to any contributors through non-digital means.)
Despite this peculiar event, the project seemed ready to start. Many of the contributors decided to join the project in earnest, and Hansen found new ones to replace the ones that have left, including a more diverse group after complaints that most of the original collaborators were white European men. Then, on Februrary 28th, Hansen was struck by lightning during a jog and passed away.
The media in question is the original file distributed on January. Hansen initially provided it for free, but withdrew it after collaborators didn't recognize their work. Hansen did have a will that stipulated all of his work should enter the public domain after his death, but it is unclear if the document meets that criteria; as Hansen created it only as an editor and the contributors he credits do not recognize it as their work, its authorship is unknown and no one can authorize its legal distribution.

6. 20190929
Contents of SD card file found just outside the town of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Contains 63 photos, named consistently with automatic file naming from a Canon digital camera. Photos show two men, seemingly in a romantic relationship, visting Inhotim, an open-air museum located in that town. File naming and metadata suggest photos were taking between 7:00 and 19:00 on September 29th, 2019. The first 58 photos are not anomalous and are typical of tourist photos, showing mostly the museum's attractions, as well as some photos of the men interacting with each other. The final five photos show minor anomalous content:
59: Photo shows the interior of the installation "Em Lama Lâmina" by Matthew Barney. Not anomalous per se, but the installation was not open for the public at the date the photo was taken.
60: Photo shows a corridor with identical decor to the Miguel Rio Branco gallery, except that it shows a corridor at least four times as long as the building. Illumination is also much more sparse.
61: Photo shows a gigantic hole, resembling a quarry or open sky mine. In the background, two of Inhotim's installations can be seen, Doug Aitken's "Sonic Pavillion" and Robert Irwin's untitled installation. Triangulation using these works suggests the hole is at least two kilometers wide and should be situated just outside the museum's limits. No such structure exists. A plinth, similar to those found inside Inhotim displaying information on artistic works, can be seen by the hole's edge, next to where the picture was taken; the resolution is too small to read its text.
62: Photo shows the inside of a concrete chamber. Several human shapes can be seen. They are backlit, so few features can be made out; it is unclear if they are human beings or mannequins, or if they are in motion. An informative plinth is seen near one of the picture's corner. This picture, unlike every other picture in the folder, is blurred, as if it was taken by accident or in haste.
Neither the two men shown in the pictures nor anyone else that appears in them - including people in Inhotim uniforms appearing in the background - could be found.

7. "Beavis & Butthead Reach Nirvana"
Fanfic for the TV show "Beavis & Butthead", originally hosted on the website Archive of Our Own, before being removed for unknown reasons in 2011 or 2012; versions can still be found on text dump sites. The story opens with Beavis masturbating in his bathroom, before being forced out by Butthead as he greatly needs to defecate. This process creates a golem out of their combined effluvia, which follows them into the living room. The two characters start to have a conversation similar in content to their TV episodes, except for the golem's interjections, which initially appear to be exceedingly childish and naive; however, as the story progresses, it becomes obvious that the golem is using Socratic techniques to probe the two teenagers into examining their thoughts deeply, moving the conversation into politics, philosophy, and, finally, metaphysics. At the story's end, Beavis & Butthead have realized their true selves and are about to achieve nirvana, when the golem suddenly pulls out a knife and slices their throats, somehow stealing their souls for itself and reaching nirvana in their stead. The dialogue and characterization, despite the exotic subject matter, is strongly consistent with actual dialogue in the TV show.
This fanfic is still passed around by occult groups, amongst which it is known, half-jokingly, as "Chaos Magick Bible" or "The Butthead Testament", after it was discovered that the text contained magickal formulae encoded in its text, often using the theme of a section as an encryption key, in a manner analogous to alchemists' treatises from the Middle Ages, except for text instead of illustration. Advanced analysis on our part, yet unrevealed to the world at large, suggests several additional layers of hidden information, using knowledge from each previous layer as a key. Present decryption efforts are uncovering a report of the final days of the Cathar heresy, before its suppresion by Pope Innocent III; there are details about both the process of the inquisition and Cathar beliefs that, if true, consist of hitherto unknown information.

8. The "Hunger" Comprehensive Document
Text document documenting discoveries made by a group attempting to solve an alternate realty game (ARG). The game was apparently ran during late 2009 and early 2010, and its theme revolved around trying to find an entity known as "Hunger" that was stalking teenagers in the US Midwest. Like many games of its kind, YouTube videos and false websites played a large part. However, progress stalled after 2010 when no new clues could be found. While some people remained confident that the game's runner were expecting more riddles to be solved before releasing more content, the vast majority of followers decided that the runners had abandoned the game and slowly drifted from the community. This is all well-known and well-documented, and the first pages of the document match a version pubicly available on the subreddit at the time.
Additions made to the document state that, at some point in 2012, one of the members of the subreddit, possibly while suffering from some impairment, decided that the description of a ritual described in the document was meant to be performed in the real world, and this was the clue to unlocking the next part of the ARG. Said user proceeded to hide in a forest and fast during a full moon, then eat nothing but raw meat during the gibbon moon. They said that, on the night of the new moon, they found a hint to the next part of the ARG in the blood of a rabbit they had eaten. This was, as expected, met with skepticism. However, the user was able to direct players to a URL for a new video, clearly matching the style of previous official instances.
The subreddit was banned shortly aftwards; the community moved to a private forum.
The "ARG" continued from there, with "tasks" that usually involved challenging "players" to eat something, including things such as fifty pounds of raw meat, three hundred teeth, a metal ball, "enough for ten people" and "someone's living love". The document states that while anyone can follow the content and assist in solving more mundane clues, only those who complete these challenges are capable of finding new ones. "Drops" for new challenges came from several sources, including some anomalous, such as visions in blood and objects found inside food, as well as more regular ones such as e-mails and unlisted YouTube videos, as well as a strange mix, including one occasion in which players had to play a specific game at an escape room franchise, then murder and eat the employee that walked in to debrief them afterwards. These "drops" also expounded on the lore of the game, regarding the name of the entitty known as Hunger; the tasks were part of a ritual to do so. The document's metadata indicates it was last updated on November 2016, and claims that the last "drop" received is probably the last, as the "players" are close to completing its final challenge.
No information regarding the players was found. The Hunger ARG from 2009-2010 was performed by a subsidiary of the Doritos food brand as part of the marketing strategy for two tie-in games for Xbox, and was quietly dropped due to underperforming user engagement.

9. culto.mp4
Video of of an Evangelical religious service; video is in Brazilian Portuguese, accents suggest the countryside of Paraná state. Video shot from camera on stationary tripod, low resolution suggests old camera model. Video in our possession is a copy, believed to have originally been livestreamed. Subject of video is a "sessão do descarrego", a kind of service in which people who are are believed to be possesed by demons are exorcised by a preacher. Video proceeds as expected, with the rituals being performed on two people, until the preacher calls forth a third person and asks him a question, placing a microphone in front of him; this is standard procedure and was also done on the other two people. The man starts listing numbers and letters using the NATO phonetic alphabet. (Numbers were spoken in Portuguese.) The preacher's facial expression appears confused and wary, but he does not react or pull away the microphone. The crowd is silent. The possessed man speaks for just over thirty seconds, enough to relay 24 characters, before a voice is heard from off camera demanding it be shut down. The voice speaks in Portuguese in an unindentified accent. The camera is knocked down as the video ends.
Decoding efforts on the 24-character string are ongoing but have so far been unfruitful.

10. Married and Geek
Webcomic published between 2001 and 2009. During the 2001-2004 period, it was a geekdom-themed webcomic similar to many publshed during this era, with the sole differential being that it was centered on a married couple, Samuel and Aretha Gregors, based on its real-life writer and artist, respectively. Like many such webcomics, it had a small devoted fanbase but was mostly known for its poor art, writing and characterization.
Aretha killed Samuel Gregors on 29th Novemeber 2004; she was initially jailed, but later released as higher courts accepted Aretha's claim of self-defence. Documents released during the trial revealed that Samuel was a highly abusive partner, and the success of their comic (or lack thereof) was a frequent trigger for his abuse. Samuel would usually deliver scripts for the comic less than an hour before deadlines for release he had imposed himself and blame Aretha for negative critiques, even when they were focused on the writing.
After Aretha was released from prison, she surprisingly continued to update the comic. While it seemed to continue the story at first, it quickly became more abstract, eventually changing into an expressionist artstyle with nonlinear narrative, even as it remained connected to the strip's original run.
Due to the ambiguous nature of the story, it is impossible to summarize the events in the strip during the 2005-2009 period. General consensus amongst fans is that the Samuel character was a demon summoned by Aretha. The summoning ritual was performed wrong, which caused the demon to retain its powers and will, but lose most of its mind. It possessed or imprinted on a neighbour of Aretha who was obsessed with her, and used its powers to force itself into a semblance of a marriage and taking the neighbour's geeky personality as its own. Strange phenomena that happened in the early period of the comic (such as characters from TV shows and videogames visiting the couple's house) were recontextualized as the demon's powers running rampant, as it believed such things were a normal part of a geek's life.
The ending, while definitive, is even more ambiguous. The two leading theories about the events amongst the fandom are as follows: one theory believes Aretha was able to take advantadge of a moment of weakness to send "Samuel" back to hell, despite being aware that this would not restore his mind and he would be eternally tortured by his demonic brethren. Another theory believes that Aretha brought many other demons into Earth, causing the end of days; while this brings untold suffering to all humankind, it also destroys Samuel, ridding Aretha of his attention. A third theory, defended by a small group but supported by strong evidence, suggests that Samuel's actions eventually warped Earth to such an extent it was undistinguishable from hell, weakening the veil between the two and allowing demons to simply walk from one to the other; it is unclear if Aretha deliberately allowed this to happen.
Aretha, the author, has not spoken to anyone about the comic since her husband's death. Her current whereabouts are unknown. It is believed she has changed her name, but no more information could be found. She still pays for the site'supkeep. It shows the first comic she did after her husband's death as the current comic, and the site's appearance and pages are unchanged from that time, which means an unaware visitor will find the site undistinguishable from a regular webcomic from the era and will not learn about the unique content of the later period until stumbling into it.