WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:05.680 “Just a little further” your friend says. They’re  leading your group, and as you all emerge from the   00:00:05.680 --> 00:00:10.560 woods your flashlight illuminates a tall, chain  link fence with barbed wire strung across the top. 00:00:11.280 --> 00:00:14.240 “How are we supposed to get over  that?” another of your friends asks,   00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:18.160 and the group’s leader has just the answer.  They point their flashlight several yards   00:00:18.160 --> 00:00:21.920 down where you see a large pine tree  that has fallen over onto the fence,   00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.280 creating a bridge that you should be able  to shimmy along to get over the barrier. 00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:29.200 You and your group of friends take  turns climbing over the toppled tree   00:00:29.200 --> 00:00:31.760 before dropping down on the  other side of the tall fence.   00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:36.720 After dusting yourselves off, your group walks  further into the clearing until you come to an   00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:40.880 old set of railroad tracks that are rusty and  look like they haven’t been used in some time. 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:45.360 “Well?” one of your more incredulous  friends asks, “what’s supposed to happen?” 00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:49.280 The group’s leader explains that  “if we’re lucky, we’ll see it.” 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:50.240 “See what?” 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:51.040 “The ghost light.” 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:55.200 They go on to explain that on certain  nights, a mysterious light will appear   00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:58.480 in this very clearing, wandering  the area around the railroad tracks. 00:00:59.040 --> 00:01:00.080 “What is it?” you ask. 00:01:00.880 --> 00:01:05.920 Your friend tells you that many years ago, maybe  a hundred or more, this was once a bustling and   00:01:05.920 --> 00:01:10.720 busy stretch of railroad. One night, a Union  Pacific worker came out to check a portion   00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:14.640 of the tracks that were supposedly damaged.  The worker went out into the night with his   00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:19.040 dim lanter, and he walked along the tracks  until he stopped in this very clearing.   00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:23.600 He spotted what looked to be damage to one of  the rails and bent down to examine it. No one   00:01:23.600 --> 00:01:27.920 knows why he didn’t hear the train barreling  towards him, or hear its whistle cry out in   00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:33.760 the night, but the man would never hear anything  again, as BAM! The train took his head clean off! 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:37.200 Now, with only his lantern  to guide him in the night,   00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:41.520 the headless railway worker wanders this  clearing, still searching for his missing head. 00:01:42.240 --> 00:01:47.040 “That’s a stupid story,” one of your friends says.  “How could someone not notice an entire train?” 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:48.560 “I don’t know, but it’s true.” 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:49.760 “No it isn’t.” 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:51.440 As the two go back and forth,   00:01:51.440 --> 00:01:55.200 you suddenly notice something in the  distance. “Um, hey, look over there.” 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:01.360 Everyone follows the direction you’re pointing and  sees it. A dim ball of light hanging in the air. 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:04.720 “See,” your friend says, “I told you it was true.” 00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:08.160 He steps towards the ball of light  and as he does it actually moves,   00:02:08.160 --> 00:02:11.440 drifting back at the same rate he  comes forward, as if to maintain the   00:02:11.440 --> 00:02:16.400 exact same distance. When your friend takes  a step back, the light moves just the same. 00:02:17.200 --> 00:02:19.680 “Look, over there!” you say, “another one!” 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:23.920 What’s going on? Were these the ghosts  of multiple headless rail workers? All   00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:27.920 searching for their missing craniums? This  light is brighter than the other though,   00:02:27.920 --> 00:02:32.320 and rather than maintaining a set distance from  your group, it’s slowly moving towards you. 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:34.640 “What do we do?” one asks. 00:02:34.640 --> 00:02:37.680 “I don’t know!” the leader says, “I’ve  never dealt with a ghost before!” 00:02:38.320 --> 00:02:43.760 The light continues to move towards your group and  no one knows what to do. Frozen in fear, you watch   00:02:43.760 --> 00:02:48.080 as the light passes straight through you, and your  friends start to scream as it is absorbed into   00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:52.240 your chest. Their cries become muffled though,  sounding to you as if they’re underwater. And   00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:56.480 your hearing isn’t the only thing that  feels that way. Your whole body suddenly   00:02:56.480 --> 00:03:00.960 feels as though you’re submerged in liquid.  You can’t breathe and you thrash at the air,   00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:06.880 trying to swim but nothing is there. You scream  and choke, then fall to the ground as the ball   00:03:06.880 --> 00:03:11.120 of light passes through you like you weren’t even  there, leaving you in the dirt gasping for breath. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:16.160 Your friends rush over to help you up, asking  what happened, but there’s no time to explain   00:03:16.160 --> 00:03:20.160 because two even bigger, brighter lights have  appeared. You’re terrified of what they might   00:03:20.160 --> 00:03:24.400 do to you but before you can even think about  running a voice calls out from the darkness. 00:03:25.200 --> 00:03:26.000 “Stop right there!” 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:31.200 The two big balls of light are headlights  attached to the front of a black SUV,   00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:34.720 and a pair of angry looking armed  guards have just gotten out of it. 00:03:34.720 --> 00:03:38.880 The last thing you hear is one of the men say  “I can’t believe we have to deal with this,”   00:03:38.880 --> 00:03:42.960 before you feel the sting of a dart hitting  your thigh and your vision goes black. 00:03:43.760 --> 00:03:47.360 You open your eyes to find that you’re sitting  in your own car with your group of friends.   00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:51.280 They too appear to have been asleep and  are just waking. You’re parked on the side   00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:55.600 of the road next to a thick forest of pine  trees and the sun is just starting to rise. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:59.840 “What were we supposed to do again?” one  of your friends asks from the backseat. 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:04.240 “I don’t remember,” you say, “but the  sun is coming up. Let’s get out of here.”   00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:09.200 And you drive your group of friends back home  with no memory of the previous night’s events. 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:13.920 This group of teens were quite lucky. What  they thought was little more than an urban   00:04:13.920 --> 00:04:17.680 legend known as the The Gurdon Lights,  was actually a mysterious and dangerous   00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:23.120 anomaly which the SCP Foundation  knows much better as SCP-2640. 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:28.720 SCP-2640 is a temporal anomaly that is  found within a 5000 square meter area   00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:33.760 near the town of Gurdon, Arkansas. The area  is densely covered with pine trees, with the   00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:38.080 only man made object found within it being a  set of railroad tracks that bisect the area. 00:04:38.880 --> 00:04:45.520 Of most interest within SCP-2640 though, are the  strange entities that manifest inside. Designated   00:04:45.520 --> 00:04:51.840 as SCP-2640-1, these entities are floating orbs  of light that are capable of appearing alone, or   00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:56.160 in groups, though no more than twelve at once have  ever been observed manifesting at the same time. 00:04:57.440 --> 00:05:02.960 Their light will vary in intensity, from 75  to 450 lux, which is roughly equivalent to   00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:07.600 the range of light produced by standard light  bulbs, and the color is always a bluish white.   00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:11.840 The lights will normally be seen  to travel slowly within SCP-2640,   00:05:11.840 --> 00:05:14.800 though they have been observed moving  quite quickly on occasion, with the   00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.640 quickest ones having been measured traveling  at speeds of up to 60 kilometers per hour. 00:05:19.440 --> 00:05:22.720 There is also a connection between the  luminosity of the entities and their   00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:27.920 behavior. Those measured at less than  150 lux will not interact with humans,   00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:32.240 instead maintaining a distance of at least 20  meters from the nearest observer at all times.   00:05:33.120 --> 00:05:37.600 Attempts to move closer will lead to the entity  moving away at the same rate, ensuring that it   00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:42.560 maintains the same 20 meters of distance at  all times. On the opposite end of the scale,   00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:47.920 those that are closer to 450 lux are very active,  and will approach and even interact with humans. 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:54.880 In some instances, the brighter SCP-2640-1  entities will actually pass through solid objects,   00:05:54.880 --> 00:05:59.200 including people, which leads to a very  strange sensation for the person involved.   00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:03.680 When this has occurred, the subject has described  a sensation of “being suspended in liquid”   00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:08.400 or “floating in a swimming pool” despite there  being no outward physical changes to them.   00:06:08.400 --> 00:06:12.960 This feeling of being in water will  start the moment a 2640-1 entity makes   00:06:12.960 --> 00:06:16.240 contact with their body and will cease  once it is no longer touching them. 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:22.800 The SCP-2640-1 entities appear  bound to the SCP-2640 area,   00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:26.720 and any that approach the boundaries will  slowly dim until they disappear completely. 00:06:27.440 --> 00:06:33.360 In order to better understand the nature  of SCP-2640, and specifically the 2640-1   00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:38.400 entities found within, an expedition into the  area using D Class personnel was authorized. 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:43.040 The three Class Ds were equipped with special  equipment capable of measuring the relative   00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:47.360 reality distortion in a given area, and told  to follow along the railroad tracks that run   00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:52.720 within SCP-2640, with orders to report anything  they experienced that was out of the ordinary. 00:06:53.520 --> 00:06:59.120 As they progressed deeper into SCP-2640, their  equipment detected significant reality distorting   00:06:59.120 --> 00:07:06.240 effects, and just as they did, the SCP-2640-1  entities began appearing. Despite being quite   00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:10.800 scared of what they perceived as “ghosts” the  Class D personnel were under strict orders not   00:07:10.800 --> 00:07:16.880 to run. A 2640-1 that was on the brighter end  of the scale approached one of the D Classes   00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:21.280 and passed through his body, leading him to  experiencing the sensation of being underwater   00:07:21.280 --> 00:07:27.120 and, since he was unable to swim, made him believe  that he might drown. The entity passed harmlessly   00:07:27.120 --> 00:07:31.440 through him and he was left with no lasting  injuries, at least not any physical ones. 00:07:32.240 --> 00:07:36.400 After this test and given the extremely high  reality distorting effects that were detected   00:07:36.400 --> 00:07:42.560 in the area, it was theorized by researcher  Dr. Connors that SCP-2640 might be one of the   00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:48.960 strongest temporal anomalies on the planet. His  report goes on to hypothesize that SCP-2640-1   00:07:48.960 --> 00:07:53.600 are actually lifeforms from another time period  that we can see visually, due to this anomaly,   00:07:53.600 --> 00:07:58.160 yet cannot interact with lest we cause  irreparable damage to the time/space continuum. 00:07:58.880 --> 00:08:04.000 Dr. Connors also noted that the area of  SCP-2640 appeared to be slowly growing,   00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:08.400 and in order to prevent further spread the  installation of several Xyank/Anastasakos   00:08:08.400 --> 00:08:11.840 Constant Temporal Sinks or XACTS was authorized. 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:14.960 And it was a good thing that  the XACTS were installed,   00:08:14.960 --> 00:08:18.320 because there was soon an incident that  would prove how necessary they are. 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:23.680 In a debriefing after said event with Tony  Hargrove, a Level 03 Tech Support Staff,   00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:29.600 the SCP Foundation learned a horrifying  reality about the true nature of SCP-2640. 00:08:30.320 --> 00:08:34.640 Mr. Hargrove explained that he was  sent into SCP-2640 in order to assess   00:08:34.640 --> 00:08:38.640 the damage to Foundation assets after a  major tornado had passed through the area. 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:44.000 He explained that while power was still running  to the site, one of the XACTS had been damaged   00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:48.960 and needed to be replaced, so a maintenance team  was sent to install a spare that was kept on site.   00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:52.960 As the maintenance team approached the area  where the XACTS was no longer functioning,   00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:58.320 they reported that there were numerous 2640-1  instances out, more than they had ever seen   00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:01.920 before, and a higher concentration  of the brighter instances than usual. 00:09:02.560 --> 00:09:06.240 Soon after they reported this, Hargrove  lost contact with the maintenance team   00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:11.520 and decided to go investigate himself.  As he entered the SCP-2640 area,   00:09:11.520 --> 00:09:15.600 he saw something that he had never seen  before. There weren’t just a few more   00:09:15.600 --> 00:09:22.240 instances of 2640-1s than normal, but hundreds,  maybe even thousands, floating all around him.   00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:26.240 There were so many that they lit up the sky to  the point where he didn’t even need a flashlight. 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:30.960 Hargrove followed the same railroad tracks that  the maintenance team had, and after walking   00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:35.200 several hundred meters he spotted something  in the mud next to the tracks. It was the   00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:39.920 replacement Temporal Sink that they were supposed  to be installing. And there was blood on it. 00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:43.200 He realized that there wasn’t  just blood on the machine,   00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:46.560 but it was everywhere, covering  the ground all around him.   00:09:46.560 --> 00:09:52.880 Then he saw something else. An SCP-2640-1  instance near him, but different somehow. 00:09:53.680 --> 00:09:58.880 “I can't remember how I first saw it,” he said,  “right behind the orbs, there was this spot where   00:09:58.880 --> 00:10:04.480 the rain just… wasn't. Like it was bending around  some invisible mass, some great thing behind each   00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:11.440 orb. And once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.” Hargrove tried to step back away from the creature   00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:16.080 and fell into a ditch next to the tracks,  clutching the XACTS in his arms as the creature   00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:20.800 seemed to swim towards him. As he lay still as  he could in the ditch, he got the sense that   00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:27.280 this 2640-1 instance wasn’t just randomly moving  towards him, it was looking for him. As the void   00:10:27.280 --> 00:10:32.480 where the rain ceased to be swam over him through  the air, he attempted to lie as still as he could,   00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:39.280 still holding tightly to the XACTS. The  SCP-2640-1 instance turned and circled over him,   00:10:39.280 --> 00:10:44.160 like a shark searching for its prey in a cloud  of blood, before gliding away into the trees. 00:10:45.680 --> 00:10:51.760 At that moment, Hargrove knew that the SCP-2640-1  entities weren’t what the Foundation thought they   00:10:51.760 --> 00:10:56.720 were. These weren’t just beautiful balls of light  that danced and played in the darkness. They were   00:10:56.720 --> 00:11:01.920 something else, something horrible, something  dangerous. He also knew that his maintenance team   00:11:01.920 --> 00:11:06.320 would never be found, and that the ditch he was  lying in that was slowly filling with rainwater   00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:13.920 was mixed with their blood. The SCP-2640-1s  were hunting them, and they never had any idea. 00:11:13.920 --> 00:11:19.040 Hargrove knew what he had to do. He crawled  through the ditch, stopping any time a 2640-1   00:11:19.040 --> 00:11:24.480 got near to him, holding his breath until long  after it passed. It took hours of inching along   00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:28.320 on his belly in the water and mud until he  finally reached the point where the damaged   00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:33.760 XACTS was located. He managed to get the new  temporal sink online and as it powered on,   00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:42.000 he watched as the 2640-1 lights around him slowly  started to fade and then disappear once again. 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:46.400 The deaths of the four Foundation personnel who  were on the maintenance team, as well as six other   00:11:46.400 --> 00:11:50.960 civilians who were killed, were attributed to the  tornado, and Mr. Hargrove requested that he be   00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:56.080 administered Class B amnestics reassignment to a  new location, both of which are pending approval. 00:11:56.880 --> 00:12:00.800 The rail line that runs into  SCP-2640 has been decommissioned,   00:12:00.800 --> 00:12:05.040 and a 3 meter tall electrified fence has  been erected around the entirety of the area   00:12:05.040 --> 00:12:07.040 in order to prevent civilians from approaching. 00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:11.760 No fewer that 8 Xyank Anastasakos  Constant Temporal Sinks are placed   00:12:11.760 --> 00:12:16.400 in the surrounding area in order to  prevent the further spread of SCP-2640,   00:12:16.400 --> 00:12:20.560 and a subterranean miniaturized pressurized  water reactor has been installed on site   00:12:20.560 --> 00:12:25.120 in order to provide constant, uninterrupted  power. The Disinformation Bureau has   00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:30.160 an ongoing dissemination campaign to  further the notion that the SCP-2640-1   00:12:30.160 --> 00:12:34.560 lights are nothing more than an urban legend,  and should any civilians manage to witness them,   00:12:34.560 --> 00:12:39.440 they are administered Class B amnestics in order  to keep this Euclid class anomaly a secret. 00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:47.280 Just what is the true nature of SCP-2640,  and perhaps more importantly, SCP-2640-1?   00:12:47.920 --> 00:12:52.880 Is the breach of our reality a look into the past,  when this area was covered by an ancient ocean?   00:12:52.880 --> 00:12:56.240 Or a glimpse into the future? When  the seas have swallowed it once again.   00:12:57.040 --> 00:13:01.280 No matter which is the answer, the reality  is that there is something there now,   00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:05.840 something that has managed to pierce  the veil of time and make us its prey. 00:13:06.640 --> 00:13:12.400 Now go and watch another entry from the  files of Dr. Bob, Like SCP-4434 Anglerfish,   00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:16.240 for another anomaly that has a very  memorable technique for luring its prey,   00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:19.360 and make sure you subscribe and turn  on notifications, so you don’t miss a   00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:26.000 single anomaly, as we delve further and further  into the SCP Foundation’s classified archives.