The Exorcist is probably one of … hmm … right now I can think of five genuinely scary movies I've ever seen in my life. Like not "boo" and not "woah creepy" but movies that genuinely made me feel fear.

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THIS IS A COVER SHEET FOR CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

ALL INDIVIDUALS HANDLING THIS INFORMATION ARE REQUIRED TO PROTECT IT FROM UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE IN THE INTEREST OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

HANDLING, STORAGE, REPRODUCTION AND DISPOSITION OF THE ATTACHED DOCUMENT WILL BE IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE APPLICABLE EXECUTIVE ORDER(S), STATUTE(S) AND AGENCY IMPLEMENTING REGULATIONS.

(This cover sheet is unclassified.)

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UTAH JUNO CASPER//NOFORN//NOCONTRACTOR//ORCON//99X2

WARNING

The following document is classified TOP SECRET UTAH JUNO CASPER. If you do not have TOP SECRET UTAH JUNO CASPER clearance, relinquish this document now and report to your unit security officer for debriefing. Failure to observe this notice is a criminal offense punishable by fine or imprisonment for not more than ten years [18 USC 798].

BACKGROUND

[Attachment: A series of grainy, blurry aerial photographs of a major city obscured by smoke and haze. A glowing crater is vaguely visible. A scale reference at the bottom of the page indicates that the crater is approximately 800 yards across.]

Nashville, Tennessee, March 29, 1960. Three hours after event UPSHOT ABLE. Though a full damage assessment could not be made for several weeks due to noöhazardous aftereffects of the event, preliminary estimates put the immediate death toll at 11,950. Subsequent high-altitude surveys of the site revealed a much larger area of effect than previously appreciated. Population impact outside the visible perimeter will never be precisely known, but later analysis established a lower bound of 1.9 million. [c.f. “Memetic and Noögenic Impact Survey A378/UPSHOT ABLE,” 9/9/60, AJC-G-010]

[Attachment: A xerographic copy of a birth certificate issued by the state of Tennessee. The names of the subject and both parents have been blacked out, as have the names of the certifying physician and registrar. The original document was heavily damaged and the parts that aren’t blacked out are completely illegible. Though the quality of the reproduction is poor, it appears as if the paper had begun to rot.]

Document recovered from site DAMASCUS following event HAVE UPPER, part of collection DAMASCUS/19/XH. Despite being removed from the affected area within thirty minutes of HAVE UPPER, the constituents of DAMASCUS/19/XH continued to decay in the observed fashion until being stored in a memetically isolated containment facility at Sewart AFB. Due to the catastrophic nature of event HAVE UPPER, the recovered documents were aggressively redacted immediately after stabilization. This calculated misjudgment resulted in Executive Order 11371. The agent in charge of DAMASCUS site recovery will be eligible for parole in 2024.

[Attachment: Six low-resolution black-and-white photographs of what appears to be a nine-year-old boy in winter clothing, taken with a long lens. A female adult is holding the boy’s hand while they wait at a crosswalk.]

First known photographs of subject A/318γ, taken 12/23/69. The female in the photographs is A/318γ’s mother, designated A/318γ-1. It is reasonable to conclude that the agent who took the photographs went unnoticed by A/318γ, by virtue of the fact that said agent did not die until 1972, and then only of apparently natural causes.

[Attachment: A series of seismograph tracings, time-calibrated, all showing the same spike. On one of the tracings the spike has been circled, with a handwritten note reading “Wow!”]

Indirect evidence of event HANDLE GRID, 8/14/73. Attachments C01, C02 and C03 were recorded 950, 1,120 and 4,400 miles from the epicenter, respectively. Anomalous resonant anisotropy remains unexplained. Hypothesis put forward by Schmidt et al., 1989, was rejected at the time in favor of simple instrument calibration error, but in light of events LIBERTY CANVAS and BUTTON GRABLE, it may be prudent to reconsider.

[Attachment: Three photographs of the interior of what appears to be a restaurant, taken from outside a police cordon. Remains from an indeterminate number of individuals are visible in a well defined ring around a single table. Two unfinished meals are visible.]

Event THREAD BINARY, 1/28/74. Tissue-type analysis subsequently identified nine separate donors, five female and four male. During initial investigation, no evidence of subject A/318γ-92 was found, and she was designated missing. An as-yet unidentified aerosolized substance found coating every horizontal surface at the site of the event matches the DNA profile of A/318γ-92 to a confidence of sixty-five percent.

[Attachment: An interview transcript dated 1/28/74. The name of the interviewer has been redacted and replaced with the handwritten designation “IP-02-δ.” The name of the subject has been redacted.

█████ ████ ███████ (IP-02-δ): State your full name.

██ ████████: ████████ ██████ ██ ████████.

IP-02-δ: Is that Mexican?

██ ████████: Guatemalan. Puerto Barrios.

IP-02-δ: You need a translator?

██ ████████: No. I speak English real good.

IP-02-δ: Can you tell me what happened tonight?

██ ████████: [No response.]

IP-02-δ: Just tell me what you saw.

██ ████████: [No response.]

IP-02-δ: Please answer the question.

██ ████████: I don’t want to talk about it.

IP-02-δ: I need you to describe what you saw.

██ ████████: [Appx. 20 sec. pause before responding.] I want my lawyer.

IP-02-δ: You aren’t under arrest.

██ ████████: I don’t want to talk to you. I want to go home.

IP-02-δ: The sooner you answer my questions, the sooner we’ll let you go home.

██ ████████: [Subject visibly agitated.] You fucking saw it!

IP-02-δ: We didn’t see it happen.

██ ████████: Neither did I.

IP-02-δ: Why are you lying?

██ ████████: I’m not.

IP-02-δ: [No response.]

██ ████████: I want to go home.

IP-02-δ: Answer the question.

██ ████████: [Unintelligible.]

IP-02-δ: What?

██ ████████:צבא השמים פקח את עיניו, הוא כועס

IP-02-δ: What the—

██ ████████:יהיה זה נבון לחשוש מפניו.

IP-02-δ: Goddammit. Jerry, we’re gonna need—

██ ████████:ראיתי את הדרך שהסיפור הזה נגמר, וזה יפה האכזריות שלה יש לי בחטף את המוח של אלוהים, ואני מבין אותו עכשיו אנחנו כמו חרקים

IP-02-δ: [Faint choking sounds.]

██ ████████:אנחנו כמו חרקים

IP-02-δ: [Wet noises and pounding.]

██ ████████:אנחנו כמו חרקים

IP-02-δ: [Gurgling.]

██ ████████:אנחנו כמו חרקים

IP-02-δ: [Silence.]

██ ████████:אתה הרבה יותר יפה כאשר אתה מבפנים החוצה

End of transcript.]

Interview subject designated IS-01-δ was euthanized by Executive Order 11804 2/18/74.

CONCLUSION

It’s clear that subject A/318γ qualifies for UTAH JUNO classification at the very least. We’re obviously dealing with an ADMAH-class entity here, possibly worse. Though the Department should be careful about jumping to conclusions — we all remember incident MINERVA; they’ll still be having hearings about that when the 100th Congress is sworn in — you’d have to be an idiot not to draw a line through UPSHOT ABLE all the way to THREAD BINARY. And frankly, though they’re beyond the scope of this summary, there’s reason to suspect TANGO WHITNEY, CALIPER TWIN and TANGLE KEYHOLE are part of the same pattern.

It is on the basis of this evidence that I recommend the Secretary invoke Protocol SIRACH immediately, subject A/318γ to be redesignated subject ALEPH and classified UTAH JUNO BASTOGNE at minimum. For details on Protocol SIRACH and possible contingency procedures, refer to subsection 68 of the Existential Security Act of 1957 and OPPLANs 1005, 1007 and 1008 and CONPLANs 2402 and 2414, with special emphasis on the discussion of responses to another PATMOS-class scenario.

Signed,

███████ ████ ████████,
Ranking Member,
Senate Armed Services Committee,
Washington, D.C.
3/29/74

[A handwritten note appears on the lower right margin of the last page.

I don’t mind telling you this scares the hell out of me, John. I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing here.
- RMN]

I have a shiny nickel that says it's a daylight saving time thing.

Dude, it's seven in the morning. It's prime coffee-drinkin', big-thought-thinkin' time.

Yes, I've seen ET, Reservoir Dogs and Blazing Saddles … but I confess that I didn't love any of them.

I have never, however, seen an episode of "Seinfeld."

Does that count as embarrassing?

Yes on one, no on two.

If we're gonna be like that:

• The Tracey Fragments
• Synecdoche, New York
• Un Chien Andalou
• The Wackness
• Dear Zachary
• American Movie
• Gates of Heaven

(Those last three only if you really love or think you really hate documentaries.)

1. Hard Candy (google it)
2. Jaws
3. Forbidden Planet (the one with Robbie holding the girl)
4. The original Tom Jung Star Wars poster
5. Any Saul Bass movie poster for an Otto Preminger film. Start with In Harm's Way, work your way through Bunny Lake is Missing and end up with Anatomy of a Murder and The Man with the Golden Arm.

Top five film composers.

I was only fourteen. Jennifer Connelly was an exotic and experienced woman of the world to me in those days.

I haven't seen Labyrinth — not Pan's, the first one — in years, so I'd need to go back and watch it before speaking intelligently about it. But in the interest of spamming up the forum and just generally being a pain, I'll share two things about that movie that have stuck with me ever since.

First: Jennifer Connelly in that movie literally got me through puberty.

Second: I can't explain it, and I don't know why, but for some reason Ludo is just an awesome character. The very first thing I did when I read this thread title was involuntarily belt out, in the voice and everything, "SMELL BAD!" Ludo's awesome. I love Ludo.

But honestly? I think my affection for the film mostly springs from point one.

Funny you should mention that. I'm reading "Lord of the Rings" right now, specifically because I decided I wanted, finally, to have read it. And you know what? Once you get up to the Council of Elrond part, it's actually surprisingly good. (I'm up to the Treebeard bit in "The Two Towers.")

It's pretty clear, though, that Tolkein had no freakin' idea what he was doing for the first few hundred pages. Everything before Weathertop is just agony.

And yeah. I can't help feeling responsible for failing to keep the thread going.