SCP-246

SCP-246 SCP-246 is an old sixteen-millimeter film projector that shows personalized educational films. They're presented in that cheerful, straightforward style associated with older instructional movies, except the subjects involve terrible things that are about to happen to the people watching them. The projector already has a mechanical problem before you get to the content. Its film feeder is welded shut, so the film can't be threaded through the normal way. The reels turn and the lamp lights, but the film never passes in front of the light. Point it at a screen or a white wall and it still projects a movie. The reel looks blank when the machine is inactive. High-speed photographs taken while it's running show images appearing on the film. Putting in a different reel doesn't stop the effect, either. The projector continues to work, and afterward that replacement reel develops properties similar to the original. The Foundation refuses requests to cut open or replace the feeder because doing that might destroy the anomaly they're trying to study. One of the early subjects is shown a film about not having very long to live. She is subsequently killed under the Foundation's procedure described in the file. That example suggests the projector can reflect something already waiting for a person, rather than every film necessarily introducing a completely new outcome. Another subject receives instructions involving home surgery and later attempts to use a toothbrush as a surgical instrument. A researcher who supervised him, and who had previously worked as a surgeon, also tries to follow the film's advice that night. He's found dead the following day. Whatever is happening here clearly deserves more caution than assuming only the original test subject can be affected. Later screenings involve amputation, digestive systems, and total paralysis. One film describes stroke victims slowly starving before their relatives find them. The file says the subjects subsequently experience the afflictions described in their films. The article doesn't give a complete explanation of whether the projector predicts these events, causes them, pushes people to carry them out, or combines those things in different cases. We do have examples of people following its instructions, and we have the broader observation that the conditions shown later happen. That's enough to make viewing it dangerous without pretending the mechanism has been solved. Researchers are told to report any urge to activate it. They're also told not to follow its directions, and recreational use is prohibited. Storage itself is simple: put it in a wooden crate and leave it secured. The complicated part begins when somebody decides to watch another film. The instructional style makes this one particularly unpleasant. These films are supposed to make something easier to understand, so every reassuring explanation gives the viewer more detail about a situation they might soon be living through. And with the surgeon's death in the record, professional knowledge clearly doesn't guarantee someone will watch it, recognize the danger, and walk away unaffected. Original Entry: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-246