SCP-6519

Item#: SCP-6519
Level1
Containment Class:
esoteric
Secondary Class:
ether
Disruption Class:
keneq
Risk Class:
notice

Radio.jpg

Suspected SCP-6519 vectors.

Special Containment Procedures: Witness testimony will be collected by the Spectrometry and Spectremetry Section of Site-43 to attempt confirmation of SCP-6519's existence. No further effort will be expended on its containment at this time, as it poses no significant threat to the Veil..Ether-class anomalies are only attested in as-yet-unconfirmed eyewitness reports.


Description: SCP-6519 is an alleged phenomenon wherein recently-deceased individuals interfere with radio broadcasts by inserting unscheduled material. In all cases, persons responsible for supervising the affected broadcasts are incapable of recognizing that anything unusual has taken place, either at the time or after the fact. The inserted material is, in all cases, a single pre-existing commercial music track. The phenomenon is always witnessed by one or more live subjects engaged in the act of remembering the deceased individual, most commonly during funerary rituals.


Addendum 6519-1, Investigation: The SCP-6519 dossier was opened by Dr. Anastasios Mataxas, Chair of Spectrometry and Spectremetry, in 2020 after a chance conversation with Dr. Harold Blank. Dr. Blank had described a potentially supernatural, recurrent event which he himself had experienced, forming the template for all other manifestations since recorded. Dr. Mataxas subsequently encountered scattered references to other postmortem media interference in archival material, but was unable to engage in further research before his retirement. He passed the dossier to his successor, Dr. Polyxeni Mataxas, who collected preliminary witness testimony from Site-43 personnel.

43NET: Catalogue of SCP-6519 Incidents [SELECTED, UNSORTED]
RAISA Notice: Five (5) items in this 43NET request cross-link existing SCP database articles with their own unique security clearance levels and background context; credentials confirmation will be required to access them. It is the judgement of this office that sufficient comprehension of SCP-6519 can be acquired without accessing said items.
Subject: Dr. Harold R. Blank, Archives and Revision (Chair) Song: "Spirit In The Sky," Norman Greenbaum, 1969

Testimony: "I have only the vaguest memory of the first occurrence. It might very well be that I'm remembering my mother talking about it later. I was sitting in the back of her van, and we were driving in my great-grandmother's funeral procession. You know, a little convoy following the hearse. Dunno if people do that anymore. Mom had the radio on — she always had the radio on — and this song came on straight away. Distant horns, otherworldly, like they were coming across a big black lake at night, and then this gospel rock thing kicks in. The upbeat take on death. One long assurance that the next life is a good one, and someone's gonna head on over there and put in a good word for you ahead of time. When it's your turn to go, there'll be a spot saved for you. Typical Christian boilerplate, but still a damn snappy song, and it never stops feeling… like it knows more than it lets on, like it's in on some cosmic secret, like it's coming from a place other than just some one-hit wonder nobody's ever heard of. It made a big impact on my mom, that's for sure; dunno if she really thought it was her grandma saying goodbye, but I can certainly understand her wanting to see it that way. She never got tired of telling that story. Especially when… okay. My personal religious beliefs aren't, you understand, and as far as I know she was the same, but we were agreed that something spooky was going on here because it damn well happened again, years and years later. She was driving to the hospital, alone this time, just after my grandmother — her mother — died, radio on as always, and along comes Mr. Greenbaum again to tell her it's alright. She told me about it when she got home, and I believed her. Still do, because… well. Fast forward another decade or so. I was driving home from the hospital, the day my mom… yeah. I've had the bottom drop out of my stomach a lot, doing this job, but my heart doesn't usually leap into my throat at the same time. After all the weird shit I've seen, I still wasn't ready to hear those distant horns again, but I was goddamn glad when I did. Once I stopped sobbing, and had time to let it sink in. Takes a lot to make me cry, I'm thoroughly shit at it, and gospel rock is not my usual ticket. Nevertheless… I don't know if my mom's still out there somewhere, in some sense, but I'd obviously like to think it's the case. And I'd like to think that she's… happy? So I'm biased. I want this to be real, and that makes me a less than reliable source. But you know what we say in A&R: once is odd, twice is strange, three times is data. As far as I'm concerned, my great-grandmother and my grandmother and my mom all phoned home to let us know they're okay, from wherever it is that they went."

Dr. Blank is a prime example of what I call 'esoaccumulation', the tendency for individuals encountering anomalous phenomena in their early life to continue to experience them as time progresses. It was this characteristic which convinced my predecessor that there might be something deeper to the story. For what it's worth, I think he was right. [Mataxas, Dr. P.]
Subject: Dr. Udo A. Okorie, Applied Occultism (Chair) Song: "Love The One You're With," Stephen Stills, 1970
Testimony: "I lost someone I was… very close to, back in 2002. It took a lot out of me. Everything I had… I remember thinking, at the time, that this was my big chance at happiness completely blown. He ticked off all the boxes for me, and the idea of… all the effort required to find someone like that again, it just completely exhausted me. I slept for days. I avoided all my friends. I fell way behind on my work. Completely drained. And then… one night, while I was moping, I turned on the radio just to occupy my mind. I used to crank it up real loud, drown out the… yeah. And this track comes on, almost right away, a sort of weird cloud of guitars and finger-snapping resolving into this halting sing-song, and an awkward harmony, tentative but heartfelt, and I let it play. It resonated, it was… like the music itself was working through something, the way I was working through something, and maybe we could figure out how to do it together. It was imperfect, but maybe that was the point? The perfect is the enemy of the good. And that's just the music; as for the words… well, that was a message. It just simply had to be. "It doesn't matter how bad the situation is, you can still make the best out of it. Keep trying. Put yourself out there. Try. Don't give up on good because you lost something great. There's second chances in every direction, lined up and waiting for you, so all you have to do is… move." So I moved, and you know what? There was something to it. I've kept moving ever since."
One of the very few examples we have where the event is far removed from the individual's death. It might be an outlier, or it might be unrelated; in any event, the subject believes it's related, and we're not yet at the point where we can discard any potential interpretation. [Mataxas, Dr. P.]
Subject: Dr. Allan J. McInnis (Director) Song: "The Land of Make-Believe," The Moody Blues, 1972
Testimony: "The band is English, as am I, as was my mother. I never returned to England until she was on her deathbed, which I thought had made the maintenance of my cover story simpler; to my surprise, she had largely guessed at the facts of the matter in my absence. There seemed little point in dissimulating, given her condition, so I confirmed them to her in her final moments. Nothing against protocol, you understand. What I told her certainly informed the lyrical intervention which followed, although I will note that there seemed to be details which I did not pass along, suggesting that the dead enjoy a certain expanded clarity or even omniscience which may prove problematic for maintenance of the Veil. In any event: the lyrics to "The Land of Make-Believe" are addressed to dwellers in a realm of fantasy who are unwilling to acknowledge that fact about themselves, underscoring the potential for them to nevertheless overcome their personal difficulties to find happiness. This fantasy-land supposedly occupies an unwarranted amount of space — likely in this context a coded reference to our facility's location beneath indigenous land, one of the details I did not share, and perhaps even the Foundation's ever-growing net around the anomalous world. The concept of organizational secrecy is broached, in nearly direct allusion to the concept of living in the dark so that others might die in the light, and the singer rejects this whole-heartedly. Optimism is expressed that the fantasy-dwellers will nurture hope in their hearts, express it to the universe, and see it flower; they are further exhorted to open their locks and shutters and let the light in, breaking down the boundary between fantasy and reality to create a world where there are no more secrets. Engaging in this process will allow the subject of the song — myself, presumably — to ascend. Finally the singer demands that his audience take this message to the wider world, and surrender to universal love; the overall suggestion is, obviously, the end of consensus normalcy. I'm personally unimpressed with the song's utility for this particular allegory; it's too direct a metaphor, which detracts considerably from conceptual ambiguity of the original message."
Doctor of Communication, everyone. [Blank, Dr. H.]
Please don't make contentless comments, Dr. Blank! [Mataxas, Dr. P.]
A doctorate in Communication, which is simply termed a PhD (as you well know). [McInnis, Dr. A.]
Subject: Dr. Karen T. Elstrom, Administration and Oversight (Chief) Song: "End Of The Line," Traveling Wilburys, 1989
Testimony: "There was heavy traffic outside the church during my stepfather's funeral. It was hot, the doors were open wide, and instead of honking horns or catcalls, all we could hear was a stopped car blasting this song on the radio. Louder than the eulogies. That guitar was like pure sunlight in the gloom, clear as a bell — I suppose their windows were rolled down. No air conditioning. The song seemed kind of impossible, because I recognized a lot of famous voices in there all at once, like a band that couldn't exist in the real world: Dylan and Roy Orbison and at least one Beatle. That's one reason I remember it; the other reason is that when the first car finally got its green light and headed off, another one pulled up that was tuned to the same station."
"End Of The Line" is about accepting the things you can't control, living your life according to a set of values and ideals, expressing strength of character and giving yourself over to love. [Mataxas, Dr. P.]
The melody is pleasant. [Elstrom, Dr. K.]
Subject: Udo A. Okorie, Applied Occultism (Chair) Song: "Forever Young," Rod Stewart, 1988
Testimony: "Who even listens to the radio anymore? But Harry told me about his mom, and I remembered the first time it happened to me, and I thought… well. It worked. I don't know if I can… I don't know. You've heard this song? Don't make me say the name, even then name, I just… can't. You've…? Yeah. Imagine if your… if one of your parents… yeah. He wanted me to know that he's proud. That he's still with me. That… that doesn't change. That's forever."
Subject: Dr. Trevor Bremmel Song: "Stolen Moments," Jim Witter, 1993
Testimony: "I don't like country music. I really don't like pop-country music. But the only thing I've ever liked less is interacting with other people. I had that in common with my dad; just about the only thing we had in common, minus our gadgets. He had his, I had mine, and never the twain should meet. I don't know if either of us ever stopped tinkering long enough to reflect on that… but I didn't have a choice, when he died. At my age they force you to take a week when you're 'bereaved'. Well, I spent that week walking around the Site, because what the hell else did I have? Stupid question, but I honestly couldn't think of anything else I should be doing. Until I heard this song coming from my assistant's office, just after the funeral. Everything there in black and white: you never get those chances back. Every minute you waste, as a child, avoiding your parents, it's gone forever. There's a reprise when you have your own kids, and you get to decide: screw it up again, or be the change? I decided to be the change. Fired whatsisname, and gave Joanna his job the same day."
"A ghost convinced me to fire you" is one of the more interesting things I've seen on a termination form. [Mataxas, Dr. P.]
Really? It's not even one of the more interesting reasons Dr. Bremmel specifically has fired someone. [Elstrom, Dr. K.]
"Stolen Moments" isn't pop-country, you heartless Philistine. [Blank, Dr. H.]
Subject: Dr. Ignaz T. Achterberg (Archives and Revision) Song: "Goodbye Stranger," Supertramp, 1979
Testimony: "You had to know my wife's sense of humour."
Subject: Amelia O. Torosyan, Janitorial and Maintenance (Chief) Song: "How Can I Help You Say Goodbye," Patty Loveless, 1994

Testimony: "I thought I was doing okay, when my mother died. Not great, but okay. I had all the support in the world. I had counselling, I had my work. I thought I was handling it. Sure, I had the headaches, and the stomach cramps. And the fact that I couldn't sleep. But we were driving away from the funeral home when it finally really hit me, like a damn truck. Phil.Technician Philip E. Deering, Chief Torosyan's husband. had the car radio on, and that song… that song is nuclear grade, I can't imagine why anyone would ever listen to it except to do what I did. Which was bawl my eyes out on the side of the road. It actually started on the freeway, and you should've seen how fast Phil pulled over. Probably thought I was having a heart attack, which… not too far from the truth, really. But oh, god, how I needed that breakdown. If I'd stayed okay, I guess I never would've been well ever again. I needed the catharsis. It had to get worse to get better, and this was the gentlest way to make that happen. That song was like my mom talking right to me, telling me she knew I still needed her, telling me… it was okay to break down, for a while. That I wasn't too old to cry like a baby. Even… wherever she is now, she still wanted to help. God, it helps a lot, just knowing that."

One sympathizes. [Mataxas, Dr. P.]

Addendum 6519-2, Potential Confirmation: Dr. Anastasios Mataxas died of natural causes in 2022 and his successor, Dr. Polyxeni Mataxas, proposed exploiting this occurrence to take spectremetry readings of any resultant SCP-6519 event. Her personal vehicle was fitted with fifteen separate high-sensitivity instruments before she embarked for the funeral, and researchers were dispatched to monitor local broadcast stations for anomalous activity. Audio transcription from Dr. Mataxas' vehicle is provided below, in lieu of a final report to be appended at a later date; initial spectremetry data has been compiled and queued for analysis.

Preliminary Incident Log

Officers of Record: Dr. Polyxeni Mataxas (Chair, Spectrometry and Spectremetry); Dr. Mali Wattana (Deputy Chair, Spectrometry and Spectremetry)


<Log begins.>

CarRadio.jpg

Dr. Mataxas' car radio.

[Non-anomalous music is playing.].Based on waveform analysis presently 82.5% complete. Non-anomalous music is defined as possessing spectremetry readings ("Randi levels") no higher or lower than the background anormalcy of baseline reality.

Dr. Wattana: You sure you're up to this, Polly?

Dr. Mataxas: I'd have the radio on anyway, whether the anomaly was official or not. We might as well get the data.

Dr. Wattana: If there's any data to get. No offence.

Dr. Mataxas: None taken. You're the designated cynic.

Dr. Wattana: Don't get me wrong, this wouldn't make my top ten weirdest ghost things if it turned out to be true. It's just…

Dr. Mataxas: Go on.

Dr. Wattana: No, it's inappropriate.

Dr. Mataxas: Continue, please, Dr. Wattana.

Dr. Wattana: No fair breaking out the Boss Voice. Uh… Well it's just all too pat and convenient, you know? Everyone who's had this allegedly happen to them has wanted it to happen to them.

Dr. Mataxas: It's hard to see a pattern when you're not looking for one, though.

Dr. Wattana: Conversely, it's easy to see a pattern that isn't there when you are looking for one. That's how our brains work, Polly. They're predisposed to pattern recognition, hyperpredisposed even. I don't think we have enough data to suggest that this is anything but a pleasant coincidence; if it were real, I'd expect to see way more cases than we have.

Dr. Mataxas: The Euler incident didn't convince you?

Dr. Wattana: The affected station was occupied by VKTM for a month. That's the memetic equivalent of cross-contamination, and you know it.

Dr. Mataxas: The Okorie incidents, then.

Dr. Wattana: I'm not predisposed to trust any message supposedly coming out of Corbenic. Especially ones that make sense.

[Dr. Mataxas sighs.]

Dr. Mataxas: Maybe there's a ton of examples out there every day, but we never hear about them because most people are as skeptical as you.

Dr. Wattana: You and I both know that most people are gullible idiots. They'd eat this idea up… again, no offence.

Dr. Mataxas: We want to believe.

Dr. Wattana: Yeah. Look, if the spectremeter picks up something big, and then we get the go-ahead to canvass the whole Foundation, maybe we'll have something.

Dr. Mataxas: I just… ugh.

Dr. Wattana: What?

Dr. Mataxas: Secondary Class: Ether. That's what half our damn files say. People are starting to think that's just the standard class for ghost stuff, Mali. It would just… be nice, to get some proof once in a while.

Dr. Wattana: We get proof all the time. What about that barn ghost you saw?

Dr. Mataxas: Woman can't live on barn ghosts alone. And this one… well, you know. I'd like this one to be legit.

[Song continues.]

Dr. Mataxas: For him.

[Dr. Wattana sighs.]

Dr. Mataxas: Doesn't look like you've got it all off your chest, Mali.

Dr. Wattana: I don't want to—

Dr. Mataxas: Just spit it out.

Dr. Wattana: Well, there's also the… tonal discrepancy.

Dr. Mataxas: Something technical?

Dr. Wattana: No, sorry, what I mean is… okay. Not a single one of the recorded cases features a spiritual intervention to play something angry or accusatory on the radio. Nothing sexual, even. It's always uplifting stuff, cathartic or cautionary at the worst. What if we're just seeing what we want to — what if these people are hearing what they want to, and not hearing what they don't, and it only looks like a pattern because everyone who doesn't get a relevant piece of music, or does get one they don't like, fails to see it as a message?

Dr. Mataxas: That's one possibility, sure.

Dr. Wattana: You've got another you like better?

Dr. Mataxas: Yeah. I've got another explanation for why these ghosts are only passing on messages of peace and hope, and I definitely like it better.

[Song concludes.]

Radio Host: That was "The Sticks," by Mother Mother. You're listening to another non-stop music mix on 96.5, "The Vibe."

[Song begins.].Queued for analysis (2/2).

[Dr. Mataxas laughs.]

Dr. Mataxas: Dad.

Dr. Wattana: You know this one?

Dr. Mataxas: You don't? It was one of his favourites. Journey, 1981.

[Song continues]

Dr. Mataxas: "Don't Stop Believin'."

<Log ends.>

Final spectremetry results are pending.

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