Birger Johansson

Foreword:

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SCP XXXX (“Not a Black Monolith”)

Object class: Euclid

Special containment procedures:

Due to their nature SCP XXXX instances are self-containing as the upper edges are too far underground to affect humans making brief visits, with the exception of SCP XXXX-7, SCP XXXX-7-1 and SCP XXXX-12. For most instances, subtle surveillance will be enough to make sure no one strikes camp right over an instance.

SCP 2268-7 and SCP 2268-12 have been fenced off, with cover stories of industrial pollution by dioxins. The sites are to be patrolled every day to keep away trespassers, but not patrolled so intensively that it arouses attention. The seemingly mundane nature of the areas is the best defence against attracting intruders.

SCP 2268-7-1 is to be contained in a locked facility at Site 11* with no other buildings within a radius of 200 m. No personnel are to enter this zone for periods longer than 5 minutes except as a part of testing. A fence is to seal off this area. CCD cameras both outside and inside the building are to provide surveillance, guards are to be housed in a separate building within easy reach but well clear of the exclusion zone.
*As the original interest in this instance was not concerned with biological entities, it came to be stationed at Site 11, and investments in buildings made it inconvenient to move it after emphasis of tests changed.

SCP-XXXX-20: Due to previous attempt by a sarkic cult to use this instance, it is to be guarded by surveillance cameras and seismic detectors. Nearby security teams are to have ballistic protection vests and automatic weapons, as well as any equipment needed to deal with cave-ins.
-It is the interest from such hostile groups that has earned this SCP the Euclid classification.

Description:
Every intact instance of SCP-2268 consists of a round pillar, ca. 1.2-1.8 meter in diameter made of a grey-black metal of unknown composition. Beginning with a rounded top at a point ca. 5 meters under the surface of the ground, the pillar seems to extend downwards indefinitely.

Seismic tomography indicate that SCP-2268 instances continue vertically down into the crust as far as the resolution allow them to be traced. There is no sign that fault lines and seismic activity have managed to sever SCP-2268 at any place. Since earthquakes can move the crust tens of meters past fault lines in a few seconds, this is as remarkable as the seeming impregnability of the surface of the instances.

SCP-XXXX-7-1 is the only instance small enough to be transportable, as it is a former branch of SCP-XXXX-7. NB: Separating a fragment is inherently dangerous; See below re. destruction of sarkic cult by SCP-XXXX-20.

*Physical properties:
It has proven to be impossible to take small samples of SCP-2268 metal, as it is harder than diamond and conducts heat so efficiently that no acetylene gas cutting can harm it. Laser ablation reveal a large mixture of elements (including isotopes that normally are unstable) but gives no clue to how the material is arranged at a nanoscale level.

The only fragment ever removed from an instance is SCP-XXXX-7-1 (see below) which was an outgrowth of an already damaged instance and was separated with a small explosive charge. No other destructive attempt at acquiring samples has been approved.
The density of the material varies between 13.1 g/cm3 and 22.4 g/cm3 and there is considerable structure hidden within the instance.

*Main property: SCP- XXXX is not a “reality bender” in a form previously encountered by the Foundation, but instances are mainly associated with an abnormal occurrence of “black swan” events, statistically rare events with large consequences. The SCP has apparently "hacked" entropy.
This pattern varies slightly from instance to instance. These events may happen to a person or object that has spent some time close to an instance. Long exposure can lead to such events following a person or object when removed from its presence.
A staff member can after leaving experience an extreme weather event, or a neighbour may win the lottery or be hit by items falling from an aircraft. The approximate death toll known to the Foundation is (redacted).
SCP- XXXX-7 and XXXX-12 express this effect more strongly and across longer distances than other instances and must thus be guarded more closely.
Foundation personnel who worked at these sites without precautions in the early days have sometimes perished in surreal circumstances, while one has stopped ageing, and enjoys excellent health.

Hypothesis: These two instances may have suffered damage or are senescent, resulting in “leakage” of unintended effects.

The abovementioned “leakage” can be beneficial. The fallout from Chernobyl badly contaminated the area around XXXX-12 as the Soviet air force bombarded the clouds with silver iodide to make the clouds “rain out” before reaching Moscow (local residents were of course not warned).
In the area within 5 miles of XXXX-12 nearly all Caesium 137 has decayed to Ba 137 and Strontium 90 to Yttrium 90.

*Security issue: SCP-XXXX (especially instance 7-1) is considered promising for neutralising SCPs like SCP-106 or 682. That requests for this keep being denied is because of the unknown extent of escape risk.

Example. During testing of SCP-XXXX-7-1, two D-class personnel escaped -apparently by quantum tunnelling- and have not been apprehended.
The effect works both ways. -Despite the building being hermetically sealed, wasps and other stinging insects sometimes appear, and staff are resigned to this being just another fact of life with testing SCP-7-1.
On one occasion, a large male bobcat appeared in the building. It was captured and handed over to wildlife services for safe release.
Before capture, the bobcat thoroughly scent-marked the interior of the test building. The resulting stench has proven impervious to any amount of cleaning, adding to the rich tapestry of experiences that makes a career at the Foundation so exciting.
SCPs XXXX -7 and -12 may be more tractable for neutralisation of SCPs, but Mexico and the Ukraine flatly refuse entry for SCPs like 106 and 682.

*Transference/ alteration of other SCPs

Other SCPs may have their properties enhanced or altered by close exposure to SCP-XXXX-12. During the Soviet era, GRU exposed an unknown number of SCPs to the effects of SCP-XXXXX-12 in the hope of granting them destructive properties that would be useful in war. This ended with the disaster that killed GRU’s most experienced experts. The previous experimental subject SCPs are unaccounted for and are considered to pose a major risk.

One of the three survivors disappeared and may have become an SCP himself. As a GRU officer he would know how to stay hidden and his fate is unknown.
-Soviet authorities blame the missing items on the officer, but the Foundation remains suspicious of the explanation; GRU factions might have sequestered the items for their own use, or taken them to barter with the company Marshall, Carter and Black.
Re. atrocities and testing, see supplement for SCP-XXXX-12.

Other SCP alterations. On one occasion, a person fused to SCP-2200 could be separated, and then resurrected while the stretcher holding him rested on top of SCP-XXXX-7-1 Concerns that SCP-2200-1 might be turned even more destructive by the proximity to SCP-XXXX-7-1 led to the stop of these experiments.

*Zoological oddities: local flora and fauna near many instances have minor anomalies, but only SCP-XXXX-12 have produced plants that are potentially harmful.
The chupacabra -now extinct in the wild- is only dangerous when cornered. Se supplement re. SCP-XXXX-7. The Old World pseudo-chupacabra is unrelated, and quite dangerous.

*-Transient gravitational anomalies have been observed near instances, but at the limit of the sensitivity of current instruments.

*- SCP-XXXX absorbs neutrinos (energy content 1% of the solar constant) even though neutrinos normally could pass through ten light years of solid iron without being absorbed.
This is interpreted as SCP-XXXX may have been designed to have access to a stable energy supply independent of day or night, or time of year, no matter how deeply SCP-XXXX is lodged into the crust and lithosphere

*-At random intervals (not associated with solar storms, seismic activity or other phenomena) a transient, fluctuating magnetic anomaly may appear, centred on an instance of SCP-XXXX. This contributed to the discovery of SCP-XXXX-1.

*Self-defence capability/Involvement of sarkic cult with SCP-XXXX-20; consequences and conclusions.

“Down Station” is a former London underground station near Mayfair, London, UK. It is one of 40 “ghost” stations and was closed 1932.
In (redacted) a nearby resident reported a huge cave-in resulting in a deep crater. Investigations revealed that an unauthorised tunnel network had been dug to and around the underground station, using it to dump excavated material, andas a base to burrow a tunnel to a 1.8 m thick metal underground column found ca. 120 m from the station.
21 bodies were found in the cave-in.
The original tunnel from the surface to the station started inside an estate owned by an elderly man without living relatives. His body was found in a shallow grave in the gardens and time of death was estimated by insect activity at six months previously.
The Foundation took over the investigation and a cover story about human trafficking and drug trade was released to explain the covert tunnels.
The metal pillar is now designated SCP-XXX-20. Evidence connects the dead bodies to a splinter group of the sarkic cults. The rituals they performed are described in fragmentary surviving inscriptions.
They unwisely tried to cut loose a part of SCP-XXXX-20 with a small explosive charge, and most of the tunnel network caved in. Judging by residues of the explosive charge, it was not big enough to cause the cave-in by itself leading to the conclusion that an intact instance of SCP-XXXX is able to actively defend itself. This must never be forgotten by researchers.

Two of the cultists had grown grotesquely enlarged legs, with musculature and tendons giving them a kangaroo-like appearance. Old London tales and myths like “spring-heeled Jack“ are re-examined by the Foundation for signs of SCP influence.

The juxtaposition of an instance of SCP-XXXX and the first industrial megacity of the world seems unlikely.
But, SCP-XXXX has a proven effect on surface erosion over geological time scales (see the supplement about the discoveries of the first instances) so the Thames valley drainage basin likely came about because of SCP-XXXX-20, and then the river outlet became a logical harbour nexus for trade.

SCP-XXXX-20 might be regarded as the “genius loci”/guardian spirit of London, but its existence must be kept a secret as its urban location makes it easier for cults to target it.

*Supplement 1:
Purpose (hypothesis):
Pioneers of the study of this SCP joked that the pillars are beacons that will guide the Lovecraftian “Elder Gods” to their return.

Early on, the connection was made between SCP-XXXX and the surprising stability of Earth’s biosphere. The world has suffered “snowball Earth” events, magma flood volcanism, giant impacts and recurrent ice ages, but life has not only survived but grown more complex, the disruptions actually speeding up evolution.
The gravity of the Moon keeps the rotational axis of Earth stable, but this relation has evolved to its extreme edge; soon gravity from other planets will induce chaotic fluctuations of the axis, yet complex life has evolved just in time*.

SCP-XXXX is the only artefact old enough (upper limit 2 billion years) to have exerted influence during this time.

This led to the “experimental plot” idea: Earth is being kept stable to study how life near a G2 star evolves if given enough time, just as a biologist may stake out a plot to study the succession of plant life in the forest.

Conclusions: If this is true, we literally have SCP-XXXX to thank for everything. This does *not* mean it is harmless, just as an electric outlet can harm a child probing it with a fork.

-The attempt by GRU to “weaponize” the effects of XXXX-12 and the bizarre disaster that followed should be a warning to those who think SCP-XXXX offers a shortcut to science and technology. Reverse-engineering aspects of XXXX is likely to end with a crater, a pandemic or worse.

Yes, keeping XXXX-7-1 in a chamber with long-lived nuclear waste like plutonium led to the rapid decay of the waste. But the decay was mainly by spontaneous fission rather than by alpha- or beta decay. It was fortunate that the waste sample was very small, and the decay not faster.

Also, some of the energy took an unexpected path. The rain of (redacted) could fortunately be dismissed as a hoax. The staff car that underwent a topological inversion (turned inside out) is now mounted on a plinth at the entrance of Site 11, as an example of modern art.

Addendum: *The phrase “just in time” is from professor Tarantoga, the expert consulted by the Foundation. From one perspective, at 540 million years ago the “Cambrian explosion” is recent.

*Supplement 2:
Age, and associated peculiarities. Correlation re. claims by the Miskatonic University:
Since soil surfaces vary with erosion and sediment deposition. it is generally accepted that the columns of undamaged instances can expand or contract vertically, the top always remaining below ground. If all instances are of the same high age this would provide protection from chemical weathering during their presumed aeons of existence.

The presumed oldest source rock in which an instance (SCP-XXXX-14) is located is a 2 billion years (Gyr) old ophiolite in Canada. This sets an upper limit to the age of SCP-XXXX assuming all are of similar age.
Note that this predates the oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere.

Ophiolite precursors form as magma solidifies as oceanic crust. Such crust can on rare occasions survive plate tectonics when the oceanic crust is “folded” on top of continental crust.
The survival of SCP-xxxx-14 and ophiolite is not seen as a coincidence. Mineral anomalies show SCP-XXXX-14 likely has been present in the basalt since *shortly after it solidified* under the ocean.

The Svecofennian orogenic belt where SCP-XXXX-1 is located is 1.8-2 Gyr old, which falls into the same time period.

The controversial claims made by the Miskatonic University could be explained if an instance is located on the sea floor at the edge of the continental shelf outside New England. Mudslides at the slope of the continental shelf make surveys difficult, one bathysphere has already been destroyed with loss of all crew.

*Supplement 3: Astronomy. The sun is a G2 star with unusually slow rotation, a detail that likely saved the inner planets from having their atmospheres eroded by super-flares and the surface from being bombarded with ionizing radiation.

The Foundation is interested in making an inventory of other G stars with unusually slow rotation, and is looking for ways to detect instances of SCP-XXXX over interstellar instances as such stars may also have been chosen by the mysterious entities that created SCP-XXXX four galactic years ago.

-The Magellan probe orbiting Venus observed an instance of a transient, oscillating magnetic anomaly very similar to SCP-XXXX.
If this is indeed an instance of SCP-XXXX, two billion years ago Venus would have been hospitable for life which is also the consensus of astronomers.
The gradual warming of the sun as it aged may have overwhelmed the stabilising effects of instances, or giant impacts may have destroyed enough instances to overwhelm the influence of remaining instances.

*Supplement 4: First discovery: Magnetic anomalies are what led to the discovery of SCP-XXXX-1 as homing pigeons were observed to be diverted on their way home in northern Sweden.
When the fluctuating magnetic anomaly was mentioned on internet, a web crawler noticed the superposition of two unusual elements (a magnetic anomaly and a river bifurcation) and alerted staff, which undertook a routine investigation at the branching point of Torne river and Tärendö river.

After the discovery of SCP-XXXX-1 a search was undertaken to find similar anomalies at similar geographic oddities. This led to the discovery of SCP-XXXX-2 between Orinoco river and Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon river.

As the search was expanded, magnetic and gravitational anomalies led to instances being found not associated with bifurcating river basins. It is believed the effect on erosion pattern of river basins -leading to “saddle points” where the erosion surface splits into distinct drainage basins- is just a side effect of whatever function SCP-XXXX has.

A north-south smuggling route passes near SCP-XXXX-2. The legends of this outlaw subculture contains fantastic elements that indicate some effect from this instance. An alleged "resurrection" incident is of particular interest to the Foundation.

*Supplement 5: Effects on society:
A now dried-up spring near SCP-XXXX-15 near the town (redacted) once provided water that had seeped through the ground around the instance.
The spring became a place of pilgrimage during the late bronze age as people who drank the water sometimes would have miraculously recovered from disease. Inevitably, many of the visitors would later have succumbed to unusual accidents or disease, but as long at this did not happen in direct proximity to the spring few would have made the connection.
One of the earliest Christian pilgrimage sites, it was abandoned after an earthquake 689 AD blocked the water flow.

The theory that as yet undiscovered instances in the Levant influenced the development of local religious beliefs remains unproven. Researchers with strong ties to any of the Abrahamic religions sometimes find this question distasteful, but members of the Foundation need to be able to rise above prejudice in order to spot important correlations.
A cult leader who gets transhuman abilities can do great damage before the Foundation can intervene, as staff members by now should know.

*Supplement 6 'Interaction of SCP-XXXX-7-1 and SCP-1657-A, The “Uplift” incident.
A program to test the exposure of biological SCPs to SCP-XXX-7-1 involved instances of second-generation 1657-A. Eggs from these instances were exposed to SCP-XXX-7-1 for a longer time and incubated, resulting in humanoid sapient entities, initially called “ghouls”. They lack hair and genitals, but otherwise look like human-sized primates with human-style foreheads and vocal cords.

They have a cloaca like birds and reptiles, and -like 1657-A have a degree of shared memory. To reduce the strain on their metabolism and reduce their numbers, they are given medication to repress the production of new eggs.
Their intelligence is described as similar to high-functioning persons with Down’s syndrome.

As part of their metabolism, a foul-smelling chemical is secreted on their skin; the “ghouls” have a distinct smell even after washing. This, and their grotesque human-like appearance has led to staff expressing disgust and even disdain for them.

Two years into the program, the appointment of a new manager led to the exposure of appalling conditions, the “ghouls” living in filth and displaying bruises. The following inquiry resulted in disciplinary actions being taken against 14 Foundation personnel. Two security guards that were producing “ghoul porn” (see “rule 34”) and were about to be demoted to D-class committed suicide.

The term “ghouls” in reference to these entities is now banned as pejorative. Instead, they are to be referred to as “the uplifted”, commonly shortened to “lifters”.
The lifters have received new homes in houses at the outskirt of Site 11, as they display claustrophobic tendencies, possibly caused by their previous confinement. Staff has been added to investigate their special educational needs.

The suggestion that their collective memories make them a useful resource for SCP research has been rejected, as they cannot give a legal consent.

The Foundation has declared a moratorium on interactions between potentially sapient biological SCPs and SCP-XXXX-7-1 because of the ethical issues of the incident. The planned exposure of SCP-3199 to SCP-XXXX-7-1 has been put on hold indefinitely.

Lifters volunteering to work at the adjacent cloned animals section have been accepted, as they appear to enjoy the experience.

*Supplement 7: SCP-XXXX-1 is to date the most studied intact instance of SCP-XXXX.
To hide SCP-XXXX-1, a shed or barn that is deliberately made to be depilated-looking
has been erected directly above it, hiding the traces of digging, and of the surveillance equipment.
On the barn, graffiti with the phrase “TMA-1” can be found (although Dr Bright has visited the site, it cannot be proven that he is the individual applying the graffiti).
It has been decided that the act of removing graffiti from a seemingly abandoned barn would create more attention -and thus more risk of trespassers- than the risk of anyone remembering an obscure reference to a 50-year-old novel.

Observation: Female bears with cubs often stray within a few km of SCP-XXXX-1. As male adult bears are cannibals who often kill cubs, female bears with cubs stay closer to human habitation than adult male bears prefer to go. The behaviour near SCP-XXXX could be a strategy to stay near places adult male bears avoid.
A hypothesis is that bears of both gender sense something is odd about the region near SCP-XXXX-1, making adult males stay clear. Bears have a better sense of smell than other carnivores, but the exact mechanism by which they identify the area as unusual has not been established.
Research is ongoing, under cover of a wildlife management project.

*Supplement 8: SCP-XXXX-7 and origin of SCP-XXXX-7-1
SCP-XXXX-7 is located in Mesoamerica, on the Mexican side of the Guatemalan border.

SCP-XXXX-7 is one of two instances that manifest a strong influence on the surrounding area, and this is the only site where an instance has a more complex morphology than a simple pillar with a circular cross-section.
Roughly 400 m down, SCP-XXXX-7 starts branching in a manner reminiscent of a dendritic molecule or an upside-down tree.
The proximity to the Yucatan peninsula suggests the seismic shock of the Chixchulub impact 66 million years (Myr) ago strained the self-repairing mechanisms of SCP-XXXX-7 to its limit, leading to the slow branching of the instance and the “leakage” of statistical anomalies.

It is the only instance from which a large fragment has successfully been removed (SCP-XXXX-7-1), this was a short (6 m) cul-de-sac fragment joined to the main pillar by a narrow, slightly twisted neck. A small, shaped charge was detonated at this place.

After removal, more seismic and gravitational anomalies have been observed at SCP-XXXX-7 and any more efforts to remove samples have been forbidden.
In the aftermath, many people born outside the exclusion zone displayed unusual abilities in adulthood. A charity trust has been set up to care for them, but also to clandestinely observe the effects.

The first mention of the chupacabra (goat-sucker) comes from this region in the early 18th century and reports then come from successively more northern towns. The original animal had a narrow range centred on SCP-XXXX-7 but when European domesticated animals became common, it rapidly evolved, animal size increasing to exploit this new resource and the range expanded.
European livestock diseases caught up with the chupacabra and its population collapsed by the end of the 19th century. Apart from the specimen in foundation care, the American chupacabra is extinct.

Villagers nearby the instance were spared the population collapse that followed the diseases introduced to the Americas by Europeans, but they suffer many inherited diseases not encountered elsewhere in the world.

The only one-eyed (”cyclopean”) mutation to survive birth and reach adulthood
was documented by a local Catholic priest in the 17th century. That this indian displayed full cognitive abilities is remarkable as mutants with this condition lack the separation of the brain into a left and right hemisphere.

*Supplement 9: SCP-XXXX-12 (aka “The Bloody Ground”, nickname by a surviving GRU researcher)
This instance is located on the border of Belarus and the Ukraine, in terrain dominated by forest, swamps and only minor areas suitable for cultivation.

It is one of two known instances whose influence can affect even brief visitors, and the zone where the influence extends is wider than any other site. The exact border for the zone is hard to establish, as by their nature the effects are mostly statistical; “natural” oddities cannot be directly discerned from “leakage”.
The instance did not attract a systematic research effort until 1960, which is perhaps fortunate.

The people living around SCP-XXXX-12 have suffered more than people living around any other instance, but this is because of Man’s cruelty to Man rather than directly attributable to SCP-XXXX-12. Due to the death toll, and later rural depopulation it has not been possible to collect older folklore about the site. Even those familiar with GULAG and places like "Stalin's cannibal island" express distress when briefed of this site.

The first event of interest to the Foundation came at the mid-19th Century when a local Skoptsy -a sect of "sacred eunuchs"- claimed to have had powers given to him from God. He demonstrated transhuman abilities, but was soon after killed by a mob.

During WWI and the Russian civil war the area became a refuge for deserters and bandits.
When the Soviet Union started the New Economic Policy, the villagers enjoyed a brief period of a relative good fortune. This was brutally interrupted by the Five Year Plan
and the collectivization of farms. This part of the Soviet Union was one of the places where the resistance was fiercest, and Stalin broke the resistance by having the Red Army confiscate all seeds, block the roads for refugees and letting the inhabitants starve.

After the Great Famine, The Great Terror followed. In 1941, after the food rationing had finally been abolished the Nazi invasion quite literally torched the region. Refugees and partisans hid out in the area as forests and swamps made the region inaccessible for a mechanised army.

Luftwaffe and SS units here also could not rely on their radios and compasses as their use suffered from constant interference and fluctuating magnetic fields. Finally, the villages in the area became victims of SS’ “punitive” measures, and the villagers that had not fled were massacred.
Partisan units had some success at ambushing German units as the latter found it hard to coordinate their actions with unreliable radios and compasses.
This did not win the local partisans any approval; After the return of Soviet forces in 1944, all those partisans were either sent to GULAG or penal military units. It is noteworthy that even the NKVD officer (by order of Stalin, all partisan units must be accompanied by a member of the secret police) was summarily executed.

As an aside, the Party under Stalin was paranoid about anything powerful it did not control, and the knowledge of such diffuse, powerful entities or sites was either brutally suppressed or kept secret within a small circle of people.

Only in the early 1960s would a GRU unit entrusted with such investigations make any systematic efforts to learn more about SCP-XXXX-12.
The attempt to “weaponize” the effects was disastrous. Little documentation survives, but the death toll of GRU personnel was near 100%. The deputy leader of the group survives to this day,
but it is questionable if the radical re-arrangement of his anatomy has afforded him any quality of life.

He and his colleagues are hardly worthy of sympathy -after the collapse of the Soviet Union, mass graves at SCP XXXX-12 were found, dating to the 1960s and carrying GULAG paraphernalia and prison uniforms. Many of the skeletons were grotesquely distorted; the effect was premortem, consistent with testing of military-grade SCPs.
We know GRU sometimes used condemned prisoners to "test" officers of the Spetsnaz units, but the death toll at SCP XXXX-12 was appalling, at Stalin-era levels.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, GRU reluctantly allowed civilian scientists access to the site. The occurrence of statistical “black swan” events was documented up to a radius of either 1.5 km or 5 km (contradictory reports suggest the effect was fluctuating or demonstrates the difficulty of defining what is statistically “normal”).
At this phase, the scientists discovered the upper part of a metal pillar under the surface at the centre of the site. This discovery was of course kept secret, and was not revealed to the West until after the discovery of SCP-XXXX-1

Now, researchers noticed the effects could accompany staff members that had moved to new postings far away in the Soviet Union. Called “the Strugtsky effect” it affected staff that had spent weeks or months near the centre of the zone around SCP-XXXX-12 (western researchers were not warned of this effect).

Various experimental plots at the central area were planted with saplings and seeds. These included different variants of crops, fruit trees and trees with good quality as timber. The results were described as interesting, but the plants developed powerful toxins to keep pests away and are forbidden for human consumption.

The insect-eating tree hybrids might have done well on the nutrition-poor tundra, but the Party firmly ordered this avenue of research to be shut down, Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids” being available in Russian by this time.

Former Stalin protégé Trofim Lysenko attempted to assume control over the research at SCP-XXXX-12 but behind-the-scenes plotting blocked this move. Considering the chaos and starvation his madness caused in agriculture and forestry, this was fortunate. If he had been granted access during Stalin’s lifetime, a world-destroying event would have been a possibility.

Research at SCP-XXXX-12 gradually wound down in the 1970s. No useful results had been produced and the leading trio of researchers left.
One was unexpectedly promoted to a high post in Moscow, the two others were hospitalised for nervous breakdowns. One claimed to have been warned off by a secret, world-controlling cabal called “the Nine”, the other said the surface is threatened by a subterranean (”chtonian”) civilisation.

Ironically, the lasting heritage of two decades of research was a potato variant from which excellent vodka can be produced. Fermentation produces significantly more ethanol than other variants and the plant toxins can easily be filtered out.

-A few months after the military personnel had departed and only a small civilian staff remained, an elderly man emerged from the forest and made contact, talking with some difficulty. Over the course of a week, his story emerged. He had escaped the Great Terror and the war by hiding in huts in the forest. When asked where he had found food, he said that apart from berries, he chewed on whatever soft ve getable matter he could find.

Further investigation revealed his gut bacteria had evolved the ability to split cellulose and hemicellulose into simple sugars. Yet, he would have died of scurvy if not his sister -now recently deceased- had smuggled some vegetables, slices of bread and small morsels of other food to him in the forest during the last four decades. This is one of the few heartening narratives that has emerged from this site.

*Supplement 10. Project Osiris

Cloning is inherently difficult, requiring hundreds of attempts for every success, but project Osiris -attached to SCP-XXX-7-1- has been a somewhat qualified success.
The Tasmanian tigers (Thylacinus) are primate-level intelligent.
A researcher keeps an African Grey parrot in his quarters, and particles shed from this bird have been transferred to the site via clothing.
The instance has seamlessly integrated the brain complexity of this avian species with a marsupial, resulting in an animal that can use simple tools.

The young mammoths are healthy, but if parts of the skin not covered by fur is touched without gloves, painful blisters form on the hand. The agent was identified as urushiol, normally found in poison ivy.
Seeds of this plant were found in the soil underneath the concrete foundation of the test building. Therefore a new building has been erected upon a deep platform, resting on bedrock.
The biology of plants and animals are very different.
Getting them to work together is a task beyond current AIs and indicates the instances are generalised tools made to work in biospheres with organisms that are very different from ours.

-A series of tests were performed with extremely long (one month) exposure to SCP-XXXX-7-1

Attempted cloning: Crow. Result: A bird identified as an enantiornithe, an extinct group of partially cold-blooded flying birds that do not grow to adult size with one season, but grow like lizards. As they went extinct at the K/T boundary, the information has been stored in the instance for 66 million years.

Attempted cloning: Bat Result: A small animal with leathery wings, able to breathe normal air but not able to fly in normal air pressure. When placed in a large airtight chamber where air pressure was gradually increased, it acquired the ability to support its own weight in the air at 2.7 times ambient air pressure. No DNA match for any known animal phylum .
Origin: Extra-terrestrial.