Per 
Item #: SCP-4809
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: Webcrawler-AI "LUDO" has been tasked with locating any video, photographic, or testamonial evidence of SCP-4809. Embedded agents within all SCP-4809 hotspots should report any sightings, or newly discovered evidence / regional folklore surrounding "fog swimmers", "fog hoppers", "cloud fish", etc.
Description: SCP-4809 are an unclassified species, tentatively placed within the order beloniformes, family exocoetidae, i.e. flying fish. No current technology, including all light spectrum or thermal imaging, has proven capable of recording visual information on SCP-4809. As such, it is unclear if SCP-4809 are purely perceptual, trans-dimensional, merely a uniquely adapted non-anomalous species. 219 recorded witness accounts, including those made by foundation agents, act as the only proof of SCP-4809's existence.
SCP-4809 are described as having dorsal fins roughly twice the length of their bodies, which are covered in slender, reflective scales, along with a multi-segmented1 tail fin. SCP-4809 have been observed travelling in schools of 250 – 2000 at a time.
Through an unknown method, SCP-4809 can maintain buoyancy within any water aerosol. While most frequently observed in sustained, heavy fog layers, large schools of SCP-4809 have also been observed within low Nimbostratus clouds. SCP-4809 are only visible for brief periods when instances move, or “jump” between one cloud group to another, combined with favorable lighting conditions.
Interviewer: Head Researcher Harold Mathews
Interviewed: George Timothy Dawe, career fisherman, resident of Grand Bank, Newfoundland, Canada.
Foreword: Grand Bank, Newfoundland has the highest global average of SCP-4809 sightings per year. Mr. Dawe's statements have been edited for clarity, removing and translating multiple regional idioms and quirks of dialect.
Mathews: Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Dawe.
Mr. Dawe: Ain't nothin. Thanks for the free meal.
Mathews: Not at all. I was hoping you could tell me about a local phenomenon. Something you’d mentioned here in the bar, over the last few days.
Mr. Dawe: Ah, yeah, the Fog Swimmers. You a tourist?
Mathews: Marine Biologist, actually. They sound fascinating.
Mr. Dawe: Ah, son, let me give you some advice. Find somethin' else to study; fog fish aren't for finding. We had some other fellas, ten years back or so, out of some big university. Italian, or something. They were here for months and months with all kinds of fancy equipment. Nothing. Now me, I’m out on the water every day, 30 years, and it's only last week I got a full hand.
Mathews: A "full hand"?
Mr. Dawe holds up his right hand, palm facing away. Above the 1st knuckle of each finger is a short scarred pattern, formed in the shape of an "I".
Mr. Dawe: Old tradition. I'm not sure when it started. Whenever the Fog Swimmers guide you back home, you mark the back of your finger. You're supposed to use a gutting knife, but some of the younger ones get tattoos. We call it the tally.
Mathews: I see. How exactly do these "Fog Swimmers" guide you back to land?
Mr. Dawe: Ah, well, they don't exactly. They don't like people, see? Bright lights, loud sounds, sort of thing. My ol' Dad taught me how to do it, back when I was a kid. He said he'd the foggers twenty full times times in his life… 'course he also said he'd kissed Lucille Ball, so who the heck knows. Ifn' you ever get lost in the fog, what you do is go real still and quiet, like windless day. If you're real lucky, you can spot 'em, jumpin' and shimmering way out over the water. If you even flinch, they'll disappear like a Las Vegas magic show. Whichever way they're going, you go the opposite way. That's the way back to town.
Mathews: But it's possible to observe them up close, right? Mr. Lorenz told me a few months ago a group of them swam directly over his head.
Mr. Dawe: Ah, yeah, he bragged about that for weeks. Did he show you how still he can sit? The guy is like a statue.
Mathews: What about thirteen years ago? Some people claim the whole town saw them, just after a heavy storm. They say there were thousands, jumping between the clouds as they broke apart.
Mr. Dawe: I was out in Marystown visiting my sister that Sunday, but Rose and her kids saw it. I believe ‘em.
Mathews: And none of this is at all… strange to you?
Mr. Dawe: Nah. I mean, I didn’t believe my dad about them when I was a kid. Figured it was like faeries or something. Then I saw them, and then I saw them again. It’s just one of those things.
Mathews: What I mean is, it doesn’t bother you that no one believes you? No one other than other people in town, I mean.
Mr. Dawe: Nah, nah. I get it. It's just the way things are now. Way back when my grandpa fished 'round here, people just believed you, y'know? Every town had something: a kid who could talk to trees, that one house that never got rained on. Heck, Paps even told me about the one town that'd feed their chum to the local crabs, and in return, the crabs would make nautical maps in the sand tellin' em where the best fishing spots were! So, we told people 'we've got fish swimming up in the clouds!' and they believed you. These days folks won't believe something exists if they see it on a screen. They don't trust their own eyes anymore! Some of the kids in town have tried, y’know, tried taking pictures of the fog fish on their phones? Doesn’t work like that though… I don’t think it’s supposed to work like that. Ah, what do I know though.
<End Log>
Interviewed: Researcher Isabelle Lotte
Interviewer: Agent Thomas Smith
Foreword: Researcher Lotte has been studying, tracking, and attempting to document/capture SCP-4809 since 02/08/2014. Interview was conducted remotely via video chat, due to Researcher Lotte’s isolated location in the Atacama Desert.
<Begin Log>Agent Smith: Let’s begin. You’ve had a-
Researcher Lotte: Yeah, yeah, hold on. Your user tag.
Agent Smith: Yes, what about it?
Researcher Lotte: It’s just a handle, right? That’s not actually your name, right?
Agent Smith: No, just like you I’m required to list my birth and given-
Researcher Lotte: So your name is actually Smith? So you’re actually “Agent Smith”?
Agent Smith: … Yes.
Researcher Lotte: Hah! Oh man, that has gotta suck! How many jokes do you get? Like, per day?
Agent Smith: If we could get back to your report?
Researcher Lotte: Hehehe! Sorry, sorry! There’s a reason I’m out here, y’know. I’m not a people person.
Agent Smith: Understood. So, you’ve had a-
Researcher Lotte: You even talk like him a bit!
Agent Smith: Researcher.
Researcher Lotte: Sorry, sorry. Okay, let me get all “official” again. Yes, I’ve had a confirmed sighting of SCP-4809. -23.93 by 70.51. Right off the coast.
Agent Smith: Were you able to capture any photographic or v-
Researcher Lotte: Uh no, Agent Smith, I didn’t. If I’d managed to snag a pic I would have made a bigger fuss. Duh.
Agent Smith: Researcher, please.
Researcher Lotte: Okay, okay, sheesh. No pictures. Visual sighting only.
Agent Smith: Alright. Please describe what you saw for the log.
Researcher Lotte: It happened right after I finished laying out my cam hut. It was a good spot, heavy fog for three days, and it was expected to last through the week. I’d set myself up for a long stay when the sun started coming out. I turned around and, out of nowhere, wham!
Agent Smith: Someone struck you?
Researcher Lotte: What? No. It’s just an expression, dude. I mean, like, wham! There they were!
Agent Smith: Please describe what you saw.
Researcher Lotte: Right, so, I was out on this big shale crag, and the wind was blowing the fog inland. Perfect conditions. I was getting my camera set up when I felt the sun on my neck. When I turned around, I saw them! just barely, though. I had to squint a bit, and if I turned my head too much to the left, or right, it was just a haze of movement. There was a few hundred, maybe, hopping over the rock, between one billow of fog to another. They were nearly transparent, especially the fins. They were almost clear, like Greta oto. Y’know, the butterflies?
I was holding my breath the whole time, I was so excited. I could see little clusters of them on either side, hovering perfectly in the air, halfway between flying and swimming. They seemed to move with the breeze. Not, like, pushed by it though. More like they were following it, tails pointed into the wind. It was like… no, they were like sailboats. Little sailboats in the air.
After a minute I tried to move closer, but the second I even tensed my leg muscles, they all changed direction. Mid-air! Isn't that incredible!? They darted right into the fog, totally vanished. I haven't caught a glimpse since.
Agent Smith: Did you perform the-
Researcher Lotte: God, yes, I’m not an idiot. Full spectrographic, thermal, [REDACTED], hume level, the works. No signs. Nothing but water vapor.
Agent Smith: Thank you, Researcher. That’s all I need.
Researcher Lotte: Oh! One more thing.
Agent Smith: Yes, researcher?
Researcher Lotte: It was worth it. They were beautiful.
<End Log>
Addendum: As of January 1st, 2017, sightings of SCP-4809 have decreased by 38%. Instances have been presenting with patches of discoloration, and more sluggish movement. While ocean pollutants are the most common theory for this trend, the inability to capture a live specimen makes ruling out disease, mutation, or species deviation impossible.
