SCP-XXXX: Believe in the elevator
Author: 
Potatoverse
Image Credit: (image credit)
The elevator image caption
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-XXXX is stored on the D Wing at Site-81, inside a two-story elevator shaft surrounded by stairs. Knowledge of SCP-XXXX is restricted to Level 4 personnel. No personnel with a previous diagnosis of paranoia or any similar mental condition are allowed to retain their memories of SCP-XXXX and are to be added to the list below. In any unforseen event the personnel listed will be investigated.
Dr.█████████ [█████ █,█████ █,████]
Dr. Leutner [Level 4, Class A, male]
Dr. Heimer [Level 4, Class B, female]
Dr. Van Ranzenhof [Level 4, Class A, male]
Dr. Cryne [Level 4, Class B, female]
Dr. Bringgs [Level 4, Class B, female]
Dr. Nunstew [Level 4, Class B, male]
Dr. Due [Level 4, Class B, female]
Dr. Neely [Level 4, Class B, male]
Description: SCP-XXXX is an elevator car made in the 1900s. An engraving in place of the manufacturers name reads: "Nobody owns the truth."
Testing has revealed that SCP-XXXX is always in the state that any individual expects it to be in. The effects of SCP-XXXX are only noticeable once subjects memories of the past are compared. All individuals experience themselves as being right about the elevator and everyone else as agreeing with them but only when talking about the present or the future.
The contradictions of different subjects having different beliefs about the state of the elevator are resolved in the following manner. Any individual holding a belief about the state of SCP-XXXX will experience reality as confirming their world view until the perceived reality lies in the past. At that point the results of the different perceived realities are equal making it impossible to determine which reality is "correct". No experiments have been conducted which resulted in a permanent "state of agreement". However if that were to happen then SCP-XXXX would not be differentiable from any other elevator. Dr. Leutner suggests that the non-permanency of this state is a more accurate way of describing the anomaly.
Discovery: The Foundation retrieved SCP-XXXX from an Italian research team attempting to understand the anomaly. The research team posted video recordings of SCP-XXXX online in an attempt to crowdsource their research. Once these videos were detected, Foundation personnel contacted the research team to obtain SCP-XXXX and removed the videos from all online sources.
Video Experiment Transcriptions:
Note: The transcripts have been translated and for the sake of purity edited to replace every remark about the elevator's current or future state by a description of agreement.
Dr.█████████: coughing and paper rustling Elevator Experiment Number 01: Coincidence exclusion. 88 subjects will enter an isolated, electromagnetically shielded and empty room except for the equipment needed for the experiment and one researcher. They will be asked to name the elevator's current, future and past state. All answers will be recorded both digitally and on paper.
One subject enters the room after another and is asked what level SCP-XXXX is on. From the 88 subjects, 9 answer immediately, 76 answer after hesitation, and 3 refuse to answer out of uncertainty. All of the subjects who answered agreed with each other and were right. A case of coincidental parallel thinking is excluded. With 3 subjects removed this experiment was repeated for the future and past. While asking about the future state showed the same results this was not true for questioning about the past state as responses were contradictory to former answers given by the same subject and seemed to be completely random as would be expected in an experiment on a regular elevator.
Dr.█████████: Elevator Experiment Number 02: Parallel usage. Two subjects each placed on a different floor will be told that the elevator is at their floor and will be tasked to use the elevator at exactly the same time and to go to the same level by an instructor. All three floors will be monitored by video cameras transmitting footage live to a control team of three.
The view is a split-screen of the three floors mentioned by Dr.█████████. The video will display one of four options:
- Subject A enters earlier making subject A and B meet
- Subject B enters later making subject A and B meet
- Subject A enters later making subject A and B not meet
- Subject B enters earlier making subject A and B not meet
The video then cuts to an interview sequence where all personnel are present. For the sake of redaction the names of all personnel have been replaced by "Subject A", "Subject B", "Control A", "Control B" and "Control C".
Dr.█████████: Subject A, at what time did you press the elevator's button?
Subject A: When I was told to do so which I remember being at precisely 17:40.
Subject B: What? That can't be! I was using the elevator at that time.
Dr.█████████: I remind you that this is all being recorded and that you should only respond when asked. Subject A, when did you see Subject B?
Subject A: I saw him when the elevator halted only one floor below mine. He told me that he was tasked to use the elevator as well and we left the elevator together.
Dr.█████████: Subject B, is that correct?
Subject B: Yes, when I opened the door he was surprisingly already in there. I thought that this was part of the experiment so I told him that I had to do the same thing but I also remember pressing the button when I was told to do so. My instructor told me that it was 17:40 as well so maybe the clocks from the two people who gave us instructions are slightly out of sync?
Dr.█████████: This is impossible.
Subject B: Why?
Dr.█████████: The clock that the instructor was following was adjusted right before the experiment but more importantly you had the same instructor. The audio feed from the instructor was being sent to both of you at the same time. short pause Let's continue. Control A, what do you remember seeing?
Control A: The video feed showed what Subject A reported.
Dr.█████████: Do Control B and Control C agree?
Control B: Yes.
Control C: No.
Dr.█████████: Elaborate.
Control C: I remember seeing what Subject B reported.
Dr.█████████: Control A and Control B, is it safe to assume that you were expecting to see what you saw?
Control B: Yes.
Control A: Not really. I didn't really think about what was going to happen.
Dr.█████████: What about Control C?
Control C: I do have to say that I was more concentrated on the split screen that was showing Subject B but like Control A I didn't really have any expectations.
Dr.█████████: Control B, do you have any reasons for your assumption?
Control B: Yes, I didn't think that the elevator could be in two places at once so it was only natural that one of the subjects was going to get into the elevator first. I also thought that the elevator car was at the floor of Subject A which means that Subject A would get in the elevator first.
Dr.█████████: Alright, Subject A and Subject B, you can leave.
Subject B: Thank god! This has gotten too confusing for me to handle.
Subject A and Subject B stand up and walk out of the room. Dr.█████████ pulls out a laptop and turns it towards the control team.
Dr.█████████: You will now rewatch the footage that was recorded during the experiment. Please talk about what you are seeing with each other to see whether you agree or not.
The control team continues to watch the footage. Whenever something happens one of the control team members explains it and all other team members agree. When they finish watching the video Control B summarizes what they saw but although all of them agree that they were agreeing they don't agree on what they were agreeing on. Dr.█████████ confirms it. The video then cuts to Dr.█████████'s office.
Dr.█████████: I think there is a lot to take from this experiment. Firstly, if one doesn't have a belief about the elevator's location then it seems that what they see is affected by a natural bias. Secondly, video footage behaves akin to a window peering into the past making the elevator behave as if it were in the present. Thirdly, the elevator does not obey causality making it possible for the elevator to be at any state for no particular reason except for one's belief.
Dr.█████████: Elevator Experiment Number 03: Unobserved behavior. Two light sensors labeled "01" and "02" will be placed inside of the elevator car by two different subjects unaware of each other. A third subject will be made to believe that the elevator car is at his level and will install a weak laser on that floor. These tasks will be done at the same time. All personnel aware of this will be put to sleep for four hours, during which the sensors will be active, so that no thoughts about the experiment could interfere with the results. Only the data collected by the sensors and the results of this experiment will be recorded due to the results of Experiment 02.
The camera cuts to a scene occuring in front of a door behind which the elevator and the laser is located. While one's opinion on whether the elevator is there would normally determine it's location, the elevator car is called in this video making it impossible for one not to believe that it's on the same floor. All five personnel involved in this experiment and two others watch as the door opens and reveals a single light sensor. One of the subjects is surprised and the other one is not until the unsurprised subject takes the light sensor out of the elevator at which point both subjects are unsurprised. Despite one of the subjects having taken the light sensor out of the elevator there will either still be one inside or another subject will have picked up the light sensor. The only difference between the two light sensors is the labeling that Dr.█████████ mentioned. The data on each light sensor suggests that the energy emitted by the laser was split up between the two sensors. Nevertheless the first sensor that one sees in the video seems to have received the combined energy of the two sensors. The video then cuts to Dr.█████████ in ███ office.
Dr.█████████: I have decided that this experiment will be repeated because it is impossible to deduce whether the unobserved elevator behaves similar to an unobserved quantum particle meaning that it is simultaneously in every possible state or if it is in no state until one observes it. The experiment will be conducted in exactly the same manner except for the small difference that the elevator will be opened on a different floor from the one where the weak laser is located.
Exactly the same thing happens as in the last iteration of this experiment however the sensors' data shows that they did not pick up any of the light from the laser.
Dr.█████████: It seems as though the elevator behaves more like my second hypothesis. Perhaps the elevator does not exist while nobody thinks about it or observes it but once someone thinks of it or observes it in a certain state it appears to have always been in that state. This is the last experiment that I conducted on this elevator. The more we look into how this elevator works the more illogical it becomes. No current understanding of the laws of nature could explain why this is occuring with this specific elevator. This is why I have published this video. I hope that sharing this with the world could lead to new insights into this phenomenon.
Experiment Logs:
The experiments conducted in the tapes were all repeated to ensure their truthfulness.
Video-01: Success.
Video-02: Partial success; The results were not the same but they obeyed the same logic as the results in the video.
Video-03-1: Success.
Video-03-2: Success.
Dr. Leutner suggested that we conduct experiments to gain knowledge of to which extent the thoughts about SCP-XXXX's state are true. In all of these experiments D-Class personnel were convinced of the elevator's state and then later questioned as to what they saw to make sure that the statements are not affected by the elevator.
Floor Test: Beliefs about the floor that SCP-XXXX is on are true. This experiment further lead to Incident-XXXX-01.
Door Test: Beliefs about whether the door is open or not are true.
Light Test: Beliefs about whether the lights are on or not are true.
Form Test: The model and general shape of the elevator are consistent.
Position Test: Beliefs about the position of SCP-XXXX are true. This property was the cause of Incident-XXXX-02.
Size Test: SCP-XXXX's size is not variable.
Orientation Test: Beliefs about the orientation of SCP-XXXX are true.
Incident-XXXX-01: During the experiment to determine whether beliefs about the floor that SCP-XXXX was on were true Dr. Leutner suggested convincing the subject that the elevator had one more floor than it actually had and telling the subject to select that floor. Surprisingly subject returned with nothing remarkable to add. To find out what was going on exactly another subject was convinced of the extra floor and was hooked up to the other subject. Subject A was then handed instructions for Subject B and after Subject B's return the two subjects reported that the extra floor was designed similar to the floor they started. When Subject B supposedly left the elevator room he entered a small hallway with exactly three doors all leading to SCPs labeled: SCP-████, SCP-████ and SCP-████. All of the named SCPs have yet to be added to the database. Digging at the location where the level supposedly was yielded no results. Dr. Leutner suggested giving Subject B a keycard to deliver more information about the unknown SCPs however this was denied for security breach reasons.
Incident-XXXX-02: Four D-Class personnel attempted jailbreak by using SCP-XXXX's first and fifth property.
Transcript of D-4545's testimony:
During activity time two other orange dudes told me about an elevator which was in the toilet. Of course I wanted to see it immediately so I just followed them. When I opened the door they ran in before me and entered the elevator. I quickly got in with them and some other guy who was watching us joined us as well. They selected the highest floor and when we arrived there they ran out and I followed them. But for some reason the highest location of the elevator was maybe twenty meters above the ground so we all fell and I was the only one who survived the fall. Well actually we all survived the fall they only died because they touched electrical wiring. Luckily for me they were in the way so I fell on them instead of the electrical wires.
While the three D-Class personnel shouldn't have been able to perceive the elevator the theory goes that their intelligence or lack there of made them believe that if one person believes in SCP-XXXX's existence then it will manifest itself for all of them. Which means that they could only use SCP-XXXX because they did not understand its workings.
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