You’re sitting in the middle of a cheering
crowd. The arena around you is electric, fans hollering
from their seats as they watch the basketball game. Every point scored, every shot missed, and
every skillful pass of the ball sends waves of excitement over everyone in the audience. Applause, shouts, and chants fill the air. It distracts you for a moment, you find yourself
swept up in the energy of the game. But slowly, surely, a nagging feeling creeps
up on you as your eyes follow the ball. That feeling turns to a sickening realization
as one of the players jumps and dunks the basketball, scoring another two points. You notice the look on his face, the same
look on the faces of all the other players on the court: a solemn, hopeless expression. It’s the same look of silent despair worn
by all the spectators around you. Then you remember, you’ve watched this exact
game of basketball before. Many, many times before. And that is when you feel the same hopeless
expression appear on your own face, realizing just how long you have been here, watching
this game over and over. Reminded that you will never, ever leave this
arena. Welcome to SCP-1733. To the untrained eye, SCP-1733 seems to be
a completely harmless item. Stored in a digital video recorder, it is
kept secure in the dusty depths of the SCP Foundation’s video archives. If any researcher is given permission to study
SCP-1733, they will find it to be an ordinary VHS tape. But what about the contents of said tape? Does it contain a bizarre, disconnected series
of black and white video clips that when viewed only give the watcher seven days before the
spirit of a drowned girl comes crawling out their TV screen to kill them? Well, not exactly, but we’re sure that if
such a tape exists, the Foundation probably has it under lock and key too. The footage on SCP-1733 is as seemingly banal
as the ordinary VHS tape itself. When played, the viewer will witness a TV
broadcast of a basketball game. Specifically, the 2010-2011 NBA season opener,
broadcast on television and captured on tape by an unknown civilian. The game took place on the 26th of October
2010 in the TD Garden arena in Boston, Massachusetts, a game where the hometown Boston Celtics took
on the Miami Heat. By now, perhaps you are wondering what is
so special about this particular game, and why the SCP Foundation would be so interested
in keeping a VHS recording of it so secure. Is one of the O5 Council secretly a Celtics
fan? While that’s impossible to say for sure,
what we do know for certain is that SCP-1733 is far more than just a harmless recording
of a basketball game. The SCP Foundation first caught wind of SCP-1733’s
existence the day after the game. On October 27th, a Boston native that had
watched and recorded the game made comments on social media about a technical foul that
the game’s referee had failed to pick up on. According to this individual, during the third
quarter, an instance of unsportsmanlike conduct took place between Ray Allen and Chris Bosh. The person making these claims was quickly
ridiculed by commenters on the same thread. But then this person uploaded a clip of this
foul from the footage they had recorded. The other commenters were dumbfounded. During the original broadcast, that foul had
never happened, but the recording showed it clear as day. The footage was quickly expunged and all traces
of the clip removed from the Internet by personnel acting on behalf of the SCP Foundation. Any that had viewed the video on Facebook,
or been a part of the comments debating this previously non-existent foul, were tracked
down via their IP addresses. All of them, including the owner of the tape,
were given amnestics to wipe their memories of the supposed infraction, and SCP-1733 was
returned to the Foundation for further analysis. Researchers at the Foundation were determined
to understand the anomalous nature of SCP-1733, and why the footage contained on this particular
VHS tape was so different from the basketball game’s original broadcast. At first, the differences in the game seemed
to be only slight changes from the one that actually aired on TV; a different foul here,
a small point difference there. While the recording of the game contained
on SCP-1733 was slightly different from the real-life game, perhaps even more interesting
was that these differences changed with repeat viewings. Researchers wouldn’t observe the same differences
every time they watched SCP-1733, but would instead spot something different that had
been changed each time they restarted the tape. And as they continued to watch and rewatch
SCP-1733’s footage, the true horror of the video’s anomalous properties became more
and more apparent. As the footage recorded on SCP-1733 began
to diverge more and more from the original broadcast, researchers shifted their attention
away from the basketball game itself and onto the people watching it. Just like the specifics of the game itself,
the fans in the arena seemed to also change with every re-watch of the tape. And even stranger, the people in the crowd
seemed to not only be aware of their existence within the footage, but also retained memories
of every previous replayed version. Each time the researchers had watched SCP-1733,
the audience trapped within had gained more and more cognizance. Every man, woman, and child in the audience
of that basketball game began remembering that they had seen multiple variations of
the same game over and over again. This first became apparent to Foundation researchers
when the game’s commentators, two presenters named Mike and Tommy, began to comment on
a strange sense of ‘déjà vu’ they were experiencing as they watched the Boston Celtics
and Miami Heat playing. Both seemed to share the notion that the game
they were witnessing was strangely familiar, and in later replays of the tape, these two
commentator personalities were able to recall the events of the game with perfect, vivid
accuracy. While they never address the viewer directly,
this cumulative effect seems to have extended to every person that was present within the
arena at the time that the original broadcast was recorded. Everyone from the commentators to the coaches,
the players to the patrons, all remember the diverging versions of the basketball game,
but seem to have no awareness that they are trapped inside a recording on a VHS tape. It should be noted that it is still unclear
whether the entities are real people, or digital copies that solely reside on the tape. Every individual shown to be inside TD Garden
on the 26th of October 2010, seems to be identical to their counterparts in the real world. Each of the basketball players on both the
Boston Celtics and Miami Heat teams have the exact same level of talent as they do in reality,
and their individual mannerisms are perfectly recreated in the SCP-1733 footage. And the same true of the fans in the audience,
each one appearing to be, in every conceivable way, a living human being. But the most unnerving aspect of SCP-1733
was found when Foundation agents were tasked with tracking down the members of the audience
who were seen on the tape and they found… nothing. Unlike the players and coaches who can quite
easily be found in our world, with many of them still playing or involved with professional
basketball, personnel were unable to find a single trace of any of the people from the
audience. Not one clue as to their current whereabouts
or status. It is unclear how, but it appears that everyone
shown on SCP-1733, especially those watching the game unfold from the stands, is a person
trapped in digital form, stuck watching variations of the same match on a loop. Researchers at the SCP Foundation who were
studying SCP-1733 initially theorized that the tape had been designed to display an infinite
variety of different game outcomes. Given that the tactics utilized by the players
were different with each playback of SCP-1733, this seemed to be the case, that the tape
was showing a ‘what if’ scenario each time the tape was rewound and played from
the start. But the scenario wasn’t resetting each time. It was clear they were learning. By the 34th replay of the footage, the Boston
Celtics and Miami Heat were so in-tune with the opposing team’s playbook that both sides’
players were able to perfectly and precisely counter their opponents’ moves, and kept
the score at zero to zero for much of the game. At this stage in the Foundation’s research,
the players on the SCP-1733 tape had not yet become fully aware that they had played the
same game already in earlier playbacks, but it is possible that weak memories of the earlier
versions of the same match manifested as instinctive ways players could counter the moves of their
rival team. However, by the time Foundation researchers
had replayed the SCP-1733 footage 45 times, the players, their coaches and fans watching
the game had become aware of what was happening to them. It was at this point that the digital recording
from TD Garden changed dramatically. Realizing that they’d been playing the same
game of basketball over and over, the players refused to participate any longer. Everyone in attendance began to attempt escape
from the tape where they’d been unknowingly imprisoned. But not a single one of the stadium’s doors
would budge, and neither the fans, nor the players, seemed to be able to leave through
any other exit out of TD Garden. Over the following playbacks of the SCP-1733
video tape, attempts at escape grew increasingly daring. In one playback, a full-scale riot broke out. In another, makeshift explosives were built
and used by those trapped to try and blast their way to freedom. As their cognition grew and they began to
remember friends and family from outside the video tape, the crowd trapped in SCP-1733
grew even more desperate. Players and their coaches retired to locker
rooms, withdrawing from the crowd for a time. The rest of the people in the footage began
to form factions amongst themselves, one of the more prominent calling themselves the
“Faithkeepers”. These individuals voiced their belief that
they had been confined to TD Garden as some form of spiritual punishment, as a result
of the consumerism that is rife in a post-industrial society. The Faithkeepers began burning offerings in
the center of the basketball court, phones, wallets, car keys, anything that reminded
them of the modern world. Over the subsequent playbacks of SCP-1733,
the Faithkeepers grew in their numbers, indoctrinating more of the crowd into their movement. Those still trying to escape from the stadium
were causing more damage to themselves than their enclosure, with three men caught in
the blast of another crude bomb placed on an exit door. Unfortunately for them, the door barely showed
a scratch in the aftermath of the detonation. As Foundation researchers continued replaying
the tape, those trapped within SCP-1733 descended into depraved acts, and incidences of violence
became rampant. Some even attempted to take their own lives
in acts of desperation, jumping from balconies in the hopes of ending the loop. Those that had joined the growing ranks of
the Faithkeepers did not engage in such behavior, instead creating makeshift curtains to separate
themselves from the breakdown that was taking place among the others trapped within the
SCP-1733 tape. At some point beyond the 112th playback of
the video tape, the Faithkeepers marched off-screen and brought the basketball teams back out
to the main court. They then began a ritualistic sacrifice, disemboweling
the professional athletes for their fellow prisoners to see. This had no noticeable effect, with the recording
of the game resetting as it had done in earlier re-watched. In a later playback, the Faithkeepers then
began to call for all the children in the stadium to be sacrificed in the same way. Testing on SCP-1733 was finally suspended
indefinitely after this point, and as far as we know, the crowd remains trapped inside
the anomalous recording of this particular Celtics Heat basketball game. Foundation researchers have been unable to
produce the same anomalous effects as those of SCP-1733, even when using the DVR that
original produced the recording. The digital video recorder itself does not
seem to imprint the same properties onto other VHS tapes, making SCP-1733 an isolated anomaly. However, the next time you find yourself at
a basketball game, it might be worth asking yourself: Have I seen this game before? Now check out “SCP-1861 - The Crew of the
HMS Wintersheimer” and “SCP-1337 - The Hitchhiker” for more chilling tales from
the SCP Foundation!
Articles mentioned in this submission
SCP-1733 - Season Opener (+1563) by bbaztek
Yes, this is SCP Explained’s video. Why did you post it?