It was November 3rd, 1991 and Blake Newsom
loved his job. He had a passion for organization, an undying
love of American political history, and was a life-long member of the Republican party. That’s why he took great pride in his position
as a filing clerk at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Or at least, he did, until his horrifying
encounter with SCP – 1981. The worst day of Blake’s life began like
any other. He was taking inventory of the archive’s
wide array of Betamax tapes, and making sure they were all arranged carefully and conformed
with the filing system. One by one, he checked footage of speeches
and addresses off of his list, until he came upon a strange tape that had no business being
there. The tape looked to be completely normal, but
it hadn’t been recorded on the archive inventory. And there was something else off about it. A single white sticker was on the front of
the tape with “RONALD REGAN CUT UP WHILE TALKING" scrawled hastily with what was probably
a felt-tipped marker. Blake was shocked and appalled – they hadn’t
even spelled the President’s name correctly! What poor Mr. Newsom didn’t know was that
he was about to see something so disturbing that he’d look back on that misspelling
like it was a treasured childhood memory. Standard policy for tapes like this would
be to review and catalogue, or even throw it out if necessary. Typically, a lowly filing clerk like Blake
would need to seek approval from his superiors, but curiosity got the better of him. He commandeered one of the library’s televisions
and Betamax cassette players, and started watching the footage. For the first minute or so nothing seemed
out of the ordinary, just the president standing at a podium giving his iconic “Evil Empire”
speech to the National Association of Evangelicals at Sheraton Twin Towers Hotel, Orlando, Florida,
on March 8th, 1983. However, the second the tape hit the one minute
and ten seconds mark, something unnatural began to occur. President Reagan’s speech began to veer
off, as the topic of conversation shifted from the importance of family values to the
exquisite taste of human flesh. Blake was taken aback. Surely, he was hearing things? But the tape only got worse. President Reagan began to divulge the fact
that he enjoyed the taste of young flesh the best, particularly that of infants. As Reagan began to go into detail about how
exactly one should best cook an infant if you want to seal in the flavour, the crowd
erupted into modest applause. Blake started to feel sick. He’d remembered watching this speech, and
President Reagan had said nothing of the sort! Things only got weirder as the President’s
cheek suddenly opened up into a long, bleeding gash, as though someone had cut into his face
with an invisible knife. As the speech continued, and Reagan’s words
became more nonsensical and incoherent, the injuries got worse, too. His face developed puncture wounds, like he
was being stabbed. Skin in some areas rotted and peeled off. Reagan showed no awareness of the horrifying
injuries that seemed to be occurring spontaneously on his body. This was a living nightmare! The tape came to a merciful end 22 minutes
in, after President Reagan’s throat appeared to be slashed open and his insane speech was
reduced to quiet gurgles. It fizzled out into static shortly after,
and Blake politely retired to the bathroom to throw up. Was this some sick prank or tampering or camera
trickery, perhaps? He didn’t know but that tape was disgusting,
and whoever was responsible had to be punished. Newsom contacted the police, hoping obscenity
charges could be pressed against the creator of the tape once they were found. The tape was taken into evidence, and a low-level
police investigation into the possible culprits began. While the police officers who viewed the tape
reported nightmares in the weeks following, the creator of the tape was never found. The investigation truly came to an end when
a superior closed the case and the tape disappeared from the evidence locker. This, as you probably could have guessed,
was the work of a field agent from The SCP Foundation. Amnestics were then used to erase the memories
of everyone unlucky enough to witness the tape, including Blake Newsom, who could finally
rest easy and return to his filing work. The anomalous tape was now in responsible
hands. It was given the designation SCP – 1981,
and given the object class “Safe” due to its easily controlled and self-contained
nature. Proper research and testing was now able to
begin and while nothing about the construction of the tape suggested anything inherently
anomalous, repeat viewings of the video made it clear that this went far beyond mere doctored
footage of a Presidential speech. Every single time the tape is played, both
the speech made and the injuries received by President Reagan change. The few rules the tape seems to always follow
are that Reagan never reacts to the injuries he’s receiving, it always has the same beginning
and total runtime, and the speech is always corrupted. These speeches have been described as “mostly
incoherent, lacking any sort of underlying thematic structure and largely being composed
of nonsensical anecdotes and parables”, so not that dissimilar from a regular Reagan
speech, but the topics always turn incredibly dark and have included torture, mutilation,
death, cannibalism, ritual sacrifice, genocide, and more. The range of injuries shown on President Reagan
in the videos have included, but are by no means limited to, impalement, mutilation,
flaying, and some tortures so gruesome that the details have been redacted from official
files. On several occasions, the details of President
Reagan’s speech have also eerily predicted the future. These include successfully predicting the
September 11th attacks in 2001 and the outcome of the 2008 Russian presidential election. Incidentally, this isn’t even the only Reagan-related
SCP to predict the future. No, there’s another entry in this incredibly
specific niche: SCP – 095, a highly degraded copy of a comic known as “The Atomic Adventures
of Ronnie Ray-Gun.” The title character bears a striking resemblance
to President Reagan, despite the fact that the comic is confirmed by Foundation tests
to have been written in the early 1930s. The comic is set in the far-off future world
of the 1980s, and follows a number of Ronnie’s exploits in three stories. The first, titled “Ronnie vs. Space Admiral
Carter”, seems to perfectly describe the events of the 1980 presidential election. The second, “Space Assassin!”, mirrors
the attempted assassination of President Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. And the third, titled “Jungle Planet!”,
retells the Iran-Contra controversies of 1986. These comics were produced under the mysterious
and apparently non-existent company, “Future Funnies.” The Foundation hopes to track down the other
comics from this company whenever possible, but they’ve had no luck on that front. For now, there’s only SCP – 095. During initial testing, Foundation staff watched
the tape frequently in case this strange, corrupted version of President Reagan had
any other valuable predictions for the future. However, during one of these screenings, one
of the D-Class observation personnel pointed and yelled at the screen in horror. Upon further examination of recorded footage,
researchers could see exactly what had concerned the D-Class observer so much. While, in other viewings of the tape, President
Reagan’s press detail had appeared totally normal, in this one something was clearly
amiss. Standing among the other dull, suit-wearing
political aides was a tall figure dressed in a midnight-black cloak with a large, conical
hood obscuring his face. The figure didn’t appear to move in the
footage – it just stood there, menacingly. A later survey indicated that this figure
would appear in roughly one in seven viewings of the tape. This cloaked figure was designated SCP – 1981
– 1, and he became part of the recurring imagery in the nightmares that often followed
a viewing of SCP – 1981. Naturally, despite containment and preservation
attempts, the Foundation was aware that just like any normal tape, natural magnetic interference
would eventually degrade it beyond use. Attempts to copy the footage onto another
Betamax tape failed to reproduce the anomalous effects. That’s why the Foundation has painstakingly
recorded any video and audio they could via a standard commercial camcorder. In one particularly terrifying playback, SCP
– 1981 – 1 took the president’s place at the podium, staring directly into the camera. The words “I SEE YOU” appeared over a
black screen shortly after. Staff members were ordered never to make an
attempt at communicating with the figure, and instead contact a Level 4 superior if
such an event occurs during a playback again. The frightening and unfortunate effects of
SCP – 1981 would come to their logical conclusion under the watchful eye of Dr. James Kyle Robinson,
Managing Archivist of Inert Safe-Class Objects and Anomalous Items at Site 73. He was contacted by Special Agent Arnold Rodriguez
and Special Agent Ethan Tate, members of secret service with a duty of care to President Reagan. Word had gotten to Reagan that there was an
anomalous artefact in the possession of the Foundation that directly pertained to him,
and he wanted to see it. Dr. Robinson obtained files and transcripts
pertaining to SCP – 1981 and handed them over to the Agents, but refused to allow President
Reagan to see the tape directly without approval from O5 Command. But Reagan and the agents were persistent. Eventually, O5 Command ordered a private screening
of the tape for President Reagan at the Sanford Chemical Processing Plant – a front business
owned and operated by the Foundation for Amnestic production. Dr. Robinson offered President Reagan the
use of Amnestics after the session completed, but Reagan declined. The screening took place in Conference Room
B, and the tape was re-played three times. It was on the third playback that things took
an interesting turn. As the mutilated Reagan on the screen began
to rant about drinking the blood of a child from the skull of Vladimir Putin, Reagan began
to silently mouth along to the words, as though he remembered them. He spoke about beings known as “The Destroyers”,
and potential apocalyptic events to come. After the screening, Reagan once again refused
the offer of Amnestics, and departed. It seemed as though all was well, until a
violent break-in at the Sanford Chemical Processing Plant that left the night guard dead. A large number of Amnestics had been stolen
during the break-in, and security footage showed that Agents Tate and Rodriguez had
been responsible. The two agents were tracked down and traced
to the residence of Ronald Reagan, where the Foundation came upon a disturbing sight: The
agents had pillaged large quantities of Class A and B Amnestics and supplied them to President
Reagan, who – at some point after observing SCP – 1981 – had been driven into a dangerous
madness. The two agents wanted to cure him before he
caused harm to himself or others, but their bungling had come with severe consequences. Misapplying such a high quantity of Amnestics
had essentially destroyed Reagan’s mind, and while the Foundation was able to stabilize
his condition, his impaired memory and cognitive function would leave him unable to care for
himself independently. In order to cover up for this grievous mistake,
a cover story was concocted about Reagan falling victim to Alzheimer’s and facing severe
cognitive decline as a result. Both Agents Tate and Rodriguez were fired
for their actions, had their memories wiped by the Foundation, and were assigned new identities. Dr. Robinson, for his part in the disaster,
had to face a Foundation Ethics Committee Disciplinary Hearing. While SCP – 1981 continues to be classified
as“Safe” due to its unlikeliness to ever breach containment, when you consider the
havoc it wrought on the mind of its singular target, “safe” is hardly the word that
comes to mind. It’s enough to make you wonder what other
tapes are lurking out there, just waiting to be found
regan do be eating babies tho
SCP Foundation is an op (this video is true however)
Gravel institute putting a lot of work into their videos