It’s late at night, and you’re driving
down a desolate stretch of highway somewhere in New Mexico. There’s nothing out here except for you,
your car, and the road. What you don’t know is that you’re about
to encounter something. Something… terrifying. There’s no moon and the sky is pitch black. Your own car is barely lighting up the dark
road ahead of you. Just then you spot something in your rearview
mirror. It’s a pair of headlights. There’s nothing too strange about them,
except that they are especially bright. Your eyes are so adjusted to the darkness
that you have to look away. When you glance in the mirror again you see
that they’re closer. Much closer. They must be going awfully fast. You don’t know why, but something about
the car behind you makes you feel uneasy, there’s something off. You speed up a little. Maybe you can keep some distance from them. But the lights keep getting closer. So you speed up a little more. Still, they gain on you, growing bigger and
bigger in your rearview mirror. You’re getting nervous. They look like they are barreling right towards
you... You floor it. The lights are able to keep up easily though,
and now they’re right on your tail. No matter how fast you go they stay right
behind you. The lights are so bright and close that they’re
almost blinding. You’re in a full blown panic, what is going
on? Now the lights are swerving back and forth
behind you. What do they want? You take a sharp turn without indicating,
but they follow you without difficulty. You keep your foot smashed down on the accelerator,
your engine is screaming, but they just get closer and closer. They’re right on your bumper. The bright white lights burn your eyes so
bad that you swat at the rearview mirror to point it down. You look up just in time to see the deer standing
in the middle of the road. You slam on your brakes as hard as you can. Your tires squeal loudly in the night and
you brace yourself to both hit the deer and get rear ended from behind. You stop inches from the deer as something
incredible happens. The two headlights seem to split, passing
by you on either side of your car. You and the deer lock eyes for a split second
as if you’re both thinking “what was that?” before the deer hops away into the night. You don’t know what’s happening, but you’re
not going to wait around to find out. You throw the car in reverse and hit the gas,
before whipping it around one hundred and eighty degrees. You can’t remember how far the last town
was, but there’s no chance you’re going in the direction of those lights. You drive as fast as you can, checking your
mirror constantly to see if anything is behind you. Nothing. Just darkness. Maybe you’re finally safe. No! They’re right in front of you! The lights somehow appear out of nowhere right
in front of your car. You turn the wheel hard to avoid a head on
collision and you go flying off the road, smashing your head against the window as the
car goes flipping and rolling and tumbling. The car comes to a stop a hundred feet off
the road, upside down, with a lone blinking turn signal dimly lighting up the surrounding
field. A single headlight approaches the car, but
it’s not moving like a vehicle, it’s moving… like an animal. You’re concussed from the accident and your
vision is starting to fade. The last thing you see is a second light approaching. The next morning, the local sheriff is investigating
the scene of a single car accident. Curiously, there’s no body, just a few scraps
of clothing, and a pair of tennis shoes sitting neatly in the upside down roof of the car. Strangest though, are the childlike handprints
all over the dirty car door. The sheriff doesn’t know what to think. What the sheriff doesn’t know, is that he
has just come upon the aftermath of an SCP-745 attack. A strange and mysterious creature known as… The Headlights. SCP-745 is the classification the SCP Foundation
has given to a bipedal, nocturnal predator whose hunting grounds are an abandoned stretch
of highway in Northern New Mexico. SCP-745’s most distinctive feature, by far,
is its head, the top of which is a bloated sack of translucent skin. There are no visible sensory organs present
on the head, nor does it appear to have a solid skull, and the creature’s brain can
be directly seen through the semi transparent skin which is covered in a web of bioluminescent
organs. These organs are capable of producing a steady
output of light that’s been measured between 1400 to 3200 lumens, which is the equivalent
of bright, xenon gas headlights. The entity has been observed to have the ability
to change the color of this light, as well as flash it in specific patterns. It is theorized that it engages in this behavior
as a way to defend itself, and potentially may also use it as a way to communicate with
other members of its species. The rest of SCP-745’s body is covered in
skin that is a deep, dark, black color that almost seems to absorb light. This quality, when paired with their blindingly
bright head protrusion, gives the appearance of a floating point of light in the darkness. Because SCP-745 entities hunt almost exclusively
in pairs, with their preferred hunting grounds being remote sections of highway, they are
easily mistaken for oncoming or approaching headlights. Two SCP-745 entities are able to move together
in perfect synchronicity, running in tandem at speeds up to 180 kilometers per hour. Together they will target lone vehicles that
they spot on the highway and will begin to chase or run straight towards them, giving
the unlucky driver the impression that a fast moving car is rapidly approaching them. After they near the targeted car, they will
attempt to stop it by any means necessary, whether by simply forcing the driver to pull
over out of fear, or by running them off the road completely. Once their prey has stopped, crashed, or become
otherwise incapacitated, the pair will stop moving together and approach the car separately
to directly assault and then consume the vehicle’s occupants. Next to no remains are left following an attack,
save for a few scraps of clothing and the victim’s shoes. Other than the damage sustained during the
accident, there is never any other sign of struggle or forced entry, with the only other
evidence left at the scene being the child-like hand prints from SCP-745’s small front paws. Strangely, analysis of SCP-745’s genetic
structure has revealed that unlike humans, they are not a carbon based lifeform, meaning
it is unlikely then that they are able to derive any nutrition from the consuming of
human flesh. It is theorized then that they may be hunting
solely for sport or some other form of perverse enjoyment. This question remains unanswered, as currently
there are no recorded observations of SCP-745 feeding in the wild, as successful attacks
have never left any witnesses, and specimens captured by the SCP Foundation refuse to eat
at all. No lairs, nests, or other refuge of SCP-745
has ever been found, nor has the Foundation located any breeding grounds or young examples
of the entity. It’s unknown how or if they reproduce, or
when they may have first appeared. What is known, is that they had established
a wide hunting territory across the American South West, until Foundation teams began a
program to thin their numbers in the 1960s. The effort appears to have been successful
so far, and all recent sightings of SCP-745 have been limited to a specific stretch of
highway in Northern New Mexico. SCP-745 has been classified as Euclid, and
in order to limit potential exposure to civilians, the Foundation has purchased the land surrounding
the highway, with traffic being redirected to other roads. Foundation security teams disguised as highway
patrol officers are to remove any trespassers or lost travelers who accidentally find themselves
on the dangerous stretch of highway. The security teams are also tasked with attempting
to capture any instances of SCP-745 that they can, and any recovered creatures, live or
dead, are to be loaded into Class 3 BCU storage containers and transferred to Site 17 for
further study. Containment procedures that are able to preserve
living specimens are still being researched, and currently, no examples of SCP-745 have
survived for more than a week in captivity. However, seeing as there have been no new
sightings of SCP-745 outside of the isolated and monitored stretch of highway, and all
reports of phantom lights elsewhere in the country have not pointed to evidence of additional
SCP-745 outbreaks, they are considered to be effectively contained. Now go and watch another entry from the files
of Dr. Bob, and make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications, so you don’t miss
a single anomaly, as we delve further and further into the SCP Foundation’s classified
archives.
