Hello, hello; Merry Christmas! It’s time for the second Christmas Day bonus entry; this one is going to be vastly different than many other write-ups I’ve done. Today, we’re going to be looking at a 4chan greentext story. If you don’t know what those are, they’re basically bullet-point stories. I thoroughly enjoy reading them; they come in all kinds of genres but are normally comedic in nature.
Now, full disclosure: greentexts are by absolutely no means true stories. Sure, some may be, but to take them as true without question is a stupid thing to do. After all, this is 4chan we’re talking about. The site is notorious for pranks and spreading lies for a laugh. However, I want to share one of my favorite scary greentexts with you guys; this will still read like any other write-up from this month (or in general), but just know right off the bat that what you’re about to read isn’t being viewed as a “real” mystery.
With that out of the way, for Decemystery 2023’s bonus entry, look to the heavens and gaze in wonder at the infinite cosmos. This, dear reader, is the story of The Screaming Stars.
Look How They Shine For You
The earliest post of this story was on October 30, 2013; it was in a “Nope Thread.” These threads are staples of the /x/ (or paranormal) board and are where users often share scary stories—be they allegedly true experiences or creepypastas. More often than not, the original poster asks for the former; a fair number of them read like the latter, though.
Anyway, in this particular thread, the tale of the “Screaming Stars” was shared by someone using the name “The Librarian,” who archived various scary greentext stories. As such, I’m inclined to believe this story predates this post, but it wasn’t archived for whatever reason. Despite that, I’m still giving this write-up the 2010’s tag since The Librarian claimed to have been arching “since 2011,” so I’d hazard a guess and say that this was posted around then. There’s one other thing I want to add here, but I’ll get to it later since it’ll be more relevant then rather than. Now, with all of that said, on to the greentext!
The story centers on someone who I’ll call “Anon” because I am woefully unoriginal. Anon’s little brother, who’s 7 years old, had a telescope and liked “to look at the stars and watch things,” which sounds a lot like me when I was little and wanted to be an astronomer. Only I didn’t have an older sibling, but that’s beside the point.
One day, around three weeks prior to when this story occurred, Anon’s little brother spent “literally the entire night looking at one part of space from his room.” Not once did he move from where he was standing, nor did he bother to eat. I have no idea if this was at all hyperbolic (then again, this is a greentext story), but if it by some absurd chance wasn’t, then man, kids are simultaneously the most impatient and most patient humans on Earth. I cannot imagine sitting around staring at one part of space for an entire night. I’d go mad.
Eventually, Anon’s little brother fell asleep; funnily enough, I myself want to go to bed since, at the time of writing, I slept like absolute trash the last few weeks. But, I digress; at around noon the following day, the little astronomer awoke from his slumber. At this, Anon went and asked what he’d been looking at. That was when this story took a turn from “a kid doing something weird” to “a kid who’s going to grow up to visit R’lyeh.” You see, Anon’s brother responded by saying:
I was looking at the screaming stars.
Now, being a rational, level-headed 4chan user, Anon did not immediately see to his spaghetti’s untimely exit from his pockets. No, he merely asked what his brother (whom he referred to as a “little brat,” which I must admit is about the most endearing thing I’ve seen a 4channer ever say) meant by that. Like any kid, Anon’s little brother responded by explaining the entire thing in the most upfront manner possible.
There’s a place I found where, if you look at it, you can hear screaming.
Naturally, Anon thought his little brother was making it up, but the little Galileo insisted that what he’d found was true and said that he would “prove it” to him. Being a good older sibling, Anon took his brother up on that offer. So, that night, at around 11:00 p.m. (23:00 for my 24-hour time readers), he went to see these “screaming stars.”
Upon entering the room, Anon saw the telescope; it hadn’t moved since the previous night. Whether or not his brother was in the room is unstated, but it doesn’t appear that he was. Regardless, Anon peered through the telescope and up at the sky above. It was during this that he heard something: faint screaming. Slowly but surely, it got louder.
How long Anon stared at this sky isn’t said, but he eventually had to “look away.” It’s only now that I realize that his little brother willingly stared at this portion of the sky, listening to the screams. I’m not sure if I find that disturbing or bizarre. Maybe a mix of both.
After collecting his bearings (and his spaghetti), Anon went to his mother and told her that she should take his little brother’s telescope away. I imagine this greatly upset the aspiring Nicolaus Copernicus, but Anon did not say so; it’s possible that his mother told him that she would do no such thing. Whatever the case, Anon ends off by saying the following:
I’m never going to look at the stars again.
That’s where Anon’s tale ends. Like most greentexts, it’s anticlimactic and leaves you with many questions and few—if any—answers. I can’t provide you with any answers, though I do want to touch upon one aspect of the story that I mentioned at the start: when it was first posted.
You see, in the thread I linked at the start of this, one user replied to The Librarian—along with an image of what I believe to be the original post. Unfortunately, when I tried to click on it, it gave me an error message. So, I’m guessing it wasn’t properly archived. I doubt there were many—if any—variations since the response merely criticized The Librarian for censorship, to which The Librarian retorted with the following:
Everything entered into the Personal Stories section of the archive censors anything more than “hell”. This is done to keep it both worksafe, and available to younger readers (you didn’t think I'd limit myself to /x/, did you?) I stand by it, since for its advantages, I don't think anything has been lost.
The rest of the archive remains unchanged, though.
So, if I had to guess, all that was censored was vulgarity of some sort. Of course, I could be wrong, but I’m relatively confident in my assumption.
Outside of that little bit, that’s where the story ends. It’s one of my favorite greentexts out there; it’s short, sweet, and deeply unsettling. I had considered covering more of them this month, but I didn’t want to devote so many entries to stories from 4chan, especially when you can chalk most—if not all—of them to works of fiction. This one is no different, but for the sake of entertainment, I’ll still go over the theories. I picked most of them from a post on the greentext subreddit; anyway, let’s dig in!
Theories
1. It was real
For our inaugural theory, we have one that has a bit of truth to it. Despite how, in space, no one can hear you scream, there is still some semblance of noise in the frigid, dark void of space. You see, stars do produce sound. I won’t get into the specifics since I genuinely don’t understand it, but stars produce “music.” Unfortunately, it’s produced at a frequency too low for the human ear to hear. Perhaps this is a good thing because I can imagine astronauts would go insane if they could hear the “songs” of every star in the Milky Way (of which there are 100 billion).
Whether Anon miraculously heard these songs because his hearing rivals that of Superman or he heard something else entirely is up for debate. The main point of this theory is that Anon (along with his little brother) did, in fact, hear something. That assertion is lofty, to say the least, and it has exceedingly little to back it up. I’ll go over a few of those issues in the next theory, but I will point out one thing that does work in this theory’s favor.
There’s a weird phenomenon known as “Sky Trumpets” that has been reported from around the world. I actually wrote about it back in 2020 for that year’s iteration of Decemystery, but I deleted it before it went up because I was incredibly dissatisfied with it. To put it bluntly, it was half-assed, like most of the entries for that year’s Decemystery; I have no idea if I’ll ever revisit the story because I don’t find it that interesting.
Anyway, Sky Trumpets, some people report hearing incredibly loud sounds coming from the sky. These sounds lack any discernible point of origin. Some believe them to be made by angels in Heaven (the trumpets sounded before the fulfillment of prophecies in the Book of Revelation), while others think they’re sonic booms or being made by some secret government weapon.
Officially, there isn’t a concrete answer for what produces these sounds. Some propose a strange phenomenon of some sort, but there are plenty who aren’t satisfied with it. Whatever the case may be, it’s possible that Anon could have heard one of these so-called “Sky Trumpets,” but it happened to sound closer to a faint screaming rather than a trumpet. Perhaps the sky was hitting a lot of bad notes that night; I have no idea.
I have no idea how likely it would be for this phenomenon to occur in rapid succession, let alone for nobody outside of Anon’s little brother to hear it, but I believe this to be the one and only plausible explanation. We’ll go over some others in a bit, but those are from the replies to the aforementioned post on r/greentext. If there’s another plausible explanation, do let me know.
On one final note, I want to share a random fun fact with you. I decided to Google how many songs have ever been released in history. The exact number isn’t known, but Google put it at anywhere between 97 million and 230 million; these figures are probably off, but let’s just go with them.
Assuming that every star in the Milky Way was to play one song that was released in history—up until now—that would mean that anywhere from 00.01% to 00.02% of our galaxy’s stars would be playing a song. The remaining 99,903,000,000 to 99,770,000,000 would be without one.
2. It was made up
This is the most probable theory for a multitude of reasons; I’ll go over a few of them, but the main reason is simple: it’s a greentext story. They are, by and large, fictitious. Are some of them real? Sure, but when it comes to the horror-themed ones, that’s a lot harder to prove. You’re relying on the word of a 4chan user; that’s a leap of faith I’m sure few would be willing to take.
The next issue is, well, nobody else outside of Anon and his little brother reported this phenomenon. While it appeared that the screaming was only audible when looking at the sky, one has to wonder if anyone else on Earth just so happened to hear that. Sure, the sky is different across the planet because, well, Earth is in perpetual motion, and everything in the universe moves (including stars). My point is that, surely, someone somewhere experienced something similar. Even if it was at a different point. However, as far as I can tell, there has never been any report of the stars screaming.
There are many other issues with this, most of them not worth mentioning on account of them entering retreading territory. However, despite that, we’re not done with theories; nay, we have some more to go over, so let’s continue.
3. Anon forgot to take his meds
This is where we start to get into the theories put forward by the previously mentioned Reddit post. The first one is one that I believe most would think of: that Anon was mentally ill and had an auditory hallucination. This is by no means something outlandish; people with various mental illnesses can and do suffer from auditory hallucinations. Perhaps the most well-known illness to cause them is schizophrenia, though others can trigger them.
On its own, this theory is very likely, though it has one glaring flaw. Assuming that Anon didn’t hallucinate what his little brother said, it’d be rather odd for him to have heard the screaming. Now, granted, it’s possible that his brother made it up to tease him, but I’d find it rather peculiar to still hear the screams. Unless he deluded himself into hearing them, I have no idea how schizophrenia works or the hallucinations that can come with it. So, do excuse me in that regard.
Aside from that issue, this would be a relatively safe bet—at least, I think it would be. Of course, if you’re skeptical of a 4chan post about hearing screaming from the sky, I would totally understand. I, too, feel quite skeptical that Anon heard anything other than “Sneed” being screamed from the heavens.
4. Anon discovered what drove Lovecraft mad
So, this theory has a weird bit of history behind it. I originally intended for the first write-up of 2022 to be about the idea that the works of H.P. Lovecraft were real. I have extremely little recollection of how I intended to write it because this was at the start of 2022, close to two years ago (as of the time of writing, it’s Thanksgiving). I also haven’t read about the theory, but I recall it being something of a meme theory; some people, specifically on 4chan, believe that Lovecraft knew of other dimensions and higher beings. I think it’s part of the “Schizopill” meme that some people on /x/ use. I could be wrong, though; I’ll need to look into it next year if I get the opportunity.
Anyway, getting back on track, our fourth theory is loosely tied to that. The idea is that Anon, along with his brother, heard the screams of some great, cosmic horror—or its victims. If you want to tie it into a Conspiracy Iceberg entry, you could say that it was the cosmic scream of the Boötes Void Leviathan, which I mentioned in the second Conspiracy Megalist I did back in 2021. As a side note, I hyperlinked an image in that entry and said that it was of the Boötes Void. I was wrong; the image I hyperlinked was of Barnard 68, a dark nebula. My bad!
My error correction aside, I don’t think I need to get into why this theory isn’t worth considering. Aside from the lack of evidence of a gargantuan behemoth going through space like it’s some planet-eater, I doubt it would be able to emit a sound that only two people on Earth could hear. Though, hey, why should that get in the way of a bit of good old cosmic horror? It sure hasn’t prevented me from enjoying the heck out of Lovecraft’s works!
5. Anon has tinnitus
Tinnitus is a condition where people hear a ringing or buzzing sound in one or both of their ears. The cause for this condition can vary, but I believe the most common is prolonged exposure to loud sounds (such as being close to airplanes).
I’m not familiar with tinnitus (I do have family members who have it, though), so I don’t know if it can sound like screaming. If it does, then I can see why one may think this could be the case, but I’d be absolutely dumbfounded if Anon was unaware he had it or, if he did know, didn’t realize that was what he was hearing. I know that fear can cause irrational thinking, but surely, you could differentiate a ringing or buzzing sound from screaming.
6. Anon heard the distant sound of an airplane
Okay, so this theory isn’t actually mentioned in the r/greentext post. However, it’s one that sprang to mind, and I felt like sharing it because, hey, I have nothing better to do on a lazy Thanksgiving evening outside of writing and eventually going to sleep!
This theory is simple: Anon heard the roaring of a plane’s engines but mistook it for screaming. He probably got spooked by what his brother said and immediately drew to the conclusion that the stars were screaming.
Admittedly, much like the previous theory, this one’s on shaky ground. While it’s not impossible, I’m skeptical if someone would actually mistake a plane’s engines for the stars screaming. Then again, this is /x/ we’re talking about. They’ll mistake just about anything in the woods for a Fleshgait. Then again, I mistake my fire alarm for a centipede at night, so who am I to judge?
7. Bing bing wahoo
Go ahead and insert a Super Mario Galaxy reference here. I’m too lazy to do so myself.
My Take
I think I made my stance on this story rather clear at the start: I don’t think it’s true. Like the vast majority of greentexts, I believe it’s a work of fiction intended to scare the reader. To me, it reads like someone who’s a fan of cosmic horror (specifically Lovecraftian horror) and decided to try their hand at making their own short horror tale.
Now, on the off chance that this wasn’t made up, I’m a bit stumped. I feel like the best bet would be that he and his brother heard the faint sound of an airplane, however, much like with the tinnitus theory. I would be rather dumbfounded if Anon couldn’t differentiate the sounds of several cars or an airplane from screaming. Is it possible he did? Sure. Is it likely? I sincerely doubt it. Then again, people can and do make silly mistakes, especially when scared.
Outside of that, I simply think that this is too fantastical to be real. The idea that this could have been some sort of cosmic horror or something akin to that is really silly. But, hey, that’s just me; I’m open to counterarguments.
Conclusion
With that, our write-up comes to an end. Even though I doubt this story was real, I don’t care. It remains one of my favorite horror greentexts, and it never fails to unsettle me. There are many more like it—plenty of them being scarier in my eyes, and I really hope to share more of them with you all next year! But that’s for next year; this month’s over, and there are many wild stories that remain to be shared. So, until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and thank you for reading!
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