Decemystery (2024) 1: The Nickelodeon Hamster Wheel Broadcast

Let’s play a game. It’s called “What would Vertigo’s autobiography be called?” Personally, I think it would be entitled “What if My Life Wasn’t a Roller Coaster Designed By Satan?”

The reason for such a morbid title is that, ever since I began this blog, even-numbered years in my life have been plagued by a plethora of obnoxious issues. Meanwhile, odd-numbered years have been generally good. Well, for the most part. 2021 wasn’t very good, but I digress. You can’t win ‘em all, especially when you have undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder.

You especially can’t win ‘em all when dealing with brain fog; COVID and hypomania overlapping is just about the most fog-inducing thing I’ve experienced since entering Silent Hill, and it’s because of that fogginess that 2022 was the year without a Decemystery; thank God I made up for it last year. Too bad I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from all of that writing. I still haven’t fixed that, by the way. I wonder how my hands will feel when I finish this year’s Decemystery!

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with the introduction to Decemystery 2024? Well, as you can likely guess based on the comically small number of blog posts this year, bipolar overtook my life again—and so did COVID! Wow, it’s like a greatest hits album from 2022, only the so-called “hits” all suck like black holes.

Thankfully, the album was cut short because it must have been produced by the world’s worst record producer. So I was spared the indignity of dual-action brain fog that made it feel like my brain was the basis for a David Cronenberg remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog. Only instead of disgruntled ghosts, it was a mental illness and respiratory virus.

On the flip side, it’s currently August. That means, once again, I’m on the clock. So, much to my dismay, I had to scrap a lot of the grander and what would have undoubtedly been much lengthier stories that I had wanted to do this year. Maybe they’ll be written about in 2025. Who knows; I’ve always sucked at abiding by a schedule throughout my adult life. Regardless, if you were hoping for me to cover Sam the Sandown Ghost Clown, you’re out of luck.

Despite that setback, five stories managed to survive the purge; I’ll be sure to mention that when I get around to writing about them. Until then, it’s time to finally jump to today’s story. Honestly, it’s one that I, oddly, have never really considered writing about.

Internet mysteries, much like lost media, are, more often than not, something that I turn a blind eye to. There are enough YouTubers who cover them, and my input is far from worthwhile. I know that may seem like I’m selling myself short, but I genuinely do not believe my input means that much when countless other content creators have thrown their two cents into the ring—and they tend to be far better researchers than I am. Also, they have better production quality. All I have is text and still images. They have narration and fancy moving pictures.

However, despite that, there are a few exceptions I’m willing to make. Namely the much sillier and more outlandish Internet mysteries. I’ve also made a couple of exceptions when it comes to lost media, and I have no doubt that I will do so in the future. As for why I made an exception with this particular case, that’s easy. I thought it provided the perfect blend of strangeness and downright goofiness for me to leap back into the world of writing.

In other words, it was all but screaming my name. Thankfully, it didn’t actually do so. If it did, I think I’d have a much more horrifying story to write about.

Anyway, enough rambling. For the sixth time in this blog’s history, it’s time for Decemystery to begin—possibly the fifth time if you wish to count the duology last year as one entity. Personally, I don’t, but I digress once more. Come along, dear reader; it’s time for us to go over the truly odd tale of The Nickelodeon Hamster Wheel Broadcast! And with that, Decemystery 2024 begins now!

The Wheel in My Brain Goes ‘Round and ‘Round

I can’t remember where or when I first found this story. I’m pretty sure it was on YouTube, but I can’t say with any degree of certainty. All I know is that I’ve periodically thought about it because the piece of supposed lost media is remarkably odd.

Our story takes us to Reddit—specifically to the subreddit “Glitch in the Matrix,” which is dedicated to “eyewitness event(s) that cannot be explained with critical thinking.” I decided to scroll through some of the other stories that had been posted, and I found some of them decently interesting. I may return here one day to cover another story or two, but that’s beside the point.

On December 13, 2017, a user named Shessuchariot made a post entitled “Humans Walking In Hamster Wheels.” In it, Shessus (as I will refer to the poster) describes how, when they were “about 16,” they arrived home after hanging out with their friends. Given that Shessus later stated that this occurred in 2005, that would make them around 28 years old when this was posted. Keep this in mind for the theories—and the entire story as a whole. Trust me when I say that it’s very important.

Anyway, Shessus goes on to say that they were “a huge cartoon fan” and still are. So, after an exhausting day of doing whatever it was that 16-year-olds did with their friends in 2005, they got some snacks and sat on their bed to watch what was at the time the decent programming network known as Nickelodeon. They remembered this “because it was the last channel I watched that day.” Additionally, nobody shared the television in their room.

However, upon turning the television on, Shessus wasn’t met with the vibrancy that Nickelodeon’s cartoons provide. No, instead, they were greeted by a black, white, and grey broadcast featuring a bunch of naked people walking in a line over some hills. Shessus estimated the number to be in the “hundreds.” Personally, I don’t care about the number. Instead, I’d like to know how these people all got to Teletubbyland.

Within this twisted version of Teletubbyland were a series of giant hamster wheels. All of the naked folks were headed toward them. Now, I have no idea how big these hamster wheels were, but they had to have been pretty sizable because, apparently, there were already some people on them, walking like a bunch of robots; Shessus later added that the people looked like they had “no life in their eyes,” and that they were “cold/robotic.” Not for nothing, but this sounds like something Lars von Trier would call a work of genius.

Shessus went on to say that there was a wind-like noise that whistled in the background. They said it was “cold,” which I’m guessing they meant in a tonal sense since otherwise, all I can imagine is that they somehow felt the wind through their television. And before anyone says that the setting implied a certain season, no, we never learn anything beyond the hills and hamster wheels.

On top of that, Shessus also stated that the footage looked live-action and not animated. I’ll get back to this detail when we get to my take because I found it deeply frustrating on a personal level. With that said, this does make me wonder how many hamster wheels were scattered around. Assuming that there were hundreds of people here, there must have been quite a few to accommodate them. I’m not a filmmaker, but that can’t be easy to set up and coordinate. I digress, though; I’ll get back to this later.

Shessus proceeded to watch the scene in confusion. During this time, they wondered why Nickelodeon was broadcasting something live-action yet dull—at least, I think they thought it was dull. They said it was “non-action.” Regardless, while I can’t answer the question, I would like to remind everyone of something. Namely, that Nickelodeon aired The Amanda Show, Drake & Josh, and iCarly. None of those shows were animated, and both The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh premiered before 2005.

In regards to the aspect of the film being “non-action,” Shessus mentions that the “entire scene” kept looping, showing more and more nude people making their merry way toward and onto the hamster wheels. Despite this, they sat there and figured it was “some weird short” and eventually thought it was “kinda cool in a dark sort of way.”

At least, Shessus thought it was cool for a bit. Eventually, they got bored and opted to change the channel—presumably to enjoy a relaxing evening of Anderson Cooper 360°. There’s nothing quite like watching the news after seeing a made-for-television Nickelodeon film directed by Darren Aronofsky.

However, as soon as Shessus changed the channel, a realization struck them like a giant hamster wheel. Namely, they realized that what they had just been watching wasn’t a part of Nickelodeon’s typical lineup.

Now, one would think that this would’ve happened sooner, but I’m actually willing to go to bat for Shessus. I watched The Passion of the Christ a few years ago and didn’t feel fazed by the gore for a while. Shock can lead you to “zone out” and not process what you’re seeing until it’s over.

Anyway, let’s get back on track. Unable to resist the gravitational pull of a short film by the man who directed the absolutely harrowing masterpiece Requiem For A Dream, Shessus switched back to Nickelodeon to watch more of the odd broadcast.

However, instead of being greeted by a bunch of naked people taking a trip through the most avant-garde hillside, they saw an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. According to them, it was evident that SpongeBob had been on for a while because it was the middle of the episode. We’ll get back to this when the theories roll around because it ties into the very first one.

Given there wasn’t anything avant-garde being broadcasted on Nickelodeon, Shessus checked the “surrounding channels” in hopes that whatever they’d seen was on one of them. However, no other channel was broadcasting the hamster wheel film.

Now, I want to take a moment to say one thing. I don’t know what television provider Shessus had. Personally, as a child, my family and I had DirecTV. So, for me, those surrounding channels consisted of networks like Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and GSN (for those who don’t know, that’s the Game Show Network). I also think there was a classic film channel somewhere around there, but I can’t recall. Regardless, I want you to keep this in mind for the theories section for rather obvious reasons (hint: it has to do with Cartoon Network).

After this, Shessus remarked that the whole thing felt “really dark,” “almost evil,” and “really wrong.” They then add that this, combined with the repetitiveness, made them change the channel. Funny, I feel the same way whenever I see Austin Hill on television after a NASCAR race.

My remarks about a sport that I’m sure a staggering five people will get aside, Shessus mentioned they’d never had any luck when researching this mysterious broadcast. Even when they tried looking it up on the day it happened, there was no chatter about it. Unfortunately, Shessus didn’t specify where they went to search for information; I was only nine years old at the time this event purportedly occurred, so I have no idea what chatrooms and web forums were popular at the time.

The only place I can think of from around that time that would really fit the bill is MySpace, which was at its peak in the mid-to-late 2000s. I don’t know how large 4chan was at the time (it launched in 2003, but I always thought it became “big” around the late 2000s and early 2010s; I could be wrong). So unless there’s a forum that Shessus could have visited, or if they merely checked news sites to check for a broadcast hijacking in their area, I’m at a loss. A shame, really, because it would’ve been nice to know for the sake of investigating.

With that, Shessus rounded off by saying they would love for what they saw “to be debunked” and that they’re “still somewhat wary” of their television nowadays. This might be the first time I’ve heard of someone being scared of television without that fear being attributed to either Poltergeist or The Ring. How quaint.

Now, normally, in a case like this, I’d look through the user’s profile in hopes that I’d find some sort of update or a response on another post that could lead me somewhere. However, Shessus’s account was suspended at some point for reasons that are unknown to me. I even tried the Wayback Machine, but there are apparently no captures of Shessus’ user page. This lack of archiving means that I can’t check their comment history to see if they ever mentioned any forums they used to frequent on any other subreddits. What a pity; I sure hope that we can’t look up their username and get results for it.

Despite that option being unavailable, Sheesus did receive a fair number of responses to their post. I won’t go over every single one individually, mind you; that would be outrageous and take up way too much time. However, I would be remiss if I opted not to cover the replies that provide additional information. So, before we delve into theories, let’s take a gander at what other Reddit users had to say about this enigmatic broadcast.

The Responses: Storytime Edition

Woo boy, this is going to be an absolute behemoth of a section. I’m adding this as I’m still working on this section. Never let it be said that I know how to properly pace things without getting hung up on something else for an arbitrary reason. Or, in this case, various accounts left by other Redditors!

Right off the bat, the top comment on the original “Glitch in the Matrix” post, which is from a user named “72skidoo,” suggested that Shessus try their luck on the “Tip of my Tongue” subreddit. It’s the same exact post in terms of details, but we’ll be checking out what other Redditors had to say there after we finish up the Glitch in the Matrix post’s replies.

Besides that, Mr. Skidoo asked the all-important question as to whether or not the people in the broadcast were “completely nude” and if nothing was censored. It’s good to know that humans do, in fact, have two brains. One in the north, the other in the south.

Joking aside, Shessus responded that, while the people were nude, they lacked any breasts or genitalia. Shessus compared them to flat-chested Barbie dolls and said there was “flesh over the pelvis, like a mound.” Despite this, they had hair on their heads. I wonder if they had faces. All I can imagine are mannequins with wigs walking around. Coincidentally, sightings of “mannequin people” are a real thing, but that’s a story for another time.

Shessus also stated that “the whole scene itself” was akin to “a human farm” or that the people were “just like hamsters in a cage.” I want you to keep these two descriptions in mind because they tie into one of the story’s leading theories.

In response to the lack of visible genitalia and breasts, a user named “sherlockedddd” posited that the people may have been wearing “skin colored unitards like ballet dancers do.” This is actually very plausible if you look at images of these things. Normally, I would save such comments for when we get to my take, but I’ll say right now that this is such a likely answer that it’s hard not to say upfront that I could believe it. But I digress; we’ll get back to this later when we discuss the theories. Yeah, if you can’t tell by now, there will be a lot to discuss.

Further down in the post, there’s a response from a now-deleted user—whom I will refer to as Jack from here on out for the sake of simplicity—who stated that they’ve seen peculiar things on television but were unable to “find accounts of it elsewhere.” I want to go over both accounts; while they may not be the central focus of this write-up, they will help provide a great deal when we reach the theories. Three paragraphs in a row where I’ve mentioned theories? Tic-tac-toe, baby!

The first of Jack’s experiences occurred when he was twelve years old. For reference, they replied to 72skidoo (who originally asked about Jack’s odd incidents), saying that he believed this maybe happened back in 2009. Assuming that Jack didn’t misremember the date, he was either nineteen or twenty at the time of posting.

Anyway, on this unknown date, Jack was watching television with his grandfather. Apparently, Grandpa Jack (as I shall oh-so-creatively call him) was “about to watch his daily musical thingy.” I want to say right now that I have absolutely no idea what program this could have been. My first thought was that it was something related to MTV, but I have no clue as to how big that channel was in 2009 since I didn’t watch it. Heck, I still don’t. I was never fond of it whatsoever.

Upon turning into this “musical thingy,” Grandpa Jack was greeted not by things related to music but rather by an animation featuring a young boy who lived a normal life until he had to “flee his home” for reasons unknown. This sounds like the setup for any number of classic animated movies, but fear not! Things are about to get edgier than a terrible creepypasta.

As a result of being evicted from his house by the paramilitary group led by the esteemed five-star general, Plot Convenience, the child had to live on his own. This, in turn, forced him to seek out a job. Amazingly, the kid did find one, though what it was isn’t explicitly stated. All Jack said was that the kid worked for an elderly man who was caring toward him. You know, the more I write about this animation, the more I inexplicably imagine Pinocchio getting a job with Scrooge McDuck. Just a candid peek behind the curtain of what yours truly thinks when he’s writing about these write-ups.

On its own, this would be like some third-rate animated children’s show or film that you’d find in the bargain bin at your local supermarket. However, because you’re reading this blog, things have to accelerate from zero to sixty in the span of a paragraph. So, according to Jack, the elderly man snapped one day. Presumably, he saw that the local Bingo tournament had been canceled due to allegations of rigging. Yes, this has apparently happened.

It’s during this bout of anger that the elderly man uses an unknown tool to cut the fingers off of the child. This, unsurprisingly, terrifies the kid. As some of you may know, having your appendages chopped off isn’t what’s supposed to happen. So, the child tried to escape. Unfortunately, he’s caught, though by whom isn’t clear. I’m guessing the elderly man, but I find I was envisioning this guy as being like Gepetto, not an athletic 65-year-old man.

I digress, though. Upon being recaptured, the kid is savagely beaten by not only the old man but also by “some other guys.” Who they are and whether they had a hand in assisting the psychopathic grandpa in apprehending the child isn’t stated, but I wish it were. The additional context would help my poor brain greatly, especially since I still have enough brain fog to blot out the Sun across the globe!

Anyway, as Jack and Grandpa Jack stared at the television in confusion, the animation became quite gory. This, presumably, snaps Grandpa Jack out of his stupor, so he changes the channel. Personally, I wanted to know where the animation was going to go. Maybe it would’ve turned out to be an animated Eli Roth film, but such is life. I guess we’ll never know because Grandpa Jack opted to change the channel, and the two looked at each other “for a while.”

After an unknown amount of time, Grandpa Jack decided to tune back to the channel that was televising a Broadway performance of Clive Barker’s latest children’s novel. To the shock of Jack and Grandpa Jack, they saw that the “normal cultural music thingy” was airing. What they did afterward isn’t specified, but Jack said that he was “traumatized” by it, so he aimed to “forget about it.” Unfortunately for him, he never did because “the animation is fresh in my brain.”

Now, before we get to the next story from Jack, there’s something that I believe demands attention. Namely, the detail about the kid’s fingers being cut off. That detail piqued my interest greatly for one reason. Islamic law in Iran calls for the fingers of repeat offenders of theft to have their fingers amputated.

Although I’m Roman Catholic, I’ve always made it a point to understand cultural law in order to discern where certain stories may have originated from. I have to wonder if the “old man” didn’t go crazy but instead caught him stealing and took matters into his own hands. In fact, this piqued my interest so much that I decided to do some investigating.

My investigation subsequently gave me a migraine.

As I said, I’m Roman Catholic. I grew up with a friend who was Muslim (I have no idea if he still is since I last spoke to him about seventeen years ago), but I never learned that much about Islamic culture. My understanding of it is, at best, paper thin. At worst, it’s non-existent. Despite that, I do know that Islamic law, like any other law on Earth, is open to interpretation. You know, it makes me wonder if there’s any universally agreed-upon law. Probably not.

Based on what I found out, punishment like the one showcased in the animation that Jack saw is typically reserved for repeat offenders who are adults. From what I understand, children are exempt from this. In fact, it appears that Islam is quite strict when it comes to disciplining your child, so I have to imagine that anything like this would be met with serious jail time.

On top of this, punishments like the one in the animation are typically not carried out by a random person. An authoritative figure usually hands them out. If there are exceptions to this, I didn’t read about it in my brief time researching Islamic law, so I welcome being corrected.

What I can say with absolute certainty is that, like any other place on Earth, Middle Eastern countries are different. Islamic law in Iran is not the same as, say, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Yemen. So it’s worth noting that me mentioning Iran here could be so far off base that I’m a complete and total fool. The reason that I brought it up, though, is that the punishment is in line with something I know, and I thought it would be worth mentioning rather than omitting. I do strive to cover all of my bases, even if it means grasping at straws.

I’m sure that other nations around the world have similar practices, but combing through over two hundred countries to find out which ones do and do not endorse such punishments for crimes like theft isn’t on my to-do list for this write-up. In the future, if I ever revisit this case, I will gladly do it. For now, though, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. I was never the best at foreign law.

Anyway, I’m not here to discuss how Islamic law operates on a case-by-case basis when the central focus is on a weird animation a nameless Redditor saw on television over a decade ago. So, without further ado, let’s discuss Jack’s second story. I know we’ve gone far off-topic from Shessus’ original post, but all of this is going to come together. Just be patient; this is highly relevant to one of the leading theories.

Jack’s second experience occurred when he was visiting his aunt, whom I will refer to as “Aunt Jackie,” to keep in line with the cavalcade of Jacks that I wish to believe composes this family. Anyway, this was a few months after the first incident. Whether Jack was there on his own or with family isn’t stated. This makes what’s about to happen all the more baffling to me.

Jack said Aunt Jackie would turn the television to “regular cartoons” so he could watch them, and then she would leave. Whether he meant she would leave the room or the house is, once again, not said. I have to imagine it’s the latter because what Jack saw was anything but a cartoon—unless it were a cartoon made by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

According to Jack, instead of seeing happy-go-lucky cartoons on the television, he saw “an old man stumbling around” a wartorn location. Corpses littered what I’m guessing was a city since he later mentions a water fountain. Blood had given the general vicinity a fresh coat of paint that was far too thick for any interior decorator’s liking, and the “old man” was missing his legs. This begs the question as to how he had been stumbling around since. Also, this is just a personal thought, but when I imagine someone who was maimed by an IED or mortar fire, they crawl because they lack those useful appendages called “feet.”

Lucky for me, Jack corrected himself immediately afterward by saying that the old man was “dragging his half body towards some water fountain.” Only now, my mind goes to the man being bisected in some capacity, which isn’t a novelty when it comes to war (especially the two World Wars). This would have helped immensely because then other Redditors could have narrowed down what film it may have been (whether that be All Quiet on the Western Front, Platoon, or The Hurt Locker).

With that said, Jack never mentioned what war this looked to be—let alone what the location looked like. Last year, in one of my Decemystery write-ups (I forget which), I mentioned how crucial it is for people to mention vital details because, without them, all researchers and detectives, professionals and amateurs alike, are left with their educated guesses.

Throughout both of Jack’s stories, this has happened numerous times, so allow me to stand atop a soapbox and say that if you have a strange experience, try to mention every detail you can. Heck, even if you’re a troll who wants to mess with people, the least you can do is try to add some details so people have somewhere to look. In this case, the details are so scarce that it leaves me wanting to scream into a pillow until I hit an octave higher than Steven Tyler.

On top of that, one has to wonder where Aunt Jackie was during all of this. Jack makes it sound like this horrific war film (I’m assuming it was a war film) was on television when Aunt Jackie turned it on and that it didn’t randomly appear as the previous animation did. If that’s the case, then I have to imagine she did, indeed, leave the house and didn’t enter another room because I doubt this film sounded anything like a cartoon.

If this film was on the cartoon station that Aunt Jackie had tuned into, why did she not seem perturbed by showing her then-12-year-old nephew imagery of the horrors of war? I know that pre-teens can handle some violence quite well, but that’s usually in something like a video game. A brutal depiction of war, like in, say, The Thin Red Line, would probably be a bit too much for a younger person.

Regardless of my personal opinions and whether or not Aunt Jackie was in the house, Jack never stated if he later informed her about the strange film. I’ll spoil that right now; he just outright didn’t. Now, I guess you could argue that he may have been reprimanded if he said he was watching a violent film. If that’s the case, then I suppose it makes sense why he would keep his mouth shut.

As for why I spent so much time discussing this when this is still an article about Shessus’ odd experience with a strange short film about a hamster wheel, this specific moment is extraordinarily crucial to one of the main theories, and I’ll be using Jack’s case as my reference point. Anyway, let’s wrap his story up so that we can move on.

Awestruck by what he was seeing, Jack watched the scene play out in what I presume to be relative silence. When the old man reached the aforementioned water fountain, something hard to visualize happened. Apparently, he struck a rock, fell over it, and screamed. This would make sense if the guy had fallen into a well, but I genuinely don’t fully get why he would scream from falling over a rock. I would imagine he’d already be screaming because he’s missing half of his body.

The only way I can see this making a lick of sense is if the man was crawling and, in his adrenaline-fueled haze, ended up in the water fountain. This, in turn, only made his already grievous injury feel all that much worse. Of course, without the specifications, I’m left as mystified as I have been throughout both of Jack’s cases.

Jack goes on to say that the scream “had so much pain in it that I can still recall it.” After that, he suddenly saw an episode of Tom & Jerry playing on the television. Now, normally, I wouldn’t bother applying a lot of thought to what could be considered “mini write-ups” within the main write-up. However, with this, I actually have a theory that I want to propose.

As someone who’s an enormous Tom & Jerry fan, I have to wonder if this guy saw the episode The Missing Mouse, which involves a white mouse that, if it were to be jarred in any way, it’ll explode and take an entire city with it. Standard Tom & Jerry hijinx ensues until Tom hears that the white mouse will not explode if jarred. This turns out to be certified fake news because, upon trying to kick the mouse out the window, it explodes. Tom then appears and says, “Don’t you believe it.”

I don’t know about you, but I have to wonder if the episode weirded Jack out, and he ended up remembering it as something a lot more terrifying. Stranger things have happened; I can attest to that when it comes to misremembering a lot of stuff I saw as a child and even as a teenager.

My tangent-fueled theory aside, Jack concludes his strange accounts by saying that this experience hit him harder than the previous one (I can’t imagine why). Unfortunately, as stated earlier, it doesn’t appear that he ever told anyone about this—outside of the Internet, of course.

With that, Jack’s story finally comes to an end. It only took 2,458 words (yes, I checked the Google document word count). Still, I wanted to make it a priority due to the plethora of information it offers for many of the theories (the plausible ones, of course, not the zanier ones that sneak their way into many of my write-ups).

That said, I had no clue that this would turn into a deep dive about a lot of various aspects of Jack’s recountings; at one point, I considered making it its own write-up. However, I’d rather have a bloated write-up than a shallow one that could feasibly be baked into another. At least then, I take out two (or more) birds with one stone. I do apologize if it was a bit much for any of you; if it was, don’t hesitate to leave a comment telling me.

Candid looks into my writing process aside, I’m not done with the replies to Shessus’ original post. There are still several we have to gloss over, but none of them will be anywhere close to as long as Jack’s. If you’re exhausted, all I ask is that you trust me when I say that all of this will be extremely relevant to the theories. I know that I’ve said that numerous times now, but it’s all I can do while biting my tongue.

Anyway, onto the next case! In a comment left by Shessus (who themselves was replying to Jack), a user going by “I_love_pillows” gave their account of a strange broadcast they saw on television when they were very young—six years old or even younger. Unfortunately, Pillows, as I shall refer to the user, doesn’t throw us a year as to when this happened. This is rather frustrating since it doesn’t allow us to narrow down what cartoons were frequently broadcasted back then.

During a broadcast of either Looney Tunes or something on Disney (Pillows couldn’t recall which), Pillows claimed they saw an adorable cartoon character akin to Porky Pig, and they were going down some spooky corridors. Exactly what type of location this was, Pillows doesn’t remember. Funny, I actually think I do, but more on that in a moment.

At some point, Great Value™ Porky Pig finds “an anamorphic evil computer” that Pillows described as resembling “the retro mainframe types.” It had a “huge black mouth, red eyes, [and] bright lights.” For whatever reason, the discount Porky Pig has to do something to the computer, but it fights back. As a result, The murderous computer chased the nameless cartoon character through the corridors.

Pillows ends their personal account by saying that it’s “one of the weird memories” they have from their childhood that they “cannot find the source for.” Well, Pillow, you may not know what happened, but I have a couple of theories that could explain what happened—at least, to some degree. While I don’t know what year this happened, I would be remiss if I just left this dangling, especially when it lets me revisit my childhood a bit.

As someone who grew up in the early 2000s, I remember occasionally watching Cartoon Network. Namely, the Quadraplex T-3000 Computer (or see below for an image if you opt not to click the link) from Dexter’s Laboratory, which is the computer that operates the titular character’s secret laboratory. The show is absolutely phenomenal, and I wholeheartedly endorse it. It’s among Genndy Tartakovsky’s best work, in my humble opinion.

In the show, the computer is occasionally shown as having libs and facial expressions (again, see below for an example). I don’t know if there’s an episode where the computer goes rogue, but I want to say that there may be. I do know that Dee-Dee, Dexter’s sister, was prone to mischief and frequently tampered with experiments that would cause things to malfunction. It wouldn’t shock me if there was an episode where she caused the computer to go AWOL.

Alternatively, I think it’s possible that memory could have been from Courage the Cowardly Dog, a cartoon that many consider to be the scariest children’s television show ever made. I was never fond of it for that very reason, but I’ll acknowledge that many of its visuals are truly haunting and still remain pure, unadulterated nightmare fuel to this day. It’s possible that Pillows saw an episode from that and ended up misremembering certain details.

Alternatively, perhaps they overlapped with a memory of Dexter’s Laboratory and ended up getting mixed up. I’ve had that happen to me before; I’ve had plenty of instances where I’ve got two shows, films, or video games confused and thought that one had something from the other. Human memory is imperfect, and it’s foolish to believe that someone can perfectly remember every detail about something an unknown number of years later. So, personally, I think that both are within the realm of reason, but I’m biased because I thought of the theories.

Of course, I cannot prove any of this. In theory, I could if I sat down to watch each episode of Dexter’s Laboratory and Courage the Cowardly Dog, but that would take an egregious amount of time—time that I do not have to spare.

As I’ve said on multiple occasions, I research and write each article on my own. While I occasionally ask a friend about something, the hard parts are done by myself. So, while it may sound like laziness on my end, I have no desire to binge-watch two cartoons for the sake of deducing if my hypothesis is correct, especially when I’m on the clock. I swear that Decemystery and deadlines go together like bread and butter.

That said, it’s time to march on to the next comment. As you can easily tell, neither Jack nor Pillows had any experiences with the strange hamster wheel broadcast that Shessus described. Their experiences were separate, albeit still bizarre in their own right. So, that begs the question, did anyone else see what Shessus saw? Or was it just them, as they’d been led to believe all this time?

Well, as it turns out, no! A user named “_itscoldinhere_” left a comment saying that Shessus’ post “just brought back little glimpses of a repressed memory” for them. They added that they were “pretty sure” they had seen the wondrously weird broadcast of naked people waltzing into hamster wheels to walk like the adorable rodents. Only instead of being quadrupedal animals that I can hold in my hands, they’re fully-grown humans that would cause me to throw out my back. Ah, the joys of being 28 years old but simultaneously feeling like I’m 85 years old.

Now, the idea of someone else mentioning that they had also seen this broadcast would be exciting on its own. They could discuss what they saw and determine if there were any inconsistencies or jog the other’s memory and reawaken old memories of other things. However, there are two major problems.

The first is that Mr/Ms. Cold (as I shall refer to “_itscoldinhere_”) never elaborated on what they saw. Don’t take my word for it, though! Here’s the entirety of their comment, should you have opted not to click the hyperlink I provided earlier.

This honestly just brought back little glimpses of a repressed memory for me. I’m pretty sure I saw it too[.]

Now, in the interest of fairness, it’s possible that Shessus had described everything there was to the broadcast. However, I would have greatly appreciated it if that was explicitly stated in the comment. Perhaps I’m being overly judgmental, but things like this drive me up a wall. It’s a major pet peeve of mine. You’re on a subreddit dedicated to enigmatic events and are sharing them with other users. Provide details to help further the investigation!

That said, the second issue is arguably the most egregious one by a country mile. For reasons I cannot fathom, Shessus never responded to any of these users. Yeah, that bothers me way more than it likely should. If you have people who can feasibly back you up, interact with them and ask for more details. Don’t leave them on hold; if you want your case to be solved, ask them what they saw so you can discuss the event.

It’s not like Shessus’ account was suspended at some point before Mr/Ms. Cold’s comment was made, either. As we’ll discuss in due time, they posted their story to the “Tip of my Tongue” subreddit four days after it was posted to Glitch in the Matrix. So they had the time to not only see the comment but respond to it.

Okay, let me get off my soapbox now before someone throws a tomato at me. Following this reply, Mr/Ms. Cold received a few responses—three, to be exact. Meanwhile, another user received four responses. I won’t cover every comment, just the ones that are noteworthy. 

The first response was from a user going by “thejakemc1,” who I shall refer to as Jake. He asked if the hamster wheel film was something that “more than one of us has seen” or if they (presumably themselves, Shessus, and Mr/Ms. Cold in Here) were delusional. Jake then added that he “can picture what [Shessus] was talking about in my head.”

Just like the previous comment, Jake did not provide additional details or specifics. At this point, I want to slam my head against a wall because I desperately want more details. Alas, much like catching a break from the troubles of real life, I can’t so much as get one.

Four users responded to Jake’s comment, and two of them stood out to me. The first came from a user going by “TheDarkWolfGirl,” who I will refer to as Jane for the sake of simplicity. Reddit usernames can be really frustrating to incorporate into write-ups like this one, dear reader.

According to Jane, she said she didn’t remember the hamster wheel broadcast but “can picture it perfectly.” I’ll circle back to this in a moment; it’s yet another piece of information, so we can discuss the vague wording of this statement.

Due to the vivid imagery in Jane’s head, she ended up with a “feeling” in her stomach and head. She added that it was like her memory was “trying but also repressing” and that it made her “feel sick.” A part of me wants to crack a joke here, but I genuinely have to wonder if Jane was feeling anxious and riled herself up. If that’s the case, I feel incredibly bad for her.

Anyway, that’s where Jane’s comment ends. It’s unceremonious, but I find it interesting nonetheless. The reason is that Jane doesn’t outright say she saw the broadcast. She only visualized it, and whatever she imagined made her feel uneasy, which could mean any number of things. Then again, Shessus said the whole thing felt evil, so maybe that also had to do with it. If only there were more details; wouldn’t that be peachy, dear reader? I sure think so. Thank goodness I have next to abso-freakin’-lutely nothing to work with.

My sarcasm aside, the vagueness is why I wanted to circle back to the opening statement Jane made. I’d normally save this for the theories, but as a teaser for one of them, I have to wonder if she’s having a false memory. As I’ve said many times on this blog, human memory is imperfect. I wonder if Jane read the post, imagined it in her head, and projected it onto a memory of something scary she had seen as a child.

Of course, this is all purely speculation. I could potentially get a straight answer by sending a message over Reddit to Jane asking her if she’d mind answering some questions, but I doubt she’s keen on a stranger asking about a comment from seven years ago.

If Jane does happen to see this blog post, I would welcome her to prove me wrong. All that I ask is none of you reach out to contact her. I refuse to have any of my readers harass people I cite or mention. That goes for everyone I’ve mentioned thus far. Unless you yourself are going to do an investigation, I do not want anyone to go out and harass others; that’s screwed up.

Anyway, with all of that said, Jane’s story is done (until the theories, anyway). You know, I just realized that not a single person we’ve talked about has mentioned the general area they live—or lived—in. This pattern continues with the response we’ll be going over, which is an extremely short one from a user named “theconceiver.” I don’t know what they conceived, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it was what led to their account being suspended. Tough break. Oh well, I’ll refer to them as Josh.

Josh’s recounting of events is so to the point that it’s intimidating. According to him, he “started reading the description” that Shessus provided. This led him to go, “oh yeah, that thing.” A moment later, he was struck by a realization and went, “wait… what thing?” These quotes are from Josh’s comment, by the way. I’m not writing more informally for the sake of comedy. Even I have my limits.

Unable to remember what the thing was, Josh began recollecting various sci-fi films from the 1970s, but none of them had a scene like the one Shessus described. That’s the extent of Josh’s comment; it’s nothing special, but I wanted to cover it for one reason. Namely, his mention of sci-fi movies from the 1970s.

A quick Google search reveals that the “commercial film industry” released a total of 235 science-fiction movies throughout the 1970s. Just like with binge-watching Dexter’s Laboratory and Courage the Cowardly Dog, I’m not about to go through every movie listed on websites like Wikipedia because of time constraints. As I said earlier, everything on this blog is done by me; I’m one person, and I cannot feasibly do as much as I wish I could without it being detrimental to my health (both physical and mental).

Now, I’m not the biggest sci-fi fan on Earth, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy a good sci-fi story from time to time. A prime example is the Rian Johnson film Looper, which I will forever label as one of the greatest time travel films of the 21st century. If you haven’t seen it, I cannot recommend it enough.

Additionally, I think it’s worth mentioning that I got into writing long ago because I once thought that being a film critic would be fun (I gave up on the pursuit because I found it more fun to write about unsolved mysteries—and for other reasons). So, while sci-fi may not be my jam, this felt like a possible lead for me to pursue—even if briefly.

Alas, to my dismay, none of the movies appeared to match what’s described in Shessus’ post. To make matters worse, it’s entirely plausible this was an independent film that was broadcast to fill a time slot. Weirder things have happened, and if that’s the case, then I wouldn’t be shocked if there aren’t any commercially available copies of it.

That said, I wish I could ask Josh why his mind went to 1970s sci-fi. If I could, I might’ve actually reached out to him to ask. However, given the account suspension, I can’t do that. To me, the surrealist imagery Shessus presented reminds me of something like the 2001 film Donnie Darko. It’s dreamlike, unsettling, and leaves me wondering what I just witnessed.

Anyway, that’s more than enough about Josh’s experience with the weird broadcast that Shessus saw. That brings us to the final response to this absolute metric ton of other bizarre occurrences, and it’s quite an interesting one. It was left by “CyanGatorade.” Given that “Cyan” is, on its own, simple enough, I’ll just refer to them as such.

Cyan asked if anyone reading was “good with design.” They said that, since so many people had apparently seen the broadcast, someone could recreate it “in either video or format.” I have no idea if this ever came to fruition, but if it did, I’d be interested in seeing it.

The second paragraph is a bit hard to understand. It sounds like Cyan said they didn’t see the strange broadcast but also did. Don’t take my word for it; here’s part of the paragraph for your reading:

In my version of this which doesn’t really exist as a memory, but is something that I simply think I might have saw. 

After this, Cyan says that they “imagine the humans” as resembling the figure on the cover of Queen’s “News of the World” album (see below). Based on the wording, I have to imagine Cyan didn’t see it. However, this detail still piqued my interest for one reason: it’s the only comment that proposed any sort of appearance outside of the skin-colored unitards from about 7,000 words ago.

The design of the figure (named Frank the Robot) is also generic enough that it could easily be mistaken for a mannequin-like figure. As I said much earlier, reports of mannequin people exist. If this were a movie of some sort, it would stand to reason that the album could be used as a comparison. Personally, I think it looks like a mannequin, a nurse from Silent Hill, and C3PO all fused together.

Also, as a quick aside, I firmly believe that Jazz was a better album. Fight me, but News of the World wishes it was Jazz. That isn’t to say that News of the World is bad. It’s just that Jazz has Bicycle Race on it, and that never leaves my head!

Anyway, my musical opinions aside, can Cyan’s story be adequately explained? Well, to an extent, I believe it can. However, it requires making an assumption of some sort to work. I try my best to keep such actions to a minimum, but in this case, I see no other way than to do so.

If we’re to assume that Cyan did see something, then it’s probable they saw a movie or television show that disturbed them. The post reawakened the memory, and they sent to the first thing that fit the bill—in this case, the Queen album that gave us the double-header of We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions. You know, there’s a Mandela Effect story tied to the latter of those two songs. I should write about that.

If we’re to assume that Cyan didn’t see something, then I think it would be safe to say that they were spitballing ideas to try and help Shessus and the other Redditors visualize what they saw. If that’s the case, the wording in their comment was really wonky. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that this is the correct guess. Unfortunately, I’ll never know because, as stated earlier, I’m not reaching out to a stranger on the Internet about a reply they left seven years ago.

That said, that’s where this weird comment chain ends. As obscenely lengthy as it was, this yielded one invaluable piece of information: Shessus wasn’t alone in seeing this thing—let alone weird television broadcasts. Knowing that makes it harder to dismiss this as a hoax outright unless other Redditors were playing along, which isn’t unheard of, though I believe this act is more common on 4chan than on Reddit. I suppose having accounts does that to the concept of having fun.

I digress, though; we’ll return to that topic later on. For now, I believe it’s about time we return to the rest of the responses, of which there aren’t too many to cover. Most are speculative, but I want to draw attention to them because they do offer some hypotheses from the Reddit community. Some are interesting, while others are really bizarre. So, come along; it’s time to leap back to a more rapid-fire pace that this blog is generally accustomed to.

The Responses: No Storytime Digression Edition

To kick things off, the next response I want to draw attention to was left by a user named “falling_into_fate.” They proposed the idea of it being a subliminal message. This mystifies me because I would think that subliminal messages are meant to be, you know, subtle. This was the exact opposite and didn’t play between the lines in the slightest. Also, I don’t think kids are going to properly understand the concept of being a worker drone. Perhaps I don’t know enough about indoctrination.

In response to this, Shessus mentioned that they have had numerous supernatural experiences in their life. However, they didn’t elaborate on them. Quite frankly, that’s probably for the better. Otherwise, this write-up will be a book by the time it’s done. In fact, I have to wonder how I will even condense this story down properly when I inevitably do write a book. It’s exhilarating; I love a good writing challenge.

That’s a challenge for another day, though. So, moving on from that, a user named “argentcorvid” asked if Shessus had read Stephen King as there’s a scene like the one Shessus described in either Black House or one of the later Dark Tower books. I’ve never read any of those books (though Black House is a collaboration between King and fellow author Peter Straub, which sounds absolutely amazing), but if anyone has, feel free to tell me.

That said, another user named “Fez_and_no_Pants” chimed in with a very odd claim. Now, to preface, I try my absolute best to not criticize or judge anyone’s beliefs or views on this blog. I’m in no place to do so, especially with the truly wild stories I cover and the fact I have my own odd beliefs. So, while all of this will undoubtedly come across as odd to many of you, I believe that it’s only fair to treat the wildest claims with an open mind.

Now, with that said, let’s start things off by looking at Fez’s comment in full.

THIS THIS THIS

OP saw the Breakers - people made to endlessly toil to break the beams that hold reality together. This story is behind/beside/underneath nearly ALL of SK's work, even the mundane non-horrory s—t.

OP, if what you saw was real, I REALLY need to know what it is and where I can get it.

If it was paranormal, then the Breakers are real, and the Beams are real, and SK isn’t an author, he’s a Prophet, and oh my god we are not only all gonna die, we’re all going to a REALLY SCARY place when we do!

As outlandish and comical as this response may seem, it’s not unprecedented. I mentioned in the theories section for Decemystery 2023’s bonus entry that I had plans to cover a Conspiracy Iceberg entry about how the works of H.P. Lovecraft (creator of the Cthulhu mythos, for those who don’t know) are nonfiction. Coincidentally, Stephen King has said on numerous occasions that one of his biggest inspirations was Lovecraft.

Now, I have always taken that conspiracy as nothing more than a meme theory. The Conspiracy Iceberg has several of them; we’ll be looking at a few of them this month, as has all but become a tradition for Decemystery since 2019, but I digress. The idea of Lovecraft’s works being real is just silly, but this makes me rethink if that belief is true. I mean, some new-age beliefs are certainly out there from where I stand. I suppose there could be some people who believe a select few gifted people can see beyond “the veil,” for lack of a better way to put it.

In Fez’s case, their reason for believing this to be the case is a lot more mundane. In a reply to Shessus (whose comment asked if they should “be worried”), Fez has the following to say:

I am worried.

For a child to have had this vision, which is identical to the vision Stephen King describes in many of his books, is disturbing. What year did you have this experience, give or take?

Aside from Fez missing the year that Shessus gave at the start, there’s one thing that bothers me about this. Namely, the idea of a child having had a vision that was “indentical to the vision Stephen King describes in many of his books.” Given the Breakers are from the Dark Tower books (I have no idea if they appear outside of it), I’m left scratching my head as to what this vision is.

If Fez is referring to what Shessus saw on television, I have no idea how that constitutes a vision. When I think of having a vision, I think of John of Patmos (who wrote the Book of Revelation), Baba Vaga, or any fantasy novel that has ever had a clairvoyant in it. Seeing a weird broadcast on your TV doesn’t scream “having a vision.” Rather, it screams, “I accidentally tuned into Adult Swim at 1:30 a.m.”

The only way this works is if the broadcast itself was a vision that was somehow projected onto the television screen. If that’s the case, that doesn’t explain the others who claim to have the same broadcast—unless this is a Three Secrets of Fátima situation, and there were multiple people who had the same vision.

On the other hand, if Fez is referring to something else that I’d only understand if I’ve read the Dark Tower series, then I’m utterly lost. I have virtually no knowledge of them, and I cannot imagine that there’s a scene or anything of that sort in the book where someone watched naked people walking toward giant hamster wheels. If there is, then I think Stephen King is about to have another Langoliers situation where he doesn’t remember writing the book.

Anyway, aside from Shessus asking if they should be worried, that’s where Fez’s little saga ends. To be honest, their panic—and belief—both pique my curiosity a great deal. I’ve never seen someone get this terrified at the prospect of something like this happening. I genuinely feel bad for the guy, and I hope that his fears have been alleviated in some way, shape, or form.

At the same time, I’m absolutely dumbfounded that nobody who’s brought this story up in a YouTube video has made a note of this response. I’d argue that it’s more interesting than Shessus’ story because Fez’s claim is so shockingly strange. Just on its own merits, it’s one of the most confounding things I’ve ever laid eyes on, and if you take a look at the stories I’ve given attention to on this blog, you’ll know that I’ve covered some really weird stuff.

My only guess is that it’s because Fez is still active; no one wants to draw attention to him since it’s possible he’ll be harassed. Personally, I’d argue that he would be harassed either way. Anyone could go onto Reddit, look up the post that was mentioned, find the comment, and then message the Redditor to harass them. So, to be safe, I implore anyone reading this to not contact Fez if your intention is anything malicious.

Also, with how much I’ve typed that demand in this write-up, I feel like I need to start adding it as a disclaimer at the start of every article that has any association with Reddit. It’ll prevent me from developing even worse carpal tunnel syndrome.

Anyway, with that tangent now out of the way (and my pseudo-promise for there to be no digressions in this section now broken), it’s time to head to the next response. It’s from a now-deleted user who said that they, too, had seen the broadcast. They mention that the memory “is kinda vague and repressed,” yet they can also picture it perfectly. If this contradiction were a giant monster, it would be bigger than the creature at the end of The Cloverfield Paradox.

That contradiction aside, this response wouldn’t be noteworthy, but there’s one detail that sticks out to me. Namely, the user said they were six years old when the broadcast happened.

If you’ve read this blog in the past, you’ll know that I’ve mentioned numerous times that memories from one’s childhood are dubious at best. There’s this called “the passage of time” that affects it. It can do a lot of things, including, but not limited to, giving me an existential crisis. It can also mess with your memory, too.

Now, granted, it’s not impossible to remember things from a young age. Personally, I remember plenty of innocuous things and some fun times. However, these memories are fuzzy and fragmented to Hell and back. The idea that this user can remember it “perfectly” irks me.

Unless this was an attempt at deliberate hyperbole, I can’t imagine remembering anything “perfectly” from that age, especially a dozen years after it happened. I swear, I need to do a write-up on human memory so I can cite it whenever I come across moments like this.

Beyond that, the user did mention something that was in line with what Shessus said. They claimed that remembering the broadcast made them “feel so paranoid and scared” that they “could tear up.” That means we now have two people who have suffered adverse effects from watching Jean-Luc Godard’s tour-de-force, “Individuals Foregoing Clothing Utilizing Their Muscles to Advance Toward Sizable Hamster Wheels.” If you have no idea who Jean-Luc Godard was, go down to your local Starbucks and ask someone who looks like they’ve spent about $10,000 on their movie collection. Odds are, they can tell you in fewer words than me.

Anyway, let’s chug along. There’s a response from a user named “acmesrv,” who said that it was like Shessus had seen a message from “them, showing the dumb and ridiculous society we live in.” They later added their interpretation in a response to Shessus. It was more or less what I thought when I first read Shessus’ post: the hamster wheels are a metaphor for daily jobs that we work at so we can make money.

The only reason I mention this response is because when I read “them,” all that came to mind was the 1954 B-movie “Them!” If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s about mutated ants that threaten the United States because Raid bug spray hadn’t been created yet (that wouldn’t be until 1956). Unless this was a reference to “They Live,” which I’ve never seen, I’m going to imagine that Shessus was secretly shown a television broadcast from giant ants in New Mexico.

Further down in the replies, a user going by “yonreadsthis” stated that they believed they had seen a part of the broadcast. Yon then speculated that “it might have been from some 1930s surrealist movie or a student production.”

Given that the surrealist movement began in the 1920s, this is extremely likely, though I have no idea how many 1930s surrealist films are frequently broadcast, nor am I familiar with avant-garde cinema. Also, going through a decade or more of cinema sounds like a torturous endeavor, especially when the genre isn’t my thing. I don’t inherently dislike it, but I prefer surrealist paintings to surrealist films.

In response to Yon, a now-deleted user said that they were “gonna do some research” to see if they could “find anything similar.” Given that their account is deleted, I’m going to hazard a guess and say that we aren’t getting an update. Oh well, I hope their investigation bore some amount of fruit, even if they didn’t share it with us.

The next comment, interestingly enough, proposes an outright answer to the whole thing. A user named “elaynafranklin,” whom I will refer to as Elayna for the sake of simplicity, responded to Shessus’ post on May 7, 2023—nearly six years after the post was originally made.

In the comment, Elayna suggested that the broadcast may have been to a “Lemmings” commercial used to advertise MacBooks. Apparently, she’d recently seen “a compilation of a few,” and it reminded her of Shessus’ post. Personally, I only found one; if more exist, I didn’t see them.

For those who aren’t familiar with the ad in question, it all began back in 1985 during the Super Bowl. During this time, Apple aired a commercial to advertise the MacBook. The ad, which you can watch below, depicts a bunch of blindfolded office workers walking off of a mountain. It’s a reference to the urban legend that lemmings will suddenly commit suicide—like running off the edge of cliffs.

Suffice it to say, the commercial bombed harder than Disney’s adaptation of John Carter. In fact, it’s still viewed as one of the most disliked commercials since it was seen as an outright insult to customers. I can’t say I disagree. I don’t use a Mac, but the idea that I’m a Lemming for not buying a MacBook doesn’t entice me to buy an Apple product.

On the surface, this comment has a lot going for it. If you watched the commercial above, the aesthetic has a similar feel to what Shessus described. The color’s heavily degraded, there’s a sense of desolation, the people move in a robotic manner, and it features a rendition of “Heigh-Ho” from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that sounds like it’s being played by a howling wind. In reality, it’s apparently being whistled, but it sounds like the wind’s howling, which is something that Shessus said persisted throughout the broadcast they saw.

While it doesn’t fit what Shessus saw on every level, it certainly ticks a fair number of boxes required—in my eyes, anyway. In fact, for a bit, I was tempted to say that this solved the mystery. Alas, that wasn’t the case; I have no idea if this commercial was ever aired after it was effectively tarred and feathered by the general public, and I don’t know of any program that went over Apple that might’ve showcased the ad. Even then, I doubt it would’ve aired on Nickelodeon or any of its sister channels.

Silliness aside, the video I shared was posted on March 19, 2009. There’s also an earlier upload of the commercial on YouTube from June 4, 2008. Amusingly, it has considerably fewer views. While it was at least three years after Shessus’ experience, I still believe it’s possible that they got the years mixed up. I can barely remember what years I was in certain grades while attending school, much less the year I saw something scary on television. Though the plausibility is a bit iffy.

With that in mind, if Shessus, along with others, had been on YouTube, they may have stumbled across it—or seen it shared on early social media. Of course, without any confirmation from Shessus—or any other user who said they saw the broadcast—this is up for debate.

Anyway, with that, that’s the end to what I’d consider the worthwhile responses to Shessus’ original post. However, we still aren’t done. There’s the matter of the replies to their post on “Tip of my Tongue,” which I already hyperlinked, but I figured it’d be convenient for those who opted not to click the link earlier. That said, this post was made on December 17, 2017, four days after the one to Glitch in the Matrix.

This post has virtually nothing worth discussing; it’s the exact same post in terms of details, though there are two comments I want to draw attention to. The first is that one user thought the Mad Headroom Incident was someone in a Frankenstein mask. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I don’t think they look alike; take a gander for yourself, though. Have an image of both the unknown hijacker in his glorious Max Headroom mask and a mask of Frankenstein’s monster.

I really don’t see the similarity. If you do, then more power to you!

The second response was made on January 15, 2022, by a now-deleted user who claimed they were born in 2007. According to them, they saw “a creepy black and white show” that scared them, so they turned it off.

Given that Shessus’ incident happened in 2005, this user would have been either one or two years old. I have no idea if a toddler is capable of operating a television remote, but I digress. Apparently, this user decided to tell their teacher during storytime. In response, the teacher told them that “it was just a dream.”

I have to imagine that this person was in nursery school because, from what I know, preschool is intended for children around the ages of three and four. If that’s the case, then I can name plenty of other cartoons that have creepy imagery that would cause a toddler to freak out.

Even then, I’m skeptical of someone so young operating a television remote successfully. I suppose it could happen, but it feels off. Also, where the heck were your parents? I’m not a dad, but I would never leave my child unsupervised for any period of time at that age. Man, I sound like an overbearing father. I guess this is what happens when you’re rapidly approaching the age of thirty, huh?

That’s all there is to that post. The rest of the replies are largely innocuous and lack any substance for us to go over. That would normally mean we’re headed to the theories, but there’s one final thing I want to mention.

I had to go to Tip of My Tongue and search for Shessus’ post myself. When I did so, I found another post made on January 14, 2014, by a user named “zackmanze.” It was entitled “80s or 90s movie with People with Hamster Wheels inside them? (Live Action).” Here’s what Zack asked:

I think it may have had Emilio Estevez or Michael Douglas or someone. Remember this scene with a man and a woman, and when the man undressed he showed her the parts of the hamster wheel inside his body.

I’ve never seen anyone who’s covered this story mention this post, and I found it quite fascinating. Unfortunately, Zack never received any replies. Despite this, his cry for help was still marked as “solved.” I’m guessing it’s because the post was archived.

Anyway, while the movie described isn’t exactly like what Shessus saw, I still thought it would be worth investigating on the microscopic off-chance that the film Zack was looking for was what Shessus saw. So, as a brief digression, allow me to tell you what I found while looking at the filmographies of the two actors mentioned—albeit briefly.

Digression: Filmography Edition

Let’s start off with the more prolific of the two actors: Michael Douglas. His career began in 1966; suffice it to say, I’m not going through half a century’s worth of films to find one that matches what Zack described. So, rather than go the extra mile, I decided to stick with what Zack said and look at films released in the 1980s and 1990s.

In Michael’s case, there are a lot that sound like they could fit the bill, especially in the 90s. Unfortunately, the only two I’ve seen are Wall Street, which I can assure you doesn’t have anything that Zack said (trust me, I adore that film), and Face/Off, which I didn’t even realize Micahel Douglas was in. However, upon checking the page, he’s only featured as a painting. Somehow, that isn’t the weirdest part about that movie. No, that honor goes to the entire story, which I’m not convinced wasn’t a fever dream I had. Oh well, at least I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Although I was unable to find anything that sounded like it matched what Zack saw, it’s entirely possible that I overlooked something. So, if you’re interested in going through the Wikipedia page dedicated to Douglas’ filmography, click here. If nothing else, maybe you’ll come across a movie that piques your interest. May I recommend the aforementioned Wall Street?

That aside, my last resort was to Google “Michael Douglas movie with a hamster wheel.” To my surprise, I got a result for a 1993 film called “Falling Down,” which was directed by the late Joel Schumacher. I’ve never seen the film, but it’s apparently pretty good. However, I have no idea if it fits the bill as I’ve never seen it.

As for Emilio Estevez, absolutely none of the films he’s been in from the 80s or 90s sound like they fit the bill. Unless, by some inexplicable chance, the first Mission: Impossible film featured a scene like the one Zack described, I’ve got nothing. That said, I didn’t know he had an uncredited role in Terrence Malick’s film Badlands. That was interesting to learn about.

Unless someone else can help me out here, I doubt Shessus’ post and Zack’s are related. However, a part of me does wonder if there’s a microscopic chance that they are. Weirder things have happened; I would be remiss if I turned a blind eye to the improbable in a case like this, especially when I’ve made it a point in the past to keep my mind open to even the most unlikely theories.

Anyway, with that, let’s conclude this digression and begin our lead-in to the theories at long last!

Digression Over; Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

And so, with all of that said and done, our story comes to an end. That was, without a doubt, one of the most exhausting write-ups I’ve ever done. Every Decemystery has a story that leaves me feeling drained, but never before has the inaugural story been the one to leave me feeling winded. I had anticipated this being a brisk, run-of-the-mill write-up about an odd experience one Redditor had, and it expanded into something far larger.

Despite that, it was quite enjoyable. The story itself was interesting once I noticed the replies from others who said they’d seen a similar broadcast; I can’t recall any YouTuber ever noting that others said they’d seen this. They only mentioned Shessus, so I went into this with the mindset that this was a one-off occurrence.

So, if more than one person saw this broadcast, that begs the question: What did they see? What was seen on that fateful day in 2005? Well, as is the norm on this blog, there are some theories—or, in this case, an abundance of them.

Given how much I’ve told you to remember various things, I plan on digging into them as much as I can, both for the sake of having a worthwhile payoff and so I can throw all of my thoughts about a certain theory out there for people to know. So, without further ado, let’s get into them!

Theories

1. A broadcast hijacking

If you’ve spent any amount of time reading about unsolved mysteries, be it online or in a book, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of the notorious Max Headroom Broadcast Hijacking. I won’t go into that much detail since it isn’t the focus of this write-up, but I still wish to summarize it.

Basically, a guy dressed up as the television character Max Headroom managed to hijack a television broadcast in Chicago and proceeded to act like a whack job for a short while. He was never apprehended, let alone identified. It remains one of the most infamous unsolved mysteries in the United States. Theories abound as to who the man and his accomplices were, but most point to a disgruntled employee of some sort.

Aside from the aforementioned Max Headroom incident, there’s the enigmatic Ashtar Galactic Command hijacking (more formally known as the Southern Television Broadcast Incident), which gave rise to the “mystery” of Vrillon (or whatever the alien’s name really was). I’ll cover that story one day when I have the patience because, woo boy, it’s a doozy with many inconsistencies. For now, have a supposed transcript of what was spoken:

This is the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you. For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies. We speak to you now in peace and wisdom as we have done to your brothers and sisters all over this, your planet Earth. We come to warn you of the destiny of your race and your world so that you may communicate to your fellow beings the course you must take to avoid the disaster which threatens your world, and the beings on our worlds around you. This is in order that you may share in the great awakening, as the planet passes into the New Age of Aquarius. The New Age can be a time of great peace and evolution for your race, but only if your rulers are made aware of the evil forces that can overshadow their judgments. Be still now and listen, for your chance may not come again. All your weapons of evil must be removed. The time for conflict is now past and the race of which you are a part may proceed to the higher stages of its evolution if you show yourselves worthy to do this. You have but a short time to learn to live together in peace and goodwill. Small groups all over the planet are learning this, and exist to pass on the light of the dawning New Age to you all. You are free to accept or reject their teachings, but only those who learn to live in peace will pass to the higher realms of spiritual evolution. Hear now the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you. Be aware also that there are many false prophets and guides at present operating on your world. They will suck your energy from you – the energy you call money and will put it to evil ends and give you worthless dross in return. Your inner divine self will protect you from this. You must learn to be sensitive to the voice within that can tell you what is truth, and what is confusion, chaos and untruth. Learn to listen to the voice of truth which is within you and you will lead yourselves onto the path of evolution. This is our message to our dear friends. We have watched you growing for many years as you too have watched our lights in your skies. You know now that we are here, and that there are more beings on and around your Earth than your scientists admit. We are deeply concerned about you and your path towards the light and will do all we can to help you. Have no fear, seek only to know yourselves, and live in harmony with the ways of your planet Earth. We here at the Ashtar Galactic Command thank you for your attention. We are now leaving the planes of your existence. May you be blessed by the supreme love and truth of the cosmos.

I’m not convinced aliens never stopped living in the 1960s because this reeks of “flower child.”

Jokes aside, there’s also the rather amusing Captain Midnight Signal Intrusion. A man named John R. MacDougall hijacked an HBO broadcast to display the following message:

GOODEVENING HBO

FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT

$12.95/MONTH  ?

NO WAY !

 [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!] 

The purpose of this intrusion was over HBO charging an egregious amount of money for its subscription. How funny that many people now pay obscene amounts of money for streaming services, including MAX (formerly HBO Max), and don’t bat an eye. I genuinely wonder what John thinks about that.

I digress, though. The reason I bring this up is because television hijackings are by no means a novelty, and they aren’t done for fun and games. Vrillon clearly had an anti-nuclear weapon agenda, Captain Midnight was fueled by predatory prices for satellite television network access, and even the Max Headroom incident had some sort of motive (though it isn’t known). The hijacker spoke of “world newspaper nerds” and referred to Chuck Swirsky (who’s a sports broadcaster for WGN) as a “frickin’ liberal.” My guess is it may have been a disgruntled low-level employee at the company.

So, with those examples in mind, that begs the question: What could have been the motivation here? I mean, broadcast hijackings are not easy to pull off. Heck, I can’t even begin to describe what goes into them because they’re so complex (and I’m not a tech-savvy person). So why go through the effort of hijacking a signal to broadcast something so mundane on a cartoon channel for seemingly no purpose?

Well, it could’ve been a former employee who was fired, about to be fired, or was unhappy for reasons that elude my non-existent brain. Regardless, disgruntled employees sabotaging their place of work in some capacity is by no means a novel concept, especially if the person—or people—involved thought little of their boss or some other higher-up.

Additionally, if the perpetrator—or perpetrators—knew how television broadcasts worked, they’d know how to hijack the signal. While this may seem like a “no duh” factor, do note that taking over a television signal is extraordinarily difficult. It’s because of this that the previously-mentioned Max Headroom and Southern Television hijackings aren’t thought to have been pranks.

That said, this theory, like many others we’ll be discussing, has some major flaws. Did you think the first theory would be the most plausible? I’m not about to lose your attention that quickly.

The biggest one is that there’s no news coverage of this happening anywhere online. As far as I can tell, this only popped up with Shessus’ post on Reddit, and it led to a few people claiming they vaguely remembered it. However, after that, it’s become one of the numerous “Reddit mysteries” that periodically finds its way into a “Top X Reddit/Internet Mysteries” YouTube video.

When it comes to things like this happening, people will say that the event in question was “memory-holed.” Basically, the media and powers that be don’t want the public to remember the event, so they cease talking about it and purge any discussion about it. The 2006 Volleyball Incident is a prime example of something that was purportedly memory-holed.

If you’re uninterested in reading another article of mine (which is understandable, given that that article has a vastly different tone and style going for it than what I have nowadays), the 2006 Volleyball Incident was a purported mass shooting somewhere in the Midwestern United States that was swept under the rug for reasons unknown.

Some believe that it was a test to see how well a media blackout on such events could be pulled off. If this is indeed the case, it was pulled off shockingly well, given there’s no information about such an event, be it offline or online (though my article was at one point on the front page of Google!)

Given that this occurred on Nickelodeon, one of the largest cartoon channels on Earth, there’s no way you could cover this up without shelling out several million bags of money to parents in God knows how many countries. Remember that this is said to have happened in 2005; Nickelodeon was considerably more popular then than it is now.

However, given the years of the aforementioned “Volleyball Incident” and this, you could make the argument that this was a year-long test to see how well these types of media blackouts could play out. Exactly why the powers that be would go from “innocuous television broadcast hijacking” to “mass shooting” in the span of a year is a bit mystifying to me. I feel like there would be a few things that you’d want to do before moving on to the latter, like sightings of a strange creature.

That aside, even if there was a media blackout, there’s one problem at play here: This happened on Nickelodeon! You can’t chalk this up to a lesser-known small-town happening. Yes, there are numerous mysteries like that, but last I checked, Nickelodeon isn’t a small-town television network; it’s broadcast across the entire planet—over 170 countries have access to it. There’s no way that there wouldn’t be more chatter about this.

Now, yes, a local television station could have locally screwed this up, which would explain why it isn’t some globally known event. That said, if this were a local hijacking, I believe the odds of other Redditors who are (or were) from the same area as Shessus finding their post to be microscopic. While I believe in coincidences, there comes a point when the odds are so small that you might as well consider it an impossibility.

The only way I could see it working is if this was in a metropolitan area. However, if that were the case, many more would have seen the broadcast. Not a single-digit number of people. Also, I’m pretty sure memory-holing the event would be considerably harder. If this happened in, say, Sacramento, California, I doubt you’d be able to keep a few hundred thousand people quiet.

Additionally, I can’t fathom the news not picking up on this. Parents have phoned television networks over less. I mean, Nickelodeon is under the umbrella of Paramount, one of the largest movie studios in the world (even if it is hemorrhaging money like there’s no tomorrow). It would be big news if one of their flagship television networks had its signal hijacked. This would be on par with the Disney Channel (I know it’s technically just “Disney Channel,” but it sounds awkward saying it that way) having its signal taken over. Oh, wait, that happened back in both 2007 and 2012.

Per NBC, in May 2007 (I believe May 1, 2007), Comcast managed to achieve this when a local television station in Middletown, New Jersey, accidentally broadcast porn instead of a show called “Handy Manny.” I’m guessing the person—or people—in charge of the broadcast misinterpreted the title of the show. That, or they worked for the PlayBoy Channel before somehow ending up there. We’ll never know since Comcast never announced the exact reason for the airing of pornography instead of a show meant for preschoolers about a handyman.

Five years later, on September 7, 2012, a broadcast in Fairview, North Carolina, of Lilo & Stitch was interrupted for roughly six minutes by a “hard-core pornographic film.” For those nervous about hitting the hyperlink, don’t worry. It’s a link to a short report from Screen Crush. Anyway, in this case, a staggering six minutes. I have no idea how long the previous incident lasted, but having six minutes of your movie replaced with hard-core porn sounds less like an accident and more like a deliberate act of malice.

If, by some ungodly chance, these were two accidents, then I have no idea how they happened. I’m not very good with technology, so when it comes to television, I couldn’t tell you how the signal to a channel airing adult films spilled over into Disney’s not once but twice.

Regardless of that, the fact it made the news proves that you don’t need to be something that happened globally to become recognized. I mean, for God’s sake, both of these stories are on the Wikipedia page for Broadcast Signal Intrusions! They’re under “Cable network feed intrusions,” and I’d argue that this proves that if something like this happened, even if it was small, it should have garnered some level of attention.

Even if it didn’t, by some unholy chance, then I certainly doubt that it was memory-holed. If cases like Max Headroom and the oh-so-bizarre Ashtar Galactic Command remain in the public’s mind to this day, It was a loop of naked people walking to giant hamster wheels. It’s not like it had any adverse effects on anyone’s health like it was a real-life version of The Wyoming Incident. I see no reason for this to have been jettisoned into that metaphorical hole.

With all of that said, I want to point out two other flaws with the theory. The first is that we have no idea where this took place.

I already made a note about this, but I want to properly address it. This isn’t a strike against the theory. It’s perfectly reasonable that Shessus would want to remain anonymous on the Internet. However, given the circumstances of television hijackings, not having even an idea of what continent this took place on makes this akin to looking for a needle in a haystack the size of a planet.

The most we have to go off of is that other Redditors claimed they had also seen it. Common sense would dictate that means it was a local hijacking, but as I stated earlier, that seems extraordinarily implausible, if not borderline impossible—unless this occurred in a metropolitan area. However, rather than repeat myself, let’s move on to the second problem.

Like all good things in life, one must have the motivation to do something. For example, I get out of bed each morning because I relish the gift of life that God has given me. However, in the case of this theory, there’s no clear motive for the apparent hijacking. I already touched upon this earlier, but I want to shine the spotlight on it a bit more.

As I stated earlier, acts like this are done for a reason. Whether you want to accept it or not, every act has a motive behind it. People don’t wake up one day and go, “I’m going to hijack a television signal,” without having a motive, especially when it’s incredibly difficult. The hijacker—or hijackers—typically seek to send a message, not goof around.

In the case of the so-called “Hamster Wheel Broadcast,” there doesn’t appear to be a clear motive. Honestly, in my eyes, it sounds more like a desperate artist who hijacked a television signal to broadcast their art piece in hopes that they’d receive some semblance of validation from newspapers. If that’s the case, it must’ve been a punch to the gut when they never got any news coverage.

I’m sure that there are a plethora of other issues with this theory that I could pick at. However, I think I’ve not only made my point but also broken my rule of not being biased when judging the theories. So, if it’s any consolation, this is far from the most ridiculous theory out there. After all, it is plausible that there exists a broadcast hijacking that, for whatever reason, is so obscure that it lacks much (if any) presence online.

Additionally, there is precedent; the two cases involving the Disney Channel intrusions offer plausibility. Granted, the content aired in those instances is vastly different than what Shessus and the others saw, but I don’t think that matters as much as most would say. If the intention was to get back at your place of work, but you were empathetic enough to think of the viewers, you would likely hijack the signal and broadcast something that wouldn’t be traumatizing.

Anyway, I think I’ve made my point. While this theory has a lot stacked against it, it is worth noting that there are things going for it. It just so happens that they’re outshined by the faults, though those faults could fall upon me simply not finding anything. But I digress; I think I’ve hit the point where I’m talking in circles about this theory—not that talking in circles has been an abnormality for this write-up. So, let’s move on to the next one.

2. Something related to Stephen King

I feel like there are a ton of jokes about various Stephen King books I could make, but I’ve never read any of his work. I’ve barely seen any of the film adaptations, too. Man, I need to change that.

Truth be told, I seriously considered not including this as a theory because of how outlandish it is. However, this blog is nothing if not dedicated to the most niche and fantastical stuff I find on the Internet or within the pages of books. As a result, I would be remiss if I didn’t give it its more-than-deserved time in the spotlight.

If you remember the replies left by “Fez_and_no_Pants” on Shessus’ original post, you’ll know the basis for this theory. If you’ve forgotten (which would be understandable, given that this write-up is considerably longer than the vast majority of the ones on this blog), a user named “argentcorvid” asked Shessus if they read Stephen King.

I didn’t mention this then, but Shessus did respond to the question by saying that, no, they haven’t read any of King’s work. However, this response wasn’t to Argent (as I shall call the user) but rather to Fez. Shessus said that they aren’t one for fiction, so Stephen King’s work has never been their thing. At least I know that I’m not alone!

Anyway, Fez proposed that what Shessus saw were the Breakers, a group of telepathic humans that wished to “break the beams,” which would break the Dark Tower. After that, reality ceases to exist. Yeah, when I said that Stephen King said that H.P. Lovecraft was one of his biggest inspirations, I wasn’t making it up. This sounds like a story by Lovecraft. The only difference is that I can pronounce the names of the characters on the Dark Tower Wiki, whereas most names in a Lovecraft story look like they were made by writing out the order of letters in one’s alphabet soup.

Now that the refresher is out of the way, it’s time to get into the meat of this theory. It is, on the surface, one that comes across as really silly. However, as I said earlier, I recall reading about the idea that the works of Lovecraft were nonfiction on 4chan’s /x/ board (/x/ being its paranormal board).

So, for the sake of introducing you to what I believe Fez’s theory is about, I browsed through 4plebs (a 4chan archive) in search of some references to the theory that Lovecraft’s work is nonfiction. To my delight, I found three posts that mentioned the idea. So, without further ado, allow me to give you a taste of this quirky little theory, starting with the earliest of the posts:

we're ruled over by an intergalactic/interdimensional order of varying factions & groups who see this planet as a farm. just as we rear a chicken in a coup. they are ruled over by an eternal energy masquerading as god but is not the god. not all of their intents are against are interest but may appear so. they are angry at the god because long ago they were cast from eternity/heaven long ago. once known as the watchers or fallen angels they are now in consort with all the lower demonic energies of this earth. HP lovecraft was a nonfiction author

The full thread can be read here.

The second reply, meanwhile, reads as follows:

Why did he choose Lovecraft to reference? Lovecraft is nonfiction... The Great Old Ones have already left their mark on this realm in many ways.

Anyone here heard of the Silicon Valley techno cult and how Timothy Cook takes LSD regularly to get his orders from the dark gods they worship?

The full thread can be checked out here. As a side note, the YouTube link in the reply I just cited is a weird song from 2005. I have no idea what its deal is, but it was surreal to listen to. I kind of dug it, though!

Last but not least, here’s the opening to a full thread about the theory:

What if hp Lovecraft was telling the truth about these elders and cosmic horrors. Anybody have any experience or opinion about him and his.. horrors.

If you wish to read it, you can read it here. God willing, we’ll one day revisit this thread if I ever write about this theory.

That said, let’s get back on track. To call Fez’s proposal odd would be an understatement, but there is some level of precedent there. While Stephen King has many differences from H.P. Lovecraft, the idea of a prominent horror author having a greater understanding of reality most certainly isn’t. I mean, the three examples I just gave prove that—I hope.

Unfortunately for this theory, that’s all it has going for it—precedent. I can just as easily say there was life on the dwarf planet Sedna before some war made it uninhabitable because that’s a theory tied to Mars. In simpler terms, one does not make the other a viable theory, especially when Lovecraft’s work was a lot more consistent, while Stephen King has tackled a multitude of genres, topics, and themes throughout his career.

That diverse portfolio may be why Stephen King doesn’t have some niche conspiracy tied to him like Lovecraft (the theory that he killed John Lennon notwithstanding). However, given the rather cosmic-sounding nature of the entire Dark Tower series, I would think that a theory like the one Fez proposed would have something of a cult following, especially with Stephen King not only being alive but very active on Twitter (no, I will not call it “X”).

Now, admittedly, this could also be my fault. I was unable to find anything online about the theory. That leads me to suspect this is a pet theory of Fez’s. If it is, I won’t judge. I’d rather have a greater understanding of what Fez was saying before I do that.

At the same time, without any additional examples to go off of, this story sounds more like an isolated incident rather than some sort of vision. Perhaps reading the books would help me understand, but I doubt that a small group of people out of the billions on Earth would be chosen to see the “Breakers” as they march over a hill while bearing it all. Also, now that I think about it, I want to know how giant hamster wheels will help them destroy the titular Dark Tower. I imagine that explosives would be more efficient, right?

Whatever; I digress. As it stands, this—along with the claim that Lovecraft’s work is nonfiction—seems like a niche theory that people who are super deep into the supernatural and Fortean may subscribe to. Personally, I don’t buy into it, but I also want to learn more about it before I outright label it as bunk; my philosophy is to always hear someone out before I dismiss their claim[s] as nonsense.

As for you, dear reader, I think your mileage will vary drastically on whether or not Shessus saw the Breakers on their television. Don’t ask me why the vision ended when they changed the channel because I have no clue. Maybe their weakness is episodes of Anderson Cooper 360°.

On one final note, if there are other people who think that horror authors are prophets or anything of the sort, I really want to find a place to research it so I can write about it. This is incredibly bizarre to read but fascinating all the same. It’s something that I would love to write about; I’d also love to know if any other authors of any other genres have spawned theories like this. And before anyone says anything, L. Ron Hubbard doesn’t count.

Anyway, with that trip into the realm of the niche out of the way, let’s move on to the next theory.

3. A ghost

This theory is yet another one that Shessus alluded to. In this case, it was when they mentioned if this may have been “something sinister.” Normally, I would completely disregard this and save myself the trouble of addressing a theory like this. However, last year, I wrote about the case of The Television Demon, which involved a man who said he saw a creepy face on his television. It walked toward the screen and then said, “I got you!” So, with some level of precedent existing on this blog, I believe this warrants being included.

I can’t believe that story set a precedent I now feel obligated to follow. Out of all the stories I covered last year, that’s the one to hold the honor of forcing my hand in some capacity. 

This theory is really simple—so simple, in fact, that I’m going to do all I can to rush through it. If you have even the faintest understanding of paranormal lore, you’ll know that ghosts are said to affect electronics of all kinds. They can make radios and televisions crackle, lights flicker, and they can turn electrical and electronic devices on and off. They do this because they need energy in order to manifest, and electricity gives it to them. They’re basically Tesla Cybertrucks, but they don’t need to be recalled every other day.

Additionally, there are some who claim that ghosts are capable of traveling through various electronic devices like phones and televisions. I’m certain there are others out there, like radios, but those are the two I’ve seen mentioned the most, with televisions being the most prominent when it comes to ghosts entering the mortal plane.

Now, to be upfront, I’m an ardent believer in ghosts. I’ve made that more than apparent in the past; I am a staunch believer in them. However, I always approach cases involving them with the mindset of rationally explaining them before jumping to the conclusion that what was seen was a supernatural entity. I think it’s the most logical thing to do since approaching it with a biased mindset will result in said biases blinding me.

Unfortunately, that really isn’t possible here. It’s not because there’s an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of it having been ghosts, though. Rather, it sounds like there was no paranormal activity that occurred before, during, or after the broadcast. All we have is that Shessus said they felt dark and evil. If all it takes for there to be proof that ghosts are influencing my television is feeling that the image on the screen is evil, then every broadcast during Alex Murdaugh’s trial should’ve been a portal to Hell.

That said, it certainly isn’t the weirdest theory out there. As stated earlier, ghosts are said to affect electronics. Perhaps, against all odds, this was a peak into something akin to Purgatory; maybe Shessus and a few other Redditors were granted access to a glimpse into the hereafter. Is it likely? Well, even though I’m a devout Roman Catholic, I wouldn’t say so. However, I firmly believe that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun speculation. After all, what is life without some fun?

Ultimately, this theory hinges heavily on whether or not you believe in ghosts. If you do, you might find yourself attracted to it. If you think ghosts are a load of nonsense, then the fact you’re reading this theory flatters me because I half-expected you to scroll past this one. So, if you happen to be one of those folks, thank you. It means a lot that you’ve taken the time to read every word that I typed. However, there are still many other theories left, so let’s keep the momentum going!

4. A hoax

Well, if it isn’t my old nemesis: the hoax theory. If you didn’t read the Decemystery duology last year, let me quickly explain something. This theory was in practically every write-up, and I felt the need to address the most common reasons why it may or may not be plausible: Was there any money to be made, was there any fame to be gained, was there a point to be made by screwing with believers in the paranormal and supernatural, or any combination of the three?

More often than not, the answer would be a resounding “no” across the board. This was because the sites I went to had the submissions as anonymous, were buried beneath a mountain of countless other reports, or the level of detail didn’t align with what one would expect out of a hoax. They were either too low-effort or had way too much effort put into them. In hindsight, I think I need to reevaluate how I view hoaxes because I was likely too dismissive on a few occasions, but I digress.

Despite that, excluding would be a terrible idea. When it comes to the stories that I cover, there’s a real possibility they could be hoaxes. It isn’t like this blog is strictly dedicated to unsolved crimes, which are irrefutably true. It’s dedicated to all sorts of things, and that means I need to cover my bases as much as I can, even if it means repeating myself.

That said, I would say things are a bit different with today’s story. This is because it originates from Reddit, an Internet forum (of sorts; I sometimes think Reddit is its own beast in the way of what it is), so a plethora of other people would have seen this and likely commented. That would be perfect to prove a point that the paranormal community is filled with gullible people—assuming this person was an ardent opponent of the paranormal and other topics like it.

This doesn’t seem too likely, though. Much earlier in the write-up, I mentioned looking up Shessus’ profile on Reddit itself, which I did. I ended up finding that they posted in the ADHD, Retcon (which is apparently dedicated to something like the Mandela Effect), and some personality type subreddits.

Now, look, I never interacted with Shessus; I have no idea how they acted or if they had some sort of ulterior motive that I didn’t know about. That wouldn’t be fair to them in the slightest, especially when nuances and tonalities can and often are lost in posts on the Internet.

However, given where Shessus posted and the lack of any posts that go against what they posted, I would say that there’s nothing to indicate they were out to prove any point. It sounds like they were genuine in their beliefs. But take this with a grain of salt; I’m about as accurate in my assessment of things as the weatherman is.

Compounding this is the issue of the other Redditors who claim they also saw the broadcast. At first glance, it’s easy to say that, yes, their testimonies disprove this theory. Unfortunately, the number of details given by the folks who responded is minimal, so we’re left having to trust the words of strangers on the Internet blindly. That’s a callous thing to do, especially on the Internet. That’s why I do my best to treat each story I cover as neither fact nor fiction—unless I can prove otherwise.

Alternatively, you could chalk this up to Shessus misremembering things, and I would be inclined to agree. However, that’s an entirely separate theory, and it’s one that would take far too long to discuss in even the smallest level of detail here. So, just know that it is exceedingly plausible—but it’s not the be-all, end-all of this story. 

With all of that said, there’s nothing inherently stopping Shessus from having pulled off a prank out of boredom, though. While that isn’t likely, this isn’t unprecedented on Reddit. Sure, there’s no fifteen minutes of fame and no sleight of hand against those who believe in the paranormal or anything else of that sort. However, this is Reddit. While it isn’t exactly 4chan, it’s not a novelty to see people troll for the one-off laugh.

Additionally, you might have noticed that I excluded “no financial gain” from the examples. That’s because, on Reddit, there’s the Karma system. Some subreddits require a certain amount of Karma before you can post in them.

For those who are unfamiliar with Reddit, or at least Reddit’s Karma system, it’s basically a points system. There’s Post Karma and Comment Karma. The former is gained when a post you make gets an upvote, while the latter is gained from a comment being upvoted. Likewise, you lose a point if either is downvoted.

The reason I bring this up is because accounts with a high amount of Karma have also been sold for money. While that doesn’t appear to have been the case with Shessus’ account—given it appears their account was active as recently as December 6, 2020—I believe it’s worth keeping in mind.

With the incentive to make a bit of money off of Reddit accounts or because they vehemently dislike the moderation and administration of the site, some Redditors have outright posted fake stories to certain subreddits to prove a point; these stories are typically posted on confession or political subreddits to prove Reddit’s biases. Hey, that’s barely a degree of separation from one of the other boxes that need to be checked to set off my unpatented Hoax Alarm!

One example of this is a story that was posted some years back on a subreddit I sadly cannot remember. Regardless, I recall the post garnered tens of thousands of upvotes, and the poster later said it was fake by saying something along the lines of, “Thanks for the free Karma, idiots.” I wasn’t a part of the subreddit in question (I found out about it through a crosspost on another subreddit I was subscribed to), and I was impressed at how the original poster managed to emotionally manipulate an entire Reddit community so effectively.

It’s because of posts like that that I’m inclined to give a bit more leeway to this theory. However, if the lack of a readily available source doesn’t sway you, there’s one other case of what amounts to a made-up Internet mystery that I can provide you with.

On February 21, 2015, a user on 4chan’s /x/ board posted about a mysterious and extremely disturbing deep web anime that they believed was entitled “Go For a Punch.” If that name doesn’t ring a bell, the more colloquial name of “Saki Sanobashi” might.

If that still doesn’t ring any bells, here’s a quick summary of it. Supposedly, it was an anime that looked to have been made in the 1980s. It featured a group of naked schoolgirls who were naked in a bathroom that had no doors. They were “having a philosophical debate about never getting out of the room.” 

By all accounts, this would be a very run-of-the-mill art project about the nature of being trapped in some situation or dead-end job. No idea what the nudity represents, but I digress. The days go by, and the girls start losing hope. Starvation and general madness consume them, leading the girls to start screaming and yelling. I’m pretty sure the reverberation from the bathroom would cause them a great deal of pain, but I digress.

After the aimless screaming and yelling fail to capture anyone’s attention, the actions the girls take are a lot more gruesome. The poster claims that the girls started committing suicide one by one by either “smashing their heads against the floor or scratching their necks to bloody pieces.” I must admit that there is some genuinely intense and visceral imagery, and it sounds like something you would see in a horror anime.

In another instance, one girl tried to drown another girl at her request but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Interestingly, this part has an inconsistency in the original post; it starts off by insinuating the drowning was successful but then says it wasn’t. It’s nothing major, but I noticed it when rereading the post for this write-up.

Anyway, I’ve considered writing about this case for a couple of years now, but I’ve decided to forego it each time because the story itself has been covered to death. I also don’t particularly care that much for the story, so I’d rather not dedicate my time to something that I’d feel detached from.

My personal feelings aside, Saki Sanobashi is a prime example of someone making up an Internet mystery on an open forum to send bright-eyed Internet sleuths on a wild goose chase for laughs. In the case of Saki, the original poster went to Reddit to say it was all a hoax, but this hasn’t stopped people from holding out hope that it’s real. Personally, I think it’s a hoax; it sounds like someone who took the premise of the first Saw film but turned it into an anime.

While some may say that the odds of other Redditors playing along are a bit slim, given their accounts are publicly available, there are plenty of people who make throwaway accounts for posting certain things on specific subreddits (like the aforementioned confession subreddits). So, if someone had a burner account, they could’ve played along with Shessus’ post for laughs.

Then again, those who did chime in to say they’d seen the broadcast makes me skeptical. It isn’t impossible that those people were suffering from a false memory (like in the case of the infamous “Line From Nowhere”) after reading Shessus’ description of the broadcast. Trust me when I say that human memory sucks; it’s so imperfect that I found one study that showed eyewitness testimony as being more unreliable than it is reliable.

Although I believe the evidence for this theory leans more toward it not being the case, I also believe it’s hard to deny the example of Saki Sanobashi as proof that websites like Reddit—and obviously 4chan—are perfect for making a story up to screw with people for the heck of it.

At the same time, the other people who say they saw it are hard to overlook. It’s worth noting that other users on 4chan came forward claiming to have seen Saki Sanobashi, too, but they were all proven to be hoaxes. While 4chan and Reddit are very different sites in many ways, there is precedent for users playing along to keep others going on a wild goose chase.

Then again, those aforementioned differences extend to how users behave. I can’t name an incident like Saki Sanobashi off the top of my head on Reddit. So, unless this is the equivalent to that case, it’s a tame one.

Because of these clashing aspects, I’m going to leave this ball in your court, dear reader. It feels like it could realistically go both ways; I doubt it’s the answer, but I see absolutely no reason to completely disregard it, either.

On one final note, I want to briefly address one aspect of Saki Sanobashi/Go For a Punch that really bothers me now that I’ve written about it. Namely, the part about one girl attempting to drown another.

Maybe it’s my attention to weird details like this, but if someone or something put these girls into this bathroom, why did they take the time to set up sinks? Or was the attempted drowning in the toilet bowl? Regardless, that requires a plumbing system. I have so many questions about the logistics of a non-existent anime now.

Oh well, whatever. Perhaps those questions will motivate me to write about it one day. Until then, let’s move on to the next theory, which features considerably less visceral imagery.

5. Some bizarre short that Nickelodeon broadcasted or a part of an episode to one of their shows

You know, as silly as this theory sounds, it wouldn’t be that absurd. I mean, they did broadcast that revolting SpongeBob SquarePants episode “The Splinter.”

For our fifth theory, we have the idea that Nickelodeon intentionally aired whatever it was Shessus saw. I’m going to be upfront with you all and say that this is unfathomably unlikely for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, if this case took place in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would’ve raised hell for broadcasting something so inappropriate on a children’s network. I’m sorry, but there isn’t. You cannot convince me otherwise.

Even if it occurred outside of the United States, various television regulation committees wouldn’t have taken kindly to broadcasting something like this for children. At least, I sincerely doubt it. While there is the exception of something like Adult Swim, Nickelodeon lacks something aimed at adults. TeenNick is the most I can name off the top of my head, and I have no idea if they aired SpongeBob for it. I recall shows like Degrassi taking up slots.

The second is that I can’t name any show or broadcast like this. I was nine years old in 2005, and I recall being big on Nickelodeon. Now, granted, I was also prone to going to sleep very early (at the time, I would fall asleep around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.; that’s 19:00 or 20:00 for my 24-hour time readers), so it’s possible I missed the broadcast.

However, since Shessus never gave us a timeframe for when this happened outside of having spent the day with their friends, it could have been the late afternoon, evening, or the dead of night. I’m sure there’s some fringe website out there that has the lineup of what Nickelodeon aired in 2005, or there’s a copy of TV Guide, but I’m not about to seek it out when it’s already taken me weeks to reach this point in the write-up.

What I can say is, if I’m to be as liberal as possible, I would say that there is the slightest possibility this might have been from another show outside of SpongeBob. My guess would be a weird sketch from an episode of another show like The Amanda Show or some other teen-centric show that I can’t remember because I never got into TeenNick. If I’m to be honest, by the time I became a teenager, World of Warcraft consumed my life, and television became a thing of the past for me.

At the same time, this could be chalked up to whatever show it was a part of being edited after its initial airing. While that may sound like a copout, it’s been known to happen.

A prime example of this is with the SpongeBob SquarePants episode Just One Bite. By the end of the episode, Squidward falls in love with Krabby Patties after repeatedly saying he hates them; even cephalopods cannot resist the greatness of greasy fast food. Anyway, unable to satisfy his craving for a Krabby Patty, he decides to do the only logical thing by breaking into the Krusty Krab to eat a vault full of the restaurant’s flagship meal.

Upon entering the front door, he’s covered in gasoline (as Mr. Krabs set a bucket of it above the front entrance) and then set on fire with a lit match that’s dropped by a mechanical arm. Upon entering the kitchen, where SpongeBob works, a second bucket falls. This results in Squidward being burned more, resulting in a second explosion. All is well, though, because he has main character immunity, and he then sees the “Patty Vault.” You can view it below.

Although this scene is far from the most extreme thing to ever be seen in a cartoon, it was edited out in later airings of the episode due to Nickelodeon’s “Standards and Practices” viewing it as easy to imitate.

For those who don’t know, Standards and Practices is a department that enforces a set of rules that television networks follow in the United States. I’m pretty sure every country has something similar, but I digress. These rules are made to make sure things aren’t egregious or unfair (like in the case of game shows). If you’re interested in learning more about them, here’s the Wikipedia article for your reading pleasure.

Anyway, let’s get back on track. Although the scene was nixed due to Nickelodeon’s own Standards and Practices, it was initially thought it was cut due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks; heck, the SpongeBob Wiki mentions both as reasons for the edit. I’m inclined to believe the easy-to-imitate reason is more likely because kids are prone to reckless behavior. It’s amazing that the decision to nix the scene wasn’t made beforehand, and it was only reconsidered after the episode aired (presumably more than once!)

This isn’t the only instance of something like this happening on Nickelodeon, let alone the whole of television. In the case of the former, other SpongeBob episodes have had miscellaneous things edited out, like a reference to the infamous “Red Mist” creepypasta—better known as Squidward’s Suicide. That reference was also removed due to Nickelodeon’s Standards and Practices but has apparently remained intact on the Nick App. That fact makes about as much sense as the actual creepypasta.

Assuming what Shessus saw was something that got edited or censored after its initial airing, it would stand to reason that it violated Nickelodeon’s aforementioned Standards and Practices in some capacity. The only question would be how. Common sense would dictate that it may have had to do with the eeriness, the people in the footage appearing nude (unless they were wearing the skin-colored unitards), how it simply didn’t fit what was broadcasted on Nickelodeon, or any combination of the three.

All three possibilities are extremely plausible, though the skin-colored unitards would make the most sense—assuming that this story occurred in the United States, Nudity in a lot of television media is stingy, and Nickelodeon had second thoughts about people mistaking the people walking for being naked, they wouldn’t have hesitated to cut the scene from future broadcasts.

Alas, there’s nothing to indicate that this was a part of any show that Nickelodeon was broadcasting. Given that Shessus mentioned how SpongeBob was on after switching back to Nickelodeon, the only two possibilities I can think of are that this was part of a commercial (more on this later) or a SpongeBob episode that was edited. The latter is highly improbable, in my eyes, given SpongeBob’s fanbase is not only gargantuan but has gone out of its way to document practically everything about the show that it can.

With all of that in mind, I don’t think the theory is necessarily impossible. I mean, there’s nothing dictating that it is. Even though SpongeBob’s history is extremely well-documented, it isn’t impossible for something to slip through the cracks. It’s happened countless times with other shows, and it will undoubtedly happen countless more times with television programs in the future.

That said, if you asked me if I would be willing to put money on this being the answer to the case, I would not hesitate to say “no.” Sorry to those of you hoping that this was a case of Nickelodeon’s dark side coming out to play. There are always the hundreds of SpongeBob creepypastas you can read, though! Anyway, it’s time to move on to the next theory; it’s quickly becoming a classic on this blog. I’m sure if you’ve scrolled far enough, you can already tell what it is.

6. An interdimensional broadcast

Ah, yes, the interdimensional theories are back! If any of you read Decemystery 2022.3 or Decemystery 2023, you’ll know that this theory—along with a few variations—was so prevalent that I occasionally slipped it in when it had no business being in there. In this case, however, it’s 100% serious because Shessus themselves brought up the possibility.

The idea of receiving television signals from parallel universes and alternate dimensions is not a novel concept. It’s been the basis for horror stories—including a pretty entertaining creepypasta entitled The Other Network. It’s about an alternate universe’s version of Google—Patriot Search—and how absolutely awful that universe is. It’s a shame that Channel Zero got the ax all those years ago. That story would’ve made for a great season.

However, that’s a creepypasta; it’s a work of fiction meant to scare you the same way that campfire stories are meant to scare you. We’re discussing an alleged real-life case of someone who theorized that they received a television broadcast from another dimension or universe. Is there any precedent for such a thing?

I dunno; I’ve never heard of anything like this.

Yeah, as comically casual and anticlimactic as that may be, I genuinely don’t know. I can’t name a single case I’ve read in my 28 years alive where someone claimed they saw a television broadcast from another dimension, reality, universe, or anything of that nature. At most, I’ve heard the plethora of stories surrounding the so-called “Mandela Effect,” with people claiming they saw an alternate version of some movie or television show; the dialogue was different, a scene was off, or something else like that.

Those cases are, in my eyes, not the same. The Mandela Effect and Shessus’ “Hamster Wheel Broadcast” don’t align since the latter lacks any precise discernible point of origin. So, that leaves me with a massive blank. The idea of reality shifting to where you can pick up a television signal from another dimension sounds outlandish. Granted, I don’t know theoretical science, nor do I know how radio waves work. So, hey, maybe there’s some hypothesis out there that makes this less unbelievable to someone like me.

Because of this, I don’t feel confident in trying to make that many arguments for or against this theory. The only one that I can make is why only a handful of televisions picked up the signal. That strikes me as oddly specific and a bit too convenient. However, given that this would involve some interdimensional shenanigans and a lot of sciencey stuff that I wouldn’t understand, I will pretend it has an explanation.

That aside, the only other thing I feel confident doing is repeating what I said numerous times last year; the idea of alternate realities and dimensions is by no means a novel concept, and plenty of people have theorized about their existence but cannot prove it. So, without any concrete proof, it’s entirely on you if you think there are others out there.

With this theory, that stance is no different. Personally, I doubt it. While I think it’s possible for other universes to exist, I don’t believe there are interdimensional beings broadcasting their art projects to us humans. If it was accidentally picked up due to our reality overlapping with another, I have to question why a select few people got it and not an entire town.

If I can give the theory anything, it’s certainly disturbing. Something about the idea of an interdimensional broadcast being picked up sends a shiver down my spine. So, hey, it can take that to the bank and cash it for all it’s worth.

In short, unless Nickelodeon was having unnaturally lower viewership at the time, I doubt this was the case. Don’t worry, my interdimensional friends. There are still 31 Decemystery stories after this one. You’ll definitely have your time to shine.

7. A dream

These dreams go on when I close my eyes; every second of the night, I live another life on a giant hamster wheel.

The idea that this was nothing more than a dream is one that I would argue could explain countless strange memories like the ones we discussed in this write-up. After all, dreams are nothing if not prone to making little sense. Seriously, some of my dreams are just a mishmash of incoherent imagery that reminds me of what I’d paint as a child. Yes, five-year-old me, the Rorschach-inspired splotches of watercolor paint definitely created a dragon.

At first glance, this theory sounds extremely plausible. Shessus said they came home from spending the day with their friends; while we don’t know what time, the fact they grabbed some snacks and went to bed would indicate to me that it was at least the afternoon. Having a younger sister who was a teenager once, I can attest to how easy it is for a teenager to fall asleep anywhere that isn’t a bed of nails.

Given this fact, it’s possible that Shessus achieved such a feat and nodded off. During their snooze, they may have accidentally leaned on the remote, thus changing the channel. To what, exactly? I have no idea, but if they awoke late at night, they may have seen a part of a show or short being aired by Adult Swim.

By all accounts, this sounds perfectly plausible to me. However, like any house of cards, it’s easily destroyed. In this case, it’s due to one factor.

Shessus wasn’t the only person to see the broadcast.

The idea that a multitude of other people had the same dream at—or around—the same time sounds like the setup for a supernatural horror story rather than a legitimate mystery. In fact, it already is in the form of a social experiment and an unmade movie known as This Man.

Now, to be perfectly fair, there is a story that I’ll be covering later this month that involves two people (a mother and son) who had the exact same dream. I won’t go into detail since I don’t want to digress into a completely different case and because I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but the two had the same disturbing nightmare on multiple occasions. So, there is some level of precedent for people having the same dream.

However, that story is a lot more paranormal in nature. In Shessus’ case, everything sounds like it was corporeal in nature; as I said earlier, it doesn’t appear that there were any spooky ghosts at work here.

I suppose if you wanted, you could argue that the other Redditors were misremembering things (more on that in a bit) and took other, similar things they’d seen (be it while awake or in a dream) and warped them into something like what Shessus had seen. In that case, this theory becomes a lot more likely.

The problem there is that we’re then stretching the theory in a way that makes it look like we’re performing mental gymnastics to explain away the story rather than a simple explanation. The theory is that it was a dream, not something overly complex like Tenet. While I’m certainly guilty of making theories overly complicated (I’m sure people can call me out for that with this write-up), I doubt this theory is what we’re looking for. Though a YouTuber I’m fond of, Sourcebrew, disagreed when he made a video about “Unidentified Lost Media.” I wonder what he’d think of this write-up.

Also, yes, I got the idea for the title of this write-up from his video (which was the name of the entry on the iceberg, which itself was made by a user named “semydeus”). I just changed one word since I thought “broadcast” sounded better than “incident.”

That aside, that’s all there is to the theory. If I keep going on, I’ll begin talking in circles. So, let’s move on to one that I’m sure you’ve been waiting for for most of this write-up.

8. A false memory

So, you know all that time we spent discussing the stories of Jack and I_love_pillows? How about Jane’s comment? Do you remember that? If you do, then this theory is the reason we discussed them—along with all of the others I went over. For the eighth theory, we have the idea that Shessus’ experience—and those of the other Redditors—was nothing more than a false memory.

For those who don’t know, false memories are when you misremember how something happened or outright recall things that never happened. The term has a broad definition and has seen a rise in recognition thanks to the Mandela Effect.

False memories are not an automatic sign of anything bad. They’re a product of the imperfection that is human memory. They can be incredibly innocuous, like incorrectly remembering what you had for dinner a few days ago or thinking that you visited somewhere years back when you didn’t.

In the case of this theory, the idea is that Shessus incorrectly remembered what they’d seen. Possibilities include but are not limited to that it was a short film on Adult Swim (more on this in the next theory—which I’ve been biting my tongue on discussing for a long time now), a commercial (again, more on this in a later theory), a scene in a video game, or video on the Internet. I can barely remember what was on the Internet in 2005, but given that MySpace was a thing and Shessus was sixteen, I’m willing to wager a pretty penny that they had an account.

Given that Shessus was posting about this a dozen years after it initially happened, I doubt the memory was that clear. But, hey, why discuss this in detail? There’s little to gain from going into the science of it all when I lack the credentials to explain it. So, instead, I will do something more unique; I will give you all a first-hand example of how good human memory is from twelve years ago!

As insinuated earlier, I am 28 years old; I’m the same age that Shessus would have been—or been close to—when they posted about the broadcast. Twelve years ago was 2012. Let’s see, what do I remember from 2012? Well, I recall the hype surrounding the Mayan Calendar ending. I also beta-tested World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, which was the first time I partook in a beta test of any sort. I also saw The Avengers, which was cool; a guy cheered when Thanos was teased. That always stuck with me as a really endearing moment.

I also recall seeing The Dark Knight Rises in IMAX. That was the very first time I ever stepped foot into an IMAX theater. It was the day after the Aurora, Colorado, shooting, so I remember being quite tense and nervous. I was also in excruciating levels of pain due to my scoliosis; I remember going to a Barnes & Noble with my father after the film and sitting on the floor of the store because my back hurt so much.

As a result of that pain, my enjoyment of The Dark Knight Rises was soured greatly. It would take a decade before I’d rewatch the movie and come around to appreciate it on any level outside of the 4chan memes of the film’s prologue.

Now, all of these memories are quite clear in my mind. So that proves Shessus wasn’t misremembering things, right? Well, hold the phone because I have one other example, and it’s one that really messed with me.

Another movie I saw in 2012 was Sinister. That movie scared the living daylights out of me; I remember seeing it and staying up nearly all night for fear of having night terrors. Funnily enough, when I did get to sleep (at something like 4:00 in the morning), I didn’t have nightmares. However, this year, I had a slew of nightmares about Kayako Saeki from the Ju-On/Grudge series for no discernible reason. Funny how dreams work.

Anyway, why am I bringing this up? Well, as I said, SInister scared me—a lot. There was one scene, in particular, that was quite distressing, and I think those who have seen the movie can easily guess which scene it is. If you can’t, it’s the in-movie snuff film Lawn Work ‘86.

For those unfamiliar with Sinister, it’s a film about a family that moves into a house. This house is marked for death by the demon Bughuul (whose name is spelled in so many different ways that it’s not even funny). Anyway, Bughuul’s whole schtick is that he targets the youngest child of the family and corrupts them, forcing them to murder their family on camera.

Throughout the movie, these snuff films are viewed by the main character—Ellison (played by Ethan Hawke)—as he researches the various murders. Each film, which has a title that’s a morbid play on how the family was killed, along with the year of the murder, is quiet, horrific, and deeply unsettling.

With that in mind, let’s discuss Lawn Work ‘86. This is one of the movie’s biggest scares—if not its biggest. In the snuff film, an unseen cameraman is recording a family that’s watching television inside of their house. It then cuts to a shed door opening, followed by a lawnmower aimlessly mowing a lawn until a shot of a child’s head appears, followed by a loud jump scare noise.

Unsurprisingly, the scene was quite terrifying for a multitude of reasons—not the least of which was the dead silence that filled the theater until the shriek. But that’s beside the point. For the longest time, I recall the scene being drastically different.

The way I remembered it was that it was a full-frame shot during the late afternoon (I thought this because the film was grainy, but that could have been due to the snuff movies being shot on 8mm film). In the shot was a family; they were lying down side by side on their backyard lawn. A lawnmower on the right side of the shot is turned on by itself and then slowly advances toward them, running over their heads one by one.

Imagine my bewilderment when I rewatched the scene, but it wasn’t this way. I was utterly flabbergasted—and also jumped into the exosphere thanks to the jump scare. I was so certain that it was the way I’d just described in the paragraph above; even as I type this, I can remember it clearly! It’s like it happened yesterday, honestly.

Now, does any of this sound familiar? If it does, it’s essentially the same mentality that Shessus and the other Redditors had. Adamancy about something that happened, despite enough time having passed to allow for the memory to become distorted.

As much as people hate to admit it, things like this happen all the time. That’s the nature of human memory. Trust me when I say I’ve been the victim of its imperfection countless times. I’ve forgotten where I left my glasses when they’ve been in the same spot for days on end despite having seen them numerous times. They don’t blend in with anything; I just forget where they are. It’s that simple.

But enough about that. There’s an elephant in the room that I should address. Namely, how did I remember the other things in 2012 with clarity, but I didn’t remember this one scene from Sinister accurately? Well, there are a few reasons. Some can be very reasonably argued as making my example flawed, while others are undoubtedly anecdotal.

Let’s start with the flaws. The first is that the movie truly scared me; more than once, I covered my face out of fear, and I believe that Lawn Work ‘86 was one part where I covered my face. So, you can immediately argue that not having seen the entire thing was a major reason that I misremembered it—and I fully agree. That’s a perfectly valid reason to doubt it.

To be honest, I would actually say that my false memory is likely due to me combining the footage of the family watching television before the lawnmower with the opening scene, which is of a family being hanged in their backyard by an unseen force. It’s quite easy to get two things mixed up, especially during stressful situations, and Sinister was nothing if not stressful.

The main reason I ended up covering my face during the snuff films was because of the near-total silence during them. The most noise during them is low, ambient music. Even then, it was so faint in the theater that it was like I was suffering from sensory deprivation, which created a sense of anxiety so severe that I had a panic attack. If I’m not mistaken, I wasn’t the only one to experience this. I vaguely recall a woman behind me kept begging her boyfriend to leave.

Because I was cowering in fear, I fully accept if you doubt the argument I tried to present. However, I do have an idea as to why I misremembered that scene from Sinister. Namely, I was fully lucid and level-headed while watching The Avengers and beta-testing World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.

Even with The Dark Knight Rises, despite the distressing pain I experienced from my scoliosis at the time, I had always wanted to go to an IMAX theater ever since the 2006 documentary Roving Mars came out (I was a space nerd as a youngling). Going to one for the first time and seeing that gargantuan screen was mindblowing to 16-year-old me. Too bad my spine had to ruin things.

In the case of Sinister, though, I was effectively having a panic attack because I was a scaredy cat who found the movie distressing. By the end, I was in shock from how much I’d been frightened and spent the ride home staring vacantly out the window. The only reason I recall this is because my dad teased me about being scared. Funnily enough, I’ve since become a lot better with horror films, and it’s almost entirely thanks to Sinister, but I digress.

While I can’t compare my experience directly to Shessus’, the fact they mentioned staring blankly at the television screen is reminiscent of how I’ve been watching some other movies. Much earlier in the write-up, I mentioned The Passion of the Christ because I wasn’t fazed by it while watching it due to shock. I would argue that Sinister caused something similar.

What I’m getting is that the shock of the experience caused the memory to become distorted, and I would argue that’s very probable with what happened to Shessus. Shock, fear, anxiety, and all sorts of other negative emotions can distort memories because you aren’t thinking clearly.

Also, if I couldn’t correctly remember a scene of a family being run over by a lawnmower in what I consider the scariest film I’ve ever seen, I doubt Shessus or anyone else in that post remembered a few minutes of an odd television broadcast a dozen years later.

Now, with all of that said, there is one issue with this theory. Namely, what about the other users who claimed they saw the broadcast—and what of the other users whose stories I went over? Well, that’s where I must simultaneously concede a bit of ground but also try to make my own argument.

In the way of conceding ground, I have to stress that I am not a psychologist, nor have I received any formal—or even basic—education in the human mind. All that I know is from my own experiences as a simple man living his not-so-simple life in the United States and from reading and hearing things as he’s lived that not-so-simple life. I can only present what I’ve experienced, be it first-hand, second-hand, or twelfth-hand, to you through this blog.

At the same time, I would like to argue that the other users may have incorrectly remembered other things they had seen in their lives while reading Shessus’ case. My evidence for this is in the form of the “Line From Nowhere” that I mentioned earlier in the write-up. To this day, it’s one of my favorite things to pull on friends and people I meet. I didn’t quote the line earlier, so allow me to do so now.

“So, what does it do?”

“That’s the beauty of it! It doesn’t do anything!”

More often than not, the answer I get is that it sounds familiar. The truth is, the line (as its name implies) isn’t from any known piece of media; it flat-out does not exist. It has, however, since been referenced, such as in an episode of Phineas and Ferb.

The reason I bring this up is because this line is a prime example of a false memory. The only time I’ve ever had people properly identify it is when they outright know it doesn’t exist or they Google it before answering (though one person remembered it from the episode of Phineas and Ferb).

Outside of those exceptions, the dozens of people I’ve mentioned it to have spent time thinking and claiming to have heard it somewhere. In one instance, a very close friend of mine thought I was gaslighting her by saying that the line wasn’t from anywhere. In another, a friend practically had an existential crisis because he swore up and down he had heard it in a cartoon as a child.

With that in mind, I believe this is the perfect example of how a false memory can be “planted” into someone’s mind. My theory is that the other Redditors read Shessus’ account and, with the imagery and overall story in their mind, may have been purposefully trying to remember what Shessus saw. In doing so, they inadvertently deluded themselves into thinking they saw the hamster wheel broadcast when they had seen something different.

This doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me. If I had to take a shot in the dark, I would be adamant in saying that I could achieve something similar if I tried to remember something from long ago that I saw or heard in a movie, video game cutscene, or television show. If you were to find yourself trying to remember something, I would put good money on you inadvertently creating a memory rather than actually recalling one.

Of course, as stated earlier, I don’t have any education in psychology, memory, or anything of that sort. All of this is purely based on what I know and have experienced; for all I know, I’m so far off base that I’m spouting pseudoscience. If I am, then I welcome any corrections so I don’t make the same mistake in the future. However, as it stands, it makes enough sense to sound plausible, and I thought it was worth bringing up.

Despite that, I would still name this as the most likely theory—by association, anyway. Shessus experienced this broadcast twelve years prior to talking about it. While it’s probable they thought about it throughout those twelve years, that doesn’t mean the memory was fresh in their mind. Memories can still become distorted thanks to the course of time, even if the event occurred a mere hour prior.

As an example, I saw a cockroach a week or so ago, and when I think about it, the disgusting thing is always a lot bigger than it actually was. This is despite me having taken a picture of it to show my friends (because I’m a horrible friend who likes to tease them, despite me saying I cherish them). This likely happened because of my massive fear of insects; my brain imagined the thing having been larger than it actually was.

My point is that the reliability of Shessus’ words after twelve years isn’t exactly high. This isn’t a strike against them, mind you. It’s the unfortunate truth of how the human brain and memory are both fallible. So, don’t think that this theory is strictly a dismissal of Shessus’s entire story. No, that false memory must have come from somewhere, and that’s where the next two theories come into play.

Indeed, while this is a theory on its own, it’s technically the product of something else. I briefly considered having both theories be a part of this, but given the sheer length of this theory on its own, I thought that it would make this nearly unreadable. Plus, there’s enough material in those two theories to warrant their own dedicated sections.

9. A broadcast on another channel

Remember all the way during the recounting of the main story when I alluded to Cartoon Network? This theory is why. I’ve been biting my tongue for a while, resisting the urge to go on a tangent about how Shessus’ experience was nothing more than a broadcast from another channel. The most likely candidate is Cartoon Network.

Yeah, I didn’t telegraph that one from a few thousand light-years away.

The reason I suspect it to be Cartoon Network is thanks to their late-night programming block, Adult Swim. As far as I know, that began airing around 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. Eastern time (22:00 or 23:00 for my 24-hour time readers) in 2005. It’s since gained a few hours, now beginning airing around 7:00 p.m. Eastern time (19:00 for my previously-mentioned 24-hour time readers).

Now, admittedly, airing at 10:00 p.m. does put a hole in this theory right off the bat. Given that Shessus was sixteen, I would wager that they had a curfew of some sort. Of course, this could be disregarded if it was summer, the weekend, or if their parents were lenient with how long they stayed out. For the sake of argument, we’ll assume that it was summer, so Shessus was allowed to stay out later than normal.

Given that Shessus said they returned home after spending the day with their friends, my immediate thought is that they arrived home at night. Assuming they did, it’s possible they accidentally turned into Adult Swim, mistakenly thinking they had left their television on Nickelodeon.

Although Shessus claimed they knew that they’d kept their television on Nickelodeon, I want to cite the imperfection of human memory; that’s why I spent so much of the previous theory going over it. I can’t remember which channel I saw the most disturbing commercials on (more on this in the next theory). I highly doubt that Shessus recalled what they’d watched earlier that day as if it happened ten minutes prior to them making the post.

Even if it did remain clear, I doubt Shessus could remember every key detail. I also doubt that I’ll remember writing most of this by the time it goes up. I sure as heck won’t remember it a dozen years from now in 2036! I don’t even remember writing last year’s Decemystery. Whenever I go back to reread them, I think to myself, “Huh, I don’t recall writing this. Cool.”

Anyway, back to Adult Swim. For those who aren’t familiar with Adult Swim, it’s Cartoon Network’s nighttime programming block (I know, that’s a major shock; it’s not like I said it starts airing at night). It airs adult-centric cartoons—such as Aqua Team Hunger Force and Robot Chicken—until the early morning when Cartoon Network itself returns to broadcasting. We’ll get more into Adult Swim’s content in a moment.

However, it isn’t just cartoons that Adult Swim is known for. It’s also famous for some bizarre animations and shorts and bumpers. I think the perfect example of this is the famous “The Dawn is Your Enemy” bumper, which inspired a creepypasta about it. Although the creepypasta is an obvious work of fiction, the bumper wasn’t, and it ran from March 29, 2005, to January 31, 2010, when it was retired.

A decade later, in May 2020, it returned as “The Dawn is Your Frenemy.” As an added fun fact, Adult Swim paid homage to the creepypasta in 2021. Pretty cool move on their end, in my opinion.

Anyway, let’s get to the theory. A pretty interesting thing to note right off the bat is that the bumper’s debut year correlates with the year of Shessus’ experience and has a similar color palette to the one they described. This would lead me to suspect they saw this, but the bumper only aired at dawn. According to the Adult Swim Wiki, its purpose “was to scare children as a punishment for staying up too late and watching the block.”

Now, granted, there were rumors around 2010 that it was sometimes aired during the night, but these were unsubstantiated and apparently still are. However, the bumper is roughly nine seconds long, whereas Shessus mentioned that “minutes” went by when they were watching the hamster wheel broadcast.

Normally, I’d chalk this up to faulty memory, but I think bumpers play before a televised program resumes. Whatever was on at the time should’ve ensued. So unless the aforementioned rumors were indeed true, I doubt Shessus mistook The Dawn is Your Enemy for an advertisement for human-sized hamster wheels.

If there’s anything on Adult Swim that does fit the bill, it’s the shorts. Now, I’ll say upfront that I never watched enough Adult Swim in my life to have seen any for myself (not that I can remember). The extent of my viewership—from what I can recall—was Robot Chicken, which I’m a huge fan of. As a side note, I cannot name any skit from that show that aligns with what Shessus saw, and I’ve watched it for the better part of my life.

Anyway, the shorts are quite famous—and infamous. There’s a post on the Adult Swim subreddit about which short “scared you the most?” The top answer is “Unedited Footage of a Bear,” which I’ve heard of but haven’t watched. So, I decided to skim the short on YouTube; it’s ten-and-a-half minutes and is a pseudo-infomercial for a drug called “Claridryl” (a combination of Claritin and Benadryl) that causes a woman to suffer from severe side effects. It’s pretty intense stuff, and a lot of the shots that I skimmed through were quite disturbing.

This surreal, disturbing, artistic, and interpretive nature isn’t exclusive to Unedited Footage of a Bear. It goes for most, if not all, of them; they’re independently made (as far as I’m aware), and all appeal to a demographic that tends to relish artistic expression.

Herein lies the main argument for this theory. With the weird and obtuse imagery and flow of the various Adult Swim shorts, you can make a very safe argument that what Shessus saw was one of them. In fact, I would be willing to go as far as to say it’s the most likely candidate.

Cartoon Network was extremely close to Nickelodeon in the way of channel stations on DirecTV (which I mentioned earlier in the write-up). I can’t remember the exact station numbers, but I recall Nickelodeon being two or so stations below Cartoon Network and right next to Boomerang. If the layout of the stations was the same as mine, I think it would stand to reason that Shessus was watching cartoons before heading out. Any time a commercial came on, they would flip to a neighboring channel; I recall a few family members doing this while they were watching television.

Anyway, to continue my theorizing of how this would have played out, I’d guess that Shessus left the channel on Cartoon Network when they left. While they were out, they forgot that—likely because they were busy having fun with their friends. Upon returning home that night, they tuned in while a short was playing.

To me, this sounds perfectly reasonable. An adult programming block known for weird shorts that hosted a genre Shessus was fond of strikes me as the perfect destination while channel surfing, especially before you head out for a day with your friends.

Of course, Shessus claimed they kept the channel tuned to Nickelodeon. However, as I stated in the previous theory, I doubt they could remember this. I mean, they couldn’t remember what channel they switched to after they grew bored of the hamster wheel broadcast, yet they could remember keeping the station tuned to Nickelodeon before heading out. That seems incredibly strange. I know that selective memory is a thing, but I think if you were going to remember a distressing event, you would remember the thing that ended that event.

Setting aside the repetition, I think this theory relies primarily on when Shessus came home. There is the matter of the other Redditors who saw it, but you can chalk that up to them falsely remembering seeing it or also having tuned into Adult Swim. While the latter seems a bit unlikely at first glance, it’s possible some of them saw the broadcast if their parents or guardians recorded something on a DVR. According to a Washington Post article from December 21, 2005, 7% of households in the United States had DVR.

To put that into perspective, the United States’ population in 2005 was 295.5 million. If my Google math is correct, that amounts to about 20,685,000 households that had a DVR. For comparison, the current population of Tokyo, Japan, is 14.18 million. I would happily argue that there were far more than enough DVRs in the United States for others to have seen the broadcast after it happened—assuming their parents recorded something from Adult Swim.

Unfortunately, that isn’t something we know—a common theme for most things in this story. It’s a miracle we even know what happened in the footage Shessus and the other Redditors saw. This strikes me as the type of story where there would be contradictions in their stories at every turn. I guess God spared me one iota of frustration.

Despite not knowing any of that, on top of not knowing when Shessus arrived home, I would say that this is the theory that has the most going for it. While I didn’t go into much detail about the various Adult Swim shorts (you can thank time constraints for that), they’re easily viewable on YouTube. Couple that with the passage of time, which would distort the memory, and I think there’s enough at play here to make a legitimately strong argument.

As a side note, this is what I believe happened to Jack. If you’ve forgotten Jack’s story, he’s the one who saw the creepy cartoon involving a child having his fingers cut off with his grandfather and an apparent war movie. I recall an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that adapted Roald Dahl’s short story Man From the South, which is about a man wagering his left little finger in a bet. While it’s vastly different from what Jack saw, I believe that Jack’s memory was warped by the passage of time. Alternatively, it could have been a loose adaptation of the short story.

Anyway, while this theory’s incredibly strong (in my eyes), it isn’t the last one. There’s still one more for us to go over, and it’s by no means without its own merits. So, let’s take a gander at it and see what it has to offer.

10. A commercial

This theory was spawned from the mention of Apple’s “Lemmings” commercial; it certainly isn’t restricted to that ad, though.

It’s no secret that there are some really disturbing commercials out there. I mean, just take a gander at the weird baby commercial for the PlayStation 3 for a prime example. I’d ask Sony what they were thinking when they made that commercial, but I’m not even sure they know.

Now, as fun as it would be to turn this into a Megalist of disturbing commercials (which, now that I’ve typed that, could make for a fun side project if I ever have free time), I won’t go scrounging around the Internet for creepy ads that aired in or around 2005. That would require an obscene amount of work that I cannot possibly do. I don’t know what brands aired advertisements on Nickelodeon in 2005; I cannot remember. It was just under twenty years ago.

On top of that, if the previous theory is correct and this was a broadcast from another channel, I would have to look through more channels. What I’m getting at is I don’t want Decemystery 2024 to turn into a special on commercials from 2005.

That said, we can still speculate on what the commercial may have been about. So, let’s put our thinking caps on for this endeavor.

The first possibility is that it was a parody of the Lemmings commercial. These types of ads do exist, though they aren’t common. Given the notoriety of the Lemmings ad, I doubt any competitor would have touched it twenty years after it first aired.

The second is it was a part of a TV spot for a movie. For those who don’t know, TV spots are commercials for movies, video games, and other forms of media. Yes, they actually have a name. I feel like such a nerd for pointing this out.

This would normally be a fine theory, but TV spots aren’t minutes long. They last around ten or twenty seconds. Unless Shessus changed the channel to DirecTV pay-per-view, this doesn’t sound like it has a leg to stand on.

Even if there was an extended preview for a movie, I know of no movie that was released in 2005 that looked like this one. Unless there was an art-house film that was released in black-and-white (which I guess could have found a commercial slot on Adult Swim), nothing matches what Shessus described.

The most I can think of is a part of a bumper on something like Turner Classic Movies. However, I don’t watch that channel anywhere close to enough to properly gauge the likelihood of this. So don’t ask me whether or not they’d broadcast anything like this.

Anyway, let’s move on from talking about cinema. The third possibility is that it was an advertisement for an antidepressant. Full disclosure: This isn’t my own theory. This was proposed by a user on the Lost Media Wiki forums named “lostdaisy77.” So, all credit goes to Daisy.

This idea is certainly not that absurd. Commercials of this variety can be quite dark, and the rather dreary look of what Shessus saw fits the general “feel” of depression.

While many associate depression with sadness, there’s a lot more to it than that. Depression can manifest in a variety of ways, including boredom with life and the people and things you love. This can lead to a “robotic” way of living; you can feel like you’re on autopilot, going through the motions of life without actually living it.

Of course, this isn’t a universal thing. No mental illness is, though, so I feel safe in saying that the tone of the broadcast Shessus saw does sound like something you could plausibly see in an antidepressant commercial. A bunch of people aimlessly walking through a dull, grey world as they endure the monotony of life. Eventually, a voiceover would try to sell you on an antidepressant; color would return to the world, and happy music would play.

On the surface, this definitely sounds plausible—to me, anyway. Unfortunately, this doesn’t sound like it would be allowed on Nickelodeon. I don’t know if commercials for such products are permitted to air on it. It’s possible they’ve started airing on it in more recent times since the world’s a much different place than it was in 2005. If anyone knows if such ads were aired on Nick back then, do let me know. It’ll definitely add more merit to the theory.

Anyway, moving on, a commercial for antidepressants isn’t the only possibility at play here. It’s also possible—and highly probable (in my eyes, anyway)—that this was an anti-drug PSA.

I recall D.A.R.E. being a huge thing when I was in grade school, so it would stand to reason that anti-drug PSAs would be prevalent on a children’s network. On a more personal note, and for those of you who are curious, no, I don’t recall anything like this when I was in school or at home watching Nickelodeon. But given that this was twenty years ago, that shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.

Despite that, this is definitely one of the most likely explanations. Anti-drug PSAs can be incredibly bizarre, and many older ones entered the realm of the surreal. This would certainly fit the bill of one. The only fault is that I don’t believe PSAs last minutes on end. Then again, it’s highly likely that Shessus misremembered the length.

One other flaw (and this is more of a nitpick than anything else) is that I don’t exactly know how what Shessus described would correlate to drugs. Unless the implication is that using drugs will turn you into a zombie who wants to go onto a giant hamster wheel, I’m not sure what they were trying to convey. I mean, if you want kids to stay off drugs, just show them Requiem For A Dream when they’re old enough.

Outside of this, I’m not sure what this could have been. Not only does no movie fit the bill, but no video game really fits it either, regardless of whether this was on Nickelodeon or Adult Swim. While it’s possible I’m forgetting something, I know of a film or video game from 2005 that would fit this bill.

The only video game that I can think of would be Destroy All Humans!, which was released on June 21, 2005. Some advertisements for the game used black-and-white footage to replicate the game’s 1950s setting. It also frequently equated humans to farm animals (mainly to parody the then-ongoing Cold War).

As a die-hard fan of the Destroy All Humans series and someone who wishes to God that a proper third game would be made, I can safely say that this would be a decent candidate for a commercial. At least, it is in my eyes; it’s certainly appropriate for Adult Swim (it’s anything but appropriate for Nickelodeon’s audience, but that didn’t stop 9-year-old me from playing the game and loving it to death).

Alas, like in the case of so many other things in this write-up, I know of no trailer that fits the bill in the slightest. I checked YouTube to make sure I wasn’t closing over one, but none of them matched. Unless there was a TV spot that has remained lost to the sands of time, this doesn’t align. A shame, I would love an excuse to talk about that series. Maybe I can find some information to do a What Could Have Been on it one day.

Moving on, a long candidate would be the Lemmings ad itself; no parody, just the oh-so-controversial beast itself. As I said much earlier, I think it’s possible that Shessus misremembered the year and saw it on YouTube or early social media (such as MySpace). The commercial is very similar in many ways; I could see the passage of time distorting a memory of it into something even more obtuse than the original thing.

Unfortunately, YouTube itself only launched in 2005, and I have no idea how likely it is that someone would have posted the commercial there that year. The earliest post I found was from 2008 (as I stated earlier), so it didn’t take long for someone to post it. Perhaps an earlier post existed before it was deleted, or perhaps Shessus misremembered the year they saw the commercial online. I think that both are possible but not entirely plausible.

The only other way I can see this working is if the ad itself was played on television for some reason. Like I said earlier, I have no idea if it was, and I doubt it since it received backlash. However, if it did get aired again for one reason or another, Shessus might have seen it. Alas, I would say it’s still unlikely unless they used Apple products and saw a documentary on the company.

Outside of that, I have virtually no idea what it could have been. The only other candidate I see at play here is for Nickelodeon’s “Worldwide Day of Play,” which was a 3-hour-long broadcast that would tell children to turn out the television and go outside to play rather than watch cartoons. I remember getting annoyed whenever it was on; I hated my cartoons being interrupted in favor of going outside. Such was the life of someone who wasn’t much of a social butterfly as a youngster.

In all honesty, this possibility has very little merit as the Worldwide Day of Play occurred in the afternoon and not the evening. However, I brought it up as we don’t know when Shessus returned home. At the same time, they recalled SpongeBob being on when they turned back to Nickelodeon. While I may be all for the idea of distorted and faulty memory, I can’t rationalize that.

As a whole, I would be willing to say that this theory has a fair bit going for it. There’s by no means a shortage of weird commercials that have aired on children’s networks, so I feel safe in saying that this is the second most likely candidate for what Shessus saw.

To round off this theory, I’d like to throw my own experiences with two commercials that I saw as a child. I think it’ll allow me to convey how unnerving advertisements can be and how it’s possible that a false memory could have been born from seeing one out of nowhere.

When I was a kid—like, five or so years old, there were two really disturbing Pringles commercials I saw a few times as a kid that scared me. The first is of the Pringle’s mascot talking to the viewer. By the end, he makes an ominous threat as the viewer apparently purchases a bag of Doritos, saying, “You will regret that purchase.” You can watch the ad below.

I’ve talked about this commercial once all the way back in 2020 when I covered the mystery of “Now They Hear It All the Time.” Amusingly, that story’s since been solved from what I can tell; maybe the talking Pringle’s head is the secret to solving mysteries.

Jokes aside, this commercial scared me as a child. Even today, it still gives me an uneasy feeling. However, I think it’s one of the best examples of marketing being bizarre in their ways, especially in the 2000s.

The second commercial is one that I remember being drastically different. Indeed, this is one that sports a false memory from yours truly. It’s called “Angry Kid,” and it’s about a brother and sister (at least, that’s what I think). The brother’s eating some Pringles on a chair, ingesting those carbs. Meanwhile, his sister wants some, but the brother doesn’t want to share them on account of brothers and sisters being natural enemies. You can watch the commercial below.

I remember the ad playing out with the brother and sister running around the couch by the end, which scared me due to the weird animation style. However, it only features the sister going behind it. Through the passage of time and the imperfection that is human memory, I merged the wild animation of the sister laughing hysterically with her running at the very end of the ad as her brother chases her.

Now, granted, this was over twenty years ago; it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I can’t recall the commercial perfectly. However, I would argue that if I can’t recall something like this, I doubt Shessus and the other Redditors would remember a creepy commercial with picture-perfect detail.

Of course, that’s just me. It’s possible that I’m being overly harsh and critical. If that’s how it’s coming across, I didn’t intend for that. I’m merely impassioned about the idea of false memories, given I’ve had it happen to me numerous times. So, do excuse me if I sounded harsh earlier.

Sadly, that’s where this theory ends. If I had more time, I would go through various commercial archives, but as it stands, I’m on the clock—and I’m beginning to experience burnout from writing about this case. I have no one to blame but myself for that, though. Anyway, let’s jump into the meme theory before heading on over to my take on this case.

11. A live look at the hamster wheel that powers Spectrum Internet

No wonder their service is as stable as my mental health.

My Take

At this point, I think I’ve made my stance clear that this was a case of a false memory. However, I don’t know for certain if it was caused by something on Adult Swim or a strange commercial. Both seem perfectly plausible to me. That said, let me quickly give my thoughts on the other theories (barring the hoax one; I’ll be getting to that one toward the end of this section).

The broadcast hijacking theory doesn’t seem likely. It’s certainly plausible, but if you asked me to invest stock in it, I wouldn’t. I think something of that nature would have made the news in any capacity. Unless it got memory-holed (which also seems deeply unlikely, in my humble opinion), I can’t imagine such an incident going unreported.

The Stephen King theory is a lot of fun and peculiar, but I’m not betting on it in the slightest. It seems too outlandish. I commend Fez for being passionate about the whole thing, but I think there are other forces at play here than a world-renowned horror author from Maine.

It wasn’t a ghost. I still cannot believe that a write-up I did last year actually forced my hand to even include that. I feel dumbstruck by that fact. It’s like my world’s crumbling around me. Seriously, the story of the Television Demon set a precedent that I had to abide by. What the hell, man!?

As for the avant-garde hamster wheel footage having been broadcasted by Nickelodeon, I actually think that’s relatively possible. In fact, I think I might have been a bit overly dismissive. It’s possible it was something they aired once or twice. However, I think there’d still be some level of documentation online about it. I mean, Google’s usually pretty good at picking up on what you’re looking for. A detail or two that’s inaccurate should have been corrected.

The interdimensional broadcast is nonsense, but I hope I get to use that theory in the future. Interdimensional theories are my favorite theories to include in my write-ups, and I will find an excuse to use them as often as I can.

Last but certainly not least, I doubt this was a dream. At first, I thought that would be the case, but the second I saw replies from others saying they saw it, I threw that idea out the window. I’d sooner put money on this being a bad attempt at a ghost, honestly.

With all of that out of the way, if I had to pick between this being a false memory created by a broadcast from another channel and a commercial, I would lean toward it being something on Adult Swim—likely one of the many shorts. My guess would be that Shessus saw it after coming home late from spending the day with their friends. They forgot they left their television tuned to Cartoon Network and, upon turning it on, were greeted by a weird short that was meant to convey the monotony of life and robotic lives of people who work minimum wage jobs—or something like that.

Perturbed by the artistic expression prevalent in the year of our Lord 2005, Shessus stood in shock, trying to comprehend what it all meant. This state of shock likely led them to miscalculate how long they’d been watching it (what felt like minutes was probably ten or so seconds).

Eventually, Shessus freed themselves from the grasp of avant-garde expressionism and changed the channel. However, this caused them to realize what they had just witnessed, so they went back to Nickelodeon, only to see SpongeBob was on.

As for why Shessus was unable to find the broadcast on any neighboring channels, it’s possible that either that was the end of the short or Shessus never checked Cartoon Network. Or that station wasn’t anywhere near Nickelodeon; while Nick and Cartoon Network were near each other when I had DirecTV, it may not have been that way for Shessus.

If this wasn’t the case, I would get behind the commercial theory. As I said before, it’s possible that Shessus miscalculated time, and what they perceived as minutes was actually about ten or fifteen seconds. I mean, for God’s sake, people lose track of time even when they’re lucid. There’s no reason to suspect that they’d misremember the amount of time they spent staring at a television screen a dozen years later when they saw something that shocked them. That’s just absurd; people are not infallible, nor is the human memory. I feel like a lot of folks overestimate how good both are at remembering things.

Given the passage of time, it’s easy to mistake how much time had passed during a shocking incident. I wouldn’t trust my own words if I tried to guess how long a shocking incident lasted, even if it was a few days prior. I know that I’ve said this numerous times throughout this write-up, but Shessus’ experience happened twelve years before being posted about. There’s no reason to blindly trust their word; the likelihood of details like that being accurate is minimal at best and non-existent at worst.

If neither of these theories is true, I would take a long shot and guess that this was an outright hoax. While I know that I went back and forth on the others who claimed they remembered it being a fatal flaw in that theory, the precedent for hoaxes like this (such as Saki Sanobashi) offers enough for me to raise an eyebrow. Couple that with the people who added false details (one of those false details being the name “Saki Sanobashi,” which I don’t think means anything), and I think there’s enough of a reason to suspect some people decided to play along for laughs.

Or maybe it was a rerun of Double Dare that featured the One-Ton Hamster Wheel, but at this point, anything goes. Or maybe the real humans in hamster wheels were the friends we made along the way. Who knows at this point? I sure don’t!

Jokes aside, all three theories have some level of merit to me. I’m open to alternate possibilities—or outright corrections on anything I made. I know the theories section for this write-up was a lot more opinionated than normal, but discussing them would have been a nightmare to do in an unbiased manner, especially after I’d been out of the writing game for several months. That and it let me dive a bit deeper into how the theories would play out. I have no intention of keeping it around, though. So, don’t worry.

Anyway, that’s my take. I don’t think there’s anything remarkable at play here. In fact, I believe that’s true for a lot of Internet mysteries. I believe a lot of people tend to treat stories like this one as a lot more mysterious than they are. You can rationally explain many of them away as false memories. Unfortunately, that’s how the human memory (and the brain as a whole) is, and it’s why I’ll do everything I can to avoid stories like this. Otherwise, I may end up spending another month of my life slamming my head against a laptop keyboard like I did with this story.

On one final note, after writing all of this, I just want to say that the question I proposed at the start of this write-up about how my hands will feel by the end of this year’s Decemystery can already be answered: they’re going to be killing me. Thank you, carpal tunnel syndrome. You light up my life in all the wrong ways.

Conclusion

I’m sure that somewhere, there’s another post or two that has additional information. However, with how long this already is—and with me being on the clock—I don’t want to turn this into its own book. I know that may seem unprofessional of me, but when has anything I’ve ever done been professional?

If I did miss anything major—or something that you deem important, then by all means, leave a comment and let me know. I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong, especially with a story like this. It never hurts to be humbled, and it would be quite interesting to see why something like this isn’t more well-known in the art community.

Until then, though, this is but the start of Decemystery 2024. There are still 31 stories left for us to cover, and this one was an absolute monster; it’s half the length of the first Megalist I wrote, and it’s nearly twice as long as the previous longest write-up I’d done.

Because of that, I sure as heck have no plans to cover anything remotely close to as long as this. In fact, I’m going to forego some of what I had planned in favor of revisiting the archives of About.com (not that I already didn’t have plans to do that). Yeah, that’s how long it took to complete this write-up; I began in the middle of August, and it’s now close to the middle of September. This write-up took that long. By comparison, the average five-digit-long write-up usually takes me a week or two. This one took anywhere from two to four times as long.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough. Tell me what you think the truth behind this case is because I’d love to know, and as always, stay happy, stay healthy, and thank you for reading!