 |
|
| Digital recreation of SCP-C389. |
|---|
Item #: SCP-C389
Object Class: Neutralized
Special Containment Procedures: All rotisserie chickens recovered during Incident C389-0 have been repurposed as food for Site-87 staff, as they have been determined to possess no anomalous properties.
Efforts to locate persons of interest in Incident C389-0 are underway.
Description: SCP-C389 was a 2.6 m x 2.9 m fabric painting that depicted the outline of a hunched-over humanoid figure, with the phrase "rotissery chicken" [sic] written underneath. SCP-C389 was destroyed prior to the Foundation's awareness of its existence; its anomalous properties have been inferred from witness accounts and forensic examination.
When unfurled, SCP-C389 was capable of eliminating all disguises (such as costumes, glamours, etc.) applied to rotisserie chickens within 5 meters. The rotisserie chicken's humanoid form would enter a pose similar to that of the figure in the painting; this form would then disintegrate, leaving only the chicken. It is not known how SCP-C389 was able to distinguish rotisserie chickens from human beings, as the chickens affected by it had successfully impersonated humans for many years without arousing suspicion.
All information regarding SCP-C389 was recovered following Incident C389-0, the details of which are restricted to personnel with Level 5 clearance.
Addendum: Notice from the Anomalous Influence Prevention Commission regarding personnel concerns.
Normally, the AIPC would simply allow the passing grade we gave SCP-C389's documentation to speak for itself, but in this case, we request that the following memorandum be attached to its primary database entry.
Several personnel with access to SCP-C389's file have forwarded it to us, believing that SCP-C389 transmuted normal humans into rotisserie chickens, then tricked others into believing that the victims had always secretly been rotisserie chickens. When in doubt, reporting these concerns to the AIPC is good practice. However, the document can be taken at face value.
As always, the AIPC took these concerns seriously when they were first raised, and performed an independent investigation. Anomalies that fall under our jurisdiction — namely, ones that could mentally affect Foundation personnel and prevent them from reporting the hazard directly — run up against various safeguards that prevent misleading or dangerous information from making its way onto a database entry.
A common factor among cognitohazards that do affect their own database entry is that they are thorough. Imagine the following: an infohazard that can alter your perception of reality if you know anything about it, and then make you think the whole situation is normal. This isn't as foolproof as it might seem — we would get dozens of reports from friends, family, and coworkers who will notice the affected people acting strangely. If it impacts their work, that will show up as irregularities in their resource usage and research output, which HR and Accounting can easily detect. That anomaly is not one that would end up with an unusual database entry, because it leaves behind witnesses and evidence.
Now, suppose that affected personnel actively tried to hide the anomaly's behavior, willingly or otherwise. They act normally around the 'uninitiated', falsify their expense reports, and either eliminate or brainwash anyone who catches on. If the anomaly is meticulous about this behavior, it stands a chance of bypassing our standard safeguards and getting an invalid database entry written about it.
This is all to say that, as soon as we were approached about SCP-C389, we doubted that it was mentally influencing anyone. An anomaly that is thorough enough to falsify its own documentation would not allow an unaffected person to view the file, notice that something's wrong, and report it. We would have inferred its existence well before the documentation went live.
Still, the AIPC cannot afford to become complacent, so we still examined the documentation on its own merits. One major reason that SCP-C389 might arouse suspicion is that the document is terse and lacking in detail, which personnel often interpret a failure of the author to recognize that they are writing something unusual. In this case, the explanatory material does exist, but requires a very high security clearance to access. While the AIPC cannot disclose that material, we can confirm that the unusual ideas and assumptions in SCP-C389's file are all justified.
The other aspect of SCP-C389 that prompted concerns from personnel is Occam's Razor — the idea that, all other things equal, the explanation which makes fewer assumptions is correct. Essentially, it seems more plausible for a human to be transformed into a rotisserie chicken than for a rotisserie chicken to be successfully disguised as a human for an extended period of time.
The first counterpoint to this argument is simply that Occam's Razor is a rule of thumb, and anomalies which openly flout the laws of nature are more than capable of disobeying it. The second is that the "humans-into-chickens" interpretation makes just as many assumptions as the one implied by SCP-C389's documentation, once notions of common sense are discarded.
The popular consensus is that things are as they appear, and specifically that if something looks human, one can assume that it is human. That consensus is, however, subject to approval by the Foundation — society is only able to function if people trust each other to not be rotisserie chickens, whether or not it is a good assumption, and so the Foundation would cover up evidence to the contrary if it existed.
Personnel often believe that, because they are privy to the existence of anomalies, they have been granted access to the true nature of reality. This is not necessarily the case — the Foundation molds the consensus among its personnel in the same way it shapes that of society at large. Your concept of the world is an intentional consequence of the information you've been given; if you're granted access to a document that contradicts what you knew, it's because your superiors believe you can and must adapt to the reality it represents.
The Anomalous Influence Prevention Commission has rated SCP-C389 as Least Concern, and will not be reviewing this rating unless new developments occur.