SCP-2303

Tower of Silence

Connected to: SCP-1984 SCP-2798

SCP-2303, originally intended to serve as the Municipal Office Complex of Ciudad Encrucijada

Special Containment Procedures

Site-885 has been established in proximity to SCP-2303. Foundation activities in the vicinity of the anomaly are to be presented to potential observers as a long-term architectural engineering study. Due to the lack of permanent residents in the area of SCP-2303, Minimum Security Perimeter protocols are in effect.

Monitoring and documentation of SCP-2303 phenomena is to be performed via automated means whenever feasible. In cases where direct observation must be performed, standard memetic hazard safety procedures are to be instituted.

All suspected SCP-2303 phenomena are to be independently investigated and confirmed to the extent possible before being formally entered into the research log.

SCP-2303 research is assigned to Mobile Task Force Phi-9 ("Barqueros"). Members of MTF Phi-9 are currently subject to provisional security clearance authorization. Provisional status will be reevaluated on ██/██/████, per the standard five year probationary period for Special Recruitment personnel.

Description

SCP-2303 is an abandoned high-rise building, located in the ghost city of Ciudad Encrucijada¹, in the Río Negro province of Argentina. SCP-2303 is the apparent focal point for recurring episodes of anomalous information transfer. As observed through specialized methodology and equipment, SCP-2303 is host to a phenomenon wherein concepts and ideas that are not fully realized and never implemented by their originators are communicated to observers in the vicinity. These concepts range widely across the spectrum of human endeavor, and have in the past included proposed artworks, philosophical schools of thought, political systems, scientific theorems, and public works projects.

Information transmitted within SCP-2303 may be observed through a variety of media. Appliances such as antenna-equipped televisions and radios which are powered on but not set to an occupied frequency are capable of receiving and displaying audio and visual information. These typically take the form of short, sporadic bursts of interrelated information, such as sequential scenes from a motion picture, or related tracks from a musical album. SCP-2303 has been outfitted with monitors and recording devices throughout its structure in order to observe this information.

In order to observe more abstract concepts, such as philosophical precepts or hypothetical political movements, direct observation is required. A methodology for discerning the outside influence of SCP-2303 (as opposed to inherent thought processes in the observer) was developed by former Group of Interest GX-5573, a loose collective of academics, artists and amateur researchers from throughout southern Argentina who first encountered the anomaly. This methodology incorporates elements of autohypnosis, meditation techniques developed by indigenous Tehuelche tribespeople, and activities similar to the Spiritualist practices of automatic writing and psychometry.

Individual works and concepts encountered within SCP-2303 are observable for a time period of between three days and five weeks. Information presented within SCP-2303 will become less contextualized and coherent from occurrence to occurrence, until the unifying concept decays and is no longer observable.

The manifestation of ideas presented in SCP-2303 do not appear to be linked chronologically to their originators. While concepts imagined within the past thirty years comprise the majority of observed data, older ideas have been documented, in some cases originating hundreds of years prior to observation.

Floors 1-12: Artistic Works

Location Observed	Description	Notes
Floor Eight, Hallway	Inmate art exhibit, Ferguson Prison	Correctional officers at Ferguson Prison in Midway, Texas, considered staging a public exhibition of paintings by inmates as a means of improving morale and performing local community outreach. Most of the works submitted were painted by █████████████, a particularly notorious offender convicted of multiple counts of murder.
Floor Three, Room 32	Sequels to The Last Temptation of Christ	Two concepts were observed in this location, but were interrelated. The first was a planned novel by author William Styron following up on the events of the original work by Nikos Kazantzakis, told from the perspective of Judas. The second was an adaptation of the proposed Styron project into a film directed by filmmaker Terence Malick. While no evidence exists that Styron ever advanced beyond discussing the idea, the film adaptation apparently progressed to the point of obtaining a commitment from actor Harvey Keitel to reprise the role of Judas before the project was abandoned.
Floor Five, ceiling crawlspace	Alternate soundtrack to A Serbian Film	This occurrence consisted of one hour and fifty-seven minutes of music intended to serve as a soundtrack to the motion picture A Serbian Film, recorded by industrial noise act Pharmakon. This was apparently intended to broaden the film's appeal to American audiences. The film was ultimately scored by Serbian musician Wikluh Sky.
Floor Eleven, Room 8	Comedic spoken-word performance, 2011 Hajj	A group of students at the International Islamic University in Islamabad considered holding a stand-up comedy festival at the Miqat Qarn al-Manazil prior to the 2011 Hajj as an attempt to create positive coverage in Western media outlets. Several established performers had been committed to the project before it was aborted.

Floors 13-19: Religion and Philosophy

Location Observed	Description	Notes
Floor Seventeen, Room 12	Treatise on the Importance of Self-Extinction	This work, written by an unknown scholar, consisted of a discussion between eight characters citing the works of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Avicenna, and several lesser-known figures in philosophical thought, making an argument for the moral imperative of suicide. The work concludes with each character committing suicide in turn. The scholarly citations and style of writing suggests that the work was considered during the ninth century AD by an author residing in Moorish Cordoba, making this entry the oldest observed unimplemented concept found within SCP-2303 to date.
Floor Nineteen, Room 32	Church of the Twelfth Prophet	A nascent religious movement before ultimately disbanding in 2004, this doctrine held that the Mahdi, a messianic figure prominent in Islam, is also the twelfth Guru of Sikhism². █████████████, the individual claiming to be the eponymous Twelfth Prophet, was provisionally classified as a Person of Interest due to suspected anomalous phenomena associated with their activities before disappearing in January of 2005.
Floor Fourteen, North Elevator Shaft	Brewsterism	This phenomenon was a school of intellectual thought, discussed among a group of doctoral students at the University of Salzburg, proposing the infallibility of the writings of Harold Brewster, an unemployed Irish university professor residing in the Weimar Republic during the 1920s. Post-observational verification of Brewster's papers reveal several anachronistic commentaries on modern fields of science, such as biomolecular engineering, m-theory, and exoplanetary astronomy. Brewster's papers also contain lengthy, nonsensical exhortations against activities such as creating music, riding bicycles and sleeping. The majority of Brewster's writings are suspected to have been destroyed immediately prior to the abandonment of Brewsterism by its proponents.
Floor Eighteen, Air Vent Between Rooms 3 and 9	Sixth Meditation on the Actualization of Salvation	Extant materials related to this concept consist of 255 wheatpasted flyers, distributed throughout urban areas in the Kitchener, Ontario metropolitan region. The only information on the flyers consisted of the phrase "Sixth Meditation on the Actualization of Salvation," an address of a private residence in Bujumbura, Burundi, and an appointed time of 2300 hours, 29 July, 2005. Based on observational data, this meeting was intended to be a gathering of unknown persons, with the intent of generating a thoughtform entity through anomalous means³. Flyers were intended to be posted in eighteen additional cities in fifteen countries before this project was abandoned.

Floors 20-27: Public Works and Large Scale Coordinated Projects

Location Observed	Description	Notes
Floor Twenty-Six, Room 21	Proposed Australian space program	Confirmed by examination of classified documents, several officials in the Australian Ministry of Industry, Innovation and Science proposed a multi-billion dollar investment in a new space exploration initiative, culminating in an interstellar satellite mission. Detailed information of this proposal ceases sometime around the launch of a research mission bound for the Saturnian moon of Iapetus.
Floor Twenty-One, Room 6B	Low-cost cryonics initiative	A crowdfunded project was considered by █████████████, a high-profile startup investor in Scottsdale, Arizona, to construct several low-cost facilities designed to house large quantities of cryopreserved human remains. This project was intended to increase public awareness, acceptance, and adoption of cryonics as a funerary practice.
Floor Twenty, Main Utility Access Hall	Karnali River Dam	A hydroengineering firm based in the United Kingdom was considering a proposal to construct a massive dam project on the Karnali River in Nepal. Despite no evidence that the project ever progressed beyond internal planning discussions, the concept engendered several large protests in Nepali rural areas, as well as a speech in the Indian Parliament condemning the project as a "theft of resources that cannot go unanswered."
Floor Twenty-Three, Lobby	Zambezi Superdeep Borehole	Sometime during the early 1970s, Mozambican officials were presented with a plan for a deep drilling project intended to penetrate the Earth's crust 50 km offshore in the Indian Ocean, as part of an experimental new method for hydrocarbon and mineral extraction. Of note is the fact that the proposed site would eventually be used for a similar project in connection with SCP-2798.

Floors 28-31: Science

Location Observed	Description	Notes
Floor Twenty-Nine, Cafeteria	Argus Radio Observatory System	This proposal was discussed in three separate meetings between entrepreneur Jeff Bezos and SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, centering around a prospective $50 billion investment in a network of omnidirectional radio telescopes dedicated to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, to be known collectively as the Argus Radio Observatory System. The project was not discussed again after the third meeting between Bezos and Shotwell, documented to have occurred on the campus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Floor Thirty, Room 13	Engineered anti-syphilis phage introduction	In 2011, researchers at Moscow Medical Academy claimed to have developed a species of bacteriophage that would eliminate all forms of syphilis. In a meeting with Kremlin officials later that year, the lead project researcher proposed to introduce this bacteriophage "into the wild" throughout Russia as a public health measure. This plan was rejected by the Kremlin three weeks later.
Floor Twenty-Seven, Room 1	Superconducting Super Collider	This particle accelerator complex, proposed in the 1970s in the United States, would have been the world's largest particle accelerator, approximately twice as large as the Large Hadron Collider and projected to generate approximately three times its energy. This project was formally cancelled by the United States Congress in 1993.

Floor 32: CLASSIFIED

Location Observed	Description	Notes
Floor Thirty-Two, Grand Hall	The Man at the Threshold	DATA RESTRICTED TO LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE

TS/2303/EYES ONLY

ACCESS GRANTED - WELCOME APPROVED OPERATIVE

Addendum 2303.2 - MTF Phi-9 Introductory Statement

FROM: Rojas, Aurelio
TO: Guest4939
RE: <none>
Attachment" id="">Addendum 2303.1 - Concepts Observed Within SCP-2303

Floors 1-12: Artistic Works

Location Observed Description Notes

Floor Eight, Hallway Inmate art exhibit, Ferguson Prison Correctional officers at Ferguson Prison in Midway, Texas, considered staging a public exhibition of paintings by inmates as a means of improving morale and performing local community outreach. Most of the works submitted were painted by █████████████, a particularly notorious offender convicted of multiple counts of murder.

Floor Three, Room 32 Sequels to The Last Temptation of Christ Two concepts were observed in this location, but were interrelated. The first was a planned novel by author William Styron following up on the events of the original work by Nikos Kazantzakis, told from the perspective of Judas. The second was an adaptation of the proposed Styron project into a film directed by filmmaker Terence Malick. While no evidence exists that Styron ever advanced beyond discussing the idea, the film adaptation apparently progressed to the point of obtaining a commitment from actor Harvey Keitel to reprise the role of Judas before the project was abandoned.

Floor Five, ceiling crawlspace Alternate soundtrack to A Serbian Film This occurrence consisted of one hour and fifty-seven minutes of music intended to serve as a soundtrack to the motion picture A Serbian Film, recorded by industrial noise act Pharmakon. This was apparently intended to broaden the film's appeal to American audiences. The film was ultimately scored by Serbian musician Wikluh Sky.

Floor Eleven, Room 8 Comedic spoken-word performance, 2011 Hajj A group of students at the International Islamic University in Islamabad considered holding a stand-up comedy festival at the Miqat Qarn al-Manazil prior to the 2011 Hajj as an attempt to create positive coverage in Western media outlets. Several established performers had been committed to the project before it was aborted.

Floors 13-19: Religion and Philosophy

Location Observed Description Notes

Floor Seventeen, Room 12 Treatise on the Importance of Self-Extinction This work, written by an unknown scholar, consisted of a discussion between eight characters citing the works of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Avicenna, and several lesser-known figures in philosophical thought, making an argument for the moral imperative of suicide. The work concludes with each character committing suicide in turn. The scholarly citations and style of writing suggests that the work was considered during the ninth century AD by an author residing in Moorish Cordoba, making this entry the oldest observed unimplemented concept found within SCP-2303 to date.

Floor Nineteen, Room 32 Church of the Twelfth Prophet A nascent religious movement before ultimately disbanding in 2004, this doctrine held that the Mahdi, a messianic figure prominent in Islam, is also the twelfth Guru of Sikhism². █████████████, the individual claiming to be the eponymous Twelfth Prophet, was provisionally classified as a Person of Interest due to suspected anomalous phenomena associated with their activities before disappearing in January of 2005.

Floor Fourteen, North Elevator Shaft Brewsterism This phenomenon was a school of intellectual thought, discussed among a group of doctoral students at the University of Salzburg, proposing the infallibility of the writings of Harold Brewster, an unemployed Irish university professor residing in the Weimar Republic during the 1920s. Post-observational verification of Brewster's papers reveal several anachronistic commentaries on modern fields of science, such as biomolecular engineering, m-theory, and exoplanetary astronomy. Brewster's papers also contain lengthy, nonsensical exhortations against activities such as creating music, riding bicycles and sleeping. The majority of Brewster's writings are suspected to have been destroyed immediately prior to the abandonment of Brewsterism by its proponents.

Floor Eighteen, Air Vent Between Rooms 3 and 9 Sixth Meditation on the Actualization of Salvation Extant materials related to this concept consist of 255 wheatpasted flyers, distributed throughout urban areas in the Kitchener, Ontario metropolitan region. The only information on the flyers consisted of the phrase "Sixth Meditation on the Actualization of Salvation," an address of a private residence in Bujumbura, Burundi, and an appointed time of 2300 hours, 29 July, 2005. Based on observational data, this meeting was intended to be a gathering of unknown persons, with the intent of generating a thoughtform entity through anomalous means³. Flyers were intended to be posted in eighteen additional cities in fifteen countries before this project was abandoned.

Floors 20-27: Public Works and Large Scale Coordinated Projects

Location Observed Description Notes

Floor Twenty-Six, Room 21 Proposed Australian space program Confirmed by examination of classified documents, several officials in the Australian Ministry of Industry, Innovation and Science proposed a multi-billion dollar investment in a new space exploration initiative, culminating in an interstellar satellite mission. Detailed information of this proposal ceases sometime around the launch of a research mission bound for the Saturnian moon of Iapetus.

Floor Twenty-One, Room 6B Low-cost cryonics initiative A crowdfunded project was considered by █████████████, a high-profile startup investor in Scottsdale, Arizona, to construct several low-cost facilities designed to house large quantities of cryopreserved human remains. This project was intended to increase public awareness, acceptance, and adoption of cryonics as a funerary practice.

Floor Twenty, Main Utility Access Hall Karnali River Dam A hydroengineering firm based in the United Kingdom was considering a proposal to construct a massive dam project on the Karnali River in Nepal. Despite no evidence that the project ever progressed beyond internal planning discussions, the concept engendered several large protests in Nepali rural areas, as well as a speech in the Indian Parliament condemning the project as a "theft of resources that cannot go unanswered."

Floor Twenty-Three, Lobby Zambezi Superdeep Borehole Sometime during the early 1970s, Mozambican officials were presented with a plan for a deep drilling project intended to penetrate the Earth's crust 50 km offshore in the Indian Ocean, as part of an experimental new method for hydrocarbon and mineral extraction. Of note is the fact that the proposed site would eventually be used for a similar project in connection with SCP-2798.

Floors 28-31: Science

Location Observed Description Notes

Floor Twenty-Nine, Cafeteria Argus Radio Observatory System This proposal was discussed in three separate meetings between entrepreneur Jeff Bezos and SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell, centering around a prospective $50 billion investment in a network of omnidirectional radio telescopes dedicated to searching for evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, to be known collectively as the Argus Radio Observatory System. The project was not discussed again after the third meeting between Bezos and Shotwell, documented to have occurred on the campus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Floor Thirty, Room 13 Engineered anti-syphilis phage introduction In 2011, researchers at Moscow Medical Academy claimed to have developed a species of bacteriophage that would eliminate all forms of syphilis. In a meeting with Kremlin officials later that year, the lead project researcher proposed to introduce this bacteriophage "into the wild" throughout Russia as a public health measure. This plan was rejected by the Kremlin three weeks later.

Floor Twenty-Seven, Room 1 Superconducting Super Collider This particle accelerator complex, proposed in the 1970s in the United States, would have been the world's largest particle accelerator, approximately twice as large as the Large Hadron Collider and projected to generate approximately three times its energy. This project was formally cancelled by the United States Congress in 1993.

Floor 32: CLASSIFIED

Location Observed Description Notes

Floor Thirty-Two, Grand Hall The Man at the Threshold DATA RESTRICTED TO LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE

TS/2303/EYES ONLY

ACCESS GRANTED - WELCOME APPROVED OPERATIVE

Addendum 2303.2 - MTF Phi-9 Introductory Statement

FROM: Rojas, Aurelio
TO: Guest4939
RE: <none>
Attachment HANDBOOK_PHI_9.pdf, securityapp.pdf, HR_rates_plans.xls, OPEN_THIS_LAST.xyx, DONT_OPEN.aad

Let's get this thing out of the way. This is Phi-9, and most of us were inducted to the Foundation from outside. You are joining us with none of our history.

That's good.

You're a Barquero now. That means you ferry this stuff to wherever the hell it goes after it's gone. The bosses above told you to document this and research it and what have you. Don't worry, we're going to do plenty of that.

But really, you're here to watch these things in the tower go away and disappear. To make sure they go away and disappear. Eduardo calls them dreams but he's an asshole and not to be trusted. You'll find that out soon.

All the formal stuff and the manuals are there. You'll read them eight times without me needing to tell you. Oh man, the culture shock. Most of you aren't from the Southern Hemisphere. We do things different. Yeah, read the manuals. Then close those and listen to me.

You're going to be in that tower soon. Exciting, right? They tell me people ask to be here. You're going to read the manuals no matter what I tell you, so you're going to be on your guard, so much that you think you'll never let it down again.

Bullshit. One day, and it's going to be soon, I promise you, you're going to think "hey, that one's a pretty good idea, bring that one out, man." I know you are. It happens a lot. It happened to me on the top floor. I thought I knew better than this madhouse that we all were so smitten by. I told everyone that we needed to save something from here. We should pull it back out I said, this is just too beautiful. And it was. We all dropped to our knees to see it, even after it started doing what it did.

When it was over, I ran as fast as I could into the night to find anyone that could help us put things back. There was a lot to clean up.

Here's your first order, don't ask about the other Barqueros, from before this was an official outfit. There's eight of us left from the top floor thing. There were a lot more before.

Here's your other first order. You leave that shit in the tower. Every single thing you see in there is a painted corpse. That's because it's a grave. All of it stays in there to rot and die, no matter what, or I put the bullet in your head myself. I look out for my people, and you're one of mine now.

Welcome aboard, Barquero.

ROJAS

Footnotes

1. Despite its intended purpose as a regional financial center planned by the Argentine government in the 1970s, Ciudad Encrucijada was never fully inhabited, and was abandoned soon after construction of the city center was completed. The Argentinian Ministry of Modernization reported a population of zero for Ciudad Encrucijada in 1978.

2. Note that mainstream Sikhism holds that only eleven Gurus exist.

3. Though unconfirmed, these methods are believed to be derived from those used in the creation of SCP-1984-1.

SCP-2302 SCP-2304