5 Scariest SCPs, Ranked

We all know about Shy Guy, the sentient computer, Plague Doctor, and SCP’s statuesque neck-breaker, 173. But what about the lesser-known evils, those Keter entries that make you grateful these strange anomalies and entities don’t really exist.

Secure, Contain, Protect. That’s the name, the motto, the words to live by. Stories like Chinese whispers spread around the world wide web, breathing life into dark fiction. Although they may not be real, some SCPs stay with you. Whether they’re reimagined in a physical form through legendary SCP games like Containment Breach or have intricate lore that makes them believable, there’s an SCP out there that will manifest in your mind and haunt you.

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This expansion community-based world is vast and rich of content, but what are the scariest SCPs ever “discovered?” With recordings and images of these contained diseases, anomalies, and entities, SCPs are classified as one of four categories: Safe, Euclid (containable), Keter (can escape containment), and Thaumiel (SCPs that counter others). Here are the creepiest SCPs ever recorded. Make sure to read their entire entries of these SCPs and pray you’ll get proper sleep tonight.

5) SCP-5000

Also known as: Why?

SCP-5000 could be a television show with its intricate story that gives us the perfect start, middle, and end. What’s interesting about this entry is that the SCP is referencing a metal suit, but reading the journal entries tells a very different story, where the suit is one small component to a larger, more terrifying tale.

Like something out of Devilman Crybaby, SCP-5000 tells a tale of what would happen if the Foundation turned against humanity, unleashing their contained Keter to annihilate the human race. But why would they do such a thing? The Foundation acted like a hive mind as a result of looking at classified images (“eggs, trees, religious stuff”). This was a second file that was quickly redacted following its nefarious effects. But it wasn’t a memetic agent that triggered a response to whoever saw then, making me wonder, what exactly was it? These images resulted in global catastrophe where the worst, most evil, most deadly SCPs were released into the world, free to enact all kinds of violence against the innocent.

Could you imagine such terror unfolding around the world at once, killing everything in its path? Monsters free to rule Earth, where only Thaumiel SCPs could help you stay safe, but these were only available to Foundation members that escaped the entrance of Hell in time. There’s one question you will always return to; whether you lived one minute, one month, or one year into the Foundation’s attack on humanity: why?

4) SCP-4666

Also known as: The Yule Man

A seemingly immortal and naked humanoid figure hibernates for most of the year, appearing from December 21-22 and leaving January 1-2. The Yule Man has specific rules it abides by, being that it targets families with children, one child must be under the age of eight. The Yule Man will only target families in rural homes, where it watches from afar or makes connect with the targeted child by looking through their window. Footsteps are heard, followed by an unpleasant odor, but the Yule Man is never seen.

The families describe their homes as haunted during this time, until the Yule Man eventually attacks, killing all family members, and abducting the eight-year old. The family is tortured and killed in front of one another. The first known recording of Yule Man was in 1498, the latest, 1996. SCP-4666 appears human, but has bizarre characteristics that separate it from what we know: double whorl fingerprint and hair without testable DNA.

Honestly, the terror of the Yule Man is enough to forgo having children altogether, for the threat of this horrifying humanoid is too grand. How does it know when a child turns eight? Why rural areas? What does it do with the abducted children? Unfortunately there’s an answer for the latter, as children have been turned into dolls, their scalp removed in place of another child’s hair, mouth sewn shut by tendons, eyes replaced with peddles, and fingernails swapped for others. It’s Toy Story‘s Sid all grown up. Worst of all, these “dolls” are still alive.

Christmas would never be celebrated again.

3) SCP-3001

Also known as: Red Reality

Imagine a dimension engulfed in blackness where the only light present is a flickering red from the recording device. This is what Dr. Scranton experienced. But unlike him, anyone else transported here wouldn’t have the comfort of the light to speak to. The recording offered spatial awareness for Scranton, which would be missing for others. He knew how much time had passed, but that doesn’t mean he’s lucky.

Scranton could feel hunger, but never eat, thirst, yet never drink. He would wander the darkness, searching for an exit for years, just to find the same blackness surrounding him. Madness is inevitable, but what of your physical body? Days turn to months, turn to years, your body decaying slowly, but unaware of what it’s becoming. A smell of iron consumes you, your limbs start to dissipate into the sludge below. Is this void just death? A darkness that has taken those who came before and those who will come after? This is not nothingness for you are alive, conscious, aware you are somewhere you don’t belong.

The void prolongs your suffering, eating away at your mind and body. Scranton called it a “dead end.” It is a terrifying, isolating life to live, incapable of ending ones suffering for the void won’t allow it. Scranton entered this dimension in 1961 and emerged in 2005, his body made up of blood and vomit, his being stretched across the recording device, where his wife, Anna was the first to see what he’d become. He made it back, but it only cost him everything.

2) SCP-7179

Also known as: E is for Eternity

Many like myself are terrified of the thought of death. The human mind is incapable of truly understanding the concept of “nothing” as we still come up with something to define it, thus implying there could never really be nothing because we simply cannot comprehend it. But imagine if your consciousness were transported into an SCP upon death? Unlike our version of reality, however, you are of peak health and are placed in what (on the surface) would be deemed a sanctuary.

SCP-7179 is a tropical island, full of amenities that make it seem like Heaven initially. Perfect weather, a readily available beach house upon arrival, and three other humans to greet you (although I wouldn’t classify them as “normal”). Any injuries you attain, accidental or self-inflicted, heal the same amount of time it would take back on Earth, but no matter how terrible the injury may be, you can never succumb to it. What appears like Heaven on paper, quickly transforms into Hell, as you cannot leave. Time passes and feels the same as life on Earth, but any attempt to leave just spawns you on the other side of the island. What remains a constant is the forever pushing on of time.

This makes SCP-7179 absolutely terrifying, for the idea of living forever would quickly become boring, then maddening. Imagine that. To live forever and be unable to experience true nothingness. Life of fulfilment, peace, or regret means absolutely nothing when it never ends. How long even is eternity?

1) SCP-2718

Also known as: What Happens After

There’s a warning on your screen for investigating this SCP. Amnestic treatment is recommended. Do not scroll beyond this point. But curiosity tugs away at you, so you ignore and click on “DAMMERUNG EYES ONLY.” Dammerung? This class doesn’t even exist. Yet you look anyway, only to discover what happens after we die.

An Overseer called Roger was brought back to life. He was dead for 18 years. Everything seemed normal at first until Roger started asking and pushing about immortal life. While he claimed he didn’t see anything on the other side, he returned to Earth sobbing. Roger’s description of what happens when you die is neither Heaven nor Hell, neither a dream nor a nightmare. It cannot be accurately described. Trapped in a state of extreme awareness of both space and sensations, Roger describes a perpetual suffocation.

Feeling everything during decomposition; larvae crawling in his skin, insects consuming his dead flesh, the destruction of cells, fluids seeping out of every orifice. He felt and understood every moment of his body returning to the Earth, yet this was only the beginning. The pain stretched his body, worse than any pain we’ve endured in our individual lifetimes. This is what everyone before us and everyone after us will endure? Is it even enduring at this point? It’s not living yet was more pain than when we were alive. Roger saw this as our human condition, that through no fault of our own, through no action (be it evil or as a saint), would alter this outcome.

This SCP isn’t so much a living entity or an object, but a thought, a fact, and confirmation of what happens when we die. If we learnt that this was the true nature of our death, wouldn’t you want so desperately to avoid this fate? But the result is to forget, for ignorance is bliss. Then an awful thought flooded my mind—please don’t tell me this is why babies cry when they’re born.