Item №: SCP-99DW
Anomaly Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-99DW is currently held in a storage chamber at Site-110. Personnel handling the item should do so only with full-body protective clothing. Under no circumstances should the item be touched with bare skin outside of testing scenarios.
All persons who have ever made physical contact with SCP-99DW are to be held in Foundation custody, and affected staff members should be reclassified as E-Class personnel.
Following Incident AA99DW-PHI, discussion of induced memories beyond official disclosure is prohibited.
SCP-99DW at its location of discovery.
Description: SCP-99DW is a length of driftwood consisting of the partial trunk and root system of a tree of unknown species. It is physically non-anomalous save for a lack of growth rings.
Human subjects who make physical contact with SCP-99DW will, within an hour of exposure, begin acquiring false memories belonging to a person other than themselves (designated SCP-99DW-A). Although the identity of each SCP-99DW-A instance differs between occurrences and is never repeated, the following commonalities have been observed across all memories:
- The memories begin with SCP-99DW-A in the role of a passenger or crewmember aboard an oceangoing vehicle.
- At some point over the course of the memory, the vehicle attempts to traverse a region of the Atlantic ocean (██° ██' ██.██'' N, ██° ██' ██.██'' W) now designated Point GRANIT.
- As Point GRANIT is crossed, the vehicle rapidly takes on water by an unknown mechanism and consequently sinks. No physical damage to the vehicle’s hull has ever been observed.
- The memories end with the death of SCP-99DW-A, presumably along with all others aboard.
The time period in which the memories are set varies, but the majority occur some time after the late 19th century. A smaller number of pre-industrial settings have also been observed, with only one recorded memory occurring in prehistory.
The fact that the identity of SCP-99DW-A is different to the subject’s own does not typically cause any cognitive dissonance unless explicitly addressed, and the subject usually treats the memories as if they were their own. The fact that the subject is supposedly deceased is not normally able to be rationalised, however, and may serve as the focal point for longer-term trauma and induced personality disorders.
Although initially vivid, memories created by SCP-99DW will fade in prominence over time, and are usually forgotten completely after an average of 40 days. A forgotten memory will quickly be replaced by a new one featuring a different instance of SCP-99DW-A. This cycle may be substantially more rapid in subjects under the influence of amnestics, or in those with reduced cognitive ability, neurodegenerative diseases, or preexisting thalassophobia.
To date, no corroborating evidence has been found to support the existence of any person, vehicle, or event featured in these memories. This includes the existence of SCP-99DW-A instances.
Addendum—Incident AA99DW-PHI: On 2005-05-03, Agent Ryan Curry1 reported SCP-99DW-induced memories concerning a Foundation research vehicle. This was the first recorded occurrence of an SCP-99DW-A instance identifying as Foundation personnel.
Curry’s memories were those of an Agent Ana Cufet, a member of MTF Gamma-6 ("Deep Feeders") and a crewmember of the DSV Derleth, a deep-submergence vehicle designed for the observation of abyssal anomalies and locations of interest. No record of any person named Ana Cufet has been found, and no vehicle by the designation Derleth has ever been owned by the Foundation.
The following is a transcribed statement from Agent Curry describing the memory to the best of his recollection, 5 days after initial manifestation.
There's me - that's Ana - and four others. You've got their names. We're in this tiny sub, a day-trip thing. It dives maybe 10 miles out, cruises the rest of the way just above the sea floor. I don't remember seeing anything interesting on the way, or at least nothing worth remembering. The display screens are these big high-res things with crazy exposure.
Basically nothing happens for a long time. The sub's loud, but it feels dead quiet when nobody's talking. Like everyone's holding their breath, everyone's waiting. The engine's roaring, everything's vibrating, but it feels like I can hear my heartbeat. We're like that for probably an hour, just focused on the job, trying not to think. Then we reach the Point.
First thing I see is a shipwreck. Has to be about a thousand feet long, a cruise liner or something. Sorry - that's, what, three-hundred metres? Whatever. Enormous.
It's right at the edge of whatever the Point is. It's not really a Point, more of an area. Not a small one. Big enough that it vanishes into darkness in every direction. Must be a few miles wide at least. You can see it's the border because there's a hard line to it. To the wreckage. There's a cargo ship to the left of us and another sub. Much bigger than ours, definitely not research. Military? Whatever. They're wrecks.
Ahead there's trees. Driftwood trees, like redwoods. I - Ana - fuck. Sorry. Ana remembers redwoods. It's the memories of the memories that always trip me up. More than the rest. Anyway. Whatever. The trees - they're these bleached white things towering over us, growing out from between the wrecks, and hell - there must be thousands of them. Tens of thousands maybe. The metal's piled up on the wood. Rotting, rusting. Like mountains. Everything feels dead.
We're all still quiet. I don't really know if we said a word the entire trip. We all just stare at it, at the forest. The trees. The ships. Eze pulls the sub forward.
I guess we must have crossed into the Point because water starts to pour in. Takes maybe 20 seconds to fill the cabin. Everyone else is shouting, I'm still just staring. The lights short, it goes dark. Display screen stays on for another half a minute maybe. It's the only thing we can see. Just the white lines of the trees and the dark shapes of the wrecks.
Screen goes dark.
That's it.
In light of this incident, proposals to deploy a manned submersible to investigate Point GRANIT are under review.