Special containment procedures

The SCP Foundation is a delightful product of our moment.

What is the Foundation?
We are the last bastion of security in a world where natural laws rapidly break down. We are here to protect humanity from the things that go bump in the night, from people who wield power beyond mortal understanding. We are here to make the world a safer place. We are the holders of wonders, and the crafters of dreams. We are why the world continues. In the short form, we're a creative writing site, devoted towards horror.

The main component of the Foundation website is a kind of encyclopedia of reports on anomalous objects, like SCP-1051:

Special Containment Procedures:
Due to SCP-1051's main danger being information leakage, efforts towards containment have been placed into denial or falsification of rumors surrounding its existence. Agents are to be reminded that any reference towards SCP-1051 or similar concepts during interaction with a civilian, whether online or offline, are to be met with ridicule and/or denial. Knowledge beyond current cultural information may require the application of a Class-A amnesiac.

I recommend following the link to read more. SCP-1051 is a great spooky little idea with a note of wry humor.

Part of what I love about it is that it's a work that is made possible by the internet. There's no other way a fictional universe of such richness could emerge from the efforts of hundreds of contributing authors.

Another part I love is that I recognized it as soon as I stumbled across it. It's a cocktail of many of my popculture guilty pleasures from the last few decades. Stories about secret government conspiracies. Pseudoscientific modern legends like UFOs and Bigfoot and free energy machines. The thought while watching the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark that the big government warehouse must also contain other lost wonders. Encyclopedias of fictional worlds like Middle Earth, and roleplaying game sourcebooks.

In a world containing other people with my geeky cultural interests, of course SCP exists.