A Maze of Terror - The Backrooms Series Explained

From Backrooms Lore to Movie Success: An Episode Introduction Hello everybody, today we're going to talk about one of the most terrifying series on YouTube, The Backrooms. The Backrooms originated from a 4 Chan post depicting A frightening liminal space where according to the description, people can fall out of reality into this new world. Now this post went on and create its own unique tears, such as an entire website dedicated to the lore of the Backrooms itself and an emergence of liminal spaces and other frightening empty environments. And while we'll talk about that some especially at the end, today I want to focus on the Siri made by Kane Pixels. Kane series uses the backrooms as a vehicle to tell an overarching and intriguing story. While the terror and dread of the Backrooms are still present throughout his body of work, the series emphasizes the horror that it can create when backed by a strong narrative. And today we're going to take a look at that narrative, as well as the nature of the backrooms themself, create a cohesive timeline and figure out what this series is all about. And to help in our understanding of it, the man himself has decided to be a part of this video. The full interview can be found on the second channel, which will be LinkedIn the description. But throughout this video, he's going to help us put some pieces together. Also, here's the timeline for the events of the series. We'll get to that later. Speaker 2 Also, check out the Async merchandise. Pretty cool, huh? But I'm not here to talk about that. I want to talk about the amazing love and support that you all have shown us on the Kickstarter with our movie project. Again, I am making a movie with the writer and director of the SCP Dollhouse and SCP Overlord films, and at the time of recording you all have just finished funding the Kickstarter. I am hype as can be to like put this out there and to have you all support it this much to the degree that now I'm making a movie. It's so cool. It means the world. You guys are fantastic. It's happening, boys. We're doing it now. If you're still interested in the project and if you still want to get on board. Now that I can definitively say the movie is being made, any further proceeds will go towards making the movie better. There are several rewards and benefits you can get for pledging to the campaign and their stretch goals listed on the Kickstarter for what we'll do with the extra funds. The first thing that we're focusing on for any funds over our needed. Speaker 1 Budget is practice. Speaker 2 Physical effects, because while we have some fantastic people on the CG side, it would be a lot cooler to have real gore and real explosions. Because as a horror aficionado, I am a man of culture. So if you're interested in still getting your rewards and seeing how far we can push this thing, the link will be in the description as well as my video explaining it. There's a little less than a week on it now, so get in while you can. But really, I can't properly express how thankful I am to have started YouTube less than two years ago and to now be at the point where if I have a project that interests me, you all show up in droves and make it happen. Really, thank you. It it means the world. Y'all are really neat. But do you know what isn't neat? Your wife leaving you. But do you know what is neat? Raid Shadow Legends Did your wife take the kids? Well, she can never take back the countless hours of fun you had while collecting hundreds of artifacts to use on over 600 champions that you can use to create millions of combinations of tactics and strategies to use against player versus player arena matches, campaign battles, boss battles, and dungeon runs. Raid Shadow Legends is the first true console experience on your phone, mean it'll be there through the best of times and the worst of times. Unlike Karen. To emphasize how amazing it is that Raid is on a mobile platform, let's talk about the top three places to play Raid. You can play Raid in the office, perhaps even a lawyer's office, as you're setting through a divorce settlement and as your real life is being torn apart, you can put your team together. You can play Raid in the car, perhaps as you're being driven to court, allotted visitation hours by a public mandated official, because the overbearing weight of what could have been isn't the only dragon you have to slay. And you can even play Raid in court during a custody hearing because the one thing the judge can never take from you are these amazing characters in unique worlds that you can tackle any way you choose. And this month rates got a nonstop schedule of special events and activities including Forge Pass Season 3, including a limited edition artifact set along with new champion Skims for the new Madam Saris. And later this month, Death Knight is coming as a legendary champion. Because if there's one hero you'd want to fight for your crippled livelihood, it's this guy. And right now is the best time to get raid because for the next 30 days, if you go to the link in the description or scan the QR code here, first time players will be able to get $30.00 worth of in game bonuses, including a free Epic Champion Tyrell, 200,000 silver, one energy refill, one XP boost, and one ancient Shard. So you can start now and get these rewards and champions, and as soon as you get in the game, all of these rewards will be waiting for you right here when you log on. Because even if she took you for all you're worth, she'll never take Raid. Thank you all so much for watching the ad. Thank you so much to Raid for sponsoring the video. It really does mean the most. Hope you all check them out again. QR code and link in the description. The Terrifying Debut: Deconstructing Kane's Found Footage And we are back to the video. Speaker 2 We are going to go. Speaker 1 Ahead and get into the video, but as always, thank you for watching. To begin, we're going to do a run through of the Backroom series as well as the unlisted videos on Kane's channel and another secret channel that we'll get to. And then from there we'll jump into a timeline and analysis. So in that case, we're starting off with the first video of the Backroom series found footage. The description for the video says that the footage is from September the 23rd of 1996. The description also contains an unlisted video which we'll get to in a moment. The video opens with a group of teenagers making a home movie. From the Clapper board we can see that they were recording on July the 4th of 1991. But if that's the case, then why as the description say that the tapes from 96 and we'll get to that eventually. As the cameraman begins to take a few steps back, he trips and it appears that he falls into the backrooms. Now for those who aren't familiar with the concept of the backrooms, the original 4 Chan post that made the image popular and thereby the story says that if someone missteps or falls in just the right way, they can no clip out of reality and into the backrooms. Now, no, clipping is a concept from video games whenever a solid object passes through another solid object when it's not supposed to, implying that an individual can phase out of our existence and into whatever the existence of the Backrooms is. That's also where the lore of the original Backrooms mythology starts and ends with Kane series because as you'll see from the following videos, as well as Kane himself, this series is its own unique story. But for now, it seems our cameraman slipped out of the real world and into the Backrooms. The cameraman begins to walk around and yell for help and at the time of recording, the Backrooms found footage has about 36 million views. And from looking at the footage, it's not hard to see why. The environment is not only so detailed and well put together that it creates a holy swallowing atmosphere, but because of that detail, you wouldn't be alone in thinking that this is real footage. Cain's works have become a master class of 3D animation and that's definitely something we'll see going forward as well. Anyway, as our cameraman is walking through the back rooms, he thinks he hears something behind him and turns and if you notice carefully, something leans around the corner. Whatever this presence is that's following him doesn't want to be seen. He continues to walk and comes across more bizarre settings. A ladder that leads up to a square in the wall that once walked through shows a green lit room. As he continues to walk, the architecture gets more harsh with more unnecessary corners and turns along his path. Our cameraman comes across a series of scribbles that implies he's not alone. The first thing he sees is a series of arrows pushing him forward before he gets to a wall with the drawing of what appears to be a pair of eyes underneath a window. Around the eyes are several handprints and words that are hard to make out. However, among them, we can see the phrase don't move, stay still. Before ourselves or the cameraman has time to think on this, he quickly turns around to see that whatever's following him, it's now standing right in front of him. This creature begins to chase him, making these awful screaming noises. Whatever this thing is, it moves in a very janky, broken motion. And as our cameraman gains some ground, the screams that are just human enough to be haunting can be heard in the distance. But then, as he's running, our cameraman runs into a room of looping corridors where, as he turns the camera back, the creature is right behind him. He continues to run until he comes to a dead end with a hole in the floor. Having no other option, he jumps in. Now, the imagery we see here and in some of the upcoming shots are very similar to liminal art that exists on the Internet. And while this this all stays within the idea and the concept of what the back rooms are. Speaker 2 It's also the. Speaker 1 First time that we see anything within this world that isn't your standard yellow wall. So if anyone watching were to think that perhaps this world is just some randomly generated series of corners, this is our first indication that it may be a bit more complicated than that. Our cameraman walks up the stairs and then stands at the top of them, observing the light turn on and off. He then comes to a desolate hallway and when peering out the window sees and it leads to a giant courtyard of similar rooms and architecture. One of the common through lines when it comes to liminal spaces is the idea of locations that are meant to house large groups of people being completely empty for some reason. This is in contrast to things like abandoned buildings. While some abandoned buildings can certainly fall within the realm of liminal terror, for the most part they don't. Because that's something we can comprehend, right? We can understand that something was shut down, and because of that, it's now empty. The scary part is whenever the ghost town is harder to justify, we see well kept walls and clean floors and even things like running lights that implies that this area is being up kept for some reason. But that upkeep stands in stark contrast of the lack of people. And in the following scenes we see a dumpster covered in graffiti and a rope just laying in a hallway. It's like you have these areas that are made by people and they're exclusively made for the presence of humanity. So if it looks like something we built and looks like somewhere we're supposed to be, however it's completely empty, then who was it made for? As our cameraman continues to round the corner, he begins to cough. That probably doesn't mean anything to you right now, but hold on to that. He then comes to a massive gap in the floor and sees industrial signs everywhere and this looping architecture that keeps repeating the same hallways over and over. It's like whatever was making this was trying to make something that was human but didn't quite know how to make it fit together. It's at this point that the cameraman says this isn't real which you know would be understandable at this point before he continues walking and comes to a door that says fire exit keep clear and upon walking up the stairways he opens the door back into the back rooms. With no other way to go he ventures forward. Things seem normal until as he is slowly pacing down a hallway a chair is thrown at the wall in front of him. He then quickly finds a small alcove to hide within and it's at this point we get a good look at this creature that's been chasing him. This creature, or the life form as Cain refers to it, seems to be a tall, skinny mass of joints and fibers. While the stance and shape of it is vaguely human, the motions and behavior of it are anything but. As it continues to make these low droning noises, our cameraman looks for a way out. He finds a sheer drop off and while examining it with his camera, perhaps considering jumping in, he hears the noise behind him, only to turn and confront this. In this shot we get the best look at the life form that we've had to date. The life form is rigid and seems to be a combination of what can only be described as something between wires, branches, and steel. Its head looks like a conglomeration of the same wires and perhaps some biological material. The only thing that can be made out on it is perhaps teeth in the center of its quote UN quote head, but even that's debatable. Similar to the back rooms itself, it's something that while maybe using aspects and ideas of humanity in its creation, the final product is an uncanny plagiarism of the ideas it was built upon. As the camera is dropped, we can see that the life form grabs our cameraman, leaving him to a fate we can only imagine. At this point the camera cuts to black and when it cuts back, it's now falling from the sky. It seems that just as the cameraman faced into the back rooms, the camera faced back out, and with the final shot of the video, the camera lies there on the ground waiting to be discovered. September the 23rd of 1996. And that is the first video in the Backrooms. So do you see why this picked up a lot of attention? This is the point I discussed with Kane. I was very familiar with the concept of the backrooms whenever I saw the first episode of the series, as were many people on this side of the Internet. You know, us freaks. And like a lot of other people, I loved the idea. I just wanted to see something done with it. When I saw this first episode, I knew that it was what I didn't know I needed. So we followed this cameraman. He falls into the back rooms, he's chased by this life form until he's killed or some other terrible fate. Aside from the obvious questions of where did all of this come from and you know, questions about the life form and environment itself, there's other questions like who drew the words on the wall and what did the eyes under the window mean? And what's with the time discrepancy? Supposedly our cameraman went in on July the 4th of 1991 and comes out on September the 23rd of 1996. And also the coughing, which you're probably not asking questions about, but I certainly was. That's not a joke. I've been doing this a while and whenever I watched the first episode I heard him cough and literally wrote it on my hand. Because, you know, liminal spaces, cryptic messages, giant alien monster beast things. That's not what we're interested in. Emphysema. That's the real killer. Unveiling Async's Origins: Archive and The Third Test So now that we're done with that, let's take a look at the unlisted video. In the description of found footage, there's a video titled March the 11th 90 Archive dot tar. The description says that it was compiled in June of 1991. In the beginning, we see text implying that the file is being open for review. After it says loading archive dot tar, we then see images of the backrooms as well as other similar creepy spaces. We then see images of redacted individuals recording data and working most suspiciously are images of construction with a ceiling pattern that seems to be that of the backrooms itself. After that, we see a diagram of something called Null Zone 4. After deciphering the blurry text, which there's a lot of in this series, we can read that it says due to the elevation discrepancy between panel 225 and 234A, small KX field is created. KX is in reference to electromagnetic waves, something that's going to be a reoccurring thing throughout the series. I also believe that elevation discrepancy may be in reference to the fact that the backroom's elevation is ambiguous because as we're going to continue to see, it doesn't really seem to have an endpoint in any direction. And then finally, we see an image of what seems to be a sort of blast chamber. Now, this video was added to found footage a few days after found footage went up. So at the time, while it still has important information that we're going to look at when we get to the timeline, it was primarily made to encourage the idea that the series wasn't over. And as a matter of fact, it hadn't even begun to tell its story. And if you think the concept of people building and working in the back rooms is bizarre, oh, bore you in for it. As a matter of fact, let's get into that bizarre nature with the next video, the third test. In the description, we can see that this video is from July the 2nd of 1988. That means up until this point it's the earliest event in the timeline. Throughout the third test, from the diagrams and narration, we are told of a company called Async. Async is developing something known as a low proximity magnetic distortion system. This concept of magnetic distortion was mentioned in the previous video concerning the KX field. We are also given the name of someone high up at Async, a certain Ivan Beck. According to the narration, the purpose of the Low Proximity Magnetic Distortion system was a solution to society's growing storage and residential crisis. Now, some of you may already be putting together what that means, but we'll save the analysis for now. The video ends with the test of the system, and if you weren't convinced by Kane's VFX skills from the previous video, then this should certainly do it, given the failure of this operation as well as the video's title. The third test It seems in 1988 Async had not yet developed whatever this system would become. First Contact: The Gateway's Tremendous Real-World Impact However, that's about to change with the next video, First Contact. First Contact says that the footage is from October the 17th of 1989 / a year since the third test. There's also an unlisted video in the description, but we'll get to that in a moment. First Contact opens with an FBI warning about distribution of the video as well as the Async company logo. Async, as you'll soon find out, isn't only a primary player in the series, but also responsible for some of the structures within the back rooms itself. The video opens with text telling us that this is Test 6. As we see this industrial equipment and all of the power that it takes to run this machine, we hear the song Daisy Bell being played in the background. Now, a lot of you have probably heard the Daisy Bell song from TikTok. It's that creepy Daisy Daisy song. And if that's where you know it from, that's OK. Everyone has to start somewhere, but the song's place in this story is due to the history of it. Daisy Bell was the first song ever sung by a computer. In 1961 an IBM computer was programmed with the first ever voice synthesizer, and to test the hardware, the designers had it sing Daisy Bell, which is the creepy version of the song that you're probably familiar with. And not only is this the first ever song sung by a computer, but in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey, which I'm a little bit of a fan of, it was the song sung by Hal, the movies AI as it began to die. Reason I bring it up is because the majority of the tracks that occur throughout the series are made by Kane himself. However, here he made the conscious decision to use this song. To me, and I'll explain this with more evidence as we get further into the series, I feel that that song's usage is representative of async's mentality, A mentality that shaped several of the decisions moving forward. Beginning with the rest of First Contact. After seeing failure messages and modifications and diagrams of changes to the machine, we then see the magnetic distortion system get running. As it's running, it seems that there is destruction and collateral events happening around it. This is emphasized by a researcher telling another researcher to turn it off. However, the researcher refuses, stating that there's something there as we see a map of the backrooms expand across the screen. Finally, the machine ends and what we're left with is a gateway into the Backrooms. So it seems that here, given the title First Contact, this was humanity's first expedition into the Backrooms and. From the way they speak, they didn't even know that that's what they were running into. As it's seen throughout the series, it seems that the magnetic distortion system was made to open a doorway into some kind of different reality. However, as the men explained, whenever the machine was running during this 6th test, it seems that they accidentally came across a world that was already created. And with the final shots of the video, it didn't matter if Async was ready for this new reality or not because they had found a gateway to it. The unlisted video in the description shows the first layer of side effects that this new every had brought on and that video is Collateral dot MOV. This unlisted video has no description but shows live sports coverage and news broadcast of an earthquake that hit San Francisco, CA at 841 Eastern Standard Time on October the 17th of 1989. This is a real earthquake that took place in 1989 in Southern California. Furthermore, watching the time of the gateway being opened in First Contact confirms that these took place in the same seconds. Using this real world event as an unfiction point within the narrative, it seems that opening the gateway caused such tremendous shock waves that it led to societal devastation. So is Async going to make this sacrifice worth it? That is a good question. We'll find out. For now, let's see further effects of what this gateway caused with the next video. The Spiking Cases: Async's Deep Dive into the Complex Missing Persons. The description dates missing persons as February the 3rd of 1990. At the beginning of the video, we see various missing persons posters. These posters show individuals ranging from fully grown adults to a 2 year old child. We then see a trend line of missing persons cases by year. The trend line seems normal until it hits a blue bar in 1989 and then after that missing persons cases spike. If you remember the dates from the previous videos, this spike occurs after the rift was opened in First Contact. It seems that whenever Async punched a hole in the fabric that was covering our reality from the back rooms, it caused the entire border to become destable. And because of that, as we saw and found footage, people can simply slip in now. Which has a side note. There's a lot of horror throughout the series, and a lot of horror to be had with the idea that you can just take a wrong step and wind up in the yellow rooms. But the idea of a 2 year old child doing it is particularly brutal. Also, and I know I keep hyping up Kane for a lot of the aspects of this series, but you know, I can't help myself. The music in this section as well as the rest of the series is fantastic. Kane He composes the music himself, and there are few soundtracks that better embody this vibe of cosmic sci-fi terror than the sounds that you hear throughout the Backrooms. Speaker 3 Most of my work is usually pretty intense or pretty dark or I do some ambient like more maybe emotional stuff. But definitely since having this series, it has been so cool to have a place to finally put my music and have people actually like listen to it. So that's that's amazing. Speaker 1 Anyway, we then see a doorway and an Async logo as we observe a crew taking an excursion into the back rooms. This is just over four months since first contact, and we can assume that within that time Async was performing several endeavors into the back rooms. By the point that we see them here and missing persons, they've already established an SOP Where hazmat suits taking a tether line so they don't get lost, and it seems from their reactions this is still in their early excursions. Eventually the group rounds a corner and sees some sort of figure underneath three holes in the wall. One of the researcher says to another it may just be a part of the environment. Again, this is prevalent throughout the entire series, but especially now. Async doesn't necessarily know what they're getting into. As they get closer, the figure comes into view. It seems to be the body of a person propped up against the wall. While this may be expected considering what we know about people just falling into the back rooms, the mysterious part is this setting around the body. It seems that some kind of mold or rot has encompassed the body itself and even worked its way up the wall behind it. It's a little hard to make out all the dialogue, but from what I can make out, it seems that the conversation goes as follows. This makes no sense. This wasn't in the last report. No, this is definitely new. It's organic. Is it some kind of fungus? Again, all of these implying that as we discover it, Async is discovered as well. Then suddenly the screen glitches and cuts to a very quick shot of a blue screen with backwards text. This backward text reads if anybody blame him. And then with that, the video ends. This is the first of several inverted messages that we're going to get throughout the series, and I have my theories about who him might be, but we'll get to that in a bit. For now, it seems there's some other living creature within the back rooms itself. We know that Async's there, we know that people are falling into it, and we know that the life forms from the hallways, but this seems to be a living growth that covered over this person and the wall around him. And while we don't know the details about it yet, it seems there's more at play here than just the monsters in the hall. With that, let's move into the next film informational video. The description says this video is from February the 29th of 1990. Here's the thing with that. 1990 was not a leap year, meaning there was number February the 29th. Time is weird in the back rooms, as we're going to see. It gets weirder, so I'm willing to just claim ignorance at this point and get into the video. This video again opens with a note that it's for internal use only and an Async logo. We now get some more information about these explorations into the back rooms, specifically something known as the Project KV-31 Research and Development team. KV-31, as we'll see, is the division of Async specifically concerned with the back rooms as well as Async's low proximity magnetic distortion systems. Specifically, this system is denoted as Model 6 with lines up with the mention and first contact that this was the 6th trial of the system. We then learn of some nomenclature within KB 31. For example, the doorway that I've been calling the gateway is referred to as the Threshold, and the back rooms are referred to within KB 31 as the machine, the door, the back rooms, the Complex, and the Hallways. Whenever talking to Cain about the series, he refers to it as the Complex, and that feels less awkward than saying the back rooms all the time, so I'm sticking with complex. While discussing that mentioning the complex outside of KV-31 is prohibited, there's again a glitch that shows a flash of a map of the complex with backwards text across a blue screen that reads. Not that it would do any good. I imagine that whoever S writing this is referring to the idea that it doesn't matter if you mention it outside of KB 31 or not because people are going to fall victim to the complex either way. It seems that whoever S talking over these and backwards has a bit of vitriol attached to them between saying blame him and it's not going to do you any good and other examples. We'll see. We also see that it is a rule to never enter the complex without supervision and with no less than three people. We then cut to a tape that was taken again on February the 29th at 11:36 AM. This is the video of a researcher traveling into the complex. Before they enter the complex, the cameraman looks up and sees an advisor leaning over the balcony. I can only imagine that this is Ivan Beck as he's mentioned as being the vice director and the only real name of authority that we've had to this point. As the group travels through the complex, the dialogues a little hard to make out, but you can hear them dismissing an event that happened 2 weeks ago. This would have been right after the body was found in persons, so perhaps similar events are occurring. As they're walking, the person recording suddenly hears a large crowd. While some have been led to believe that this could just be a hallucination, I think the fact that the camera picked it up as well means that the noise was really there. As the cameraman follows it to a dead end, he turns back to his crew. Before this happens. Suddenly, while in the same physical location, his crew completely disappears. Our cameraman naturally begins to panic, and as he calms down and begins to explore, we're treated to some weird geometry. For example, he comes into this room that appears to be a sort of stadium, with a fence in between him and the back wall. In the middle of the floor is something that can only be described as charred remains or clothing, or perhaps some kind of biological material that's been shed onto the ground. He continues walking and at one point begins coughing. There's another one of my coughing moments. Don't worry, this conspiracy will come in at the end. He then comes to one of the weirdest sites in the entire series. At least at this point. I'm sure it'll get worse. It initially seems to be a dark room, until he turns on his flashlight and sees this odd floral pattern across the wall. Upon further inspection, he finds an axe propped up against it, with wheelbarrows scattered around the area. The wall behind them are these straight lines of a sort of glitch stripe pattern. And then, most bizarrely, is the image of what appears to be a barn of sorts. The angle and design of it looks like a painting, but the way his light reflects in the windows of the doors of the barn implies that it's some kind of almost 3D texture, but not quite. Some people have speculated because of scenes like this that the entirety of the back rooms take place in the video game, Which, no, but the imagery here is definitely computer esque. Like the rest of the complex. Despite being made out of things we can comprehend, it seems violently inhuman. It also seems that while he's in here, the camera picks up a very low moan. I'll go ahead and get it out of the way. I've got a lot of theories that I think make a lot of sense for a lot of the concepts in the series, but I don't really have anything for this one. I am in full confidence that Cain is purposeful with everything he includes and the order in which he includes it. So because of that, I understand that I just don't have the pieces to put it together yet. That being said, what? Like, yeah, a lot of the stuff seen throughout the series can be explained as a sort of liminal space that fits in line with everything else being created by whatever entity made the complex in the 1st place. But there's, I don't know, something about the axe and the house and just like the whole room itself that feels different for some reason. And it's going to drive me crazy until I get answers. That's really all this channel is. Just me interacting with more content creators and them slowly leading me down a path of insanity until I have an inevitable mental breakdown. Live for you all, so stay tuned. As he continues walking, he comes across a sort of industrial walk that seems out of place. This wall has a sign as well as an observation window. He steps into the room, which is full of recording devices and electronics, and as soon as he says hello, alarms, red lights and a sort of lockdown procedure begins. We're then shown several diagrams of the complex before the video ends. Now, unlike my crazy barn moaning room, there will be an answer to the finale of this video by the end of this video. Well, there will be an answer to the thing at the end of the Cane Pixels video, at the end of this Windegoon video. Yeah. So to keep making our way forward for now, let's get to the next video. Unsettling Discoveries: Autopsy Report and Motion Detected Autopsy reports report Autopsy report took place on February the 5th of 1990. This was in the past of informational video, only two days after the body was discovered in missing persons. And as a matter of fact, this video is the autopsy of that body that was recovered. Speaker 2 We hear a narration. Speaker 1 From a tape from somebody that works in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Async. This autopsy is again for the aforementioned John Doe. Speaker 2 The male is believed to be. Speaker 1 Between 18 to 21 years old and the coroner says that the time of death was likely five days ago, or in other words, three days before his body was discovered. He mentions that the body has severe tissue damage and it seems that the cause of death was malnutrition. If this is true, then our John Doe was likely in the back rooms for some time before he died. However, the concerning part is the coroner's next mention. He says that the decomposition process is stunted within parts of the body while progressing further in other parts. He says that it seems the entire body has become infected with a mutated strain of Hey Bacillus. The coroner mentions that in any other case, this bacteria should be completely benign. However, here in the complex, it's mutated into something completely different, leading the coroner to directly ask Mr. Beck where the subject came from. A couple things to note here again, aside from the obvious, there's a weird bacteria in the back rooms, along with the giant lanky metal monster. Because, you know, their day couldn't get any worse. It seems that ASYNC is still figuring it out, or at the very least, the people working on the ground, like the researchers and coroner, aren't Privy to what's going on. Furthermore, by looking at the body in autopsy report, whatever this mutated bacteria is is incredibly violent. It seems to have covered the victim's entire body and made them into this sort of mold. Perhaps whatever this bacteria is is very aggressive, perhaps aggressive enough to infect the living and maybe, I don't know, make them cough. Huh. Huh. Don't worry, that's not where the theory is ending. It's not just the fact that the bacteria is making people sick. I'm going to go full insane with it later. Just wait. At the end of the video we see a television within the lab flipping through different clips of TV, videos of bacteria growing, and investigations of the complex. In the midst of these clips, if you pause it on a screen of text while parts of the message are blocked off, the goal of it is very clear. Whoever wrote this said that this environment isn't safe and that humanity shouldn't be here, and it's delusional to think otherwise. Whoever wrote this clearly thinks the complexion to be messed with and disagrees with Async's goals, or at least the goal of, you know, traveling into the pocket dimension. At the end of the television clips, we get this visual of the threshold being opened overlaid with America testing the nuclear bomb. Literally an overlay of scientific arrogance of the past being recreated. Now there's stuff like this throughout the entire series. I'm sure I missed a ton of it, and this is definitely a series that, even if you just want to hear explanation of it, is definitely worth your time to watch. Not only because it's cool and scary and all of that, but there is a lot there for people who take the time to look. With that, we move into our next video, Motion Detected. Motion Detected takes place on March the 5th of 1990. This is five days after the events of informational video. As a video opens, we see the date again of March the 5th along with an async logo. We see that just beyond the threshold into the complex, Async is beginning construction of a sort of entryway, quite possibly a hub or observation post for future expeditions. We then see that in this area known as Division A, there have been 7 motion cameras set up. We're even given a diagram of how the cameras are laid out. So we see a log of everything that activated these motion cameras on the night of Monday, March the 5th. Most of it is standard with researchers passing by, researchers returning, a supervisor walking by, and at 9:14 PM we hear that the audio sensor went off whenever the threshold was closed. I like the casual nature of it, that at the end of the work day, everyone takes off their hat, clocks out and turns off the alternate reality. At one O 6:00 AM, another noise is detected, this time a sort of metallic clamoring. At 2:13 AM another noise is detected as the microphone begins to glitch. And then the real horror happens at 3:53 AM. In this moment, we can see something leaning around one of the posts out in the distance. The camera then zooms in to reveal this. To me, it looks like these are a pair of flailing legs kicking around in the air on top of this thing. Whatever this creature is, it's most likely the same creature, or at least one of the same kinds of creature seen in found footage. And while horrifically misplaced and again, very uncanny, the detail of human legs is the most directly human thing I've seen out of it yet. This leads back into a theory I'll get to at the end of the video, but for now know that as they're beginning construction, things are not good. However, despite this, the people who venture into the back rooms in later videos, as well as general conversation around the complex doesn't seem to mention this incident. Perhaps whoever was checking the logs for this if anyone didn't want everyone to find out. From Teleportation to Terror: The Pitfalls of Exploration So with that pleasant thought in mind, let's take a step back and go to the next video, Prototype. Prototype is a shorter video that takes place on May the 10th of 1982. This is the earliest video within our timeline. It says this video takes place in the Oak Bridge Laboratory. It says that this test was supervised by Philip R Heyman, again, a real individual from the federal government transported into this story. We see here an early prototype of what would eventually become the threshold. In 1982, the group at Oak Ridge was using this magnetic device to attempt a sort of teleportation. We see a small marble in the middle of this device, and after the machines activated, the marbles gone. While perhaps at the time they thought that the machine was teleporting the item or even vaporizing, from what we know now it was most likely getting thrown into the backrooms. So if at least nine years prior to whenever KV-31 began their expedition into the complex, how much stuff did the government blast into the backrooms without knowing what they were doing? Perhaps some of that meddling could be the cause of the effects we see now. With that out of the way, we then move into what is in my opinion the most terrifying episode of the series, Pitfalls. According to the description, the date of Pitfalls is May the 6th of 1990. Again we see in the beginning an async logo and this time we're told that the video we're watching was recorded by a Marvin E Lei. We see Marvin suiting up along with some other Co workers within a division of KV-31 as it seems they're about to travel into the complex. However, this time after stepping into the complex, we see that a large observation deck has been fully completed just past the threshold. These are the first signs of async beginning construction within the complex itself. While walking we hear the crew mention the concept of vertical expansion, perhaps meaning that they are literally going to begin expanding their operations into the other layers of the complex. It's mentioned that this will take place after a tour that is happening sometime between the 7th and 10th. We also see signs that routes have been more planned out as instead of running the tether this whole way, they have placed permanent markers on the ground to let people know where to go. It's almost as if the further they get away from the threshold, the less attention is given to make everything seem normal. This is exemplified when as they're traveling, they come across a series of giant pits in the floor. The pits themselves seem either very deep or have a sharp cut off just below sight. There is a door on the other side of the pits and a researcher named Mark decides to go for it. He gets to the other side and immediately exclaims at the wonder. Of what he's seen, instead of explaining himself, he tells Marvin, our cameraman, to bring the camera immediately. As Marvin is making his way across the pit, another text glitch comes across the camera, this one, once again backwards and very brief when deciphered reads. While data could be inferred from these recordings, nobody knew what would actually be found on the other side. While a lot of the text glitches we've seen so far seem to be a sort of harbinger of things to come, it seems that this text is directly referring to the video we're watching. And perhaps the question of the other side is whatever Mark saw after he crossed over the pits, which at this point in the series we have no idea. But it seems that perhaps someone in the future wrote something about the tape Marvin was recording, and that note appeared to him in the present as he was recording it. That may seem far fetched now, but I assure you time's going to get really weird here in a minute. Whatever it is, this glitch causes Marvin to jump and he falls down the pit. Luckily the pit turned quickly and simply spit him out in a lower layer of the complex. The walls down here seem weirdly decrepit. Like, yes, it's the same walls that were used to, but something about them seems more dingy and unfinished. There's wood on the bottom, as if repairs have never been completed. It's again that idea that the further they get from the threshold, the more atypical the geometry begins to look after. It's confirmed that Marvin's OK. Mark, the guy who passed through the door up top, still says that he wants a camera right away. Whatever he saw must have been incredibly important. While down there, Marvin begins to hear what sounds like a human yelling. Marvin decides to invest, which is a better or Dumber man than me. As he turns the corner, the hallway physically twist around itself, leading to a small gap in the wall in front of him. Whenever he steps through the wall, we get the most bizarre sight that we've seen yet. It is a tunnel with a painted Rd. that leads to a neighborhood. On top of that, there seems to be a forest around the neighborhood itself with a blood red sky hanging above. The streetlights and quiet houses create this apocalypse elliptic feeling. If a lot of images within the complex simply embody a form of human absence, then this street more so embodies human extinction. As Marvin continues to walk, he can hear someone yelling. Can anybody hear me? His team continues to caution him not to continue further, because duh. Before Marvin remarks, but what if Miller is right about the null zones? Now, this line's very interesting to me. All the way to the second video, the first unlisted video on the channel, we saw the mention of null zones that are created by a magnetic field. Now, we don't know what that means yet, and anything I come up with is just speculation. But perhaps every now and then, just for the way the magnetic fields are laid out, there are these null zones created which are essentially just glitches where any kind of environment can take shape. Or perhaps these are locations where people can no clip through. Who knows? As Marvin continues walking, he sees a house with a light on, and it seems that whoever this person is screaming is located inside of the house. Marvin walks inside and sees a series of backwards Rd. signs popping up from out of the ground. Now, if you've been paying attention, you'll probably realize that this is the only other place that we've seen backwards text besides the glitches. So perhaps whatever entity is attempting to copy human structure and things like Rd. signs, given the backward nature of the text, it could be the same entity that's leaving messages behind. As I've mentioned with a lot of other parts of the complex, it seems that the complex itself is trying to create the idea of humanity, but it doesn't know how to put it together. It knows that there needs to be houses, it knows that there needs to be streets and things like Rd. signs. It just doesn't know how they all fit. It's almost like an adaptive AI trying to recreate the world and we see all of the past failed generations of that creation. Again, I'm not saying that this all takes place inside of computer, that's just the relation it gives me. Marvin continues to walk back into the house through a thin hallway. As he walks through this hallway, his camera and microphone begin to glitch out. Eventually he makes his way into a very decrepit room that has signs of someone living there. In this room we see a single chair and makeshift bedding, as well as a pair of shoes and several letters and numbers on the ground. Kane pointed out to that these letters are the letters that have been gathered from the houses along the street, which while an interesting visual note, I have no idea what to make of that. Marvin makes the observation to his crew that it seems someone's been living here. He continues to follow the voices until he turns the corner, and this happens as the life form begins to scream and run at him. Marvin makes a run for it at one point, tripping and falling before getting back up and continuing to run down the street, the yelling of the life form getting louder and louder behind him. One of the more effective things about this scene to me, other than you know, the giant monster thing, is that in this moment there are so many unknowns. Why is there a street like this in the middle of the complex? What did the person living within the back rooms mean? What are these creatures? I wasn't making human noises. But all of that, while still present, slips away for a moment because it suddenly becomes a fight for survival as Marvin is running from this thing. It's cosmic threats that are always there, but occasionally take a backseat to just this primal horror. And as he continues to run, Marvin gets away. He makes his way back to the hole that he originally fell through, and despite hearing the life form in the distance, his crew manages to throw down a briefcase attached to a tether and Marvin Klein's up. I should also mention, during this point, Marvin begins coughing again, the third time that someone within the complex has began to have a coughing fit. The video ends with Marvin setting now relatively safe in the hole that he fell from, making sure that the life form doesn't follow him. So obviously there's a lot of questions, the ones I already mentioned about, you know, the person being down there, the street, the life form itself. Speaker 2 One of the more apparent ones is the noises. Speaker 1 The life form was making because previously when we saw it and found footage, it was kind of these garbled broken speech patterns, but here it was full blown asking for help and if anyone was there. So is this life form attempting to lure people with a sort of bait? Or is it more so like a parrot just repeating words that it's heard, which if it's the latter, leads to the terrifying conclusion that those may have been the last words of its last victim. But again, that's assuming this thing even has victims or the capability to repeat patterns that it just hears from other people. Speaker 3 We don't know where these life forms come from. We don't know if they arise individual of each other or if they're all the same. It could be speculated that it's everyone we've seen is all the same 1 so we don't there's not a lot of information to speak to on their their nature yet they've been observed to run at the camera person screaming and the screams are pretty terrifying. Speaker 1 There's so many unknowns and I guarantee you that some of them may possibly, probably not get better. But to see if we can get any more answers, let's jump into the next video report. The Human Element: Async's Fear and The Yellow Wallpaper According to the description, report takes place on May the 6th of 1990. This is the same date as Pitfalls. There's also an unlisted video in the description that again, we'll get to in a moment. We begin with outside shots of an async facility as the audio from Pitfalls is heard playing in the background. We then see again, because this was on the same day, the team from Pitfalls returning to the base. They are greeted by an advisor standing in front of them. The most striking thing about this advisor is that it's a real person. And no, not like within the story, it's a real person. I mean, the video has now switched from entirely special effects into live action, at least partially so, as we'll see. We then see a series of async researchers watching Marvin's video from Pitfalls. But also, I know I keep like hopping on the cane train, but again, I can't help myself. Not only did the jump from visual effects to live action feel very natural, but Kane is already proven himself as a fantastic live action director. The way that the characters are shot and these otherwise mundane scenes are kept interesting through effective uses of camera placement and shot lane. In the interview, we talked about some of his inspirations, and yeah, it certainly shows. One of the particular notes that really got me when I first watched this one, other than, you know, the fact that it's real people now, is the attitude of the async advisors themselves. See, I kind of went into the series and up until this point, I just had the idea of, oh, we have stereotypical evil big bad corporation doing big, bad corporation stuff. They don't care for their employees or the fate of humanity. They're just here to increase profit. Speaker 2 Blah blah blah, that was. Speaker 1 Until I saw the reaction of the advisors in this video. Like yeah, I saw researchers getting scared and freaking out in previous videos, but that's pretty standard for these stories, right? If you have some big evil corporation, normally their workers are the ones who are scared and gets killed and then they just send more later. But when I was watching these async researchers watch Marvin's video from Pitfalls, they were afraid. And it's not over the top. It's not some crazy overblown caricature of fear. It's subtle, it's quiet, but it's effective. Speaker 3 I think it's clear to make the distinction that async I don't believe is evil and it's not my intention to portray any element of my any characters is something I like to stay away from. I don't ever like portraying anything as good or evil in my work. I don't like to play up the over the top because everyone's seen the over the top corporation or agency or whatever that is just very like strict bureaucratic evil. Like maybe they seem nice and fine, but then they've got this evil secret agenda to take over the world or do something and Async simply just isn't that. It is a Research Institute. It is filled with people who have never touched a gun in their life. They're not prepared to go in and like it. It's not a military organization. Speaker 1 Not only did Cain do a great job at directing the actors here, as well as obviously the actors themselves, but this is one of the justifications to me of why the series need to jump to live action here. This isn't something that you could properly convey inside of a VFX engine. But when I was watching this, and I was watching them afraid, my entire opinion on the series changed. It's not just in big bad corporation, it's something more nuanced than that. Perhaps Async is a company who stepped into the deep end too quickly, and perhaps they're not some monster roaming around in the dark woods, but perhaps just a child roaming around in the dark woods. We see that in response to this, Async built these massive blast doors in front of the threshold. Perhaps before they thought they were completely alone in this dimension, but now they realize they're not, and the video ends with them more afraid and perhaps more cautious of their ventures going forward. Or not. We'll see how that goes. Our next video is the unlisted video in the description of report, and that is an unlisted video titled 9780415263573. It'd be really funny if that's like one of your all's activation codes. And now I have to explain to the CIA why I tripped off one of their sleeper agents, which out of all the things I was expecting the CIA to arrest me over, that wasn't in the top 9. The series of numbers is the ISBN code, or essentially the book code for a short story called The Yellow Wallpaper. And while yes, he he ha ha, yellow Wallpaper backrooms, get it? The meaning of this reference goes a little bit deeper. Speaker 3 I did not shoehorn it in just because, oh look, it's a book about. It's got a yellow wallpaper, guys. That means it's backrooms that there's more thought to it than that. So that's all I really can't say here. Speaker 1 The Yellow Wallpaper is a story about a woman who begins to become obsessed with a dingy yellow wallpaper in her room. Over time, she begins to believe that there is a woman trapped behind the wallpaper itself. By the end of the story, she destroys the wallpaper in order to release the woman. However, as we see through her narration, she has instead become the woman that she was afraid of. Now in that story, it's an allegory for mental health and people being turned away despite obvious symptoms and signs that they need help. But in this story, I feel that it's more so about becoming a monster. You fear, quite literally a monster behind the yellow wallpaper. Now the events of this video are not quite as nuanced as that, as we see a traffic Cam video of cars on the road when suddenly one of them just falls through the floor. Obviously, as we know, that means that they fell into to the backrooms, which is a horrific concept. Imagine that you are driving a car down a freeway and then you blink and you're now driving the same car going 70 miles an hour through the backroom. I'm glad that we saw this first because, and I don't know how Cain's going to incorporate it into the series. I doubt he'll do this, But if I was watching it trying to take notes and then in an upcoming episode the life form just gets dump truck by a Honda Civic. I think I just shut the laptop and be done with it. The Ultimate Deception: Async's Vision and Reality's Glitches With that we move on to the final public video at the time of recording presentation. In the description we see that this is from May the 8th of 1990 and again there is a link to an unlisted video that we'll cover next. The video opens with an FBI warning regarding distribution and we're then taken to a presentation room where an async video is being shown. The video is for something called a space prospective development. A space, as as mentioned in Motion detected being the first section of the complex past the threshold over the beginning of the video. It essentially builds the point that the world is having a population and pollution problem, and Async can fix it. They explained that this will be done through the low proximity magnetic distortion system, however the actual text explaining how it works has been redacted. Async's plan, according to this video, is to open the threshold to such a degree that it can become a line of transportation. Essentially, as I'm sure several of you figured out from earlier mentions, the plan is to convert the complex into an infinite storage room, and as shown through the diagrams, a storage room with no maintenance or limit to size. These scenes become intercut with a group of people walking through Async's facilities, and we see that Async's eventual plan is to move forms of industry, storage, office spaces, consumerism, and even housing into the back rooms. Which that is the businessman's answer if I've ever heard one. Got poor people who can't find affordable housing? Throw them in a pocket dimension. Got factories that are creating too much pollution and contaminants? Throw it in the pocket dimension. McDonald's. Throw it in the pocket dimension now. Speaker 2 While I just. Speaker 1 In a perfect situation where the back rooms were literally just space, then perhaps some of these solutions can make sense. If there is a population crisis, why not have people move to an area where space is no longer an issue? If nature is threatened by pollution, why not move the pollution to somewhere that can't be affected by it? However, the issue arises because obviously, as we know, it's more complicated than just a bunch of storage space and you know, excluding the concepts of what if, you know, the threshold quits working and there's a bunch of people just stuck in there. But at this point, literally 2 days before the events of Pitfalls took place, Async knows that the complex isn't only more complicated than they initially thought, but now they know that there's creatures in there that can potentially cause real harm, if not worse. And as we see from the following scenes, it seems that Async wants to move ahead anyway. I discussed this with Kane, and I don't know if it's necessarily evil as much as it is arrogant. It seems to me that Async and the researchers at KV-31 are so concerned with what can go right that they haven't taken a moment to consider what can go wrong. Again, because of Marvin's video and pitfalls, I would call this willing ignorance, but either way, probably not a good idea. We see shots of a sort of long Gray corridor. I can only imagine this is something that we're not Privy to yet, and we're then shown several images of concept model homes within the complex. I do like this a lot. It's very creative given the geometry of the back rooms that you look at these pictures and think, yeah, I could reasonably see how you could build a house in there. However, as these model homes are being shown, there is a very quick flash across the screen that's once again backwards and distorted. However, when deciphered, it is a fragment of a sentence that says to deceive. The FEDEI can only imagine that's part of the word federal. So the sentence probably reads that the purpose of this presentation is to deceive the federal government because as we're going to see in a moment, and as the title of this video implies, this is all being presented to the federal government so that they can get funding to continue their research. Again, similar to the clip seen in Pitfalls, this seems to be a future bit of information passed backwards onto the video we're currently viewing. We then see clips of the Doe tape archive, which shows a tour being given by async to the Department of Energy, again in order to justify further expeditions and funding. Also, if you were paying attention during falls, this is the tour that was mentioned occurring between the 7th and the 10th. As they're talking in the observation post above the threshold, alarms begin to sound and one of the advisors asked one of the advisors conducting the meeting to come over and look at this. Whenever they look at the monitor, they see this scene. This is the researcher who was lost during informational video finding his way back to the threshold. If you'll remember in that video, which on the timeline occurred over two months ago, the camera man who is a part of that research team ended up finding this weird observation room that as soon as he stepped inside and said hello, all of these alarms went off. Well, that is happening right now as they are giving their tour to the Department of Energy. Not only will that probably not bode well for them, I imagine, but it shows definitively what happened in informational video. If you remember, the cameraman was led away by these voices before he looked at his team and a weird glitch happened. He was suddenly all alone. It turns out that he experienced a time skip. See, it's always been kind of a background thing. The time's working differently in the back rooms, and this is our first evidence of it. Someone was standing there and within an instant was transported to two months in the future. And thankfully for him, he managed to find his way back to the entrance. Speaker 2 But the reason he didn't know what was going. Speaker 1 On is because whenever he went on his expedition, the entrance wasn't there. So now not only are the backrooms perilous because of the life forms within it, the bacterial disease thing in it, and the very structure of the complex itself, but now you can randomly be picked up and placed at another point in time. While we don't have the information yet, I imagine this will come into play with a lot of the text we've seen popping up at supposedly weird places throughout the story. But for now, it answers a couple of other minor questions. Remember how in found footage he went into the back rooms in 1991 and it says the camera was found in 96? Well, that's because at some point during all of that, our cameraman experienced a time jump. Perhaps several of the structures he came across during found footage are in fact structures that were made by Async. The reason I think this is because every time the complex makes something, it's very odd and out of place, like the structures wrong or the words read back backwards or what have you. Whereas some of the stuff that was discovered and found footage just seemed like an empty office space. It seemed a little too good in parts. And yes, while the construction wasn't necessarily finished, it seemed that it was coming along OK. Perhaps the giant building with white hallways that he was walking through was a part of Async's future office or housing projects. And if that's true, and where is everyone? That's all speculation. He could have went in at 91 and the entire time he was in the back rooms was in 91. And then whenever he fell out or the camera fell out, it was 96. And all the structures he came across was just liminal spaces within the complex. And I'm just reading too far into it, which, you know, wouldn't be the first time. But for now, to see another effect of this time skip, let's look at the last video in the series up until this point. And that is the unlisted video in the description of Presentation Simpson. Simpsons is the only video in this series not posted by Kane. It was instead posted by a new account called Laura Harris, a channel with no public videos. The video begins as a standard home recording of an episode of The Simpsons called Bart Gets Hit by a Car. That is, until halfway through the clip, whenever distortions and glitches begin to happen on the screen and we see shots of a Spanish television ad before the screen glitches back and the episode of The Simpsons continue. So what does this mean for the series? Right? Well, the episode of The Simpsons, Bart gets hit by a car originally aired in 1991. That all makes sense. 91 is well within the timeline of the series, so we can assume that this episode aired during the time we know Async was doing its thing. Well, whenever the TV glitched and that Spanish commercial came on for a few seconds. That commercial is from the mid 2000s. It only lasted for a few seconds, and it seems to have corrected itself, but it seems that Async's manipulation is causing not only people to fall into the back rooms, it's causing the time distortion to stretch into our reality, and it seems to just be a minor distortion. It's a television station accidentally showing something from years in the future of its broadcast back in 1991. However, I highly doubt that's the end of it. We saw that Async's research was causing collateral damage physically with things like the earthquake in 1989, and we saw for missing persons that creating a rift between the two realities caused people to slip from ours into the complex. But now it seems that temporal distortion within the complex is seeping into the real world. And if that keeps happening, then I have absolutely no idea where any of this could go. Because if Async breaks time, then they've really, they've done it now, haven't they? Unraveling the Chronology: Deep Dive into Backrooms Theories But with that, we have now watched up to this date all of the videos in the Backroom series, which congratulations, very proud. So now that we're on the same page, let's get to the timeline, which isn't that complicated, but still needs laid out. And then from there we can do our final analysis. And I can finally get to my crazy conspiracy theories because, you know, if I don't get to do that, then. Speaker 2 Really, what's the point? So now that we've covered all of that, let's take a look at the timeline to make sure we're all on the same page and we'll talk about my weird theory for the whole series up until this point. Also, Kane didn't ask me to do this, but just so everyone can see, I am repping the async merch because frankly, this goes hard and I love it. Kane's merch store will be LinkedIn the description as well. But for now, let's look at the timeline. So at the moment, the earliest event on the timeline is May the 10th of 1982. That's whenever Oak Ridge was making their prototype for the machine that would eventually open up the complex. These trials went on for nearly a decade as on April the 2nd of 1988, the third test takes place until the 6th test occurs on October the 17th of 1989 in First Contact. This is the first time that Async or anyone else had knowingly opened a gateway into the complex. That's also when the earthquakes in Southern California took place and the missing person incidents began. As we've established, opening up the complex and people beginning to fall into the backroom set up the core of the series. So immediately after 1999, everything kind of happens at once. And one of the early excursions on February the 3rd of 1990, Async finds the body located in the back rooms. And then as we know, two days later, autopsy report takes place. Later in the same month, on February the 29th, informational video takes place. And as you can see here from the dotted line, that's when our first known time jump took place. That of course, being of the researcher who went out here and then showed up at a later date we'll get to. So only six days after that, whenever Async sets up their cameras, motion detected takes place where we see one of the life forms kind of observing whatever Async's doing. 6 days later, on March the 11th of 1990, the archive dot tar file was compiled, which makes sense since it's pretty much just images and clips of Async building. You don't really think about it while you're watching the videos, but all those events I just listed take place nearly within a month of each other. This next thing is something that I didn't mention in the rest of the video because it doesn't occur in a video. It occurs in one of Kane's community post, and it said on April the 18th of 1990, these bizarre paintings were found by Async somewhere in the complex. Now, is this indicative of the complex adapting and changing, or is it a sign that Async is venturing out further and discovering more weird geometry? We don't know yet, but excluding the weird barn axe room that is still going to be the death of me, this is by far the most complex thing that we've seen out of the complex. Less than a month after those paintings were found. The events of Pitfalls and Report take place on May the 6th of 1990. And then as we know, two days after Pitfalls, the State Department shows up to async and that's when presentation takes place. But as we also know, that is the same time that the guy who disappeared in informational video shows back up right here. In other words, he skipped forward in time just over 2 months. Then there's nothing else taking place in the timeline except for this one debatable thing that happened seven months later. The Simpsons episode Bart Gets Hit by a Car originally aired on January the 10th of 1991. Now, obviously the TV recording that we see in the unlisted video, The Simpsons doesn't necessarily have to be the first date the episode aired, but this is the earliest point it could have happened. Five months later, archive dot tar is compiled. And as a slight correction, I think I said that the archive dot tar up here was compiled at that date on March the 11th. In actuality, clips from it were recorded on March the 11th and the video was put together during June of 1991. So while we don't have a lot of information yet as to what Async is doing in this whole bubble of time, they are together enough that they're making a cute little scrapbook of building images for some reason. And then while this next thing is a really big jump on the timeline, I think it's just because we don't know what happens through all of this yet. But the next thing that we have is that found footage. The first video in all of this was recorded on July the 4th of 1991. We can tell because whenever the cameraman is in front of the clackerboard and sees the date, that's the date that we have. So he starts filming on July the 4th. However, it says the footage was recovered on September the 23rd of 1996. So this guy jumped forward a little over two months, and then this guy jumped forward a little over five years. So now we're getting into the theories, and the first one builds off of this. Whenever async originally opened up the complex, we saw that the immediate effects of it were missing people and earthquakes. Async catches on pretty fast to the concept that people are going missing from the events of autopsy report. However, at least as it seems to us, they aren't Privy to the whole time skip thing. So what if the complex is kind of like a sleeping bear and Async just keeps poking it over and over, opening the portal, turning off the portal? And what if that's causing the effects of the complex to become more and more drastic? See, a time skip takes place the last two months, and then we see another one that takes place five years. Maybe continued interaction with the complex is making it become more unstable now. It's also totally possible that we've only seen two different time jumps. Our sample size isn't big enough to draw any real conclusions. What leads me to think this might be the case however, is because of The Simpsons. See, that was not in the complex that was taking place in our world. So async has definitely messed something up enough as seen with the earthquake that it's affecting our world around it. So just as the earthquakes and the television recording messing up during The Simpsons maybe increase time differences are a symptom of Async's meddling. The other theory I want to mention is what takes place during the events of found footage. So we have no idea what happened to the cameraman of found footage while he was in the back rooms. Or more specifically, we have no idea when it happened because he goes in in 1991 and comes out in 1996. So whenever he passed into the complex, is that when the jump happened or whenever the camera fell out, which yeah, he didn't come out, his camera did, he ended up being not so. OK, So what if he goes into the back rooms and then five years happens And that's why we see all of the industrialization that we come across. See, every time we see something that is naturally made or naturally made by the complex up until this point, it's so weird and out of place. There's backwards Rd. signs and houses, there's paintings on random walls. But whenever the guy and found footage went through them, all of the signs were where they should be. There was natural geometry in ways that at least more so make sense to humans. And the massive gaps in the hallways could just be the fact that it's unfinished. And we know that last time we saw Async in 1990, they were planning on making these massive expansions into the back. Speaker 1 Rooms. Speaker 2 So what if what our cameraman was seen and found footage is Async's construction? And I mean, hey, we don't know know what async was doing anywhere past 1990 at this point. Even if he was still in the complex in July of 1991, that's still over a year later. They. Speaker 1 Still could have started. Speaker 2 Building. So if that is the case, that leads to two questions. For one, how are they able to build these massive shapes and structures inside of the complex? And two, why is it completely empty? I'll let you ponder on those while I get to my final theory. And that theory is regarding the life forms themselves. Every time we see the life forms, there are these giant amalgamations of metal that make these scrawling broken noises. However, every time you look at them, no matter how broken or messed up they are, and I do believe it's them, not it for reasons I'll mention in a minute, but every time you look at them, there's. Speaker 1 Still a vaguely. Speaker 2 Human shape about them, even the one that peaked its head around the corner in motion detected. Those still look good like human limbs, even if it's like legs creeping out from behind the pillar. So let's think about the other things we know about the backrooms. We know that there's a disease of some kind, as determined in autopsy report, that is causing the body to rot and decay in various ways. We know that it seems anyone who spends any amount of time in the backrooms is susceptible to it, as we've had three different people who we've seen travel through them begin coughing, two of which were wearing full body hazmat suits. They just spent a little bit longer in the backrooms than the people they were with. We know that there are a lot more people coming into the backrooms than Async's aware of, as given by the messages seen on the wall and found footage and of course the body and autopsy report. And we know that the life forms can make human noises. So my current theory regarding the life forms is that people most likely the people who come in by accident as they no clip or just fall into the complex contract this disease that slowly erodes at their body and kills them again as seen an autopsy report. After that point, the disease begins to amalgamate the body and cause it to mutate and I believe eventually turn into the life forms. Whenever I first heard the wailing of the life form as shown in found footage, the first image that came to mind was the head crab from Half Life 2. For those who don't know Half Life 2, there are these things called head crabs that jump on people and essentially make them into mindless zombies. However if you read in the games lore, the head crabs don't kill their host, they just hijack them and inside. Speaker 1 Of the body the. Speaker 2 Person is still experiencing pain and as they're forced to be this walking monster and while I don't necessarily think the life forms are still living people inside of all of that, although that would be terrifying, it wouldn't explain a lot of their motions or why they attack the guy at the end of found footage. I think that the disease is killing people and then by either the disease itself or some other entity we're not Privy to yet, their body is being transformed into the life form. And then, while we don't know exactly what they do yet, it seems from pitfalls that they can mimic human speech patterns, perhaps to draw other people in, and perhaps as these mindless creatures or even an immune system for the complex itself. They roam about the halls, chasing down anyone who enters in. There's something about the way they move and something about the noises they make that make me feel like there used to be a human there. And to me personally, that's been one of the most terrifying aspects of the story up until this point. Now, I could be totally wrong on that theory or any of the other theories I mentioned. It's very clear that there is more information and guidelines and data that we haven't got from the series yet. So again, I say this a lot, but I'm trying to put together a puzzle when I don't have all the pieces. So just pretend that these imaginary pieces may show up one day or something, but at the moment, with what we have to go on, those are my current ideas. A Masterpiece of Horror: Concluding Thoughts and Heartfelt Thanks And after looking over the entire story, the timeline, and my theories of it, I just have to say I love this stuff. The Backrooms are some of the best application of Internet cosmic horror that I've ever seen. The combination of the unknown and the mystery in Monsters within the complex is compounded by the ignorance of the people stepping into it. And while this ignorance may may not be vitriolic or evil in a sense, it's most certainly dangerous. And again, while I'm just theorizing up here, perhaps the empty complex as we see it, if I'm right about found footage, could be the result of that ignorance point. We don't know, but I am certainly excited to find out. I talked to Kane for hours about movies that inspire us and stories that inspire us and all these different ideas that we've had for how stories can be put together. And I got to say, I have more faith in him to do right by the series than I would anyone at the helm. He's a fantastic creator who I am so happy to see succeed in this field. Because with it, he single handedly not only gave life to a concept that desperately needed meat on its bones, but he also further reaffirmed the purpose and the concept of the Internet horror. And I am incredibly thankful that Cain made the series and I'm so excited to see where it goes from here. But you know, I'm I'm also thankful for you all sticking around and hearing me talk about it, and that means the most to me. And I just want to say thank you for watching the backrooms are phenomenal series of someone who watches nearly all and covers a lot of these online horror works. It's one of my all time favorites, not only because of how cool the concepts are and how well done the special effects are and the music and all of that, but it's just it. It's like the thesis of a lot of online horror, you know, it's like taking a concept, the back rooms that we all knew that went around for a while and then applying it in such a way that it makes us feel things about it we had never felt before. And it kind of relates to a lot of the horror around liminal spaces. A lot of liminal spaces get their whore because it's this shared collective consciousness we all have of why these things creep us out or broken familiarity and all of that. But then Cain comes along and he applies a story to it where it is a group of people who are desperately trying to seek the great beyond. And it's within that discomforting comfort we all have of the back rooms and then watching them suffer and stumble for it. And in a way, it's like Async's suffering isn't just like a character and a story, it's a cautionary tale to trying to dive into the depths of the unknown. And I, I don't know, it's just it's really good to see it's an extension. Speaker 1 Of what I. Speaker 2 Think a lot of Internet Whore has potential to become, and I'm pumped to. I'm pumped that it exists and I'm pumped to see where it goes from here. So I love this Series A lot, which you probably got from my everything at this point. Thank you for hearing me out on it regardless the links to the pod I did the podcast with Kane or podcast the interview that I did with Kane that you heard segments of throughout the full interview will be on my second channel, When the Gang. It will also be LinkedIn the description. So check that out if you want to hear me and him freak out over Internet stuff and talk about his inspiration and all of that. Kane never does interviews and it meant a lot to me that he did that. And I'm sure Kanes watching now. And I just want to say I love your stuff, dude. I greatly appreciate you. Give me the time not only to talk about it, but to sit down and talk about it with me. And that means a lot. And thank you. But yeah, so that will be LinkedIn the description as long with Kane's merch, which is pretty dope. I got the coffee mug and the shirts because they're cool. Also, thank you for watching my videos. The Paradise Lost video, which when I was making that, I'm like, ah, this will just be a weird nerdy YouTube video about stuff only I'm interested in. Yeah, it got #3 on the trending page, which I have no idea what trending really is or how it functions correctly, but I know it's thanks to you all showing support for my stuff, watching my videos. And it's, it's weird. It's just like I every time I sit down to do something, I'm like, this is for me. There's no way people will like this. And nevertheless, you all show up between the Kickstarter and my videos and just can continue. Blessings from you all every day. I'm very thankful. Thank you for the situation you've given me. Thank you for the subscribers that you all have been continuing to subscribe. We are at 1.73 million. God has been good and he's blessed me with you all and and just thank you for everything. So like I said, all of those links will be in the description, Kickstarter cane stuff and whatnot. Thank you all for showing up and for watching this long. Thank you for the time and blessings you continue to give. So that should do it for now. But I just want to say thank you for watching. I hope that you enjoyed and I will see you in the next one. Bye.