SCP-3192
rating: +82+x
h.jpg

A photograph of SCP-3192 prior to containment.

Item #: SCP-3192

Object Class: Safe Euclid

Special Containment Procedures:

SCP-3192 is to be kept in an underground shelter capable of withstanding a high-grade "bunker buster" explosive; as of 1/1/2010, this means the shelter should be located at least 50m underground and its walls should be able to endure a force equivalent to 250 tons of TNT. The shelter should be reachable from the surface via code-activated lift, with guards stationed in visual range of the lift at all times. The containment site should be as isolated possible; Site 118 in the Sonoran desert and Site 204 in Bhutan are ideal.

All knowledge of SCP-3192 is to be restricted to employees with level 4 clearance. A plausible cover story on the dangers of interacting with the object under containment is to be disseminated to on-site personnel, all of whom should have at most level 3 clearance.

Description: SCP-3192 is an astronomical clock originally embedded within the gatehouse of the Hampton Court Palace in Richmond upon Thames. When any human subject stands directly in front of the clock for 3.5 seconds1, the subject begins to experience an acute feeling of thirst and a hallucination of standing in the path of a hurricane; at the same time, the dials of the clock begin to move, with the final positions corresponding to the amount of time remaining until the subject's death. All recorded efforts to alter the date of death predicted by SCP-3192 have met with failure.

A number of Foundation personnel volunteered to be exposed to SCP-3192 following discovery of its anomalous effects. After conducting follow-up interviews, the Ethics Committee recommended against using Foundation volunteers as test subjects, as most of the people who asked to be exposed to SCP-3192 have not benefited from the experience.

Attempts to terminate subjects prior to the date indicated by SCP-3192 will fail for what appear to be accidental reasons each time. It has been hypothesized that in causing certain events to occur, or not occur, SCP-3192 takes a path of least interference with reality. Debate over whether this hypothesis holds, and whether it can even be sufficiently formalized to be tested empirically, is ongoing.

SCP-3192 was discovered by Dr. Hermann Braun of the Division of Paranormal Investigations (DPI) of the Wehrmacht. The DPI regularly monitored communications between persons of interest, especially among members of Catholic splinter groups with an interest in the occult; Dr. Braun was the first to note an uptick of interest in St. Ignatius of Cordoba, who built SCP-3192 in the late 16th century, and was moved to investigate. Ignatius was the disinherited son of a Spanish duke who joined the Franciscan order in his late twenties and undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem approximately a decade later. Several excerpts from his unpublished autobiography are preserved in the Vatican archives.

Shortly after his vision, Ignatius embarked back to Spain; SCP-3192 was constructed approximately one month after his arrival in his hometown of Cordoba. Notably, no prior record exists of Ignatius having any expertise in clockworking. SCP-3192 changed hands several times over the following centuries before finally arriving at Hampton Court.

The outbreak of World War II put a temporary halt to Dr. Braun's investigations. As a result, the properties of SCP-3192 were only catalogued in the late 1940s after the dismantling of DPI led to Dr. Braun coming into the employ of the Foundation.

On 2/7/1954, all testing on SCP-3192 was ordered by O5-██ to cease immediately.

Containment Breaches: The following incidents are representative of the challenges faced by previously proposed containment procedures.

Due to frequent breaches, containment procedures for SCP-3192 are to be kept in a constant state of review.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License