A year or so back, I came across a uniquely intriguing and clever website known as The SCP Foundation; a Creepypasta wiki that purportedly represents the classified documents of a government organization that monitors the planet, searching for supernatural objects, creatures and locations. Their mission: to Secure, Contain and Protect. Now, of course I know that none of this “info” is real, but basically: if this was a TV series I would watch the living Hell out of it. I love this site so much, in fact, that I wrote a parody of it when making fun of Beliebers once but that’s a different story.

Think Cabin In The Woods plus Fringe and you’ll get the basic idea of what this is. Ever since the very first SCP, written at some point in 2007, there have been well over 1000 new articles written for the site and I feel like I have read enough of them at this point to compose this fun little list of which SCP’s I think are the most creative, interesting or just downright scary. Even though there are most likely a few more out there for me to discover, these are my Top 10 Current Favourites from the SCP wiki.

10. SCP-173: The Sculpture

It’s fitting to start off with the one that began it all. SCP-173 is basically the poster child for the entire Creepypasta, and it is normally the first thing most people associate with the SCP website. A video game based on the wiki, Containment Breach, features 173 as one of the primary enemies so it’s hard not to think of him whenever you hear the term “SCP Foundation”.

SCP-173 is a disturbing-looking sculpture that functions like the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. If you encounter it, you need to continue staring straight at it until you’re far away enough to haul ass. Break eye contact and it will catch up with you and twist your neck. Blink at it, and it will move closer and closer with every blink.

Its origins are unknown to the Foundation and experiments performed on the SCP only seem to show that it wants us dead, with no other clear motives or desires. There’s a short story on the wiki written from the sculpture’s point-of-view, confirming its sadistic nature and that it apparently speaks in a manner similar to the Hulk. Huh.

As I said, it is greatly similar to a Weeping Angel but I honestly find this guy a tad more scary than the Weeping Angels. Part of the reason, I’d say, is just how uncomfortable-looking the thing is. I mean, what’s with the face? Does it have green eyes and a small grinning mouth or does it have black puppy dog eyes with a cute nose in the front? Either way, I do not want that damn thing inching towards me when I blink. It also stands in its own shit all day so that’s nice.

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9. SCP-978: The Polaroid

This is a Polaroid camera. But it’s not your ordinary Polaroid camera. Because after all, why would something ordinary be acquired by the SCP Foundation?

This camera provides some of the more tear-jerking stories on the site. Whomever or whatever you take a photo of, the photograph won’t show them where they were when you took the picture; it will show them doing what they most desire to do. When tested on staff members, for instance, most of the pictures depicted them being somewhere else, doing something more pleasant or just outright being dead and buried, “resting at last”. How pleasant.

But what I love about this SCP is how it sometimes gets tested on other SCPs, which is an element that makes many SCPs more interesting to read about. For example: SCP-451, who almost made it onto this list, is a man who cannot see, hear or otherwise detect any other living being. This has driven him to absolute madness and he even tried to commit suicide by walking into the chamber of SCP-173 one time, but it wouldn’t touch him (this was later revealed to be out of 173’s sadistic pleasure). Taking a photo of him with the Polaroid showed him smiling like never before, surrounded by people he could see and talk to.

SCP-516, a sentient tank who wants only peace, was revealed to desire a world where he’s entirely unneeded. So much so that the photo showed him being completely overgrown with flora as birds sat perched on his main gun. SCP-492, a living dummy, wants to be a real human. A horse whose touch is lethal just wants to be loved. The list goes on. Some of it is sad, some of it is heartwarming, some of it is alarming, some of it is funny, and all of it is entertaining!

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8. SCP-1756: At The Movies

When the SCP wiki isn’t being scary or disturbing, it is being funny. Really damn funny. And as a fan of Siskel and Ebert, I definitely find SCP-1756 to be one of the funniest.

SCP-1756 is a DVD player that doesn’t function like your average DVD player in that instead of playing the movies on the disc you put into it, it plays the Siskel and Ebert review of the movie, as recorded for their classic TV series At The Movies. This, however, is only the beginning. If you put in a DVD of a movie that came out after the show was cancelled or Gene Siskel died, they will still sit there and talk about it as if they’ve just seen it for the programme, even though they never did. It gets better. All the episodes shown via SCP-1756 seemingly take place during the 1990’s era of the show, ergo they will still talk about the movie as if it came out during that time period even if it came out decades later.

One hilarious example is when the Foundation stopped testing the DVD player with feature films and instead tried using a DVD of the At The Movies episode where Roger Ebert paid tribute to the recently deceased Gene Siskel. They still reviewed the episode as if it was just another movie and Siskel praised the performance of the guy who played him, saying that he was much better than the man who did so in Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla.

The Foundation also tested the DVD player on a disc of news footage from 9/11. Siskel and Ebert called it the best faux-documentary since Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast and Ebert especially praised writer-director Osama bin Laden’s work as well as the special effects and all the news personnel that showed up to play themselves, but he also questioned bin Laden’s choice of casting himself as the mastermind behind the attack. I’m sure you get the idea.

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7. SCP-096: The Shy Guy

Again, this is one of the classics. It’s Slenderman’s mentally retarded cousin, who resembles his more famous relative quite strongly, with the exception of his freakishly gigantic mouth, sharp claws, and nudity. His popularity landed him a part in the Containment Breach game alongside various other beloved sources of nightmare fuel.

It’s basically the opposite of 173, in that it really doesn’t like being looked at. If you keep your eyes off it, it will be completely still. If you don’t, it’s gonna use its incredible speed and even more incredible strength to catch up with you and completely tear you apart. This includes if you’ve seen his face on pitctures, so just by looking at the image of him to the left, you could already be at risk of it tracking you down to rip you several new ones.

There are some good short stories written about this one, usually in the form of logs on the SCP website. I especially like the one where a military force investigates the scene where 096 last struck. Among other things, they find a crushed pacifier. This guy has no remorse.

He somewhat reminds me of The Rake, another popular Creepypasta. Maybe this is what would happen if Slenderman and Rake got drunk together and “one thing led to another”?

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6. SCP-1782: Tabula Rasa

SCP-1782 is one of those SCP’s that works well as a story. An inexplicable, weird, and horrifying one, but a story nonetheless.

It involves a room where different kinds of weird shit happen, depending on what day you enter it. I will only bring up the most important ones, and yes, I do mean “the most unsettling ones” by that. You’re welcome.

On one day, a bearded man will manifest inside the room. The man speaks in riddles as he feeds a bunch of owls (?) with pieces of his own body. He talks about an “abortion” that’s apparently hidden “below the floorboard” and another that lies in a sink. He will also reference a hole near the floor.

On another day, the room will have changed its interior layout completely. Indeed, there is now a square-shaped hole in one of the walls, as well as a bathroom there with a sink in it, and the sink does contain a dead fetus. Pretty icky. If only that was the end of it.

At one point, The SCP Foundation investigated the room using a remote controlled car with a camera on it. When the camera was moved far enough into the hole in the wall, it detected an enormous tank that contains what appears to be a giant fetus. It is still alive and it apparently detests its mother. Supposedly, this fetus is the source of the anomalous activity that surrounds the room. How? Is it some kind of God? Who knows? It’s delightfully freaky and I’d say that’s all that matters.

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5. SCP-682: The Hard-To-Destroy Reptile

It’s hard for me not to include this one on my list. I’d say it is amongst the most eminent entries on the wiki for a good reason. SCP-682 is a gigantic lizard-like monster who is capable of and willing to destroy everything in its path. Attempts to kill it are futile, as it constantly adapts after each time it gets hurt. Shoot its eyes out – it grows new ones. Rip off a limb – it grows a new one. Rip it apart completely – it rearranges itself and makes its own skin stronger in the meantime. Basically, it’s an unstoppable death machine and certainly one of the most dangerous items ever taken in by the Foundation.

The best part about this seemingly indestructible creature, I believe, is all the various documents that depict the Foundation’s attempts to destroy him, especially when the attempts involve using other SCP items. A favourite of mine is when they use SCP-053, a hugely unfortunate young child who makes everyone around her inexplicably want to murder her and kill all who stand in their way of doing so. She’s among the runners-up for my list, I might add.

The major twist is that when she – the girl who makes everything try to kill her – is put in the same testing chamber as something as destructive and relentless as SCP-682, she actually befriends it! Yes, SCP-682 basically becomes her pet, finally giving her someone who loves her and giving SCP-682 a chance to get in touch with his softer side. Definitely one of the sweetest stories on the wiki.

A slightly more puzzling and creepy example, though, is when 682 was put in the same chamber as SCP-173, which resulted in 682 for some reason losing his shit and getting completely terrified. This makes you wonder, if 173 is terrifying enough to scare 682, what is the true story behind 173?

The design of 682 is based on some old photos of a whale carcass found on a beach in Russia, but who knows? Maybe what those Russians actually came upon was the real SCP-682, having breached containment once more? Probably not but still: spooookyyyy.

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4. SCP-106: The Old Man

Now, I am not the kind of person who judges someone by how they look, but I’m sorry; one of the biggest reasons I’m selecting SCP-106 as one of the greats is that beautifully terrifying design. I just love the way this creature always manages to successfully frighten anyone who opens up his page, not knowing what they’re getting themselves into. It may qualify as a jump scare but if so, it is a jump scare done right as it presents an image that still sticks with you after the initial startling.

106 is a rotting humanoid who will make anything he touches decay just as badly as himself, but usually not before dragging its victims into a weird pocket dimension which he can enter any time he wants by disappearing into solid matter. This ability makes it almost impossible to capture him and the easiest way of doing this is for the Foundation to inflict agonizing pain on one of their expendable D-Class staff, which consists of death row inmates that were gonna die anyway, and lure 106 into a containment chamber with their shrieks of pain.

It doesn’t help that what happens to you after he drags you into his pocket dimension is vauge, and it helps even less that after you come out this is what you look like according to an image from the wiki:

Bottom line, he’s one scary motherfucker. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s naked below that buttoned-up porn star vest of his, so there’s that.

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3. SCP-1548: The Hateful Star

Most of the SCP’s monitored by the Foundation are things that they have at least some chance of containing or stopping before they subject the entire planet to their chaos and destruction. With SCP-1548, there is absolutely no way in Hell for anyone or anything to stop what’s about to happen, and I do think that’s what makes this one so horrifying.

SCP-1548 is a star (PSR B0531+21). And it’s alive. And it wants us dead. And it’s coming towards us. Fast.

First discovered sometime in the 70’s, astronomers eventually discovered that this new, mysterious star was out of the norm. Not only was it somehow moving closer and closer to our solar system at an increasing velocity, but when the star got close enough it was also discovered that it was sending out strange radio signals. These turned out to be morse code messages, which, when deciphered, revealed the true horror of the matter. PSR B0531+21 is sentient! Not only is it sentient but it finds the Universe around it meaningless and aspires to destroy all “pathetic” forms of life it can find. We’re next.

As of now, it has also somehow figured out that we are watching it, as the messages it emits have become more personal and directly pointed at us. I’ve always been fascinated by astronomy and theories of doomsdays brought on by some sort of mysterious cosmic object, so I simply could not help but feel especially intrigued by this one.

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2. SCP-1983: The Farmhouse

I wrote above about how I almost wish there was a TV series about the SCP Foundation. If such a show did indeed exist, I’m fairly positive that The Farmhouse would be my favorite episode!

The farmhouse in question is no ordinary house. This farmhouse is one hell of an anomaly. If you enter it without leaving the front door open, you do not come out. The door that lead outside now leads to a bunch of different rooms and you are officially a rat in a maze with no exit, but you are not alone.

There are dangerous creatures with you and they are essentially “made” of shadows, but can only manifest themselves where strong light is cast and will thus be less threatening if you stay in the dark. They will also fail to notice you here.

In one of the rooms, a giant pile of human hearts is located. If the creatures do get a hold of you, your heart will be torn out and placed on their pile, and your shadow will crawl out of it only to be forever trapped upon the floor with the other shadow creatures. If this doesn’t sound like a really creepy episode of a really creepy TV series, I don’t know what does. It gets better when you see that one draft of SCP-1983’s wiki entry is done in the form of a journal written by an SCP agent who got stuck in the room, losing more and more of his hope and sanity. It sounds kinda like Kingdom Hearts, except I’m actually interested.

But there is one SCP that I love even more and we shall talk about “her” right here:

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1. SCP-597: The Mother

This SCP is not just one of the most cringe-inducingly disturbing articles on the site, but one of the most disturbing things I’ve read period, which is of course why it is also my favourite. Again, if this was a TV series, I’ll bet you anything this would be that notoriously disgusting episode that gets banned in five countries.

Okay, so The Mother is pretty much a giant ball of flesh that has hundreds of teats and nipples, all from a different mammal (humans included) sprouting from it. The milk extracted from them can be fed to any living creature, and they instantly become hopelessly addicted to it. Anyone who falls victim to the intense psychological pull of this weird lifeform will immediately begin suckling on the nipples, both because they feel a bizarre sexual attraction to the creature and its irresistible breast milk, but also because it somehow makes them feel safe. What I mean by that is that they start feeling as though the creature is their own mother.

People who fall for this effect will then try to have sex with the object (meaning it is regularly covered in semen and saliva which needs to be cleaned up by facility staff on a regular basis). Men will become rapists, latch onto big-breasted women in public because they want them as their surrogate mothers, and brutally rape and kill their own mothers for not being as “good” as the SCP. Straight women, meanwhile, start having lesbian sex and possibly try to drink each other’s milk for compensation until they too start killing each other for not being good enough. Victims of the SCP will then start gradually reverting to a childlike state, crawl around on all fours underneath the monstrous boob ball, completely lose control of their bowel and bladder movements, masturbate uncontrollably, have all their teeth fall out, lose their ability to speak and start blabbering like little toddlers and refer to the big ball of teats as “mommy” or “mama”.

This means that the chamber containing The Mother is also full of various animals sucking on the SCP uncontrollably as adult humans crawl around in their own semen, urine and feces underneath it as they babble and repeat “mama” over and over, and there is absolutely no way of stopping this effect. When the Mother has convinced you she loves you forever, you will be a nipple-suckling adult baby for the rest of your life. But you will be happy. Forever. And ever.

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I apologize if I made anyone feel sick, but that is, in a nutshell, why the SCP Foundation is so great! I could go on but I’ll just leave you with some runners-up and let you explore further for yourselves. Enjoy it!

Runners up: