Photograph of an entities family.
Item #: SCP-096-FR
Threat Level: Orange ●
Object Class: Keter Neutralized
Special Containment Procedures: The village in which SCP-096-FR is located is to be made inaccessible by rerouting or removing roads and paths leading in its direction. A security perimeter or "Yellow Zone" of twenty-four (24) km² is established around its location, to which access is permitted only to personnel with a Level 3 clearance. Civilians are prohibited from crossing this first boundary under risk of being administered anesthetics and Class B amnestics. A Red Zone of twelve (12) km² surrounds the houses. Any individual, regardless of identity, is considered irretrievably lost if they cross it. Class D personnel are not to be used for any further experiments involving SCP-096-FR. Once a year, eighteen (18) snipers must position themselves around the Red Zone and fire on all instances as soon as they are in range, in order to limit their numbers so that the threat remains manageable.
MTF Delta-0 (The Men in Black") is assigned to civilian casualties related to SCP-096-FR in order to ensure that no trace of the lost individuals' former existence survives their disappearance.
Description: SCP-096-FR is an event whose only occurrence to date has been observed in the village of ███████, California. The population of this village is estimated to be █ children between the ages of 8 and 14 (SCP-096-FR-A), and ██ adults with an estimated average age of 40-50 years (SCP-096-FR-B). Normally, the younger individuals walk around the middle and edges of the houses, and take part in all kinds of entertainment popular in the 20th century, such as swinging, knucklebones, hide-and-seek or playing tag. Whispers, shouts, or childish laughter that do not contrast in any way with the assumed age of the SCP-096-FR-A instances are regularly heard and recorded by personnel. Individuals considered to be older (SCP-096-FR-B) usually remain cloistered in the houses and only come out on rare occasions. No individuals were observed feeding, sleeping, or meeting natural human needs. All of the SCP-096-FR-A and SCP-096-FR-B instances are each dressed in a costume, similar to those once used as Halloween costumes in the United States between the years 1875 and 1955. These disguises, in 100% of the cases, mask the face of the individual, and in 58% of the cases, conceal partially or completely his body. It is generally a caricatural representation of an animal or a character.
Carl █████, at the age of two, found three days after his disappearance from the family home at the hands of an entity.
The major anomalous properties of SCP-096-FR become apparent when an individual approaches the affected village. The SCP-096-FR-A instances then stop their activities to rush and crowd around the newcomer and welcome them, then invite them to follow them to one of the houses, in order to "make a costume for them too". The subject is then named SCP-096-FR-C. All the observations carried out and the tests conducted show that SCP-096-FR-C is not able any more to dispose of their own will (they cannot leave any more outside the village or oppose a resistance); which lets think of a psychic constraint exerted by the entities on the subject. A group of two or three SCP-096-FR-A instances guide them in one of the houses, often the closest one, where the SCP-096-FR-B "adult" instances welcome them too. It is then supposed that these latter create a new "disguise" that the subject dresses. From this moment, the subject adopts exactly the same attitude as the other instances; they leave to play in the surroundings with the "young" individuals if they are a child, or they start to build a new house (which they will occupy later), with the help of the older individuals if they are an adult. At this stage, trying to remind SCP-096-FR-C of their identity or anything related to their past life is useless, if not dangerous, as they also possess psychic persuasion abilities like any of the other entities.
Attempting to capture or take down one of the instances is physically impossible; exerting any force on one of them by someone other than their fellows results in the unexplained disappearance of the disguised individual; only their disguise falls to the ground, as if it had only been filled with air. The other individuals do not seem to be overly affected by the event and simply pick up the costume and take it back to one of the houses.
Important: Every October 31 at midnight sharp, all the SCP-096-FR-A instances have the habit to desert massively the village and to disperse in the surroundings, until reaching the other nearest villages that are not infected by SCP-096-FR. They appear in front of the places of residence of the local population by ringing or knocking on the doors, and ask for "sweets or a joke" to the inhabitants who open to them. If they don't have any to offer, the instances immobilize them, tear off their clothes and, using needles, sewing thread and buttons, [DATA EXPUNGED] and forcefully [DATA EXPUNGED] them in the face. Affected civilians then act in a manner similar to the entities in the village affected by SCP-096-FR in order to permanently "transform" everyone in their own village. All affected individuals, similarly to the SCP-096-FR-C instances, thus lose their identity and show the same anomalous traits as the known instances.
Addendum 096-1: Since the night of 31/10/19██ to 01/11/19██: all remaining instances having been "eliminated" by the armed forces barrage set up every year, SCP-096-FR can no longer spread, and is therefore reclassified as "Neutralized".
Addendum 096-2: An open envelope was found in an old photographic album belonging to instances (see opposite) located in an isolated house near the affected village. The photographer who made it, Oswald O. Brown, is presumed dead. Following is the note it contained:
Oswald,
I know you're here because of your job, but I think for once you should listen to me.
Those people you like to take pictures of are not like you and me, there is something wrong with them.
Besides, you must have seen all the missing persons posters put up by the sheriff? Did you hear the story about the crazy guy who wanted to "immortalize the holiday of the dead" by sequestering kids in his house and grafting monster clothes to their skin? You're going to laugh at me again, but I think the stories about him, the black magic, the occult practices, all of that, are pretty serious.
Even if photographing everything creepy is your specialty, believe me buddy, there are things that are beyond us, and this is one of those. I'm out of here, and I advise you to do the same.See you next time,
Daniel.