THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES #60 - The Observer Effect
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- MAG060 - Case #9721207 - Rosa Meyer
Statement regarding a persistent feeling of being watched.
The Magnus Archives tells the tale of a former local television reporter who watched their life take a series of odd turns following the death of their brother.
Starring: The Archivist - Jonathan Sims; Elias Bouchard - Ben Meredith; Tim Stoker - Mike LeBeau; Martin Blackwood - Alexander J Newall; Not!Sasha - Eve Hewitt
Writer: Jonathan Sims
Director: Alexander J Newall
Editors: Alexander J Newall, Mike LeBeau
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![I'm Your Man [The Magnus Archives PMV (SPOILERS)]](/img/1.gif)
Archivists: [hold up big sign with red letters that say INTERVENTION]
Jon: you don’t mind if I record this, right?
Archivists: [remove cardboard on sign to reveal ABOUT YOUR PARANOID RECORDINGS]
_"If it was a trap, there was no way to tell"_
So in other words, a successful trap
Hahaha
Indeed, messed her up
hi! i think this comment irreversibly changed my brainwires
The way Not!Sasha says "And let's have no more of this paranoia" gives me chills
Not what now
@@fred_______ "sasha" has been credited as not!sasha since the end of season 1 dude
We caaaaare about youuuuu
What got me was when she said “we care about you”
It sounded like “she” meant that she meant it but didn’t, which I guess is exactly the truth...
Yup. Almost like the tape recorder is struggling to capture her audio. Just like it did with Micheal...
Jonathan Sims is such an amazing voice actor. For a second when he switched to reading the account I legit thought it was a different person talking, and he wasn't even trying to make his voice sound different. He just gets into character so well.
I like to think that the character is actually voice acting- but not because he’s a dramatic theater kid like his coworkers assume (not JUST because of that anyway, he still probably is) but because he can’t help it. He gets... “possessed” in a way. Like hyper-telepathic-empathy. Like he KNOWS how the person who wrote it would say it. I always imagine him taking a breath or blinking when he “breaks character” like he’s coming out of a trance and I also like to think he doesn’t even know or notice.
Out of curiosity what made you comment this on THIS episode in particular? I can't see the previous episodes as any less stellar in the voice acting department
Happend to me before ngl.
That's the power of the archivist... ;)
:)
"this is an intervention" oh thank god!
Right!!!!
I called it
Love that man 💕
Just in time😭💖
wahoo
What's kinda unsettling is that Jon also feels he's being watched while recording statements. That Gertude tore out the eyes on her book covers. That human eye that stared back into the camera,Gerad and Marys eye tattoos. The eye pendants described on several statements There is so much symbolism there,it has to mean something.
I figured them out
@@clanso7887 well damn bitch share with the class
I am not a bitch thank you very much
Lol okie
Apology accepted
I can't wait for Not!Sasha to be exposed and Jon to be all like "Well well, if it isn't my sEnSeLEsS pARanOiA come home to roost!"
If this is a spoiler can you please put a warning please😅
@@Seukechi1it wasn't, just a prediction
John saying something is too dry "even for me" is golden.
Love him.
He might be dry but at least he's self aware
I've also had to read dry academic monographs. 😮💨
Considering Jon seems like the type to enjoy nonfiction (and Jonny said in a Q&A the he probably watches documentaries for fun) and has a degree from Oxford that's got to be some pretty _dull_ stuff.
The fact that the sister of the brother also called them dry is very funny.
"You dont mind if I record this right?" Jon sweetie please seek help😭
But if he didn't record it we wouldn't get to hear it!
stop starin at me with them big ol eyes
PCDH @ the Institute be like
**insert the pupils shrinking by 50% with a weird squelching noise**
Jon: hears a statement about something happening to someone that is SCARILY similar to how he's feeling while reading the tapes
Also Jon: clearly there's no connection. anyways my coworkers are definitely murderers
🤣
do you really think he'd admit to suspicions in the very moments and situations he feels watched the most?
@@mjamin9124 true, he even admitted his initial skepticism was due to him being scared he was being watched
Martin is still being so gentle with Jon and I just 😭😭😭 I LOVE THIS MAN HES SO PRECIOUS
We must protect him at all cost💖💖💖😭
Friendly reminder for the other people who have paranoia, none of this episode is real. Don't worry, no one is out to get you and you aren't being watched. As someone who has paranoia, I get the feeling but trust me when I say that everything is fine.
replying to boost this a bit higher 👍
And for anyone needing it, the TMA wikia has a *content* *warning* list for every episode
@a swarm of jellyfish Reality checks do refer to telling people who have delusions they aren't real but for paranoia a lot of the time they help. In like any other scenario you're right tho, unwanted reality checks are harmful. (Like 99 percent sure I'm right but I'm also dumb as a rock's pet rock so).
Boosting this for anyone who needs it.
Thanks. I needed this bc I really freaked out when the mirror scene happened.
"It's not like I haven't had stalkers before" that is, to me, a lot scarier than an evil entity giving me paranoid social anxiety
It Us! The RUclips viewers! That's what they feel, is us watching them.
except we can't see shit XD
👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁
that's what i was thinking when jon said he could feel someone watching when he read the statements but then he said that he felt it all the time, even when we're not there listening to his tapes
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
@@anyoom9031 The archivist power....
An... intervention????? That's kinda hilarious
NOT JON RECORDING HIS OWN INTERVENTION LMAOFJDDKF
I've got a weird window phobia and I thought for sixty episodes, "They'll touch upon my bee, spider, and small space issues, but no way will windows specifically come up!" Well, here we are. -- also: Poor Jon. The end of this episode made me relieved but also more nervous now.
I used to have a terrible phobia of mirrors in the sense that I’d look in and see someone or something behind me.. watching.. needless to say I got chills when Rosa saw the face in the window behind her
i thought i was safe from my trypophobia but i guess not :*
The show is activating every phobia possible, so nobody feels excluded 😂😂😂
me but with the sky and falling into it-
I used to be really afraid of creepy shit happening too. But then I realized, yeah, it would be freaky if some 10 foot tall creature could peer into my window. But why? I'm boring. Everything here is boring. I couldn't think of any other reason for something like that to happen other than that it just wouldn't be boring. And I kind of just slowly stopped being afraid of it. I only thought it would happen because nothing interesting had happened yet
i absolutely love and hate the title of this episode.
"the observer effect" is a physical phenomenon in which the observer alters the behaviour/state of a particle that is being observed through the sole action of observing it. which is to say you cannot see without influencing.
now, as i listened to the episode, two realizations connected to that title dawned on me. first, that the life of the woman in that statement was completely altered solely because of the entity watching her.
second - that this was a red herring. because more importantly, based on not!sasha's line about "ending the pointless paranoia" - jon was stopping her from acting by being a paranoid obsessive spying mess. by observing the particle.
and i dread what is going to happen now that he will relax.
(first time listener pls no spoilers :) )
That intervention was the best thing ever. Elias keeps being That Harsh But Fair boss who would rather not have to fire the dude stalking his coworkers for murder mysteries, martin is doting so hard, and sasha gave me chills. 10/10.
“Elias”
“Fair”
:)
tim?
WAIT I CALLED IT?
DANG good job!
You did!
And it was about time
LMAOOO i mean it had to happen or jon would've just snapped BFJHGJHGKH
I FLIPPED CAUSE I SAW YOU LAST COMMENT. I was honestly kinda funny lol
FINALLY, thank you tim and martin (and fuck off not!sasha)
also, isn't jon having the same feeling of being watched? and maybe gertrude was too, given how she cut out the eyes in her book covers
Maybe... The archivist' have more pover and importance than we may have been suspecting...
OOOOH THATS GOOOD
Not-Sasha: We're worried about you.
Me - Shut up, Not-Sasha!
Jon, who constantly feels like being watched: And I will NOT acknowledge that I, too, always feel like I am being watched. We will not discuss it. My voice is brighter and more professional than it has been for several episodes. I am Fine.
"My voice is brighter and more professional that it has been for several episodes" 😭😭😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Its really distracting that they keep calling them fetish objects. I know what it means, but I have never wanted to think of the Cross as a fetish object
Reading your comments I finally understood what they meant by "fetish object". I can't believe I was ready to accept to live in a world where people where using the cross for *that*.
That's not what fetish object means you dumbasses. "Fetish" has a second meaning which is used in this episode.
@@TransilvanianHunger1334 we... know? The main comment literally say they know what it means. My comment implies I know what it means. The word is just so rarely used with this meaning nowadays that our first thought was about the other, most common meaning.
I really hope that you used "dumbass" in a joking tone, and that you weren't really insulting us, because the way your comment is written, it sounds a bit condescending :/
Yo I must be dumb because I did not know there was a different meaning for this word until now 😂
@@lhumyaki That one scene from The Exorcist immedeatly came to my mind when I heard that. You know, the "Let Jesus fuck you" one. That was the most disturbing scene of the movie for me, can't imagine how audiences back in 1973 must have felt (internally I mean, I saw the documentaries).
17:00 “at the very least I’ve been rather unfair to them”
hoLY FUck reALLLYYY???!??!!!?????
During the introduction, some background sound flickered in right as Jon introduced himself, and it sounded so much like a scream that I thought it was intentional. It wasn't, and I have no idea what made it. Good times.
What sound?
Uh, I don’t hear a sound
There is no scream...
There is definitely a scream.
I'm sorry but the way Tim said "You watched my house" is so damn hilarious to me but it is🤣🤣🤣
In my real life experience I spent about 6 months at a job where I felt this level of paranoia due to a combination of untreated mental illness and the very real fact that my supervisor was literally watching us on the cameras on his phone and deliberately pitting employees against each other, so adding a level of the supernatural to it is just terrifying to think about. I can’t imagine living like that, especially all the time and not just at work, without snapping.
Wow I was literally thinking last episode when the heck jon was gonna get an intervention
"Behind you" looks behind me "there was a window behind me" me staring at the window behind me: 😀
I have a headcanon.
Each time Jon begins a statement, something comes over him. He reads out the words that were written, but he doesn't look at the page at all. His eyes go white and he suddenly has the consciousness of the client at the time the statement was written. He has all the memories of that person, the personality, and that person is him. Then, the moment the statement is finished, he blinks and his eyes return to normal, and he's back in his own consciousness. He retains no memories of the person but remembers reading the statement well enough to study it.
Just a headcanon.
first time listener?
as a first time listener who doesn't yet know whatever canonical reasoning explains his switch when reading out statements, that actually makes a lot of sense!
to sort of add on to this, one thing i've picked up on is that his vocal inflections and such seem to change with every statement. and like, some of them really do seem stark enough as to suggest something important - like he _is_ temporarily taking the place of the person who originally gave the statement, so far as to mimic the way they talk/talked.
(though, this "addition" of mine might've been redundant, if vocal inflections fall under the category of personality... in that case, i'm sorry for wasting your time lol. just felt like pointing out something that's been on my mind a bit and seemed to match up with your headcanon)
@Atari_01 nope, nope, and nope. I'm just a huge fuckin nerd 😁
a thought about other cults worshipping unusual gods: the weird ass entities/monsters we keep hearing about could be considered as unusual gods...
coffee and thoughts arguably all other worldly souls would be worshipped as gods if they had physical influence on our plane of existence in early times. Any soul with enough influence on this plane will do!~
@@RoseMultiverse from what we see now. The obvious antagonists are: the insectoid ones. Mostly the worms/wasps(we all know), the spiders wich have some sort of mental control abilities and doupleganging powers( ie, the table, the girl that turn into spiders and the apple/three/ house) and the flys im still in season two but the flys do seem to be related in anything reguarding rot and awful smell. The cults: mainly the "eternal flame" although they seem like a reserved cult and the "el hassam" idk how it is pronounced, wich worship the dark for some reason. I tried linking the eyes but there are just so many things related to eyes that i just dont know where to start. And lastly the magnus institute itself. There are suttle but quite clear informations saying that the magnus institute might be a paranormal force aswell and they all are in a constant battle against each other.
@@alilweeb7684 probably the confrontation/struggle/battle Michael was talking about
@@alilweeb7684 Maybe the eyes are somehow related to the giant, for now unknown creature which was seen in the episode of Fairchild looking for something in his ship and maybe it is the same creature that Rosa saw.
I was just wondering if the mirror is somehow connected to Michael, as in the episode of the never ending corridor there were also mirrors which were showing his true form, maybe it was a gift from him for the humans to "maintain the balance".
I think the feeling of getting watched all the time would drive everyone crazy over short or long
Including John
jon: im gonna make my collegues think that i think a monster killed gertrude but really i suspect them
jon's coworkers: a monster killed gertrude
jon: .... oh.... well okay.
You remember the "what ever phobia you have you'll find an episode about it" thing?
Well I found mine :)
I didn't even know I had this fear until now but boy ho boy am I starting to feel sick
Yikes, that sounds like a nasty way to find out your phobia. I hope your new fear doesn't hamper your enjoyment of the series.
Wait does Jon not notice how different Sasha looks from Not!Sasha when watching the tapes? Or was Not!Sasha able to manipulate those too?
I think Not!Sasha was able to manipulate those too, judging from how easily Not!Graham was able to change all his official documents and such to show his new face. I assume the same would extend to video forms, otherwise they would be much too easily found out. I think the one thing that they don't seem to be able to manipulate is the audio tapes, as it seems they're in such an old format (similar to how jon talks about trying to record the statements on a computer but the file always becoming corrupted when it's a legit case) and I assume the videos were probably either recorded digitally or were converted to a digital format, allowing her to manipulate them. I think the tapes Sasha was in are the only proof of her being replaced, hence why they went missing after Not!Sasha took her place.
@@jsk-art And remember in episode 3, the only things not!Graham wasn’t able to change were the old Polaroid photos. I find it funny that the entities can easily affect modern technology but not old technology.
The recording of her statement about Michael was one of several MIA afte the work attack and her replacement.
@@fruitygarlic3601 so the way I think the "not!them" work is that people who are close to the person replaced (family, close friends, coworkers in Sasha's case) have memories replaced with the new look, while people who aren't as close will notice a difference. They do look completely different, but the people around them are manipulated into thinking this is how they always were. That's why in the early episode, the Amy noticed the change in Graham, because she was not considered a close friend per se.
what do you mean "watching" the tapes? It's a tape recorder. It's just audio. And he explained in an earlier episode that all the tapes that had Sasha in it disappeared
Thank fuck, this man needed that intervention so much. Even if I don't think it will fully clear his paranoia.
Oh shit they make the intervention move with john
I do love how every episode makes SO MUCH SENSE on a rewatch. You hear one sentence and you’re like: heh, I know what this is. Naughty [insert character or entity here]
Is it just me or Tim doesn't sound like Tim? It creeped me out, and then after he spoke I heard that buzzing sound of electricity that you hear everytime notsasha says something.
"you still don't believe us, do you?"
Now I'm scared for Tim. I really hope I'm wrong
I think it's bc we've never heard his serious voice
Sects dedicated to weird concepts not like conventional gods, you say...
Judging from Jon's (as well as my own) inference that that woman was intending to blow up the Magnus Institute, it gave me a thought that whoever or whatever that killed Gertrude was likely from outside the institute. She was around a long time. In the short time Jon has been here he's managed to make enemies and acquaintances with some of the most dangerous beings in England. Imagine what Gertrude was involved in.
ngl the way elias said "the police certainly do" in such a cold tone was kinda hot
Ayyy, where my Eliasfuckers at
Am i the only one who sometimes wonders what's going on in the rest of the magnus institute? Like, i wanna know if there are researchers that are also putting pieces together somehow and could be helpful to the people who work in the archives?
I'm very, very curious about the day to day life of the rest of the institute's staff! Do they have a cafeteria? Do lunch ladies work in the institute? Is there a cleaning crew? What's up with Artifact Storage? How many people work there?
I don't know why especially but this episode was so unstelling, good job !! I think part of it is Jonathan's voice acting, which is just incredible. Also, the statement used resonnated so close to home and current's problems... it was a very very good episode, really.
Okay this episode kind of freaked me out. I'm engaged to a man named Christopher who had a stroke when he was 39. I literally had to pause and collect myself before I continued listening
Aside from the fact that I laughed (sorry if that's offending 😅), I'm glad you survived :)
9:05 (first time listener, though I have gotten spoilers)
" *drinking everything in* watching with a greedy intensity I could feel its *gaze* burning into the back of my neck feel its unblinking *eyes* "
This podcast has really good foreshadowing
Jon: watches security footages of Sasha.
Also Jon: doesn't realize the Sasha he now works with on a daily basis is literally not the same person.
On digital footage, it will literally show NotSasha instead. The only pictures that escape are Polaroids.
Outer cults? Cult of the lightless flame vibes anyone?
My theory from this episode ans what we know until now:
The witness in the end found out that the magnus institute had a relation with the eye entity and decided to try and burn down the place in hopes of bringing the eye entity down as well. Though that was pretty obvious
Her brother was probably working in secret with gertrude 'cause his initial research made him find info that he wasn't supposed to know, so then he lied about his research focus and started working in secret with gertrude against those cults. His death was most likely not that much natural after all
my cat meowed during the middle of this and i thought it was my door creaking open and my heart stopped for a second
I normally feel like someone has watching me but I'm used to it now
-
Lmao they staged an intervention bitch I-
Good for Jon, I hope he gets better
I have a box of weird stuff I've collected over the years (read useless junk that is pure memories of fun times) and now I want to write a note “behind you” and put it in my box 😂
ah yes, the face in the window
I love that my phobia has been featured 🥰
Speaking of underground tunnels, those don't have cctvs at their entrances, so... the footage kinda proves nothing doesn't it?
Also whoever did it could theoretically have messed with the tapes...
But if someone appears on camera elsewhere in the building at the time of the murder, it serves as an alibi. (If the tapes are reliable.)
Okay, there is a LOT I want to say after this episode:
1) the eyes/being watched theme is probably the one that intrigues me most in the show. My personal prediction is that being watched isn’t necessarily bad, more a neutral thing that can turn on you or help you depending on the situation at hand. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, I don’t know.
2) I hope Jon handles the situation appropriately and apologises to his friends; it would be so much better if they just worked as a team to figure out what exactly happened to Gertrude. Besides, I want more Jon/Martin interactions, so if they started being on the supplementals together that would be so cool !!
3) while I am happy that this confrontation happened and gave everyone alibis, it is also really frightening that it did-Jon will probably let his guard down a bit around his friends, which is GREAT for Tim and Martin, and could result in something TERRIBLE regarding Not!Sasha… there’s always the possibility that Not!Sasha isn’t malicious, but I don’t think there can be a doubt that she’s not to be trusted. And the trust issues it would give Jon… that man already doesn’t trust anyone when there is nothing to indicate their distrustfulness, I can’t imagine how bad his trust issues would get upon discovering that Sasha has been replaced. All this to say that I hope my poor archivist boi Jon’s gonna be fine, I love him too much for anything bad to happen to him (or, well-I know something will, I just hope he’ll be okay in the end).
Been wanting more of this voice actor after Slay the Princess
... how nice to know BBC presenters don't live in the studio and are like the rest of us, i suppose??
Nah, this is just bbc propaganda, as soon as the camera turns off they're taken away to be stored in the basement until the next broadcast
No, because they roam the streets at night hunting people who don't have telly loisences.
[TW paranoia i guess]
Under the last episode someone commented that the spider episodes actually helped with their arachnophobia for some reason, and after this episode i think i get what they mean.
I was pretty paranoid as a kid, i often felt like something was watching/following me when i was alone and especially in the dark. It has mostly gone away since, but since i've started listening to this podcast, it has gotten worse again for some reason. So when i saw this episode was about being watched, i thought "well this one might be bad"...
And for a moment, it was worse than what i imagined. The "behind you" *really* got to me. And then there was the mirror and she said there was something behind her in the mirror, and at that point i was internally screaming, feeling watched myself and frantically hiding under my blanket.
But then there was the description of the face and the eyes and that... really calmed me down. For the rest of the episode, i wasn't really scared anymore. It's almost comforting to imagine that whenever someone is feeling watched - in this podcast or in real life -, it's this face. I think it's because the thing that really terrifies me when i feel watched is having no idea what is watching me. The inexplicable, intangible dread - the feeling that it could be *anything* and probably something worse than i could ever imagine. Imagining it's a specific entity makes it far less scary - if it's a huge creepy face, okay, it's a huge creepy face, but i know what it is. And i don't care if it watches me, as long as it's not doing anything else, because now it's tangible.
Does this make sense?
I think i'm gonna imagine this face every time i feel watched from now on and it will probably calm me down. Thanks to Rusty Quill for helping with my fear i guess.
Yes Not!Sasha, no more paranoia.
Every time they say Alexander I expect it to end with Graham Bell
no omre Not!Graham bell lmao
I expect it to end with J Newall
the real horror is ableism
from what we see now. The obvious antagonists are: the insectoid ones. Mostly the worms/wasps(we all know), the spiders wich have some sort of mental control abilities and doupleganging powers( ie, the table, the girl that turn into spiders and the apple/three/ house) and the flys im still in season two but the flys do seem to be related in anything reguarding rot and awful smell. The cults: mainly the "eternal flame" although they seem like a reserved cult and the "el hassam" idk how it is pronounced, wich worship the dark for some reason. I tried linking the eyes but there are just so many things related to eyes that i just dont know where to start. And lastly the magnus institute itself. There are suttle but quite clear informations saying that the magnus institute might be a paranormal force aswell and they all are in a constant battle against each other.
Edit: lmao i missed several
i knew sooner or later we'd get some mirror stuff,, this one really had me paranoid, I'm glad it was so short. (it's great though!!)
wow they actually staged an intervention, good for them. also, this statement was... it lowkey freaked me out
Jon being so into acting out this person's statement made me imagine and hoping there'll be an episode in the later seasons where Jon's reading a letter, gets so possessed that it freaks his friends out and them being panicked at trying to snap him out of it
Makes me remember of the Tangled series where Rapunzel chants the wither and decay song
Did you finish the podcast?
“if you have a fear, tma has an episode about it blah blah” okay but why did they have to come for my fear of reading something that says “behind you” and turning around and there’s nothing there
im fr so mad abt not!sasha. stop being mean to him
I actually really do like how the intervention was handled. They actually gave him a video to give everyone alibis to put Jon's mind at ease. Sure, they think he's being far too paranoid (understandably), but they're doing their best to get through to him that he doesn't need to resort to sneaking around and getting information on everyone.
It's just a shame that it's probably going to take more to actually put Jon fully at ease. I mean, I don't blame him at all. He still doesn't know who or what killed Gertrude and that's bound to keep anyone feeling scared. Especially if it means having a target on their back too.
Alright now I understand people saying that if you have a fear then you have a TMA episode dedicated to it... I unfortunately understand
pre episode check in bc according to the warnings on the transcript this one might break me
ok we good it wasnt as affecting as i thought itd be
Eyes / mirror
Watching eyes, observation
Nerves breakdown and destroying Camera's.
Leads to murder?/ connected to the archives
Elias found Gertrude ...
я весь эпизод: нервно оборачиваюсь в единственный темной угол с подозрением
Me watching this with anxiety and a mild window phobia at night 🙃
this is the episode that got me. i have scopophobia, so the idea of being constantly watched makes me feel sick
moral:
don’t use hand mirrors
NotSasha doesn’t sound right at all
I only feel like someone is watching me when my eyes are closed but this episode creeped me out
How charming, an episode featuring my phobia to see someone behind me in the mirror but not when i turn around :')
SPOILERS
god I never noticed until now how many ep 142 similaires there were: the term ‘scrutiny’ specifically; feeling like your watched even after the event; eyes ‘drinking it in’
Two words of importance that will make sense of this from the future: Ceaseless Watcher
Im barely in but this is just what it feels like living with several cats
"you don't mind if I record this?" Ohoohohoo
[CLICK]
ARCHIVIST
Statement of Rosa Meyer, concerning a persistent feeling of being watched. Original statement given July 12, 1972. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Statement begins.
ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)
It’s still there, still watching me. There’s nowhere I can go, a place I can hide that it doesn’t keep looking at me. I don’t know why. No idea what it wants from me, or if it ever had any plans beyond just staring from wherever it is hiding. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, it’s been months now, and it’s still there.
You can’t see it, I know. I can’t see it either, but that doesn’t matter, because it can see me. That’s what matters. I can feel its gaze burrowing into the back of my neck. Does it hate me? Does it just want me to keep living in fear? I don’t know why this is happening to me.
At first, I thought it was a person, some stalker who just kept hiding. I had this thought that if I kept feeling something was watching me, then it must be a person doing it. There must be someone following me. It’s not like I haven’t had stalkers before.
I started to scan the faces of everyone I passed, looking to see if I recognized them, if I’d seen them before anywhere. Did I recognize the man in the green overcoat from the bus this morning? Did that bike messenger loop around the road and pass me again? No. They never did. Never. No one was following me. But something was watching. It still is.
A strange thing is, it’s a feeling I should be used to. I’ve been watched by people for years. I present the Look East segment for BBC News almost every day - well, I used to. And on the other end of that camera, there were tens of thousands of people, but I never felt it from them. Sometimes, as I kept my eyes locked on that camera, reeling off the latest string of burglaries, I tried to feel it, tried to imagine all the people seeing me, watching me. Even then, even when I was trying, it was never more than a dead, empty lens. Maybe it’s just as well that I never felt it before.
I lost my job within two weeks. This feeling coming over me, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t look at the camera, I couldn’t read the dead, empty words on the page. I ended up having something of an on-air breakdown. I guess it’s lucky you’re based in London, so you couldn’t have seen it.
I know the moment it started. Looking back, it all seems so arbitrary, like a switch suddenly being clicked on, and all at once my life is destroyed. It was three months ago, in April. I was doing inventory for some of my brother’s estate, it was largely up to me to take care of it after his death. My parents were taking it very hard, and weren’t well enough themselves to make the journey down to his small house in Southampton to try and organize his meager possessions.
I suppose I wasn’t in a good place to begin with. You’re not meant to die of a stroke that young. I mean, he was only 38, and he wasn’t exactly the healthiest, but it just seemed so unprovoked. I’ve always been quite religious, and believed that things happened for a reason, blessings ultimately came to the virtuous and misfortune to the wicked, but now I don’t know.
Perhaps you could say that my curiosity was the fault that brought this on me? But I didn’t open the box because I was curious, I opened it because I had to in order to fully inventory my dead brother’s possessions. I honestly don’t think that’s a transgression. It wasn’t even marked as special - no oak chests or triple-locked brass boxes, just another brown cardboard box like any other.
I don’t think that anything about it struck me as special? Looking back, I feel like it marked itself, that it drew my eye, and I would stare at it for longer than the other boxes piled up around his house. The place was so quiet, a lonely testament to Christopher’s isolation. He’d never married, and there seemed to be nothing in that dingy home that said he had any friends to speak of.
In a lot of ways, it reminded me of my own life. I have friends enough in Norwich, but no family except Christopher and my parents, though I do have my reasons. Still, looking through my late brother’s things led to the sort of reflection that makes me uncomfortable, and I was drinking more than I normally would.
It was my second day down there when I opened the box. I’d been going through all his old document boxes, and there were a lot. Christopher had worked for the history department at the University of Southampton. I don’t know what he specialized in - we never really talked about his work - but based on what I found in his study, he’d written a few books on the subject of ancient myths and fetishes, those objects that were believed by various cultures to have supernatural or religious power imbued within them.
His first book was on the holy cross of Christianity, and how it operates as a fetish within our culture. This offended me a little bit - I was worried he was trivializing a faith that, as far as I knew, he shared with me. Still, I tried to read a chapter of it on the use of the cross in the vampire myth, but it was very dry and, quite frankly, a bit dull. Most of the boxes were similar, full of notes and clippings and bits of research that meant absolutely nothing to me. I put these aside to check with Angus Cartwright, one of Christopher’s colleagues who I had contacted to have a look at what papers of his I couldn’t understand.
Some of the boxes, however, contained what I can only assume was practical research: fetish objects and totems from all around the world, small animal figures carved from bones, strings of glass beads tied together in intricate knotted patterns, grotesque quasi-human statuettes made of wood and old leather. Some of them were more than a little bit unsettling, but only one managed to send me spiraling into the place I am now.
As I said, it was one of the last boxes I opened on the second day. It was late, and I had already made my way through most of a bottle of wine. The more I think about it, the more I think that opening that box felt no different to any of the others. No hard feelings, no smells, nothing. It was just a box empty of everything except a single typewritten note and an old hand mirror.
It lay inside, utterly innocuous. If it was a trap, there was no way to tell.
I picked up the note first. The typing was neat, managed to be completely centered, even though the paper seemed to be a scrap that had been torn from a larger piece. It read, in all capitals:
“BEHIND YOU.”
I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how unsettling that was. I turned and looked almost before I fully understood what I had read.
There was a window behind me, with the view of the street below my brother’s study and the darkening sky above it. There was nothing there though, nobody walking along the street, no cars driving down it, nothing that seemed in any way out of place.
I looked back at the note, shrugged, and reached down for the mirror. It was a bit heavier than I’d expected, and under a thick layer of tarnish the frame seemed to be gold, or at least gold-plated. The glass itself was a bit grimy, but still seemed to be intact. I have no idea how old it was, or what period it might have been made in. Though I searched the box thoroughly, I couldn’t find anything that might explain where Christopher got it.
I looked in the mirror. I was a mess. Hair unwashed, eyes red from crying, lips patchy, stained a bruised purple from the wine. I hadn’t really had any time to take care of or even look at myself since I got to Christopher’s house, and this ancient hand mirror really showed it.
I sighed, shook my head, and prepared to check the next box when the angle on the mirror shifted in my hand slightly, and I screamed. It now reflected the window behind me, and I could see a face staring in. It was dark outside, and it was almost entirely in shadow, so I couldn’t tell you much about the features, but he was huge, seeming to take up most of the window behind me. The only thing about it that I could see with any real clarity were the eyes - bright, shining, bulging eyes, with pupils so dark it made me feel sick, drinking everything in, watching with a greedy intensity. I could feel its gaze burning into the back of my neck, feel its unblinking eyes.
My muscles locked in sudden terror, and the mirror tumbled out of my hand, spinning only once before it hit the floor and shattered into a thousand tiny shards.
Seven years’ bad luck, isn’t it? Maybe that’s it. Maybe I have to feel this horrid, aching panic of the eyes I know are following me for seven years before they finally leave. I hope not. But maybe even that’s wishful thinking. Maybe this is now my life forever, and it will never, ever stop.
I’ve tried to think whether I’d be able to go on if that was the case. I think I’d try, at least until my parents passed away. I couldn’t stand for them to lose both children.
Obviously, that was when my real problems began. I could write the face off as a brief but horrid hallucination, but the feeling of being under constant scrutiny and observation isn’t something I can explain away so easily. I’ve considered the possibility that I’m just going insane. Being watched is not an uncommon symptom of psychosis or schizophrenia, and I’ve been keeping an eye out for the other symptoms, but in all other ways I feel fine. It’s true I’m finding it hard to concentrate, but that’s only because I can’t sleep because they’re watching me. Those unseen eyes that hover everywhere and won’t let me rest.
I’m not mad, I’m sure I’m not mad. I still have what’s left of the mirror. It’s just a bent gold frame now. I tried to have new glass put in, but the only eyes it showed were mine.
I did talk to Angus, though. He seemed a little bit unnerved by the line of questioning I was pursuing - or maybe just by how intensely I was asking the questions - but he answered me. He didn’t recognize the mirror, but a few years ago, Christopher was looking into writing a book on the totems of what he called “outer cults”, small organized groups of worshippers whose beliefs weren’t simply deviations from paganism or other major religions, but seemed to focus on holy beings or concepts completely apart from what would be considered normal religious practice. Some seemed to have more in common with ancient shamanism than with organized hierarchical worship, and all were highly secretive.
Christopher had apparently collected several artefacts considered holy by certain of these sects, though I could find no details among his documents. Angus couldn’t be sure, but he believed that the mirror might have been one such object. Christopher had apparently abandoned the project about a year before his death, choosing instead to pursue a line of research into Inuit ceremonial carvings.
And here’s where we finally come to why I’m here. Because Angus told me that my brother wasn’t researching alone.
He had apparently logged several trips to London in order to consult with your Institute. I don’t know why or what about, and no one here seems to be able or willing to help me find out, but he was here. I’m not going to rest until I find out why. Not that I could rest anyway.
Those eyes still haunt my dreams and follow me through the waking world, even here. Especially here.
ARCHIVIST
Statement ends.
A bit of an odd one, this. The mid-to-late twentieth century seems marginally better-filed than most of the archives, so we haven’t seen as many rogue statements cropping up from that period.
Most of the details from Miss Meyer’s statement seem to check out - Sasha got a confirmation from the BBC that she had indeed been one of the anchors for the Look East Evening News between 1970 and 72, until she suffered a nervous breakdown and damaged several cameras in their Norwich studio.
Martin’s checking with the University of Southampton also seems to confirm the details of Christopher Meyer’s life and death. I even tried to read one or two of his books, but they were a bit dry even for me, and didn’t appear to have any particular relevance to the case.
I’ve been unable to locate any evidence that he made use of the Institute’s library or consultation services, but even these days those records aren’t kept in as much detail as they really should be, so that doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t here.
What’s most interesting is what Tim found out about the final two decades of Miss Meyer’s life, before she died in prison in 1993. Following the statement, she apparently spent almost 12 years working low-level service jobs, until both her mother and father passed away of cancer and heart disease respectively.
There’s nothing notable about this period in any official records, but on October the 24th, 1984 she murdered a delivery van driver named Danilo Costich.
She unloaded the van’s normal cargo of filing paper and envelopes before filling it with several barrels of petrol. She was apprehended just south of Vauxhall Bridge after she jumped a red light and collided with another car. Luckily, the petrol did not ignite and she was picked up by police as she tried to flee the scene.
Originally charged with reckless driving, it didn’t take long for them to connect her to the murder of Mr. Costich, and she was given a sentence of 17 years in HMP Holloway.
my anxiety also gives me the feeling of being watched sometimes so yeah...the episode has hit mit hard imma go chill rn
Sasha: This is an intervention
Called it.
SPOILERS
Guy in statement: I constantly felt like I was being watched it nearly drove me to insanity
Jon knowing he was chosen by the observer entity: 👁️👄👁️
🎶I always feel like somebody's watchin mEeEeEeEe🎶
so pls don't spoil because this is my first time listening, but Elias says that the CCTV records everyone's movements, but then says "including yours" to Jon. From what I thought, Jon was a recent Archivist and didn't know Gertrude. Was he an assistant, or is this a mistake? A little confused about the timeline but I could've missed something!!
I THINK gertrude went missing and they needed to find another archivist. Gertrude was later found in a room under the archives (if I'm not mistaken)
he was already working at the institute
I doubt jon would have checked the cctv for his own movements, but I'm thinking after what you said that maybe he should have. it provides very simple verification that the rest of the footage is untampered with. I wonder if it's been tampered with
Jon was working at the institute in a different department while Gertrude was Archivist. When she disappeared he was transferred to her position.
Ok top three:
Eye: being watched, feeling that they _needed_ to organize and catolog their brother's stuff, having a focus on research and judging his book, completely centered note, the brother being super focused on his research, bright eyes watching them, their job was to report and record things, brother's job was research, working with the Magnus Institute, restless to find out things.
Jon recording everything, stalking people, recordings.
Lonley: the brother being alone, never married, not socializing
Jon alienating himself
End/Slaughter/desolation: of mentions of death in both casual and actual ways. Parents passing away, killing people, burning things.
_especially here_
*Statement ends. *
Idk why that was so funny to me-
Jon: "how can I know if you guys are monsters!"
NotSasha: "that's too bad."
Be: "bold of you to assume you're not one of the monsters."
After re hearing it 2 things dawned on me. 1 her brother heart attack was from stress of constant observation 2 given date and religious world view she was propaply closeted lesbian.
I thought the brother died of stroke
Woah I forgot this episode. When I got to season five (which took like one and a half years) I thought The Beholding statements were the first we got. And tbf by that point I didn't care at all, nothing I could relate to or was particularly scared of. This episode however? Ah hell naw. I hate mirrors and never look at them at night so this one hit hard. The feeling of being watched is okay but the thought of something you can only see in a mirror? Lawd
Jon's a little unhinged. What an icon
great i have to close my curtains if i even want to have a chance of sleeping tonight, except i cannot do that without approaching the window in the first place which i strictly do not want to do. now what.
LMAOOOO THEY ARE STAGING AN INTERVENSION THIS IS CRAZY XDDDDDD
I did NOT like the way sasha said "Lets have no more of this paranoia" CREEPY ASF
relistening to this at work, at night
I'm a security guard, and my booth/office is surrounded on all sides by glass doors
it's all windows
so yes, there is a window behind me, no matter which way i turn
at the moment it said "look behind you", the full-wall window/door behind me looked out onto the mostly empty parking lot
it's half hidden with fog at the moment, even though it's before midnight
the bulbs of the lampposts suspended above the asphalt, hazy in the fog, look almost like glowing eyes
As a non-religious person in a closed minded religious family, christopher was WAITING to write that book LMAO
A BIG BUG STARTED FLYING AROUND MY ROOM WHILE I WAS LISTENING TO THIS EPISODE 😭😭 IM CRYING WHY WAS IT SO BIG. DID YOU GUYS SEND HIM AFTER ME?????
Me: oh yeah sure some of these episodes give me the chills but nothing really that could rob me of my sleep...
This episode: allow me to introduce myself :D
Why did I listen to this right before bed