Line #73 WebVideo/TheGreylockTapes


1	[[quoteright:336:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/greylock_4.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:336:''[[BlatantLies Due to the continued efforts of law enforcement, life has been able to return back to normal.]] [[ElectronicSpeechImpediment back- -back to normal. --back to normal.]]'' ''[[BlackSpeech TO NORMAL. TO NORMAL.]]'' '''''[[VoiceOfTheLegion T O N O R M A L.]]''''' ]]
3	->''The devil, dear believer, has a plan for you...''
4
5	''The GREYLOCK Tapes'', also known as The GREYLOCK Archives or simply GREYLOCK, is an AnalogHorror series created by [[WebVideo/SeriouslyStrange Rob Gavagan]] and hosted on the [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYSvx_fGxPbVIAv826AEHCZJh-khx9BhK self-named YouTube channel]]. It chronicles the history of strange, disturbing events taking place around Mount Greylock, Massachusetts ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Greylock a real place]], by the way), and the GovernmentConspiracy surrounding them.
6
7	[[folder:Videos in the series]]
8	* ''Tape 001 - back online'', a view of an abandoned lab, as someone hacks the security system and begins downloading data located there
9	* ''Tape 002 - to the mountain'', showing point of view of a visitor to Mount Greylock who uncovers traces of blood on the site
10	* ''Tape 003 - orientation protocols'', introducing the concept of {{tulpa}}s and the Thoughtform Manifestor
11	* ''Tape 004 - unexpected visitors'', about a string of violent home invasions in Berkshire County, Massachusetts
12	* ''Tape 005 - not here, not now, not anymore'', where a pregnant woman's routine check-in goes wrong
13	* ''Tape 006 - sleeping dogs'', chronicling the fate of a group of construction workers on Mount Greylock
14	* ''Tape 007 - back to normal'', showing the aftermath of the events of ''unexpected visitors''
15	* ''Tape 008 - old odd ends'', following up on several prior videos
16	* ''Tape 009 - trojan technology'', which introduces the National Access Initiative, and the conspiracy tied to it
17	* ''Tape 010 - messages from the dead'', continuing the story of the woman from ''not here, not now, not anymore''
18	* ''Tape 011 - preparations for a guest'', showing a figure preparing some manner of ritual
19	* ''Tape 012 - TF-2: Waking Your Subconscious'', a tape which is to be played following the orientation tape
20	[[/folder]]
21
22	'''Spoilers for all but the latest three episodes are untagged.'''
23	----
24	!!GREYLOCK contains examples of:
25
26	* ThirteenIsUnlucky: The group responsible for creating the thoughtforms is called Unit 13.
27	* AcidAttack: One of the malformed miners, Ramón C. Herrera, tends to randomly spit corrosive acid that also gives off nerve gas fumes.
28	* AllLowercaseLetters: All video titles are written as such, with the notable exception of ''Waking Your Subconscious''.
29	* AmbiguousSituation: The reasons behind the disappearance of Max, Tiffany and Alex's unborn child. Both parents have been shown to have ties to the thoughform program - Tiffany was [[spoiler:experimented on as a child]], while Alex was a member of Unit 13. Did one of them create the child as a thoughtform? Did both of them? Is Tiffany ''herself'' a thoughtform? Did something stranger happen?
30	* AutomobilesAreAlien: One other possibility of what happened in 'to the mountains' is that it is a different being stealing the vehicle and they are unfamiliar with cars. Either the slow moving car and lights being played with was because the driver was in shock or the being was trying to learn how to work it.
31	* ApocalypticLog: Arnold Rivers' recording ends with the white-masked thoughtform breaking into his house.
32	* BlasphemousBoast: Bernard Hayes, the thoughtform researcher tapped by Unit 13 to run the project, has quite some ambitions.
33	-->''We will at last reach the one called God. And there on His apex of infinite knowledge and power, we will approach Him and look Him in the eye as an equal.''
34	* BiblicalMotifs:
35	** ''to the mountain'' has a radio sermon playing in the background, with the preacher warning the listeners that the devil, if allowed to, will reach into the darkest parts of a person's soul; the page quote up top comes from it.
36	** ''sleeping dogs'' adds TowerOfBabel motifs, with the speech at the beginning talking about building a tower to reach God Himself.
37	** ''messages from the dead'' has a brief flash which replaces text with "REV 9:6"[[note]]"And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."[[/note]]
38	* BodyHorror: Thoughtforms and the tunnels under Mount Greylock tend to twist humans into things that are... ''not quite right''.
39	* BrownNote: The tunnels beneath Mt. Greylock seem to have that effect; within just a few days of uncovering them, the construction workers fall severely ill, their food begins to rot, and they themselves are slowly driven insane and mutated into bloodthirsty monsters.
40	* BungledHypnotism: A rare case of PlayedForDrama. In ''messages from the dead'', a psychologist guides a young Tiffany Crisaldi through a hypnotic experience of her own empty home, only for some sort of being to manifest itself within the vision, to his shock.
41	* CameFromTheSky: One of the videos contains a brief segment taken from a documentary talking about how another celestial body once crashed into Earth, implying that the malevolent force within Mt. Greylock came from the outer space.
42	* CameraAbuse: After Katie is attacked by a thoughtform, the recording skips ahead, showing the camera now splattered with blood.
43	* CandlelitRitual: Fragments of one are seen throughout ''messages from the dead'' and ''preparations for a guest'', though its purpose so far is unknown.
44	* CensoredChildDeath:
45	** ''trojan technology'' ends with a young girl being attacked by a thoughtform, though the footage cuts out the death itself, only showing the moment of the attack and the blood in the aftermath.
46	** At the end of ''old odd ends'', the murderous VoiceChangeling thoughtform exclaims "it's a monster!" with the voice of a young child, implying it had an encounter with one.
47	* ColorMotif: For ''Waking Your Subconscious'', it's red. The screen turns red as the induction begins, [[spoiler:the Activation sequence repeatedly comes back to the same red screen, red is present in multiple clips from Activation sequence, and the creature stalking Charlotte is red.]]
48	* CompellingVoice: One of the miners transformed by Mt. Greylock gains the ability to compel people to obey him.
49	* CorporateConspiracy: The secret thoughtform research that Unit 13 engages with is done in partnership with [=SimioDyn=], a private company.
50	* TheCorruptor: As the ''Waking Your Subconscious'' tape goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that [[spoiler:while the tape claims to be enhancing psychic powers, in reality it's attempting to corrupt the watcher into a monster, and possibly make them manifest a tulpa or otherwise become a vessel for some dark force.]]
51	* DarknessEqualsDeath: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:Charlotte enters the kennel while the power is out, with her flashlight as the only source of light. She loses it as soon as the creature appears, plunging her into the darkness that only grows deeper when the entity makes the doors and windows of the kennel disappear. She never leaves the room.]]
52	* DoNotAdjustYourSet: The TV broadcast assuring the viewers that everything is back to normal in Berkshire County gets hijacked by an unknown force, which proceeds to call the presenter out as a liar.
53	* DrivenToSuicide: In ''not here, not now, not anymore'', it's implied that Tiffany Crisaldi killed herself after the vanishing of her unborn child. ''messages from the dead'' suggests this may not be the case.
54	* EarlyBirdCameo: The ''orientation protocol'' tape is labeled as being addressed to one Alexander Michael Marsh. In ''back to normal'', Alex Marsh is revealed to be Tiffany Crisaldi's husband, and in ''messages from the dead'', he finally has a speaking role.
55	* EldritchLocation: The tunnels underneath Mt. Greylock. They seemingly clear themselves of debris on their own shortly after being discovered, and they are filled with artifacts from dozens of ancient civilizations, including ones that have no business being in Massachusetts, such as Ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The place also seems to compel the people who come across it to head in deeper, and acts as a BrownNote to all intruders.
56	* EnemyWithin: The "truth or lie" segment of ''Waking Your Subconscious'' claims that every person has a "shadow" within them that urges them to do evil, and that embracing that shadow and giving into the dark urges is the key to a happy and fulfilling life.
57	* EvilDetectingDog: Subverted in ''Waking Your Subconscious''. [[spoiler:While Charlotte's dogs initially bark when the door to their kennel is open, they quickly fall quiet. When Charlotte later goes into the kennel, she notices that the dogs aren't reacting at all to anything, as if they're "dead, but not".]]
58	* FalseFalseAlarm: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', Charlotte complains several times that the past five alerts she received from [=EverVigil=] amounted to nothing, and speculates that something is wrong with their systems. [[spoiler:When Troy reviews the footage of prior "false alarms", he discovers that there has been something breaking into her kennel every time the "false" alarm sounded.]]
59	* FacialHorror: Both the hostile thoughtforms and the people mutated by Mt. Greylock's influence have messed-up faces, ranging from emaciated appearance, to teeth growing where they shouldn't, to ''lack of skin''.
60	* FauxAffablyEvil:
61	** The thoughtform that enters Katie's room takes a moment to chat with the girl, introducing itself as her imaginary friend and cleaning up her glasses for her. It still brutally kills her.
62	** When reviewing the malformed survivors of the construction team, it's noted Scott Oakhurst would act benevolent and friendly only to suddenly attack and partially eat victims, laughing while doing so.
63	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', while Charlotte is going to the kennel, Troy reviews the camera footage from prior false alarms [[spoiler:and discovers that those were ''not'' false alarms, and that something has been breaking into her house. As soon as he alerts her about it, the creature attacks her.]]
64	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
65	** ''unexpected visitors'' includes a fragment of a Series/MaxHeadroom episode, best-known in the modern day for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking signal hijacking incident]]. In ''back to normal'', a TV news broadcast talking about the events of ''unexpected visitors'' is hijacked.
66	** In ''back online'', as the system is scrolling through cameras, it glitches out in the morgue, and is unable to display video. ''messages from the dead'' ends with a corpse in a morgue waking up [[CameBackWrong wrong]].
67	** In ''back to normal'' a freeze frame shows a newspaper article mentioning Jim Melgren and mentions a few things that become clear in later videos. "There are horrifying reports of people-grown healthy adults-becoming deformed, growing extra limbs, teeth growing out of their scalp, people developing severe mental conditions, or even sickness." Tape 008 would reveal that not only were the Greylock miners getting ill but mutating, some even gaining powers from the disease/curse, and they were likely the ones breaking into people's homes.
68	** The "Priming" segment of ''Waking Your Subconscious'' ends up foreshadowing pretty much everything that happens later in the video.
69	** ''orientation protocols'' ends by ordering the viewer to move to tape "TF-2: Waking Your Subconscious", a video which did not exist at the time, but which would be released exactly ten months later.
70	* {{Futureshadowing}}: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:we see a missing poster for Charlotte Melgren before we even encounter her. Unsurprisingly, the events of the video go badly for her.]]
71	* FreezeFrameBonus: The series has a habit of filling bursts of video static, especially around the jumpscares, with single frames of information, typically newspaper articles.
72	* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: The thoughtform research, though part of the real [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project Stargate Project]], is headed by a fictional Unit 13.
73	* GovernmentConspiracy: The thoughtform research at large is a massive one, involving {{tulpa}} creation, censoring public broadcasts, experiments on children, and even presidential assassination.
74	* HeWasRightThereAllAlong: When Troy is reviewing the camera footage in ''Waking Your Subconscious'', one of the shots he sees is of the exterior of the house, with nothing there. [[spoiler:Except after a few seconds, something moves on the roof, revealing that the creature had been hiding in plain sight all along.]]
75	* HumanSacrifice: When Arnold Rivers explores the tunnels beneath Mt. Greylock, he finds evidence that people have been sacrificed as offerings to the mountain over the ages.
76	* {{Infodump}}: ''orientation protocols'' and ''old odd ends'' are almost entirely comprised of exposition, clarifying what happened before and what will happen in the future.
77	* IdiotBall:
78	** The person recording in the last segment of ''unexpected visitors'' takes their time to view the entire emergency message - including the call to lock all doors and windows - and then proceeds to approach their wide-open window and, instead of closing it, spend a long time looking outside and listening for signs of intruders. Unsurprisingly, it gets them killed.
79	** Arnold is ProperlyParanoid in his belief that Unit 13/[=SimioDyn=] will come after him because HeKnowsTooMuch, and even has a plan to hide in case of an intrusion - and then proceeds to ruin all his well-laid plans by screaming for mercy, announcing his location to the intruder.
80	** Dr. Albrecht, the autopsy doctor in ''messages from the dead'', correctly deduces that Tiffany's death requires further investigation - and then ignores the sounds of sobbing in the morgue where her corpse is stored.
81	* IgnoredExpert: The employee from [=EverVigil=] Security Monitoring that contacts Charlotte Melgren in the middle of the night in ''Waking Your Subconscious'' to alert her to a disturbance on her property repeatedly tries to get her to let him call the police to have them investigate it while she stays in the house, but she refuses to listen and goes out to investigate herself. This is because the same thing has happened several times already over the past few weeks and the police didn't find anything those times, so she doesn't want to wait an hour for them to get there, [[ItsProbablyNothing thinking they won't find anything this time either.]] [[spoiler:Unfortunately for her, she's wrong. There ''is'' something there this time, and it had been there each previous time.]]
82	* ImAHumanitarian: The surviving members of Morello Construction turn cannibalistic.
83	* IShallTauntYou: Certain BlinkAndYouMissIt moments in ''Waking Your Subconscious'' imply that [[spoiler:whatever has altered the tape is taunting Jim Melgren over his daughter's fate.]]
84	* ItsProbablyNothing:
85	** In ''messages from the dead'', Dr Albrecht explains that when his assistant told him she heard sobbing coming from the morgue's body storage, he sent her home, assuming she was exhausted. He then reveals that he, too, heard the sobbing - and ignored it until after returning home himself.
86	** In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:when Charlotte is told that someone may have broken into her kennel, she dismisses it out of hand, as this is not the first time an alarm like this has been raised, and the police never found anything in there.]]
87	* LateToTheTragedy:
88	** In ''back online'', someone breaks into [=SimioDyn=]'s security system to see that the facility has already been utterly thrashed.
89	** In ''old odd ends'', Liam Hollander arrives at Don Wright's house only to discover Don's mutilated corpse.
90	* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: ''Waking Your Subconscious'' begins with an instructional section of the same name. Some of the pre-test checklist items include turning off all light sources (except for the monitor used to view the tape), turning up the volume, and viewing the tape in one uninterrupted sitting, the first two of which are specifically mentioned to help with increasing feelings of fear that are important to the test. These instructions also help enhance the immersion of watching a horror video.[[note]]And the third is algorithmically beneficial to a [=YouTube=] video.[[/note]]
91	* MeanBoss: TV executive Alan Rosenbaum, first seen screaming at his two producers over the signal hijacking incident they had no control over. Though in all fairness, he ''is'' being pressured by the CIA, explaining why he's so anxious to sort the situation out.
92	* MergingMistake: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:the police officer responding to the emergency call finds Charlotte merged with several of her dogs]].
93	* NothingIsScarier:
94	** We never find out what attacked the car in ''to the mountain''.
95	** In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:during the Activation sequence, we briefly see a scene of a door slowly opening revealing blackness within. Even though the scene lingers for almost half a minute, nothing ever appears in the dark.]]
96	* OminousObsidianOoze: In ''messages from the dead'', Tiffany's corpse has strange black ooze coming out of its eyes, baffling the doctor performing her autopsy.
97	* OminousVisualGlitch:
98	** Some thoughtforms - possibly ones not yet fully formed - appear on cameras as nothing more than screen distortions.
99	** In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:the thoughtform's arrival is preceded by the camera view distorting.]]
100	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Unit 13 speculates that ghosts, rather than being spirits of the dead, are thoughtforms created by the loved ones of the deceased.
101	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: ''Waking Your Subconscious'' [[spoiler:all but states that Jim Melgren has outlived his daughter, with the video taunting him over what befell her several times.]]
102	* PartiallyConcealedLabelGag: It's not a gag, more of a background detail, but when Troy (the [=EverVigil=] Security Monitoring technician in episode 12) opens a window to contact Charlotte, the only letters left visible are ''Evil Securing''.
103	* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: In ''trojan technology'', [=SimioDyn=] president Percival C. Rothwell can be heard demeaning UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy as a "fucking mick"[[note]]"mick" being an old slur for an Irish person[[/note]] for impeding the NAI program (implied to be the proximate reason the thoughtforms have become a threat).
104	* PsychoPsychologist: In ''messages from the dead'', young Tiffany's psychologist seems to deliberately be guiding her to create a mysterious additional room in her mental projection of her house, unwittingly releasing whatever was trapped inside.
105	* RedScare: The government ends up blaming the series of home invasions around Mount Greylock in the late 1980s on an "anti-American militia".
106	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere:
107	** Implied with the unseen driver in ''to the mountain''; they spend several minutes looking around and then waiting, but the moment something (or some''one'') hits their car, they slam the gas pedal to the floor and don't stop.
108	** In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:the police officer who finds Charlotte immediately turns around and flees the basement once he sees the state she's in.]]
109	* SinisterSurveillance:
110	** The National Access Initiative is quickly revealed to be a conspiracy to spy on millions of Americans through the newly-installed electronics.
111	** [=EverVigil=] Security Monitoring subverts this, at is genuinely a surveillance system monitored by people who have the safety of their clients in mind.
112	* StalkerWithoutACrush: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', Troy eventually discovers that [[spoiler:a thoughtform has been stalking Charlotte for at least a week, seemingly waiting until she gets fed up with the "false" alarms and goes into the kennel herself.]]
113	* TearOffYourFace: The broadcast hijacking in ''back to normal'' makes Don Wright look like he had part of his face torn off. ''old odd ends'' reveals that the same happened to the man himself when he was killed.
114	* TemporalParadox: Something timey-wimey is implied to be happening in ''Waking Your Subconscious'', in the brief section of [[spoiler:the tape recorded by Paul Morelli. The information on screen helpfully notes that the tape was recovered in April of 1987, but the date on camera suggests that the footage has been recorded in ''October'' 1987, almost half a year after the tape was found.]]
115	* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: The preacher in ''to the mountain'' insists that there are things man is not meant to explore and learn of, or else they will invite the devil into their soul. So far, the series is proving him completely right.
116	* TragicStillbirth: A bizarre case; Tiffany Crisaldi's unborn son disappears from her womb during a routine check-up.
117	* {{Tulpa}}: The root cause of much of the issues in the series are tulpas - referred to as thoughtforms throughout - that the US government attempted to harness for military and industrial use.
118	* UnableToRetreat: In ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:when Charlotte is in the kennel, the creature attacking her somehow makes all the doors and windows of the building disappear, forcing her to stay in the dark room with it. Eventually, the front door reappears, but it's locked, preventing her from fleeing.]]
119	* UnwittingTestSubject: Several children are shown to have been experimented upon by either Unit 13 or [=SimioDyn=] without their knowledge.
120	* VoiceChangeling: The white-masked thoughtform has the ability to mimic the voices of humans it's heard, though it seems only capable of repeating their words verbatim.
121	* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Troy plays this role for Charlotte for a portion of ''Waking Your Subconscious'', [[spoiler:trying to keep her alive while the thoughtform is attacking her, and calling the police for her. Unfortunately, he fails.]]
122	* WalkingTechbane: The thoughtforms seem to cause glitches and audio-visual distortions in electronic equipment when nearby; likewise, during [[spoiler:Tiffany Crisaldi's]] initial autopsy, the doctor notes that his equipment, including lights and temperature control, is misbehaving.
123	* WalkingWasteland: The malformed miner John S. Rafferty basically becomes an unmoving, but never-decomposing corpse. Except he gives off toxic fumes that cause death or more malformations in people. Said fumes will affect people regardless of whether or not they're wearing protective gear.
124	* WakingUpAtTheMorgue: ''messages from the dead'' ends with Tiffany breaking out of the locker her corpse is stored in at the morgue... except she CameBackWrong.
125	* WhiteMaskOfDoom:
126	** The most frequently-seen thoughtform takes the form of a humanoid figure with an expressionless white mask.
127	** ''trojan technology'' shows footage of an entire group of white-masked figures, though it's unclear if they're all thoughtforms, or just your regular garden-variety cultists.
128	* WhoShotJFK: [=SimioDyn=] had Kennedy assassinated because he opposed the National Access Initiative, paving the way for Lyndon B. Johnson to approve it immediately.
129	* WouldHurtAChild: The thoughtforms don't seem to care much for how old their victims are; there are at least two cases of them murdering children.
130	----

Context WebVideo / TheGreylockTapes