| Item: | Megalithic Lodestone |
| Size: | 2,1 m × 0,8 m × 3,8 m |
| Type: | Structure (Monument); Geological Formation |
| Living: | No |
| Sentient: | No |
| Potential/Current Hazards | None |
| Required Wear/Weaponry | None |
| Location: | 52° 3█′ ██.██″ N, 3° 2█′ ██.██″ W |
| Reported Anomaly: | Transmissions of anomalous origin and presumed extrareal gateway. |
Usage
The Item is still being researched and its usability evaluated. The following instructions are preliminary and subject to future changes.
A network of SDR receivers is to be spread out in the Item's area of effect to record all transmissions originating from it. An automated analysis program is to immediately inform the responsible SIGINT officer should it deviate from its default behaviour.
Current research progress on the ritual used during the Shroud-6 Incident is classified and requires Beta-level or above approval to access.
Report
The Megalithic Lodestone is a weathered bluestone boulder of approx. 20 tons featuring veins of magnetized magnetite. The structure posses root-like extensions of its magnetite veins in the ground below it, preventing it from being moved.
Within a radius of 1,5 km around the object, radio and microwave transmissions from the outside fade away with increasing proximity to the Megalithic Lodestone, whereas signals of unknown origin become detectable. Triangulation will reveal the object as their source.
Most of these transmissions are indistinguishable from background noise, but some take the shape of audible broadcasts. Contents of these transmissions vary greatly, from a looping recording of the final seventh stage of the Caretaker's Everywhere at the End of Time to the Counting Station (Foundation designation: SCP-3034) and whale song that could not yet be translated by the Insurgency's cetulinguistics experts.
Since the Shroud-6 Incident (see Appendix A), it is believed that the Megalithic Lodestone is not directly generating these signals, but acting as repeater or tunnel for various signals of anomalous origin instead.
Appendix A: The Shroud-6 Incident
During Operation Whiskey-Edge, contact to all members of the Shroud Squad was lost ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
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During an unrelated IA Ops in the area around Cefn Coch, the local IA Ops team discovered that the there was already a device transmitting on the default channel of their handheld transceivers. This lead to the discovery of a nearby menhir's anomalous properties, which would later be designated the Megalithic Lodestone.
The team switched channels and continued with their original mission; the broadcast was only closer investigated by the IRUC team arriving later.
The early stages of research were limited to recording the broadcast. An exemplary excerpt of the first 24 hours follows:
Transcript of the first 24 h received from Shroud-6 through the Megalithic Lodestone
[Recording Start] [00:00] A strong wind is howling. Constant footsteps on gravel. Occasionally, a man is heard breathing. [00:44] The wind's howling is fading as the man appears to enter an interior space. The sound of the ground changes to uneven rocky ground. [00:56] The surrounding is starting to sound wet. [01:03] Splashing is being heard as the man walks through puddles. Flowing liquid is briefly heard a couple of times. [01:24] Echoes as the interior space is opening up. [03:35] A faint hissing sound. The sound appears to draw closer as the man approaches its source. [04:12] The hiss becomes audible enough to be identified as screams. The screaming is continuing to grow in intensity. [05:26] The screams appear to exceed the maximum acoustic level of the recording device, resulting in strong audio clipping. [08:49] The screams are slowly fading back below the clipping threshold. [10:02] Return to silence, except for footsteps, splashes and breathing. [11:13] Heavier breathing indicates the man is moving uphill. [11:27] Footsteps produce the crunching of wet sand. [12:09] Crunching stops and is replaced by the trickling of drier sand. [13:57] The sand on the ground turns to gravel. [14:00] A loud crack sounding like wood shattering is heard. The man becomes agitated and audibly starts running and is breathing heavily. [14:15] The man stops to rest for a short while. [14:41] He continues walking at a normal pace. [15:39] Distant thumping sounds. [18:07] Footsteps change to the sound of things crumpling under every step, perhaps leaves. [18:59] For a short moment, it sounds like the man is walking over a metal surface, then the crumpling continues. [19:39] A period of absolute silence lasting for 21 seconds. [20:32] The man stops. [20:33] Grunts and the sound of something heavy being dragged. [20:34] The man continues walking. [21:10] It begins to rain. The man is shivering. [21:24] The crumbling stops. Sound of rain pattering against a hard surface. More splashing through puddles. [22:19] A very loud sucking noise. After that, the rain has stopped. [22:50] The man is heard scratching something extensively, perhaps himself. [23:04] He moves on. [23:47] A short sharp pinging sound followed by distant bellowing. [Recording End]
Although the continued transmission implied that the transmitter's Push-to-talk button was being permanently held down, this particular broadcast was the first one an attempt to establish contact was made with.
Radio Transcript: Re-establishing contact with Shroud-6
The following is a log of the first attempt to establish contact with the broadcaster by Insurgency Agent ████████.
(Start of Transcript)
█████████: This is Lt. Krimmer, Royal Air Force, unknown sender please respond. Calling again, this is Lt. Krimmer, Royal Air Force, unknown sender please respond.
Shroud-6: (exasperated sigh) I'm here.
█████████: Unknown sender, please identify yourself.
Shroud-6: Who I am is none of your business. But I know that you are not from the RAF. Are you one of those GOC assholes?
█████████: Unknown sender, identify yourself.
Shroud-6: You're fucking kidding me, right? First you bomb us, then you let me walk through literal hell and now you think you can just call me up like this? ██████████████████, does that ring a bell?
█████████: ██████████████████? Please stand by.
(Pause whilst Agent █████████ discusses with his superior.)
█████████: Okay, I think we've got this sorted out. We're on the same side. This is Agent █████████ from the Insurgency.
Shroud-6: (takes a deep breath, then laughs in relief) You madlads. I don't know what you did to find me, but this is Shroud-6, reporting to duty. Don't be confused, I had to take 1's kit because mine broke.
█████████: Confirmed, Shroud-6. What is the status report on the rest of Shroud Squad?
Shroud-6: They're dead. Just like me, actually.
█████████: Please explain.
Shroud-6: When the GOC lost visual on that thing, they apparently decided to just carpet-bomb the place to make sure. We escaped from the direct bombardment into a cave, but with nine square miles of jungle on fire, the smoke was the bigger problem. Ripped our shirts off to use them for masks, but last thing I remember that didn't worked out that well. Can't tell you what happened to Shrike Squad though. I haven't seen them, so I guess they missed the punchline.
█████████: Shroud-6, you are not making any sense. Confirm no memetic contamination and then explain yourself.
Shroud-6: There's nothing memetic about it, I just don't want to spoil the joke. I know this must be really annoying when you're alive, but trust me, dying is worth it.
█████████: Sorry, I must treat you as potential contagious now. Please wait whilst I get our specialist involved.
Shroud-6: It's simple, really. People like us don't get to heaven. But we messed with the wrong guy one too many times as that they'd let us into hell either.
(End of Transcript)
In the aftermath of this exchange, Shroud-6 was confirmed to be with a high likelihood non-contagious. Shroud-6 was highly uncooperative in describing his surroundings or elaborating on how he got there, but agreed on trying to reach the location of the research team from his position.
He was given instructions on how to triangulate the position of their transmissions; it soon became apparent that the broadcasts power was much higher wherever he was, since he had to traverse multiple days worth of terrain to reach it.
On the 15th of October, he claimed to have reached the calculated position, and described an area very similar to the are around the Megalithic Lodestone. Being given directions via radio, he was lead directly to the object, but found nobody there; similarily, the IRUC team could no see him, even when he claimed to have climbed on top of it.
Eventually, the retrieval was declared a failure and aborted. Shroud-6 reacted very emotional on the situation and broke contact.
His transmission wasn't picked up until 15 days later, when he suddenly claimed to have a solution and instructed the local researchers to gather for an elaborate ritual near the Megalithic Lodestone. Although they lacked approval from an higher authority and had no safety precautions, the local team decided to follow these instructions out of pity for Shroud-6.
The next day, the ritual proved successful at temporarily allowing for the physical presence of Shroud-6. However, he reportedly returned to wherever he came from when the ritual ended by sunrise.
In the wake of these events, the entire IRUC team was severely reprimanded and re-assigned. All attempts at reconstructing the ritual failed, and Shroud-6 has not replied to attempts at contacting him ever since, but continues to broadcast a live audio feed.
In the meanwhile, the bodies of him and the remainder of Shroud Squad have been retrieved from ██████████████ without further complications.
