Anomidae

Anomidae and PROJECT SKY//BOX Anomidae is a YouTube content creator with 91.3K subscribers, renowned for investigating the Interloper mystery. Since 2021, he has released 11 videos dedicated to this enigmatic topic. Initially, Anomidae launched his YouTube channel focusing on Source Filmmaker (SFM) short films and tutorials. However, he later shifted his attention to the Interloper mystery, which he describes as an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) designed to evade Valve’s scrutiny. Contrary to this claim, Anomidae's investigation appears to be genuine. He collaborates with a group known as PROJECT SKY//BOX, comprising himself, Lucy, and L, to uncover the truth behind the Interloper. Anomidae is characterized by his analytical mindset, curiosity, and technical expertise, particularly with the Source Engine and its associated games. He is known for taking significant risks to achieve his investigative goals.

Lucy and L Within PROJECT SKY//BOX, Lucy serves as the technical wizard, providing support for background projects and elucidating complex Source-related concepts. Despite her crucial role, Lucy seldom appears in Anomidae's videos. L, on the other hand, remains an enigmatic figure within the group, handling what is referred to as "dirty treadmill work" behind the scenes. L's activities are kept underground, adding an element of mystery to the team's dynamics.

The Interloper The Interloper refers to a group of at least six mysterious and hostile entities that pursue DM NPCs (Dynamic Non-Player Characters). These entities are identifiable by a distinct wind chime sound. Visually, the Interlopers are depicted as tall individuals dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, with white eyes and often wielding black umbrellas. The first recognition of the Interloper traces back to a 2005 HalfLife.Net Forum thread discussing Interloper Graffiti located in the Ravenholm chapter of Half-Life 2. Anomidae uncovered a hidden text within the Interloper Graffiti PNG file, which showed an oddly human and non-gibberish message from some guy J.J. This enabled Anomidae to input a specific command into the Source Engine console. This command, "INTERLOPE," initially returned an "Unknown Command" response. However, by using "get s.interlope.pull:27015" after, Anomidae was able to generate mysterious demos from "FSky" servers. These demos are only generated on a random day in November and are linked to Norwegian FSky servers in Europe, which were originally utilized for AI technology innovation but are now defunct.

Demo Types and Characteristics Anomidae identified six distinct types of demos that can be generated through these console commands:

Type 1 Demos: Characterized by wild, erratic camera movements that disrupt normal gameplay. Type 2 Demos: These demos place the player out of bounds, creating a sense of disorientation. Type 3 Demos: Feature aimless gameplay within the level boundaries, often ending abruptly without resolution. Type 4 Demos: Appear as regular gameplay sessions of the game in which they are generated, commonly seen in the Portal series. Type 5 Demos: The rarest type, containing motion-captured animations powered by DM NPCs. These demos frequently feature sightings of Umbrella Men, adding to their mysterious nature. Type 6 Demos: Characterized by a player character noclipping through the map with rapid, autonomous mouse movements, deleting random objects within the game scene. These are most commonly observed in Team Fortress 2 (TF2) and Day of Defeat.

Analysis of Specific Demos Cstrike Demo The Cstrike demo, generated by Anomidae on November 21, 2021, depicts a terrorist DM NPC interacting with an Umbrella Man. During the interaction, the Umbrella Man drags the DM NPC outside the boundaries of the map, leaving no visible trace of the entity within the playable area.

Spookycoast Demo The Spookycoast demo features a Half-Life 2 citizen DM NPC being attacked by another DM NPC with glowing eyes. The attacker throws the citizen off a balcony. During this event, five Umbrella Men can be seen floating above the water, maintaining a stationary and eerie presence.

Hi Guy Demo In the Hi Guy demo, a Half-Life 2 male citizen, commonly referred to as "male01," is shown interacting with an Interloper and a radio. The demo concludes with the citizen being caught by the Interloper, with no further action shown, leaving the citizen's fate uncertain but heavily implied to be fatal.

Misty Demo The Misty demo depicts a DM NPC slamming a brick down onto a ragdolled citizen model. Shortly after this violent act, the DM NPC is caught by an Interloper and dragged out of bounds, leaving the scene completely devoid of the NPC.

Fortress Demo The Fortress demo takes place in the Team Fortress 2 map 2Fort. It shows a scout interacting with two T-posing heavies. The demo abruptly cuts off before the interaction resolves, providing no additional context about the event.

Eidacan Demo The Eidacan demo shows a DM NPC leaning down and picking up a can. As this happens, the DM NPC notices an Umbrella Man visible through an open doorway. The demo ends without further interaction between the two entities.

Helmetcreek Demo The Helmetcreek demo features a Day of Defeat soldier. The soldier is manipulated by a player entity in a manner suggesting external control. Afterward, the soldier is dragged down a river and eventually falls out of bounds, disappearing entirely from the environment.

Longtrap Demo The Longtrap demo is characterized by a prolonged camera movement. For two hours, the camera pans through a void area outside the map boundaries. At the end of the demo, a new map becomes faintly visible in the distance, appearing as though it is on the verge of rendering.

Whiteroom Demo The Whiteroom demo displays an empty, mold-covered room. The room contains a single light bulb and a fallen Half-Life 2 turret lying on the ground. The environment remains static throughout the demo, providing no further action or interaction.

Ellisfloor Demo The Ellisfloor demo focuses on an incapacitated Ellis from Left 4 Dead 2. Zombies in the environment ignore Ellis entirely, despite his incapacitated state. The demo offers no explanation for this anomalous behavior.

Officehead Demo The Officehead demo involves a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive counter-terrorist (CT) being forcibly dragged out of bounds by an unidentified entity. The entity remains unseen, with only the resulting movement of the CT character providing evidence of its presence.

Demo86 Demo86 begins with a Team Fortress 2 Heavy exhibiting normal gameplay behavior. Over time, the Heavy transforms into a distorted version of itself. The gameplay transitions from Type 3 behavior (aimless gameplay within bounds) into Type 6 behavior, where the Heavy begins noclipping through the map, making rapid autonomous movements, and deleting random objects within the game scene.

PROJECT SKY//BOX Mod and Findings Anomidae and his team discovered a backdoor in Portal RTX that allowed access to FSky servers and the use of Interloper commands. This backdoor was first identified during the initial few episodes of the Interloper investigation and remained active until Interloper 4. It was through this backdoor that Anomidae initially began experimenting with server interactions. The development of the PROJECT SKY//BOX mod was not related to server access but rather focused on enhancing the investigation process. The mod itself was designed to explore anomalies in Source Engine games and was built as a tool to consolidate findings. The use of automated "drones" to explore the void areas outside maps was conducted primarily within Garry's Mod. These drones identified several peculiar features in the void, including textureless areas and untextured doorframes, which appeared to serve no discernible purpose within the game's design. Anomidae's terminal system, introduced in Interloper 7, was not a part of the mod but rather a result of a significant upgrade to his physical computer setup. This system enabled him to work with multiple Source Engine games simultaneously, facilitating deeper analysis of the interconnected nature of the engine's maps and mechanics.

The Tuesday Manifest Anomidae compiled a comprehensive collection known as the Tuesday Manifest, which includes 465 demos generated via his workstation and the "projectskybox.exe" program. This manifest highlighted a significant number of Type 6 demos and exposed new anomalies, such as compromised connections through Portal RTX. Additionally, the Tuesday Manifest helped fix a corrupted install backdoor, stabilizing some aspects of the investigation while revealing the extensive reach of the Interloper phenomena.

Skyghost Phenomenon In Interloper 9, Anomidae encountered the "skyghost" phenomenon involving the Lucy model used for SFM animation within the Lost Coast mod. The Lucy model exhibited unusual behavior, such as rotating its head to follow Anomidae's movements and playing a distorted trumpet sound. Attempts to interact with the model led to it autonomously activating, performing a dancing animation accompanied by sound effects. These effects ceased when Anomidae looked directly at the model, leading to the naming of the phenomenon as "skyghost." Lucy theorized that the skyghost phenomenon resulted from DM NPC code infiltrating Anomidae's Half-Life 2 runtime environment. In Interloper A, the skyghost continued to manifest in weird ways, categorized as: Passive Effects (48-72 hour Cycle): Teleportation: The Lucy model would teleport to a random location within the map. Sound Emission: Three random Source Engine sounds would play, such as ambient noises, game effects. Shrink: The model would shrink down and wrap in on itself to it's center of mass. This is the only time when Cubemap Examinations could be made. Dormant State: After these actions, the model would return to a dormant state, awaiting the next cycle. Active Effects (Breaking the Passive Cycle). Only three were recorded: Spawning Elite Combine Models: The Lucy model triggered the appearance of an Elite Combine unit on the map. Disappearance and Music Play: The model disappeared, played music, and re-appeared 2 minutes after. Following Anomidae: The Lucy model followed Anomidae while shrinked for 10 minutes - before returning back to Dormant.

Cubemap Examination and jstal1994 Anomidae utilized the Source Filmmaker and PROJECT//SKYBOX for a process he termed "Cubemap Examination," aimed at extracting hidden data embedded within demos. This process initially revealed additional sounds and video footage within the demos. However, it was later discovered that Cubemap Examination did not reveal existing data but instead generated new data. As anomalies intensified, Anomidae's scientific rigor began to deteriorate, leading him to believe that his computer had been compromised. Consequently, he closed a Discord channel previously used for submitting demos for Cubemap Examination. During this period, Anomidae received a demo file from an individual named "jstal1994," later identified as Eida. Despite his deteriorating state, Anomidae continued to investigate the skyghost phenomenon, which persisted in exhibiting its Passive Effects even as his ability to navigate the map or see anything was lost.

The Lost Coast Mod and TF2 Connection Anomidae discovered that some Interloper functionalities were encapsulated within the PROJECT SKY//BOX mod, also known as The Lost Coast mod, despite not having direct access to it for an extended period. Demonstrating this connection, Anomidae showed a clip of himself playing Team Fortress 2 (TF2) normally. However, when he hovered his crosshair over an invisible player named "Anomi," he saw his own player model moving back and forth within The Lost Coast mod. This interaction caused the Engineer model in the mod to glitch out and fly out of the room, leaving a wrench behind. This unsettling event significantly heightened Anomidae's unease over the course of a week, deepening the mystery surrounding the Interloper.

Eida’s Paranormal Investigation Eida had previously investigated the same Interloper phenomenon years before Anomidae but approached it from a paranormal perspective. Treating the "interloper ghosts" as supernatural spirits, Eida employed tools reminiscent of a Ouija Board to communicate with these entities and created "Mona videos" as part of his investigation. This approach was met with negative reactions from his friends and fanbase. Despite demonstrating a stronger understanding of the Interloper anomalies compared to Anomidae's research, Eida's reliance on paranormal methods led him to vastly different conclusions about the nature of the entities involved. Ultimately, Eida's YouTube channel was deleted under unclear circumstances. Speculation suggests that his obsessive investigative patterns and the responses from those behind the anomaly may have contributed to his mental breakdown and the subsequent removal of his channel.

INTERLOPER C, the "Sky Crash" Incident: Interloper C marks the moment when everything began to unravel. 48 hours before the incident, Anomidae began noticing strange occurrences: objects from the various Source games he was playing—particularly Half-Life 2—started floating upwards, rising beyond the skybox and disappearing into the void. Two days later, at Eida's insistence, Anomidae pressed F11, causing his camera to snap to an entirely different view. Shortly after, an error appeared: "Display Adapter Error! Please use a compatible Direct3D 6.1 adapter!" At this point, all of Anomidae's Source games became unplayable, effectively bricking the games. The PROJECT SKY//BOX mod continued to run, but only a purple-black checkered screen was visible, signaling the games' failure to render. All other Source games froze in a random frame, essentially locking them into a bricked state. Desperate to continue his work, Anomidae turned to the original Half-Life 2 version for the Xbox 1, running it through an emulator. This method worked. Using a glitch in Chapter 4, he managed to fall out of bounds and travel through the Source Void, ultimately landing in a Dota 2 map hours later. This experience led Anomidae to the realization that all the games were still running behind the scenes, but the display issue had rendered them invisible. Using the commands "getpos" and "setpos," he was able to teleport multiple Source characters across game maps. Notably, he teleported Bill from Left 4 Dead 2 to revive his character from the Xbox version of Half-Life 2 using the defibrillator, and an Engineer from Team Fortress 2 used teleporters to move through the maps in the emulation. As Anomidae explored, he found a map populated by DMNPCs, which roamed aimlessly. The situation escalated when an Umbrella Man appeared, causing Anomidae's Portal 2 runtime to crash. In panic, he quickly teleported himself back to the PROJECT SKY//BOX mod, just in time to escape before his Engineer character was captured by the Umbrella Men, crashing his TF2 instance. As terminal reports displayed more crashes, Anomidae witnessed the props he'd seen floating earlier converge and orbit around the top of a cathedral, accompanied by a massive stack of containers. Then, an Umbrella Man appeared, floating toward Skyghost, who was inside the cathedral. Realizing the threat, Anomidae rushed to pick up Skyghost as a corrupted crowbar weapon, but the Umbrella Man targeted him instead. He fled, knowing that being caught would not only destroy his game but also endanger Skyghost and the investigation. Using a glitch, Anomidae fell out of the PROJECT SKY//BOX map and into the void, with the Umbrella Man unable to follow due to Source's falling speed mechanics. As Anomidae descended, he landed in various locations, including a spot where a corrupted woman DMNPC seemed to direct him toward a central hub. He eventually found himself on a Garry's Mod Christmas map, where he discovered that the crowbar, via a Flashpoint Nuke glitch, could erase DMNPCs. Intent on confronting and deleting the Umbrella Man, Anomidae prepared in this map, but things went awry when a DMNPC with a physgun grabbed his player model and threw him off the map, causing him to fall further. Eventually, he landed in the same checkerboard area, which had become known as the bottom of the Source Void. The Skyghost Lucy model appeared, stuck beside him, pointing in a specific direction. Exhausted from over 28 hours of continuous investigation, Anomidae followed the Skyghost, reaching a cone-shaped humanoid surrounded by floating, missing texture orbs. The figure transformed into a door, glowing brightly. With everything pointing toward the door—the Skyghost model, the crowbar, and the events that led him there—Anomidae reluctantly entered, and everything crashed. Skyghost, the door, and all the progress made during the investigation were lost in the crash.

INTERLOPER D, The "Dead End": a very short summary of Anomidae's hopelessly stunted investigation. Only one lead: a map named "Kulcs.vmf", has apparently been made on his computer. The map was uploaded to the Steam Workshop, and Anomidae handed off the keys to the community to investigate.

Kucls.VMF investigation (community efforts): Following INTERLOPER D, Anomidae uploaded "Kulcs.vmf" (Hungarian for "key") to Steam Workshop, passing the investigation to the community. Players explored the map in Half-Life 2 and Hammer Editor, finding props spelling M-U-F and shadows forming characters when fullbright was disabled. One room contained promotional images for Source games, prompting map ports to other engines. A TF2 server was established for collaborative investigation. Anomidae revealed discovered serial keys "91QI9-13514-UGUMF" and "91QI9-13514-UGMUF" but couldn't input them through any method. The emulator crashed when disconnected from internet, suggesting active telemetry despite Wireshark revealing nothing. Poor framerate improved after 20-30 minutes of runtime. Day two brought focus on deliberately-placed traffic cones. Anomidae joined the TF2 server and identified shadow "E," leading to systematic shadow analysis from cone positions. Props interacted with lighting to create alphanumeric shapes. By day three, shadow decoding revealed "cge7-193"—a DM NPC designation from Interloper 3's cstrike demo. This led to discovering a TF2 server named "cge7-193" (active since February 1, 2025, previously "Tf6 源9" and "vars"). Anomidae urged respectful investigation as "guests." Eight days followed navigating secret rooms and "mazemazemazemaze" to destroy a cone in "coneconeconecone" (an invisible water variant). "Subroutine_hello" featured a checkered void, key, and chest—unusable in TF2 due to prop interaction limitations.

INTERLOPER E, "Entity Death": After discovering the cge7-193 TF2 server through Kulcs, the community spent a week exploring before Anomidae gained control. The server's FTP contained 26 .bsp maps from the investigation, 1,375 demo files of user interactions, and crucially, a program called SourceBox. SourceBox connected Anomidae to cge7-193 with obscured vision. Community help guided him to subroutine_hello's doorway. While demonstrating to a PROJECT SKYBOX member, Anomidae discovered the maps' logic was entirely server-side. Shooting a door while hosting locally unexpectedly transported him to "view" map (missing texture replaced with dirt), revealing SourceBox enabled local server logic hosting. The subroutine_hello key/keyhole had server-side events the community couldn't activate. Using HL2:VR Mod through SourceBox's local server commands, Anomidae inserted the key, transforming SourceBox's interface. The menu showed a clipping sphere/cube and cone. Cube clicks turned it blue/spinning. Sphere clicks displayed missing textures with "WARNING: NO GRAPHICS DRIVER DETECTED. PLEASE ENABLE A VALID GRAPHICS DRIVER!" The cone revealed a 3D "Demo Void" chart with moving points. Text appeared: "LOCATED WFA3Y-A [INTERLOPE.DME]" and "VALIDATORS HAVE NOT BEEN VERIFIED PLEASE." XYZ coordinates tracked selected points while METAL_REG cycled through states: PLAT, SETREG, CPU_POP, NAN_CREG, STOPREG_DIRTY, WAIT, THINK, CPU_PUSH. This suggested SourceBox interfaced directly with the Demo Void, providing unprecedented access to the Interloper phenomenon's architecture.