INTERLOPER ARG/Web series

1. #1INTERLOPER

   The INTERLOPER is a mystery surrounding the Source Engine dating back from a discussion thread from 2005 where it first began to skyrocket. However, in the intervening years, leads would dry up and the mystery itself became lost. Until a group of video game investigators, jump-started by Anomidae, began shining a light in this dark closet. Making a series of videos re-exploring this mystery that has remained unsolved for nearly two decades. But as the investigation continues, it expanded. It soon became clear that this was something much grander than the forgotten urban legend that it was once was on the surface.

2. #2Source Engine

   Keys: Engine, Game Engine, Digital World

   Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve Corporation. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the releases of Half-Life: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, and Half-Life 2. Valve used Source in many of their games in the following years, including Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and the Portal and Left 4 Dead franchises. Other notable third-party games using Source include most games in the Titanfall franchise, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable and Garry’s Mod. Valve released incremental updates to Source until succeeded by Source 2 in 2015.

3. #3Anomidae

   Keys: Anomidae, Outside Force, Players

   Anomidae is a content creator on YouTube known for making SFM films and investigating the INTERLOPER mystery in a series of 15 videos. Starting out with SFM short films, along with tutorials for SFM. He begins his Interloper investigations with the release of the first episode, INTERLOPER: Half-Life 2's Greatest Unsolved Mystery in 2021, since then he has released 14 additional videos regarding the INTERLOPER mystery with the final video being INTERLOPER F: Dreams of a Dead Engine.

   He has a video partner by the nickname of L and was affiliated with the PROJECT SKYBOX group.

4. #4PROJECT SKYBOX

   PROJECT SKYBOX are a group of digital archeologists with the goal to hunt down and solve mysteries that are either unbelievably obscure or lost from time. They have a website going by the same name.

5. #5FSKY

   Keys: FSKY, Creators

   FSKY was a server hosting provider for Source games based in Norway, known to exist as early as 2005. According to their ad, FSKY differentiated themselves from others by having "favorite games and mods", "immersive worlds" and being the "future of games entertainment", perhaps attributed to the animation of the mannequins in the ad.

   As of now, not much is known other than their involvement in the "Interloper" mystery, such as the use of DMNPCs as seen in their ad.

6. #6DMNPC

   Keys: DMNPC, Entities, Dynamic NPC

   DMNPCs are mysterious entities that can be characterized by their full body motion and world interaction in Type 5 Demos. Their name is derived from Anomidae's saved Type 5 Demos, cstrike and fortress. Specifically within cstrike, the model that we take the point of view of is named in the Hammer Editor dmnpc_capture_pawn with the model name itself called ent_dmnpc_tleet.

   It can also be presumed that they are related to the DM Editor and FSKY, due to their naming convention. One of the images seen on the promo for the tool takes a similar view that to a DMNPC's perspective following a hint node. The FSKY name and visage usually appear to be right alongside it too.

   As said before, DMNPCs seem to have full body motion with the ability to interact with their environment such as picking up cans and even display the ability to use them such as shooting with guns. It is unknown if DMNPCs are sentient, but aside from wandering, they are capable of accomplishing tasks such as picking up cans, pointing to and reaching up to points of interest and having double takes, all of which can be considered as evidence of a thinking mind.

   It can be presumed that DMNPCs can be killed, a strange drowning sound effect can be heard in certain demos which are usually attributed to the death of a DMNPC. Lastly, DMNPCs are seemingly attracted to hint nodes.

7. #7Demos

   Keys:

   In the Source engine, one is able to record and play back demos. A demo is typically a recording of a gameplay session from when the demo begins to where it ends. In most Source games, a demo recording can be started by typing record in the console, and stopped by typing stop. These demos can then be played via console command playdemo .

   However, if one were to enter the Interlope Command, a mysterious demo will be played with varying results often characterized by their strange, if not downright unsettling content that which is not fully understood.

   It is possible for maps to be entirely generated for these demos, however this seems to be a rare occurance with only very little instances of this happening. While a completely original map can be generated, most demo maps are already existing maps that have been slightly changed.

8. #8Interlope Command

   The Interlope Command is a console command that is used to generate demos, seemingly functional in multiple source games. It was discovered via a message hidden in a strange graffiti decal. The first known documented finding of the command is by one of the Interloper HL2 thread users by the username of <s.t>Jman.

   FOR J.J console: INTERLOPE

   "Unknown Command: INTERLOPE" console: get s.interlope.pull:27015

   ---

   In order to use the command, you must first enter, INTERLOPE into the developer console. Then the command get s.interlope.pull:27015 is entered afterwards. If this is done correctly, a demo will then be generated.

   While submitting INTERLOPE will give an unknown command prompt, this step is required in order to use the command. If inputted without, it will not function and a demo will not be generated and played.

9. #9Graffiti

   In Half-Life 2, there is a graffiti named decals/decalgraffiti038b, that can be found on the map d1_town_01. This decal is considered to be the origin of the entire Interloper mystery, currently thought to be first discovered by the HL2.net Interloper Thread. By viewing it inside a text editor, a mysterious message that contains a console command can be found addressed for an individual that goes by J.J

10. #10Interlope Demo Types

    [Type 1] demos are the most simple type. Characterized by the camera swinging around wildly for a short period of time, usually only a few seconds. Sometimes it may break out of the wild swinging but it never results in an interesting outcome. These demos are the most common type, with more than an 80% chance of being generated.

    [Type 2] demos are characterized by the demo starting out with the player located out of bounds with no sign of movement. After a while, the player dies and the demo ends. These are somewhat common, being generated around 10-12% of the time, though are not particularly interesting.

    [Type 3] demos are characterized by aimless gameplay where the player spends minutes doing seemingly random actions. It has been suggested that these could be gameplay from a different map, but currently there is no way to confirm this hypothesis. It is currently thought that the Hanging Demos generated from the Left 4 Dead series are a variant of a type 3 demo.

    [Type 4] demos are characterized by containing what appears to be regular gameplay through a level. These are the most uncommon to be generated compared to the last three demo types, with sole exception to the Portal series of games where they generate very often.

    [Type 5] demos are the most rare and strangest kind that can be generated. According to Anomidae, there isn't much of a consensus of what it exactly is, but they do have defining qualities which are routinely of an uncanny nature.

    The most infamous kind can be characterized by looking through the first person perspective of a DMNPC which have full body movement similar to motion capture animation. It is theorized that this kind is powered by the DM Editor as hinted by entity names such as “ent_dmnpc_tleet”, and could even be connected to FSKY as evidenced in the fortress demo's map file.

    The second kind of type 5 can be characterized by a camera simply moving to a point. There are currently only two examples of this, which are whiteroom and longtrap.

    [Type 6] demos were discovered in the Tuesday Manifest. Originally called Noclip or Scanner demos by the community. In INTERLOPER 9: Something Under the Skybox, these are officially known to be Type 6 demos. Characterized by containing gameplay of the player teleporting and rapidly flying around a map, aiming at an object of interest with machine-like precision, affecting elements within the game such as deleting objects and killing NPCs. It's clear that these are not human players in these demos. Anomidae describes the movement akin to using tools like Source Filmmaker or Hammer.

    The player in these demos will often automatically lock their camera onto moving objects and delete them. In the case that the moving object is not deleted (sometimes caused by the player seemingly accidentally mistaking an moving texture for an object) the player will sometimes start spamming deletion sounds while the camera flickers in place.

    [Type 7] were revealed in INTERLOPER F. The player is standing still, holding the cubemap reflection test weapon (weapon_cubemap).

11. #11DM Editor

    The DM Editor is a tool of unknown origin. The tool appears to be closely related to Source Filmmaker and/or the Hammer tool as can be determined by the style of it's user interface, though this is not a guarantee that it is an official tool created by Valve and is usually considered to be a third-party tool.

    The last demo of INTERLOPER 2: Source Engine Mystery, has several details that match with the given description of the DM Editor. After losing connection to the server, Anomidae seemingly takes control of the demo and places a hint node, like the one in the screenshot, and the DMNPC moves to it accordingly. It's worth to mention that this functionality was completely unintentional, as it begins as a type 5 demo.

    The 8th episode of Eida's investigation has him and his video partner Jman use a program called: "Boxrocket". With the name also being the codename for Source Filmmaker it means that it's connected to the early versions of it, but also the UI of Boxrocket is eerily similar to what is shown in the screenshot Anomidae showed in his investigation, which may mean that Eida had utilized the Dm Editor in his investigation under a different name.

12. #12Flashlight Nuke Glitch

    Keys: Method, Flashnuke

    Flashlight Nuke Glitch is a glitch only achievable in the Original XBOX version of Half-Life 2 discovered by tommytheturtle after which he made a video on December 31st 2006, titled "How to do the HL2 FlashNuke Video Proof".

    It is implied that this is an unfinished or broken cheat code that when inputted, results in game corruption of a random manner.

    To the perform the glitch, you must own the original XBOX version of Half-Life 2. Once in-game, you must then perform the following inputs on your controller.

    Forward
    Backwards
    Then forward again.
    Turn right twice
    Then turn left once
    Jump
    Turn on flashlight
    Press the squad command key
    Perform any kind of action (this will change the result of the glitch)
    Then turn off flashlight
    

    When done correctly, turning off your flashlight will affect the game in a completely random fashion. Whether it be changing the colour of a single wall face or outright affect gameplay and physics. There is also a chance of the game crashing which can happen upon activation of the glitch or due to a change that makes the game unstable, causing the crash.

    It is unknown if the effects of this glitch can be consistent.

    Anomidae had an opportunity to utilize this glitch during the events of The Sky Crash Incident. When used there, it seemed to have a completely different effect than it's last showing. When aiming at a DMNPC, it seems to be capable of either killing or corrupting them. It is implied that this could be effective against the Umbrella Men.

13. #13Umbrella Man

    Keys: DMNPC, Enforcers, Entities

    The "Umbrella Man"; (Umbrella Men) are characters and/or entities who appear to take an antagonistic role throughout the Interloper Investigation. The purpose of the Umbrella Men are currently unknown.

    Generally, they seem to take the appearance of the G-Man character model from Half-Life 2 carrying an umbrella and are depicted in an almost pure black color with the exception of their eyes and the collar around their suit, which appear to be totally see-through. Additionally, the Umbrella Men are often shown to be of much larger size than normal humanoid models.

    As of INTERLOPER C, an Umbrella Man can also take on a different form, taller and distorted. No longer resembling the G-Man, their upper-half now takes on a purple color similar to a missing texture while taking on a whitish glow that seems to emanate from the chest. It can be assumed that this creative decision was done for visibility, given the source void's pitch black sky would make it nearly impossible for the viewer to see them. Whether this Umbrella Man is completely different from the rest and serves a different purpose is unknown.

    The Umbrella Men can be seen observing or monitoring players and/or interacting with the DMNPCs. Most of the time, Umbrella Men seem to appear or enter a map from far away. Because of this, an Umbrella Man usually take a while to chase their targets. They also have the capability to break and modify games. As seen in INTELOPER 2, where the Umbrella Man attacks Anomidae by breaking both his Portal and Portal RTX installation, adding the Red Room to trap the player in. And in INTERLOPER C, it tries to stop him from building teleporters by closing his Team Fortress 2 and closing the rest of his active source instances. In multiple type 5 demos, it shows them attacking the DMNPC in whatever demo they appear in.

    In addition to outright attacking DMNPCs, sometimes they're not attacked directly. They can be seen putting DMNPCs into the map's void where it is presumed that they die. If their target attempts to evade them, they are capable of speeding up their movement and making more complex movements. This also proves that Umbrella Men have a form of intelligence. While we do not know what happens after a DMNPC is attacked, when it has targeted a player pawn, it crashes the source game while also distorting the respective game's player model. As far as we know, we do not know how or why it targets DMNPCs or it's purpose in the INTERLOPER mystery's greater whole.

    They have only been seen related to whatever is connected to FSKY, such as within demos, most prominently type 5 demos, and in infected source instances like in Eida's and Anomidae's games. Additionally, Umbrella Men seem to play a distinctive sound effect, commonly a wind chime, whenever they spawn and/or appear. They can also be associated with piano sounds as indicated in both Unnamed Portal 1 and 2 Demos and even in misty.wmv.

14. #14SourceBox

    Keys: SourceBox

    sourceBox is a tool using the Source Engine. Despite the absence of explicit prompts, all contextual evidence implies that SourceBox is the ontological source of the Interloper mystery.

    The cube in sourceBox's UI functions by generating a white cube in the currently running Source game. The model name of this cube is srcbox.mdl. It has no significant function, is indestructible, and has a pure white texture. Only when Xemu is running will it interact with the cube, specifically as follows: Once the white cube is either struck by an AWP sniper rifle in CS:Source, or placed into a complex, chaotic physics system (such as a high-speed machine or a hydrogen bomb explosion), it will begin rendering a texture in a Type 7 Demo. This behavior only based on the cube is freezing (plugging out the controller of XEMU) . Subsequently, this texture is transformed into a fully functional, traversable map related to the texture. This map preserves everything contained at the moment the uploaded texture/screenshot was taken, such as a past instance of Anomidae, or entities from the original map. The texture can be customized by changing the spray decal texture in CS:Source, but this behavior is not limited in CS:Source, Anomidae also used this feature on ord_play in TF2. This clearly demonstrates that sourceBox can be used to render specific elements.

15. #15Void/SourceVoid

    Keys: Outside the Map, Sourcevoid, Void

    The Void is a massive void that spans across an unknown length and height. It is seemingly compatible and linked to Source Engine game instances. Traversal of the Void can allow for outright connection from one game instance to another. Normally in the Source Engine, levels or maps are technically limited in size of about 32768 x 32768 x 32768 hammer units. However, a game instance linked to the Void can allow for geometry far outside those boundaries.

    Anomidae's Portal RTX was transformed during the events of INTERLOPER 4: The Live Investigation. While it seemed like a dead-end at first, it eventually showed it's potential when interacted with using other Source Engine games.

    When opened, Portal RTX allows other Source Engine games to connect to it via LAN, the map the player would be placed in is called int_menu.

    If a demo is played by other Source Engine games, Portal RTX also plays the same demo albeit in a grey or textureless version of whatever map the demo was recorded in, presumably the Void. Cheats cannot be used in this state. It is theorized that either only input data is transferred or cheats are server variables during this state, questioning if the map is actually being run on a separate server instead of the local computer.

    When probes from Garry's Mod were sent out into the void to travel, it was possible to access their cameras from a separate demo.

    During the INTERLOPER C: The Sky Crash Incident. Anomidae fell onto many structures, maps, even the int_menu from Lost Coast. It is not clear whether skyghost is responsible for the network connection function with multiple source games, and whether it is F11 that triggers the interaction with the server. It is only worth noting that Void also applies to PROJECTSKYBOX.exe. The reason may be that it is a heavily modified version of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, which still retains some features of the Source Engine.

16. #16int_menu

    int_menu is a mysterious map associated with the Interlope Command. It was previously accessible through the Portal RTX client by LAN connection, until the Tuesday Incident would revert this. The map, or a map very similar to it, would appear again at the end of the Sky Crash Incident. Generally it consists of a checkered floor with a dark fog. While this floor is wide, it is not unlimited as there are edges that lead off into an endless void. Falling into it will result in the game crashing.

    After the Portal Incident, Anomidae's Portal install was modified to lock the player in an ominous dark world with a tiled floor and a red spotlight lighting the floor. The Portal client will then crash moments later. However Anomidae discovers that while the normal Portal client will inevitably crash, Portal RTX does not. Furthermore, other source games could connect via LAN allowing the use of the Interlope Command without the signal of the graffiti.

    After the Portal 2 Event, other source games were now able to access the map itself instead of a menu. It is the general appearance that is now associated with int_menu, a black and white tiled floor, a hall of mirrors skybox and a heavy dark fog. While this map is quite large there is an edge to it, and falling off the edge will cause the game to crash. The player could change their character model, similarly to a crasher. A simple illuminated doorway once briefly appeared in int_menu during the Portal 2 Event. When this doorway was crossed, it allowed for players to join int_menu as a map instead of a menu.

    During the Sky Crash Incident, Anomidae would manage to end up in int_menu. Unlike previous iterations however, this version was not empty. There were various props like traffic cones and chairs in random locations, which would sometimes fall from the sky, seemingly coming from the other maps. While it is unknown just how massive int_menu is, during this incident, Anomidae was able to walk in one direction for over an hour and a half without reaching any sign of an end. With the help of skyghost, he found his way to a mysterious model, which skyghost seemed to transform it into a glowing doorway. Walking through the door resulted in xemu and projectskybox.exe crashing.

17. #17Skyghost

    Keys:

    During the Tuesday Incident an entity had managed to get into the projectskybox runtime, inhabiting the 'presenter' model for psb.lucy used in INTERLOPER 7. Dubbed "Skyghost" it was initially unnoticed by Anomidae, but it's discovery has led to a series of experiments and investigations.

    Skyghost's initial behavior was limited to occasionally looking at Anomidae, and otherwise having no outward activity. Over the course of INTERLOPER 9 Anomi would attempt to get any sort of reaction out of the entity. The working theory, however, was that entities such as Skyghost only exist in the active runtime, meaning closing the mod for any reason could cause it to disappear. As such options for experimentation were limited, and results were few and far between. Eventually the presenter model was put under the water. When observing it again later, the model was found moving.

    skyghost takes on the presenter model of psb.lucy, though we are still not sure if this is the vessel that skyghost resides in or simply just occasionally possesses. It is theorized by the PROJECT SKYBOX team that the skyghost entity and INTERLOPER anomalies in general exists only in the game's runtime. If the runtime is ever ended, these oddities and in extension, skyghost, may cease.

    INTERLOPER A saw more tests on the now much more active Skyghost, revealing many more behaviors, some cyclical and some more random. These behaviors were categorized into 'Active Effects' and 'Passive Effects' with Active Effects being sporadic and unpredictable. Passive Effects, however, were much more consistent.

    The active effects include:

    Spawning and manipulating models.
    Following the player.
    A sound wave, disappearing while playing music then reappearing soon after.
    

    The passive cycle takes place in four steps which have been closely investigated:

    skyghost stays dormant.
    Every 48-72 hours or so, it teleports.
    It plays three sound effects at random.
    skyghost's model deforms for 1-2 minutes allowing for a Cubemap Examination, then goes back to normal.
    

    Anomidae speculates that, as Skyghost seemingly snuck into the projectskybox.exe runtime during the Tuesday Incident, it's also able to 'watch' what Anomidae is doing in those games. When Anomidae re-watches the type 5 demo, fortress, Skyghost spawns two red Heavies into the mod. Additionally, while Skyghost was underwater Anomidae would watch a demo from the Tuesday Manifest that had a song from Half-Life 2 playing. When he switched back, Skyghost was playing the same song under the water.

    When Anomidae played the wind chime sound effect, it caused Skyghost to flee. Models that Skyghost had spawned in converged on Anomidae, killing his player pawn despite death reportedly being removed in the mod. While the player couldn't move, the sound effects would still play, indicating Skyghost was still going through it's passive cycle.

    While Skyghost is in the 'slink' phase of it's passive cycle, so-called "Cubemap Examinations" can be done by loading a demo in one game, rendering a blank Source Filmmaker video and generating Cubemaps in projectskybox.exe. These examinations seem to reveal hidden data inside the demo files. Examinations would be done over the course of INTERLOPER A and B. The results would often be strange videos featuring disturbing sounds and glitchy models in the same maps the demos were generated in. Testing with community-submitted demos revealed this hidden data was not exclusive to demos generated with the Interloper command and did not have to take place on official maps.

    Before the Sky Crash Incident, various props in Anomidae's source games would slowly float off into the sky. When he managed to return to projectskybox.exe's map, there were many props floating through the sky along a tower of jittering containers. Skyghost was partially clipping into the floor in the same spot Anomidae had died in. As an Umbrella Man started to chase Anomidae, he tried to 'pick up' the Skyghost as a prop but it was picked up as a weapon instead, appearing as a crowbar with missing textures.

    The crowbar was unable to attack, but could interact with DMNPCs, causing one to dance. Eventually Anomidae managed to reach int_menu, causing Skyghost to reappear, pointing in a particular direction. After finding a mysterious object, skyghost floated to it and spawned a glowing doorway.

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