RCA-256

Registry #: RCA-256

Containment Difficulty Classification: Low

Threat Classification: Medium

Containment Protocols: RCA-256 is to be removed from the public Internet regularly by Organization web crawlers. It is only allowed to be viewed by personnel with a Beta-level or higher security clearance.

The original video is to be kept in a USB in the Area-14 computer lab for testing. If viewed, the video needs to be under the following circumstances for safety (see Description).

Description: RCA-256 is an 8-minute video animated in Adobe Flash with the title "EPIC 2014". It details the effects Web 2.0 technology and the convergence of news aggregators might have on journalism in the future, from the viewpoint of the fictional "Museum of Media History" in 2014.

Viewing the video causes the viewer to fall into gradual depression throughout the film, followed by desaturation by unknown means and ending with gradual petrifaction until the subject is fully petrified, crumbling into a pile of concrete dust shaped like the logo of the eponymous system, EPIC.

Playing the video on nearby computers, phones or tablets can transmit the video to them and make them play the video without letting anybody skip or pause. The anomalous effects will also occur to those viewing on affected gadgets. This does not work when its anomalous properties are disabled.

A similar film, RCA-256-1, alternatively titled EPIC-2015, has been known to have similar anomalous effects. Unlike the original movie, the crumbling does not happen, once the film ends, the subject reverts to normal instead of fully crumbling.

The anomalous effect does not work under the following circumstances:
 * Either the audio or video is turned off.
 * Dubbed into another language (e.g. Portuguese, German)
 * Source material is edited.
 * Audio or video is different from the source material.

The anomalous properties of RCA-256 were discovered when 24 students from the Lyceum of the Philippines University's campus in General T████ were found desaturated and comatose on ██/██/2006 and were then discovered petrified the next day.