If you think these events sound far-fetched, I agree

September 28, 2016 12:13 AM

Ted's Caving Page Due to the overwhelming number of requests I have received to tell about my discoveries and bizarre experiences in a cave not far from my home, I have created this web page. I will outline the events that happened to me during the past few months. Beginning with my journey into a familiar cave in December 2000 and ending... well, it hasn't actually ended yet. I will use my caving journal as the text to tell about my recent experience. I will give them to you as I experienced them, in chronological order. [in case of popup weirdness, alt link to archive.org with various options to view, including a PDF]
posted by the man of twists and turns (49 comments total)

Wow, that original FPP was a long tunnel into the distant past. But there's spleen and dg at least, alongside so many others long gone.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:33 AM on September 28, 2016

Wait, how was this not an FPP at some point? Huh!

What an outstanding example of Early Internet Creepypasta, though now I'm trying to remember where "THE DOOR IS OPEN" was from because that's a thing that my brain conflates with this to no small extent.
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:35 AM on September 28, 2016

Double.
Triple, too I guess.
At least this link works.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:39 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

TIL that Angelfire still exists.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:59 AM on September 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Mod note: This is the admin note I left on this for other mods: "I guess if the original is nearly old enough to go to high school this double is okay to stay. (kind of terrifying that I remembered a post on the site from 14 years ago.)"
posted by taz (staff) at 1:02 AM on September 28, 2016 [37 favorites]

Just thinking about this story again triggers my claustrophobia. I remember back when this was going on, I spent a few very unproductive hours at work devouring it.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 1:21 AM on September 28, 2016

Loved this story when I first read it.

Anyone else getting malicious-seeming pop-ups though? I tried clicking the "go away" button, and an *.exe file downloaded. (Might be user error.)
posted by salvia at 1:32 AM on September 28, 2016

I got pop up blocker messages but no exe files. It did not seem any more pop uppy than other sites in that era. Would not surprise me if it had all sorts of vulnerabilities since it's so old though.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 1:48 AM on September 28, 2016

The site is riddled.
posted by Homemade Interossiter at 2:06 AM on September 28, 2016

For a brief moment (after I got over seeing 'Angelfire' again), I had the hope that this was all new, but made to look, well, 'old.' The only thing I could imagine being even wackier than the original...
posted by From Bklyn at 2:13 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Added an alt link for those who want to avoid possible weird popup action.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:20 AM on September 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is one of the first things that made the internet immediate and personal and fun to me. I love this.
posted by vapidave at 2:52 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I loved this when I saw it, and even though it's been posted before, I'm glad to see it posted again and hope all you young pups enjoy it now.
posted by quarsan at 3:27 AM on September 28, 2016

Oh hi I'm still here and this takes me back.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:18 AM on September 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Also I think we established on a previous iteration that this started as someone's ok short story that was then greatly improved by being recast in blog form.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:21 AM on September 28, 2016

As for the reference to the small opening in the cave, there is a saying among cavers: "If it blows, it goes".

I have an inordinate love for learning new "there is a saying among [whatever]s..."

I am excited to read this because I remember liking it the first time, but I don't remember what happened. Thanks, faulty memory!
posted by Rock Steady at 4:22 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

SPOILER: The bats have left the bell tower.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 4:35 AM on September 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Excellent choice for a double.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:04 AM on September 28, 2016

Guy came into my home yesterday, there's a saying among cave monsters: If a heart beats, you eats.
posted by Splunge at 5:08 AM on September 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

DoctorFedora: now I'm trying to remember where "THE DOOR IS OPEN" was from

That would be from another classic copypasta story, The Dionaea House
posted by aranyx at 5:52 AM on September 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's not Fall unless I've read through Ted's Caving Page. (Also, how the hell is this so old already?)
posted by tehjoel at 6:08 AM on September 28, 2016

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THEY WENT BACK???
posted by Theta States at 6:41 AM on September 28, 2016

NEXT
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:46 AM on September 28, 2016

NEXT

Here you go.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 6:50 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Note: The following blog was found buried in the woods several miles from the events depicted within.
posted by beerperson at 6:50 AM on September 28, 2016 [12 favorites]

I love creepypasta, but this one has always been one of the ones that sticks out in my mind. The best are usually the shortest, the ones that fit on a jpg (never click the gif), and a good number of the longer ones just sort of fall apart along the way. This one, though, works. Never underestimate what crappy low rez photos of undetermined origin can add to a story.

Or at least that's what the monster reading over your shoulder thinks.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:09 AM on September 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

As silly as this sounds, though, right after posting that, I decided it's time to go to bed (11:15pm here) and I found myself paralyzed by the certainty that something would be standing outside the closed door to the room I was in, and didn't really want to open the door.

Of course, I recognize how silly that is, so I braced myself for imminent dismemberment and opened the door. Any other night, I would have turned off the light and walked down the short hallway to the bedroom, and turned on that light. Tonight? I left the one light on walked to the bedroom, turned that light on, then turned off the other light, and went to bed, where I am protected by the power of blankets.

Now, if this were creepypasta, the light in the bedroom would've turned off on my way down the hall, leaving me in the dark. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy my night terrors.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:20 AM on September 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy my night terrors.

I normally have this intensely bizarre relationship with this stuff where I absolutely cannot get enough right up until bed time when all the images come flooding back and I spend the night completely unable to sleep. I recently, however, have found a solution, and just in time for Halloween! I have an infant. I haven't gotten a real night's sleep since June. The moment my head hits the pillow, I'm out like a light. No more visions of whatever dumb creepypasta I read the day before in my head. It's worked like a charm.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:28 AM on September 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'll be dying of fear now.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:55 AM on September 28, 2016

It's not the dying you should fear. It's being brought back.
posted by Splunge at 8:02 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

protected by the power of blankets

They should make bulletproof vests and airplane fuselages out of blankets.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:09 AM on September 28, 2016

why not make the whole airplane out of blankets
posted by beerperson at 8:18 AM on September 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

It's been a few years since I've read Ted the Caver, but man is it still really fun. For me, I think part of the appeal is that I have a healthy, but non-phobic, fear of being in small places so I find the descriptions of the cave to be the right level of scary. I also really like the inclusion of the pictures; some of the creepy/weird cave fiction I've read has these descriptions that make zero sense in my head. House on the Borderland and Merritt's "People of the Pit" are both full of these "there was a pit and inside the pit another pit with a ledge" type descriptions that I can't picture at all really. Ted's is obviously doing a much more grounded in reality thing that either of those stories, too, so it's more appropriate. I guess I don't spend enough time in creepy caves?

Apparently, there's a movie of Ted the Caver. It looks different in some pretty broad respects (why are they in dress shirts and ties?), but the depiction of the passage is consistent with the story/pictures. Anyone seen it?
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:46 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

After all these years, the scariest thing about this is that Angelfire is still around. I sure hope they've deleted all of my long-forgotten embarrassing shit, although of course it is nothing compared to the trail of humiliation today's adolescents are leaving in their digital wakes.
posted by feloniousmonk at 8:48 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there a word for "the feeling of nostalgia for your own early-web naivety"? The nostalgia is specifically for my wide-eyedness (which I originally typed as "side-eyedness" which I suppose describes me now) even more so than the actual content.

I feel like this might have been one of my first experiences with a really photo-heavy spooky-story web page. 2000 seems late for that, though.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:55 AM on September 28, 2016

After all these years, the scariest thing about this is that Angelfire is still around. I sure hope they've deleted all of my long-forgotten embarrassing shit ...

The unlikely survival of Angelfire and all its associated embarrassing juvenilia was actually a plot point in the second season of Mr. Robot ...
posted by Sonny Jim at 9:07 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

This makes me wonder how you would even delete your long-forgotten embarrassing shit, since one's Angelfire account is almost certainly forgotten and the email one used was probably xxMisguidedAngelxx which is probably also inaccessible...
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:14 AM on September 28, 2016

While it's not as ancient as Angelfire, I had forgotten that the Dionaea House story had a whole Livejournal component (which feels precisely like a teenager's LJ at first). That takes me back.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:44 AM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well this was brand new to me and gripping as all hell. And not enough! And so I went googling and found a (probably not 'the') coda via the way-back machine. Nexting from which spun me off to the legend of Pedro which it turns out is a real thing which then had me spiralling off into pygmy peoples and then Liquini water drumming and oh my God it's 6.30pm and I have done NO WORK.

So thanks OP. I had forgotten how much fun the internet was when the journey itself was the goal.
posted by freya_lamb at 10:31 AM on September 28, 2016 [9 favorites]

oh shit so it did eat them.

Nice find, freya_lamb.
posted by Theta States at 10:49 AM on September 28, 2016

The Next button may be broken, but all you have to do is edit the URL, changing page10 to page11.

I get a 404 when I try that. Or is that the ending you were talking about?
posted by Rock Steady at 12:13 PM on September 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Now I want to read the story of the guy who dug the huge hole in his backyard again!
posted by bendy at 2:17 PM on September 28, 2016

Dig fever is a real disease.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:59 PM on September 28, 2016

Here's another "update" to Ted's story.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 5:17 PM on September 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Back in the day this story and Dionaea House were my go-to mystery stories. Anyone got some other good ones, whether new or old?
posted by gucci mane at 6:31 PM on September 28, 2016

As I lay in bed last night, hoping for sleep to come, I realized that the more effective scare would have been that I saw a shadow, or some flicker of movement in the bedroom right before the light went out. Then I fell asleep.

Five minutes later, one of the cats horked out a hairball right next to the bed, which is an unpleasant way to wake up in the best of times. Sleep didn't come back all that quickly.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:34 PM on September 28, 2016

As silly as this sounds, though, right after posting that, I decided it's time to go to bed (11:15pm here) and I found myself paralyzed by the certainty that something would be standing outside the closed door to the room I was in, and didn't really want to open the door.

Several years ago, I read the entire Slenderman creation story on SomethingAwful. It took me most of the evening, and it was really interesting and entertaining, watching people deliberately create a creepy urban legend. It wasn't remotely frightening; there was too much of how the sausage was made in it. It was almost academic.

Then I realized how late it was getting, and that I needed to get to sleep. I stood up, stretched, closed my laptop, turned off the light, and sprinted to bed like the hounds of hell were chasing me. I hid under the covers until my husband woke up and was like ". . . um?"
posted by KathrynT at 11:59 PM on September 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Back in the day this story and Dionaea House were my go-to mystery stories. Anyone got some other good ones, whether new or old?

There is a good creepypasta thread here. If you haven't read Candle Cove, that's a must. SCP is a deep and wide (if variable in quality/creepiness) vein of oogity-boogity. My personal faves include SCP-1981 and SCP-1733.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:10 AM on September 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Speaking of Candle Cove, this new TV series is doing a 6-episode adaptation of it.
posted by doctornecessiter at 8:32 AM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]