The Strangest Internet Rabbit Holes

Key Concepts

Notes

Missing Children on Arcade Machines

• User "Joe" photographed a Sente arcade machine cycling through a missing children screen at an arcade and posted it to Reddit
• This sparked broader internet investigation — many others had seen the same screen over the years
• Context: 1980s–90s US anti-drug PSAs were embedded everywhere — TV, radio, VHS, NES, and arcade machines
• Most famous example: "Winners Don't Use Drugs" screen, included in North American arcade imports 1989–2000
• The missing children screen appears specifically on **Sente (Bally) machines**, mainly *Mini Golf* and *Give Me a Break*
• 2017 interview with Sente programmer **Dennis Coble**: believes the FBI likely initiated the project, possibly via Bally as intermediary; Sente was a small company
• **Taj Allen Merriman**: family abduction case; found safe ~July 12, 1985 in Georgia; mother arrested
• **Stephen Philip Curtis**: born March 3, 1977; last seen Hoquiam, Washington, November 1981; classified as parental kidnapping
• Still listed as missing 8 years after the arcade's release (1993 records)
• A forum user found a strong candidate: Stephen P. Curtis, born 1977, living in Lacey, WA — ~1 hour from Hoquiam; age and location match
• **Melinda Marie Smith**, **April Rose Yates**, **Daniel Godfrey Owens**, **Charles Brandon Morris**: appear on other, rarer Sente machines (added later)
• No information found online, in newspapers, or in public records for any of these four
• The only surviving record of them is the arcade machine itself

The Figure on the Izu Skyline Live Cam

• November 1, 2020: Japanese Twitter user **akihiro** shared a photo from a live cam hosted by the Shizuoka Prefecture Road Corporation
• Camera location: remote road near the Izu Skyline observation deck, south of Mount Fuji
• The 6am photo showed a **pitch-black humanoid figure** standing in the middle of the road
• No shadow visible despite daylight
• No vehicle present — figure would have had to hike to the location
• Figure appears to be facing the camera, completely still
• Road width measured via Google Maps distance tool: **8 meters** (standard 2-lane road in Japan)
• Estimated figure height based on proportional comparison: **~2.2 meters (7'2")**
• Average height of Japanese adult male: 1.7 meters
• The site only archives photos for **7 days**; no Wayback Machine archive exists for that exact date
• akihiro posted 5 days after the photo was taken — it was still live and verifiable at that point
• Replies under the original tweet did not question the photo's authenticity
• akihiro's Twitter account active since 2012, highly ordinary content — no indication of fabrication
• A prank: someone in a dark bodysuit or using a silhouette cutout, aware of the camera's schedule
• An unusually tall person who happened to be passing through at exactly that moment (considered least likely given the composition and stillness)
• No conclusion reached; the mystery remains unresolved

User9472 — The Strange YouTube Channel

• Channel filled with abstract, untitled videos ranging from seconds to a few minutes long
• Content ranges from slideshows of interior environments to glitched/disturbing visuals
• Notable videos that appeared to be sourced from elsewhere (not original to the channel):
• *"Bride"*: a named/described video; person in a wedding dress standing in an isolated location
• Old amateur cartoon of a horse and carriage
• Footage of someone in strange clothing speaking into a mic on a stage
• A woman standing in water holding a fish in her mouth
• **Woman with fish**: identified as **Stephanie Dill's audition tape** for *Survivor* Season 5; the clip appears at ~24 minutes into the season's reunion episode — what seemed disturbing was actually a joke within the show
• **Cartoon animation**: tentatively linked to **Soviet-era Eastern European animation**; a Slovak Twitter account appears connected to the channel
• All other footage remains unidentified
• Raises the question of how much "lost media" is actually sitting unrecognized in obscure YouTube channels
• User9472 is described as a small example of YouTube's largely unmapped, strange underside

Ryan Matthew Carson — Telepathic Harassment

• Reddit user **educational_reach_489** (real name: Ryan Matthew Carson) posted a thread titled *"Telepathic Harassment"* that was largely ignored
• Claims a group of individuals has been harassing him via **telepathic mind communication** for ~7 months, including death threats
• Was hospitalized multiple times; diagnosed with **schizophrenia and bipolar disorder** by medical professionals
• Insists with certainty the voices are real people using technology, not a mental illness
• Follow-up post titled *"Neurological Control Device"* described:
• A technology used by a group of psychopaths
• Capabilities: implementing thoughts, seeing through his eyes, reading his mind, controlling his body, altering dreams
• Believes the technology was created by the Chinese government; an organization/government is aware
• Also posted an audio clip elaborating on the same claims
• Posted across multiple subreddits (*r/weird*, *r/sketch*, *r/questions*, *r/scary*) with little engagement
• Ryan's Reddit history shows interest in psychedelics; last post before the harassment thread was on *r/ShambhalaSerenity* asking about tickets to Shambhala Music Festival (known for heavy drug use)
• Ryan himself acknowledges taking drugs in the months prior but dismisses it as unrelated
• Per the **National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)**: drug-induced psychosis can be triggered by psychedelic misuse and produces hallucinations indistinguishable from reality
• The video referenced was uploaded ~1 week before the time of writing with no further updates from Ryan

Quotes Worth Keeping

The only lasting record of them ever existing is on an obscure arcade castle — a mystery that will forever be immortalized within an old arcade game system.

"I'm not crazy... I have dabbled in substances fairly much so." — Ryan Matthew Carson

It makes me realize that YouTube is far bigger and stranger than anyone likes to acknowledge, and user9472 is just a small speck of that.