Image of what is believed to be SCP-5212, recovered from personal effects of victim. Note that photographs of SCP-5212 do not pose a lethality risk.

Item #: SCP-5212

Object Class: Keter

Special Containment Procedures: Efforts to locate and contain SCP-5212 are currently ongoing. Until physical containment of SCP-5212 can be achieved, these procedures are to focus on information obfuscation and amnesticization of witnesses in cases where they have not yet expired.

As SCP-5212 has already become integrated into the local folklore of the surrounding area, full expungement of its existence from the public record is not possible. Instead, agents embedded into the local community are to manipulate said folklore so as to emphasize themes consistent with traditional 'ghost stories' and minimize communication of more unusual deaths caused by SCP-5212.

As most SCP-5212 encounters will result in a non-suspicious death, excessive amnesticization is not required in the majority of cases. The rare exceptions to this are to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by agents embedded in the local community.

Description: SCP-5212 is an apparently leporid entity known to reside in Merseyside, England — particularly in the area directly between the villages of Crank and Billinge. Although no Foundation personnel have directly encountered SCP-5212 to date, reports of its existence as given by witnesses are considered to be credible and backed up by clear signs of anomalous activity in the region.

Individuals who have encountered SCP-5212 describe it as resembling a small European rabbit with white fur and red eyes, of typical size and proportions for its breed. In cases where these encounters have occurred at night or in dimly lit areas, witnesses have further described SCP-5212 as being luminescent, emitting significant amounts of bright white light in the surrounding area. As the Foundation has not yet had an opportunity to examine SCP-5212, no facts regarding its interior biology can be confirmed — and even the assumption of it being a physical entity is uncertain.

SCP-5212 will appear periodically before individuals present within the area between the villages of Billinge and Crank. The criteria that leads SCP-5212 to select an individual to appear before is uncertain, and the periods between events have ranged from two weeks to six years. Events in which SCP-5212 is encountered by an individual typically follow a similar pattern, consisting of the following:

The subject in question is alone, performing a task or observing another subject. When they turn away from this task or subject, they will suddenly notice SCP-5212 staring at them from somewhere nearby. The distance between the subject and SCP-5212 varies from encounter to encounter — in some cases, the two are within a meter of each other, while other cases have SCP-5212 being far off in the distance.

In the majority of cases, the subject will cite a certainty that SCP-5212 was observing them for some time before they became aware of its presence, although they cannot explain the reasoning behind this belief when questioned.

SCP-5212 will continue to observe the subject, failing to flee or visibly react if shooed away by the subject. Some subjects have reported feelings of extreme cold and weightlessness at this point, but this is inconsistent.

If the subject looks away from SCP-5212 and then looks back, they will find that it has vanished. In some cases, even blinking is enough to prompt this response.

In cases where subjects do not look away from SCP-5212, they have described the entity's ears turning to point in their direction and rapidly stretching towards them, suggesting that these protrusions are limbs used for grasping rather than actual ears. This occurs regardless of distance — one individual, standing approximately fifty meters away from SCP-5212 and observing it via binoculars, described the protrusions stretching to fill the space between them in the span of a few seconds. It is unknown what occurs if these protrusions were to make contact with the subject, as all known SCP-5212 witnesses have fled prior to this happening.

All individuals who directly observe SCP-5212 will, without exception, die within the next six months. The method of death is variable but always seemingly coincidental, usually through illness or accident — suggesting that SCP-5212 may utilize some method of probabilistic manipulation to eliminate its victims.

Other deaths have occurred in the area where SCP-5212 is known to reside, but the circumstances in which they have occurred is unclear. Evidence suggests that, unlike the majority of deaths attributed to SCP-5212, these victims were killed instantly during the encounter itself — and unlike the seemingly coincidental causes of deaths in those cases, these deaths appear to have been caused by sudden and bizarre means. (See Addendum 5212-2.)

Despite the work of Foundation agents over a sixty-year period, SCP-5212 has not yet been personally encountered by containment staff — and no physical evidence of it, such as shed fur or droppings, has been discovered at the locations of sightings. Due to the long period between SCP-5212 appearances and the inherent deniability of the majority of deaths it causes, this has thus far not presented a substantial risk to secrecy. Nevertheless, efforts to locate and contain SCP-5212 continue.

Addendum 5212-1: Potential History

The exact origin of SCP-5212 is unknown, but what is believed to be its first appearance occurred in 1833, shortly after a meteor shower that was especially prominent in the area.

One week following the meteor shower, a local monk named Geoffrey Miller discovered the body of six year old Jennifer Gatman resting against the village chapel's outside wall. Gatman had been found missing from her bed two nights earlier, and it had been feared that she had wandered away from her home and become lost.

Although the historical nature of this event makes Gatman's cause of death difficult to determine, Miller's personal journal — which was recovered from auction in 1982 — described the girl as having clearly frozen to death. Furthermore, he claimed that the girl's body was still so cold when she was discovered that she could not be touched without gloves, and that one of her limbs snapped off when local authorities attempted to move her.

It is believed that this was the first death directly caused by SCP-5212. Following this event, SCP-5212's now-consistent behaviour pattern developed, with the anomaly being the cause of mostly coincidental deaths rather than the clearly anomalous ones experienced by Jennifer Gatman and only a few other victims over the years.

Addendum 5212-2: Incident 5212-1

On 22/05/2019, the proprietor of the Stork's Inn, located in the village of Billinge, reported that three travelers who had booked rooms there had failed to return for six days after heading out as a group for a hiking trip. Foundation agents embedded in local law enforcement, suspecting possible SCP-5212 involvement, investigated the personal effects of these travelers and discovered that they had likely come to the region under false pretenses and using false names.

Evidence suggests that the travelers belonged to an as-of-yet unknown group, aware of SCP-5212's existence, and seeking to hunt it for the purpose of personal prestige.

The bodies of the travelers, having suffered from anomalous deaths caused by SCP-5212, were discovered in various locations in and around the forests in the area. Notable details of these deaths have been recorded below:

Name
Location
Further Details

"Amalric Wolff"
Just outside the mouth of a cave in the nearby 'Crank Caverns'.
Corpse found in the possession of a hunting rifle and knife. Inspection suggests that the rifle jammed when the trigger was pulled. Cause of death ruled as instantaneous fatal cryostasis, similar to historical accounts of Jennifer Gatman's death, with analysis suggesting that the victim's body temperature instantly fell to -232°C.

"Annaliesa Riese"
Wide area in a clearing in the local woods.
Hunting rifle and knife found in the vicinity. Inspection suggests that the rifle jammed when the trigger was pulled. Cause of death ruled as explosive decompression, although the scattered state of Riese's remains makes further analysis difficult.

"Siegfried Peters"
Resting against the outside wall of a beacon tower atop local landmark 'Billinge Hill'.
Corpse found in the possession of a hunting rifle and knife. Inspection suggests that the rifle jammed when the trigger was pulled. Hunting knife discovered to be melted from the hilt upwards. Cause of death ruled as respiratory failure caused by massive amounts of lunar regolith present in the victim's lungs.