Item #: SCP-3142

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: All major American financial institutions have been advised to monitor consumer accounts for unexplained fluctuations, with the stated goal of preventing software malfunction. Foundation personnel embedded within the numismatics community are to suppress knowledge of the existence of SCP-3142. Individuals claiming to have experienced incidents consistent with SCP-3142 are to be located and amnesticized immediately; however, due to the detailed knowledge of SCP-3142 required to induce anomalous effects, this has been deemed a low-risk threat.

Access to Document 3142-01 is to be restricted to financially stable Level-3 personnel with registered personal checking accounts at regulated financial institutions. Monetary losses incurred during testing of SCP-3142 will be reimbursed by the Foundation. To reduce expenditure, preferential access to Document 3142-01 is to be given to personnel with countermemetic training.

Description: SCP-3142 is an unused design for a commemorative coin in the denomination of $$i$1 intended for production by the United States Mint in 2001. SCP-3142's technical specifications include a 38.1 mm diameter and a composition of 90% silver to 10% copper, consistent with contemporary $1 US commemorative coins. Further description of SCP-3142, including potential financial infohazards, is available in Document 3142-01.

SCP-3142's anomalous properties manifests when an individual constructs an accurate mental image of SCP-3142. Immediately following visualization, one of the following events will occur:

The net balance of one personal checking account registered by the individual will decrease by one US dollar (or foreign equivalent, subject to current exchange rates). All records of this account, digital and otherwise, will instantaneously change to reflect the new balance.

If the individual does not maintain a personal checking account, currency within 10 cm of the individual will become altered to reflect a loss of one US dollar. Bills and coins may be instantaneously created, destroyed, or substituted to accomplish this effect. All new or altered money appears indistinguishable from genuine instances of the original type of currency.

Individuals without an active checking account or at least one US dollar (or equivalent) within 10 cm will dematerialize for eleven minutes and thirty-nine seconds a period of time inversely proportional to the current legal minimum wage in the individual's present location. In no cases has the duration of the disappearance exceeded the amount of time required to earn $1 under US federal minimum wage.2 Following reappearance, individuals are aware that time has elapsed but unable to remember any details of their experience during the interval.

SCP-3142's anomalous effects manifest repeatedly with each new attempted visualization. No upper limit on the frequency of SCP-3142's effects has been observed to date.

+ SCP-3142 Recovery Information

- SCP-3142 Recovery Information

SCP-3142 was discovered by the Foundation on November 14, 2001, following widespread reports of financial anomalies among US Mint employees. All affected individuals were determined to have been involved in the design or production of a commemorative coin, referred to within the Mint as 01CE. Foundation employees administered amnestics to all affected employees and other witnesses, then retrieved all descriptions and information pertaining to 01CE (later reclassified as SCP-3142). A planned press release for the coin is reproduced below, with potential infohazards removed.

WASHINGTON — On December 5, 2001, the United States Mint will celebrate the 100th birthday of ████ ██████ with the release of the American Imagination Commemorative Silver Dollar (product code 01CE). For generations, ██████'s work has captured the imaginations of Americans young and old, and we honor his memory with this coin's appropriately whimsical denomination of $$i$ — the basis of imaginary numbers.

The obverse side of the American Imagination Commemorative Silver Dollar features a portrait of ████ ██████ beside the iconic ██████ █████ logo. Inscriptions include include "LIBERTY," "IN GOD WE TRUST," "2001," and "████ ██████."

The reverse side features ████████ ██████ ██████, as seen in the ████ ██████ Pictures logo. Inscriptions include "E PLURIBUS UNUM," "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," "$i$ DOLLARS," and "If you can dream it, you can do it."

Please note that this coin has no real monetary value.

During recovery, Agent Joshua Ogunleye conducted the following interview with Miranda Gresham, an artist employed by the Mint who contributed to the design of SCP-3142. Gresham was one of ██ employees found to have been financially affected by SCP-3142.

<Begin Log>

Ogunleye: Hello, Ms. Gresham. Please, take a seat. I'd like to ask you a few questions about the discrepancies in your bank account that you mentioned.

Gresham: All right.

Ogunleye: Thank you. First, when did you first begin to notice that some of your money was missing?

Gresham: I think it was about three weeks ago. I remember it was just after I came up with the design for 01CE, right before I started actually sculpting it.

Ogunleye: And how did you find out about the discrepancy?

Gresham: I keep a pretty close eye on my money, which I guess is appropriate given what I do for a living. One day I went to the bank, and I found out the balance they showed didn't match up with what I had written down in my checkbook. The difference just got bigger and bigger every time I checked, especially when I'd been working a lot.

Ogunleye: Did they have any idea where the money went?

Gresham: None. No suspicious transactions or anything. I think they must be covering something up, because otherwise I don't know how all that money just disappears. Unless…

Ogunleye: Go on.

Gresham: No, it's a stupid idea. Just forget I even said anything.

Ogunleye: Please, I'd like to hear it.

Gresham: <Sighs> All right. So, if I have one of these $i$-dollar coins, that's basically an imaginary dollar, right?

Ogunleye: I suppose so.

Gresham: And if I imagine a real dollar, that would also be like having an imaginary dollar.

Ogunleye: Okay.

Gresham: So if I imagine this $i$-dollar coin, and $i$ times $i$ is minus one, does that mean…?

<Silence for approximately five seconds>

Gresham: Like I said, dumb idea. Obviously it doesn't work like that.

Ogunleye: …Of course not. Thank you for your time, Ms. Gresham.

<End Log>

Footnotes

1. In mathematics, $i$ is defined as the square root of -1.

2. Currently eight minutes and seventeen seconds as of 7/24/2009