Item #: SCP-6097

Object Class: Neutralized

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-6097's remains are presently preserved at Site-44's Biological Anomalies Unit for further study, while SCP-6097-1 is kept in a standard item storage locker. All literary documents containing information on SCP-6097 and the Brownsborough Incident have been confiscated by the American Secure Containment Initiative (ASCI), and have since been archived into the wider Foundation database.

Description: SCP-6097 was an anomalous humanoid active in North America during the early eighteenth century. While SCP-6097 predates the establishment of the modern Foundation, its existence is known through biological and artefactual remains since taken into custody. However, all information regarding SCP-6097's appearance, behaviour and the circumstances of its death is derived entirely from surviving historical documentation.

Artistic representation of SCP-6097, c. 1736.

SCP-6097 was described by witnesses as physically reminiscent of an elderly human female, dressed in tattered clothing with fine, silver hair covering much of the face and torso. Its most distinctive feature was that of a long prehensile tail attached at the base of the spine, usually likened to that of a Rattus norvegicus (common rat), with a large lidless eyeball protruding from the tip.

SCP-6097 possessed a large spoon (designated SCP-6097-1) comprised of an unknown metal alloy, which served as its primary means of transportation. Reputedly, whilst SCP-6097 was sat atop the item's handle, SCP-6097-1 became airborne and capable of maneuvered flight at significant speeds.

Periodically, during the early hours of the morning, SCP-6097 descended upon various settlements throughout the New England region1. Upon arrival, SCP-6097 consistently made landing on the rooftops of small civilian homes, before extending its tail down the throat of the nearest chimney.

Should its ancillary eye sight an untended child below the age of twelve months, SCP-6097 would proceed to wrap its tail firmly around the infant's face, causing death by suffocation. The remains were then carried back up the chimney flue, and deposited in the dish of SCP-6097-1 prior to departure.

Forensic evidence suggests that between appearances, SCP-6097 resided in a small wooden cottage located in the ██████ forest in Maryland, where the charred and partially consumed remains of over a dozen newborns were excavated, all dating between 1729 and 1734.

Capture: The spade of child abductions seen throughout this period provoked widespread panic across the region, while sightings of a creature matching SCP-6097's description fueled rumors of supernatural activity. In the town of Brownsborough, a former settlement in Blair County, Massachusetts, local carpenter James T. Walker and his wife Abigail devised a plan to entrap SCP-6097.

Mrs. Walker, then in her second trimester of pregnancy, constructed a makeshift doll from cloth and straw. This figurine was adorned with a small silver bell, before being left in a cradle next to the fireplace. Several weeks later, shortly after 0300 hours, Mr. Walker awoke to the bell's chime being sounded by SCP-6097's distended tail, which was found slowly enveloping the decoy's head.

Following a brief struggle, Walker seized the entity's tail, which he successfully nailed to his home's wooden floorboards, thereby preventing its escape. Shortly afterwards, two members of law enforcement retrieved SCP-6097 from the Walkers' roof, where the base of its tail was noted to display prominent toothmarks.

SCP-6097-1 was confiscated, with its dish found to contain the corpse of an unidentified newborn, along with trace quantities of sand2. SCP-6097 itself was transported to a holding cell where it remained for four to six hours, before being sentenced to execution.

Neutralization: Multiple attempts were made to terminate SCP-6097, to varying degrees of success: the entity was first bound with rope before a crowd of spectators, and thrown into a small lake outside the courtyard. This resulted in the lake's temperature rising drastically, eventually reaching boiling point. Despite being submerged for no less than fifteen minutes, SCP-6097 displayed only minor scalding and was otherwise unharmed.

For the second attempt, SCP-6097 was tied to a wooden stake, which was then set alight. The resulting flames were described as glowing brilliantly with an unrecognizable colour, producing severe nausea and temporary vision loss in onlookers. While SCP-6097 emitted a series of high-pitched shrieks indicating severe distress, and exhibited significant burns across much of its body, it once again survived this attempt.

With the Brownsborough populace growing increasingly frantic, SCP-6097 was ultimately beheaded, a feat which required no less than a dozen strikes of the axe. Immediately thereafter, the entity's body began to degrade at an anomalously rapid rate, while the head remained wholly intact. Despite some doubts as to the execution's success (with multiple witnesses attesting that the subject's eyes continued to blink and wander post-decapitation), this result was nonetheless considered satisfactory.

SCP-6097's remains were disposed of separately: the subject's bones were sealed at the bottom of a disused well, while SCP-6097-1 was thrown from the edge of nearby Blair's Gorge. As there was no known means of destroying SCP-6097's head, it was instead locked in a wooden crate and buried in an undisclosed location outside the town border.

Street in Brownsborough, MA (1732)

Aftermath: Between 1736 and 1737, an abnormally high number of miscarriages and stillbirths occurred in Brownsborough, with over fifty residents dying during childbirth. In a number of cases these infants possessed one or more anomalous birth defects, among the most common being the lack of a cranium, and possession of a thin rodent-like tail.

Throughout this period the brown rat population of Blair County increased significantly, with existing pairs found to produce litters of up to thirty offspring. New specimens were observed to grow up to three times their usual size and behave in an unusually aggressive manner towards humans, leading to the spread of virulent diseases in surrounding communities. As a result of these conditions, the town was abandoned by 1738.

Over the ensuing decades, Foundation precursor groups such as the American Secure Containment Initiative (ASCI) worked to suppress knowledge of the Brownsborough Incident, confiscating all relevant journals, newspapers and court records. Both SCP-6097's bones and SCP-6097-1 were retrieved and transported to the Fort Newton containment facility (since re-designated Site-44).

Despite these efforts, the Foundation Department of Mythology and Folkloristics reports that legends and apocryphal accounts of SCP-6097 (known variously as the Bay Devil, the Beast of Brownsborough and Granny Rat Tail) have persisted to the present day. This is not considered to be a threat to normalcy, the incident having been dismissed by the mainstream scientific community as a case of mass hysteria.

Efforts to recover the chest containing SCP-6097's severed head remain ongoing.

Footnotes

1. Geographical territory encompassing what are now the U.S. states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

2. Presumably utilized by SCP-6097 as a means of extinguishing lit fireplaces prior to entry.

More from this author...