CORRUPTUS

**CORRUPTUS** is the ambiguous term given to several malevolent paranormal entities that lurk on certain properties, such as theme park attractions and resort hotels, owned by the Disney Corporation.

## Examples

### The Inverted Character of Mowgli's Palace

The earliest instance of a CORRUPTUS being known to the general public is a mobile, sentient Mickey Mouse costume. The costume itself has an inverted color scheme. Not much is known about it other than that it can speak in a Mickey Mouse voice, albeit raspier than the one used in the cartoons. It is possible, given that it ripped its own head off and thick, yellow blood dripped from its wounds, that it either had the corpse of a Disney cast member inside it or somehow developed a biological body. It is also possible that this action killed it, though that may just be wishful thinking.

In the late 1990s, Disney funneled millions of dollars into a controversial project to build a jungle-themed resort near Emerald Isle, North Carolina. While the resort, called Mowgli's Palace, was completed and opened to the public, it was shut down only a brief time afterward. Before 2012, little could be found, online or elsewhere, about the resort, and even less can be found about the reason behind its closing, which remained almost entirely unknown.

In 2012, this lack of information about Mowgli's Palace intrigued a person known by the internet pseudonym of "Slimebeast," who only knew about the place because he lived four hours away from Emerald Isle. Intrigued by the lack of information and inspired by a blog detailing the urban exploration of a similarly abandoned resort in the Bahamas called Treasure Island , he set out to explore the ruins of the palace. Inside, however, he found the corpses of former cast members hanging on hooks and, most disturbingly of all, the Inverted Character, which asked him if he wanted to see it remove its own head. Slimebeast fled in terror once it made good on its word and later posted the story online, along with a photograph he managed to take of the thing.

An authentic suggestions box used by Mowgli's Palace staff and cast members, posted online by Slimebeast in 2013, seems to indicate that the Inverted Character was indeed the reason for the resort's shutdown.

### The Room Zero Incident

This may be the first CORRUPTUS and the most disturbing one of all. According to one of Slimebeast's contacts, a Cold War air attack alarm sounded off in the Magic Kingdom one day (mysteriously, no public records exist showing which day). Every single person in the park was sent to an underground bomb shelter and given World War II-era gas masks with Disney character faces emblazoned on them. After thirty minutes, a swelling number of people began shouting about being hurt by someone, and hysteria gradually overtook the crowd until the lights went off and insanity ensued.

Several staff members and guests escaped the madness only to find there was no air attack whatsoever. When the aforementioned employee returned to let everyone else out, there was only an awful silence, followed by what the report describes as an "auditory hallucination and/or projection" that told her, "Shut the door, dear. You're letting out the cold." Shortly afterward, the entire shelter was covered with cement and its location was kept a secret.

Several other contacts of Slimebeast report seeing "Gascots," people with the Disney gas masks who appear in clusters at random in Disney parks and seemingly only to people aware of their existence. They were not reported to do much other than just stand around,  which must be a relief to readers of this article who are now aware of their existence.

### Other Examples

At first it was unknown if the Mickey suit that haunts Mowgli's Palace was just an anomaly, but Slimebeast soon found himself attracting people with many stories of their own about mysterious, dark occurrences in Disney parks. In 2015, Slimebeast received via email and posted up a document titled "Summation of CORRUPTUS Incidents for January 2015." The title implies that this is the definitive list of all CORRUPTUSes known to the Disney Corporation. It mentions:

* An "Unidentified Avian Species" was responsible for the closing of Treasure Island in the Bahamas. In his first blog about Mowgli's Palace, Slimebeast speculated that a CORRUPTUS may have been responsible for the closing of Treasure Island. However, the author of a blog detailing his urban exploration of Treasure Island  reported nothing suspicious.
* Contrary to Disney's official statements, a "wandering entity" that allegedly caused "chronological displacement," among other abnormal activity, was the reason the "Legendary Years" portion of Disney's Pop Century Resort was never finished. Oddly, the report stated that the issue was not resolved and classified as "Pending" as of January 2015, but the building that would have been the Legendary Years section was converted to Disney's Art of Animation Resort, which was opened in 2012. This may be faulty reporting, or it may mean that the "wandering entity" has wandered into the new resort. Either option is distressing. Internal memos from park security also refer to this entity as “50s Phil”, the name the only person who actually saw it used in an incident report. While this is strongly believed to be a projection instead of the entity’s true form, the witness described it as a greaser-styled young man, with various parts of its body appearing as if they were stuck in different developmental stages. It’s left arm appears shrunken, as if it belonged to a child, while it’s face was “pulled to the side, with one half looking ancient and rotten” while the other half appeared normal. It’s temporal disruption abilities were only discovered after a construction worker who disappeared from the job site was later seen in a photograph taken of the Magic Kingdom’s construction in 1974, 13 years before he was born.
* Disney's River Country, one of only two Disney parks to ever be closed, was abandoned because of something known by the multiple names "Clear Man," "See-Through Man," and "Friendly John" (as well as harmful microorganisms found in Bay Lake, the park's source of water, which was publicly acknowledged and given as the reason for its shutdown). No details are given about it, but it may be the source of the horror recorded in the apocryphal "River Country Film," of which a description was posted online in 2012.  A security audit performed in 2018 indicates that “Friendly John” and the “Clear/See-Through Man” are separate entities, with the former possibly being a temporally-disrupted guest and the latter being a malevolent entity that drowned several people; some of the staff who regularly patrol the grounds have concluded that “Friendly John” may have been one of its victims. This entity is also believed to be responsible for the events of the water slide incidents as described in the Room Zero document.
* The "Wily Wizard" installation, from the Dreamfinder's School of Drama exhibit, caused the abandonment of the second floor of ImageWorks: The What-If Labs in Epcot. The document mentions multiple guests who somehow became trapped within the screen of the exhibit, as well as a woman who suffered multiple stab wounds and died after she played with a nearby pinboard exhibit.
* The New Global Neighborhood had not one, but two CORRUPTUSes: "Fiber Optic Worm" and "Digital Howl." Whatever they were, both are listed as firmly resolved.  However, this does not explain why the space, which still contains the attraction, has been boarded up and sealed off to the public.  More recent security audits of the building and surrounding area suggest that the “Digital Howl” is not a sentient entity, but rather a very specific frequency of sound that causes those who hear it to become violently psychotic toward children, and that it has spread to encompass most of the park. This is believed to be the cause of a doctor on vacation from Italy with his family kicking his son in the face, as well as an unreported incident involving a cast member taking a photo with a young child before suddenly attempting to strangle them. All suspected incidents connected to this phenomena involve adults suddenly becoming violent towards their own children, or any children nearby.
* The “Cartoon Man” is a CORRUPTUS mentioned in several videos uploaded by a man only known as “Mr. Freaky.” This is the only known CORRUPTUS that can be found at both of the American Disney resorts, although it can only be found within the Toontown sections of the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. It is believed to be responsible for the disappearances of multiple children in both parks.
* The Disney’s Hollywood Studios ride Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is believed to be home to a different “Negative Mickey”; on several different days, unrelated guests complained that instead of the cheerful “nothing can stop us now” line sung multiple times throughout the ride, they heard a much gruffer voice singing “no one can stop us now” and saw a negative Mickey tearing up the projected background in the carnival room.

Though it was not mentioned in the CORRUPTUS document, one incident possibly involving one centers around a 1981 lawsuit against the company. The plaintiffs, a family, claimed that three years earlier, a Disneyland cast member dressed as Winnie-the-Pooh slapped their child, resulting in recurring headaches and nightmares. The case was dismissed when the judge found that the Pooh costume's arms were too low to the ground.  It is possible that it was not an actor in a real suit, but something more sinister and unnatural, and its lack of mention on the document may mean that Disney is unaware of a CORRUPTUS lurking in Disneyland.

Interestingly, no note is made about Discovery Island, an island in front of Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort that used to be an attraction of its own before being closed. It could simply be that the stated, relatively mundane reason for its closing was, in fact, the reason for its closing.

## Possible Origins

The exact origin remains open to interpretation, but it could be tied to an industry legend concerning Disney's rival animation studio, Warner Bros. In the 1930s, an animator working for the studio, whose identity is unknown, supposedly grew very disgruntled with the hubris of his bosses and their attitudes that they were better than the people who actually made the cartoons. The legend goes that in the same way that other artists channel the Muses of Greek mythology for inspiration, he channeled the Furies, who bestowed life into his artwork and thus created a trio of avenging agents of chaos who constantly strike at the sinfully proud. For decades, the higher-ups of Warner Bros. kept them sealed away somewhere on the studio lot, but in more recent years certain actors and directors hired by Warner Bros., especially the actors and directors who go in over their head at the company's expense, have reported being hassled by three intensely zany creatures that looked two-dimensional, like cartoons brought to life.

It is possible that the dark beings that haunt the Disney theme parks were brought to life in a similar fashion by a Disney animator, possibly the highly influential Vladimir “Bill” Tytla. He was known for his method of strongly projecting his emotions to the characters he animated - including Chernabog, the devilish figure of the “A Night on Bald Mountain” sequence in Disney’s 1940 film *Fantasia*. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of Walt Disney's famous "Nine Old Men," recalled fellow animator T. Hee's account of watching Tytla at work one day: "... He opened the door to find the room in semidarkness, with Bill intently curled over his board. The only light came from the glow of the fluorescent lamp under Bill's drawing, which was shining up in his face in an eerie way. ... [Hee] felt a tension and a mystical force at work. Strange things were going on."  However, this is just speculation that risks defaming one of the most important animators in the medium’s history.

In 2015, in the same blog post where he put up the summation document, Slimebeast added his conclusion for their existence, based on their designation by Disney as "CORRUPTUS." They may be the result of thoughtform, the process in which mass belief in something imaginary brings it into existence. Disney's creations one of the most well-known and loved properties on the planet, and they appeal to hundreds of millions (potentially billions) of children who are young enough to believe. All this is augmented by Disney's main messages, which are all about the power of belief and making dreams come true. Slimebeast speculates that sometimes, things become corrupted during the process, as something belonging to the ideal, imaginary realm of Disney is tainted by the darkness that often permeates the real world. He gave the example of the traumatic experience some children have of seeing a cast member in a Mickey Mouse costume without the Mickey head, which may just be the awful truth behind "Inverted Character."

Furthermore, Slimebeast concluded, before ending that blog post, that Disney was indeed trying to silence him because they did not want these dirty secrets to get out ... because that would make people believe in them even more than before. By revealing the existence of all these things, more belief would be put into them and the CORRUPTUSes may become more powerful and difficult to contain or defeat than ever before.

And now there is an entire article discussing all these horrors in great detail.

Perhaps I shouldn't have done this...

Let's just hope nothing breaks free that shouldn't.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Disney's Big Bahama Blunder" (web original). It is dubious as to whether or not this is real, considering that it originated on humor website I-Mockery, but it is treated as fact in "Abandoned by Disney" and so shall be real within the Fiction Multiverse. Note: Treasure Island is *not* the setting of "Abandoned by Disney," as so many fan works say.
2. ↑ "Abandoned by Disney" (short story). Slimebeast, whose real name is Christopher Howard Wolf, is the author of this and other famous creepypastas.
3. ↑ "A Few Suggestions" (short story), considered a spin-off of the *Abandoned* trilogy.
4. ↑ "Room Zero" (short story). This is the second part of the *Abandoned* trilogy.
5. ↑ "River Country Film" (short story). It seems "Abandoned by Disney" wasn't the first creepypasta about the Disney parks.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "CORRUPTUS" (short story). This is the third and supposedly final part of the *Abandoned* trilogy.
7. ↑ *Animaniacs* (TV series). This comes from an awesome fan theory I co-wrote with redditor /u/MiguelGusto. He came up with the part about them being created by the Furies, I came up with the backstory about the animator.

## Additional Notes

1. ↑ This is a fact! Makes you wonder ...
2. ↑ This is based on a real lawsuit. When I read about how the incident supposedly affected the child, I knew I had to put it on here.
3. ↑ This account is taken word for word from *Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life*, a fantastic book about the art of animation from two of the medium's greatest. I knew when I read this account that I absolutely had to put it on here in one form or another. Seriously, "a tension and a mystical force at work"?! Too good to exclude!
~The ending of the entire article is intended to be in the style of a creepypasta. Just a little tribute to one of my favorites. - RADDman