PeppersGhost

SCP-5338 - Sleight of the Bumblebee by PeppersGhost

More by this author

Item#: 5338

Level1

Containment Class:
keter

Secondary Class:
esoteric

Disruption Class:
dark

Risk Class:
notice

link to memo

SCP-5338 engaging in SCP-5338-א.

Special Containment Procedures: Containment of SCP-5338 is limited to minimizing public awareness of its anomalous abilities. Due to the vital role SCP-5338 plays in many ecosystems, physical containment would be detrimental to the sustainability of life on Earth and should not be attempted.
Foundation affiliates in the academic community are to maintain the scientific paradigm that SCP-5338 achieve lift through non-anomalous aerodynamic mechanisms. Fabricated data and multimedia records will continue to be produced indefinitely to reinforce mainstream awareness of this paradigm. Those who publicly challenge the paradigm are to be discredited and derided via academic publications, entertainment outlets, social media platforms, and other sundry venues of public mockery.
Description: SCP-5338 is the collective designation for all apian species of the genus Bombus.1 SCP-5338 are physiologically incapable of generating the airflow vertices necessary to establish and maintain natural aerodynamic lift. Instead, SCP-5338 achieve flight by using their wings to rapidly create complex sequences of spatially disruptive kinetoglyphs2 to induce anomalous midair suspension.3 The anomalous nature of SCP-5338 first came to the Foundation's attention in the late 18th century with the discovery of several Daevite parabiology compendiums,4 allowing for an early establishment of misinformational containment that has continued to develop concurrently with mainstream entomology up to the present day.
SCP-5338-א is the designation for the parakinetic movements used by SCP-5338 and for the theoretical language that said movements may compose. The existence of a linguistic structure in SCP-5338 kinetoglyph sequences was first proposed in 1973 as a reaction to the landmark ethological study on dance-based communication between honeybees. Extensive interdisciplinary research was subsequently undertaken to analyze the movement patterns observed in SCP-5338-א for similar applications of dyadic sign models. Current evidence supports the existence of a somatic sign-system concordant with a theoretical linguistic framework, and the recurrence of discrete movements in response to particular conditions has allowed researchers to establish a preliminary kinetolexicon.
However, efforts to infer a coherent syntactic structure have been unsuccessful, and the legitimacy of SCP-5338-א as a language remains contested.5 Similarly, there has been no consensus as to whether SCP-5338-א is a discrete thaumaturgic constant which existed prior to and/or apart from SCP-5338, or if it was a direct byproduct of SCP-5338's evolutionary development.
SCP-5338-א is reproducible by humans beings, albeit with substantially diminished effects due to the physical limitations of the human body and the limited understanding of context-sensitive kinetoglyph sequences. Attempts to replicate SCP-5338-א with mechanical devices have only produced negligible reductions in gravitational subordination.

Addendum: On June 1st, 1981, the O3 Court approved testing of SCP-5338-א by human subjects to assess its potential utilization by Mobile Task Force units. Results given below.

Test #
Subject
Age
Sex

001
Dr. Wall
52
F

Method

Dr. Wall used her arms, palms, and fingers to simulate the approximate SCP-5338-א sequence for indoor takeoff. As a safety precaution, all movements were performed at 1/3750th normal gesture speed.

Results

No anomalous activity observed.

Test #
Subject
Age
Sex

002
D-5338-01
39
M

Method

Subject was shown a sped-up playback of video footage from the previous experiment (1/1750th normal gesture speed) and told to memorize the movements over the course of a week. Subject attempted to perform SCP-5338-א at the conclusion of the training period.

Results

Shortly after beginning, the subject appeared flushed and complained of severe headache and dizziness. 1 minute 41 seconds into the test, subject said they were no longer able to perform the experiment, laid down on the testing room floor, and briefly lost consciousness.
Cause of syncope was determined to be a rapid reduction of blood reflux to the heart due to forceful redirection of blood to the head from the venous system, exacerbated by an increase in intracranial pressure. Subject received immediate medical care and made a full recovery.

Test #
Subject
Age
Sex

003
D-5338-01
39
M

Method

Same as previous experience, but with study period increased to 3 months.

Results

Subject performed SCP-5338-א at 1/1750th normal gesture speed for 5 minutes with no adverse effects. Instruments indicate subject's body weight dropped ~14kg for the duration of the test despite maintaining mass.

Test #
Subject
Age
Sex

004
D-5338-01
39
M

Method

Subject instructed to continue practicing at 1/1750th gesture speed for an additional 3 months, followed by an attempt at 1/400th speed. Footage of Test 001 accelerated to the appropriate speed was provided for study.

Results

Within seconds of attempting SCP-5338-א at 1/400th speed, the subject suddenly expired and a burst of blood was observed from the crown of their head. High-speed playback of the test footage revealed that the subject's spinal column was vertically ejected from their body at a speed exceeding Mach 5. The spinal column continued upward through the roof of the testing chamber and was presumed to have disintegrated upon reaching the Earth's atmosphere.
Several days later, a complete human spine was found in a park two counties away with its coccyx embedded in the trunk of a tree. Analysis confirmed it to be a match for D-5338-01.
A second spine was recovered from a private flower garden the following week. The remains were covered in pollen from local flora and identical to the previous spine in shape and genetic composition.
Testing suspended until further notice.

Footnotes
1. Due to the abnormally high rate of anomalous phenomena among the clade Anthophila, it is possible for a given bumblebee specimen to have two or more SCP designations.
2. Specific motions and gestures which, when performed, cause anomalous effects to occur.
3. Paramelittological consensus holds that SCP-5338 evolved in parallel with non-anomalous apian species from a shared genetic ancestor. Opinions are divided as to which (if either) method of flight is shared with this ancestor, though the majority of extant literature favors the position that aerodynamic flight is an adaptive trait.
4. Notably, the authors treat the entire superfamily Apoidea as its own class of "meat-being" distinct from human, animal, vegetable, and intangible flesh classes.
5. The most common point of contention against SCP-5338-א as a formal language is that it cannot be determined if SCP-5338 is cognizant of a semantic association between a kinetoglyph and a discrete concept (such as "tree" or "updraft") or if these movements are an instinctual reaction to certain stimuli. In simpler terms, SCP-5338 may not necessarily ascribe meaning to specific movements, and instead are conditioned to use certain kinetoglyphs in reaction to a given stimulus to produce a desired effect. This dichotomy has, in turn, been challenged by several Foundation specialists in the field of biolinguistics.
Further compounding these disagreements is the fact that SCP-5338-א is not used to communicate with other organisms, nor does it fit traditional models of autocommunication. A potential solution to this problem posits that SCP-5338 are communicating their wishes to an unseen thaumaturgical intelligence (designated SCP-5338-ξ). In this scenario, the actual existence of SCP-5338-ξ is irrelevant insofar as SCP-5338 is concerned; as long as SCP-5338 performs SCP-5338-א in the process of communicating with what it believes to be SCP-5338-ξ, it achieves its desired result. Following this line of thought, comparisons have been drawn to B. F. Skinner's studies on superstition among pigeons; however, no Foundation-approved research has yet been conducted on the matter of whether bees possess the psychological capacity for metaphysical belief systems.

« SCP-5337 | SCP-5338 | SCP-5339 »