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[Beeping]
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Hello internet, welcome to Film Theory
[GPS voice] You are now on the fastest available route to enlightenment
Today, we're getting
[English Accent] right into the news
The LOCAL news that is. More specifically, we're covering the scariest local news
broadcast that you've ever seen,
none other than the creepy internet darling,
local 58.
Never heard of it?
Well, I'm not surprised. It's a relatively underground series here on YouTube that was recommended to me over on Twitter
@MatPatGT, by the way, if you want to follow and offer theory suggestions
Wow, I am so glad it was shown to me
This is the type of horror that really sticks with me.
Disturbing, psychological horror that just
creeps under your skin and stays there.
It's a series that reminds me a lot of Marble Hornets,
if you're familiar with that one.
Seeing a public service announcement outright tell people to do their patriotic duty by offing themselves,
and then saying that that message will repeat until there are none left to read it?
Even after watching it this many times,
I still get goosebumps.
The long story short here is that I'm excited to cover the series,
1. Because we all need a break from Disney's
domination over the universe sometimes, and
2. this entire series totals 20 minutes worth of video
-not 20 minutes an episode-
20 minutes total
and it's available for free
right here, right now on YouTube.
So there is no reason why (if you haven't seen it before) you shouldn't catch up with it right now real quick,
so you know exactly what I'm talking about as I go through today's theory.
In fact, I'm linking to it right here in the top right hand corner of the screen,
so go check it out,
get creeped out,
and then come right back.
No detours.
Otherwise YouTube will punish me algorithmically.
It's not even joke. It's true.
So please go watch it. But then come back.
Ok. You're ready?
Well too late.
[There are no faces]
At first glance, local 58 appears to be a quirky, little
local access channel,
the type you'd find in any small hometown around the U.S.,
until you very quickly veer off the tracks,
both literally,
and figuratively,
finding yourself trapped in a world of disturbed dashcams,
really aggressive weather alerts,
and self-help videos that seemed more like a cults brainwashing manual
and the best part is
it's just getting started
Local 58 looks like it'll have plenty more
broadcasts coming to a station or YouTube channel near you,
all to tell its horrific story of alien invasion.
But what exactly that story is
and where it's headed is what we're covering today. Don't touch that dial
We'll be right back after this message from our sponsors
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In case you haven't seen local 58 full slate of episodes even though I did link to it and told you that it's only 20
Minutes long, but I get it. Sometimes you don't want to do that sort of thing
Sometimes you just want me to tell you everything you need to know for the theory. So here you go
Here's a real brief rundown of the seven episodes
they've released in the order that they were published which doesn't appear to be the order in which the videos are set in but we're
Gonna get to that the first video is called you are on the fastest available route and is simply some dashcam footage of someone
Driving through a storm at night
It is super normal until the GPS system starts telling the driver to go off on abandoned roads and turn off his headlights
then in
300 Feet, Turn off your headlights.
We see a flash whoever is behind the camera runs and the camera is knocked to the ground Blair Witch style. It's followed by
contingency which appears to be a government announcement from the
1960s telling viewers that the United States has been defeated by a foreign country in it
we see a series of
instructions about how
Americans should off themselves to preserve the dignity of the country with the ominous phrase that this message will repeat until there are none left
To read it the video ends with the local 58 station making a correction that the message was a hoax
But um, it's a little late for that one
Let's hope people weren't too quick on the trigger there literally video three Weather Service
It starts as an ordinary local weather alert, which is already scary enough because of those really traumatic siren
[Sirens]
But this isn't any snow watch or flood warning that you're used to this is about a meteorological
Event that makes it unsafe for people to go outside and look at the sky
there's a
Correction shortly after that though that tells viewers that the event is indeed safe for all to view and that the warning has been lifted
followed by instructions to go outside
now the video goes back and forth on whether we are or
Aren't safe before we end with a shot of the moon coming into frame and people screaming in the background
[Screams]
Scared yet. The fourth video station ID is largely the same with a few new messages like look away
It does not matter. There are other receivers safety in numbers. It also tells us that the frequency of the channel is
476 megahertz judging by me pointing this little detail out. You might rightly assume that this will become important later on
Moving on to a show for children. This one's all about a cartoon skeleton wandering through a graveyard at night
so pretty standard children's programming for...
4:15 in the morning!
The skeleton lies down in his own grave and dies when the moon passes over him
you might be sensing a pattern here
Video number 6 is called a look back and it initially appears to be just a recap of
Programming on the channel before it gets interrupted by more messages that say; "We send signals to ourselves through their domain"
"Did we really believe they wouldn't add their own" and lastly the most recent video is called real sleep
And it's probably the weirdest of the bunch
It initially looks like an instructional video about how to get the best sleep possible
But true to form things start getting weird when it goes through an exercise that attempts to erase the concept of facial recognition
From the viewer then bombarding them with subliminal messages. Like "This is your time now there is work to be done
We are our own gods you owe the messenger" and that's the channel my friends
So what on earth does all this mean? Obviously
We got ourselves themes about sleep the moon and messages coming from outside of local 58's broadcasts
That makes the conclusion that we're seeing something to have to do with aliens a pretty easy one to deduce
But it also leaves us with three main questions.
One -What are those alien doing through local 58?
Two -What do they want?
And three -Why are they interfering with local broadcast networks
when they could very easily just be watching syndicated early-2000s episodes of Frasier
Let's start first with what we believe the aliens are actually doing
Which is hijacking the radio signals through local 58's airwaves
Interestingly hijacking radio signals for Public Television is a thing that's happened throughout history
Though not by aliens
At least that we know of
One of the most famous examples is the Max Headroom Incident from 1987
A local TV station in Chicago was playing an episode of Doctor Who
when the transmission was interrupted by a strange rambling figure
in a rubber mask of 1980s cartoon personality Max Headroom.
This goes on for nearly two minutes
During which time he spouts advertising slogans,
references Michael Jackson and gets spanked by a flyswatter
well, the Max Headroom incident wasn't the work of aliens the FCC never did catch the culprit
And it's an example of how someone can hack into local TV signals even with low tech equipment
Station ID indicates that the frequency of local 58 is
476 megahertz
and interestingly enough
We have indeed detected unidentified radio signals from space of similar frequency
Radio telescopes in British Columbia have picked up numerous fast radio bursts
or FRBS from as far as light-years away and at frequencies as low as 400 megahertz
signals that scientists can't really explain the origins of this kind of mysterious radio burst would lead us to believe that
extraterrestrial invaders could use similar frequencies to intercept television broadcasts
and in the local 58 universe aliens are using those radio waves to send messages directly to us viewers
Either subversively through programming like a cartoon for children
teaching kids to lay down and look at the moon like the cute cartoon skeleton and
Sometimes in much more direct ways like telling us to just look at the sky in weather service
This is all confirmed by that brief message in a look back
"We send signals to ourselves through their domain" seems to be talking about humans
use of antennas and satellites up in space
"The they" is presumably some kind of extraterrestrial their domain is space
And then the message continues
"Did we really believe they wouldn't add their own"
Calling out that the signals are coming back to earth having been altered
Tampered with by the aliens with their own agenda
in short there are multiple voices coming at us through the local 58 broadcasts
one coming from the aliens and one coming from someone else
Either a scientist or someone working at the station who knows what's going on
We see them fighting for control of the screen in Weather Service
First we're told to remain indoors. Do not look at the sky
But is then followed seconds later with the meteorological event to see for all to view
Warning has been lifted
But that all brings us to question number 2.
What do these aliens want?
I mean the goal is clearly for us to look at the moon as demonstrated by the cartoon and the weather report
But why?
In this case it seems like the series still has some unanswered questions
But we're clearly dealing with some kind of lunar bird box situation
Where as soon as you look at the moon you die or you go crazy?
well, the mechanics of the actual moon kill are unclear
It seems like they're exerting an influence by hijacking people's willingness to follow instructions that they hear on the news
It's counting on the fact that we as humans believe what we're told on television and we'll follow it without question
There's no bolder example of this than the instructions that are found in contingency
This is by far the most chilling video of the series which appears to play an emergency broadcast
Segment that was supposed to have been destroyed back in the 1970s
It looks like a message that's related to the Cold War an era in which nuclear
Tensions were high.
The threat of death from above was more real than it ever had been in America's history
and the anti-communist block propaganda was everywhere
in other words it was a time in which Americans were feeling pressured
to be patriotic and to fear the dangers that were coming from outside their borders
Contingency looks like it was probably the first transmission that the aliens sent via local 58
based both on the date by which the message is supposed to be destroyed and in the overall video quality
now what happened after that since not everybody immediately followed the instructions on the television to off themselves
The aliens then resorted to messaging that
they would hope would get people to kill each other rather than themselves and their families
And that's where real sleep comes in a video that we see is from 1983.
While real sleep starts like a normal or at least acceptably weird
instructional video that seems like it wants to help people have restful sleep
The message is quickly corrupted by the odd inclusion of distorted faces and subliminal messages
Some of them seem like they're encouraging violence as I mentioned before whereas others sound like they're against the idea of sleep itself
Including; "Sleep is not civilized"
"The pure of mind do not slumber"
and "When we sleep we die"
So why exactly what the aliens care about people's ability to recognize faces or sleep quality?
I mean, I'm up late writing these scripts a lot of times
But you don't see me running with open arms to my lunar overlords.
Unless by lunar overlord you mean Wendy's late-night snack menu
No, it's not to make people docile or sleepy
It's to make them hate each other.
Psychology studies show that a failure to subliminally recognize pain and other people's faces and sleep deprivation
Both lead to a decrease in empathy for other humans
If real sleep is trying to plant messages in people's minds about the work to be done
and then also blunts viewers recognition of faces and conditions them to not sleep
All of it is pointing to a concerted mind controlling effort that hopes to get humans to kill each other.
All the videos from messing with GPS signals to messing with people's understanding of faces and sleep
to children's programming and weather alerts and even to quote unquote "governmental warnings"
all of it is pointing to one concerted goal for the aliens
Wipe us out by using our signals to trick us into offing ourselves.
But why?
I mean, yes we're sending broadcasts through their domain
But that basically just amounts to a cosmic noise complaint why jump to kill us all off?
Well think about the initial timing of the alien transmissions
We can't pinpoint exactly when contingency aired but it's safe to assume that it was in or before 1970
Since it says the message is not for use after 11/13/1970
We already talked about the fact that this was during the Cold War
but what I didn't specifically mention about that time period
was that it was also the pinnacle of the space race.
Like the Cold War the space race was also a battle between the US and the USSR
but this time it was for cosmic supremacy or at least lunar supremacy
and it featured the first ever moon landing by the Apollo 11 team in 1969
Now I'm clearly a theorist but it seems like
local 58 may be playing off of some of the conspiracy theories that exists around this massive scientific achievement
specifically the theory that the Apollo 11 crew saw aliens when they were visiting the moon.
As the theory goes after the lunar module landed with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin inside
there were a few minutes of silence between them and Mission Control back in Houston
This is just a true fact of what happened that day, but some people claim that in the period of silence
You can hear a discussion between Aldrin and Armstrong on their private medical channels about extraterrestrial objects.
As a result They rush to complete their mission
planting research mirrors on the moon and then quickly hightail it out of there
Whether these in my opinion highly unlikely conspiracy theories are true isn't the point here
the point is that the timing works out for this event the moon landing to be the basis for local 58's aliens
and their motivation to want to kill us.
We've made contact and we've made them mad and what's not up for debate?
Is that Apollo 11 really did put mirrors on the surface of the Moon as part of a way to track the moon's orbit using
Lasers back on earth and it just so happens that a few of the strange messages from local 58 broadcasts
Do indeed mention mirrors
Weather Service Explicitly warns people to avoid mirrors
and later says "He found me through the mirror"
Moon alien Conspirators also believed that
the reason the space program ended as quickly as it did and the reason that the Apollo 11 astronauts weren't more
celebratory when they returned earth was because they saw disturbing disheartening things up in space
and couldn't tell the public and we know for a fact that someone working at local 58 knows
What's really going on here and is trying to get the message out
But just can't which would seem to line up with that regardless
It certainly seems that the space program is responsible for the animosity that these aliens have for life on Earth
Maybe the aliens want revenge for being disturbed. Maybe the movie first man is true
and Neil Armstrong is just really kind of a bummer to hang out with
We just don't have enough of this story right now to know the truth.
But we do have one last hint about where the story might go
and that's in the first published video
which also happens to be the most recent from a timeline perspective
"You Are On The Fastest Available Route"
If you look closely for a brief moment the video actually shows us one of the extraterrestrial creatures
and the person who encounters it doesn't seem to have survived
So after trying to make mankind destroy itself for decades, maybe the aliens have decided to take matters into their own hands
We'll just have to wait for the next broadcast of local 58 to be sure
But hey, that's just a theory
A Film Theory and
The truth is out there