You decided to go hiking alone.
All those days indoors were starting to make you go a little stir-crazy, and even though
a thick blanket of fog was creeping in, you knew you just had to get out.
The local forest had a nice hiking trail – the kind of place where you could really get lost
in your thoughts.
But as you trudge through the foggy woods, bordered on all sides by thickets of towering
ever-greens, you hear a strange crackling noise.
Then harsh, modulated whispers, hissing out numbers and words with no logical configuration.
Must be an old radio, you think, and keep walking.
Just then you hear a quiet rustling in the trees behind you, and then footsteps, even
though you would have sworn you were alone.
Then it’s that crackling again, and those nonsense words and numbers.
“SIXTEEN.
THREE.
WOMAN.
FOURTEEN.
RIP.
DISGUSTING.”
It was like two voices at once, saying the same thing at exactly the same time.
You feel the hair on the back of your neck bristle, then you turn and see it.
Your jaw gapes in horror.
It’s huge – forty feet tall, rail-thin, with mummified skin clinging tight to its
bones.
You look up, hoping to see the creature’s face, but there is no face.
Just two metal sirens grafted to a long pole of flesh.
Before you can even scream, its long, spindly hands are already wrapping around your face.
You’ve just fallen victim to Sirenhead.
Like its numerous creepypasta predecessors, such as the Slender Man, Smile Dog, and The
Rake, Sirenhead is a kind of online cryptid that has entangled the internet in its web
of fear.
Despite only first appearing in August of 2018, this frightening, faceless monster has
become a hub of internet folklore and content creation.
It’s captured the imagination of thousands, appearing in countless pieces of fan art and
even popular indie games.
But what exactly is Sirenhead?
Where did it come from?
How did it get so popular and widespread in the first place?
And, like the best of urban legends, is there a hint of frightening truth behind the fiction?
Let’s start from the point of inception.
Sirenhead is the creation of Canadian illustrator and master of horror Trevor Henderson, better
known by his online handle of SlimySwampGhost.
Henderson is internet horror royalty, and is also no stranger to creating horrifying
online cryptids.
In fact, he’s already made a number of other iconic internet boogeymen.
These include Cartoon Cat, a terrifying, homicidal feline demon.
The Smile Room, a toothy nightmare hidden inside an abandoned bowling alley.
And the Fetid King , a mysterious and frightening entity able to manipulate technology, to name
just a handful.
But Sirenhead is, by far, Henderson’s most beloved creation.
He first appeared in a post on Henderson’s Tumblr blog back on August 19th, 2018, with
this image.
In the photo, taken at a distance, we see the imposing figure of Sirenhead looming over
an old, abandoned graveyard.
If this wasn’t creepy enough for you, the photo came with the following terrifying caption:
“She was on vacation with her husband and they were scoping out graveyards on the way,
as you do, when she saw it.
Rising out of the old cemetery, big as an old – macabre - telephone pole.
Was this some kind of bizarre art piece the authorities hadn’t gotten wise to yet?
Even as she stepped out of the car, the megaphones on its “head” screeched to life.
“NINE.
EIGHTEEN.
ONE.
CHILD.
SEVENTEEN.
REMOVE.
VILE.”.
A buzzing, doubled voice screamed random words at her.
At this point, it jerked into motion, striding down the hill towards her.”
The tags under the picture include the words “found footage”, perhaps even suggesting
some underlying truth to the events depicted here.
That’s enough to give anyone the willies.
After Sirenhead made his debut, thousands of people chimed in in response, stating just
how scary and captivating they found this strange new creature.
Little by little, Henderson began to drip-feed more information about this monstrous creature
to the public via his twitter account.
Each tweet painted a slightly more detailed picture of the horrifying threat we were dealing
with here.
In his first Twitter thread on the subject, Henderson stated that Sirenhead is the static
physical form of an unfathomable supernatural entity.
A being truly beyond any limits of human understanding.
For example, it doesn’t have eyes, but can still see.
Its teeth – hidden in gaping, fleshy mouths inside the sirens – are biological, but
the creature doesn’t eat.
It uses its similarities to a telephone pole to camouflage itself and hunt humans like
an ambush predator.
While its Siren-head can play siren noises, it typically communicates in odd snippets
of music or words.
It can also record and play back other sounds, similar to the sport-hunting alien from The
Predator, and is able to manipulate other noise-emitting devices.
In other words, while it might seem, at face value, like a brainless monster, Sirenhead
is an intelligent and powerful supernatural force.
While it spends large periods of time inactive, it can move scarily fast when it needs to
– say, for example, when it’s chasing you down through the woods.
It also tends to avoid major population centres, preferring to stalk areas where victims won’t
have anyone to save them.
But, as you’ll soon find out, that doesn’t mean you’re any safer tucked away at home
in the burbs…
In the second Tweet about Sirenhead, Henderson shared a frightening image of the creature
lurking in someone’s backyard.
The caption indicated that Sirenhead was responsible for the disappearance of a family of four
in their own home.
They were gone without a trace, with the neighbours just reporting the patio door being left open
in their absence.
The quiet suburbs are actually one of Sirenhead’s favourite hunting grounds, as shown by the
next frightening found photo shared.
When Sirenhead abducted people on the seemingly innocent streets outside their own homes,
there were always three commonalities: It was always people walking the side streets
on their way home, it was always dark by the time people started wondering where they were,
and it was always past the time when the street lights come on.
The fact that Sirenhead can also perfectly disguise itself as a normal street lamp just
adds another dimension of terror to the creature.
How can you ever feel safe walking past street lamps in the dark again?
Sirenhead can appear almost anywhere dark, secluded, and depopulated, so you can never
let your guard down when you’re in one of these areas.
He’s been spotted everywhere from Yellowstone National Park in 2016 to a darkened country
lake to the parking lot of an unassuming motel, always causing unexplained paranormal activity
and disappearances in his wake.
Worse still – for all members of the human race who like living safe, comfortable lives
– it’s been hinted that Sirenhead is part of a far grander and more dangerous picture,
almost like a “hype man” for some other unnamed but presumably far more powerful and
dangerous entity.
It has also been said that the proper collective noun for a group of Sirenheads is a “static”,
implying that Sirenhead may not even be a singular being, but just one member of a whole
species of dangerous cryptids.
Though Henderson himself has mentioned that he sees Sirenhead as more of a manifestation
than simple animal, and it doesn’t therefore abide by the same set of physical rules that
creatures from our plane of existence are forced to conform to.
Because of this, the true extent of Sirenhead’s power is unknowable, especially considering
that so many who encounter it don’t seem to live to tell the tale.
Though as with any good urban legend, Sirenhead’s legend didn’t end with its creator.
Sirenhead quickly became a worldwide sensation thanks to an unlikely force: Online indie
video games.
Two video game artefacts featuring Sirenhead were made initially, one being a mod for the
game Fallout 4 called “Whispering Hills”, and another five-minute Sirenhead game developed
by indie games studio Modus Interactive.
While neither of these games were an immediate smash hit back in 2018, they found a second
life a couple years later after being picked up by a number of prominent YouTubers..
From here, Sirenhead’s popularity exploded to unprecedented levels.
He quickly became the subject of countless creepypasta short horror stories the world
over, as well as hundreds or even thousands of pieces of fan art.
People were also making home-made Sirenhead dolls and action figures, Lego sculptures
and even Halloween costumes Outside the gaming community, Sirenhead was
becoming the internet equivalent of a household name.
The creature had gained its own subreddit, where fans feverishly discuss theories and
ideas and share fan-made content.
In early 2020, Sirenhead also gained a huge boost in popularity from TikTok, after user
Alex Howard posted a frightening CGI video of Sirenhead lumbering across a town in the
horizon while sirens blared menacingly.
This ten second clip not only scared the bejeezus out of the internet, but was also insanely
memeable.
Variations of the video were used in everything from making fun of the strange name of Elon
Musk’s new baby, to one particularly creative version where Sirenhead dances to South Korean
hit single “Gangnam Style.”
So, let’s pump the breaks for a second.
You’re probably wondering: If Sirenhead is just some character made by an online horror
artist, what’s all the fuss about?
It’s not like he’s real, right?
Well, the answer to that question might be a little more complicated than you’d imagine.
To fully understand, we need to take a look at one of the most iconic internet urban legends
of all time: The Slender Man.
This dapper, faceless, internet boogeyman was created by Eric Knudsen in 2009, but quickly
spun into a phenomenon with a life of its own, as you can find out in one of our other
videos, “How A Meme (Slenderman) Became Real.”
The Slender Man’s immense popularity quickly made him a fixture of the internet’s public
consciousness, much like Sirenhead, with fan art, costumes, spin-off games and fan films.
The dark ending of the Slender Man saga was a near-fatal stabbing supposedly inspired
by the character in 2014, and a pretty lame movie adaptation four years later.
Why is all this relevant to Sirenhead?
Because, if you read quite literally any article about him, you’re more than likely to see
the phrase “the next slender man” pop up.
And this comparison isn’t without merit – as both have starkly similar points of
origins and trajectories into popularity.
The lines between fiction and reality become blurred, and in a metaphorical sense, when
enough people believe in the urban legend, to them it might as well be real.
In a more spooky, mystical, supernatural sense, characters like Sirenhead and the Slender
Man are often associated with the concept of “Tulpas” or “Thought-Forms.”
This is the idea in paranormal circles – and proponents of Tibetan mysticism – that one
can quite literally believe a being into autonomous existence through the sheer force of their
psychic energy.
When you believe in the idea of Tulpas, the concept of the internet’s collective fear
bringing Sirenhead to life on some level is a real and tangible concern.
Sure, it may seem like a far-fetched concept, but is it any more far-fetched than the idea
of being stalked by a forty-foot extra-dimensional zombie with a siren for a head on the way
home from work?
At the end of the day, regardless of what you believe, it can’t be denied that something
special and terrifying has been brought into the world with Sirenhead.
Is Sirenhead real?
Well, ultimately, he’s as real as any urban legend – whether it’s the man with the
hook hand, the killer in the back seat, or the man making sinister calls from inside
the house.
And like any great urban legend, Sirenhead is sure to feel a whole lot more real next
time you’re walking home alone at night, you hear a faint crackle somewhere in the
distance, and you could swear you saw something move in the corner of your eye…
Check out “Russian Sleep Experiment – EXPLAINED” and “How A Meme (Slenderman) Became Real”
for more on the spookiest corners of the world wide web.
If, of course, you’re brave enough…