SCP Declassified: SCP 4666 Explained

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In this article:

• SCP 4666 is a gory Series 1 anomaly rooted in Christmas traditions but made of nightmares.
• It becomes active during 12-day periods known as Weissnacht Events, during which SCP 4666 stalks, and often, kills a rural family.
• In some cases, SCP 4666 has been known to kidnap children, whose fates are no better than the families targeted in a Weissnach event.

Trigger warning: This article contains graphic mentions of murder, mutilation, and child abuse.

Veteran agents of the SCP Foundation might find SCP 4666 odd for its theme and the way it’s written. At this stage of the Foundation’s development, its stories have begun to skew strongly towards Lovecraftian-inspired themes that capitalize on existential horror rather than the gore that earlier entries are known for.

Look at SCP 682 and SCP 3000 side-by-side and you’ll see what I mean.

However, SCP 4666 reads more like a Series 1 SCP than a Series 5 one. It lacks format screws, psychological/existential horror elements, or the massive concepts of its peers. Instead, it offers a unique take on the “History” theme of the SCP 4000 contest by harkening back to the early days of the Foundation wiki itself.

What Is SCP 4666?

To put it simply. SCP 4666 is what you get when you accidentally address your Christmas letters to Satan instead of Santa. The file describes SCP 4666 as a seemingly immortal, human-like creature whose origins are unknown.

What the Foundation does know about the appearance of SCP 4666 comes entirely from survivors of Weissnacht Events who were able to see SCP 4666 up close. These survivors describe the entity as an old Caucasian man with a frighteningly thin figure that its victims are able to see in full due to the entity always appearing naked.

This description asks us to imagine a cross between Santa Claus and Slender Man, a classic figure in Internet horror. Hence, SCP 4666 is nicknamed in the Series 5 list as “The Yule Man.”

So, horror Santa? Sounds pretty boring on paper. But it’s executed in a way that makes only the lightest references to Christmas, which keeps the file from being too cheesy, a common feature of Series 1 SCPs that have similar concepts.

The file’s references to Christmas are as follows:

• Christmas lights are seen in a featured photograph for the SCP 4666 file.
• SCP 4666 is said to be “an elderly male of European descent” though the description for his figure isn’t in-line with traditional depictions of Santa Claus as a way of saying that something is “wrong” with this version of the beloved Christmas character.
• SCP 4666’s active phases are called “Weissnacht Events.” In German, “weiss” means “white” and “nacht” means “night.” The word “Weissnacht” also resembles “Weihnacht,” the German word for Christmas.
• A Weissnacht Event happens over the course of twelve nights. Twelve, as in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
• Victorian-era Christmas gifts from 1811 to 2006 were found to have a connection to SCP 4666.

But some researchers have pointed out a curious detail in SCP 4666’s file, specifically its name. The file is designated SCP 4666, a play on the Santa-Satan meme.

SCP 4666 is also heavily implied to be ancient, much like the Santa Claus of our world whose origins go as far back as 260 A.D. to Saint Nicholas, a monk from the Biblical city of Patara.

How Did the Foundation Find Out About SCP 4666?

As every agent knows, the SCP Foundation spares no expense and wastes no time in containing anomalies that threaten humanity. But containing SCP 4666 took centuries given that the Foundation didn’t exist when the creature first began its activities.

SCP 4666 was only discovered in 1974 after the SCP Foundation updated its procedures for inspecting home invasion reports for patterns that suggest anomalous activity.

What they found was a string of yearly reports dating back to the 18th century that described a humanoid home invader attacking families with small children. Some documents from the 2nd century AD in Europe and 1st century BC Scandinavia suggested that SCP 4666 had been active as early as those periods. Read into it a little more and the documents seem to suggest that SCP 4666 originates in Scandinavia.

Just like jolly ole Saint Nick who comes down every year from the North Pole.

Following its discovery and subsequent capture, SCP 4666 has been monitored by the Foundation as a way of containing its effects and preventing mass hysteria. Foundation personnel watch SCP 4666’s every move and keep track of reports of violent crimes against families and the disappearance of small children.

Additionally, the Foundation censors news about SCP 4666, falsifying incidents to appear unrelated to each other and non-anomalous in nature.

How Weissnacht Events Progress

Weissnacht Events happen in three phases. These events are considered by the Foundation to be SCP 4666’s “active phase” during which the creature haunts a family with at least one child under eight years old that lives in a rural area.

These events usually start around December 21-22 and end by early January, again keeping with the Christmas horror theme of the document.

Nights 1-7 constitute the first phase of the Weissnacht Event. During this phase, children in the family will begin to notice SCP 4666 lurking around their home, much like it does in the picture shown earlier.

Since SCP 4666 exclusively targets families in rural areas, it takes a while before the family realizes they are being watched, especially since the creature begins by watching them from across a field or at the edge of a forest.

Some of the kids only realize it when they see SCP 4666 looking at them through their bedroom window.

Nights 8-11 are the second phase of the Weissnacht Event. At this point, all members of the family begin to notice signs of SCP 4666’s presence. These include hearing footsteps on the roof, a nod to Santa Claus coming down the chimney, or attic as well as an unpleasant scent.

This often lead the family to believe they are either being stalked or haunted. But because the Weissnacht event proceeds so quickly, there’s no time to consider leaving their home once they realize something is wrong.

By Night 12, the Weissnacht Event ends in a bad or horrific scenario. Most often, SCP 4666 kills the entire family except for the child who is under eight years old. In about 15% of cases, SCP 4666 leaves the family members unharmed but with a terrifying gift at the foot of their beds.

Accounts of Weissnacht Events vary, but the most notable ones feature classic SCP Series 1 tropes like paganistic and/or demonic rituals. This was the case for the 1498 incident in Croatia which an archbishop believed was caused by a sacrifice to demons.

Another incident in 1687 in what is now Ontario, Canada was one of the only instances where a child survived and escaped Scenario A. The child managed to tell authorities about a naked man breaking into their home and torturing her family members.

But what about the kids who don’t manage to escape?

Apparently, SCP 4666 has its uses for them.

What Happens to the Kids SCP 4666 Kidnaps?

SCP 4666 almost always kills its target family and abducts their children. While the creature’s motivation for doing so is unknown, the SCP Foundation does know what it does with them.

Remember how families who get the “good” ending of a Weissnacht Event get gifts? The gifts are made of and made by the children that SCP 4666 abducted.

Here are just a few of the gifts that this twisted version of Santa Claus has given out over the years:

• A small wooden drum with two wooden drumsticks of uneven length. The drum skin consists of a 390 cm³ piece of skin belonging to a human child, stretched with thread made from human tendons.
• A small knife, 15 cm in length (blade is 6 cm in length). Sculpted from a single piece of bone belonging to a human child. Symbols of unknown meaning have been carved into the handle.
• A flute made from the hollowed-out femur of a human child. Holes have been bored at uneven intervals along its length. The femur appears to have been dyed with human blood.
• A wooden box containing 13 miniature human-like figurines, each 4-6 cm in height. Made from the phalangeal bones of human children, tied together with strips of human tendon. The figurines have been decorated with human hair and small pieces of torn clothing. DNA testing revealed that the remains belonged to 18 separate children.
• A ball, 23 cm in diameter; made from 19 layers of human skin wrapped tightly around the desiccated head of an unidentified human child (male, age 2-3). Layers of skin are held in place with pine resin.
• A hairbrush. The handle is made of wood and poorly carved. In place of bristles, 43 deciduous human teeth have been set at irregular intervals into the handle. DNA testing revealed that each tooth belongs to a different child (only two of the teeth could be matched to known abduction victims of SCP-4666). Teeth vary in age from a few days to over 400 years.

And that’s what the trigger warning is for.

It gets even worse because SCP 4666 forces other children to create these horrors, torturing them to keep them “motivated” to work on making gifts. Ekaterina Morozova, who was recovered by the SCP Foundation, was found to have multiple scars, burns, and fractures in addition to suffering from extreme malnutrition.

He had a big bag. Other children were in the bag too. I think we go to other houses, I hear people screaming outside the bag all night. Each house he put another child in the bag. Then after the night he take us away.

Audio Log 4666-06201

Ekaterina revealed to an agent that the creature would beat them, burn them, and even eat them. When asked if her injuries were due to SCP 4666, the child informed them that other abducted children had because she had fallen ill, making her useless to SCP 4666.

The injuries were incurred as Ekaterina was being turned into a toy.

Because of these accounts, SCP 4666 appears to be a mix between Santa Claus and Krampus, a being from Norse mythology and German folklore who is said to appear as a half-goat creature. Like SCP 4666, Krampus dishes out horrific punishments and turns children into dishes.

Makes you wonder if he ever bakes them into Yule Logs.