What Is the Wyoming Incident? (And Is It Real?)

Download Article

Urban legends expert Sydney Bermudez breaks down the Wyoming Incident & whether or not it’s real

Co-authored by Dev Murphy, MA Reviewed by Sydney Bermudez

Last Updated: February 19, 2026 Fact Checked

Download Article

Overview

|

The lore grows…

|

Is it real?

|

Origins & Spread

|

Video

We interrupt this broadcast to share important information about THE WYOMING INCIDENT. What's the Wyoming Incident, you ask? Oh, just an unsettling internet urban legend about a small Wyoming news network that was hijacked and replaced with a video that drove viewers insane. But believe it or not, that's not even the wildest part of this story! Once the video footage was posted to the internet, the legend grew, thanks to the creative (and creepy) additions of internet users all over the world. In an exclusive interview with wikiHow, an urban legends expert explained the complicated lore surrounding the Wyoming Incident, including how the story started, whether it's real, and how it spread….

The Wyoming Incident Overview

Urban legends expert Sydney Bermudez says the Wyoming Incident is an early-internet creepypasta/ARG. In 2006, a Wyoming news network was hijacked, and mysterious footage was broadcast that drove viewers insane. The video went viral as users on online message boards contributed to the complicated lore.

Section 1 of 4:

The Wyoming Incident Explained

Download Article

The Wyoming Incident is a 2006 creepypasta and ARG about a TV broadcast hijacking. The Wyoming Incident (or Wyoming Hijacking) refers to an internet horror creepypasta and ARG (alternate reality game), says Bermudez. A local TV broadcast from the late 1980s was hijacked, and it supposedly aired disturbing imagery and sounds meant to cause psychological harm, she explains.^{[1]
X
Expert Source

Sydney Bermudez
Urban Legends Expert

Expert Interview} Viewers were driven to madness by the infrasonic frequencies in the video, with symptoms including hallucinations, headaches, and vomiting.^{[2]
X
Research source}
- The video featured unsettling monochrome images of disembodied heads displaying different emotions, backdropped by disturbing, drony music.
- The footage was regularly interrupted by a title card announcing an impending "special presentation," which would then be followed by a creepy message, like:
  - YOU WILL SEE SUCH PRETTY THINGS
  - WHY DO YOU HATE
  - YOU ARE ILL
  - WHAT HIDES IN YOUR MIND?
  - YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
  - WE STAND AT THE DOOR
  - YOU ARE LOST ON THE PATH
- The video eventually cut to static, and the hacker was never caught.
Meet the wikiHow Expert

Sydney Bermudez is an urban legends and Mexican folklore expert. She explores paranormal cases, internet mysteries, and psychological horror on her social media, with over 400k followers on Instagram and TikTok.

Section 2 of 4:

The Wyoming Incident lore grows…

Download Article

1
The video gains traction in Jan. 2007 after it’s posted to an ARG website. The original video of the Wyoming Incident goes viral after it is shared by user XyzzySqrl on unfiction with the message, "While browsing over on google video, a friend found this…. I dunno what this is. Does anyone else?" This leads to users sharing theories about who posted the footage and whether it's real. 2 more variations of the video that some users have conveniently stumbled upon are also shared.
- In February 2007, user youcanwatchnow posts a link to a third Wyoming Incident video and claims they found it in their dead brother Danny's rare video collection, but that they don't know where it came from.
2
One user shares what seems to be the original video owner's blog. A few days after youcanwatchnow's post, user viraldetector77 shares a link to a blog apparently written by the owner of the original Wyoming Incident video—"Gregory Miller"—which names a "Daniel Cable" (i.e., Danny) as the recipient of the third video. The blog's contents reveal Miller went insane from viewing the fourth video and is losing his grip on reality.^{[3]
X
Research source}
- For example, Miller talks about his belief in the existence of "human lampreys" that feed off people's essences…. 👀
- Miller also mentions two men—Donald Wilson and Robert Roy Denl, who both went insane and died following possession of Wyoming Incident videos.
3
Miller's blog includes a link to the message board the Happy Cube. Later that same day, user viraldetector77 discovers a new blog post written by Miller about a mysterious forum called the Happy Cube. The message board has been inactive since 2004, but a new user joined that day, going by the username iliketofix. The Happy Cube is full of users discussing an activity they refer to as "cubing"….^{[4]
X
Research source}
- What is "cubing," you ask? Well. Context clues—including mentions of preferred weapons and lethal poisons—indicate that the Happy Cube is a forum where anonymous serial killers can meet and make plans to "cube," an activity involving hunting people in a pack. (An Urban Dictionary definition of "cubing" from 2005 associates the activity with the famous short story "The Most Dangerous Game").
- Happy Cube users meet up at a yearly convention they call "Cube Con," at which they all hunt people together.
- The message board is managed by a user called Jack Pembry, who, according to Miller, has been driven to act on his homicidal urges by viewing one of the Wyoming Incident videos.
4
Miller reveals that he is not actually Gregory Miller after all. After sharing the link to the Happy Cube, Miller writes a blog post in which he says he wants to choose an unfiction user to gift a new video to. Miller is apparently aware of his audience on unfiction, and he chooses active user esteed to be what he calls a "vessel" to receive the new video and post it online. He also shares this insight about the videos:
- Owners of the videos must post them online before they are driven insane.
- Danny, the owner of the third video, purchased it with the expectation from the seller that Danny would upload it to the internet—which he didn't do, and soon after went mad, ultimately committing suicide.
- Gregory Miller was himself driven mad by his copy of the video, and is in fact unable to care for himself; he is tended to by his mother—meaning Gregory Miller isn't actually the person behind the blog posts, and he isn't the original creator of the videos.
- "Miller" explains that the videos have been around forever in some form—in ancient times, their contents were carved into stone—and that they are important to his belief system in some way.
5
"Miller" explains where the videos came from. "Miller"—that is, the original creator of the videos, who is not Miller after all—offers to answer unfiction users' questions about the videos:
- Where did the videos come from? They've always existed in some form. In ancient times, the contents were carved into stone. "Miller" was tasked (by whom? Unclear) with updating the contents to video.
- What are the videos for? "Miller" claims they are important to "our" belief system. What belief system is that, and who does "our" refer to? Unclear.
6
iliketofix moves the discussion to the Happy Cube. Mysterious user iliketofix creates a forum on the Happy Cube called "Hack Job Johnny" (named for the title of the recently discovered fifth Wyoming Incident video) to continue the discussion. It's revealed iliketofix is the child of the god of paranoia and insanity, and that he lives to sow fear and paranoia wherever he goes. iliketofix and his brothers are known as the blackeyed children.
- Lore too complicated and long begins to unwind here as more and more users get involved in the Wyoming Incident narrative.
- Essentially, iliketofix introduces a whole legion of blackeyed children to the message board and explains they will be sowing paranoia and stalking other users in real life.
- Iliketofix also reveals the existence of the sixth video.
7
ilovetofix initiates a mass ritual…before revealing the videos are a prank. iliketofix is eventually replaced by another blackeyed child called ilovetofix, who invites users to participate in a ritual involving being alone and closing your eyes and listening to spooky music. After this, ilovetofix randomly reveals the Wyoming Incident story—including all the lore on unfiction and the Happy Cube—to be a hoax created by the comedy forum Something Awful.^{[5]
X
Research source}
- Users across unfiction and the Happy Cube are perplexed as to why anyone would do so much work for a prank, and an unfiction moderator called harrispi reveals they actually don't believe the story was a prank, but a sociological experiment instigated by amateur psychologists in the UK.
- Harispi also reveals that a user who participated in the paranoia ritual began seeing blackeyed children afterwards and eventually took their own life. (Remember, this is all fiction!)
- Users scramble to figure out if the whole thing is a prank, if the "investigation" is part of the ARG, or if Something Awful members hijacked the ARG.
They post a new thread on the Happy Cube in which they say a member of Something Awful hacked into their account and claimed the whole thing was a prank. They also claim harispi was actually a member of Something Awful in disguise, and that the person behind the ilovetofix account is a different blackeyed child from the one who was previously posting.
After ilovetofix returns, they present a thicket of new lore, new characters, twisting new plotlines—plotlines way too intricate and complex to rehash here. And then, suddenly, their posts drop off.
While previously Something Awful had claimed to have made the entire story up, now senorbambos makes a post on the Happy Cube claiming that they had been lying. He says he had distributed the original Wyoming Incident video, but that it was an anonymous internet user who had created them and sent them to senorbambos. The creator asked senorbambos to post them on Something Awful, and the lore took off.
11
In May 2009, a new board is added to the Happy Cube. This board is called the Joseph Bright Help Center, and a moderator explains that the board is under investigation because a man called Joseph Bright, who participated in the Wyoming Incident ARG back in 2007, is now dangerously unstable as a result of his involvement and has continued to hunt down Wyoming Incident videos. The moderator requests that any user who may know where Bright is located share whatever information they have.^{[6]
X
Research source}
- Shortly after this, Joseph Bright's YouTube channel is discovered with new Wyoming Incident videos uploaded. (We're up to eight now.)
- A little while after this, the moderator of this board seems to go crazy himself after viewing these videos. They also claim to have discovered the ninth Wyoming Incident video, but this one is different from the others in that instead of threatening messages peppered throughout, it contains…ads for cash4gold.com? Yup! What's going on? We have no clue.
Joseph Bright creates a post on the Happy Cube under Pembrey's account, with the title "THERE IS STILL REALITY." In the post, he claims he has found the actual ninth video and that it has nothing to do with cash4gold.com. Bright writes that users should remember the names Robert and Alexandra Franklin, and that "it doesn't end here…. I will be back."
After years of no action on the Happy Cube, Pembrey posts a simple message with the title "And so": "The children awoke that year." What does it mean? We simply do not know…but it must have something to do with the blackeyed children.^{[7]
X
Research source}
14
On December 9, 2016, he creates a post titled, "Debts due." It contains the body: "And they will be paid."^{[8]
X
Research source} Aside from this, there's not much activity over the years, but throughout 2016, Pembrey leaves a slew of confusing messages on the Happy Cube.
- Some of his posts seem to be in-depth histories of an anonymous person, in one of which he includes the caveat, "I have chosen which parts to keep and which parts to dispose of. Sometimes an edit will be marked and noted. Sometimes not. The same goes for omissions. And name alterations. Nothing here is certain. Isn't that the appeal? How will the weight feel when you realize what this is, audience?"
- Other posts seem to contain transcripts of communications from followers of the ARG reaching out to inquire if the whole thing is, in fact, an ARG, performance art, or some sort of sociological experiment after all.

Section 3 of 4:

Is the Wyoming Incident real?

Download Article

No, the Wyoming Incident isn't real. According to Bermudez, there’s no evidence that it actually happened, and it’s widely considered a fictional story created to feel just believable enough (which is why it’s stuck around for so long). No confirmed records or broadcasts exist, and its power really comes from the mystery, the found-footage style presentation, and the lack of concrete information, she continues.^{[9]
X
Expert Source

Sydney Bermudez
Urban Legends Expert

Expert Interview} In fact, the lore unfiction users contributed is also fictional, and the website, the Happy Cube—while technically a real website—is completely fictional!
- Essentially, the original Wyoming Incident video spawned a complex but fun web of lore, which users freely added to, thereby co-creating the legend even as they attempted to unravel its mysteries.
- That being said, the Wyoming Incident was inspired by the real-life Max Headroom Incident. This incident involved a hijacking of the television signals of two Chicago stations on November 22, 1987. The hijackers sent a broadcast of an anonymous person wearing a Max Headroom mask and costume to thousands of viewers.^{[10]
  X
  Research source}
- Technically speaking, the ARG is still ongoing, after almost 20 years, making it the longest-running ARG in internet history. Whoa!

Section 4 of 4:

Wyoming Incident Origins & Spread

Download Article

The footage of the 1996 event appeared in August 2006 on Google Video. The exact identity of the original creator is unknown, as Google Video was shut down in 2012. However, the original video, which is only a few seconds long, has since been re-uploaded to YouTube. (Don't worry, you won't actually feel any effects of infrasonic frequencies by watching it!)
- The video gained traction after user XyzzySqrl posted it to unfiction in January 2007, after which users began creating and sharing their own variations, which you can watch on YouTube.
- The variations all follow the same basic formula as the original, and range in length from a few seconds to several minutes or more.