Episode 265 continues down the horrifying path of spooky season with a fresh batch of GenX nostalgia.
We start by going through a maze. That maze consists of the many confusing timelines of the beloved Halloween movie franchise. It all begins with the classic original, then it goes in all different directions. The question is, why are there so many? I might not be able to answer that, but I can try to lead you through them as best I can.
Ong’s Hat was one of the early Internet mysteries. It was based enough in reality that it gained traction as a potential conspiracy theory story. However, the creators hadn’t anticipated that the spark of reality caused an inferno that they could not put out. I will share the entire story of Ong’s Hat, a fascinating and spooky early internet rabbit hole.
In the 1980s, a pamphlet claimed scientists built a portal in this ghost town.
Ong’s Hat, New Jersey — a real ghost town in the Pine Barrens — became the center of one of the internet’s first conspiracy theories. The story said Princeton physicists built “the Egg,” a machine for interdimensional travel. The author later admitted it was fiction. The town is real. The portal never was.
Pine trees and open road stretch endlessly here, hinting that something strange once happened just beyond the tree line. Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Ong’s Hat might be the most mysterious entry on this list, and that’s saying something given the competition.
Located in the Pine Barrens of Burlington County along Route 72, Ong’s Hat is a ghost town that’s more of a legend than a landmark at this point.
The name itself is wonderfully strange, and the stories about how it got that name are even stranger, involving a hat, a tree, and a man named Ong, depending on which version you hear.
Today, there’s almost nothing left of Ong’s Hat as a physical place, just a few old structures and a lot of Pine Barrens atmosphere surrounding a stretch of road that most people drive right past.
Over the years, Ong’s Hat became the center of an elaborate internet conspiracy theory that claimed it was the site of a secret interdimensional travel experiment, which is honestly the most New Jersey thing imaginable.
This dark log cabin sits alone in the woods like it’s waiting for a campfire story to begin. Photo Credit: ongfamilyhistory
The conspiracy theory was eventually revealed to be a piece of collaborative fiction, but it added a whole new layer of weird, wonderful mythology to an already mysterious place.
Even without the conspiracy theories, the Pine Barrens setting gives Ong’s Hat a naturally eerie quality that’s hard to shake.
The surrounding forest is dense and quiet, and the sense of isolation out there is real enough to make even the most skeptical visitor feel a little uneasy.
History enthusiasts and curiosity seekers alike make the pilgrimage to Ong’s Hat just to say they’ve been there, and honestly, that’s reason enough to go.
New Jersey’s ghost towns are full of surprises, but Ong’s Hat might just be the most surprising of them all.
Pack your curiosity and hit the road because New Jersey’s ghost towns are waiting, and they’ve got centuries of stories just dying to be told.
This completes the COMPLEAT Broadcast series. It will remain here on this Substack so you may revisit it or share it. If you’d like a print copy of the book section of this work, it is available through https://compleat.store
Synthesizing research from Kendall Haven (DARPA’s Narrative Networks project), Carl Jung’s theory of synchronicity, Jeffrey Kripal’s concept of the Super Story, and Joseph Matheny’s transmedia ARG experiment (Ong’s Hat), Jose explored how human attention is hardwired by story structure. A powerful narrative environment organizes human perception, expectation, and search behavior so effectively that meaningful coincidences and anomalous events become active, trajectory-shaping realities for the participant.
They’re just never gonna let this one go, are they? I guess that was kinda the point. 😜
(Hint: Some things are more fun if left a mystery)
Queued up at the relevant point in the video, but feel free to watch the entire thing.
Their mission: retrieve a 1975 IBM 5100 computer with a hidden function that almost nobody outside a handful of retired engineers knew existed.
Over 4 months, the user made 151 posts under the name John Titor.
He described the time machine down to serial components. Posted photographs and what appeared to be pages from an operations manual. Cited real theoretical physics..
He answered hundreds of questions with a patience and consistency that pointed away from a hoax.
Then on March 24th, 2001, he typed one final sentence and disappeared. Nobody using that name ever posted again.
4 years later, a journalist tracked down one of the original IBM 5100 engineers.
Bob Dubke confirmed the hidden function was real!
It was his personal contribution to the machine and IBM suppressed it.
