BACKROOMS Timeline Explained

Kane Parsons' Backrooms movie is part of a broader canon, including his original web series on YouTube, itself based on the creepypasta. Lots of people have contributed to general Backrooms lore, but with his series and now movie, Parsons has created his own self-contained continuity. In this video, I'll go through every episode of the web series in chronological order, what each of them tells us, key theories, and where the movie fits in. First, what are the Backrooms? They are essentially an extra-dimensional realm, a series of seemingly endless rooms modeled after the sort of rooms you find in our world, but they're a little off. The architecture is often illogical and absurd. For example, furniture will be melted into the floors or walls. Be careful because you never know when you might no-clip out of reality, fall through a floor or wall, and end up in those rooms. And then, be extra careful because you don't want one of them to hear you. Who? We'll get to that. Most of what we know about the Backrooms is through the A-Sync Research Institute. Though they began as an MRI machine company in the '80s, through Project KV-31, they built the threshold, or low-proximity magnetic distortion system, basically a doorway into the Backrooms. From there, they will research and monetize it. A-Sync vice director Ivan Beck shares at a press conference in April 1988, "This program, if granted sufficient backing from the United States government, will offer a solution to all current and future storage and residential needs, and save billions of dollars on property construction and management." So, where some look to terraforming and colonization of other planets as a solution to overpopulation, A-Sync looks to the Backrooms. But, how exactly did they discover them to begin with? The episodes aren't posted in chronological order, but the descriptions typically indicate when they take place, or there's some clue in the videos themselves that tell us. Chronologically, the first would be overflow, a roughly 90-second clip. We see yellow or gold glowing lights piercing through a black screen. A dial on some kind of measurement tool moves far to the right. A red light labeled overload turns on. A radio broadcast is interrupted, and we see a contract signed by A Sync vice director Ivan Beck on August 2nd, 1972. We slowly zoom in on that contract as it's bathed in green glow. Green glows appear throughout the series within the back rooms, so the implication is that something related to the back rooms is occurring, maybe a small rift opening off camera to reveal it for the first time. On his Discord server, Parsons apparently confirmed that this short takes place during the August 1972 solar storms, a real historical event where a significant solar storm caused all kinds of disruptions. It set off naval mines planted by the US military during the Vietnam War. It disrupted TV and radio broadcasts, and even set off false alarms by nuclear detonation detectors. That explains the radio broadcast interruption and the machine overloading. At the time, A Sync made MRI or magnetic resonance imaging machines. The machine that will eventually open the door to the back rooms will be called the low proximity magnetic distortion system. Clearly, magnetism is key to opening the door. That's the connective tissue between MRI machines and the threshold. Perhaps when the solar storms overloaded their equipment, that in combination with the storm's disruption of Earth's magnetic field, ripped a hole in reality for a moment to reveal the backrooms. If that was caused by the natural event of a solar storm, it may not be something easily replicated in a lab. It would take a lot of time, money, and many attempts. Once they glimpse the backrooms, ASync changes course from MRI machines to Project KV-31, building a doorway or threshold to access this other dimension. May 10th, 1982, we see an experiment conducted under the supervision of Philip R. Hayman in a video titled Prototype. Perhaps this is the same Phil that we meet in the backrooms movie, played by Mark Duplass. Eight devices in a circle pointed at a small metallic sphere. They bathe it in energy, maybe an attempt at recreating the effect of the solar storms. Due to the low quality of the footage, some believed the ball disappeared. But, on that Discord server, Parsons confirmed it is still there. Six years later, July 2nd, 1988, the third test. Voiceover describes it as the ASync Research Facility's third test of the low proximity magnetic distortion system. Presumably, that prototype was a precursor to this machine. Maybe they were trying to send that metal ball to the backrooms, or maybe it's a catalyst, some kind of focal point necessary to trigger a reaction. The third test is much clearer because we see an actual door, an early iteration of the threshold. That third attempt gets close, but ultimately fails. First contact occurs on October 17th, 1989 at 5:03 p.m. This is their sixth attempt to open the threshold, and this time, though it causes some damage in the lab, they are successful. They start exploring the place, poking and prodding. November 14th, 1989, we get a survey of the whiting and tiles. Following the wires, they have no luck finding the actual power source. And taking the light fixtures apart, they find mostly ordinary equipment, all manufactured in the '70s. A clue, perhaps, that the backrooms blinked into existence in the '70s, copying from our dimension as it existed in that time, or maybe the backrooms have existed since the beginning of time, but evolve alongside reality. Worth noting, I say the equipment is mostly ordinary because there is something slightly off. The proportions aren't quite right for both the ceiling tiles and fluorescent bulbs. Both have non-standard sizes, furthering the theme of the backrooms getting close, but not all the way toward mimicking reality. 3 months later, an episode titled Missing Persons, on February 3rd, 1990, it shows that there has been a sharp increase in missing persons cases lately. A mystery to most, but not A-Sync, because they find some of those missing people in the backrooms. Throughout the series, we'll see people and things end up there by simply falling through the floor at random, or as seen in the movie, walking through a wall. In that movie, A-Sync researcher Phil also tells us there are doors opening everywhere. We don't know why or what's connecting them, they just sort of keep happening, and we don't know how to stop them. So, why are those doors opening? It's possible that creating the threshold is not as surgical a process as A-Sync believed. Maybe punching one hole in reality in their lab inevitably creates tears elsewhere, and over time, more of those tears or doors will appear. Or it might not be A-Sync's fault at all. Maybe whatever caused the Backrooms to appear for the first time in 1972 also causes those tears. All A-Sync has done is created and controlled one of them in their lab. On that same day, February 3rd, 1990, they find one of those missing people dead, covered in some kind of black mold. The video ends with the text "If anybody blame him." My assumption is that him refers to Ivan Beck, blaming him for pushing these experiments to open the threshold. And whoever wrote that message likely subscribes to the theory that opening the threshold is what is causing all those tears to appear, causing innocent people to no-clip into the Backrooms, and presumably much of the time end up dead. Two days later, they complete an autopsy on the John Doe and find a few strange things. The least strange part is the cause of death, malnutrition. [snorts] Presumably, he found no food or water source in the complex and died. The strange part, some parts of his body have decomposed naturally as they typically would in death, but other parts were somehow preserved. Other areas were completely overtaken by a type of bacteria, a mutation of a simple strain of bacillus. Typically, the bacteria should be harmless. >> But [snorts] well, really, I I I don't know what to make of this. Mr. Beck, may I ask uh where this subject came from? >> When A-Sync researchers enter the space, they wear hazmat suits, likely to protect themselves from contamination or radiation. Who knows what's in the Backrooms? But maybe they also want to protect the Backrooms environment from themselves. For all we know, the Backrooms have always been empty, completely devoid of any sort of organic matter, a sterile environment. A-Sync kept it that way with their hazmat suits. But when an ordinary citizen falls into the Backrooms, they bring with them all sorts of organic matter, their own bodies, bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc. Perhaps the Backrooms have a strange effect on organic matter. It can preserve it from decay, and apparently, it can rapidly mutate an organism like that hay bacillus. More on that soon. February 29th, 1990, a date that does not exist, by the way, because 1990 was an a leap year, and a later video will refer back to this day as March 1st. So, March 1st, informational video. It begins with a video meant for internal use at A-Sync, which goes over some terms and rules like never enter the Backrooms alone. Then the episode switches to footage of some research in the Backrooms. A research team of four enters the threshold, sometimes called the machine or the door. George Levy, Marvin Lee, Ronald McCarthy, and the one holding the camera, Peter Tench. As they explore, Peter hears some voices down a corridor and follows them. He asks if the others hear it, too. Despite the camera mic picking up those voices, the others seem not to notice it. And as Peter follows those voices, he suddenly vanishes. Where did he go? We'll find out soon. In the meantime, A-Sync has to answer for this missing researcher. A later episode, Static Dead End, reveals they came up with a cover story. They say that he died in a car crash outside of vineyard. A few days later, March 5th, 1990, the episode titled Motion Detected, A-Sync has begun construction on a research outpost within the backrooms, just outside the threshold. Outside the outpost, they've set up cameras in the backrooms to record anytime they capture motion. Mostly it just picks up researchers heading in or out, but at 3:53 a.m., it captures this. What appears to be tentacles reaching out from behind a wall and grazing the ceiling. They're first signs of life in the backrooms. May 6th, 1990, the episode titled Pitfalls, they've completed construction on the research outpost. Marvin E. Lee films it, then takes the camera with him on a research walk with three others. They find something new, a room with a sort of grid in the floor, a bunch of square holes, and a door on the other side of that grid. Mark carefully walks across and gets to that door. He opens it. On the other side, there's a faint green glow. He tells Marvin to follow him and bring the camera. He tells him to hurry. Marvin attempts to cross the grid carefully while ignoring Mark rushing him. >> Mark, seriously. >> Yeah, I'm I'm I'm going. >> By the way, you might have noticed some text flashing on screen there for a split second. It says While data could be inferred from these readings, nobody knew what would actually be found on the other side. Given the context, I assume that's in reference to the door Mark is staring through. More on that later, because right now, we don't get to see what he sees because Marvin slips, falling down one of those holes. It spits him out in another area, a place with slightly different wallpaper leading to a room with pillars. While awaiting rescue, Marvin hears something strange. It sounds like a person yelling. >> I think there's somebody down here. >> What? >> Uh I I hear yelling. Like a person is yelling. >> Marvin follows the sound to a wall with a gap underneath. Looking through that gap, he sees a road in a tunnel and street lamps. He hears the voices again and heads through the gap, ignoring the others telling him to wait. Marvin asks, "What if Miller was right about the null zones?" The term A-Sync uses to describe those random holes and doors appearing in the real world, which lead to the backrooms. At this point, it seemed the idea is simply a theory posited by scientist named Miller. Now, Marvin is wondering if he stumbled into one of those null zones. Maybe he's gone through and left the backrooms. The stars in the dark sky above him would certainly imply as much. Except when he yells, it echoes. >> Hello? >> Can you hear me? >> Marvin, what are you doing? >> I'm trying to find them. I know how to get back. It's It's fine. >> Still in the backrooms after all, he continues his stroll through the strange neighborhood and the voices return. The voices emanate from one of the houses bathed in red light. He enters the house and finds a living room empty other than a few street signs. The nonsensical sort of architecture and furnishing expected in the backrooms. It leads to a hallway and from that hall, the echoes of someone shouting. Marvin heads down the long twisted corridor. It leads to a run-down room and in it, a backpack, some cardboard, a pair of shoes. Like someone has been living down here. Whoever it is calls out again. Marvin follows the voice to a larger, brighter hallway where he sees the thing yelling. Not a person, something strange. A tall, translucent creature. >> That is not a [ __ ] person. >> What? Marvin, can you hear me? What do you see? >> The thing keeps yelling as Marvin runs back the way he came, through the red neighborhood, through the tunnel. It keeps yelling. He gets under the gap and back to the room he first fell into, where the hole in the wall that spit him out is too high to reach. The rest of the team sends down a rope for him to grab, and he uses it to climb back out. So, what is this creature and the one we saw in motion detected? We'll get to that in a minute, but for now we can at least assume the creature was mimicking people. Marvin did find evidence of someone living down there, the backpack, the shoes. Perhaps someone fell through a null zone and called for help. This creature heard those cries and now mimics them to lure others. Later that day, the episode titled report, the research team including Marvin returns to the threshold. They hand over the footage and a couple of other researchers review it. We also see a Dr. Kirk Maxwell stroll the halls and make a phone call. The researchers reviewing the footage pause on the image of that creature. With this discovery, they construct a barricade offering additional protection should that creature or any like it decide to come this way. So, let's finally tackle the question, what is that creature? Remember the autopsy, those cultures of hay bacillus taking over parts of the body, typically harmless bacteria suddenly seemed like something more, as though it had been rapidly mutated by the back rooms. What if that mutation continued to the point where the bacteria either grew or combined in a strange way to form a creature? With the back rooms' help, simple, harmless bacteria rapidly grows into a monster. That's been a popular theory furthered by some meta evidence. On Kane Parsons' Ko-fi page, a monetization platform for artists, Kane shared an image of one of the life forms we'll meet later in the timeline, and he labeled the image bacteria. So, yeah, that's the theory. These monsters are basically grown from bacteria rapidly mutated by the back rooms. We will meet another form of life in the back rooms later called a still life with seemingly different origins. Those are the life forms prominently featured in the movie. More on that later. In the Backrooms series, there are also hidden episodes. A normal episode will sometimes include a link in the description to an unlisted YouTube video. Report is one of those cases. It links to an unlisted video whose title is a string of 13 digits. The video shows a car driving on a highway before suddenly no-clipping out of reality, falling through the road, presumably into the back rooms. There's nothing in the description or the video itself to indicate when it takes place, but since it's linked from the report episode, I'm covering it here. The video title, that string of numbers, is actually the ISBN code for a critical edition of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. The title, of course, brings to mind the yellow wallpaper often seen in the back rooms. The story concerns a woman suffering from postpartum depression whose husband confines her to a room as a form of rest cure. With nothing to do, she becomes obsessed with the room's strange yellow wallpaper. Eventually, she comes to believe she sees a figure in the wallpaper's designs and becomes convinced that the figure is a woman trapped behind it. She starts ripping the paper off the wall and by the end seems to believe she has become that woman trapped in the wallpaper. Beyond the obvious wallpaper connection, there's also a thematic one. The Backrooms series and Mythos are often at their scariest when they involve someone trapped, isolated, and lost in this strange interior space. Similar to the protagonist driven mad in the short story. When we get to the Backrooms movie, we'll also talk about the still lifes. Basically, strange twisted versions of real people recreated in the Backrooms. That also feels vaguely connected to the protagonist's experience in the yellow wallpaper. The blurred line between her and the woman she sees trapped in the wallpaper almost feels like the logic of a still life. A person and their uncanny doppelganger in the Backrooms. Two days after report, May 8th, 1990, an episode titled presentation. It shows us a presentation with A-Sync's grand pitch. They offer the Backrooms as a solution to the unwanted byproducts of modern civilization. Basically, waste and pollution can be dumped into this strange dimension and stored here. The Backrooms can be used for shipping and freight as well. They even project that in the future they can expand the size of their thresholds, allowing for entire trucks to pass through. The idea seems to be a form of teleportation. Enter one threshold, then exit another in another part of the country or other side of the world. They've trademarked the term A-space for this extra-dimensional storage facility. A-space can be used for storage, but also industrial processing, even corporate offices. Eventually, you can put a mall in there. Hell, eventually people could live there. They've begun implementing some of this already, including those larger thresholds. But, on this day, something odd occurs. Nearly 70 days ago, on February 29th or March 1st, 1990, Peter Tench heard voices down a corridor. He followed them and vanished. But, from his perspective, that's not at all what happened. From his perspective, it was his research team that disappeared. Because the truth is that he never left the spot he was standing in. He simply leapt ahead in time about 2 months. That's why previously we only covered the first part of the episode, Informational Video, because the rest of it takes place a couple of months later. Now. So, seconds later for Peter Tench, 2 months later for the rest of the world, he rushes through the empty halls in a panic. He finds an auditorium-like room with a strange black residue in the center of it. He finds a dark corridor with a wooden floor and more colorful wallpaper depicting a forest. He finds a sledgehammer, a couple of wagons, and the front of an old house. Eventually, he does find his way back to the threshold and finds himself in a research outpost built after his disappearance. To him, a place that did not exist seconds ago. His intrusion sets off the alarms. Returning to the episode at presentation, we witness his arrival in the present captured on security cameras. The presentation episode also includes a link to one of those hidden episodes. This one called Recording 14. We hear a call from A Sync researcher Clyde talking about what happened with Peter. When they picked Peter up, they found him confused and disoriented, but soon Clyde realized who he is, the man who went missing a couple of months ago. >> Wait, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. This isn't him, is it? >> If you're wondering about this backwards newspaper article on the screen, if you flip it to the proper orientation, it shows an article with the headline fiery wreck beside vineyard leaves one dead. If you recall, that's the cover story which was used to explain Peter's initial disappearance. Awkward now that Pete's apparently alive. A later episode, Damage Control, reveals what happens next. They explain to Peter how the world thinks he's dead, but they promise they will find a way to reintegrate him into society soon. They'll tell the world he's alive, but it'll take some time. He's patient at first, but between his experience in the backrooms and now effectively a prisoner at ASEC, his mental health deteriorates. After about 2 weeks, he exhibits behaviors common in patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He becomes convinced that he is still inside some illusion created by the complex or the backrooms. He becomes convinced that ASEC is his enemy, that they want to do him harm. On May 22nd, Peter is to be transferred offsite to a temporary residence, but instead, he escapes back into the backrooms using stolen credentials, and they lose track of him until 3 days later, May 25th, 1990, an episode titled Reunion. Marvin E. Lee, the man who met a creature in the episode Pitfalls after falling through a hole in the floor, takes another trip into the backrooms. He and a few others set up a desk and computers near where that incident occurred, and they dispatch a small rover to investigate the area, now designated room 14D. They find the room where Marvin fell through the floor, then Marvin and a few others head that way. So far, no sign of Marvin's friend. >> We have just reached 14D. There are no visible signs of Marvin's friend. >> That is absolutely not the name of the game. >> Oh, then you better start working on a new one. >> While one team builds a walkway across the grid, Marvin, Mark, and Randall conduct an initial layout analysis of another area, room 14C. This time, Mark is armed with a shotgun. They find white walls and no carpet. They find some ceiling tiles have been moved. Is that just how they are, or did somebody move them? Perhaps strangest of all, they find a hand-drawn map on one of the walls. Seconds later, they get an idea who drew that map when a man tackles Mark and takes the gun. Peter Tench. They're shocked to see him. Marvin, Mark, and everyone else thought he was dead. >> It's been months. We thought you >> I know. I know. That's That's what That's what they did. They They took my wife and Demarcus. Everyone thinks I'm [ __ ] dead. I don't My wife and children think I'm dead. >> Peter asks if they held a funeral. Marvin tells him yes. When Mark calls for support over comms, telling them about a hostile holding them at gunpoint, that hostile, Peter, shoots Mark and takes off. Mark is left in critical condition as Peter makes his way back to the threshold. In the A-Sync facility, he's disarmed by Dr. Kirk Maxwell, someone we met in a previous segment, report. He gets to a freight elevator and reaches the surface. He gets out of the building while the security team pursues him, and they find him dead halfway down a hillside, apparently having tripped, fallen, and hit his head on a rock in his hasty escape. At least that's what happened according to the higher-ups at A Sync. In the segment damage control, after Peter ran through the facility with a shotgun, they had no choice but to come clean to inform the research facility what happened and what went wrong. We hear their telling of events. >> I am terribly sorry to inform you all, but Mr. Tesch was found deceased halfway down the full slide. >> Their report ends with a plea that this project is more important than any one man. They must continue their work. They strongly emphasize that Peter is dead and there should be no more discussion about it. Quote, it is the work of a unified effort and we need to ensure that that is never lost sight of, that we hold on to the pre-established notion that Peter is and has been deceased. That is done and there is nothing more to be extracted. But the segment ends with strange imagery, a syringe, a man with a backpack, and security footage of a man, possibly the same man, on the side of a road. First, the syringe. Initially, I assumed it meant A Sync drugged Peter or something along those lines, but rewatching it, the syringe appears at the same moment the unnamed narrator says the word extracted. >> And there is nothing more to be extracted. >> So I think it's a hint at what Peter went through during his couple of weeks of confinement after his return, during the period when most thought he was dead. A Sync likely poked, prodded, and studied him, extracting samples. After all, he's the only person known to have ever time traveled. What does that do to a person? I'm sure A Sync would love to know. He also spent time in the backrooms without a hazmat suit. So But they've extracted some of that mutated bacteria from him. Time travel might also provide another hint about that bacteria and rapid mutation. If the backrooms can have odd temporal effects, that might explain how some bacteria can so quickly grow into that monster we met, Marvin's friend. Finally, the security footage of a man on the side of a road. My assumption is that Peter did not actually die on that hill. That was another cover-up by A Sync. In truth, he escaped and is still out there. Perhaps they caught a glimpse of him in that security camera footage. The episode includes one more shot of a ringing phone in someone's house. I read that as Peter trying to get back in touch with his family. All this time they've believed him to be dead. Three days later, May 29th, 1990, the episode titled Static Dead End. First, we hear a conversation between Marvin and another researcher, George, where Marvin is panicked about Peter. He believes that Peter's death was no accident, and any one of them could be next. But George calms and reassures him. >> You want to put me down like an animal over a minor [ __ ] hiccup? Give a speech at my memorial? >> It's not cost-effective. >> Well, after what happened, we're not going to let that happen, are we? You know how I know? You're the fourth person I've had this conversation with. Nobody wants a repeat of what just happened. >> Then we get footage of another research trip. George heads to room 14D, the room with square holes in the floor where they're constructing a walkway, the room where a few weeks ago Mark crossed the grid, went through the door, and was amazed by whatever he saw. Something we never got to see because when Marvin tried to follow him, instead he fell through a hole in the ground. Now, George crosses that walkway and heads through that door. He sees a few interesting things, like how the wallpaper texture sort of glitches at a certain point and stretches out. Then a room that doesn't lead anywhere else, a dead end. And there he finds tiled walls like the kind you'd find around an indoor pool along with various objects and furniture melted into the walls and floors. Is this what Mark saw a few weeks ago when he opened the door and told Marvin to hurry across? Back then there was a green glow. One of the most popular fan theories about that glow is that it's a byproduct of the backrooms growing or changing. So when a room is altered or more rooms are added, you see that glow. Perhaps Mark caught the backrooms in the act of changing and now we see the aftermath. Weird wallpaper, soccer ball on the floor, and gratuitous pool tiles. Next, we reach the backrooms movie. On June 19th, 1990, A-Sync researcher Naren Warren is separated from his group in the backrooms. He's attacked by a life form and most likely killed. In the coming days, a furniture store owner named Clark discovers a null zone in the basement. A spot on the wall where you can phase through into the backrooms. He explores the place, maps out as much as he can, and tells his therapist Mary about it. Of course, she doesn't believe him, but he's going to get proof. He recruits a couple of his employees, Bobby and Kat, to come with him through the door and film it. Employees who previously helped him film a local TV ad where he played a pirate. In the backrooms, things start strange and get dangerous. The same life form which killed Naren now kills Bobby and captures Clark, but does not kill him. Perhaps because in a sense that life form is Clark. It's his still life, a tall monstrous version of him in a pirate costume inspired by the one he wore for that commercial. In the coming days, Clark lives in the backrooms and learns about them. He deduces that it is a place which builds or remembers all places, but it doesn't get them quite right. Homes, offices, and stores in the real world are reflected in the backrooms, but they'll be missing parts, proportions will be off, and furniture might get stuck in a wall or floor. The more times the backrooms remembers, the more it forgets, the more off the rooms become, reflected by the many levels of the backrooms. Higher levels seem to get closer to the original, lower levels further away, more misremembered. It remembers people, too. Human beings are mimicked in the backrooms as still lifes, things that look human but are just as misremembered as places. They might have extra eyes or noses and not all in the right spots. They might seem alive but hardly intelligent. Sometimes they're docile, things that barely move, things full of white stuffing that Clark soon learns is edible. But sometimes still lifes are dangerous. Like Clark's still life, which appears as that tall, monstrous pirate, one that sometimes eats people like Bobby. As I said, for now it spares Clark, perhaps because it senses kinship in him. When Clark's therapist Mary comes looking for him, she finds her way into the backrooms and finds that Clark has lost it. He's come to prefer the backrooms to real life because real life has not treated him well. He's an alcoholic dealing with a divorce. He resents his ex-wife and the world. He never got to pursue his dreams because he was too busy slaving away to make a buck so his ex-wife could go to law school. For him, the backrooms are an escape, but soon he finds that isn't enough. He needs someone to tell him he didn't do anything wrong. So when Mary comes, he knocks her unconscious and ties her to a dining table in a sort of home he's made for himself in the backrooms, where he lives with a few still lifes. Clark introduces them and introduces his employee, Cat, or at least what's left of her, a decapitated head in his fridge. Clark says, "I tried to help her, but she just" and he doesn't finish the sentence. So, presumably she did not take to the backrooms as well as he did and he killed her for it. He also tells Mary the best part about the still lifes, you can eat them. So, presumably that's how he's been surviving. Clearly, he's quite mad, but comfortable here. He tells Mary what he's learned about the backrooms, how it remembers every place again and again, less each time. He shows her the still lifes, how they feel nothing, something he demonstrates by stabbing the bearded man with a few extra eyes and noses through the neck. He doesn't react. Mary successfully convinces Clark to let her go, but before he can, Pirate Clark shows up and walks toward her. When Clark gets in the way, Pirate Clark picks him up and takes a bite out of him, likely a fatal wound. Mary looks for an exit and runs into A-Sync researchers. They capture her and Pirate Clark. He ends up on an operating table to be dissected and studied. She ends up in an interrogation room, where Phil has questions for her. He's been entering the backrooms daily trying to learn more about them. He's convinced this place is the most important discovery in all of recorded history, but they still don't understand it. All she wants to know is what's going to happen to her. That's not up to Phil. The implication being it maybe they can't let her go. Maybe she's seen too much. In the backrooms, in a room like this one, but misremembered, less detailed, and a little warped, is a still life that looks like Mary, but a little warped. What does that mean exactly? Clark said the Backrooms remember things and people, so now they remember Mary. As far as we know, that doesn't have any implications for the real Mary, currently in Asian captivity, her ultimate fate unknown. It just means there's now a misremembered copy of her in the Backrooms, a still life. How does a still life get made? It's intuitive to imagine that a still life is created when you visit the Backrooms. Mary took a trip in there, so now she has a still life. At the same time, the researcher at the start of the movie was attacked by pirate Clark before Clark ever visited the Backrooms. It's hard to tell because we don't get a good look and it happened so fast, but having watched it multiple times now, you can definitely see the height of it and the peg leg. A few theories to explain this. Theory one, you don't need to visit the Backrooms to have a still life made of you. Maybe the Backrooms remember every person the same way they remember every place, no need to visit. So, there's a weird misremembered version of you, of me, and everyone you know, already in the Backrooms. The counter to this theory is we see very few still lives, and if there is a still life for every human on Earth, the place should be full of them. It might even surpass the human population if still lives can outlive the people they're copied from. The counter-counter is that the Backrooms are huge, maybe infinite, in which case it might seem empty, in which case it'd be quite a coincidence that Clark runs into himself down there, unless the still lives are subconsciously drawn to higher levels when their real life counterparts or other relevant parties enter the Backrooms. The theory gets convoluted. So, theory two, something simpler. Maybe you do need to enter the Backrooms to have a still life made, but hanging around a null zone is good enough. Clark is sleeping at the furniture store every night right above a null zone and entrance to the back rooms. Perhaps that sustained proximity has a similar effect as entering the back rooms themselves. Theory three, proximity to the null zone is not good enough. You do need to enter the back rooms, but time is weird down there. Peter Tench time traveled a couple of months into the future. Maybe Pirate Clark was created after Clark entered and then Pirate Clark went back in time far enough to kill that researcher. Or maybe it's less time travel and more once something exists in the back rooms, it is as though it has always existed down there. Pirate Clark is born today, but you can encounter him in the back rooms yesterday. Another question you might have is why still lifes differ from one another. Why are most of the still lifes we meet so docile and made of stuffing, while Clark's is a tall pirate that bleeds real blood. Perhaps the human psyche has an impact on its corresponding still life. Clark is an angry person filled with rage and resentment. Maybe that turns his still life into a red blooded monster. Part of his resentment was at his failure to pursue his dream of becoming an architect. Instead, he has to endure humiliations like wearing that pirate costume for a commercial. That costume becomes a symbol for that resentment and as such is adopted by the still life. Or going back to theory number two, he spent all that time sleeping above a null zone. Maybe the more time you spend in or near the back rooms, the more power you feed into your still life. So, if Phil is entering the back rooms daily, in theory, there should be a monster Phil in there somewhere. Or maybe some of that bacteria got into Clark's still life and mutated it into a monster. So, those are some ideas, but ultimately, we don't know the answers to these questions, at least not yet. Next in the timeline is another hidden episode linked from the episode presentation. That was the episode where we saw A-Sync's pitch on how the Backrooms will be an economic boon. The same episode where Peter's re-emergence in the future is caught on camera. The unlisted video is a clip from a Simpsons episode that first aired on January 10th, 1991. Season 2, episode 10, Bart Gets Hit by a Car. The clip is presented as though it was recorded on a VHS tape. Partway through, it's interrupted by a commercial for cough medicine. The strange thing, that commercial did not actually air until 2000. What does that mean? Remember the context. This video was linked from the presentation episode, which revealed that Peter time traveled a couple of months into the future. The context is temporal weirdness. So, the common fan interpretation is that someone recorded an episode of The Simpsons in 1991, yet somehow it captured footage that wouldn't exist for another 9 years. We know that since the creation of the threshold, more and more null zones or doors are appearing around the world. It's causing a spike in missing persons cases. And now we see something else it might be causing, temporal anomalies. Things like TV broadcast transported back in time almost a decade. The next known incident involving the Backrooms occurs on July 4th, 1991. This is when Parson's original The Backrooms short film takes place. This is his first foray into that strange world, meaning the movie and most of the episodes are, in effect, prequels. This one stars Kane Parsons himself under his online name Kane Pixels. He's the cameraman for a movie. As he moves to get a wider shot for that movie, he suddenly no-clips falling down into the backrooms. He navigates the strange place, finding nothing but empty rooms and halls. Well, almost nothing. He does catch a glimpse of a strange figure rounding a corner, but nobody answers his calls or shouts for help. He finds one room bathed in green glow. In one area, he finds arrows drawn on the walls pointing him to a mural of a window, beneath that a partially drawn face, and beneath that a message, "Don't move. Stay still." Behind him, something screeches, a tall creature. This is the life form whose image Kane labeled "bacteria" on his website. The bacteria chases Kane. He runs until he finds a hole in the wall and drops down there for cover. He finds a staircase which takes him to a new area, white walls and a hardwood floor, a window with a view into a sort of courtyard by more rooms. He finds an area with a gap and on the other side of the gap, a wall that stretches endlessly in all directions with a seemingly infinite number of entrances to a seemingly infinite number of gray tunnels. He backs away from the gap and finds a door labeled "fire exit" which leads to a familiar area, the one he started in, yellow wallpaper, carpet, the hum buzz of fluorescent lights. Peeking down one hall, he sees a chair get flung hard against the wall. He runs and hides in a dark corner while haunted by the sound of more screeching. From that corner, he watches a creature wander by. This one smaller than the last, but no less strange. Or perhaps it's the same life form bent into a different shape, no longer in pursuit mode, now search and stalk mode. Soon, the creature is upon him. It flings him into a wall. There's darkness and then the camera is back in reality falling from the sky. It seems the camera passed through a null zone unfortunately located high above the ground. Kane is likely still in the backrooms. If he'd gone through that null zone, too, we'd likely hear his screaming unless he was unconscious. Or at least we'd catch a glimpse of his body falling. The camera lands in the grass somewhere and it ends. At the start of the episode, the clapper board provides us the date July 4th, 1991. But typically Kane also includes a date in each video's description telling us when it takes place. For this one, he wrote September 23rd, 1996. Generally, it's theorized that's the date when the tape was actually discovered. Though it's hard to believe the camera sat in the grass for years undiscovered. Maybe it was quickly discovered by a citizen but only confiscated by A-Sync a few years later. Or maybe this is another case of time travel. Kane entered the backrooms in '91 and the camera no-clipped back to reality in 1996. For more temporal weirdness, we turn our attention to Backrooms Found Footage number three. In this one, Kane did not provide a date in the description, but fans typically place it around April 1995. In the footage, we hear the Oklahoma City bombing mentioned on the radio, which occurred on April 19th, 1995. This time, the camera is held by a man named Robbie. He investigates a possible break-in in his basement. There, he stumbles upon a hole in the wall that leads to a passageway. Curiosity drives him into that passageway when suddenly he falls and tumbles out of a cupboard in a strange environment. A place like a large conference or classroom. He tries to climb back out the way he came in to no avail. He's now in the backrooms. On his tape, we see more bizarre and nonsensical architecture and furnishing than ever before. A conference table pressed against a door with bricks behind it, arbitrarily placed microwaves, nonsensical balconies, and a window to the sky that could not possibly lead above ground. One reason, by the way, I don't think it's safe to assume Mary is out of the backrooms at the end of the movie. Not that it matters much either way, but for all we know, the interrogation room Phil has her in at the end might be within an A-Sync facility located inside the backrooms. We've seen them build an outpost there, so perhaps they've expanded since then. And in the interrogation room, uh Mary does see a window where she sees the sky, but this episode establishes that's possible even from within the backrooms. Ravi also finds a portrait of Mao Zedong. One of the stranger things he sees is a still life. A man who chases him until Ravi manages to barricade himself inside a room. It's hard to see much detail, but here's a freeze frame on the still life. Perhaps stranger than that, through some windows, he sees an entire nonsensical city bathed in red, similar to the red neighborhood found by Marvin in Pitfalls, which gives you an idea just how vast and diverse the backrooms environment can get. As for the temporal weirdness I mentioned, he finds a flyer for free health care screenings labeled 2022. Remember, he's in 1995. So, as he traveled to the future, has the flyer traveled to the past? Or does time simply not exist in the backrooms? Whatever exists in the backrooms has always been there in some strange way. He finds a cardboard caveman cutout. We saw a few of those in the movie used by A-Sync as a lure to capture still lifes. That's how they get the pirate. The cutout was connected to canisters, so when that cutout was knocked over, they released gas and knocked out Pirate Clark. Eventually, Ravi finds a house. Inside, he hears the voice of a man from the other side of a wall. That man is in his own house in reality. From that man's perspective, it's as though Ravi is inside his walls because when the man goes outside, he can't see anyone. >> Are you IN MY WALLS? >> WHAT? >> It seems Ravi has stumbled upon some place that exists between reality and the backrooms. Unfortunately, though he and the man can hear each other across dimensions through a wall, Ravi cannot find a way to actually pass through the rift. But, the man tries. They're having some work done on the house, the panels are still loose, he can open up the wall, and that doesn't go well. >> God. >> After that, Ravi calls out and no one answers. Perhaps the man fell into a null zone and no-clipped into another part of the backrooms. The last thing we see of Ravi's footage is him reminiscing about home and how badly he wants to go there, and the battery on his camera dies. By the way, when Ravi is talking to the man, in the background, we faintly hear the TV, and the good folks over on the backrooms fandom page have ID'd the commercial. It's a free creditreport.com commercial that aired between 2007 to 2009. Another instance of temporal strangeness. Ravi from 1995 is interacting with a man from over a decade in the future. Next, we have Backrooms Found Footage Number Two, dated August 19th, 1995 in the description. A woman finds a null zone on the floor of her garage. She films an experiment dropping various objects through the spot marked by painter's tape. During one such experiment, it seems the null zone grows because she falls through the floor into the back rooms. Before falling, she was sticking a tape measure through the hole to see how deep it goes, and she felt it vibrating, perhaps a side effect of the null zone expanding. She finds herself in an area similar to the one most commonly seen, except with circular lights instead of the usual rectangular ones. She finds many strange things. Oddly tall, distorted chairs, a tall room with many floors, and a ceiling with tiles that have fallen to the floor. Soon, she reaches an area with the more familiar rectangular lights, and there finds a car crashed into the wall, a trail of blood. She follows it in search of the driver and finds a room filled with what appears to be black mold, similar to what A Sync found on that John Doe. She finds a picture on the wall, the cover from an issue of Woman's Home Companion. Suddenly, it's as though part of the mold comes alive. A creature screeches and chases her, another of the bacteria creatures. She runs from it and hides by heading through a hole in the ground. As its odd sounds follow her, she keeps running until she ends up at a dead end. She prays and begs. Then, green glow. The room crackles with the green energy. She's surrounded by it, and the recording ends with the words "No signal." We cut to the video of a TV displaying the message. Presumably, someone from A Sync was watching that recording on that TV. This video offers more evidence about the bacteria monsters. Back in the episode Missing Persons, we saw that black substance around the John Doe's body. In this video, the trail of blood from the car crash leads to the room filled with black substance and tendrils. Presumably, that's where the driver's body ended up. So, maybe we're seeing what happens when a body is not found, and instead, the black substance is allowed to grow, mutate unfettered? It becomes a sort of nesting place that eventually births one of those bacteria monsters. We saw the beginnings of it with that John Doe, and maybe if A-Sync had not discovered the body, that black substance, mutated bacteria, would have continued spreading until it formed another one of these nests. Also, you might assume the crashed car is the one from that hidden video earlier of a car disappearing into the road. Apparently, Kane confirmed on his Discord that they are not the same car, but probably safe to assume this particular car ended up here under similar circumstances. This video also has one of those links to an unlisted video. This one titled home27647.mov. It's a home video that at first seems irrelevant until you realize the house shown is similar to the one found in the backrooms in found footage number two. Here's a photo from the home movie, which resembles this area from the found footage. Most notably, they have the same portrait of that woman on the wall. This is a strong hint at what Kane tells us in the movie, that the backrooms are not entirely arbitrary, but instead reflect reality, remembered and misremembered versions of real places. This is also hinted at in found footage number three when Ravi talks to that man through the wall. Presumably, he is in a backrooms misremembered version of that man's house. We'll end it with I remember. This is an odd one that can't be placed on the timeline. There are no clues as to when it takes place. It's also not included on Kane's official backrooms playlist, but it isn't unlisted, so it's not like the traditional hidden episodes. It's an unknown narrator reciting a strange poem about memory, which makes a little more sense now given the context of the movie. The framing of the backrooms as a realm that remembers places and people. Here's what the narrator says. I had a home once, a manor overlooking the sea. Upon the world this was a vestige, calling forward onto strangled ears. But when the skies turned dark, the house was taken by the sea. A pillar truncated, cast down to the seabed with all the other forgotten things. But I remember fleeting shells sinking ever slowly, folding downwards into themselves, forever tearing along the seams of the sky until nothing remains except the eternal ghost. And you ask yourself, could there ever be anything greater than this? To me, that all sounds like memories being swallowed up and corrupted in a way thanks to the visual. All the images are distorted and lines like a pillar truncated, skies turned dark, or I remember fleeting shells sinking ever slowly, folding downwards into themselves, forever tearing along the seams of the sky. Visually, one of the key things we see is the original prototype from the early '80s before it cuts to an image of someone in a hazmat suit. In the reflection of their visor, we see a glowing green orb at this line, could there ever be anything greater than this? Given the connotation of that green glow and that line, it seems that we're watching someone witness the creation of a threshold into the backrooms and they watch it in awe. It's something great to behold. I can almost imagine Clark reciting lines like this because the poem describes memories forgotten and swallowed. It sounds ominous but ends with that question, could there ever be anything greater than this? Clark is someone who ran away from his mistakes and wanted to stay in the backrooms, hidden away from consequences of his actions. And he envied the still lifes who feel and think nothing. So, perhaps this video was Kane playing with those ideas. The backrooms as a place where memories are distorted and forgotten, corrupted. How that might be off-putting to some, but enticing to others. And that's where things end for now. So, what do we learn from all this? The theory is that the backrooms were first revealed in 1972, thanks to the interaction between solar storms and A-Sync's MRI equipment. Having discovered this dimension, they spent the next couple of decades building a threshold to access it. Either by coincidence or thanks to their meddling, the barrier between our dimension and the backrooms has been weakening, causing null zones to appear, causing people to fall through them and get trapped in this other space. More likely, I think A-Sync is at fault, partly due to some meta evidence. Kane was asked in an interview who he would consider the protagonist of the series. He said, "Ivan Beck." When asked who the antagonist would be, he also said, "Ivan Beck." Framing him as partly an antagonist to me implies he has some responsibility in the negative outcomes that have occurred in relation to the backrooms. We know that time works differently in the backrooms. You can spontaneously leap into the future. You may also find a spot where the barrier is thinner between dimensions. You may be able to speak to someone in our world, but there's no guarantee they exist in the same time period as you. Maybe they're in the future. We know of at least two categories of life forms in the backrooms. First is the bacteria, which seems to grow from the organic material people bring into the backrooms. In particular, when they die, it seems to grow and mutate out of them. Those creatures seem hostile and seem capable of mimicry to lure more victims. The other form of life is the still lives, distorted versions of people that seem to form spontaneously, the same way the backrooms themselves form, imitating aspects of our reality. And when things form in the backrooms, the theory at least is that the act of building or remembering causes green glow. Or the strange green energy is what fuels that growth. So, we have some ideas about how and when the backrooms were discovered, some idea of the creatures inside it. But what about the fundamental question, what are the backrooms? Of course, to maintain the uncanny vibe of the endless liminal space, the question has been left purposely vague. But here's what Kane has said in an interview with USA Today. The backrooms are not a simulation or anything digital. They are not some kind of purgatory. They are simply a force of nature. He further said, "It's not like a damnation. It's not like you have a weight on your soul and you did something wrong and so therefore the backrooms consumes you. It's that reality broke and it messed up. A real, tangible, solid entity that is not a psychic phenomenon or a shared dream or anything that gets too magical. The way I think of it is that whatever engine generates physical reality, whether it's some form of string theory, a god, something else, something unimaginable, whatever mechanism that is, screwed up somewhere along the way and spit out a bizarre, never-ending funhouse mirror of reality. It went awry and never stopped. And creation without intent or direction doesn't have much choice other than total randomness or mimicry. The backrooms seem to be a combination of both. When someone or something is born or built in reality, the broken engine tries to keep up, but can never get it quite right and often extrapolates, devolving into utter nonsense, spatially and sometimes temporally. Clark thinks of it in some sense as alive. He says it's a place that remembers rather than builds. The act of remembering implies a thinking being of some kind, but those are just his inferences, and it's possible Clark is anthropomorphizing a fundamental force he does not or cannot understand. But, he is seemingly correct in how the Backrooms behave, a force misremembering reality or a force attempting to mirror reality without really understanding it. And that's all we have for now. Kane Parsons has made it pretty clear he feels there's more Backrooms story to be told. If and when he continues the series, either through more YouTube videos or another movie, I'll be back to update this timeline. Until then, thank you for watching and see you on the next one take.