 My name is Tyler, and look, I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but my grandpa wasn't the best guy. And that's not just me. My dad will tell you so himself, along with a lot of other people in my family. My grandpa wasn't ever really around for my dad's childhood. My dad said it was because of his job. My grandpa only told my dad that he worked for the government, and this job required a lot of travel, but my grandpa wasn't really allowed to say much beyond that. So yeah, Gramps was never really around for my dad. As a kid, dad thought grandpa was like James Bond, saving the world from Soviets with doomsday machines. As he grew older, my dad started to resent the old man more and more, thinking he was probably some bureaucrat with access to too many documents. By the time I came along, dad and grandpa weren't on speaking terms anymore. Still, dad made me and mom pile into the car and go to the funeral when grandpa bought the farm. We drove from our house in Richmond up to Albany. Grandpa had left his big two-story house to my dad and his will. This was in the middle of summer, so the plan was to stay in the house for a week after the funeral and sell off grandpa's stuff before setting the house itself up for sale. Once the house was up for sale, we'd drive back home. The funeral wasn't a huge deal. We had an open casket, and most of the extended family showed up. There wasn't a ton of emotion at the viewing, though. No breakdowns, no tearful eulogies. Just an acknowledgement that the man had passed on, followed by putting him into the ground. I did see dad hesitate for a moment at the casket, though. He seemed to have this air of regret, a look in his eyes that said he wished things could have been better. After the funeral, me, dad, and mom went to grandpa's house. We set up some air mattresses in the bedrooms because it didn't feel right to just lay in the beds when the guy who owned them just died. After that, we got to exploring. Tyler, my dad said, why don't you go take a look in the attic? I didn't want to go digging around in an old man's attic, but I wasn't about to tell my dad no at a time like this. So I grabbed a flashlight and found the attic door. I pulled the string on the door and it opened. The stairs dropped on their own. I looked up into the black abyss of the attic. I turned on my flashlight and crept up the stairs. The attic was surprisingly sparse, dusty, but sparse. There were a couple paper boxes lying around in one large cardboard box. I dug through the paper boxes first. Most of the papers in the boxes seemed like internal memos for some kind of organization. Request for supplies in different departments, reminders about upcoming events, that kind of thing. But this was where I noticed the first strange thing. There was no identifying markings on any of the memos. No one referenced the organization they were working for. There was no header, no nothing to indicate how all these employees were connected. Then I opened the cardboard box. The box was fairly large. Inside was a small, boxy TV. Looked like it could have come from the late 70s, early 80s. There was also a VCR. Nothing special about it. Just a typical Panasonic VCR. Then there were the tapes. There were just three of them. They had nothing on their spines. The only identifying marks were simply white labels that had been applied to each of them. The tapes were labeled folklore, amnesia, and other spaces, respectively. I've always been a curious person. Always wanted to be able to venture out into the world a little farther than my parents wanted me to. So there was no way I was going to be able to turn down the opportunity to watch some mysterious tapes found in a government spook's attic. And a part of me thought that maybe, just maybe, this could mean closure. My dad always resented how my grandpa could never tell him anything because of his job. That was what ended up creating the distance between them. Maybe these tapes could explain things. Maybe I could show them to my dad, and he could finally understand what grandpa did all those years. At least after I watched them first. I looked around the attic and found some power outlets. I plugged in the TV and VCR, then connected them together. After making sure that everything was working properly, I went downstairs. I told my dad I didn't find anything in the attic. Then I waited for night to fall, so I could go back up to the attic and get to the bottom of this thing. After making sure that dad and mom were fast asleep, I snuck out of the guest bedroom I was sleeping in. I went back to the attic door and slowly opened it. I crept up the stairs and went back into the attic. The VCR and TV were exactly where I'd left them, along with the three tapes. I turned on the TV and the static lit up the room. I closed the attic door behind me. I put the three tapes in front of me. I watched to watch first. Other spaces sounded the most intriguing, but then again, I wouldn't want to watch best tape first. You have to end a marathon with a bang. I decided on watching amnesia first. Sounded kind of basic. But like I said, I didn't want to start off with the best tape. So I popped the thing into the VCR and sat back. The first thing that showed up was a black screen. Then an insignia appeared. It was a triangle with a circle balanced on its tip, and then a circle went around the triangle and circle. Then text faded in under the insignia. The text said DES colon, amnesia training video. The video faded to a man sitting at a steel table in front of a plain white wall. The man had brown hair, a lanky build, and he was wearing some black rimmed glasses. His face was expressionless, staring directly into the camera. Hello agents. The man said in a professional sounding voice. My name is Agent Lawson. If you're watching this tape, you've been cleared to work for the Department of Experimental Sciences. This is a great honor. And I hope that these training videos will help you serve your country to the best of your abilities. Now with formalities out of the way, let us discuss amnesia. While carrying out your duties, you may be called to initiate a cover up of DES activities. You have been provided with several tools for this purpose. Agent Lawson reached underneath a table and pulled out a pill bottle and a glass of water. These are grade C memory pills. When ingested, they will wipe out a person's memories of the last 24 hours. If you cannot get someone to ingest the pill, they also dissolve in liquid. Lawson dropped the pill into the glass of water. The pill dissolved in seconds and the water looked no different. In select cases, you may have to use grade B and a memory serums. Lawson reached underneath the table again and pulled out two syringes. One was filled with a blue liquid and the other was filled with a red liquid. Grade B memory serum will wipe out a person's memory of the last week. Lawson held up the syringe filled with blue liquid and then set it down on the table. And grade A Lawson said holding up the syringe filled with red liquid is referred to as clean slate by some of the senior members of our department. This is because grade A serum will wipe out all of a person's memories. They will remember nothing, not even their own name. However, you will rarely have to administer this serum over the course of your career here. Lawson set down the syringe and looked directly into the camera. Memories are a precious thing. However, in our line of work, we must cross certain lines to ensure the safety of our country. If you still feel queasy about messing with someone's brain chemistry, counseling is available in HR. Godspeed, agents. The video then faded out to black. The tape was apparently over as the VCR spattered out after the video faded to black. Whoa, I whispered to myself, maybe dad wasn't far off with the James Bond guess. I mean, what other job would require this kind of training except for a secret agent? But if grandpa was some kind of secret agent, what could folklore and other spaces be about? I decided to pop in folklore next, still wanting to save other spaces for the finale. Folklore started like amnesia, with the insignia on the black screen. Then the video faded to agent Lawson sitting at the table in front of the wall. Hello again, agents. Lawson said, if you're watching this, then you've advanced significantly in your training. Now you'll be sent into the field to conduct preliminary investigations for cases. The next few videos will tackle proper conduct for an investigation, but in this video, I'd like to provide you with a sense of perspective. At the DES, we value the scientific process. We are called the Department of Experimental Sciences, after all. But sometimes we must confront things that are not so scientific. Here's an example. The video then cut away from agent Lawson, and I nearly screamed. The video was now from the perspective of a security guard in some kind of medical room, strapped to the operating table, was some kind of beast. It was like a wolf. It was covered in a thick coat of black fur. It was thrashing against its restraints, snarling and roaring and snapping at the air. This is a man named Herman Sanderson. He was recently transformed into a lycanthrope, Lawson said in a voiceover. The more colloquial term for Mr. Sanderson's condition is werewolfism. Now, we've tried a host of other remedies for men like Mr. Sanderson, none of them had worked, not before we used an old classic. The sound of a gunshot was heard from off-screen. A fountain of blood spurred it out of one of the werewolf's legs. The werewolf began to thrash even more, but then something strange happened. The hair began to recede from the werewolf's skin. The creature shrunk a little, and it lost its fierce teeth and sharp claws. Soon, what laid on the operating table was not a monster, but a normal human man. The video then faded back to agent Lawson at his table. What you just saw was Mr. Sanderson being shot in the leg with a silver bullet. This is one of the most effective cures for lycanthropism the department has been able to develop. Now, despite what you've likely seen in your time in the department, you may be questioning how this classic piece of folklore is able to be used as an effective remedy. Allow me to explain it this way. People have had to do our job for a long time. Over the course of history, some pieces of knowledge became so crucial to a population that they became common knowledge. Something passed down through the generations. This includes tidbits like how werewolves despise silver, how vampires avoid garlic, and the sun and so on. When we investigate, it's important to keep this sense of perspective in mind. Ask around the area of an incident. Learn the local superstitions and legends because those silly superstitions just might end up saving your life. The video faded to black and the VCR spat the tape back out. I sat in front of the TV in silence for a long time. This went beyond secret agents. My grandpa, did he have to watch these tapes? Did he have to sit there and have his whole world be shattered by what he saw? Maybe that's why he kept his distance, even from his own family, to keep them away from this. Only one tape left. I held the other space's tape in my hands. It felt heavier than it had before. Was it going to be worse? What could possibly be on this tape after those first two? Screw it. I'd come this far. I gotta see how this ends. I popped in other spaces. The video began with the insignia before fading to Agent Lawson once again. Hello, agents. If you're watching this, then you have been selected for one of the most dangerous kinds of missions you can undertake at the Department for Experimental Sciences. You have been selected to travel into another space. To give you an idea of what another space is, I need you to imagine many bubbles floating in the air. When two bubbles gently touch, there's a chance they will merge and form a sort of dual bubble sharing a common surface. In this analogy, each bubble is a universe. Our universe is just one of many, and when another universe begins to merge with our own, an other space is formed. Other spaces are temporary pocket dimensions formed during the times our universe is merged with another. They can facilitate travel from our universe to another without the need to expend much energy. Most of these universes are very similar to our current Earth and the universe will naturally move apart, eliminating the other space. However, there are cases where the other universe is more hostile. I'm about to show you footage from an expedition into an other space that occurred only a couple years ago. The video cut to body cam footage, the body cam showed a typical suburban neighborhood. It was night and the man the body cam was attached to was standing in the middle of the road. Robert, you copy? Said a staticky voice. Yeah, I copy replied Roberts. His voice was much clearer. So I assumed that Roberts was the man the body cam was attached to. Have you established visual contact with any life forms? Said the staticky voice. No, not yet replied Roberts. This place seems wait, what's that? Roberts pointed down the street. There was some kind of bump in it. Like the concrete was a blanket that something was hiding under. Roberts was silent for a moment. Then the bump started to move towards him. Command you, uh, you same this? Roberts said in a slightly panicked voice. Copy that Roberts replied command maintain position. Are you crazy command? I gotta move. Roberts replied. He began to take some steps back. But when the bump was maybe 50 feet in front of him, it vanished. The street looked normal again. The body cam began to whip around as Roberts examined his surroundings. Where'd it go? Oh, suddenly the ground began to ripple like water in front of Roberts. He looked down at the concrete and he began to take some steps back. Then with a sound like the crack of thunder, a giant arm shot up out of the ground in front of Roberts. He fell back onto his butt and then looked up. The arm had to have been 50 feet tall. Its hand was outstretched like it was trying to reach for the stars in the sky. Instead of skin, the arm seemed to be made out of some kind of shiny black rock that looked like obsidian. The hand slowly curled its fingers into a fist. Please help, Roberts said. Then the fist came down like a hammer onto the body cam. The last sound from the footage was the screams of Roberts. The video cut back to Agent Lawson. We venture into these spaces to hopefully advance our understanding of our own universe and the unique threats we face on our world but other spaces are incredibly dangerous. You must keep your guard up at all times because other spaces are the one place where you can truly only rely on yourself and your training. Good luck agents. The video faded to black and the VCR spat out the tape. What am I supposed to think after that? Grandpa, did he have to face something like that? Did he have to face something worse? How could he spend years of his life dealing with stuff like this? How could he sleep at night? Did he lose coworkers to stuff like that? Friends? And for what? I couldn't show this to Dad. I could barely handle it myself and I didn't even know Grandpa that well. Imagine if he learned the guy who raised him had to deal with this. I sat in the attic in silence for a long time. After a while, I crept downstairs to the guest bedroom. I got back onto my air mattress. I didn't sleep. After I felt like I'd stayed in the bedroom long enough to convince my parents I had slept, I walked downstairs for breakfast. When I got down there, my dad was talking to a man at the kitchen table. He wore a dark suit. Dad saw me enter the kitchen. Well, look who decided to join us in the land of the living. He said, Who's this? I asked. Oh, just an employee from the agency grandpa worked at. Dad said they swung by to pick up anything that grandpa might have left behind that could be, you know, sensitive. Have you seen anything around here with government seals? That kind of thing, said the man in the dark suit. Um, no, no, I haven't. Sorry. The man in the dark suit looked at me for a moment, seeming to weigh my statement in his mind. Then he grinned. Hey, no need to apologize. It's not like it's your fault. Gramps wasn't keeping the launch codes in his attic. The man in the dark suit chuckled at his own joke. Well, I better be on my way. The dark suited man got up and started to walk through the front door. But before he left, he turned to face my father. Sir, I just wanted you to know that your father served his country. And I'm sorry if that caused you some unpleasantness between you two. In our line of work, we have to keep some secrets for the good of everyone, even if those secrets have to be kept from our loved ones. My dad seemed taken aback by this. And then he just nodded. Thank you for that. He said the man in the dark suit nodded and then walked out the door. We got on with selling grandpa's things. And then we piled into the car at the end of the week and drove home just like we planned. I don't know why I didn't tell the truth to that man. Maybe a part of me was afraid of what would happen to us if he knew about the tapes. Maybe I just didn't want dad to know about the secrets his father kept from him. Or maybe, maybe I decided to not tell him because I wanted people to know the truth. Because someday, someone is going to go into that attic and find them. And maybe they'll know what to do with them. After so many lies, maybe it's time for the truth to come out.