[WorldUrbanLegend] Ong's Hat
Ong's Hat is one of the early internet-based secret history conspiracy theories. The story was created in the 1980s by four key figures as collaborative fiction, and over time, the members spreading the tale changed. Ong's Hat is often cited as the first Alternate Reality Game (ARG) in many lists.
The main setting of the story is the ghost town of Ong's Hat in New Jersey.
This narrative can be traced back to bulletin board systems, mail art networks, early magazines, and faxes from the 1980s. The project aimed to create a fictional storyline and embed it in various media cultures to establish a background story. It began as an internal joke, or as the first ARG, or as an experiment in how far a transmedia storytelling project or meme could spread. The story subsequently proliferated through print, radio, television, and digital media (CD-ROM, DVD, the internet, BBS).
The initial rules acknowledged that this experiment could lead down dark paths, specifically excluding the use of Ong's Hat for cult-like activities. Although fictional, this narrative can be based on earlier works.
Joseph Matheny ultimately concluded this project. The magazine GamesTM wrote, "Ong's Hat is closer to a transmedia storytelling experiment than the ARGs we consider today, but the concept of conveying a story across various platforms and new media is clearly evident in all subsequent alternate reality games."
In 2002, LEGO created an ARG incorporating elements of the Ong's Hat story for the Canadian children's TV series Galidor's toy line.
The narrative of Ong's Hat unfolds as a conspiracy theory surrounding a group of Princeton professors conducting experiments in quantum physics and chaos theory. They aimed to discover a new theory of dimensional travel using a device called "the Egg." The story is introduced through two documents: "Incunabula: A Catalog of Rare Books, Manuscripts & Curiosa, Conspiracy Theory, Frontier Science & Alternative Worlds" and "Ong's Hat: Gateway to the Dimensions."
The tale begins in 1978 when a man named Wali Ford purchased over 200 acres of forest and established an ashram. This ashram served as a space for those exploring spirituality, politics, tantra, and psychopharmacology. It was a place where Princeton physicists and other credentialed scientists conducted experiments related to dimensional travel. Rumors circulated that they were training the human mind to manipulate quantum physics and reality itself.
The device called "the Egg" was developed by these scientists in the late 1980s. This device, a modified sensory deprivation chamber, was used to determine the point at which waves become particles. However, during one experiment, something unexpected happened, and the Egg vanished. A young person inside the Egg later described that during the 7 minutes the Egg was missing, he traveled to an alternate dimension. This other planet was exactly like Earth, but no human life existed there.
As time passed, they continued their experiments. However, as military pressure threatened their research, they had to relocate their study. They gradually moved the ashram to another Earth, leaving only a house with a portal between the two worlds. The people living in the ashram would only return when necessary to replenish supplies.
