The 'Aliso' Tape

It was the day of July 1st, 1998. My friends and I were on a Boy Scouts' camping trip for the 4th of July to go set off fireworks. It was your usual camping trip, except on the 4th of July. That's when I got the "Aliso" tape in my hands.

We were looking for a location to set the fireworks off at. It actually took us about three hours to look for a spot, because there were a lot of trees at the campsite and not really any empty space for us to place all of our fireworks equipment. We couldn't set off the fireworks in the area we were sleeping at because of the treeline.

It was probably the worst three hours of my life. I was tired and exhausted for walking for so long. This wasn't fun at all; just imagine hiking for three hours nonstop and looking and passing by trees, but there was one thing that immediately made my friends and I jump in excitement. We saw an old abandoned house.

We were around twelve to fourteen at the time, so naturally we loved scary movies. We figured that the abandoned house would be "haunted." We really wanted to go inside of it. We had the best camp chaperone and he was very interested in going inside of it too.

So we went in. The house had probably been abandoned ten or twenty years ago, and looked like a building after an earthquake. We walked inside the house, but it was not empty as expected, not empty at all. It looked as if people had evacuated it and left all their old belongings behind. There were toys on the ground and food in the pantry and a no longer functional refrigerator. That sounds kind of disgusting, but as a twelve-year-old boy I thought it was awesome!

But, I too think this was pretty scary. In our group, I was always the last one to walk inside the rooms of the house, but I did not do that when we were entering the attic of the house. The attic was probably the scariest looking part too. The attic caught my attention by the holes and rips in the door leading into it. It was pretty obvious that termites had eaten up the place over the years. I entered the attic first, terrified. There were only holes in the walls, no distinguishing features.

The attic room was completely empty. There was absolutely nothing in it, or at least I first thought. I got my flashlight from my backpack and turned it on. Dead in the center of the room on the floor there was a little video tape. I picked it up, it was a little dirty, but not damaged and would be easy to clean. It had a sticker on it that was written "Aliso". I had no idea what that meant. I picked up the tape and placed it in my pocket. I showed my friends, but not the chaperone because I feared he would tell me to place it back and I wouldn't get to take it.

After the camping trip I took the tape and cleaned it with a can of compressed air. After I cleaned it, I grabbed my camera and took a picture of me holding it, just for the sake of it. Finding something in the middle of nowhere in an abandoned house would obviously entice you to take your camera out.

I then placed the tape into my VCR. It looked as if it had been made in the 1990s. It took a minute to load. Then it started. The footage began as what looked like a school play or assembly or something. The only thing unusual about it was the video and audio quality was horrible. Even for VHS. The video quality looked like it had been tampered with and the audio was virtually inaudible. I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. There was obviously something wrong with the camera, the clip would violently twitch to other scenes of the play.

That didn't really bother me, not until the footage turned to static. The footage next went to another clip with worse quality than the other clip, but this part wasn't related to the previous one; I couldn't really tell where it was. All I could hear was what sounded like laughing in the background of the video, an evil laughing.

The clip again went to static for about three seconds and then moved to the next clip, which showed the camera sauntering towards a music box with what looked like a dancing clown on it. This is when I knew things were getting creepy. During the clip, two sick and horrifying images interrupted the camera for a split second.

It then showed a whole marathon of disturbing pictures that went on for about two seconds. It also showed a one second long video that still scares me until this day. It showed a video of a woman, who looked like she had polio, dancing with an umbrella. This went on and on and on throughout the video.

I couldn't speak, and got up to stop the video before I'd see anything else. As I was about to turn off the player of course, I lost the remote. I was way too scared to go up the TV and turn it because I feared that the woman would pop up on the camera again. And she did. It was wearing a clown hat like the one the clown was wearing on the music box. She started walking towards the camera, looking at me. That's when the video ended.

Then, I took the tape out as fast as I could and shoved it into a safe that I never use. I placed this safe in my garage in the back with all of my family's random junk.

Nine years and several therapy session later (possibly unrelated, but who knows), I found my brother messing with the tape, I asked him how he found it and how he got in my safe. He told me that I left a sticker that had the password on my safe, so he managed to open it and get the tape. He was messing around with it and said he was making a video called "Obey The Walrus" that he was going to upload to YouTube. My brother made really wacky videos then. He then placed the tape back in my safe.

Six years later, my wife, my son, and myself went to my parent's house for Easter. My dad asked me to get his screwdriver in the back of the garage. Immediately I saw it there, sitting right on top of my old safe. I decided I'd take the safe home and take the tape out. And that is how I was reminded of this whole strange experience. What you see, can't be unseen.

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Just for you guys, I uploaded the video to YouTube for your entertainment.
Here's just some 90's footage of me with the tape.
For even more information.