Joseph Matheny: Recent Episodes
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(This conversation originally took place in 2021.) Joseph Matheny, legendary transmedia storyteller and creator of Ong’s Hat, has got some insight to share about the appeal of conspiracy theory and the … Continue reading Cracking the Code with Joseph Matheny
In Cronenberg’s cinematic interpretation of Burroughs’s “Naked Lunch,” Peter Weller’s Bill Lee character is confronted by Hank with pages of reports he cannot remember writing. Bill Lee drawls laconically, “I … Continue reading VYSXXXX | The Real Vayse: Halloween 2024
Perhaps one of the most famous stories of portals being opened is that of a place called Ong’s Hat. The setting for this particular tale is the ghost town of … Continue reading Strange Tales of People Who Built Portals to Other Dimensions
***Begin transmission Joseph Matheny, David Metcalfe, and Ken Eakins send you transmissions from the Mauve Zone. David’s ‘Scars of Dracula’ T, Amicus v Hammer, Robert Bloch and HP Lovecraft, Cosmic … Continue reading The Mauve Zone #009 – The Media v Miracles, the Horror of Nature, and Cosmic Transmissions.
Listen: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/stylesrebelradio/episodes/Episode-232-Ongs-Hat-TheFake-Town-e2pm74i/a-abj2nus What is going on in Ong’s Hat New Jersey? Does this abandoned town hold the secrets to interdimensional travel or the secrets to Quantum reality? Was it all … Continue reading The Rebel Podcast: Episode 232: Ong’s Hat (The”Fake” Town)
Had a blast meeting Steve and kibitzing about all our mutual passions. I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoyed recording it. Steve’s intro: This week … Continue reading Joseph Matheny: Bending Reality With Art
In this episode of The Computer Room, Katherine and friends talk about Art Bell’s legacy. We meet Leah Prime, who’s writing a book about Art Bell, John Steiger who on … Continue reading First Time Caller: An Art Bell Tribute
Join Shane Skwarek and Tim Philipps in this mind-bending episode of “Conspiracy Realist” as we dive deep into the enigmatic world of Ong’s Hat with special guest Joseph Matheny. Discover … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: The Portal to Parallel Realities? ⚫ Cocktails & Conspiracies Episode 120
***Begin transmission Joseph Matheny, David Metcalfe, and Ken Eakins send you transmissions from the Mauve Zone. New disinformation from the top and the London Riots, Will the real Collins Elite … Continue reading The Mauve Zone #008 – The Collins Elite, X Disinformation, and the London Riots
Friday, 7/19/24, join author, programmer, & psychonaut Joseph Matheny for a talk on trickster deities, literary hoaxes, & the enduring legend of Ong’s Hat. 7pm AUDIO of appearance Archive.org copy
LINK: https://redcircle.com/shows/21086086-888b-4144-a785-67c56963a3a8/ep/277bd9a5-7e5b-4f6d-bdb8-aa2a86c114d4 In this episode, Joseph and I discuss the early internet days, liminal fiction, Ong’s Hat, and much more!
LINK: https://shows.acast.com/new-jersey-is-the-world/episodes/a-return-to-ongs-hat WARNING: Some listeners may be disturbed by the fact that at no point in this episode do Mike D and Andrea mention diarrhea. This is a diarrhea-free episode. … Continue reading New Jersey Is The World: A Return to Ong’s Hat
This Is Not a Game is the extraordinary untold story of the internet’s first conspiracy theory, the legend of Ong’s Hat. LINK: https://www.audible.com/pd/This-Is-Not-a-Game-with-Marc-Fennell-Audiobook/B0CYM73MWM This Is Not a Game is the … Continue reading This Is Not a Game with Marc Fennell
The insurrection of which you are the hero We will see later how this central idea of radical mutual aid is embodied. In the meantime, what form does Hypergaming actually … Continue reading RADICAL: THE HYPERGAME OF ANARCHIST FAIRIES
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Blog, Internet resources, online reading groups, articles and interviews, Illuminatus! info. Original post: http://www.rawillumination.net/2024/03/five-questions-for-joseph-matheny.html If you haven’t listened to it yet, the new Hilaritas podcast interview … Continue reading Five questions for Joseph Matheny
An interview about the new book, my introduction, and the book itself The Interview I recently sat down with Mike Gathers for the Hilaritas Press Podcast to discuss the newest … Continue reading Hilaritas Podcast and the Reissue of “Reality is What You Can Get Away With”
— MAUVE ZONE SIGNAL ESCAPED– ***Begin transmission Joseph Matheny, David B Metcalfe, and Ken Eakins send you transmissions from the Mauve Zone. Are the Royal family from Dimension B? How … Continue reading The Mauve Zone – Transmission #005 Satanic Panic 2.0, Spiritualism, and Kenneth Grant
Show link: https://shows.acast.com/perplexitymysterypodcast/episodes/episode-67-ongs-hat-new-jersey-and-the-internet-conspiracy-t Have you ever driven through a ghost town and wondered about the history behind it? What ruin or tragedy may have led to the town becoming nothing … Continue reading Perplexity: A Mystery PodcastEpisode 67: Ong’s Hat, New Jersey and the Internet Conspiracy Theory
Paul Giamatti and friends discuss weird New Jersey stories and give some props to Ong’s Hat. Recorded live from the (possibly haunted) Marines’ Memorial Theatre in San Francisco at @SFSketchfest … Continue reading Tales of Weird NJ: Bovine, Bigfoot & Frogs
A great conversation I had with the guys from The Long Seventies Podcast Show page: https://www.thelongseventiespodcast.com/home/2024/2/15/133-joseph-matheny-interview-ongs-hat-amp-the-alchemy-of-alternative-realities
Show link: https://www.vayse.co.uk/vys0036 Some rare art transcends reality, some even rarer art seems to create a new reality altogether – the work of Joseph Matheny does both of these things … Continue reading VYS0036 | Infinite Game – Vayse to Face with Joseph Matheny
Portal a lo desconocido description Link to show: https://www.ivoox.com/portal-a-lo-desconocido-audios-mp3_rf_124087690_1.html Descubre cómo un simple libro polvoriento en la biblioteca de una universidad desencadenó una investigación que llevó a un viaje interdimensional … Continue reading Portal a lo desconocido
A mystery inside a mystery. FROM CHASING SHADOWS FEB 2, 2024 Quietly nestled near the middle of New Jersey, Ong’s Hat(or sometimes just “Ong”) is about 45 minutes from the … Continue reading Exploring Ong’s Hat
***Begin transmission Joseph Matheny, David B Metcalfe, and Ken Eakins send you transmissions from the Mauve Zone. UFOs are angels? Beasttech, Kenneth Grant is the new Crowley? Magick needs to … Continue reading The Mauve Zone – Transmission #004 BEASTTECH, TIKTOK ASTRAL BATTLES, and PUNK ROCK MAGICK
Sat down and had a discussion with Greg, one of the curators of one of my favorite OG websites, The Daily Grail. LINK: https://www.dailygrail.com/2023/12/ongs-hat-creator-joseph-matheny-on-the-blurred-lines-between-fiction-and-reality/ Ong’s Hat. For those who were … Continue reading Ong’s Hat creator Joseph Matheny on the blurred lines between fiction and reality
AUDIO LINK ***Begin transmission Joseph Matheny, David B Metcalfe, and Ken Eakins send you transmissions from the Mauve Zone. Aleister Crowley the misunderstood, Lockdown conspiracies, The 2012 grift, failed raptures, … Continue reading The Mauve Zone – Transmission #003 Aleister Crowley, UAP Culture, and Traditionalism
RECENTLY, INTERNET CREATIVES ARE TRANSFORMING THEIR VULNERABILITIES INTO STRENGTH, BREAKING DOWN ALL BARRIERS OF HUMAN RESPECT. IS THE FEAR OF RIDICULE EXPERIENCING ITS FINAL HOURS? SOURCE: https://www.archyde.com/can-hyper-sincerity-save-us/ Photo caption: BEWARE … Continue reading CAN HYPER-SINCERITY SAVE US?
Ever wondered about the wild, wacky and wonderful world of quantum physics, alternate dimensions, and internet hoaxes? Well, buckle up for a roller-coaster journey as we uncover one of New … Continue reading These Scientists Ripped A Hole In Reality From A Cabin In The Woods
SOURCE: https://www.archyde.com/art-in-the-age-of-reels/ THERE WILL BE A BEFORE AND AFTER AGGRO DR1FT, THE NEW DIGI-PSYCHEDELIC FILM BY HARMONY KORINE. INSPIRED BY GTA 5, CREATED WITH AN ARMY OF DESIGNERS, AI ARTISTS, … Continue reading ART IN THE AGE OF REELS
THIS IS A PREVIEW. FOR THE FULL EPISODE, GO TO Patreon.com/worstofall Anne Huston (Caveat NYC) joins Brian and Josh to do battle with the Slender Man and other monsters from … Continue reading The Worst of All Possible Worlds: 111 – Slender Man and Marble Hornets
“Perhaps the oldest internet myth of all: the mystery of Ong’s Hat” I had a wonderful conversation with Michael Förtsch, the author of this piece for the German Scifi mag … Continue reading Der vielleicht älteste Internet-Mythos überhaupt: Das Mysterium von Ong’s Hat
I recently sat down via Zoom with Jean-Baptiste Chiara of the French Art magazine, Technikart . Here is a link to the issue that has our conversation within. Description of … Continue reading Technikart 273 Digital Version
Dive into the rabbit hole of unexplained mysteries and conspiracy theories! From Ong’s Hat to Mount Rushmore secrets, Titanic’s sinking to the Black Knight satellite – explore the unknown! LINK: … Continue reading The Wildest Conspiracy Theories of All Time (Epic Blaze)
Fray and Kouji return to discuss the first internet ARG known as Ong’s Hat, and its connection with the Legend Tripping Phenomenon, along with the infamous Black Mailbox and other … Continue reading Layer 01 Podcast | Episode 06: Ong’s Hat – Liminal Spaces and Legend Tripping
Eakins sends you transmissions from the Mauve Zone. This week’s data leak includes UAP in Congress, The new Satanic Panic, Skywatch and the Colin’s elite, dominionism, Kenneth Grant, Hellier, Allen … Continue reading The Mauve Zone – Transmission #001 ‘UAPs, Cosmic Trolls and Municipal Magick’
Source: https://youtu.be/9IZk53UZapM Joseph Matheny dit connaître la vérité sur ce qu’il se passe à Ong’s Hat. Mais il n’est pas celui qu’il prétend être… Chapitrage : 00:00 – 01:42 Les … Continue reading Où sont passés ces gens disparus à Ong’s Hat ? – Le mystère d’internet qui est allé trop loin
Has the oppressive August heat had you pining for the woods? Well, If you take the New Jersey Turnpike to exit four and follow Route 70 east, you will reach … Continue reading 11th Hour Audio – Creature Feature of the Month – Jacob’s Revenge
This is weird. I think the authors of this piece are conflating this interview I did with David Jay Brown and Rebecca Novack with the Ong’s Hat mythos. Oh well. … Continue reading The Creepy Curse of Ong’s Hat Calls: A Haunting Mystery
The strange magick of books and binary files So, there I was a few weeks ago, adding a digital/print bundle to my SendOwl store page. Admittedly, I was setting up … Continue reading Synchronicity and Scarcity
Original Post and Audio: https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2023/06/29.23-MU-Podcast-South-Pole-Secrets MU Podcast 29.23 features the Flaming Plasma Fields, Weaponising the Paranormal, and Legend Tripping with Ong’s Hat Former military contractors, soldiers, pilots, and more have … Continue reading 29.23 – MU Podcast – South Pole Secrets
Original article: https://ifunny.co/picture/burrow-into-another-dimension-near-where-new-jersey-route-72-pP7eomFaA
El sombrero de Ong es una de las primeras teorías de conspiración que se conocen tras la creación de internet. Se ha catalogado como un cuento o una broma pero … Continue reading El Sombrero de Ong La Aterradora Leyenda Urbana que Debes Conocer
Link to show: https://www.thatwouldberadpodcast.com/s3-e15-ongs-hat-a-gateway-to-new-dimensions/ Welcome back to That Would Be Rad! This week we dive into the strange and intriguing story of Ong’s Hat, a small town in New Jersey … Continue reading That Would Be Rad: S3 E15: Ong’s Hat – A Gateway to New Dimensions
PEMBERTON ongshat #conspiracy #conspiracytheory coolplaces funfacts haunted #hauntedhistory #weirdnj #dirtyjersey #southjersey #pinebarrens #locallore #lore #backroads #history #historylovers #historypodcast #americana #cranberry #cranberrybogs #ghosttown #urbanexplorer #urbex #fyp #pembertonnj #pinebarrens #piney #thepinebarrens #pineyproud … Continue reading Interdimensional travel, cults, & murder. The mysteries of ONG’S HAT, NJ
There have been many accounts of people finding portals to another world all over the world. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not so much. Today, we’ll look at the story of … Continue reading They Invented Something Dangerous In This Cabin…
Ghost towns in NJ are a reminder of the state’s rich history and offer a glimpse into the past. County and Current Town: Burlington County, Pemberton Township ARTICLE LINK: https://jerseydigs.com/ghost-towns-in-nj/ … Continue reading Ghost Towns in NJ That Deserve a Day Trip
A coming-of-age take on legend tripping at Ong’s Hat and some other mystery stories for your enjoyment. LINK: https://shows.acast.com/creepy-1/episodes/creepaway-camp-2023-day-6-jacobs-revenge-the-forest-of-three Jacob’s Revenge Written and narrated by Owen McCuen The Forest of … Continue reading Creepaway Camp 2023 – Day 6: Jacob’s Revenge & The Forest of Three
Ever start telling a story as a joke and it gets out of hand? People believe it no matter how much you swear you made it up and try to … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: Eggheads, Gov’t Shills, & The Internet’s First Hoax | 323
The last of the raw interviews From the Substack Today’s raw recordings are the final two for the Behind the Scenes series. This is a single file containing Denny Unger, … Continue reading Behind the Scenes of the Incident at Ong’s Hat Episode 4
Warning, large download From the Substack Here is a 5.5-hour collection of recordings I did in preparation for the BBC podcast series The Incident at Ong’s Hat. I‘ll let you … Continue reading The Incident at Ong’s Hat: Behind the Scenes- Episode 3
LINK TO ORIGINAL POST In the 1980s, a writer and transmedia artist called Joseph Wayne Matheny, who was born on Christmas Eve in the early sixties, wrote The Incunabula Papers, … Continue reading The Ghost Of Ong’s Hat by Nigel Roth
Someone sent this to me recently. It’s an interview Don Webb did with me in 1994 for the legendary Fringeware Review. I had almost forgotten about this. After reading this … Continue reading Fringeware Review Interview with Joseph Matheny
Is BTS an ARG? (and other not so pressing questions) From the Substack Today is the day that the broadcast of the series, The Incident at Ong’s Hat, on BBC … Continue reading Launch Day For “The Incident at Ongs Hat” and Episode Two of “Behind the Scenes”
Behind the Scenes Episode 1– David Metcalfe
From the Substack A new series will premier on BBC 4 Radio Limelight on air and then as a podcast after every Friday broadcast for the next five weeks. The series starts on Fri, 27 Jan 2023. It is a five-part series titled The Incident at Ong’s Hat.
LINK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hg08
The series is inspired by Ong’s Hat: The Beginning along with elements from my personal life.
A new episode will premier every Friday. (Episode list can be found here.)
The credit list can also be accessed by clicking “show more” below the description. I make an appearance playing “myself,” or at least a fictionalized version of myself, as it were.
In anticipation of the premier, I am sharing some raw audio interviews conducted as background material by the producers. I will run one behind-the-scenes piece every Friday before the broadcast and podcast release of each episode. I am calling this series Behind the Scenes.
Here is an RSS feed for your convenience, or you may wait for this Substack to remind you each Friday for the duration of the series.
https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/232444.rss
Linked above is the first interview with my friend David Metcalfe. It is raw and unedited.If you don’t know about David, you should. I consider him one of the preeminent researchers into the nuanced world of liminal places and states.
From his vision document: David Metcalfe is currently a Scholar in Virtual Residence with the Windbridge Institute and the Editor-in-Chief for the Windbridge Research Center’s Threshold: Journal of Interdisciplinary Consciousness studies – a researcher, writer, and multimedia specialist focusing on the interrelationship of art, culture, and consciousness, in 2011 he established the Liminal Analytics: Applied Research Collaborative to focus on testing and deploying a unique combination of applied scholarship, market intelligence, digital media, and social network development in order to build strategic, multidisciplinary lines of communication.
Enjoy.
Disclaimer: The Incident at Ong’s Hat was not written by me. It is a true crime podcast story using elements of the Ong’s Hat narrative, along with elements taken from my personal life, with my permission and participation. This is part of the reason I am sharing the interviews behind this story. I think seeing both sides, the facts and the fiction, will shine a light on the process.
- The Incunabula PapersLimelightThe Incident at Ong’s Hat
Episode 1 of 5
CREDITSSarah Larsen, a yoga instructor, and her friend Charlie Brill went in search of Ong’s Hat, a fabled gateway to another dimension. Now Sarah is missing, and maybe this urban legend isn’t a legend at all…
Cast:
Charlie – Corey Brill
Sarah – Avital Ash
Rodney Ascher – Himself
Det. Stecco – James Bacon
Casey – Hayley Taylor
Ringo – Benjamin Williams
Kit – Randall Keller
Denny Unger – Himself
Joseph Matheny – Himself
Newscasters: Elizabeth Saydah, Dean Wendt
Created and Produced by Jon Frechette and Todd Luoto
Inspired by Ong’s Hat: The Beginning by Joseph Matheny
Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Jon Frechette, Chris Zabriskie, Anthéne, Macrogramma (under Creative Commons)
Editing and Sound Design – Jon Frechette
Additional Editing – Brandon Kotfila and Greg Myers
Special Thanks – Ben Fineman
Written and Directed by Jon Frechette
Executive Producer – John Scott Dryden
“Ong’s Hat Survivors Interview” courtesy of Joseph Matheny
Visit thegardenofforkedpaths.com and josephmatheny.com
A Goldhawk production for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
As is my custom, after a year of commercially making Xen: The Zen of the Other audio drama commercially available, I am releasing the entire bundle for free on Archive.org and Youtube. It is released with a Creative Commons license, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International. You may download and listen to it, share it, or post it, as long as it is not for commercial purposes, with no changes and full attribution to the source.
Archive.org: https://archive.org/details/ezra-buckley-xen-the-zen-of-the-other-audio
Youtube:
A personal downloadable version
Reviews and more info
Ong’s Hat: The Beginning (Authorized Version)Ong’s Hat: The Beginning (Authorized Version)Reissued, authorized, and final version, 2021.
Available as Kindle, Print, and Audiobook
Free versions on Archive.org and Lib-Gen
ONG’S HAT FAQREVIEWS
“…a bizarre Internet phenomenon: an “immersive” online experience—part mystery, part game, part who knows what—known as both the Incunabula Papers and Ong’s Hat. The Incunabula Papers/Ong’s Hat was, or is, a “many-threaded, open-ended interactive narrative” that ”weds an alternate history of chaos science and consciousness studies to conspiracy theories, parallel dimensions, and claims that computer-mediated environments can serve as magical tools…. the documents provoked a widespread “immersive legend-trip” in the late 1990s. Via Web forums, participants investigated the documents—manifestos—which spun up descriptions of brilliant but suppressed discoveries relating to paths that certain scientists had forged into alternate realities. Soon, those haunted dimensions existed in the minds and fantasies of Ong’s Hat’s many participants. That was evident as they responded to the original postings by uploading their own—all manner of reflections and artifacts: personal anecdotes, audio recordings, and videos—to augment what became “a really immersive world, and it was vast”.
– The Chronicle of Higher Education—-
“Ong’s Hat was more of an experiment in transmedia storytelling than what we would now consider to be an ARG but its DNA – the concept of telling a story across various platforms and new media- is evident in every alternate reality game that came after.” – Games Magazine 2013
Though Ong’s Hat may not have set out to be an ARG, the methods by which the author interacted with participants and used different platforms to build and spread its legend has been reflected in later games. –Know Your Meme
The Incunabula Papers are arguably the first immersive online legend complex that introduced readers to a host of content, including what religious historian Robert Ellwood has called the “alternative reality tradition. – Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat
As a companion piece to understanding some of the history of the transmedia work that centered around Ong’s Hat you may also want to read Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat, reviewed here.
The Incunabula Papers CDROM was recently included in the BNF (Bibliothèque Nationale de France) digital art collection.
Various reviews here.
Dedicated to the memory of my dearly departed friends: The members of The Formless Ocean Group (*) – Nina Graboi, Elizabeth Gips, Paddy Long, Betsy Herbert, and Robert Anton Wilson.
Also to my “non-fog” departed friends: Mickey Hollenberg, Dave, DW Cooper, Dr. Hyatt (Alan), humdog and Diane DiPrima.
Tonight we just have some things to discuss about upcoming investigations, and look back on what we are truly grateful for. Especially ‘You’ our viewers. Added to this is some … Continue reading ONG’S HAT SQUATCH TALKS PODCAST S3 / EP43
Alternate Reality Games have existed for far longer than most people realize, I just wanted to talk about some of the first ones. (the outro has all the music used … Continue reading The Birth of Alternate Reality Games
Lots of people wholeheartedly believed Titor while other people obsessed over errors and inconsistencies, becoming online detectives trying to uncover his truth.A multimedia artist said that the John Tritor story … Continue reading SPLINTERED STATES I ‘traveled back in time from 2036’ – the US capital will change after America breaks into 5 during a second civil war
Slide 8 Located in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Ong’s Hat was listed as a town on early maps of the area. It may have been the site of a … Continue reading Lifehacker-11 Famous Places That Don’t Really Exist: Ong’s Hat
Ong’s Hat and Weaponized ARG’s: A Conversation w Joseph Matheny, Ong’s Hat Creator & Transmedia Artist | RSS.com The Prop Anon Podcast explores the life and work of American novelist, … Continue reading S01 E01 – Ong’s Hat and Weaponized ARG’s: A Conversation w Joseph Matheny, Ong’s Hat Creator & Transmedia Artist
I had a wonderful conversation with Gabriela L. Laracca of Asbury Park Press which was a rather atypical interview about Ong’s Hat because it focused on one of my passions, … Continue reading Take these eerie, haunted hikes in the Pine Barrens, Jersey Shore
In this week’s Episode of The Subliminal Deception Podcast, Cody and Phil discuss what has been called the Internets first Viral Creepy Pasta, the legend of Interdimensional Travelers previously based … Continue reading Subliminal Deception: A Conspiracy Theory Podcast- Ep 173: Ong’s Hat and the Birth of Creepy Pasta’s
Go to download We discuss an early example of the Alternative Reality Game genre of multimedia participatory “fiction.” Page for show: https://www.ivoox.com/en/ong-s-hat-alternative-reality-games-are-not-games-audios-mp3_rf_93239217_1.html The Long Seventies Podcast is an in-depth historical … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: Alternative Reality Games Are Not Games
A rundown of the John Titor legend from one of my favorite Youtube Channels The Why Files. The part about yours truly starts at 23:42 or just watch the entire … Continue reading JOHN TITOR: Soldier from the Future | Can this time traveler save us from destruction? (The Matheny/Ongs Hat Connection)
New Jersey is one of the most historic states in the U.S.; because of this, it definitely has its fair share of abandoned and forgotten communities. The village known as … Continue reading Most People Have Forgotten About this Creepy Abandoned Town in New Jersey
Muchas teorías sugieren la existencia de realidades alternativas y que, en ocasiones, estas se conectan. En este punto, los viajes interdimensionales también son posibles a través de portales. Una de … Continue reading PORTAL EN ONG’S HAT: UN MISTERIOSO SITIO DE “VIAJES INTERDIMENSIONALES”
ONG’S HAT and the construction of a suspicious model readerJorge Flores [PDF] Abstract. In the late 1980s, an art collective led by writer Joseph Matheny created a multimedia narrative eventually … Continue reading Hortus Semioticus 9/2022 – 07 – Ong’s Hat
LP is in Aruba…so Joe Conte keeps his chair warm while KP tells Kahuna and Joe about the mysterious abandoned town of Ong’s Hat, NJ….ghost town, time portal…work of fiction…government … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: Abandoned Town or Time Portal?
The Liminal Cycle, an interdisciplinary media experience. It is presented in three acts across multiple mediums. Part 1 Liminal: By Cameron A novella presented as a movie treatment for a … Continue reading The Liminal Cycle (A Trilogy) by Joseph Matheny
Sometimes the fabric of our world thins out, and people slip through – either from another dimension or into one. So some people think, while others claim it happened to … Continue reading You Can Leave Your Hat On – Joseph Matheny, Ong’s Hat and Alternate Reality Games
Diversas teorías pretenden comprobar la idea de que existen numerosas realidades y dimensiones de forma paralela a la nuestra, y que de vez en cuando estas realidades se solapan. Aquí … Continue reading PORTAL EN ONG’S HAT HISTORIA REAL SOBRE VIAJES INTERDIMENSIONALES
Excerpt of an article behind a paywall. The original article requires a subscription. Is there a portal in the Pines?In his 1936 book, “Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey,” Henry … Continue reading The Pine Barrens: New Jersey’s weird, wondrous, wild world all its own
From the original post: July 9, 2022|#ChapelPerilousTheLifeandThoug, #Joesphmatheny, #Ongshat, #PropAnon, #qanon (This interview took place between Joseph Matheny and me not long after the January 6th failed Trump coup. Q … Continue reading Center your Schizowave (An interview w Joseph Matheny)
The Origin Story of Joseph Matheny and the Ong’s Hat ARG I sat down with Jerry Gaura of TOOWi Arts to discuss the origins of me as an artist and … Continue reading Information Golem: New Mini-Series from TOOWi Arts
RSS Feed: https://anchor.fm/s/1d51ead8/podcast/rss Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PkGxG5 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjaP2Sdyc5LrllMBf8K6UxA We cover the new insight on UFO’s given out to the public recently, learn about a popular creepy pasta beast and discover a sweet little spot … Continue reading Mad Tower Radio #8: Pentagon UFOs, Origins of the Rake, & Ong’s Hat, NJ
Where are these roads leading us? Are they leading us to answers to the Penny Royal mystery? More circles, cycles, and loops. The manifestation of the ouroboros, and the realization … Continue reading Penny Royal:Season Two, Episode Eleven: Road To Nowhere
Just ran across this piece from 1994 wherein I was interviewed about technology. Yeah, I’ve changed my opinion a bit since then but here it is for posterity. My bit … Continue reading Visions Of Heaven and Hell Documentary Ep 2 and 3 1994 (VHS)
For our Polish-speaking friends. W latach 1980., w opuszczonym od lat 1930. miasteczku Ong’s Hat w USA, przeprowadzono pewien eksperyment całkowicie finansowany przez prywatny budżet. Czego dotyczył? Kto go sponsorował? … Continue reading INCYDENT W ONG’S HAT (Polish)
This book includes a chapter that is comprised of an interview I did with my late, great, friend Diane DiPrima. I miss you, my friend. “Diane di Prima (1934-2020) was … Continue reading Conversations with Diane Di Prima
The legend sounds like something out of The Twilight Zone. A group of renegade Ivy League scientists gather in secret, in a small, abandoned town, to conduct bizarre experiments… and … Continue reading Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know: The Strange Story of Ong’s Hat
Ong’s Hat FAQ I have a review/interview section here, but some people have expressed being overwhelmed with the number of links on that page. Admittedly, it is a lot, and I … Continue reading Statio Numero & Other Updates
This is a take that’s a little different than the normal podcast we usually feature on here. I love listening to these young people giving their hot takes. The … Continue reading let’s be conspiracy theorists: hollow earth, inter-dimensional travel, oh-my!
Legend Tripping- the process of seeking adventure by going to places known to be associated with paranormal events. In the episode we offer some background on legend tripping in America … Continue reading LEGEND TRIPPING (PT 1) : A GROWING AMERICAN PASTIME
(Note: This is a paid-only, Patreon link. I’ve heard it and it’s well done.) Today we focus on one of the most fascinating conspiracy theories out there: the legend of … Continue reading South Jersey Is Also The World: The Ong’s Hat Conspiracy Theory
If you like the paranormal, the macabre, the strange, and the unusual then you’ll be dying to listen to Creeps in the Crypt every week! In this episode, we are … Continue reading Creeps In The Crypt
A review of Xen: The Zen of the Other audio drama at The Contributor by Joe Nolan. An excerpt: “I enjoyed reading Xen: The Zen of the Other, but the … Continue reading ‘XEN: THE ZEN OF THE OTHER’ REFLECTS ON EASTERN MYSTICISM, WEST COAST WILDERNESS, AND KEROUACIAN ISOLATION
An urban legend tells of a group of scientists who successfully escaped into another dimension.Join me as we go back in time to a place where the internet was like … Continue reading The First Internet Hoax – Inside A Mind
Samhain News for 2021 Hello Everyone, It’s that time of year again when the veil is thin between this world and the other. It is the time when the conditions … Continue reading Xen: The Zen of the Other- The Audio Drama and Freebies This Samhain
Awesome backstory about Galidor with a short history of the Ong’s Hat Project. Link to podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lego-bits-n-bricks/id1542166642 How a LEGO® game console, sci-fi TV show, limb-swapping action figures, and trip … Continue reading Bits N’ Bricks Season 3 Episode 37 – The Surreal History of LEGO Galidor Including Ong’s Hat Segments
The gang talks to Bishop Ron Feyl-Enright about what’s really happening when people experience visions of the Virgin Mary. Also, a report on a mysterious ghost town in the middle … Continue reading Mack Maloney’s Military X-Files: ANGELS, DEVILS & THE MYSTERY OF ONG’S HAT
Preview of presentation to be given by David Sweeney (@dktrdm Twitter), The Glasgow School of Art Fri, August 6, 2021 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT https://interactivefilm.blogspot.com/2021/07/augmented-reality-games-interactive.html Interactive Film and … Continue reading Augmented Reality Games, Interactive Narrative and the Documentary TV Series Hellier
Bibliography of papers on math & physics methods of hunting lions in the Sahara Desert. The fascinating history of identity and document spoofing by esteemed mathematicians with a wonderful sense … Continue reading The Math of Hunting Lions
When the QAnon movement began garnering more widespread attention a couple of years ago, a number of game designers pointed out the similarities between the ‘Q drops’ – and the … Continue reading QAnon, Ong’s Hat, and Robert Anton Wilson: Joseph Matheny discusses ARGs and conspiracy theories in the Internet era
Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: Is Princeton Opposed to Satire? The Ballad of “Jojo” Jayaditya Deep
Statio Numero: an interdisciplinary media experience. This limited series is the third and final act of The Liminal Cycle, a meta-trilogy. Knowledge of Liminal and Xen, which make up the first … Continue reading Statio Numero: The Third and Final Chapter of the Liminal Cycle
About Thoughty2Thoughty2 (Arran) is a British YouTuber and gatekeeper of useless facts. Thoughty2 creates mind-blowing factual videos about science, tech, history, opinion and just about everything else.
This is Part II of our look at QAnon. Click here for Part I. As part of the NYU/StartEd New Media Accelerator, we are joining with faculty from the NYU Carter Journalism Institute … Continue reading If QAnon Is a Game, How Do You Stop Playing?
I made an appearance on VICE’s Truth Hurts series discussing the danger of right-wing conspiracy cults and why this is not a new phenomenon. What’s the difference between someone who’s … Continue reading Joseph Matheny Appears on How Conspiracy Theories Become Violent | Truth Hurts | VICE
We’re producing our first original on high strangeness. In it we explore the psyche of “strange” through the stories of three people in highly strange situations. Season One – “Information … Continue reading Coming Soon: Highly Strange
Part 2 Joseph Matheny, creator of Ong’s Hat, the world’s first Alternative Reality Game speaks with Prop Anon about QAnon, Robert Anton Wilson, Ong’s Hat, and how to survive the … Continue reading Joseph Matheny & Prop Anon expose QAnon
Today the gang is diving into one of the OG internet conspiracy theories. The mystery of Ong’s Hat. But the real mystery is why did the gang decide to record … Continue reading The Mystery of Ong’s Hat – 3V Off The Books
It’s refreshing to see someone make an attempt to understand what I was trying to do with Ong’s Hat and it’s encouraging to see them get it mostly right. Too … Continue reading Ong’s Hat and the construction of a suspicious model reader
In this action-packed episode of FAILED STATE UPDATE, I break out a certain conspiracy theory-themed trivia board game (“Conspiracy Theory” by Neddy Games) and host an action-packed competition between four … Continue reading Paranoids’ Game Night!
We welcome back some friendly faces, Matheny reveals he’s involved in every weird story we can bring up, and we discuss why the internet isn’t fun anymore. Featuring: Ken Eakins, … Continue reading Coincidence Control Network: File #100 – The Centennial
In this fragment of SCHISM we interview the creator of ‘Ong’s Hat’, the first Alternate Reality Game, and ask what his experiences can teach us about the rise of QAnon. … Continue reading Did An Alternate Reality Game Gone Wrong Predict The Rise of QAnon?
Back by popular demand, this episode features more dirt on Ted Gunderson. It starts out pretty straightforward, with digital forensic investigator Ed Opperman talking about his experience with the disgraced … Continue reading More Gunderson, Finders, QAnon, et. al
Justin sits down to talk with ARG pioneer Joseph Matheny about politics, conspiracy theories, games and the future of America. Link to show page: http://redpagespodcast.com/listen/chatting-with-joseph-matheny Haps Discussed: Independent art production, marginal … Continue reading The Red Pages Podcast: Episode 154: Chatting with Joseph Matheny
By Tom Dove
Link to the entire article: https://medium.com/@illexical/this-is-not-a-game-44142be5ff2c
Ong’s Hat.
A funny little name. A name on a map of a town that can’t be found.
Emerging on the nascent public internet at some indeterminate point in the late nineties, Ong’s Hat was the prototype for what would become a genre of participatory literature called the alternate reality game, or ARG. An ARG is part adventure story, part puzzle, part esoteric mystery, part scavenger hunt, part online community, all quite weird. They are mostly played on public forums, to capture the widest audience, but their content often spans multiple platforms, and typically multiple media. There have been many thousands of ARGs now, tiny and massive, but one of them was first, and it was wilder than the rest.
Ong’s Hat was by turns surreal, goofy, cosmic, and sinister, drawing heavily on classic counterculture and conspiracy theory lore. In the very early days of the worldwide web, it was doing something in a dispersed form that Mark Z. Danielewski would shortly be hailed as a postmodern genius for doing in the novel House of Leaves: playing adeptly with our ideas about how and why we find things to be true. What makes us believe a thing is real? The course of the game, its story, exists only in inaccurate second-hand reports and archived materials stripped of context now. By accident or by design, all the original online content has long since subsided into the digital sands, but the ghost of Ong’s Hat haunts us still.
This week we’re talking about one of the very first internet mysteries, and a complicated puzzle still waiting to be solved.
Show Link: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/none-of-this-is-real
Ong’s Hat WAS a place set deep in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The 17th-century town was more of an outpost with just a few buildings. It was known as a rowdy place. The town got its name from a man named Jacob Ong who after a fight with a woman threw his beloved hat up in the air. It become stuck in a tree and he never retrieved it. But Ong’s Hat may have served a different purpose in more modern times, it may have been a place where fringe scientists and cultist gathered to travel into other dimensions.
Link to Show Page: https://shows.acast.com/small-town-secrets/episodes/celebration-fl-ongs-hat-nj
https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/5c5da99a215eac406099a9c4/e/5f40d3738be9370aed0d4cc3/media.mp3
Nod to David Metcalfe for alerting me to this.
LINK: https://www.facebook.com/weeklyworldnews/photos/a.164051496982/10158840304436983/
New Jersey is quite a strange place in America. Especially in the Pine Flats area where a nuclear spill nearby a place known as Ong’s Hat. This is probably the most egg heavy episode you will ever get. Prepare for intense science theory and a surprise ending with this episode.
Episode 169: An Egg In These Trying Times
https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/40317271/episode_169_mixdown.mp3
LINK TO SHOW PAGE: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cults-cryptids-and-conspiracies/e/76951755?autoplay=true
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/download/ubmcq5/Episode_51_-_Joseph_Matheny9vcj1.mp3
LINK TO SHOW: http://sittingnow.co.uk/episode-51-authoring-reality-with-joseph-matheny/ This week Ken sits down with our old buddy Joseph Matheny.
Joe is an innovator in the ARG space and is well known for his Ong’s Hat mythology, he also used to rub shoulders with some pretty impressive people, including Robert Anton Wilson and Christopher Hyatt.
This week we discuss: Conspiracy theory, ARG, that flu thing going around, and much more.
Main theme by Simon Smerdon (Mothboy)
Music bed by chriszabriskie.com
Joseph Matheny’s bio:
Some of the things I have achieved as an inventor, creator, product manager, CEO, CTO, writer, and artist include: Playing a role in establishing and evangelizing standards and practices such as PDF, DVD, Podcasting, ARG and digital video. I am an inventor. I have designed apps for iPhone, iPad and other mobile platforms. I am a published author of screenplays, white papers, technology, sci-fi, marketing and gaming books.
My pioneering work in Transmedia is chronicled in the University level textbook: Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat – University Press of Mississippi (May 17, 2011) Also see here. My transmedia work, Ong’s Hat, is known throughout the gaming industry and academia as the first, proto-ARG. (Alternate Reality Game)I have also been the executive producer and originator of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Podcast the first film festival to podcast from the event and the executive producer/director of the Los Angles Film Festival podcast. I was also the podcast editor at .
I was one of the two founders/curators of the Greylodge Podcasting Company, an Independent film review site covered on MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, Boing-Boing, Dangerous Minds and Torrentfreak as well as a founder of Piltolite/Hukilau.
I have staged and orchestrated very successful, large-scale, mass media Alternate Reality Game/Transmedia style projects since the mid-80s, utilizing print, phone, fax, email, Internet, advertising, video, film, audio, CD ROM, DVD, and on-demand media. My work has been featured on CBS Marketwatch, CNN, CNET TV, Kiplinger’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NHK, MTV, PBS, LA Times, Clear Channel Radio, BBC, MSNBC, Boing-Boing, and many other weekly newspapers, trade magazines, local and regional radio, television and newspapers.
My work was profiled in Games(TM) magazine, as well as Slate and Gizmodo. If you want to know “what it is“, these are probably the best profiles to date.
The Incunabula Papers CDROM was recently included by invitation in the BNF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) digital art collection.
Episode Info
Welcome back y’all! In this episode the gals cover the very haunted Houska Castle and New Jersey’s incredibly spooky Ong’s Hat.
Also, special announcement from us & Balefire Apothecary AND shout out to listener and friend of the show, TonyBony, for creating our amazing new intro
Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ghostsnheauxs/e/76528395?autoplay=true
Conspiracy theorizing as alternate-reality game From Pizzagate Neon (2017) by Warren Neidich. Neon glass sculpture, installation view. Photography by Karolina Sobel. Courtesy Priska Pasquer, Cologne. “Many quotes from a long and enjoyable conversation I had with the author made it into this article. I hope you find it as enlightening and thought-provoking as I did.” -JM
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT: https://reallifemag.com/this-is-not-a-game/
The alternate reality game began in the late 1980s, when multidisciplinary artist Joseph Matheny pioneered the format with Ong’s Hat, a transmedia narrative about an interdimensional cult run by Princeton scientists at an ashram in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Drawing on real people and places, Matheny crafted a series of documents as supposed evidence for the cult’s existence. He seeded them to the public through snail mail, posts on early internet bulletin boards (some of which can still be seen at alt.conspiracy and alt.illuminati), and Xerox copies planted inside independent weeklies and esoteric literature at libraries, book stores, and coffee shops. Over the course of a decade, the story’s media range grew to include CD-ROMs, books, video, and radio, including some interviews on the popular paranormal radio show Coast to Coast AM, which exposed Ong’s Hat to a wider audience of conspiracy enthusiasts.
Ong’s Hat was a unique hybrid of speculative history and speculative autobiography that participants could co-author by joining the investigation online. It was meant to be defamiliarizing and immersive; Matheny envisioned Ong’s Hat as a playground for experiencing synchronicities and then comparing them with other players’ — an exercise in intersubjectivity. But immersive storytelling and the intersubjectivity it constitutes can have a dark side, wherein communities can form around shared delusions that take on a momentum of their own. To Matheny’s surprise, some participants confused his fictional narrative with an actual conspiracy. When he broke character to remind them it was just a game, these true believers accused Matheny of being part of a disinformation campaign or running a mind-control experiment. He lost final say over the universe he invented.
Engaging in conspiracy culture is like playing a secret game based on insider knowledge, and it is this feeling that propels Q’s current popularity
When I spoke to Matheny, he partly attributed this reaction to the Coast to Coast segments attracting conspiracy-minded participants, to those who used Ong’s Hat to fulfill their X-Files-inspired “I want to believe” aspirations, and to proto-trolls looking for a pot to stir. Eventually these elements escalated their participation in Ong’s Hat to harassment, threats, and attempted home invasions, and Matheny was forced to discontinue the project in 2001. The term ARG, he says, began to be used on conspiracy and trolling forums around this time as a euphemism for gamified harassment campaigns. Matheny told me that he has since seen hardcore Ong’s Hat believers resurface in other conspiracy movements, including Weinergate, Gamergate, Pizzagate, QAnon, and the coronavirus cluster of 5G, vaccine, and quarantine paranoia. To Matheny, the 20th century U.S. tradition of conspiracy theories was “great folklore, great Americana,” to be taken figuratively. But he perceived this rightward and more serious turn in conspiracy circles at the turn of the century, with a crescendo in 2014, the year that some of his formerly left-leaning friends came out as neo-reactionary monarchists.
Matheny now refers to Pizzagate and QAnon as “dark ARGs,” signaling their family resemblance. “There was a bonding that happened, and probably a cooptation of troll culture into conspiracy circles,” he says. “This converged with fundamentalist people who were also doomsday preppers, and they had all adopted trolling behaviors, speaking in bad faith, giving circular arguments. All these weird subcultures have come together. How it happened was gradual. There wasn’t a puppeteer, but there are definitely people who took advantage of it. Breitbart, Bannon, Spencer.” This convergence of fundamentalism and trolling in conspiracy culture proved to be a toxic brew, facilitating zealous delusion and selective insincerity simultaneously. “The irony helps these people sidestep criticism,” Matheny says. “‘I’m just kidding, I’m just trolling.’ So I shouldn’t take anything you say seriously? Then they react with anger. And now there are movements being crafted to take advantage of this.” Irony serves as a gateway to belief as well as a source of plausible deniability, the same dynamic that can lead anti-PC trolls to become actual neo-Nazis. As George Orwell put it, “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT: https://reallifemag.com/this-is-not-a-game/