Part 4: It Gets Odd
In Marble Hornets, there are a handful of examples that we could find.
The first one is in Entry #57. It’s hard to see since the camera is moving quite a lot, but there are two glows at the end of this hallway at the hospital while Brian is trying to understand what is going on and find Alex. We really don’t think this is anything, but your eyeballs might disagree.
But the rest of glowing eyes appearing on camera in Marble Hornets are quite different.
We can asume that in totheark's videos, glowing eyes are edited over, but the next examples are not edited, they are being either picked up by the camera or caused by distorsion.
The most prominent instance happens during Tim's and Hoody's confrontation in Entry #83. As they are teleported through different locations, they end up in the Rosswood tunnel and two bright spots take over Hoody's eyes.
After some struggle, Tim is able to remove the mask.
There’s first a blinding light.
Followed by heavy distortion that obscures Brian’s face.
Later in the video, a pair of glowing eyes barely appear superimposed on footage of Tim drowning.
Near the end, a single frame of Jay’s body with glowing eyes appears at 6:19 even though he is supposed to be dead by then [a future investigation about death and the ark will be necessary.] What is the camera picking up here? [Thank you to our fellow investigators alangbandala on Tumblr and our friend TolkienScholar for pointing us in the right direction.]
Now that we know that there’s something in the ark that can convincingly mimic people’s appearances, is this Jay? Or is it something taking the shape of a dead Jay to further torture Tim? If that was the case, it would bring up even more questions about the next example.
In Entry #87, at 6:05, a face with heavy chromatic distortion appears with two tonned glowing eyes.*
Later in the entry, at 8:46, and right after Alex shows Tim Brian’s dead body, there’s a single frame with heavy static and the Operator in it. Alex eyes glow right as it appears.
Part 5: Of Pen and Inks
Being a different medium, the comics play with a different set of tools to convey the emotions and themes of the series, but there’s something that endures: glowing eyes follow Jessica.
Issue #2, page 24. A figure Jessica can’t entirely make out approaches her house. It is later revealed to be Skully, but as the figure approaches, the silhouette does not match Skully’s.
Issue #2, starting at page 36. A distorted, menacing figure with glowing eyes at the end of the Rosswood tunnel that takes the shape of Alex shooting at her.
This figure at the end of the tunnel with glowing eyes, distorted by static and that takes the shape of a person is very reminiscent of the appearance in Rosswood Part 5.
Part 6: Conclusions
Although we don’t think there’s a direct correlation between the glowing eyes effect in the main series and in Rosswood,
it is clear that the idea of spots of light as eyes has been prominent throughout and possibly an idea that Troy wanted
to revisit in his newer creations, either for its symbolism (seeing in the dark, being unable to hide from that night-piercing stare)
or stylistically, because feeling that something is watching us while we can’t even see what it is is inherently creepy.
We are sure that the background examples from both Rosswood and Marble hornets are too subtle to be purposeful.
They were probably reflections that were either not considered distracting from the action or that were left in
because they look cool, but we didn’t want to leave something interesting accidentally out.
That being said, we think there’s an intentional link between the use of glowing eyes within Rosswood tunnel:
Glowing eyes,
blinding light,
distortion.
Glowing eyes,
blinding light,
distortion.
Glowing eyes, blinding light, distortion (maybe? We were just being dramatic ☻).
And the glowing eyes frames from entries #83 and #86 add credibility to the supernatural origin of the effect outside that tunnel scene in Rosswood.
What could this mean? Why the two instances of “doubles” that we see on camera occur in the tunnel? Why does the pattern of glowing eyes and blinding light repeat? Does the ark bleed into our world through that tunnel? Is being infected by the ark (either by being a creature from it or by having had spent enough time in it) leave a wave residue that makes them appear distorted?
Well, we don’t know. This is where our investigation lead us, now it’s your turn to put on the thinking caps and put this information to good use: come up with cool theories.
*Before saying goodbye for now, don’t believe that we have forgotten about those asterisks. What we have to say about them fall out from the scope of this investigation, but we will come back to you with more soon.
Deal em,
Kraehtot