Ong's Hat is one of the earliest Internet-based secret history

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * ...

. It was created as a piece of

collaborative fiction Collaborative fiction is a form of Writing style, writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a Storytelling, story. Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally – many collaborat ...

by four core individuals, dating back to the 1980s, although the membership propagating the tale changed over time. Ong's Hat is often cited as the first

alternate reality game An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by int ...

s on many lists of ARGs. The characters were largely based in the

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

Ong's Hat, New Jersey Ong's Hat (also Ong) is a ghost town in Pemberton Township, Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located on Magnolia Road ( County Route 644) west of the Four Mile Circle, where New Jersey Route 72 intersects with New ...

, hence the name of the project.

History

The threads of the story can be traced back as far as the 1980s on

bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

s, and via

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the mail, postal service. It developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence School and ...

networks, early

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

s, and

faxlore Faxlore is a sort of folklore: humorous texts, folk poetry, folk art, and urban legends that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by fax machine. Xeroxlore or photocopylore is similar material circulated by photocopying. The first use o ...

. The aim was to create a fictional story line, and embed it in various media cultures to establish backstory. It may have started as an

in-joke An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke with humour that is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest ...

, or the first

(ARG), a work of

transmedia storytelling Transmedia storytelling (also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling) is the technique of adapting a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. From a product ...

or as a

memetic Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ''The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that he ...

experiment, to see how far the

meme A meme (; ) is an idea, behavior, or style that Mimesis, spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying c ...

could spread or a combination of all of the above. The story eventually used print, radio, television and digital media (

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, BBS) in its dissemination. The initial ground rules acknowledged the possibility that such an experiment could end up going down darker paths, and they specifically ruled out Ong's Hat being used for cult-like activity. Even though it is a fiction, the tale may be based on earlier works. Joseph Matheny eventually concluded the project. ''

GamesTM ''GamesTM'' (styled as ''gamesTM'') was a British multi-format video games magazine. The first issue was released in December 2002 and the magazine was still being published monthly in English and German up until the last edition was published on ...

'' magazine wrote that "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." In 2002,

Lego Lego (, ; ; stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. Lego consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks made of acrylonitri ...

created an ARG for their line of toys for Canadian children's TV series '' Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension'' that featured some elements of the Ong's Hat story.

Plot

The Ong's Hat narrative is told in the form of

surrounding a group of renegade Princeton professors who had conducted

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

and

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of Scientific method, scientific study and branch of mathematics. It focuses on underlying patterns and Deterministic system, deterministic Scientific law, laws of dynamical systems that are highly sens ...

experiments to discover a new theory for dimensional travel using a device called "the egg", and were camped out in a parallel world. Their 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 story is said to begin in 1978 when a man named Wali Fard bought over 200 acres of forested land and set up an

ashram An ashram (, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions, not including Buddhism. Etymology The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (< Creepypasta A creepypasta is a horror-related legend which has been shared around the Internet. The term ''creepypasta'' has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These entries are often brief, user-generated, par ...

* ''

The Blair Witch Project ''The Blair Witch Project'' is a 1999 American psychological horror film written, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. One of the most successful independent films of all time, it is a " found footage" pseudo-docume ...

'' *

Church of the SubGenius The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion that satirizes better-known belief systems. It teaches a complex philosophy that focuses on J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, purportedly a salesman from the 1950s, who is revered as a prophet by the Church. SubGen ...

* ''

lonelygirl15 ''lonelygirl15'' is an American science fiction thriller web series created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried, and Amanda Goodfried. It was independently released on YouTube from June 16, 2006, to August 1, 2008, and was also bri ...

'' *

Fakelore Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or perceived as traditional, arising from people starting in the distant past, but which are relatively recent and often consciously invented by historical actors. The concept was high ...

SCP Foundation The SCP Foundation is a fictional organization featured in stories created by contributors on the SCP Wiki, a wiki-based Collaborative fiction, collaborative writing project. Within the project's shared universe, shared fictional universe, the ...

* The Slender Man

Notes

External links

Ong's Hat: The Beginning
a range of materials to download including the original book as well as graphic novels and CDs.
This Is Not a Game with Marc Fennell
Audible/BBC documentary about the Ong's Hat legend

Includes references to an origin of the Ong's Hat legend Transmedia storytelling Alternate reality games Internet hoaxes

History

Plot

Notes

Further reading

External links