SCP-009 / Red Ice

About

SCP-009 also known as Red Ice is an SCP Foundation object resembling red ice that assimilates water into its mass, essentially taking over any aqueous solution and turning it into more red ice, including humans, who are frozen from the inside out if they come in contact with the red ice. SCP-009 was first added to the SCP Foundation wiki in December 2009 and became increasingly popular throughout the 2010s and 2020s, inspiring memes, creepypasta stories, fan art and other content online.

Origin

SCP-009 was added to the SCP Foundation wiki^[1] by user Chameleon X on December 26th, 2009. The entry describes SCP-009 as a Euclid-class object that takes on a liquid state between -100°C and 0°C, a gaseous state below -100°C and a solid state above 0°C. SCP-009 is said to take on a red color when in large quantities and, in any of its three states, takes over concentrations of water that it comes into contact with. This includes human beings due to the high percentage of water that makes up the human body. SCP-009 also has pages on the scponecanonproject Fandom^[2] page and the-scp.foundation.^[3]

According to the lore, SCP-009 was discovered in Alaska by a team of seal hunters, who were killed after making contact with the substance.

A team of seal-hunters in Alaska, United States of America became infected with SCP-009, but due to the low ambient temperature of their surroundings the freezing process was slowed and so total conversion of the water inside their bodies was extended by 14 hours, with the hunters remaining conscious for some portion of the process. Members of the native ████ Tribe found the wreckage of the hunters' ship carrying their mangled corpses ██ kilometers from the tribe's village. Word of the tribe's discovery reached the SCP Foundation, who sent agents to recover SCP-009 on 11/05/19██.

Spread

SCP-009 became the subject of fan content over the following years. For example, on August 15th, 2017, DeviantArt^[4] user dekades8 posted artwork depicting people killed by SCP-009, garnering over 30,000 views in six years (shown below, left). On April 14th, 2018, DeviantArt^[5] user GamingHedgehog posted artwork that gained over 15,000 views in five years (shown below, right).

On January 24th, 2021, Redditor u/PeeteIsAcUtie posted artwork to /r/SCP9^[9] depicting a red ice containment breach, garnering over 5,100 upvotes in two years (shown below).

On March 21st, YouTuber^[6] Glenn Leroi posted an original song based on SCP-009, garnering over 622,000 views in two years (shown below, left). On November 12th, YouTuber^[7] SCP Explained posted an animated video explaining SCP-009 and its history, garnering over 675,000 views in two years (shown below, right).

On October 12th, 2023, u/Devil_Fister_69420 posted a meme to /r/memes^[8] seemingly referencing the red ice SCP, garnering over 7,200 upvotes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References