In the 1980s a mysterious game began popping up in Portland, Oregon arcades. Players walked away with a variety of strange side effects, from amnesia, to nightmares, to wild hallucinations. But the game vanished as quickly as it appeared, said to be whisked away by agents in black suits. This got many people thinking, was the game, known as Polybius, a government experiment… Or did it have more… supernatural origins?
Episode Source Material
PRINT NEWS
- Billboard Magazine Number 1 Awards: Singles.
- Uproxx: ‘The Polybius Conspiracy’ Explores the Reality Behind One of Gaming’s Darkest Urban Legends, by Dan Seitz.
PODCASTS
ACADEMIC PAPERS
WEB / SOCIAL MEDIA / MESSAGE BOARDS
- The Arcade Blogger: Sky Skipper: Nintendo’s Long Lost Arcade Game. (blog).
- Britannica: Pac-Man (website).
- Britannica: Space Invaders (website).
- Diablo Wiki: The Secret Cow Level (website).
- CoinOp: Polybius (website).
- GameFAQs: Frogger – Release Details (website).
- GamePro: Secrets & Lies (website).
- Gaming Urban Legends Wiki: Nude Raider (website).
- Gareth Stack: Someone Just Created the Blair Witch of Podcasting, and No One Noticed by Gareth Stack (website).
- History: The UFO Sightings that Launched “Men in Black” Mythology by Justin Sablich.
- Medium: Killer in the Arcade: The Legend of Polybius (website).
- Museum of the Game: Berzerk (website).
- Nintendo Wiki: Donkey Kong (website).
- Polygon: Polybius, Gaming’s Oldest Urban Legend, is Mostly Atari’s Fault (website).
- Portland Monthly: Polybius: The Most Dangerous Arcade Game in the World by Eleanor Van Buren.
- Retrobitch by Cat DeSpira: Reinvestigating Polybius (blog).
- Retrovolve: How Many People has the Berzerk Arcade Game Killed? (website).
- Sinnesloschen.com (website).
- Slate: The Polybius Conspiracy’s Story of an Arcade Urban Legend is Twisty Fun. It’s Also Fake by Jacob Brogan (website).
- ThoughCatalog: 9 Freaky Encounters With the Real ‘Men in Black’ That Will Seriously Give You The Creeps.
- Vulture: The Polybius Conspiracy Documents the Strange Story of the Most Mysterious Video Game of All Time by Nicholas Quah.