They Lurk Beneath
How Monument Mythos exposes the American government
Analog horror this, analog horror that—what about the dangerously terrifying unfiction series that plague the depths of YouTube?
What happened to Ash Vlogs and Alantutorial? And if you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, you’ve probably seen something about Omega Mart—a giant, interactive unfiction story in Las Vegas disguised as a tourist attraction.
But maybe I still need to explain the concept… that’s fair.
Unfiction is any piece of horror that presents itself as real, or at least linked to the real world in some way. For example, Omega Mart presents itself as a totally legitimate grocery store. When you visit their location in Las Vegas, you can even buy items right off the shelves… it truly is a top-of-the-line checkout experience.
All of this is my long-winded way of saying I really want to rant about the Monument Mythos, which isn’t just my favorite unfiction series, but possibly my favorite digital horror series of all time. It’s beautifully crafted, focusing on the monuments of America (mostly), exploring the dark secrets that hide in plain sight.
It’s, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining horror series on YouTube. Unlike other analog horror, MM uses multiple formats—analog, old-school digital, even educational PowerPoints. It stays fresh without being overwhelming and feels more legitimate in its unfiction identity.
Monument Mythos feels real. Not only are the historical aspects so wonderfully researched and twisted, but the overall production is of a higher quality than most analog horror series.
It’s original. It’s wacky.
It’s crazy, scary, spooky, hilarious (finally, I can insert another Kendrick Lamar reference in my newsletter!).
But it’s all those things because it taps into something very real in our everyday lives: the corruption running through the American government.
LIBERTYLURKER
What is the symbol of America?
Most of us would agree that it’s the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty is the first thing immigrants would see when they sailed into Ellis Island, setting the tone for optimistic souls craving the American dream.
These individuals grasped for a better life, with many suffering from famine, war, or oppression. Unfortunately, like in real life, there was no escaping the harsh realities of the world even by going to America in the Monument Mythos universe.
This episode of MM takes us on a journey about the creation of Lady Liberty, showing us blueprints and several alterations to the statue’s pedestal. One blueprint, named “ST-LI 1.8084,” reveals a mechanism intended to be installed in the statue itself—a blueprint that was classified for 36 years before finally being released to the public.
Perhaps the most disturbing part about the Statue of Liberty is how the idea of something being off is first introduced to us. An Italian immigrant, named Eleonora Bramante, is quoted saying: “Ellis Island was awful. The whole place reeked of flesh, like a slaughterhouse.”
As immigrants were brought into Ellis Island, some were led astray. While others were granted access to America’s soil, some weren’t as lucky… instead being led into a far more horrifying fate.
In August 1985, the Statue of Liberty shifted to the side, detaching itself from the pedestal. An entity is seen escaping, called the “LIBERTYLURKER” by the public.
The entity, later dubbed as the “Horned Serpent” in the series, was contained within the statue, with immigrants being used as sacrifices to keep its hunger at bay. However, with the immigration offices closing in 1954, the serpent was left unfed.
All of this ties into original point: Monument Mythos is a series about insane Eldritch horrors within America’s great monuments, packed with horror, comedy, and lots of intertwined multiversal lore. But it’s also a series tapping into the true realities of the country, which is why its unfiction setting feels so eerily natural to our own.
To me, LIBERTYLURKER represents the lies not only many immigrants were told, but also the ones many of us grow up believing in America.
When I stood every morning at school with my hand over my heart to pledge allegiance to the flag, it never occurred to me that it wasn’t the norm in other countries around the world. While, yes, almost every country has its own national anthem, there’s no allegiance to be made to a flag of any sort.
By the time you reach middle school, you practically memorize the words, numbingly repeating it every day for 12 years until you graduate high school. It’s something that’s burned into your memory as an American, but also important for me to bring up specifically in how we are made to believe what America is:
“I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.”
On the surface, our pledge just sounds like another patriotic mantra. It is simply what our country is meant to symbolize, utilizing its identity of being a welcoming melting pot to all.
But there’s a lot more to it than that.
US-born citizens and immigrants alike are taught to aim for the American Dream. The house, the white picket fence, the partner, the kids, the dog… by the time we reach 35, we’re supposed to have the perfect little suburban household.
And, honestly, it doesn’t seem as difficult as it really is when you’re being spoon-fed all the success stories as a kid.
I grew up in a trailer, and yet somehow, I still thought: one day, I’ll have the American Dream. Instead, I was met with a horrible job market, outrageous rent, and everybody hating each other for some reason.
That doesn’t mean I gave up hope (maybe that’s the small light of patriotism still in me), it just means I looked past the flashy propaganda that the government put in front of me.
And I think that’s what is so special about LIBERTYLURKER for me. It is quite literally the perfect metaphor for the average American experience. We come in with hope, looking forward to a bright future, but there’s a strange scent that fills our nostrils. Something indescribable, yet there, and it isn’t until the government truly reveals itself that we realize: Oh… it was never real, was it?
The Horned Serpent hides beneath the Statue of Liberty, secretly feeding on victims, only to benefit itself. It doesn’t care if they have lives—it doesn’t care if they had hopes and dreams to “make it.” The only thing that needs to “make it” is the Serpent itself.
But there’s another layer to all this: the Horned Serpent is not just some monster, but rather a deranged mutation of George Washington. It is revealed in the series that George Washington transformed into the Horned Serpent after he struck a “special tree” (more on that later), thus becoming a massive time-bending multiversal entity.
The Founding Father, our first president, the man we look up to as Americans. The man who is seen as a wonderfully kind and honest gentleman. He is taught in schools as a man to be our role model. A man that, in many aspects, we treat godly. Yet… he is eating our immigrants. He is destroying everything our country stands for. He is hiding in a statue of freedom.
WASHINGTONWORMHOLE
What if the Washington Monument is hiding something?
According to the Monument Mythos, it is.
In 1848, construction of the Washington Monument began. Although it wasn’t until 1910 that the monument became a major tourist attraction, its strange and haunting melodies were already hard to ignore.
As more and more people visited the monument, missing person reports began to plague the area. From 1910-1971, over 20 people went missing while visiting the monument. These weren’t just any missing person cases; these people seemingly vanished out of thin air. These missing people are called the Washington Absentees.
The following year, in 1972, a classified tape is leaked by several news agencies. The film, titled Washington Standard Operation, showcases what actually happens within the Washington Monument. Visitors are lifted to the top of the monument to hear the “music” of the walls. Once they reach the top, the soundwaves reverb throughout the inner walls of the tower, causing visitors to pass out. the visitors then fall out of the lift and down to the floor below. Whether they survive is unknown.
In 2003, a video of the Washington Monument takes a shocking turn when the “special tree” seems to be peeking out of its hiding spot. As the video continues, lightning flashes like crazy, and the monument is seen bending down as if it were inspecting the person recording it.
Years later, the 19 Washington Absentees are found unconscious at the base of the tower. Their conditions remain unknown.
19 PEOPLE WERE RECOVERED.
19 PEOPLE WERE REMEMBERED.
But what about the last one? The 20th absentee is seemingly scrubbed from any records, implying that there’s more to the coverup than previously thought.
There is something about WASHINGTONWORMHOLE that’s particularly eerie. Perhaps it’s because it’s the first episode I discovered from the series, back before the M4NTICOR3 YouTube channel had over 298k subscribers.
This was still in the early days, to some extent, when Monument Mythos was still releasing new episodes of “season 1.” Hell, this was before there were seasons.
Watching this video for the first time, without any context, was a doozy. It was on my recommended page, and out of pure human curiosity, I decided to click on it. It’s strange how real it feels in the moment, when you let your brain simply take in the concept that, maybe—just maybe—this is a real documentation of the Washington Monument.
You forget it’s all fiction, if only for a moment, because it feels so painfully… realistic.
The government isn’t a stranger to hiding things from us. There are multiple documented cases of special operations or backdoor deals that are kept classified from the general public. Off my head I can recall MK-Ultra, a very real and disturbing experiment that the CIA was in charge of.
Victims of all ages and classes were taken against their will and tested on. From high doses of psychedelics, electroshock, and other terrible torture… and yet that’s only a fraction of what we were ALLOWED to know.
And I can’t help but think: if they hide things like MK-Ultra, is it really that crazy to think there’s a tree inside the Washington Monument?
Well… yeah. But story-wise, it’s a completely logical conclusion.
WASHINGTONWORMHOLE is about the public’s willingness to trust the government so easily. To think there can’t be anything hidden from them, because after all, we’re a democratic nation… right? We the people and all that.
Yet here we are in 2025 with more questions than answers. And in 2035, maybe it’ll be different… or maybe we’re just used to the secrets by now.
I mean, we still don’t really know the full extent to Area 51. There are aliens or something there, right?
FREEDOMFALLER
“I thought she would set me free. But Freedom did not give me freedom.”
In 1857, Thomas Crawford was tasked with creating the Statue of Freedom—it now sits on the top of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. for onlookers to admire.
But Freedom wasn’t always so motionless in her stature.
It is said that Crawford passed away while working on Freedom. Crawford was nearly obsessive with his work. Some say that the Statue of Freedom holds the echo of his obsession.
His daughter, Nina Crawford, mysteriously went missing right after his death… although her journal was found near the statue.
An excerpt from her journal, translated from Italian:
21 April
I am very hungry. The boxes are tied with rope, so I cannot get out by myself. There is a loud noise in the room, like clay being dragged across the floor.
I can hear the ropes being cut and something big coming out the box. Is it Papa? There are more sounds, like wood being broken.
Since the ropes broke, I quickly got out of the box and found some bread and fruit in the room next door.
And I am wrong.
It isn’t Papa, but it has his eyes.
When the Statue of Freedom arrived in America, Philip Reed was so mesmerized by her beauty he crafted a short memoir about her. He recalls how, when the ship arrived, the plaster body was absent, and instead a tall, wounded woman took its place.
Reed asks the crew where the statue is. They explain that, inside of the woman is the plaster. Below is what follows in his writing:
Freedom craved liberation so terribly,
She tried to take it for herself.
But off the ship, she was dragged away.
Freedom, locked up.
Freedom, in chains.
They tell me,
I have to take it out of her.
So hook, rope, peel, and pull.
When it was done,
Freedom stood motionless,
Freedom stood still.
Decades later on January 6th, 1977, a riot at the Capitol resulted in the Statue of Freedom being shot off the building. What followed was Freedom’s dormant cycle finally breaking; Freedom was now awake.
In footage that was recovered from the incident, Freedom’s head can be seen near a door frame within the building. Then, she disappears from view, only for the screams of a woman to be heard. If one listens closely, they can hear the noises of human skin stretching across the surface.
Freedom comes back into view. But the bronze is no longer.
So… FREEDOMFALLER is different.
It’s my favorite episode of the entire series. It is so calm in its approach, yet grotesquely terrifying all the same. From the start of the episode, things go awry when Thomas Crawford’s eyes can be seen within the statue’s metal eyelids.
But things only get worse, as it’s heavily implied that Freedom kills people in order to wear their skin. Considering that the Statue of Freedom is 19.5 feet tall, she’s forced to stretch her victim’s skin over her body to make it fit.
In all honesty, this is one of those episodes where you have to watch it for it to truly settle into your bones. It’s how everything perfectly falls into place, with each entry becoming more disturbing with every passing minute.
But what is this episode about?
This is probably the most obvious of them all, especially with the inclusion of Phillip Reed, who was a slave during the Capitol’s Construction. He oversaw the final casting of Freedom.
Reed is forced to peel away Freedom’s skin, turning her back into a dormant statue. However, Reed hopes she one day reawakens.
Remember, this statue was placed on the Capitol Building during the Civil War… a key detail in understanding what all of this is about.
It is almost ironic to know that Freedom was placed during the Civil War, as she is the symbol of what our country prides itself on. Yet, America’s claim to freedom is lackluster at best.
While the Revolutionary War gave birth to the idea of freedom from tyranny, the concept of justice and freedom for all in America was still a work in progress.
Despite America being built on the foundation of freedom, it’s rare to see it throughout our history. Before the colonies, the land of the United States was invaded by Christopher Columbus, with many Native Americans becoming victims of slavery.
Things didn’t exactly become better once we did become a country. Only men of a certain class could vote. Slavery still ran rampant. Women were to be seen, not heard.
By the 1840s, immigration surged due to outside factors like the Great Famine in Ireland. Yet, immigrants were treated like lower-class citizens. The Irish especially were targets, seen as the source of criminal activity due to being “inferior.”
There are plenty of other instances, of course: the Chinese immigrants who built our railroads, any unfortunate lad who decided to be poor, and who could forget the depressing Trail of Tears incident that resulted in the deaths of many.
What I’m trying to say here is that America’s goal is freedom, but its history is shrouded in tragic realities we must not forget, unless we wish to repeat them.
There is no freedom without a trail of innocent blood left behind, but how much longer must we sacrifice for this so-called “freedom”? Have we ever truly experienced the real freedom? Or will we never be able to, as her skin was ripped away from her body before we could see her?
But when I think back on that last scene of the episode… I can’t help but hear the same question echo in my head: “Can you hear the screams of freedom?”
Monument Mythos is something you need to watch in full to truly appreciate what it has to offer. Nothing sounds better than a rainy day on the couch with a hot cocoa in hand binge-watching the entire series, in my opinion. Because what I gave you here is only a fraction of the universe that has been built.
What I love about it is that it unapologetically tells truths. It uses our real history to tell horror stories from beyond, yet it manages to balance the supernatural terror with a bit of humor, at least
It so easily calls out the corruption in our government simply by saying “hey, there’s a monster hidden in there.” And yet, it never feels anti-American to me.
Monument Mythos feels like a love letter to America… to some degree. It celebrates American history, monuments, and even some of the sillier presidential ideas. There are two sides to the coin, both valuable despite being heads or tails.
So… what monument do you plan on visiting soon?