Photograph of SCP-XXXX-D prior to decommissioning.
Special Containment Procedures: N/A
Description: SCP-XXXX-D was the New River Gorge Bridge, located in New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, near Fayetteville, West Virginia, United States. SCP-XXXX-D was notable as the site of the first successful travel through time by the Foundation, when Temporal Anomalies Department agent Jonas McElroy travelled five minutes into the past on April 13, 2000. SCP-XXXX-D was chosen for this operation due to its proximity to Site-86 Facility 16 and the latent temporal instability of both the New River Gorge Bridge and the region of Appalachia at large1.
Since 04/13/2000, SCP-XXXX-D had been the site of over 700,000 spontaneous manifestations of non-anomalous humans not found to have corresponded to any individuals presently alive at the time. These individuals possessed a noticeably lower Hume level than typical humans. Interviews with recovered instances revealed that the manifesting individuals were temporally displaced from various points in the future. No individual claimed to have been displaced from a point in time prior to May 7, 2049.
Addendum XXXX.D.01: History
The SCP Foundation's operations in and around New River Gorge National Park and Preserve2 began on July 4, 1991, with the construction of Site-86 Facility 16 in Charleston, West Virginia, United States. West Virginia was chosen due to its location within the Greater Appalachia Temporal Anomaly (GATA), a region in the eastern United States that possesses an unusually low temporal resistance value, allowing for a greater degree of influence over the flow of time by Foundation agents in the area. As such, Facility 86-16 was designated as the headquarters of Site-86's branch of the Temporal Anomalies Department.
Map of the Greater Appalachia Temporal Anomaly. Areas shaded in darker red have lower Temporal Resistance Index values.
Following construction of Facility 86-16, Project TIMEBELT was launched by Site-86 regional Temporal Anomalies head Dr. Evie Salem-Orden. The project's goal was the successful displacement of an individual through time, utilizing the weak temporal resistance of the GATA to its advantage. As such, the GATA was classified as a Thaumiel-class anomalous location, with the New River Gorge Bridge3 being classified as SCP-XXXX.
Project TIMEBELT achieved success on April 13, 2000, following the successful temporal displacement of Agent Jonas McElroy, who, while inside a Foundation-owned armored van on the bridge, was safely transported five minutes into the past. Immediately upon the conclusion of the experiment, a crowd of several thousand individuals manifested in the immediate area around the van. According to the testimony of Agent McElroy, most individuals wielded objects resembling smartphones and began to point them at the van. While not considered a threat to normalcy due to the bridge's closure for the experiment, the manifestation was deemed to be a threat to both the project's development and the bridge's structural stability. This marked the beginning of SCP-XXXX-D's secondary anomalous property, with a multitude of similar manifestations occurring within the following week.
The TAD continued to use SCP-XXXX-D as a base of operations for missions that necessitated temporal displacement for 25 more years, albeit with difficulty due to the sheer amount of manifestations, until its decommissioning on January 31, 2026.
Addendum XXXX.D.02: Interview Log
During a manifestation of approximately 600 individuals on the New River Gorge Bridge on April 15, 2000, Dr. Salem-Orden called for the halting of ongoing testing in favor of interviewing one of the individuals involved. The individual, who self-identified as a 43-year-old man named Clinton Emil, agreed to interrogation by the Temporal Anomalies Department.
Interviewer: Dr. Evie Salem-Orden, Temporal Anomalies Department, Site-86 regional head
Interviewee: Clinton Emil, civilian
Foreword: The following interview was conducted to gain insight on the SCP-XXXX-D anomaly and the presence of potentially anomalous individuals.
[BEGIN LOG]
Dr. Salem-Orden: Hello, Mr. Emil. Could you state your name for the record?
Emil: Oh, wow. This is crazy! Oh, uh, yes. Uh, my name is Clinton Emil, uh, 43. Do you need anything else?
Dr. Salem-Orden: My name is Dr. Salem-Orden, I'm just going to ask you a few questions. This shouldn't take up too much of your time. Are you ready?
Emil: No fucking way. 'Scuse my language. You're Evie Salem? Oh my god, it's so cool to meet you.
Dr. Salem-Orden: Salem-Orden, please. And, yes, that is me. I suppose my first question will have to be how do you know who I am?
Emil: Oh, uh, well, in the future, everyone knows who you are, I mean— [chuckle] you're one of the people who invented time travel! How cool is that?
Dr. Salem-Orden: Huh. So you claim to be from the future, then?
Emil: Well, yeah! We all are, those people outside I mean. I brought my whole family here to see this.
Dr. Salem-Orden: To see the New River Gorge? Surely you don't need to time travel to see the New River Gorge.
Emil: No, not the gorge, no. We're here to see you guys, the SCP Foundation! April 13, 2000 is a historic day, everyone wants to go see it! But, of course, they only let a so many people see the actual day itself. We don't want to collapse the bridge prematurely, you know [chuckle]. So, we came to the earliest they'd let us. Today's two days later, right?
Dr. Salem-Orden: So all those people who appeared during the test, those were tourists?
Emil: Yeah, pretty much. Once time travel became popular, everyone wanted to go visit historic moments, but a lot of the world's time isn't weak enough for it or something, so we can only go to a couple places this far back.
Dr. Salem-Orden: What places can you go to?
Emil: Well, the easiest place to go is the bridge, of course. That's why you're here, isn't it? We can go pretty much anywhere in the Appalachians, but the further out you go from here the less far back you can go. I think there's a couple other places we can access pretty easily. Texas, for example, uh… I'm not entirely sure of the others, I haven't exactly done this for very long. Sorry.
Dr. Salem-Orden: It's okay, Mr. Emil, anything is good to know. Now, you said "this far back", how far in the future are you from exactly?
Emil: Oh, well I'm from 2081— uh, December 19, if you want a specific date.
Dr. Salem-Orden: So, everyone wants to visit the 13th because they want to see the first time travel, yes? Why bother settling for the 15th, then? At that point it's just a bridge, yeah?
Emil: Well, the bridge is still the site of the first time travel, that's pretty cool. It's like how people go to the ship where the treaty to end World War III was signed, you know?
Dr. Salem-Orden: Well, once again, you certainly don't need to time travel to see the bridge.
Emil: Oh, well, yeah. We wanted to see the bridge before it gets demolished in 2026.
Dr. Salem-Orden: Before it—?
Emil: I'm sorry, Mrs. Salem, but my reservation for this is about to end. Have a great day, and it was incredible meeting y—
[Emil abruptly vanishes.]
Dr. Salem-Orden: Well.
[END LOG]
Addendum XXXX.D.03: Decommissioning
Using information from the above interview, as well as others conducted later by Dr. Salem-Orden, it was ascertained that the New River Gorge Bridge would be demolished by the SCP Foundation for an unknown reason on January 31, 2026.
In order to prevent a temporal paradox, the following Decommissioning Proposal was submitted to the Decommissioning Department on January 31, 2016 as a safeguard in the event that a proper reason for the bridge's destruction was not apparent:
SCP Object Decommissioning Proposal Form
Item #: SCP-XXXX
Object Class: Divisi4 (Keter/Thaumiel)
Head Researcher: Dr. Evie Salem-Orden
Supporting Personnel*:
- Dr. Thaddeus Xyank, Director, Temporal Anomalies Department
- Dir. Aristides Juliao, Site Director, General Purpose Site-86
- Dir. Sidney Gutierrez, Regional Director, Facility 86-16
- O5-8
Please check off or fill in the applicable boxes regarding the reasons for submitting your proposal:
✓ Excessively High Risk of Lifted Veil Scenario
☐ Excessive Danger
☐ Ability to Decom. Apollyon-Class Object
☐ Expense
☐ Ethical Concerns Over Necessary Containment
☐ Legal Concerns
☐ High Risk of K-Class Scenario (if so, please state which type(s):____)
✓ Other (please state): High risk of a temporal paradox, resulting in unknowable damage to the timeline and the stability of our relationship with the future. - Dr. XyankSummary: All interviews conducted on persons from the future in which the SCP-XXXX question was raised corroborate that the New River Gorge Bridge will be demolished by the SCP Foundation via explosive charges on January 31, 2026. While the reason for this is not known to the public of the future, it is most likely that the destruction of SCP-XXXX is caused by a deliberate decommissioning on the part of the Decommissioning Department. Furthermore, it is most likely that the destruction of SCP-XXXX in ten years' time is done specifically to counteract the paradox resulting from our knowledge of its destruction. In short, this is likely a self-fulfilling prophecy directly resulting from the first interview conducted by Dr. Salem on April 15, 2000. In order to prevent a temporal paradox, which we still lack knowledge of the true scope of what that would mean, this cycle must be allowed to complete itself. - O5-8
*Must be of level 3 clearance or higher.
Despite her involvement in the inciting incident leading to the decommissioning of SCP-XXXX-D, Dr. Salem-Orden was opposed to the bridge's destruction, issuing the following statement as a dissenting opinion on the above proposal:
01/31/2016
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE REGIONAL HEAD
The following is a statement from the Site-86 regional head of the Temporal Anomalies Department.
As head of Site-86's branch of the Temporal Anomalies Department, I have garnered quite a bit of experience with temporal anomalies, and particularly, temporal displacement. This is due to the research carried out at SCP-XXXX. Almost all of our progress in the field of chronology has been accomplished in the last 16 years, before that it was the field of ecstatics and science fiction writers.
The New River Gorge Bridge is something weird. We don't know why it works but it works perfectly, it's something we've never been able to recreate or find anywhere else naturally. My religious colleagues would call it a miracle.
We have no evidence that leaving SCP-XXXX intact would cause a paradox. We have no evidence that, even if it did, it wouldn't just resolve itself. We have no frame of reference going into this. This is uncharted territory. Who's to say it wouldn't simply create a branching timeline? I personally find it unlikely the world wouldn't survive something so minor as not destroying a bridge. It's survived much worse.
This is an opportunity, not only to maintain the single greatest advancement in the study of chronology, but to study what a paradox looks like in person. If SCP-XXXX creates a paradox, we can study how it forms and what can be done to avert it.
What happens when a real paradox occurs? Something on a grander scale than a bridge? What happens when the Foundation or the world at large is at stake? We're going to need a case study to look back on, we're going to need to know how to stop it through the performance of controlled experiments. This is how science works.
Don't let this opportunity go to waste. What happens when you need it again in twenty years? You can't protect anything if you don't know how it works. I trust you, Director Bold, to trust science over fear. Thank you.
Dr. Salem-Orden, 2016.
Despite her repeated efforts, the proposal was accepted. Over the next ten years, Dr. Salem-Orden would become increasingly paranoid and devoted to her work, often rushing experiments to take advantage of SCP-XXXX-D in time. Close colleagues of Dr. Salem-Orden described her as becoming reclusive and haunted, continually disavowing the proposal and implying it had doomed the Foundation. Due to her severe and growing symptoms of depression and guilt, Dr. Salem-Orden was given an Ethics Committee-mandated therapist, but was reportedly frequently absent from scheduled meetings.
Dr. Salem-Orden remained staunchly and vocally opposed to the decision until her removal from the SCP Foundation on January 30, 2026.
On January 31, 2026, the decommissioning commenced according to the accounts of future individuals with no incidents. This has resulted in a considerable slowing down of progress by the Temporal Anomalies Department but is believed to have averted potentially catastrophic damage to the timeline.
Currently, the GATA remains a region with exceptionally low temporal resistance, but the former site of SCP-XXXX-D is no longer significantly less resistant than the surrounding area. As such, SCP-XXXX-D is has been classified as decommissioned and this file has been archived.