Shea Scientific Films is an ongoing mystery/Analog Horror multimedia series, consisting of a YouTube channel
as well as Twitter, SoundCloud, and Blogger pages.
In May of 2023, a pair of Michiganders, Andy Burwell and Chris Dorsett, discover a box of VHS tapes in a recently-abandoned, unusually sparse apartment. Andy begins digitizing the tapes, and the pair soon discover that they are copies of vintage science education films from a studio that has no apparent record of its existence.
Now tasked with a mystery and a potential lost media recovery operation, Andy runs the YouTube channel and handles conversions while Chris posts findings and other information on Twitter, in the goal of uncovering the history of the studio and what became of it.
This series contains examples of:
- Abandoned Mine: The studio itself was built at an abandoned copper mine in northern Michigan. It was comprised of a repurposed above-ground mining building with an elevator leading to a tunnel about 20 to 25 feet below the surface that was heavily modified into a regular hallway with offices, filming and music studios, and the normal amenities one would expect in a professional corporate-type environment. Despite this, a fire (suggested to be the result of underground methane buildup) completely destroyed the site in June 1973, including caving in the above-ground on-site dormitory area.
- Anachronic Order: The material that Andy and Chris find is not necessarily chronological, and is generally presented in the order they get it. The tape box in particular is not in any apparent order; while Andy does go through the tapes mostly sequentially in their physical order, the dates of the tapes jump around, sometimes by decades.
- Area 51: The title of "Tikaboo Valley, 6-11-97" references Area 51's geographic location, and the tape itself consists of Lee McGrainey, a former editor and cameraman at the studio, observing and being chased away from the base's border after stating his intention to somehow sneak inside.
- Audience Participation: Andy and Chris will respond in-character to YouTube comments and tweets, which sometimes reveals additional information.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: While approaching the main gate of Area 51, Lee mentions how hot it is, and wishes for some wind like there had been when he was up on Mt. Tikaboo earlier in the day. In a few minutes, he gets chased and "sandblasted"note by one of the base's security helicopters.
- "Begone" Bribe: In one of Shea's audio logs, he mentions that he makes "generous annual contributions" to all the media outlets in the Detroit area to make sure they leave him alone.
- Camera Abuse: While running from a security helicopter in "Tikaboo Valley, 6-11-97", Lee trips and smashes his camera on the ground, blacking out the image except for static and the date overlay, and explaining the static and distortions present from the start of the video.
- Classified Information: The patent entries for John Shea that Chris finds have their patent and classification numbers redacted at the printing level; they aren't blacked out, but are hidden using typed dashes.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- The Shea films are color-coded by topic:
- Cyan is biology and Earth science.
- Magenta is physics.
- Yellow is chemistry.
- Black is space.
- Tapes featuring mysterious test footage (theorized by the leads as being from John Shea's NASA work) all take place in bright white rooms; the thumbnails for these videos reflect this.
- The Shea films are color-coded by topic:
- Content Warnings:
- The second film uncovered, "Acids and Bases," is heavily damaged with lots of dark patches on the film, effectively causing a strobe effect for much of the runtime. The title and description have a warning about this flashing, and Andy and Chris put out preemptive warnings about it on the YouTube community tab and on Twitter, respectively.
- Though there's no specific warning for it, Andy and Chris both posted notices that "Death and Decomposition" contains footage of dead animals.
- There's another flashing warning for "Tikaboo Valley, 6-11-97", also due to tape damage.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: Janet Tell-Ashman fist meets John Shea while posing as a reporter for the Detoit Free Press, apparently not knowing about the annual "Begone" Bribe Shea pays to all the media outlets in the area to leave him alone.
- Cute Machines: Downplayed with Nixe, Shea's underwater rover. She's outwardly bulky and industrial with no anthropomorphization, but her camera startup and shutdown sequences contain cheery, beeping segments of "The Blue Danube".
- Deliberate VHS Quality: The films themselves are meant to look like digitized VHS film transfers.
- Four Is Death: The fourth recovered film is titled "Death and Decomposition," and is exactly 4 minutes and 44 seconds long. The digits of its production year, 1973, even add up to 20, which is divisible by 4.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Chris discovers that John M. Shea, the apparent founder of the studio, has at least several hundred, widely-varied patents dating back to the early 1950s.
- Hazmat Suit: "TCA Presentation" opens with someone in a white full-body suit walking out of frame. Andy and Chris guess that the device being tested in the footage is some sort of experimental nuclear reactor.
- The Phoenix: The symbolism of the bird appears (rather than the bird itself) in association with Kay Saudek. After the dissolution of the studio as the result of a fire, she moved to Phoenix, Arizona to move on and try to continue her career in the music field. The discovery of the tape box eventually results in Andy finding a CD containing clean versions of some of Kay's compositions for the studio, which he and Chris help her release onto various music streaming services, thus giving new life to her work over 50 years later.
- Rich Genius: John Shea was a billionaire even back in the '70s, something Chris notes is very unusual. All that money seems to have come solely from Shea's massive amount of patents, which, based on their universal redacted status, convinces Chris that the U.S. government licensed them wholesale to use or just simply control.
- Secret Compartment: Andy eventually discovers that the tape box has a false bottom, which hides CDs featuring some of John Shea's audio diaries and clean versions of more than a dozen of Kay Saudek's backing tracks for the films, as well as some as-yet unrevealed material.
- The '70s: The titular studio was active from January 1, 1972 to June 20, 1973.
- Shout-Out:
- In a photo of the box of tapes, one of them is in a Gemini-brand case (the real-life company, though).
- After the release of the tenth tape, Andy made a community post stating that "We're 10 tapes into the box now"; 10 Tapes is an ARG by Swedish YouTuber Jeffiot, who featured Shea Scientific Films in one of his videos several months prior.
- In an interview with Andy and Chris, Kay Saudek, the composer of Shea Scientific Films, mentions being a fan of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. On her SoundCloud profile, she additionally follows a variety of artists including David Bowie, Giorgio Moroder, Yes, and Black Sabbath.
- One of Andy's YouTube posts contains the phrase (bold added) "No video tonight. Mind if I wait until tomorrow?" Several months before, Nick Nocturne explored this series during a livestream.
- Fredrik Knudsen, joined by Nick Nocturne, also covered the series on a stream; a day later, Chris made a tweet containing the phrase "down the rabbit hole."
- The audio file "October 18 1958" begins with Shea listening to the title track of the Charles Mingus album Pithecanthropus Erectus.
- Stealth Pun: Before the identity of the apartment tenant is revealed, Chris and Andy refer to him as "E." In other words, "Mr. E."
- String Theory: Chris claims to have seen "a big corkboard with strings and stuff" in the abandoned apartment, but apparently didn't get a good look at it initially. He finally tracks it down in December 2023, revealing that it's a collection of highlighted, Michigan-related UFO article printouts and a string leading from northwestern Ohio across southwestern Michigan.
- Vanity Plate: The channel's first upload is the studio's vanity plate, and it seemingly occurs after the end credits of each film.