![Entertainment that invades everyday life: The birth and evolution of ARGs [Until ARGs became widespread in Japan]](https://josephmatheny.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/rectangle_large_type_2_57d1ca2b4b652b7b2d77aa04979018b3.webp?w=1280&h=666&crop=1)
■Incunabula: Ong’s Hat
“Ong’s Hat” is considered one of the oldest urban legends originating on the internet, and is akin to a creepypasta or SCP. Ong’s Hat is a real ghost town in New Jersey.
Ong’s Hat: Piney Ghost Town or Gateway to Another Dimension?weirdnj.com
Therefore, there are many anecdotes and legends about it, which seem to be similar to urban legends such as those of Inunaki Village in Japan. The synopsis is as quoted below.
It all started with the emergence of a pamphlet, “Ongu’s Hut: Gateway to Multiple Dimensions, Full-Color Pamphlet for the Chaos Institute and the Moorish Scientific Monastery,” which suddenly began circulating in the late 1980s. According to the pamphlet, Ongu’s Hut was once the site of secret experiments by quantum mechanics researchers the Dobbs Brothers. Nearby, the mystic Wali Fard had founded the Moorish Scientific Monastery. Eventually, scientists and mystics met, merging metaphysical disciplines—including meditation, physics, alchemy, and remote viewing—in unprecedented ways, opening up new frontiers for further experimentation. The pamphlet describes how, after repeated complex and bizarre experiments, they finally pierced the veil between parallel worlds and developed the “Egg,” a pod that allows travel to other dimensions. However, after a mysterious nuclear accident at a nearby military base exposed them to the risk of radioactive contamination, they used the Egg’s technology to transport the entire monastery and its inhabitants to a parallel Earth, leaving only the building for the gateway behind. The end of the pamphlet invites readers to Ongu’s Hut and discover the transdimensional community there, but cautions that it will not be easy.
Another Real World: Collective Delusions in the Post-Truth Era (Part 1)
This was later compiled into an online book titled Ong’s Hat: The Beginning by Joseph Masini, the founder of Ong’s Hat.
Matheny first launched the project around 1988, collaborating with anarchist author Peter Lamborn Wilson, physicist Nick Herbert, and artist James Cohenlein to create a legend of paranormal activity in New Jersey. Initially, Matheny and his friends spread the legends through catalogs of magazine articles and ghost books that they compiled and mailed out, but in 1993 they continued the story using the then-new medium of the internet.
This led to widespread speculation among users online, and eventually, due to harassment from users who mistook it for a real event, Joseph Matheny, the creator of the story, himself confessed that it was fiction, and the story came to an end in 2001.
☟Some of the email text used in the ARG has also been archived.
LINK TO ARTICLE: https://note.com/angrybreakfast/n/n668d9bd4f7a2#c3f1e498-c580-43b9-8f14-f65466d3dd08
Joseph Matheny 