Multidisciplinary Artist | Liminal Fiction | Alternate Reality Games
Explore Ong’s Hat, the real Pine Barrens ghost town behind the legendary 1980s–90s interdimensional cult myth and Joseph Matheny’s groundbreaking Incunabula/ARG that blurred fact and fiction, inspired The Blair Witch … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: The NJ Ghost Town That Invented Alternate Reality Games
Hi there, friends! This week, back on the show, is the brilliant, Joseph Matheny! Joseph and I have a granular look into UFO, “the phenomena”, starving for original stories, being … Continue reading Joseph Matheny Starving for Story
I am happy to present my appearance on one of my favorite podcasts. If you like this one, consider joining their Patreon and gaining access to their Discord as a … Continue reading Unfolding Alternate Realities, Ong’s Hat, Synchronicity and more with Joseph Matheny
For a long time, Ong’s Hat, an abandoned ghost town in New Jersey, has been the subject of many urban legends and local folk tales, but it was also the … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: How did the First ARG Spiral out of Control?
A wonderfully comprehensive entry on Ong’s Hat at TVTropes. Whoever did this entry was very inclusive. LINK: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ARG/OngsHat
Η πρώτη θεωρία συνωμοσίας (Guest Storyteller Elena Strouthou) H φίλη και host του “Breaking the 20%” έρχεται στο στούντιο για να μας μιλήσει για την πρώτη θεωρία συνομωσίας του ιντερνετ! … Continue reading Ong’s Hat episode of Historicon (not in English)- Η πρώτη θεωρία συνωμοσίας (Guest Storyteller Elena Strouthou)
LINK: https://polypores.bandcamp.com/album/ongs-hat-compleat-official-soundtrack Also, a great write-up of this project: https://moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-73-1-august-2025 The soundtrack to the audiobook version of Ong’s Hat: Compleat New addition: Hat Complete soundtrack! The dl now includes a … Continue reading Ongs Hat Compleat – Official Soundtrack
If you subscribe to this site via email or something like WP Reader, I wanted to let you know that I only update it with major announcements. Those would be … Continue reading Keeping up to date
James A. Hodges (School of Information, San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA) Journal of Documentation ISSN: 0022-0418 Article publication date: 21 April 2025 Abstract Purpose This paper aims to reframe contemporary research on … Continue reading A bibliographic archeology of game-like conspiracy narratives: examining the Ong’s Hat Incunabula catalog
In Cronenberg’s cinematic interpretation of Burroughs’s “Naked Lunch,” Peter Weller’s Bill Lee character is confronted by Hank with pages of reports he cannot remember writing. Bill Lee drawls laconically, “I … Continue reading VYSXXXX | The Real Vayse: Halloween 2024
New Mauve Zone and other treats
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Blog, Internet resources, online reading groups, articles and interviews, Illuminatus! info. Original post: http://www.rawillumination.net/2024/03/five-questions-for-joseph-matheny.html If you haven’t listened to it yet, the new Hilaritas podcast interview … Continue reading Five questions for Joseph Matheny
Show link: https://shows.acast.com/perplexitymysterypodcast/episodes/episode-67-ongs-hat-new-jersey-and-the-internet-conspiracy-t Have you ever driven through a ghost town and wondered about the history behind it? What ruin or tragedy may have led to the town becoming nothing … Continue reading Perplexity: A Mystery PodcastEpisode 67: Ong’s Hat, New Jersey and the Internet Conspiracy Theory
Paul Giamatti and friends discuss weird New Jersey stories and give some props to Ong’s Hat. Recorded live from the (possibly haunted) Marines’ Memorial Theatre in San Francisco at @SFSketchfest … Continue reading Tales of Weird NJ: Bovine, Bigfoot & Frogs
A great conversation I had with the guys from The Long Seventies Podcast Show page: https://www.thelongseventiespodcast.com/home/2024/2/15/133-joseph-matheny-interview-ongs-hat-amp-the-alchemy-of-alternative-realities
SOURCE: https://www.archyde.com/art-in-the-age-of-reels/ THERE WILL BE A BEFORE AND AFTER AGGRO DR1FT, THE NEW DIGI-PSYCHEDELIC FILM BY HARMONY KORINE. INSPIRED BY GTA 5, CREATED WITH AN ARMY OF DESIGNERS, AI ARTISTS, … Continue reading ART IN THE AGE OF REELS
Climbing Ong’s Hat https://www.patreon.com/posts/climbing-ongs-66053708 https://toowiarts.com/episodes/dragonsbread/information-golem From the editor at ToowiArts Ok, so I’m the person who looks at Mt. Everest and says, sure I can do that. I underestimate pretty … Continue reading Coming Soon: #Dragonsbread- Information Golem
Because I’m posting this on Halloween, I thought I‘d try to stick to the theme of trickery. However, I’m not going to be talking about deceptive demons or satanic rituals. … Continue reading A conspiracy thread: Brave New World Order
What lies at the heart of Ong’s Hat? Listen to this episode of Decoder Ring: LINK TO DECODER RING PAGE Decoder Ring is a podcast about cracking cultural mysteries. Every … Continue reading Slate-Decoder Ring: The Incunabula Papers
My dear, late friend humdog wrote this in 1994. You may recognize the name as one of the people I dedicated the Ong’s Hat project to. Her name, in real … Continue reading humdog on the future then, which is now
A new piece, the first in a long series I’ll be doing for my friend Nick Belardes new literary start-up. Wherein, I don the mantle of Jack Smith, reborn! Transmedia: … Continue reading Transmedia: Who Invited the Lobsters Anyway?
Source: https://directory.eliterature.org/individual-work/1269 (Original work cited from early 90s) Joseph Matheny lives in Los Angeles, California, and he is the executive director and producer of the Santa Barbara and the Los … Continue reading The Last Book: A MediaKaos Work in Progress
First recorded in Chicago in 1994, this previously unreleased audio session with the renowned Robert Anton Wilson has been stored away for fifteen years…and almost lost entirely. If Bob knew how many synchronicities surround the rediscovery and release of this “lost” studio session, he would be chuckling in that half jolly, half mischievous way of his. If you believe in any kind of afterlife, maybe you can imagine him laughing right now. I like that image: Bob the laughing Buddha, still having one over on us from the great beyond.
by Joseph Matheny, Illusion of Safety Joseph Matheny performs a Lesser Banishing Ritual of Pentagram with musical accompaniment by Illusion of Safety. Also included is a PDF of the cover complete … Continue reading The Banishing Ritual – Audio with Cover- 1993 (Joseph Matheny with Illusion of Safety)
Joseph Matheny 