Multidisciplinary Artist | Liminal Fiction | Alternate Reality Games
That a group of renegade Princeton physicists and mystics, working in secret at Ong’s Hat, New Jersey, used chaos-theory and consciousness research to build a machine (the “Egg,” and later … Continue reading Renegade physicists at Ong’s Hat built a machine that opened a gateway to parallel dimensions
Received my ‘Mycellium Parish News 2025‘ in the mail. Great zine and I highly recommend. @rawilson23.bsky.social published a review on their site, so go check that out. Ong’s Hat: COMPLEAT … Continue reading ‘Mycellium Parish News 2025’
While most ghost towns fade quietly into history, Ong’s Hat has carved out a peculiar legacy that blends verifiable abandonment with decades of digital-age mythology. Located deep in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, this settlement vanished … Continue reading Ghost Towns Used As Movie Filming Locations In New Jersey: Ong’s Hat and Other Mysterious Abandoned Settlements
Ong’s Hat in New Jersey is a ghost town with strange legends, including disappearances and a supposed portal to another dimension. According to an urban legend (and a handful of … Continue reading Most People Have Long Forgotten About This Vacant Ghost Town In Rural New Jersey
AUDIO – NON-FICTIONThis Is Not A Game: Season 1, ‘Portal to Utopia’ and ‘Joseph Matheny’ – Marc Fennell with Emma Weatherill Alex Lee and Suren Jayemanne hosted the awards, held … Continue reading AWGIE
FROM Why Locals Flock To Pine Barrens Towns In New Jersey To Explore Folklore And Legends Article By: Esme Whitman | January 13, 2026 Ong’s Hat is one of the most enigmatic locations … Continue reading Ong’s Hat: The Ghost Town That Became an Internet Legend
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
Joseph Matheny 