Sonic the Hedgehog is in no shortage of die hard fans,
and as with any franchise as beloved as this one,
there are bound to be countless interesting mysteries
and perplexing discoveries.
Many in the sonic community
have even made it their mission to dig into this title
and its past, to unearth some of the ideas from this classical original
that almost no one knows about.
But out of all of these finds,
none of them quite reach the unnerving
and disturbing level of one particular image
that was recently found. You see,
in a 2004 interview with one of the game developers,
Tom Payne, he mentioned that he had a secret stash of cut content
related to Sonic 2. But for years after this,
many of these apparently
revolutionary documents remain shrouded in secrecy.
That was until a chance meeting in April of 2019
between Tom Payne and Jason Moorehouse.
The two randomly brought up their shared love of Sonic,
and when Tom revealed he had a massive box of secrets
sitting in his house on the second game’s development,
Jason was foaming at the mouth.
Eventually, this LED to Jason
and a small team of investigators
getting their hands on everything that Tom had,
which included lots of cut levels
and items the fanbase never even knew existed at all.
it was also at this point that one investigator named Bob Morgan
unearthed one very peculiar image
in some of the sprite’s storage memory bins
that Sent shivers down his spine.
Now affectionately called Bob and face dot PNG,
the image depicts a sadistic man in a green tuxedo
holding up a peace sign,
while seemingly half of his face is being erased
and a smile contorted to nonhuman proportions.
Behind him, almost etched into the side of what looks to be a building,
is a copy of a similar face,
but with a much more evil look,
almost framed in the image of a man in a bloodthirsty rage,
but also with most of his face missing.
On top of this,
the man in the green tuxedo seems to have what is a bullet hole,
along with red and blue blood strewing down his outfit
and a host of very blocky and creepy colors elsewhere,
all behind him. And not only is this image
one of the only of its kind in the entire code base,
but it also has no immediately obvious ties to Sonic,
making it even more horrifying.
So what on earth is this chilling picture
doing in the development folder for Sonic 2?
Well, if you dig deeper into the files
that Bob uncovered during his investigation,
you will also find a set of six smaller images,
each one depicting the same man with a different set of expressions,
with each more alarming than the last.
Obviously, then,
this strange man must have been purposely included here.
And in fact, if we zoom in on one of the gray brick level Setup images
in the same folder, we also see blocks that are covered in human faces,
presumably this same man’s.
Without a doubt, these creepy photos
and their inclusion in the Sonic 2 development kit is no mistake,
but it also begs the question what was going on here?
Some in the community have guessed
it may actually be cut art for an unreleased
Megadrive game called spinny and spike versus the Nightmare King,
while others have pointed out how closely these images
resemble popular serial killers
or even some of the managerial staff working on Sonic 2 at the time.
But regardless of whether these images came from disgruntled employees,
another game, or even an evil team member
with a fascination with serial killers and murder,
the mystery to this day still remains unsolved.