By: Hugh Janus

BLOOMINGTON, IN- In an archaeological dig of campus more than a decade in the making, IU students uncovered more than they bargained for after a prolonged excavation of the grave next to the IMU.

“Usually getting these rocks up really gets my rocks off, but we weren’t prepared for what we found on Wednesday,” said Ian McManson, a senior whose major in archaeology has completely alienated him from his parents “We brought in a metal detector, and the signal was coming from so deep inside the earth that we had to bring in a crane. This would normally bring me to at least a half-chub, but what we found still unsettles me.”

“We finally unearthed it, and once I got over the initial excitement we found that it was a VHS wrapped up in a bloodstained sacrifice shawl,” McManson said. “We did some research and found out that it was originally from 1993. There was ancient Khandarian script on the front, but we were too scared to read that out loud.”

Upon finding a VCR player in the basement of the IMU, the Archaeological Society of Scholars, ASS, inserted the tape and pressed play. But nothing could prepare them for what they saw next. “At first there was just the sound of the tape scraping through the player,” said ASS president Carlson Marks, shuddering at the memory. “That old, familiar voice, coupled with the weird, off-screen hand motions. Then the screen kicked in. We’d know that John Malkovich lookalike anywhere.”

The man in question was none other than John Arthos, Speech teacher at Indiana University. “It was his first citation tutorial,” McManson said. “Once we realized that the time signature of the tape was over nine minutes, we just fuckin’ Google’d it. It was too weird to watch him.”

Once the tape resurfaced and was watched, John Arthos was sought for some answers, but he merely recited the words of Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”

ASS president Marks released a brief statement this week. “We don’t know exactly what the tape is: a horcrux, a bat signal, or something else. All we know is that whatever it is, it won’t rest until everything is in MLA format.”