Someone has been folding 2-by-3-inch slips of paper into sealed packages of Lucky Charms, Lindt chocolate, Milk Duds, Tylenol, and Velveeta Skillets, and tying them in plastic bags to trees along Pennsylvania hiking trails. Each slip carries 19 lines of densely printed text, often with one corner shouting a single word like LIES in capitals. Nobody knows who is making them.
The slips are called the Schuylkill notes, after the rural Pennsylvania county where many of them show up. According to a Wikipedia entry cataloging the ongoing mystery, the earliest social media reports date to 2019, with possible sightings dating back to 2015. At least 139 separate finds had been logged by February 2024, plotted on a crowdsourced Google Map kept up by the r/schuylkillnotes Reddit community.
The text itself reads like someone tried to fit an entire conspiracy podcast onto a business card. One slip will link Disney, the Pope, the Dalai Lama, the European Union, Pfizer, BMW, Folgers, and Domino's to secret societies. Another will pull in Vladimir Putin, JFK, the British royals, "Dragon Kings" reptilians, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The brand list alone runs to dozens of names: Aquafina, Sunoco, Subaru, AstraZeneca, Pillsbury, Mazda, Nescafé.
Slips have been pulled from Walmart, Target, Wegmans, Trader Joe's, Aldi, CVS, Kohl's, Cabela's, Lowe's, and Goodwill. Getting tiny printed leaflets inside factory-sealed cereal and chocolate bars means either a very patient saboteur on a packaging line or someone resealing boxes well enough to fool the shopper.
A December 2023 segment by Wilkes-Barre's 28/22 News triggered an FDA investigation, since slipping anything into a sealed food package is a federal crime. Congressmen Dan Meuser and Matt Cartwright weighed in publicly. Six years and 139 notes later, nobody has been identified.
By artificialavocado – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link
Previously:
