Entry #22

Entry #22 — Unfiction Thread for Entry #22
Previous: Entry #21 — Next: totheark entry Attention

Summary

Entry 22 was uploaded on December 22, 2009.
It has the description "22."
It is tagged "Marble" and "Hornets".
In total, this clip is 6:46 long.

This entry consists of footage of Alex, taped by a second person identified as Seth, wandering through a dilapidated building. There is heavy audio and visual distortion. At one point, the camera and probably cameraman appear to fall to the ground, Alex shouts Seth's name, and then the picture changes. Alex sitting with his back to a wall, looking stunned and telling the camera that "Seth is gone. …. Brian is gone, and Tim is, and Jay, and Sarah" are all gone, and that all he remembers is on the tape. He says that he is going to go home and that he is going to burn the tape. The audio and visual distortion return intermittently towards the end of this segment, and a hand-like shadow passes through Alex's head.

+ Detailed Transcript

[0:00] Black screen.
[0:01] White text on black background, saying:

Entry #22

[0:03] Black screen.
[0:04] White text on black background, saying:

The tape

[0:07] Black screen.
[0:08] Footage begins. Alex's hand and face are visible, his hand casting a shadow that intermittently obscures much of his face.
The audio is tinny, distorted, but audible.
[0:10] Alex says, "Is it working now?"
[0:12] A burst of static can be heard.
Alex says: "Keep it rolling."
[0:14] Alex moves away from the camera, turning around, and passes into shadow.
Moderate tapping and crashing noises are heard, similarly tinny to the speech.
[0:17] The camera pans away from Alex's face, in light once more, and downwards, catching a patch of flashlight on the ground. The ground appears uneven, dirty. The small patch of light from the flashlight continues to dance around, not illuminating anything recognizable.
[0:22] Alex says something indecipherable.
[0:27] Some noises of adjustment can be heard from the camera shooting. The flashlight suddenly begins to illuminate more than before, with a bright patch in the middle of a larger, moderately lit patch. The footage also suddenly gains a greenish cast, as if low-light vision has been turned on. Alex's jacket hem and pant leg can be seen to the right of the frame.
[0:28] The footage either cuts or the camera pans away very quickly. The frame is dark, and there appears to be the blur of things across the screen as the camera moves quickly.
[0:31] There is a burst of low, garbled audio distortion that sounds a little bit like the bubbling of a creek.
The camera zooms out.
[0:32] The frame resolves itself as doorway-like opening in a dirty-looking wall with what appears to be a grate with diamond-shaped holes over it.
[0:33] The audio cuts out entirely. The camera pans upwards quickly. The ceiling appears to be covered in pipes and metal beams. Everything looks dirty and worn.
[0:35] The audio cuts back in, once more tinny and distorted. The noise sounds like general ambient moving-about noises.
The camera continues to pan about the dark, dirty room, looking at the ceiling mostly.
[0:40] The camera swings back down, and Alex's arm and pant leg come into the right side of the frame. He is walking forward.
[0:42] Alex appears to point. The camera pans to what he's pointing to, over dirty ground that appears to be covered in dirt or other detritus.
[0:44] Rapidfire visual tearing of the image on the screen begins. Audio is briefly interrupted by a burst of loud, high-pitched distortion that may be heavily distorted speech.
[0:46] The rapidfire tearing resolves itself as a single tear about a quarter of the way up the screen. The image is still of a dirty, rough floor.
[0:46] The camera pans upwards, over several ambiguous dangling white objects similar to rope or bound cloth.
[0:47] The tear resolves itself. The camera pans away over the ceiling again.
[0:51] The camera pans down, over most of Alex's body. Alex is walking slowly forward.
[0:53] The image is interrupted by heavy distortion that appears similar to but not exactly like visual tearing, and this distortion wavers from side to side
[0:54] The distortion freezes for a moment on one heavily distorted frame for less than a second, and then continues as before. A reddish, highlighted blob moves down the distorted area.
[0:56] The image resolves itself once more into rough, dirty ground. The camera approaches a pillar or corner.
[0:59] Cut to black.
[1:01] A rumbling background audio track kicks in, like wind blowing past the speaker but more regular.
[1:03] Footage of the floor again, this time dappled with broken bits of white material like ceramic or glass. The camera turns rapidly to the right, passing a pipe, and then following a small patch of orangeish brightness that appears to come from Alex's flashlight.
[1:07] Alex's sleeve and arm come into frame on the left. The camera pans right.
[1:10] The camera pans left again, up and across Alex's face, and down to the floor.
[1:13] The rumbling audio distortion stops. The camera pans up towards where Alex's flashlight is pointing.
[1:14] Someone seems to say something, but the audio distortion has rendered it indecipherable. The camera catches Alex on screen to the right once more.
[1:16] Something else is said, perhaps "go back". The camera and Alex continue forwards.
[1:21] They pass by a beam or pillar that appears to be wooden, with the paint flaking off. Past these is a set of stairs.
[1:24] The camera approaches the stairs.
[1:25] The camera pans quickly upwards over the stairwell, to where the stairs that have doubled back intersect the landing above and can no longer be seen.
[1:27] The camera pans back down to the bottom of the stairs and then further left, briefly catching Alex in frame.
The rumbling audio distortion returns, and then quickly cuts out again.
[1:28] Odd audio can be heard, like a voice-pitched, muffled noise close to the camera's speaker.
[1:29] The camera quickly pans left, over some metal sheeting and grating propped up.
The strange audio continues, and is joined by a much fainter, higher sound briefly.
[1:31] The camera pans back to the stairs.
[1:33] The camera begins to ascend the stairs, pointing downwards at them.
[1:34] The rumbling audio distortion returns.
[1:37] Cut to black.
[1:39] Footage of the floor again.
The rumbling audio distortion ends.
[1:40] The camera pans left and catches Alex's shoes as he walks. The audio is once again tinny ambient noise.
The camera turns left and approaches a set of stairs.
[1:41] Alex's feet can be seen ascending the stairs.
[1:43] The camera pans upwards quickly, once again pointing at the top of the stairs. It pans right, and Alex's face can be seen in frame, looking back at the camera.
[1:47] Cut to footage of Alex's face on the right of the frame, from the nose down, talking. The background appears to be the same building, and the greenish night-vision light is still there.
Alex's words are tinnily distorted, but he appears to say "is it rolling now?"
[1:50] Alex says: "Alright." He turns his face away from the camera.
[1:51] He looks back at the camera and begins to say something, but it is cut off.
[1:52] Cut to black.
[1:53] The video is still absent, but apparently undistorted audio kicks in. The noises are wooden, like feet on a wooden floor or stairs, and fabric, like someone's clothing shifting. Various ambient noises that are consistent with the kinds of noises that had been distorted as they moved through the basement before can be heard, undistorted.
[2:01] The noise continues. There seemed to be three footfalls and then a pause, and then a few clicking high-pitched noises can be heard.
[2:03] The video cuts back in; footage of Alex's jeans and shirt, in green night-vision.
The audio distortion kicks back in, but it is not as tinny and is more bubbly. The camera pans quickly down at the floor and then up again.
[2:05] There are loud crashing noises, distorted. The camera pans up to Alex's face and he's looking behind and to the left. He looks at the cameraman, glances to the left again, and then says something distorted that sounds like: "it went back upstairs". (also perhaps "fled back upstairs" or "climbed the stairs" — very ambiguous audio)
The rumbling audio distortion returns.
[2:11] He looks away again, and then forward.
[2:12] The camera pans right, over a series of pipes, several small ones attached to a number of smaller ones. It continues to pan around, catching a lot of pipes and metal poles.
[2:17] It pans back down and Alex's head comes into frame. He's moved some distance away. He may be saying something, but the rumbling audio distortion continues and obscures it.
[2:24] The camera, following Alex, pans over what may be switch boxes or lockers. A metallic sound, like a pipe falling over, can be heard.
[2:26] Pans back to Alex, who is still moving forward. He moves past a waist-height metal grate.
[2:34] He approaches a brick wall, the camera close behind and following his flashlight.
[2:35] The flashlight illuminates, and then the camera pans to, what may be an old boiler or similar structure; a heavy cylindrical object larger than a man, laid on its side, with several round apertures on its front.
[2:39] The rumbling distortion gets louder.
[2:41] The camera approaches the boiler slowly.
[2:44] The camera pans left and back to Alex's face. He is looking forward. It pans back to the boiler.
[2:50] The camera follows Alex as he turns left, past a series of larger pipes.
[2:53] The rumbling distortion gets deeper in pitch. The camera follows Alex, illuminating his upper half as he moves forward.
[2:59] Alex turns to the left, looking at something off-screen.
[3:02] Alex crouches, and the camera follows him.
[3:05] The camera turns left to whatever Alex was looking at. A round aperture a foot or two across in a thick metal structure comes into frame, and the camera turns to look down it.
[3:07] The inside of the aperture appears to be a tunnel or pipe of corrugated or ridged metal. Near the entrance, there is some rubble. At the far end, it is blocked off with a light-colored round of material, and on this there is a smaller circle with inward radial lines pointing towards a smaller black round or hole. It looks remarkably like a large eyeball. There appears to be water pooling at the bottom of the end of the tunnel.
[3:08] The camera pans quickly away again, to the right.
[3:10] Alex comes into frame again. He is pointing his flashlight to the right.
Louder, slightly higher-pitched rumbling audio distortion kicks in.
[3:11] The camera pans to the right, to what Alex is looking at. It appears to be a large sphere or the end of a cylinder, covered in what might be old insulation, with a valve and a pipe on the front. It is supported by a metal frame and held two or three feet above the ground.
[3:14] The audio distortion gets louder, a scraping noise joining it briefly. The audio distortion cuts out again, except for the lower rumbling distortion.
[3:15] Alex says: "Let's keep going this way." his face and arm come into frame again; he's pointing to the right. The camera pans that direction.
[3:19] They round another metal structure and the camera pans about, over pipes and dirty floor.
[3:20] The footage cuts abruptly to an image inside a corrugated pipe that appears similar to the one the camera looked down several seconds ago. There is a white shape on the floor of the tunnel near the end. There is rapid visual tearing cycling through the screen.
[3:21] As the tearing cycles, a white shape can be seen coming into frame at the top right and then going away again. This could be the camera moving slowly and catching the edge of the tunnel's opening.
[3:25] Cut to footage that seems to be the same as before the tunnel shot; simply panning about, although the color is a more reddish tinge than greenish.
[3:27] Alex is caught in frame to the left briefly, and then the camera pans away again, looking at various metal debris.
[3:30] The camera begins to follow the circle of Alex's flashlight's illumination. It goes over a wall, across an opening in the wall, and then across more wall and a corner.
[3:38] The camera pans right; Alex's leg and jacket are caught in frame again. The camera follows him through the opening in the wall that it panned over earlier.
[3:44] Alex is staring intently to the left. The camera pans left. There appears to be an old table or workbench.
[3:50] the camera pans to Alex again. He is turning around slowly, passing the flashlight over the walls and looking intently.
[3:54] Alex passes the flashlight to his left hand and points offscreen with his right.
[3:55] Alex says: "Look at this."
[3:57] The camera pans down Alex's arm to a wall he is pointing directly at, almost touching. His flashlight is illuminating a circle on the concrete.
Faint, high-pitched audio distortion cuts in.
[4:00] Someone mutters something inaudible.
[4:01] The camera switches from greenish-tinged night vision to much darker, red-cast normal vision. On the wall, directly where Alex is pointing, there are suddenly large reddish splashes visible, but only in the circle of light illuminated by Alex's flashlight. The rest of the frame is dark.
The higher-pitched audio cuts out again.
[4:03] A dimmer flashlight joins the first. The splashes of red are long and copious.
[4:04] Alex runs his finger over the red stains. His finger comes up clean. His hand leaves the circle of light, enters again, presses against the concrete beside the stain.
[4:06] Alex whispers: "It's dry."
[4:07] The camera pans to the right. The frame is completely dark.
[4:09] Alex whispers: "Let's go."
[4:10] The sounds of camera adjustment can be heard. A pale patch of light moves across the frame, illuminating bits of the floor and wall.
[4:11] The night vision switches back on. Alex's pants and jacket can be seen to the right of the frame. His flashlight is still illuminating the wall across the room.
[4:14] The camera pans up Alex. He's looking to the left.
[4:15] The camera pans left, picking up Alex's flashlight against some sort of sheet-metal machine. The camera pans down to pick up brick-made structures at the base of the machine, including two low archways that lead into the machine. Alex's flashlight is lingering on these bricks.
[4:20] The camera pans left, catches Alex's leg, then up to his face. He is looking at the camera.
[4:22] Alex says: "There's more."
[4:24] The camera pans back to the brickwork.
[4:27] The night vision turns off again. There are a great deal more of the same kind of red stain splattered across the brick structures.
[4:32] The night vision turns back on. The camera pans back to Alex's face.
[4:34] Cut to a highly distorted image of a white, face- or heart-shaped object overlaid where Alex's face was in frame, fading into and surrounded by coarse black and white static. This footage is only present for 12 frames.
Cut back to blurry footage of the room. The camera pans right and catches Alex again, from the chest to the nose.
Alex says: "Let's go."
[4:35] Alex turns to the right and begins to move away from the camera, touches his nose.
Alex says: "Right now."
[4:38] Alex moves to a doorway to the left of frame.
High-piched audio distortion with a whine-like quality cuts in, rising in pitch. Alex says something else that is hard to hear.
[4:40] The whining distortion cuts out.
[4:41] Alex passes through the doorway. The camera is shaking a lot more than usual.
[4:46] The camera is staying quite close behind Alex, who is moving at a quick walk. The camera only catches his feet and the floor. Alex says a few very faint things during the walk that sound as if they could be further "Come on, let's go"s.
[4:51] Alex turns right; the camera pans left over a large water heater and then to a wall beyond it, but continues to move in the same direction as Alex.
[4:54] The camera stops moving in the same direction Alex went. It pans right, swinging around to where Alex is now standing, facing the camera.
[4:56] The camera pans right again, back to the space beyond the water heater. The camera begins to move towards that wall.
[5:01] It turns left, looking down a hallway or doorway adjacent to that wall.
[5:02] Suddenly the camera swings wildly towards the ground.
Loud audio distortion cuts in.
[5:03] The camera continues to swing.
Another note of distortion, louder and pitched a bit like a low scream, cuts in.
[5:06] The camera goes in close to the ground but continues to move.
[5:07] The louder audio distortion ends. The camera comes to rest on the ground, an indecipherable shape taking over the frame. The camera is still moving slightly.
A brighter orangey light, probably Alex's flashlight, can be seen moving on the ground further away.
Alex shouts: "Seth!"
[5:09] Cut to a screen filled with large, grainy bits of color, like CMYK static with black and white throughout.
Loud, abrasive audio distortion kicks in. It changes tone and pitch a few times.
[5:14] Cut to a strange image of white, red-brown and black shifting static-like patterns, in the shape of what might be a cartoony or stylized face, with large black eye sockets, a long straight black mouth and a black area for a nose. It moves slowly left across the screen.
All audio is absent.
[5:17] Cut to white.
[5:20] Cut to black.
Cut to footage of Alex, lit strongly from the right, sitting against a pale wall. His shadow casts strongly to the left and a little ways up, as if the light source is below and to the right. The wall is likewise illuminated. Alex is wearing the same hat and jacket that he was in the previous footage. He is looking at the camera.
[5:22] Alex says in a monotone: "Seth is gone."
[5:27] Alex continues the same: "I don't remember what happened."
He shakes his head very slightly.
[5:30] "We were the only two left, and I left him."
[5:38] "Brian is gone."
[5:40] "And Tim is, and Jay, and Sarah."
[5:46] "Everyone is gone."
[5:51] "I just woke up in this house. With the tape. Seth's camera is gone. All I can remember from the night is right here."
[6:03] Cut to black.
[6:05] Cut back to Alex, in the same position. Alex continues: "All I can remember at all is on the tape now."
[6:15] Alex says: "I'm leaving this house." He opens his mouth as if to speak again.
[6:18] Cut to black.
[6:19] Cut to the same footage of Alex. There is a black shadow at the bottom right of the frame. It moves up and left, towards Alex's head, resolving to be the fuzzy shape of a hand that then passes through Alex's head.
Visual distortion kicks in, pumping up the contrast on the blacks and shadows so that they appear sharp-edged.
[6:20] Alex says: "I thought I would be safer here."
As he speaks, the frame cuts to black for another moment.
[6:21] Cut back to the same footage of Alex, with no visual distortion present anymore.
There is the slow creaking of a door opening in the background.
[6:23] Cut to black again.
[6:24] Cut back to the footage of Alex.
Alex says: "By running away.
[6:25] Faint audio distortion cuts in. It is accompanied by a soft clicking or hollow tapping noise that repeats three times in a "click, click click" rhythm.
[6:27] Alex says: "But everything has just gotten worse."
The audio distortion increases so that Alex's words are beginning to sound tinny and fuzzy.
Alex's facial expression appears to be wavering from neutral. He is frowning or scowling a bit.
[6:33] Alex says: "I'm going back to my home."
[6:35] Alex continues: "And I'm burning these tapes.
[6:36] Cut to black.
The audio distortion continues to increase in intensity, though it is still quite low.
[6:39] Alex says: "All of them."
[6:39] The distortion increases slightly more and continues, though the video is still flat black.
[6:44] The audio distortion cuts out.
[6:46] The video ends.

Main Theories and Observations

• The movement of the camera when it (and probably Seth) fell to the ground could be Seth being pulled into the hallway.
• Alex and Seth could be trying to hunt down the Operator. There is little other reason that the entries give us for them being wandering around a dilapidated basement with a camera.

Alex's Monologue

• From what Alex is saying it almost seems that he's being forced to say it. He stares of into the distance and Masky or Hoody could be holding up signs directing him on what to say. It doesn't seem very genuine.
• Considering that this tape ends with the statement from Alex that he plans on burning the tapes, this is probably shortly before he gave the tapes to Jay and left town.
• Alex states that "Seth is gone. …. Brian is gone, and Tim is, and Jay, and Sarah". In videos that are later in the chronology (all of the Entries for Jay, and Entry #15 at least for Tim) that at least Jay and Tim are still around in the same town. This discrepancy could be caused by a number of things:
  • Brian, Seth, Sarah, Jay and Tim could have all lost their memories of being stalked by the Operator, and thus be mentally "gone" from being in the same situation that Alex was in. This is supported by evidence of Jay at least having lost time from during the filming of Marble Hornets — he doesn't remember Entry #17 at all, for example.
  • The aforementioned missing persons could actually have been missing for a time, and later returned and lost their memories of ever being missing.
  • The missing people could have fallen under the Operator's control, if the Operator is an entity that takes control of people, and thus be "gone" in that they were not themselves anymore. If this is the case, then in the time since this was taped, Jay at least has recovered.
  • Alex simply might have lost a number of memories and thus be confused and disoriented.
• Alex says "I thought I could run away". This statement is without much context and so is very mysterious. It could mean that:
  • Alex left his own house to hide out in Brian's. This would stand to reason with previous evidence of habitation, such as:
    • The torn up flyers (Alex is heard tearing things up in Entry #3, though this couch is different than Brian's).
    • The pictures left in Brian's house found in Entry #20.
    • The stairs in Entry #11 being remarkably similar to the stairs in the House.
  • He tried to leave the town earlier but couldn't.
  • He tried to ignore what was happening to him and couldn't.
  • If he is from another town, he could have had encounters with the Operator as a child, and moved away from that town in the hopes of escaping.
• When Alex says "I'm going back to my home", he could refer to a different town if perhaps he grew up elsewhere. However, if that's not what he meant, then the statement is very strange as after this video, he apparently didn't stay in the same town that he assumedly had been living in over the course of the filming of Marble Hornets.
  • He could be saying that he was going to back to his house to burn the tapes before leaving down, though his diction suggests something more profound.
• There is a theory that, due to the things that Alex says, the section with Alex sitting against the wall is more recent. In that case, the aforementioned missing persons might well be missing (except for Jay, however, Jay has made himself difficult to find), and Alex would have tried running away. Entry #26 would seem to lampoon that — Alex is there, apparently having moved on very successfully from the whole mystery.
• Xenophobe suggests that the creaking of the door during Alex's monologue is actually Jay, arriving in time to have the conversation with Alex that results in him receiving the giant pile of tapes, and that the reason that this entry wasn't among the ones given to Jay was that it was still in the camera at that time.
  • This is unlikely due to Alex not being at his own house at the time of this video. The color of the wall that Alex is sitting against appears to be the same color as the walls of Brian's house.

The Pump Room

• The basement, boiler room, bath house, pump room, or whatever it is, appears to harbour a lot of distortion. The large amount of distortion that can be seen and heard in the video seems to suggest that the Operator is nearby.
  • If this is the case, the fact that there is dried blood on the walls would lend the Operator a more concretely threatening character.
• There are theories that the boiler room is in an alternate dimension. If the Operator is from an alternate dimension, this could be expanded to say it's the dimension the Operator is from.
• The location of the pump room could be related to the abandoned pool that is seen in Entry #13. All of the water equipment (pipes, boilers) would suggest that the basement is related to some water-based enterprise, and the Operator was seen at least once and possibly twice near the abandoned pool.
  • Petrichor gives an excellent piece of research and analysis as to the likelihood of the room in question being a pump room attached to the old pool. He also links a pair of pictures of actual pump rooms: 1, 2

The Imagery

• The face-like shape that appears at 05:14 is very obviously not an actual face, though it evokes one quite strongly. The expression it holds seems to be of agony or extreme distress.
• The shadow shape that goes over or through Alex's head at 06:19 while he's sitting against the wall is very clearly a hand, though whose hand is uncertain. The creaking of the door a moment before suggests someone entered the room, but we don't seem to see an actual figure approach Alex and the blacked-out moments are too short for a normal person to have approached and left again. The "hand" therefore likely belongs to the Operator.
• There appears to be a spotting of fingertips in the frame at 05:00 - 05:01 in a position that is unlikely to have been caused by Seth or Alex. As stated by Demongel: Alex was behind him, as he had darted against the wall in what looked like fear. Seth went to investigate. We see fingertips in a direction that would be impossible to be Seth's hand, and Alex is confirmed to be behind Seth. Third set of fingertips.
  • This happens a moment before Seth falls to the ground. It could be that if it was a hand, the person who it belonged to was responsible for Seth's fall.
• The pipe with the strange iris-like structure at the end appears to have been important or relevant in some form, given that the camera skips back to it.
  • iFaux suggests that it could lead to the strange, staticky hole in the ground from Entry #21.
• The overlay of the white shape over where Alex's face was a moment before, as seen documented by Banshee 21, could allude to the masked man's mask and suggest that Alex is the masked man.
  • Entry #35 would seem to make this theory far less likely, in that it reveals the masked man to be Tim.
• There is a blurry image of what could be a face close to the camera at 4:25. It is very ambiguous, however, if it is a face it could be Seth having turned the camera around to check it. ptlundholm screenshots the face, and shows his interpretation of its features.

Further Speculation

Based on the fact that at the very end, Alex insists that he must now burn the tapes, and the fact that this tape was hidden away from the others, the general consensus is that this tape takes place in the summer of 2006, right before Alex turned the tapes over to J (but before J convinces him to turn them over.)

However, the above line of speculation has a major flaw: in the video, Alex says "They're all gone… Tim, Jay, Sarah…"
One popular explanation for this is that Alex does not refer to the mentioned people being physically gone, but rather that they have forgotten so much that they are not themselves anymore.

Based on the abundance of distortion, in addition to the setting, it is quite likely that the Slender Man was somewhere nearby while Alex and Seth were exploring the dilapidated house. ~ Dav Flamerock

What happened in this entry (and some interpretation):
- Seth and Alex are hunting SM (Alex goes on the offensive *after* being terrorized by SM)
- Alex finds two places with dried blood (why is it always dried?)
- Alex decides to leave (is he giving up, or does he realize they're in danger?)
- Seth gets caught by SM and Alex leaves him there
- Alex wakes up in the "white house" with the tape from Seth's camera, but not Seth's camera or Seth (how?)
- Alex feels isolated and claims his friends are all gone (they're not, but he thinks they are)
- Realizing he has no memory left other than the tapes, he decides to go home and burn the tapes (seems like a bad idea!)
…
Timeline
This entry definitely takes place right before Alex locks himself in his house and J takes the tapes away. Alex says he is "going back to his home" to burn the tapes; considering the tapes are with J, it's safe to say Entry 22 doesn't take place in present day.

Slender Man appearances
Slender man doesn't make an appearance in the first part of this entry…however, they seem to have chosen a location with a lot of lookalikes. Honestly, I'm impressed with the enormous number of "aaah, it's slenderman! oh wait, nevermind" scenes. These guys have an eye for horror. It gives the whole first part a creepy otherworldly vibe.

Why was Seth scouting with Alex?
Why would Seth go hang out with Alex after their blowup in Entry 9? Seth seems to hate Alex in that clip. Maybe Alex wanted to show Seth the truth by bringing him on a SM hunt. On that hunt, SM takes Seth out of the picture.

Did Brian suffer the same fate as Seth?
It's possible that Alex and Brian went SM hunting after the close encounter in Entry 7. Alex wanted to show Brian the truth, Brian gets taken, yet Alex has no footage of the event (Brian doesn't have a camera). Brian isn't in 17 or 20, and the guys have no idea where he is. Is it possible Brian has been gone since entry 7, but no one remembers?

Is everyone really gone?
Probably not (we've seen Tim and J recently), though it doesn't look good for Seth or Brian. After this entry (according to J), Alex was going out of his mind. He had isolated himself completely from everyone - if he thought everyone was gone, his isolation would have a reason. The order Alex says the names (and that weird stutter during "..Tim, and J..") seems to reflect how much we know about where each character is now. Seth and Brian are probably deranged/dead/etc. Tim and J are alive but disturbed. Sarah is off the radar but probably not harmed.
~ morscata12, Wed Dec 23, 2009

When Seth falls, is grabbed or whatever at 5:03 Alex doesn't sound like he's excessively paniced so I think that Seth simply fell in a coughing fit much like other people have had or the cause of the disturbance is around the corner where Alex can't see it. One other remote possibility is that Alex took Seth there to have him killed, captured etc. and was badly acting when The Operator catches him. Although the evidence in other entries shows that at this point Alex still fears it rather than is under it's control or trying to appease it like in later entries.
~obsidalicious

Entries 51 and 56 take place beforehand on the same day, and they prove that it's Alex's fault that everyone is "gone". Maybe Alex was under the Operator's control and broke free, vowing to destroy the tapes so that it wouldn't find him again. He seemed to be acting normal in Entry 26, so it could have taken control of him again after that.