A mysterious arcade game allegedly placed in select U.S. arcades in 1981, said to cause amnesia and nightmares in players, with men in black reportedly collecting data from the machines.
Polybius is a mysterious arcade game allegedly placed in arcades near Portland, Oregon, in 1981. The game was said to be extremely addictive, causing players to experience amnesia, nightmares, hallucinations, and an inability to stop playing. Men in black were reportedly seen collecting data from the machines at regular intervals.
The Polybius story first appeared online around 2000, when a mysterious entry was added to CoinOp.org, an arcade game database. The manufacturer was listed as "Sinneslöschen" (German for "sense deletion").
Intriguingly, two actual incidents involving arcade games occurred in Portland in 1981. One involved a boy who became ill while playing a game, and the other was a crackdown on illegal gambling through arcade machines. FBI investigations of arcades during this period are a matter of public record.
Credibility 2/10 — The complete absence of physical evidence and the fact that the legend emerged 20 years after the alleged events make credibility extremely low. While an interesting urban legend, it is highly unlikely to have been a real game.
