Lavender Town

Lavender Town Syndrome, also known as The Lavender Town Conspiracy, The Lavender Town Tone, or The Lavender Town Suicides, is a creepypasta story about a conspiracy to cover up mass child suicides. These suicides were allegedly caused by listening to the first version of the Lavender Town Theme in the Japanese version of the Pokemon Red and Green games.

The Lavender Town Syndrome began when there was a peak in suicides and severe illnesses among children between the ages of 7 and 12 shortly after the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, back in February 27, 1996.

Rumors say that these suicides and illnesses only occurred after the children who were playing the game reached Lavender Town, whose theme music had extremely high frequencies, that studies showed that only children and young teens can hear, since their ears are not fully developed.

Due to the Lavender Tone, at least two-hundred children supposedly committed suicide, and many more developed illnesses and afflictions. The children who committed suicide usually did so by hanging themselves or jumping from a great height. Those who did not kill themselves acted irrationally and complained of severe headaches after listening to Lavender Town’s theme.

Although Lavender Town now sounds different depending on the game, this mass hysteria was caused by the first Pokémon game released. After the Lavender Tone incident, the programmers had fixed Lavender Town’s theme music to be at a lower frequency, and since children were no longer affected by it.

One video appeared in 2010 using ”special software” to analyze the audio of Lavender Town’s music. When played, the software created images of the Unown near the end of the audio. This raised a controversy, since the Unown didn’t appear until the Generation 2 games: Silver, Gold, and Crystal. The Unown translate to “LEAVE NOW”. There is also the said Beta Version of Lavender Town.

It is said that the Beta Version of Pocket Monsters was released to some kids to test the games. This is the video of the Beta Version of Lavender Town: