Lighthouse Horror Podcast - Smile Dog | Scary Stories

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

Scary Story from Michael LutzOriginal Post: Smile Dog | Creepypasta Wiki  Original YouTube link: Smile Dog Merch: lighthousehorror.shopFor more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | PatreonMusic:Lucas King - YouTubeMyuu - YouTube IncompetechDarren Curtis Music - YouTube Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

I first met in person with Mary E. in the summer of 2007. I'd arranged with her husband of 15 years, Terrence, to see her for an interview. Mary had initially agreed, since I was not a newsman, but rather an amateur writer, gathering information for a few early college assignments, and if all went according to plan, some pieces of fiction. We scheduled the interview for a particular weekend when I was in Chicago on unrelated business, but at the last moment, Mary changed her mind and locked herself in the couple's bedroom, refusing to meet with me. For half an hour, I sat with Terrence as we camped outside the bedroom

door. I, listening and taking notes while he attempted fruitlessly to calm his wife. The things Mary said made little sense, but fit with a pattern I was expecting. Though I could not see her, I could tell from her voice that she was crying, and more often, than not, her objections to speaking with me centered around an incoherent diatribe on her dreams. Her nightmares. Terence apologized profusely when we ceased the exercise, and I did my best to take it in stride. Recall that I wasn't a reporter in search of a story, but merely a young, curious man in search of information.

Besides, I thought at the time that I could perhaps find another similar case if I put my mind, in resources to it. Mary E. was a system operator for a small Chicago-based bulletin board business in 1992 when she first encountered Smile.jepag and her life changed forever. She and Terrence had been married for only five months. Mary was one of an estimated 400 people who saw the image when it was posted as a hyperlink on the BBS, though she is the only one who was spoken openly about the experience. The rest have remained anonymous, or are perhaps dead.

In 2005, when I was only in 10th grade, Smile.JPEG was first brought to my attention by my burgeoning interest in web-based phenomena. Mary was the most often-sighted victim of what is sometimes referred to as smile.org. The being smile.jpeg is reputed to display. What caught my interest, other than the obvious macabre elements of the cyber legend and my proclivity towards such things, was the sheer lack of information, usually to the point that people don't believe it even exist, other than as a rumor or hoax. It's unique because, though the entire phenomenon centers on a picture file, that file is nowhere

to be found on the internet. Certainly many photo-manipulated simulacra litter the web, showing up with the most frequency, on sites such as the image board 4chan, especially the X-focused paranormal subboard. It is suspected these are fakes because they do not have the effect that true smile.jpg is believed to have, namely, sudden-onset temporal lobe epilepsy and acute anxiety. This purported reaction in the view of the view. viewer is one of the reasons the phantom-like smile.jpeg is regarded with such disdain, since it is patently absurd.

Still, depending on who you ask, the reluctance to acknowledge smile.jpeg's existence might be just as much out of fear as it is out of disbelieve. Neither smile.jpeg nor smile.org is mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia, though the website features articles on such other, perhaps more scandalous shock sites. Any attempt to create a page pertaining to smile.jpeg is deleted by any of the encyclopedia's many admins. Encounters with smile.japag are the stuff of internet legend. Mary E's story, it's not unique. There are unverified rumors of smile.jpeg showing up in the early days of Usenet.

And even one persistent tale that in 2002, a hacker flooded the forums of humor and satire website something awful, with smile. Dot Dog pictures, rendering almost half the forum's users at the time, epileptic. It is also said that in the mid to late 90s, smile.jpeg circulated on Usenet as an attachment of a chain email with the subject line, Smile. all. God loves you. Yet, despite the huge exposure these stunts would generate, there are very few people who admit to having experienced any of them, and no trace of the file or any link has ever been discovered. Those who claim to have seen smile.jpg, often weekly joke that they were far too busy to save a copy of the picture to their hard drive. However, all alleged victims offer the same

description of the photo, a dog-like creature usually described as appearing similar to a Siberian husky, illuminated by the flash of the camera sitting in a dim room, the only background detail that is visible being a human hand extending from the darkness near the left side of the frame. The hand is empty, but is usually described as beckoning. Of course, most attention is given to the dog, or dog creature, as some victims are more certain than others about what they claim to have seen. The muzzle of the beast is reputedly split in a wide grin, revealing two rows of very white, very straight, very sharp, very human-looking teeth. This is, of course, not a description given immediately after viewing the picture,

but rather a recollection of the victims, who claim to have seen the picture endlessly repeated in their mind's eye during the time they are, in reality, having epileptic fits. These fits are reported to continue indeterminably, often while the victims sleep, resulting in very vivid and disturbing nightmares.

These may be treated with medication, though in some cases it is more effective than others. Mary E., I assumed, was not on effective medication. That was why after my visit to her apartment in 2007, I sent out feelers to several folklore and urban legend-oriented news groups, websites, and mailing list, hoping to find the name of a supposed victim of Smilebot JPEC, who felt more interested in talking about their experiences. For a time, nothing happened.

and at length I forgot completely about my pursuits since I'd begun my freshman year of college and was quite busy. Mary contacted me via email, however, near the beginning of March 2008. This was the first email. To J.M. from Mary E. Subject. Last Summer's interview.

Dear Mr. L. I am incredibly sorry about my behavior last summer when you came to interview me. I hope you understand it was no fault of yours, but rather my own problems that led me to act out as I did. I realized that I could have handled the situation more better.

However, I hope you will forgive me. At the time, I was afraid. You see, for 15 years I've been haunted by Smile That JPEG. Smile That dog comes to me in my sleep every night. I know that sounds silly, but it is true. There is a strange quality about my dreams, my nightmares, that makes them completely unlike any real dreams I ever had.

I don't move and I don't speak. I simply look around, and the only thing ahead of me is the scene from that horrible picture. I see that hand, and I see Smile Dog. It is not a dog, of course, though I'm not quite sure what it really is. It tells me it will leave me alone if I only do as it asks. All I must do, it says, is spread the word. That's how it phrases its demands. And I know exactly what it means.

It wants me to show it to someone else. And I could. The week after my incident, I received in the mail a manila envelope with no return address. Inside was only a three and a half inch floppy disk. Without having to check, I knew what was on it. I thought for a long time about my options. I could show it to a stranger, a co-worker. I could even show it to Terrence as much as the idea disgusted me. And what would happen then? Well, if Smile Dog kept its word, I could finally sleep. But if it lied, what would I do? And who was to say something worse

would not come for me if I did as the creature asked? So I did nothing. For 15 years I did nothing, though I kept the disc hidden amongst my things. Every single night for 15 years, smile dog has come to me in my sleep and demanded that I spread the word for 15 years I have stood strong though there have been hard times many of my fellow victims on the BBS board where I first encountered Smile.JPEG stopped posting I heard some of them well you can guess Others remained completely silent, simply disappearing off the face of the web. They're the ones I worry about the most. I sincerely hope you will forgive me, Mr. L. But last summer when you contacted me and my husband about an interview,

I was near my breaking point. I decided I was going to give you the disc. I didn't care if Smile Dog was lying or not. I just wanted it to end. You were a stranger, someone I had no connection with, and I thought I wouldn't feel terrible when you took the disc as part of your research and sealed your fate. Before you arrived, I realized what I was doing, plotting to ruin your life. I couldn't stand the thought, and in fact I still cannot.

I'm ashamed, Mr. Al. and I hope that this warning will dissuade you from further investigation of smile.jpeg. You may in time encounter someone who is, if not weaker than I, than wholly more depraved, someone who will not hesitate to follow Smile Dog's orders. Stop while you are still whole. sincerely, Mary E. Terence contacted me later that month

with the news that his wife had killed herself while cleaning up the various things she'd left behind, closing email accounts and the like. He happened upon the above message. He was a man in shambles. He wept as he told me to listen to his wife's advice. He'd found the disc, he revealed, and burned it.

until it was nothing but a stinking pile of blackened plastic. The part that most disturbed him, however, was how the disc had hissed as it melted. Like some sort of animal, he said. I will admit that I was a little uncertain about how to respond to this. At first, I thought perhaps it was a joke, with a couple belatedly playing with a situation in order to get a rise out of me.

A quick check of several Chicago newspapers, online obituaries, however, proved that Mary E. was indeed dead. There was, of course, no mention of suicide in the article. I decided that, for a time at least, I would not further pursue the subject of smile.jap. But the world has odd ways of testing us. Almost a full year after I'd returned from my disastrous interview with Mary E. I received another email. To J.M. From Elzahar 82.

Subject. Smile. Hello. I found your email address through a mailing list. Your profile said you're interested in smile, dog. I have saw it. It's not as bad as everyone says. I've sent it to you here.

Just spreading the word. That final line chilled me to the bone. According to my email client, there was one file attachment called Naturally, smile.jpeg. I consider downloading it for some time. It was most likely a fake, I imagined, and even if it weren't, I was never wholly convinced of Smile.JPEG's peculiar powers. Mary E's account had shaken me, I'll admit that, yes, but she was probably mentally unbalanced anyway.

After all, how could a simple image do what Smile.JPEG was said to accomplish? What sort of creature wasn't that could break one's mind with only the power of the eye? And if such things were patently absurd, then why did the legend exist at all? If I downloaded the image, if I looked at it, and if Mary turned out to be correct, if Smile That Dog came to me in my dreams, demanding I spread the word, what would I do? Would I live my life as Mary Hat, fighting against the urge to give in until I died? Or would I simply spread the word? Eager to be put to rest.

And if I chose the latter route, how could I do it? Whom would I burden in turn? If I went through with my earlier intention to write a short article about smile.jpeg, I decided I could attach it as evidence. and anyone who read the article, anyone who took interest, would be affected. And even assuming the smile.jpeg attached to the email was genuine, would I be selfish enough to save myself in that manner? Could I spread the word?

Yes. Yes, I could.