The Bottomless Pit and the Locusts of Abaddon (Revelation 9)

experimentNo. 0087categoryRituals & ceremoniesrecordingpendingdataCC BY 4.0

The fly, enlarged to about 0.75 m, waits beside a sealed well-head near the Euphrates as the fifth and sixth trumpets sound, following the text of Revelation 9. A star falls with the key, smoke darkens the sun, crowned horse-shaped locusts pour out with their king Abaddon, and four angels loosed from the river bring an army of fire-breathing horsemen.

What the fly saw

Frames rendered from the fly’s eye camera at four points in the timeline, each with the 32-column retinal input the connectome model receives at that moment.

Timeline

14 steps, with their times in the experiment

1. 0:00
   The sealed pit

   A round stone well-head stands on the cracked plain, capped by a two-leaf bronze lid with a lock, three bolts and crossed chains. The fly waits beside it; the Euphrates lies to the north.

2. 0:10
   The fifth angel sounded

   A trumpeting figure flares high in the western sky. A star streaks down and strikes the plain beside the pit: “I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth” (9:1). The light gathers into a fly angel holding a golden key.

3. 0:24
   The key of the bottomless pit

   “To him was given the key of the bottomless pit” (9:1). The angel walks to the lock and turns the key; the bolts slide back and the chains drop from the lid.

4. 0:36
   He opened the bottomless pit

   The two bronze leaves swing up. Furnace light pours out of the shaft, sparks fly and the first smoke curls over the rim.

5. 0:46
   As the smoke of a great furnace

   A black column climbs out of the pit and spreads into a canopy: “the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit” (9:2). The sun shrinks to a dull red disc.

6. 1:00
   Locusts upon the earth

   “There came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth” (9:3). Thousands pour up the shaft and wheel around the column.

7. 1:14
   Like unto horses prepared unto battle

   One locust lands facing the fly: a horse-shaped body, “crowns like gold”, “their faces were as the faces of men”, “hair as the hair of women”, “their teeth were as the teeth of lions”, a breastplate of iron and a scorpion’s tail with its sting (9:7–10).

8. 1:32
   The sound of their wings

   The locust and the fly take off together. The fly circles the smoke inside the swarm; the text compares the wings to “chariots of many horses running to battle” (9:9). No audio is played.

9. 1:46
   Abaddon / Apollyon

   Their king rises out of the pit, “whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon” (9:11). The swarm wheels around him.

10. 2:00
    The sixth angel sounded

    The fly leaves the swarm and lands on the bank of the Euphrates. A second trumpet flares; a golden altar with four horns shines above the river (9:13).

11. 2:10
    Loose the four angels

    Four angels stand chained in the river. Light falls from the four horns, the chains burst and the angels rise: “Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates” (9:14).

12. 2:22
    Two hundred thousand thousand

    Horsemen fill the plain beyond the river to the horizon: “the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand” (9:16). The front reaches the water.

13. 2:38
    Fire and smoke and brimstone

    The ranks thunder past the fly on both sides. The horses have “the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone” (9:17). The riders wear breastplates of red, blue and yellow.

14. 2:54
    Tails like unto serpents

    Each horse’s tail ends in a serpent’s head (9:19). The army streams on toward the smoking pit under the red sun while the locusts circle overhead.

Setup

• 14 seekable stages over 184 seconds: the sealed pit, the fifth angel sounded, the key of the bottomless pit, he opened the bottomless pit, as the smoke of a great furnace, locusts upon the earth, like unto horses prepared unto battle, the sound of their wings, Abaddon / Apollyon, the sixth angel sounded, loose the four angels, two hundred thousand thousand, fire and smoke and brimstone, and tails like unto serpents.
• One scene unit equals one metre. The fly is enlarged to half scale (about 0.75 m upright, 1.4 m in flight), so the locusts, about 1.6 m long, are its own kind. The Euphrates lies 120 m north of the pit; the smoke column climbs to about 175 m and spreads into a canopy up to 1.1 km across as the sun dims to a dull red disc.
• The well-head has a two-leaf bronze lid with three bolts, a lock box and two crossed chains, opened by a robed fly angel with a golden key. The close-up locust has a gold crown, a pale human face, lion-like fangs, long hair, an iron lamellar breastplate and a segmented scorpion tail; the king Abaddon / Apollyon is a 23 m version with a taller crown and glowing eyes.
• About 5,300 locusts (about 1,300 modeled plus 4,000 far specks) and about 21,000 instanced horsemen stand in for the text’s two hundred million: about 1,000 modeled riders near the camera, a front rank of light figures and about 20,000 far stand-ins with 10,000 mouth-fire glints. Swarm density and Army density draw 25–100% of these (default 100%); Fly joins the swarm (default on) sends the fly circling the column 20 m up, and off keeps it on the ground through those stages.
• Eight cameras: director, the pit and plain, follow the fly, the fly eye in first person, the locust’s face and crown, Abaddon over the pit from below, the Euphrates and the four angels, and the horsemen at ground level. A replay control restarts at the locusts.

Measurement

• Retinal-only input: the eye camera’s 32 luminance columns reach the fixed connectome model, measured spikes drive the neural display, and no direct stimulation is sent.
• The falling star, the flashes, the swarm flowing past the fly, Apollyon and the charging horses reach the model only as images. The darkening reaches the eye through sky colours, black smoke and a smoke shadow on the plain; viewport fog, background, host-light dimming and cue text do not. Far horsemen stand-ins are not drawn within 30 m of any camera, so the eye sees modeled figures up close.
• Looming (LC4 + LPLC2), escape (DNp01) and rotation (HS + H2) readouts report the fixed model’s measured response to that image.
• The star, the swarm, the king, the angels and the army follow a pre-programmed timeline; measured spikes do not move the fly.

Limitations

• From the text: the star fallen from heaven with the key, the smoke darkening the sun and air, the locusts’ horse shape, crowns like gold, faces of men, hair of women, lions’ teeth, breastplates of iron and scorpion tails, the king Abaddon / Apollyon, the four horns of the golden altar, the four angels bound in the Euphrates, two hundred million horsemen, lion-headed horses issuing fire, smoke and brimstone, and serpent tails with heads.
• Not in the text: the star becoming a fly angel; the well-head, lid, bolts, lock, chains and furnace glow (the text says only “key” and “opened”); the locusts’ six insect legs and lamellar breastplates; Apollyon drawn as a giant locust; the altar in the sky above the river; the angels chained to posts; and the riders as flies.
• “Breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone” are shown as red, blue and yellow bands on every breastplate, one common reading. The faces, crowns and hair follow the text with a general nod to medieval Apocalypse illumination such as the Beatus commentaries, not a copy of any one image.
• Sizes, the river’s position, all timing and all motion are approximations, and no audio is played, although the text compares the sound of the wings to chariots.

Sources

• Revelation 9, King James Version (Project Gutenberg eBook #10)