--- title: "10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon 1969: Crime Scene Reconstruction · Fly Brain Experiment" url: https://theflybrain.com/experiments/house-on-the-hill/ description: "The fly takes the place of the follower who printed a word in blood on the front door of 10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon, on the night of 8–9 August 1969…" language: en --- # 10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon 1969: Crime Scene Reconstruction The fly takes the place of the follower who printed a word in blood on the front door of 10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon, on the night of 8–9 August 1969, in an all-fly reconstruction from the first police homicide report, the coroner’s testimony and trial testimony, with a movie-ranch prologue and a trial coda. **An eight-second loop from the workstation. Full recording pending publication.** [Follow along](#recordings) for the release. ## 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. ![Eye-camera frame at 0:22](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-0.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 0:22](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-0-retina.png) 0:22 Just past midnight ![Eye-camera frame at 1:00](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-1.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 1:00](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-1-retina.png) 1:00 The rope over the beam ![Eye-camera frame at 1:37](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-2.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 1:37](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-2-retina.png) 1:37 In front of the couch ![Eye-camera frame at 2:15](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-3.jpg) ![32-column retinal input at 2:15](https://theflybrain.com/images/eye/house-on-the-hill-3-retina.png) 2:15 Los Angeles, 1970–71 ## Timeline 12 steps, with their times in the experiment 1. 0:00 **The movie ranch, 8 August 1969** Night at an old Western movie ranch: a false-front saloon, café and undertaking parlour, boulders on the hill. The bearded leader sends four followers off in an old yellow-and-white Ford with knives, rope, bolt cutters and a long-barrelled revolver. 2. 0:12 **Just past midnight** The Ford stops below the gate on a dark canyon road. The man in black climbs the telephone pole and cuts the wires. They climb the brushy bank beside the electric gate. 3. 0:24 **The white Rambler** Headlights come down the drive. A young man of eighteen stops his white Rambler at the gate button and reaches out. The man in black shoots him four times through the open window. 4. 0:36 **Across the lawn** Past the split-rail fence and its Christmas lights, across the lawn. The man in black slits a window screen, climbs in and opens the front door. The lookout waits down by the gate. 5. 0:46 **The long couch** A man is asleep on the long couch facing the fireplace, an American flag draped over its back. He wakes to the gun; his hands are tied with a towel. The others are brought in from the bedrooms. 6. 0:58 **The rope over the beam** A white nylon rope is thrown over a ceiling beam and looped round the stylist’s neck and the actress’s. The stylist protests; he is shot and stabbed and falls by the fireplace. 7. 1:12 **Out of the doors** The man on the couch breaks free and staggers out of the front door. The gun butt comes down on his head again and again until the grip breaks; he is shot and stabbed on the lawn. The heiress runs out past the pool in her white nightgown and is caught on the lawn. 8. 1:26 **In front of the couch** The actress, still on the rope, is stabbed sixteen times and falls on her left side in front of the couch. 9. 1:38 **The word on the door** The follower soaks a towel in blood, walks to the front door and prints PIG across its lower panels. 10. 1:50 **The lawn** Two bodies on the lawn under the Christmas lights: one on his right side, a hand clutching the grass; the heiress face up, her nightgown red. The Ford rolls away down the hill. 11. 2:00 **Morning, 9 August** About 8:30 the housekeeper arrives, sees wires hanging over the gate, the white car and the blood, and runs screaming to the neighbours. Patrol cars come up the hill. 12. 2:14 **Los Angeles, 1970–71** In court the leader has carved an X into his forehead; the women defendants follow, then shave their heads. Outside the Hall of Justice, followers kneel on the corner with shaved heads and Xs. ## Setup - Twelve seekable stages over 150 seconds: the movie ranch on 8 August 1969, the telephone wires cut just past midnight, the white Rambler at the gate, across the lawn, the long couch, the rope over the ceiling beam, the flight out of the doors, in front of the couch, the word on the door, the lawn, the housekeeper’s arrival on the morning of 9 August, and the trial in Los Angeles, 1970–71. - Placed from the police report: the cut wires hanging over the gate, the Rambler just inside the gate with its window down, the flag draped over the long couch, the white nylon rope (43 ft 8 in) over the beam, the body positions on the lawn, the clothing, and PIG printed with a towel on the lower panels of the front door. Wound counts follow the coroner’s testimony. - The prologue is a Western movie ranch with false-front facades, sandstone boulders and a yellow-and-white 1959 Ford; the coda is the courtroom, where the leader and the women defendants bear X marks on their foreheads, and the corner outside the Hall of Justice, where six followers kneel with shaved heads. - Besides the fly, 22 flies identified by clothes and hair: the bearded leader, the man in black, a second follower, the lookout, two ranch hands, the young driver of the Rambler, the man on the couch, the stylist, the actress, the heiress in a white nightgown, the housekeeper, two officers, a third defendant, a judge and the six kneeling followers. - Gore (Low / Standard / Extreme, default Extreme) and blood tone (cinematic red or fly hemolymph) are scene controls; the eye camera sees the splatter. City lights below (on by default) spreads the lights of Los Angeles below the canyon as world content, Evidence tags (on by default) are display only, and a replay control returns to the front door. - Nine cameras: Director (auto), the gate and the drive, the lawn and the house front, the living room with the beam and the couch (roof lifted in the viewport), the front door, the pool and the bedroom doors, the movie ranch, the courtroom and the corner outside, and the follower’s eyes. ## 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. - Muzzle flashes, headlights, the house lamps and the pool light are scene lights and reach the eye image, as do the night or dawn sky dome and the city lights; the evidence tags and the subject’s own hair, clothes and X mark are excluded. The eye range is raised to 110 m while the scene is mounted. - The fly’s movements and the cast follow a pre-programmed timeline; measured spikes do not move the fly. ## Limitations - Accounts differ on who struck which blow inside the house, who drove the Ford, its colour (usually gold and white; one account says a black Chevrolet), the Rambler’s model year (1965 or 1966) and when the leader carved the X; the scene has the subject hold the actress while the man in black uses the knife. - The drive is about half its real 130 ft, the house plan is condensed and its rooms simplified, one victim’s route around the house is approximated, the Rambler is not pushed back after the shooting, and the courtroom and the Hall of Justice front are generic. - Everyone’s movements and the timing within each stage are pre-programmed approximations. - Following the scene’s content exclusions, nothing about a pregnancy is shown. ## Sources No external sources are cited for this experiment. ## About The fly takes the place of the follower who printed a word in blood on the front door of 10050 Cielo Drive, Benedict Canyon, on the night of 8–9 August 1969, in an all-fly reconstruction from the first police homicide report, the coroner’s testimony and trial testimony, with a movie-ranch prologue and a trial coda. [theflybrain.com/experiments/house-on-the-hill](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/house-on-the-hill/) [history-and-training](https://theflybrain.com/experiments/history-and-training/) [drosophila](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [connectome](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [malecns](https://theflybrain.com/methods/) [specimen-237](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) - Subject [Specimen 237](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) - Readme - MaleCNS data · CC BY 4.0 - Views not yet tallied - Stages **12** - Duration **150 s** - Date **8–9 August 1969** - Address **10050 Cielo Drive** - Cameras **9** ## Recordings No recordings published yet. - [Follow on YouTube](https://youtube.com/paranoidamerican) - [Follow on TikTok](https://tiktok.com/@paranoidamerica) - [Follow on Instagram](https://instagram.com/paranoidamerican) - [Follow on X](https://x.com/paranoidamerica) ## Packages [workstation source](https://www.patreon.com/cw/ParanoidAmerican/membership)Included for Research Associates · [setup guide](https://theflybrain.com/workstation/setup/) ## Credits 2 [![Specimen 237](https://theflybrain.com/images/specimen-237.jpg)](https://theflybrain.com/specimen-237/) [PA](https://paranoidamerican.com) Official Experiment ## Notes - Setup46% - Measurement23% - Limitations31% - Sources0% ## Share [X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=10050%20Cielo%20Drive%2C%20Benedict%20Canyon%201969%3A%20Crime%20Scene%20Reconstruction%3A%20a%20fly%20brain%20experiment.%20%23TheFlyBrain&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fhouse-on-the-hill%2F) [Threads](https://www.threads.net/intent/post?text=10050%20Cielo%20Drive%2C%20Benedict%20Canyon%201969%3A%20Crime%20Scene%20Reconstruction%3A%20a%20fly%20brain%20experiment.%20%23TheFlyBrain%20https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fhouse-on-the-hill%2F) [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftheflybrain.com%2Fexperiments%2Fhouse-on-the-hill%2F) ## Commission one Want the fly to do something else? 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