Twin Peaks Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Giantno WARNING!
This article contains plot spoilers for the 2017 series of Twin Peaks.

"What the hell?!"

Gordon Cole[src]

The experiment was a supernatural being connected to the spirit BOB.

Biography

On July 16, 1945, following the first nuclear test at White Sands, New Mexico, the experiment, floating in a dark void, expelled a stream of matter from its mouth, containing several egg-like sacs. One of these bore an image of BOB's face while a speckled egg went out of the liquid.[1]

In the 2010s, the experiment, holding a golden sphere of some sort, materialized in a black mist in a glass box in New York City moments after Dale Cooper.[2] It flickered for a few moments before breaking out and attacking Sam Colby and Tracey Barberato, hacking them to death.[3]

Agent Tamara Preston later showed a still image of the figure, taken from a camera at the crime scene, to Agent Albert Rosenfield and FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole, who were both visibly bewildered by the figure.[4]

Behind the scenes

The "Experiment" is portrayed by Erica Eynon. "Part 1" credits Eynon as playing the "Experiment Model."

The experiment looks similar to the white naked figures from some pictures from David Lynch, notably those of his Distorted Nudes book, "Woman Thinking #2" seen in the Dark Splendor book and the Head Series from his "Small Stories" exposition.

It could be theorised that the people watching the glass box expecting something to happen are an allegory of the viewers watching the series, but that was not Lynch's original intention.[5]

In The Secret History of Twin Peaks, it is mentioned that after founding JPL Jack Parsons conducted rituals at the Devils Gate in Pasadena in an attempt to call forth the goddess Babalon, also known as the Mother of Abominations, a key figure in the Thelema mythos. Later, the weekend before the 1947 Roswell Incident, in Jornada del Muerto, on the ground where the bomb was tried, he tried to open a second gate to bring force the elemental entity known as the "Moonchild" using the Working of Babalon. In addition, Douglas Milford recounts President Richard Nixon showing him and actor Jackie Gleason a bizarre figure, similar in appearance to the experiment, in an observation room at Homestead Air Base.

Appearances

References

Advertisement