The Ghost Player

I experienced a strange series of events a few days ago.

I have a habit of playing on old Minecraft versions, from old release versions all the way back to alpha. For a while now, I've been enjoying my time in a beta 1.7.2 version. The old piston duplication glitch, the incredibly green grass everywhere, and the old textures. That sort of stuff. It's all relaxing to me, and I like spending time in those old versions. I think it might be a while before I do that again.

I was playing early in the morning, at about 4:00 am. Seems like a rather cliche time for something odd to happen, but bear with me. I was wandering about my world, venturing through the islands I had conquered, before I decided to craft a boat and go sailing out of the large bay I had resided in for the entire time I've had this world. I had barely sailed for a minute before I spotted odd terrain generation. It seemed old, like it had been generated in an alpha version or early beta version. The grass that had been everywhere around my house was nonexistant, and the ground was a dead color. Trees were rare, and random pockets of stone rose from the grassy floor.

I thought this strange, but kept sailing, thinking it was a biome I had not knew was in beta at that time. Not even 30 seconds later, I saw, on the horizon, a small peninsula jutting out from the dead land. I couldn't make out what was on it until I got up a bit closer, and the fog was cleared. Torches.

I knew I was generating new chunks, but there were torches sporadically placed on the land. I was curious, and sailed towards the peninsula. Once I arrived, I slowed down in order to preserve my boat, which ended up floating away anyway when I stepped off it. I put my feet on the grass, and saw something I had not expected. A hole in the hill. It was a house, patched up with cobblestone, lacking a door or extra amenities. It was a cramped space, with a two block high ceiling and a single torch on the wall.

I was confused, yet intrigued at the sight of this home in the rocks. At the end of the home, there was a mine leading down into the earth. It almost seemed exactly like a player had created this, but the world was never multiplayer, and these chunks were loaded fresh, as far as I know. After thinking for a while, I became slightly uncomfortable.

Despite this, I decided to venture into the mine anyway. I couldn't see a nametag or a sign of a player, so I knew I'd be fine. The stairway down lead into a cave system, filled with cobblestone bridges across gaps and holes where ores had been mined. It was everything you'd expect from a normal mine. After looking around for a minute or two, I decided I wanted to head back to my home before I got lost. As I exited the mine, the day was waning and darkness approached over the horizon.

I sailed back home, slept the night away, and logged off to do some homework I had been waiting on finishing. I wish that was the last time I would open that world.

Approximately 2 hours later, at around 6:30 am, I logged back into the game. By this point, I was still thinking about my weird findings, but not much of it. For a half hour or so I mined duplicated iron blocks and built a tower that was supposed to be a mob grinder by its completion. I was watching some youtube videos while absent-mindedly digging up duplicated iron blocks when I noticed all my wheat at my farm in the distance had been broken, and some dirt and grass replaced a few spots where the land was tilled (Back in that version, simply stepping on tilled land could break it). I had sworn that I had planted wheat there a few hours prior, and that I hadn't touched it since. I went to check it out, and came to the conclusion that the animals around the area had stomped it away, and the wheat had despawned. It was the best I could come up with at the time.

I went back to mining iron blocks. A few minutes later, when I went to the building to resume its construction, four blocks had been broken in one of the corners. I was getting weirded out, as there had been no creeper explosion there and endermen weren't even in the game yet. I just thought that I had mined those four blocks, and my sleep deprivation had fuzzed my memory slightly. That didn't stop my unease.

I really should've just taken the hints and deleted my world right then, but I didn't. I continued playing for another hour without anything happening, when my brain suddenly clicked into gear, and I thought that the weird house I had seen earlier might have something to do with this. Some sort of world merge, maybe, or a hacker. I don't know. I traveled to the cobblestone house again, this time by land, and was greeted by the familiar sporadic torches and hole in the hill where the house was.

But, there was one thing that unsettled me:

The house now had an iron door.

And there was someone outside placing a button beside it.

I stood, stunned, for a moment. I didn't think this could happen. I thought my sleep deprivation was playing tricks on me, making me hallucinate. I was going to believe it...

Until the player's head turned and looked at me.

I managed to take this screenshot before ALT+F4ing out of the game. Directly after closing the world, I opened photoshop and examined this closely to see if I wasn't hallucinating.

Whatever this is, it's not a player. No nametag, no movements, and its shape is ghastly. It's almost like a ghost.

I'm not playing beta again.