The story of Marble Hornets begins with a brief introduction by a young man known only to the audience as “J” (the J is later revealed to stand for “Jay”). He explains that Alex Kralie, a college friend of his, was filming a student film called “Marble Hornets,” but slowly became more irritable over the course of filming and suddenly dropped the project altogether. Alex cited “unworkable conditions” as his reason for quitting, which Jay found odd, as the set was fairly close to where Alex lived and grew up.
Jay asked Alex what he planned to do with the tapes. Alex’s response? “Burn them.” As a fellow film student, Jay didn’t want to see Alex’s work go to waste and asked him for the tapes. Alex agreed on the condition that Jay never mention them again. Shortly after, Alex moved away and cut off all contact.
Jay was too freaked out at the time to watch the tapes, and forgot about them for a while. However, he eventually remembered them and decided to start going through them, posting his findings on YouTube. Each of his findings are titled “Entry #” and then the number of the entry in chronological order
At first, he didn’t notice out of the ordinary. Then he comes across a piece of footage that doesn’t fit with the rest: Alex running through his house at night. At the end of the footage, Alex turns the camera outside, capturing a figure in a business suit on film. The figure’s head snaps towards Alex, revealing that it has no face. The tape ends.
The next couple tapes, Jay starts noticing things. Many tapes have severe video or audio distortion. Others show Alex acting irrationally, constantly filming everything (with a frequent emphasis on trees). He also is shown to be scrawling cryptic sketches on any available paper he can get his hands on. Others still show further encounters with the enigmatic figure that appears in the first entry (who will henceforth be referred to as the canonical name of the Operator). The Operator appears to have been following Alex, and is provided as the most likelysource of his paranoia and irritability. We also learn that Jay was personally involved with Marble Hornets; he helped with location scouting and several other aspects of production. Strangely, Jay either does not remember many of the events he was involved with, or is simply denying that he remembers them.
Around this time, YouTube user totheark begins posting video responses, some of which contain disturbing video or audio footage directly related to the videos Jay posts—for example, the audio from a video that’s missing some, or video footage of Jay himself during the events of Marble Hornets.
In an attempt to find Alex or gather more information, Jay meets with Tim, one of the actors in Marble Hornets, yielding more insight into Alex’s declining stability. Tim claims not to have noticed anyone or anything out of the ordinary, even when Jay prompts him by asking about a guy in a business suit.
Shortly afterwards, Jay gets an anonymous tip as to Alex’s location. The tip points to an abandoned home, and he goes to check it out. As he explores the house, he collapses into a violent coughing fit. He takes several things from the house before he finally leaves: a partially full pill bottle (which has a torn label and is empty when he later checks on it); a bullet casing (which later goes missing); and several of Alex’s scrawlings.
At this point, totheark becomes more threatening, posting third-person footage of Jay collapsed on the floor. He eagerly invites Jay back to the house when he announces his intentions to return. When Jay finally does return to the house, he finds a masked man lying in wait for him. The masked man attacks, and Jay flees the house after a brief confrontation. In the process, he loses the knife he brought with him, along with his memory of the attack. Afterwards, totheark uploads a video saying that Jay has been keeping secrets.
His encounter with the masked man is part of what probably contributed to Jay’s decision to reveal that he’s been filming himself, much the same way Alex did. The other half of the decision was largely influenced by the content he found on one of his own tapes: footage depicts the masked man who attacked him at the house appearing in his room while he sleeps, after which both he and Jay disappear from the room for a while. The response by totheark shows that during that time, Jay had a very close encounter with the Operator. Jay also theorizes at this point that totheark is the masked man.
Jay resumes looking through Alex’s footage, and finds footage of Tim, who is complaining of cold and is having a coughing fit similar to the ones Jay has been having. However, Jay soon finishes the tapes, and has few leads left. After examining one of Alex’s drawings more closely, he finds a phrase reading “at the tower.” He assumes it relates to the red climbing wall he saw while he and Alex were location scouting in an earlier tape. Jay inspects the tower and finds a metal case with a tape hidden inside.
The tape shows Alex and Seth, the camera man during the production of Marble Hornets, exploring a run-down building. After wandering around for a while, they have an encounter with the Operator. Seth drops the camera, and when the video comes back, the scene is different. Alex is talking to the camera, claiming that all he can remember is what was on the camera. He says that Seth, Tim, Brian, Sarah, and (curiously) Jay are all “gone” (Brian and Sarah were both actors in Marble Hornets). He does not, however, elaborate on what that means. This is also evidently the event that finally convinced Alex to stop production and burn the tapes.
Jay returns once more to the house to attempt to find some last clue. However, the masked man and the house itself seem to be forcing him in circles within the house. He eventually finds himself in what is most likely the house’s basement—which happens to be the location Alex and Seth had been exploring in the tape Jay found at the red tower. Jay encounters the Operator and passes out. His camera ceases to function afterwards.
Jay’s paranoia increases, and he begins to use multiple security cameras in his apartment. They capture him walking through a door that apparently only opened on one side, and disappearing through it for two hours. The danger to Jay quickly grows more apparent as his account is hacked with a strange and threatening video (presumably from totheark) and his apartment is destroyed in a fire. Jay decides to stop investigating the videos, and begins moving from hotel to hotel. However, that changes when a package addressed to him that contains a tape shows up. The tape reveals Alex to be alive, well, and sane, and the dialogue with his girlfriend Amy (who is filming) implies that he has been so for a while. Alex seems uneasy with her filming, however, and asks her to turn it off. The Operator then appears inside the house, surprising Amy. She and Alex escape out a window, and the tape ends with an image of the word “HELP.”
Jay, upon finding that Alex is alive, reconsiders his decision to quit. He decides to attempt to find Alex, starting by traveling to the return address on the package. He warns the audience that he doesn’t know when he will next update. This ends season one of Marble Hornets. Season two begins seven months later.
