When Was Scp The Plague Doctor First Documented?

I still get a little thrill thinking about the early days of the Foundation community — digging through old posts and forum threads felt like archeology for weird fiction. If you’re asking about when 'SCP-049', the one everyone calls 'The Plague Doctor', first showed up publicly, the short, careful way I put it is: it was documented on the SCP Foundation website in the very early years of the project, around 2007. The site was just coalescing then, and 'SCP-049' is one of those creations that came out of that initial wave of iconic entries, alongside other staples that shaped the tone of the canon.

I like to verify these things by poking at the page history and the Wayback Machine snapshots. What you’ll find is that the exact posting and edit history can blur a bit because of rewrites, forks, and community edits over time — the version that made the rounds and stuck in people’s heads is the iteration labeled 'SCP-049' with the patchwork clinical logs and containment procedures, which cemented the character’s status. Over the years it’s been rehosted, translated, adapted into audio dramas, fan art, mods for games like 'SCP: Containment Breach', and countless fanfics, so the modern presentation is the result of cumulative edits. If you want the literal first timestamp, checking the page’s revision history on the SCP Wiki plus snapshots on archive.org will get you the earliest captured date, which consistently points to early 2007.

Beyond the date, what fascinates me is how quickly the character leapt from a single page to a cultural touchstone within the community — people started writing short stories from the doctor’s perspective, making artworks, and using the concept in tabletop RPGs. It’s one of those things that shows how collaborative mythology forms: a single strong idea drops into a fertile community and expands. If you like historical digging, tracing the edits and the side-stories is half the fun — and it gives you a neat window into how fanwork evolves over time.

I’m the kind of person who hits the source when I’m curious, so when someone asks about 'SCP-049' — the Plague Doctor — I go straight to the SCP Wiki page history. The documented origin on the Foundation site is from the early days of the project, around 2007, and that’s the date most references point to. Over time the file has been revised and reformatted, which is why some mirrors or reposts might show slightly different timestamps.

If you want a precise earliest capture, I’d check the page’s revision log and archive.org (the Wayback Machine) snapshots; those usually reveal the first publicly visible version. Also worth noting: the character really hit its stride through community expansions — audio readings, fan art, and game mods — so while the initial documentation is from 2007, the version that lives in people’s minds is the product of years of edits and adaptations. If you like, digging through the oldest revisions is a fun little time capsule of internet horror creativity.