#experiment 78

I've been wondering since I saw it... And why did he have it rolled out in his room? Who did he switch bodies with?... Or was it just comfy to walk on?

Fidds wakes up and swings by the Shack while Ford’s chilling out for once, flexing his (five!) fingers and generally just doing nothing. They start talking and for a moment he forgot he was in his brother’s body, until Fiddleford goes in for a kiss and Ford freaks out, standing up abruptly and moving away. Fiddleford is hurt by this, and tries moving closer, arms open, to ask what’s wrong. Ford flees the Shack to avoid the awkwardness of the situation and eventually comes back when he sees Stan pull up in his car. 

Ford has to explain and Stan waits til their back in their own bodies to slap his brother upside the head. They show the carpet to Fiddleford. Fiddleford asks to try it out and switches bodies with Stan. Then Fiddleford also takes a moment to hit Ford upside the head, now that he has the physical presence and strength to do more than tap the other man. Fidds and Stan switch back laughing. Ford realizes he kind of deserves it. 

Ford asks how Stan was in town. Stan says the “spooky science man in the woods” was a big hit. And he’s got a date with Susan that Friday night. Ford starts spluttering but Stan cuts him off, saying “you wanted a better reputation, right? Now the people at the diner love ya, and the people at the grocery store won’t have a double heart attack next time you crawl out at 3 am  in an exploded lab coat to get baking soda and watermelon. You’re welcome, nerd.”

Fiddleford later cancels the date for Ford, knowing it freaked him out.

Ford Pines was not a man who was very interested in heading out into the town for some casual, regular fun. He was too busy entwined in untangling the mysteries of Gravity Falls, or working on his other scientific inventions/pursuits at the time. 

But one day in 1977, he was exploring the town for any sign of anomalous activity, when he saw something strange dart into a nearby building. He tried to chase after it, but was held up when the teenager at the door asked for his ticket. Confused, he backed up and realized he was standing in front of the only cinema in town. 

Glad he’d for once brought his wallet on a trip to town (he knew he needed some more groceries, and once he was done with the routine check, he’d wanted to grab them so he wouldn’t be forced to make a second trip to town and let the rumor mill about him catch fire again) he bought a ticket for the first movie he saw, and hurried inside. 

He searched all over for the thing he’d been chasing, but it seemed to have disappeared for the time being. But then! He caught it in his peripheral vision and he ran towards it, following it into a dark theater.

Taking a seat in the back, he followed the creature’s progress with his eyes. It stopped a few rows ahead of him and sat down in the chair on the end of the row, looking ready to flee at the slightest of provocation. Ford decided to keep to his back seat hideout and observe from there. He made many mental notes as he watched it, barely aware of what was going on with the movie in the background.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t pick up subconsciously what was going on in the movie The ideas sparked by the movie flowed around in his brain days after the incident in town. (Which turned out to be none other than Toby Determined, which he’d mistaken for an actual anomaly). 

About a week after seeing the movie, he began writing down notes on the feasibility and building design of something to switch the essence of a person into another without losing any essential parts. From that he created Experiment 78: The Electron Carpet. He initially managed to capture small animals to test if it worked between them first, then he moved on to the gnomes and animals. 

But he trusted no one in town to switch bodies with, and he could not even imagine asking a couple of them to come to his cabin to test its capabilities. So for a couple more years, it went untested by humans. Until Fiddleford came up, that is.

Ford told him about the carpet ahead of time, so Fiddleford was prepared for the effects, but it was still one of the stranger experiences Fiddleford had had (but overall benign, it did not upset him the way the portal activities did). Fiddleford told Ford it reminded him of that groovy movie that had come out a few years ago. Ford said that was ridiculous, and he’d appreciate it if Fidleford did not compare his work to such gaudy works of fiction in the future.

The Experiments were a series of scientific creations in the supernatural world. Currently I have no knowledge of the creator of these experiments, and I am unsure how far they reached or how many they created. However, I am sure that they created at least seventy-eight, due to the one experiment I currently have knowledge about, Experiment 78, or the Electron Carpet.

Experiment 78 is a carpet that has a supernatural property the allows two or more people to allow their entire self to enter each others bodies. The process is supposedly through switching of electrons, however the people who created the Experiments must not have had knowledge of how actual science works, because electrons are only one part of the atomic structure of the human body. It is more likely to be through a transfer of the soul, in order to make it so the change is whole.

Experiment 78 works using static discharge from friction created by moving around on the carpet. Upon "shocking" someone by coming in contact with them, they switch bodies. The carpet itself bears a design relating to this - there is a circular symbol in the center which features two arrows moving in the same direction, representing the switch.