Number of the Beast (occurrence)

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[edit] In popular culture

In the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, the Abyss (the plane of Chaos and Evil, and the home of demons) had 666 layers. Later editions of the game state that the Abyss has infinitely many layers.

In the Rocko's Modern Life episode "To Heck and Back" the ending right before the credits shows Peaches (A parody of Satan) with a paddleball counting "661, 662, 663, 664, 665.." then misses a shot before he can reach 666. In another Rocko's Modern Life episode "Heff in a Handbasket" Peaches was the host of a game show parody called "Triple 6",where Heffer is the contestant.

In the MMORPG videogame World of Warcraft, there are Warlock, Priest, and Mage armor sets that give 666 armor (Tier 2 set) and the final rank of the Warlock ability, "Corruption" does 666 damage. In the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion pack, the Rogue's ability "Garrote - Rank 6" deals 666 damage as well, amongst various other maneuvers.

In the First Person Shooter video game Quake, the pentagram of protection powerup gives the player 666 armor while it is active.

In the First Person Shooter video game Unreal II, a race of benevolent aliens mutate into large hideous monsters armed with singularity cannons. When you kill one of the creatures and receive the weapon, (which is the most powerful weapon in the game), it starts off with 666 ammo.

In the arcade game from Namco, Ace Combat Zero, your squadron's unit number is 6th Air Division / 66th Air Force Unit. Also, Galm, your squadron's unit name, in mythology, is actually a demon dog that guards Hel, the emblem is that of a demon dog, and late in the game, you'll receive the nick name of "Demon Lord of the Round Table."

The Left Behind series uses various representations of 666 to identify people who have pledged allegiance to the Antichrist. For example, Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia ordered the number 216 (6 x 6 x 6) for his office suite, for the aircraft model of Global Community One, and for the loyalty mark region number for the United Carpathian States. He also divides the globe into ten regions - as is predicted in Scripture - and assigns each a regional code based on a mathematical equation using three sixes. Example: United North American States (6 - 6 - 6 = -6). His relative, Viv(ian) Ivins, has a "666" name, since VI VI VI is Roman for three individual sixes.

In Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate 666 is the keycode that Boris Balkan (Frank Langella) enters on the keypads both to direct the elevator to the level of his personal library, and to open the vault to access that library. The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows was written by Torchia in 1666 (the year in which the film is set being 1999).

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange visually represented Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as the Beast during a scene where he is accosted by two police officers who are identified as 665 and 667.

Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction features a briefcase that is opened by the passcode 666. The retrieval of the briefcase is one of the major plots of the movie and belongs to Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames).

SLC Punk contains a scene in which the main character reveals the number "666" tattooed on his buttocks to a pair of fundamentalist Mormons conversing about the end of times.

End of Days, directed by Peter Hyams, supposes as a plot point that the number represented in Revelation was actually seen upside down in a dream and should have actually been 999. This ignores the reality that Hindu-Arabic numerals were probably not invented until ca. 400 AD, and only reached the Middle East by 670 AD, whereas Revelation is considered to have been written in the first century AD.

The Omen and its sequels (a series of horror films about the Antichrist) have the Mark Of The Beast found under the hair as an apparent birthmark on the scalp of the character Damien Thorn. The 666 was explained to mean the Unholy Trinity: The Devil, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. The movie was released on 6 June 1976—the sixth day of the sixth month, that is. A remake, The Omen, was released on the 6th of June, 2006 - the 6th day of the 6th month of the 6th year of 2000.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose, directed by Scott Derrickson, has many references to the number "666". Emily, who is supposedly possessed by demons, counts to six several times, "One, Two, Three, Four, Five, SIX!!!!". The demons inside her claim that they dwelled also within "Nero" who is presumed to be Nero Caesar. She also said that there were six demons inside her.

Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is about a character that is faced with a choice to sell his mathematical mind to Wall Street or to a group of Hasidic Jews, illustrating themes of materialism, numerology, and mysticism. With his elaborate home computer setup and complex algorithm the protagonist deciphers a predictable pattern in the stock market, and the computer spits out a 216 digit number each time before the system crashes, in recurring epiphanic moments of Icarus-like masochism. As the character falls into madness and before he gives himself trepanation, he says again and again "it's not the number; it's what's inside the number." 216 is the cube of 6, or 216 = 6*6*6. The golden ratio is discussed in the movie. The golden ratio's graphical representation is a spiral spun over time with a growing radius, similar to the appearance of the number 6, if the ratio's curve is represented in a single segmented curl.

The Phantom of the Opera musical, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, opens with an auction, in which the lot number of the restored chandelier is 666.

In the movie Virtuosity, SID's version number, 6.7, was chosen to be 6.66 rounded up.[citation needed]

In the anime series Gundam Seed Destiny,the Legend Gundam has the model number of ZGMF-X666S.

The Heretic Anthem, by metal band, Slipknot, features the lyric "If you are 555, then I am 666." In this case, 555 refers to man as 777 refers to God. It is not meant to be satanic but a denial of being a part of mankind.

In Flames has a song called Episode 666 on their album Whoracle.

John Frusciante also released a song titled 666 on his album Inside of Emptiness.

The song "Rock Your Socks" by Tenacious D starts with Jack Black counting off "1-2-3-4-5-6-6-6."

While the association is not clearly Satanic in nature, and usually is not construed to promote Satanism, a reference to the number "666" may be the cause for the controversial assignment of the "Parental Advisory" designation to the HIM album Razorblade Romance, generally considered innocuous as it contains no profanity or sexually explicit language yet contains a song called "Your Sweet 666".

In Robert A. Heinlein's book Number of the Beast, "666" is actually six to the sixth to the sixth power, which in the novel is the number of possible dimensions/universes that may be reached in one step using the main inventor's device.

The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden has made an album titled Number of the Beast. On a side note, Martin Birch, producer of the band at the time, had a car accident one night during the recording sessions. The cost of the damage was 666 British pounds but Birch refused to pay this amount and insisted on re-adjusting it. The title track quotes from the Bible and the lyrics refer to "six six six - the number of the beast". The Iron Maiden song of the same name was also released as a single in 1982, it reached number 18 in the UK charts; 18 is 6+6+6.

Flotsam and Jetsam made a song called "6 Six VI". The Australian black metal band Deströyer 666 also used Satanic imagery and lyrics, though in somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek way. Entombed have made an album called DCLXVI - To ride straight and speak the Truth (DCLXVI is the Roman numeral for 666).

The Greek progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child made a concept album 666 based on the Book of Revelation.

The band Saviour Machine's Legend trilogy, based on end-time Biblical prophecy, contains numerous references to the Number of the Beast in both lyrics and background vocals (such as readings from the Bible). The fifth track on the album Legend Part II is specifically named "Mark of the Beast."

ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Yahoo! give the Slovakian-born ice hockey player Miroslav Satan the ID number of 666 in their databases, likely as a joke about his last name.

The video game series Xenosaga contains three characters named Albedo, Rubedo (Jr.), and Nigredo (Gaignun), and as U.R.T.V. are the 667th, 666th, and 669th clones of Dmitri Yuriev, respectively.

In Bedazzled, Brendan Frasier's character is given a pager by the devil (Elizabeth Hurley). The devil's pager number is 666.

It is often quipped that 667 is "the Neighbour of the Beast" although this is possibly country-dependent as 668 (and 664) would be next property on the same side of the street in most, but not all, countries (assuming that the neighbours referred to are next-door neighbours). There are also at least two filk songs on this topic. Additional quips suggest that 1-888-666-6666 is "the Toll-Free Number of the Beast", $665.99 is "the Retail Price of the Beast", 00666 is "the ZIP Code of the Beast", 0.666 is "the Number of the Millibeast", Route 666 is "the highway of the Beast", 6.5013 is "the natural logarithm of the Beast", 333 a half-assed devil, the root of all evil being √666 = 25.8069, etc

668: The Neighbour of the Beast was a proposed title for an unwritten sequel to Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. In Pratchett's Discworld novel Reaper Man it's the house number at which an undead pressure group meets.

Canadian comedic band Corky and the Juice Pigs has a song, on its eponymous 1993 album, titled "666-6666". The song is about dating the devil's daughter, with the main lyric being "666-6666... that's the [phone] number of the daughter of the beast."

6.66, One Hundredth of the Number of the Beast is the name of the only song by the fictional Australian rock band Salmon Hater. Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson, then hosts of the Triple J [1] radio breakfast show, invented the band as a joke one morning. A fan of the show soon composed this song for the pretend band, and a video clip was also made later. Now with the speculation that the number 616 is the real number of the beast, it has come to light that 616 used to be the country number and area code of Canberra, the Capital of Australia, and home to the nation's Government. However the area code was changed from 6 to 2 in 1997. 666 AM is the frequency for ABC local radio in Canberra. Comedian Andrew Denton once noted on The Money or the Gun that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's contact address (GPO Box 9994), when turned upside down read "666... and some kind of upside-down cross."

In The Pixies song "Monkey Gone To Heaven" the lyrics state that "If man is 5...then the devil is 6...then God is 7" suggesting that man is represented as 555, the devil as 666, and God as 777.

In the role-playing game In Nomine, rolling three dice in one go and getting a six on each one produces a result that is favourable for a demon character and detrimental to an angel character. Some Christian organizations and persons who viewed Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy RPGs as harmful games (see RPG controversy) objected to any rules where rolling 6+6+6=18 on three six-sided dice lead to the most beneficial results. (For example, classic D&D uses 3d6 for rolling ability scores, and 18 is the best possible score.)

The video game Max Payne refers to the number 665, used as the code for an electronic lock, as "the neighbour of the beast". In the sequel, Max Payne 2, a door is opened by the combination 667, being the other neighbour of the beast.

-2·Sin(666°) evaluates to (√5 + 1) /2 which is the Golden Ratio.

New Zealand pizza company Hell Pizza plays on the number of the beast for its phone number, which is then followed by a 111, which is the emergency phone number in New Zealand. It is commonly quipped that the number means "go to hell for an emergency."

In John Carpenter's Escape From L.A., the code that will shut down the world's power and in the end civilization is "666".

In Kingdom of Loathing, an item called the 668 scroll summons the Neighbor of the Beast (see above), who then grants the player a random boon or bane (for example, it might give or take money or experience, among other effects)

In an imperfect reference, in the game Motherload, the player fights Satan when the altimeter shows a depth of 66,666 ft. below the ground.

In The Simpsons episode, Treehouse of Horror VIII, a FOX censor says that the episode is supposed to be rated TV-G. But a hand with a sword appears on the TV-G rating icon stabbing the censor repeatedly changing the TV-G rating to TV-PG, then TV-14, then TV-M, then TV-21, and then TV-666. TV-21 and TV-666 are not real TV ratings.

The film The Doom Generation has a running gag about the cost of everything purchased in the film adding up to $6.66.

In the role-playing game Deus Ex, in Castle Clinton at the start of the Battery Park level, there is an electronic keypad to open the door. The keypad number is 666.

In Season Two of Futurama, The Honking Bender is alarmed to see the binary code 0101100101 in a mirror (resulting in 1010011010). 1010011010 is the binary representation of 666.

In The Hey Arnold! Movie, The address to FTI is 66613 Washington St. The house number, 66613, can be separated into 666-13 (Mark of Beast-Unlucky Number)

In the 2006 Doctor Who episode The Impossible Planet, the Doctor finds a planet supposedly holding Satan orbiting a black hole. The Doctor works out that to remain in orbit around the black hole, the power source at the centre would have to be "an extrapolating reflex of 6 to the power of 6 every 6 seconds". Also, a character announces that a computer readout is 66.6; the room where the TARDIS was parked was Base Storage 6; the story's two episodes are broadcast on either side of the week of June 6, 2006 (06/06/06). In addition, the image of the Scarlet system being devoured looks like an inverted 6. Also, in the 2006 Doctor Who episode Doomsday, when the Doctor is shutting the void he tells Rose to set the co-ordinates to "all 6's".

In War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, the character of Pierre Bezuhov uses the French alphabet in conjunction with the corresponding Hebrew numbers to calculate a numerical value for his name. After many attempts, he is unsuccessful at letting this value equal 666. He then deliberately misspells his name and also includes his nationality (l’russe Besuhof) to make the numerical value equal to 666.

"667.. The Neighbour of the Beast" was the title of the first album by Norwegian glam band Wig Wam and it included a spoken piece entitled "667" which has also been on the re-releses of the album ("Hard To Be A Rock 'N' Roller" and "Hard to Be a Rock 'n' Roller.. in Kiev!").

The second verse of an Avenged Sevenfold song called "The Wicked End" contained the line "We've grown into the numbers,six hundred sixty-six".

In the Japanese anime "Yu-Gi-Oh!", a flashback scene shows a man buying one of the seven "Millennium Items". This item is later revealed to be the most sinister of them all, holding the spirit of an evil beast within. At the time, the seller of the item says that it has some connection with the card game, "Duel Monsters", and holds up a Duel Monsters card. The card's name is "Six-armed beast" and, in the japanese version, has 666 attack points and 666 defense points.


Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.


The American TV series 'Seven Days' is about a government-based team who can go back in time by one week only. In the episode 'Revelation' they encounter a man claiming to be their successor from seven years in the future. This distant time-traveler (Major Michael McGrath, played by Robert Picardo), has a time-traveler's barcode tattooed in his arm -- the number 666. McGrath has come to assassinate an outspoken Muslim peace activist in an effort to spark World War 3.

In the comedy short film 6ix, the main character Nathan (Matt Frewer) wakes up to find the number 665 carved behind his right ear. When he calls his mother to find out why, he learns that his father has 664 carved in the same place. Afraid for his son, he approaches his crib and finds a devil in his place. Nathan then wakes from what turns out to be a nightmare, and reassures himself that all is as it should be - his son is normal, and the number behind his own ear is 666, not 665. He is revealed to be Satan, and leaves his house for his job running Hell.

In a Digimon Adventure (the first Digimon animated TV series, North American season 1) episode, it is reavealed that Vamdemon (Myotismon in the NA version) will digivolve into his Ultimate (Mega in the NA version) form at 06:06.06 in the evening. It has to be the evening since, after the fight with VenomMyotismon (or Venom Vamdemon, in Japan), it's nighttime in Japan with no sign of sunset or sunrise on the horizon (and the Digital World upside-down in the sky). The episode also includes a scripture similar to the Number of the Beast.

[edit] Speculation and trivia

By odd coincidence, carbon, the element of which all life is based on, has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons.

In 1666, the Great Fire of London destroyed approximately 10,000 buildings.

The space reserved for Union Pacific locomotive 666, an EMD GP38-2, is vacant; the unit designated for this spot is instead numbered 280.

Former U.S. president Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in his first, middle, and last name. He also lived in Bel-Air California, in house number 666 on his block, until wife Nancy Reagan had it changed to 668.

Nelson Mandela's prisoner number was 46664.

Other Christian groups led by Herb Peters and Constance E. Cumbey point the finger at Javier Solana, who was appointed High Representative of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary-General of the Council following a recommendation (numbered 666) of the 1998 Vienna meeting of the European Council.[1]

The first Apple Computer, the Apple I, was sold for $666.66.

The sum of the squares of the first seven primes is 666.

A widespread theory concerns the EAN or UPC bar codes, instituted in 1974, and found on most consumer products. The "control codes" in the left, middle, and right of the code appear on initial inspection to represent the number "6". Because of this, all EAN/UPC codes (so the theory goes) contain the number 666. One interpretation of the Book of Revelation indicates that the Number of the Beast is required for all business transactions — a role that the EAN/UPC code certainly fits. Also the inventor of the UPC code, George J. Laurer, has six letters in his first, middle, and last name [2], and, as of 2004, exactly 666 prefixes (out of possible 1000) are assigned in the EAN-13 namespace [3]. (Unfortunately, the control codes only appear to represent the number six if one is unaware that both the black bars and the spaces in between them are used to encode information.)

The "three sixes" of the Bankcard
Enlarge
The "three sixes" of the Bankcard

The Australian Bankcard symbol has been said to represent three sixes, superimposed (yellow over orange over red).

The A666 is a main road from Pendlebury to Langho in England. In the 1980's that prompted CB radio users to codename it "The Devil's Highway".

United States Highway 666 previously existed in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah and was also nicknamed "The Devil's Highway". In 2003, the remaining portion of the highway was renumbered to U.S. Route 491 due to the "infamy" of the route's number.

In Japan, the yen comes in coins of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500. If you have one of each coin, you have 666 yen.

In Mexico, local phone numbers were updated from an 8-digit format with variable-length area code/number combinations to a standard 12-digit fixed combination (3-digit area codes, 7-digit phone numbers except for Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.) The City of Tijuana ended up with area code 666, but after various protests from the local townspeople it was changed to 664. Ironically, because of high drug-related crime rate, the city is known as the 'Mexican Sin City'.

[edit] June 6th, 2006

It should be noted that the number of the beast is 666, not 6606 or 060606. Furthermore, at no point in the Book of Revelation is any connection made between 666 and a date - particularly not a date in a calendar that was not in use at the time. However, in math 06=6, so 06/06/06 could indeed be seen as 6/6/6.

  • The movie The Omen 666 (see above) was released on June 6, 2006. It was promoted with black billboards saying only "6†6†06" and "The signs are all around you" or "You have been warned." [4]
  • Several bands have released records on this date
  • Ann Coulter released a book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, on 6/6/06.
  • The third and final book in the Before They Were Left Behind series was released on June 6, 2006.
  • "The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking", a book by James Twyman, was released on 6/06/06 to offset the negative power given to this date [5]
  • PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) called for anti-KFC protests on 6/6/06 which compare Colonel Sanders to Satan.
  • Launch date for www.v-generations.com
  • Launch date for www.devil360.com
  • Baptist Crossroads Foundation has agreed to sponsor 400 new homes starting June, 6th 2006
  • A "Earache Extreme Metal Racing" Demo, for an upcoming PSP title, was released on 6/06/06
  • The day was also IPv6 Day in promotion of IPv6, an Internet standard set to replace IPv4
  • MTV2 Europe broadcasted a 'Day of Rockoning', a play on the term Day of Reckoning.
  • The movie Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic is released on DVD; also its soundtrack.

[edit] Astrology

On 06/06/06 (June 6, 2006) the sun was between the horns of the constellation Taurus.

[edit] Birthdays

  • Actor Paul Giamatti celebrates his 39th birthday.
  • Guitarist and composer Steve Vai celebrates his 46th birthday (he was born on 6/6/60). Coincidentally, in the film Crossroads (1986 film), he played Jack Butler, Satan's personal guitar player.
  • Norwegian heavymetal vocalist of Black Legion, Ziggy Moonshine, turned 21.

[edit] Computer-related

The octal number 666 is used in setting up authorizations in the Unix Operating System. It offers read and write access to all users, but not execute permissions.

The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is "waw" (or "vav"). This is the closest approximation of the English letter "w". Also in the Hollerith Card (sometimes called an IBM Punch-Card) a zero zone punch and a six numeric punch in a column signified the letter W. Thus the ubiquitous prefix "www" could be the Number of the Beast... or not [2].

A known one-liner refers to the editor vi: VIVIVI, the Editor of the Beast.

TCP/IP port 666 is officially registered to ID Software, the publishers of the Doom series of games, for multiplayer game communication across a network; this is obviously a gimmick. ID Software is also headquartered in Suite 666. Port 616 is officially registered to SCO System Administration Server, much to the amusement of SCO's critics.

The video game Ultima VIII: Pagan by Origin Systems, Inc uses obsidian coins as currency that can be grouped together up to the number of 666. Extra coins are separated to form a new pile. The game features several other paganistic elements and as such this is most likely an attempt at humor.

[edit] References

  1. ^ General Report 1998 - Chapter V: Role of the Union in the world
  2. ^ Watkins, Terry (1999). Is "www" in Hebrew Equal to 666?.
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