The Hidden Experiment

Miss Peregrine recounts how an attempt to master aging transformed renegade peculiars into the Hollowgast and later the Wights.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Forbidden Ambition

A Forbidden Ambition The promise of immortality A renegade faction believes time loops can be manipulated to reverse aging and grant freedom from death. Miss Peregrine’s brothers join the effort despite warnings from the Ymbryne Council. Knowledge without restraint The experiment’s ambition treats mortality as a technical problem to defeat. Its pursuit of power endangers the entire peculiar community.

The Siberian Explosion

The Siberian Explosion Catastrophe in the tundra The faction conducts its experiment in an abandoned loop on the Siberian tundra. A tremendous explosion follows, and the participants are presumed dead. Transformation instead of mastery The survivors emerge as creatures in agony, not as gods. Their failure creates a lasting threat from an attempt to escape natural limits.

From Hollow to Wight

From Hollow to Wight Hunger and degradation The transformed Hollowgasts hunt peculiars in hopes of regaining their former selves. Those that consume enough peculiar flesh become Wights, able to pass as human. A hierarchy of harm Wights serve as spies and procurers for Hollowgasts, expanding the danger into ordinary society. The experiment produces not immortality but an organized system of predation.

Around the turn of the twentieth century

Summer of 1908

After the failed experiment