The Navidson Record and "House of Leaves" Quiz

Answer: A previously unseen room

Upon returning to their new house after a short trip, the Navidson family feels that something uncanny is afoot. That's when they find the first room.

Heading into the master bedroom they find that a door has appeared. A similar door is in their kids' room; it was not there before. Between is a small room about four or five feet across, connecting the bedrooms together. There is nothing inside; the walls are black. Navidson and Karen take the logical route of investigation by digging up the house's blueprints. Sure enough there was originally room for a crawlspace in the house at the exact location, but no doors in the original sketches. It only appeared during their short absence. They decide to call the police, but it's a little absurd to say the least.

Answer: The interior of the house is 1/4 inch longer than the exterior

Navidson starts to wonder about the house's measurements based on the blueprints and seeks to determine how a room could magically appear between the walls. When he adds the numbers it simply doesn't work. He measures the inside and outside and finds that, despite all laws of physics and spatial measurement, the interior of the house is 1/4 inch longer than the outside wall-- a literal impossibility. He calls his estranged brother, Tom, to help (as he's a carpenter) and they find that Navidson is wrong...it's actually a discrepancy of 5/16 inches. A physics professor, the wheelchair-bound Billy Reston, also adds his thoughts and joins the mystery at this time. When they check one final time, everything checks out, back to normal; the house matches up.

Something is amiss, however. Earlier in the week, Karen installed bookshelves in the bedroom between two walls, lining them up exactly so that the books could use the parallel walls as bookends. Now, the books fall off the shelf. The room has expanded.

Answer: The 5 1/2 Minute Hallway

One evening, Chad and Daisy, Navidson and Karen's two kids, find the 5 1/2 Minute Hallway in the north wall of their living room; the door later appears in the east wall as well. Their parents don't discover it until the kids have wandered inside, and Karen is filled with claustrophobic fear by the thought of it. During their first venture in, the hallway is about seventy feet long. Later on it's only a few feet, like a closet.

When Navidson locks it off, however, with four deadbolts, it extends even further almost immediately.

The doorway ultimately causes issues with Navidson and Karen's relationship since it sets off the former's inquisitive mind.

Answer: A penny

Alone, Navidson takes a camera in hand and goes into 5 1/2 Minute Hallway to explore to the end in what is called 'Experiment 1'. At the end of the hall, to his surprise, is a doorway that was not there before. Inside is a room with another door. And another. And another.

After traveling through a labyrinth of rooms he reaches a big arch opening into a massive hall of darkness. He dips inside and finds that, even with his flashlight, he can not see a single thing. Backtracking he places a penny near his entrance and searches around, not finding anything.

When he returns to the penny, his door is gone. Somehow, Navidson inevitably finds his way back by luck since it's not same route. His daughter happens to be at the entrance. Soon after, he tells Karen they'll move, but he lies about this.

There's still more exploration to be had.

Answer: Yes

After the large, dark chamber in which Navidson loses himself, he, Karen, and Reston call in a trio of adventurers: Holloway Roberts, Kirby 'Wax' Hook, and Jed Leeder, to explore the rooms and find whatever they can. A total of four expeditions occur in which they travel further and further, finally opting to stock up with food, fishing line (to tether them and track their route), neon paint, and a gun. Expedition #4 is the fateful one.

After three days they reach the bottom of the staircase; when they do, the diameter at the bottom is more than 750 feet wide.

After another two days, Holloway goes mad, taking the gun and firing at the others as they flee through the maze of dark hallways. Three days after that, Navidson, Tom, and Reston hear knocks on the wall of the living room-- SOS in Morse code, and decide to go in and find them.

Answer: Jed

As it turns out, Jed is the one responsible for the rappings on the living room wall, although he never used Morse code-- the house may have translated the message for Navidson. This was all done after Holloway lost his grip on reality, going insane and shooting at the other two repeatedly from the hallways around the stairs.

Their caches are destroyed by the house and Wax gets shot. As time starts to run out, the two of them hide in a tiny, confined room with one entrance, waiting for any sign of hope. Navidson and Reston eventually find them, but as soon as the doorway opens, Jed is shot in the head by Holloway from a great distance, a straight line through a hallway behind Navidson. Luckily, he's separated from them immediately after as doors slam shut, blocking him off from the others.

Answer: Navidson

Although the Expedition #4 trip took three days to reach the bottom of the stairs, it's Navidson's journey that ends up being the shortest; he and Reston make it to the bottom in less than twenty minutes. It's presumed that this only occurs because Navidson has utter confidence that he WILL reach the bottom.

When Navidson and Reston return to the stairs with an injured Wax and Jed's dead body, Tom assists them, dropping a makeshift stretcher down the center of the spiral staircase using a thick line. The injured and deceased make it up immediately, but when Reston ascends, the staircase begins to lengthen almost immeasurably. He reaches the top, but (using a quarter dropped by Tom to indicate his success) he calculates that the stairs are now longer than the circumference of the Earth at the Equator. This makes Navidson the one with both the shortest and the longest flight of stairs.

It comes as no surprise that Holloway, also trapped in the labyrinth, shoots himself in despair and madness. His tapes chronicle the final moments; Navidson finds them en route to the surface.

Answer: Reston

Navidson eventually escapes the house after several days wandering the labyrinth-- almost by chance. Everyone decides that they need to make their escape, but the house has its own plans. As they get their things together, the darkness expands, breaking the house apart and causing rooms to sink or collapse.

As the darkness spreads, Navidson saves Karen from getting crushed in the bedroom; he also saves Reston before he's sucked into the black hole tunnel in the living room. Chad, having been outside the entire time, is safe, but Tom has to get Daisy from her room upstairs.

When the way is blocked out front, he takes her to Navidson in the kitchen window but is unable to escape, himself; the floor pulls him back every time he steps forward, making it impossible to reach the exit. Navidson watches in horror as his brother falls into the abyss that has emerged in his kitchen. Reston is the only one to tell this story to this day, even though he wasn't present as an eyewitness; Navdison blocks it out.

Answer: Navidson returns to it

After the family flees to New York City, Navidson is unable to shake the exploration bug. He returns to the country for several months, lying to Karen and Reston about his plans, before gathering supplies and stepping back into the house on Ash Tree Lane. Fortunately, it's waiting for him.

As soon as he enters the 5 1/2 Minute Hallway, all issues cease, almost as though Navidson is Jonah, casting himself to sea. Reston later checks in on the house to see if Navidson is inside; the 5 1/2 Minute Hallway is gone; the room between the bedrooms is gone.

It's like nothing ever happened in the house. Karen, under the guise of going to sell the property, leaves the kids with her mother in New York and moves back in, hoping to hear from Navidson.

Answer: Bicycle

Navidson, for his final exploratory trip, takes several items of importance including a bicycle and trailer hitch, flares, matches, his camera, and more. In the first day riding his bike he ends up constantly riding downhill, even when he turns around to try and retreat uphill-- after fifteen feet he finds himself, nevertheless (and paradoxically) riding downslope. This happens for hundreds of miles. After wrecking his trailer he comes across what appears to be a staircase resting on its side; this proves to be only a temporary problem as he navigates his way through odd passages, constantly shifting tunnels with gravity issues, and passageways which get narrower and narrower. At one point he finds a window-- something unseen thus far in the tunnels; at another point he climbs into a ceiling only to find that it actually heads downward to a floor. As Navidson's light begins to wane he uses his remaining matches to light pages of his book on fire and, eventually, it flickers out, leaving him plunging through freezing darkness, perhaps for eternity.

Karen, in the house on Ash Tree Lane, begins watching Navidson's tapes as the darkness appears behind her. When she notices the creeping blackness, she conquers her claustrophobia and navigates her way through to find Navidson, freezing and barely alive. He makes it out, though with severe frostbite and physical (and emotional scarring). The two of them never return to the house.

Perhaps it's out there somewhere. Perhaps it's not.