Who Are Noctuax? The Mysterious Essex-Based Organisation Haunting Two Podcasters

We first encounter the strange symbol associated with Noctuax in episode one of Will Maclean and Joel Morris' podcast, 'Broken Veil', a six-part series described as "a psychogeographic journey into the strangeness."

Although we don't realise it at the time, the logo Tony describes is in fact the mark of Noctuax. Tony - played by actor Tony Way, known for roles in 'After Life' and 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' - recounts an unsettling visit to a plain, featureless office building in a remote part of Essex where he'd been sent for a routine medical.

After the examination, he notices a strange logo on the outside of the building: six horizontal lines, arranged in a way that seems oddly out of place. The image later reappears in recurring nightmares he has about the experience.

When Will and Joel return to the site, they find the building gone - nothing remains except some concrete footings. However, they spot a toppled concrete block nearby, and on it: the same six-line symbol.

Will describes it in more detail: "Six horizontal lines - three unbroken at the bottom, then two unbroken above, with a broken one sandwiched between them." He identifies it as an I Ching hexagram: Ta Yu, meaning "possession in great measure."

This symbol is the fourteenth I Ching character - and the number 14 recurs frequently throughout the series. As Will points out, 14 also corresponds to the letter N, perhaps a nod to Noctuax. But more significantly, "Station 14" becomes a running thread in the show's lore.

Comedian Sara Barron first hears the phrase in episode two, while disoriented inside a sterile, windowless corporate building filled with American-style plug sockets. Booked for a stand-up gig, she ends up alone and confused in a place that seems to exist outside normal reality. Trying to call for help via a wall intercom, a distorted voice responds with a cryptic phrase: "Station 14." A second phrase follows: "Scratching mass."

Joel said in the final episode, "Station 14 seemed to be as many things as we needed it to be." They reel off the list: A sinister medical establishment, a listening station on an airfield, a stop on a ghost line, a research station doing sinister experiments, and of course the corporate headquarters of Noctuax.

The first direct mention of Noctuax comes when Will and Joel receive an anonymous package. Inside is a photocopied book from a private library, stamped with the six-line symbol. Beneath the logo is a name: Noctuax. Joel notes simply, "We looked them up. They didn't exist."

But the final episode introduces a shadowy informant who seemed to suggest that Noctuax had a 70-year history of "inter-reality research." Not in our reality - or our "theatre of outcomes" - he suggests, but in some other adjacent one. Or was this informant just telling Will and Joel what they wanted to hear?

After all, there's one final thing to know about Noctuax: The organisation owns a podcast production company named Loudburst, whose slogan - "just what you want to hear" - is heard at the start of every 'Broken Veil' episode since the start of the series. Loudburst "a Noctuax company" sponsors 'Broken Veil'.