10 REAL Mysteries That Would Make Great Doctor Who Episodes

While there's no firm evidence to confirm whether the Polybius arcade game ever existed, that might just be exactly what those involved want us to think.

Polybius is an urban legend that recounts how, in the early 1980s, a mysterious arcade cabinet called Polybius was used as a government psy-op.

Polybius was said to cause seizures, night terrors, and hallucinations, and it was also incredibly addictive. The story goes that government agents in black suits would collect data from these arcade cabinets, before they disappeared altogether a month later.

It's certainly possible that young people at the time were falling ill from the effects of arcade games – either from spending too much time on them, or experiencing epileptic seizures triggered by the games – so perhaps the Polybius legend grew out of media scaremongering based on one or two isolated incidents.

Or... perhaps it was real.

The idea of a computer used for nefarious purposes is a key storyline from both Russell T Davies' BBC drama Dark Season, and the Doctor Who episode School Reunion. So why not revisit that concept with a big modern-day budget?

Doctor Who could reveal that Polybius was part of a villainous scheme to invade the Earth. The mention of men in black collecting data from the arcade machines recalls the Silence, who shaped all of human development before being foiled by the Doctor in 1969.

Maybe Polybius was how they took their revenge – using a machine to brainwash the population and turn them against the Doctor. After all, with the whole River Song thing, the Silence do have a history with brainwashed assassins.