The sixth season of American Horror Story starts tonight, but audiences are still clueless about the theme. The show broke with tradition by not announcing the season’s title ahead of the first episode. So far, we’ve seen Hotel, Freak Show, Coven, Asylum… but co-creator Ryan Murphy has kept the theme tightly under wraps.
Here’s everything we think we know so far:

Jacob Artist
After winning a Golden Globe for her performance in last year’s Hotel, Lady Gaga is back along with Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Angela Bassett, Matt Bomer and Wes Bentley.
• NEW ADDITIONS
Cuba Gooding Jr has been rumored to be joining the cast, while Glee star Jacob Artist revealed on Instagram this week that he would be making an appearance…
• IT’S ABOUT MIST
The new title is widely rumored to be “The Mist”, after this title briefly appeared on Rotten Tomatoes and TV Guide. The Mist is also the title of a 15-second teaser for season 6, which shows a mis-shapen, humanoid creature crawling along a set of railway tracks.
• IT’S ABOUT CHARLES MANSON
Ryan Murphy has been saying that he wants “to do an entire season about the Manson case” since 2013, and some clues in the promotional material might support this theory.
• IT’S ABOUT A LOST COLONIAL TOWN
The word “Croatoan” is seen carved into a tree in photos leaked from the show’s set. This refers to an eerie true mystery. The word appeared on a tree outside the remains of a 17th century colonial settlement of Roanoke in North Carolina, after all the inhabitants had disappeared. AHS has referenced early American history in previous seasons, most notably in Coven, which drew heavily on the Salem Witch Trials.
• IT’S PROBABLY ABOUT CHILDREN
According to Murphy, the new season will feature “elements of children”. One teaser features a Children of the Corn-style scene of schoolchildren, working at desks in the middle of a cornfield; another shows a live doll; and another shows a family with a young girl in a prairie landscape.
• UNLESS IT’S NOT…
FX has released more than 20 teasers for season six (see them all below) and all but one of them are intended to mislead the viewer. According to FX chief John Landgraf,
“One is accurate, all the rest are misdirect.“
We know THIS much, as Murphy said earlier this year,
“Both things that we’re writing right now — we haven’t yet declared the winner — will have a different form than we’ve ever done, so we’re excited about that.“
It’s been hinted that the new season would be
“set in two time periods, but principally in the present.“
You don’t have long to wait. American Horror Story season 6 premieres tonight on FX. In the meantime, here are all of the teasers you can search for clues.
Watch.
(via The Telegraph)