VIDEO/PDF: Down The Rabbit Hole
May 21, 2008
J.C. Hutchins discovered an unusual envelope in his mail today … and inside was an item so mysterious and perplexing, he had to document its contents for you. It appears to be a “rabbit hole” — an intriguing gateway into a viral promotion or Alternate Reality Game.
J.C. has no idea who sent this envelope, and is stymied by its encrypted contents. Watch the video and examine the PDF in this post (found below; look for the “EBOOK PDF” icon) and see if YOU can decode its secrets. You can also find hi-res photos of the envelope’s contents on J.C.’s Flickr page: http://flickr.com/photos/jchutchins/
Please spread the word about this mystery (J.C. recommends the “Share This” feature at the end of this post). And feel free to post your thoughts (or decryption progress) here in the comments. He may have been the “first to find” this rabbit hole … but when it comes to its secrets, J.C. doesn’t want to be the last to know!
UPDATE: Thanks to you amazing people, we’ve tracked down several other recipients of the letter, and determined that those letters are similar — but not identical — to the one J.C. received. Find out more here:
- http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/strange_mail.html
- http://cactuspix.blogspot.com/2008/05/something-weird.html
- And most intriguingly, here: http://chishio.jp/ (This may be a “master site,” showing the designs for four letters; we’ve only seen blog posts for three of them.)
VIDEO: Down The Rabbit Hole [8:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
PDF: Down The Rabbit Hole: DownloadComments
128 Responses to “VIDEO/PDF: Down The Rabbit Hole”
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The vertical script looks like Hieroglyphics. The ones on the “seal” look like several letters superimposed on one another. hmmm . . .
Interestingly enough, one of my Google searches turned up this link…
http://www.thetruthexcavated.com/
Hmmm….?
It does look like stylistic Hieroglyphics or reversed image
The fact it was on rice paper tells me that it should overlay something that will combine with the current page and the logo might be a viewer that you would look at the letters with
@Kevin: Hush, now. That URL’s been up for two years. It’s not a part of this — and I’m not pulling a fast one on the community.
@Merlyn: I LIKE the way you’re thinking!
I think the key to this is the red seal on the page, and the characters there. The black text is the punchline … but the red characters are the setup. Let’s focus our attention there!
Looking at the black letters, they remind me of Japanese writing - specifically hiragana.
Red seal is the key looks like one sentence. The text looks like several overlayed letters with some extras.
JC, those images on the red circle seem like they are representative of human figures doing things. Not sure where that gets us, but it’s the only thing that occurred to me. Well, aside from the fact that maybe one of your fans works in law enforcement and you could dust the inner envelope and the rice paper for fingerprints and run it through AFIS
is the red seal wax, or is it manufactured plastic? Is it real rice paper or is it the mass produced $$ plastic paper? Can lead to how big of a “hole” this is
Anyone want to try tracking down that serial number on the postage stamp? 104894819006. I couldn’t find anything w/ a quick Google search. If someone has an account w/ stamps.com, maybe they can shed some light on how that service works. That “tb” logo must be part of someone’s stamps.com account.
BTW, shouldn’t there be a post marking over the stamp?
The red letters do appear to be English letters, superimposed over each other, made to be read in at least 4 separate directions…. Once with the red band on the top right to left, a second time, from left to right (letters are mirror imaged) a third time with the red bandto the left of the letters and the fourth with the band below the script. The black script, I’m thinking is meant to be sliced into 2 long strips and wrapped around a dowel or pencil, in order to be deciphered, perhaps with additional details in encoded in the red script.
It will take some time to work out, but that would be my guesses. Time to grab a scratch pad and some scissors.
JC, question about the original. Is the red circular image a stamp from an ink pad? Or is this a color print from a computer image?
Trying to decide whether the image in the center of the circle is significant. Could be just an ink blot that happens to look like a woman’s face in one orientation and an old, bald man when viewed upside down.
BTW, if this is an elaborate Obsidian gag, you are soooo dead.
I don’t have a printer, and turning my monitor around to try to read the letters is getting tiring.
Has anyone been able to figure out what the letters from the red seal even are yet?
I notice that there is a space between the red characters that is bigger than the others; I’d use this as a starting point when trying to read the letters.
I also wonder whether there is any significants to the wider smear marks on the outer part of the seal, where it over laps the inner ring for example.
The “tb” logo looks like a Japanese style “signature” block, who’s real name I can never remember. If I were a bettin’ man, I’d guess that was just the signature of the author of the puzzle and probably has little more significants than that.
You guys are rocking my world with your ideas! Please, keep ‘em coming. I’ll help with some of your questions, since I have the item.
@BigDP and @Mad Marv: The “rice paper” is of heavier stock, and all of the ink — including the red seal — are professionally-printed. As slick as it is, it feels mass-produced, so we can assume I won’t be the only recipient of such a letter.
@Kristin Mayo: I really like your idea, that the red characters could be read on different passes. Anyone tried that yet?
I’m also with Mad Marv on wondering about the blots of red ink/wax/blood in the red seal’s center. Is it a stylized map of a country, with “islands”? Something else?
Finally: This is not an OBSIDIAN promo gag. If it were, I’d probably so proud of myself, I’d be taking credit left and right. This hails from a stranger, folks.
At work and have not had time to consider this closely yet, but the image on the postage stamp and the image in the wax seal look to be identical to me.
Mark Smith, I think the term that you’re searching for is “hanko”
I think the black lettering looks like hieratic, which is the cursive form of hieroglyphics.
I can see some cobras, an eye of horus, and a couple of reeds. Unfortunately, my memory of the hieroglyphic/hieratic alphabet is a bit skewed.
I tried flipping the document around in photoshop. It didn’t seem to help too much.
Trying to separate the letters in the red seal. Printed it out layed it on light box. Problem. Lots of “o” squiggle and bat shapes bisecting what could be e’s or L’s. Found an odd one though. Look at the 2:00 position. Remove what looks like a y. Familiar?
You bringing this to balticon!? I hope so.
If it is Hiragana, it’s _HEAVILY_ stylized. I’ve found a few Hiragana tables and while a few characters do look similar, I can’t find most of them. I also can’t find those characters in a Katakana table. So I’m guessing that Japanese is out.
JD Dennis has it right. It looks _VERY_ much like the writing found in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic
JD Dennis has it right. The script looks _VERY_ much like the stuff found in Wikipedia under hieratic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic
JD Dennis has it right. The script looks _VERY_ much like Hieratic. Check it out on Wikipedia; some of the examples there look very similar. (I can’t post a link here, apparently. Not surprising, I guess.)
Random thinking out-loud:
Flip page so logo is at top? Mirror-image view with logo at top and again logo at bottom?
Additional synaptic static:
Did the inner envelop have any markings, either inside or outside? Try looking at it at an angle to the light, look for compression marks (e.g pen/pencil) or surface imperfections that may be invisible ink. Same with the glassine (”rice paper” type) page.
Try to take a rubbing from the inner envelope, too.
Having posted that, there are a lot of characters on JC’s page that I can’t find translations for. Of course, I can’t claim that the reference I’m using is complete.
Anyone else have any luck finding a more complete Hieratic translation table than the second link in Google when you search for “Hieratic”?
OK, I’m code-naming this rabbit hole RED SEAL, dig?
I took another keen look at the full red seal photo, on page 4 of the PDF. I zoomed in. As I supposed in the video (and you guys have confirmed), there are highly-stylized English letters buried in the seal.
I grabbed a pen and jotted down my interpretation of these designs as mashed-up letters. I suggest you do the same, and let’s compare notes.
Starting at the “bottom” of the seal and going counter-clockwise, this is what I’m supposing I’m seeing:
NO … EON … EN (?) … BED (8ED?) … SO … O3O (O3D?) … W? … ERM (ER3?) … VER … EVE … VIV (NIN?) … ANE … AN7 … XM … OR (OZ? OTZ?)
You ARG fans might notice the “(NIN?)” interpretation I inserted above. While Nine Inch Nails released a “Year Zero” ARG last year, let’s not get hung up on the reference. I love NIN, but there will be no Reznor geeking! It’ll cloud the conversation!
So, take a close look at that image again, try to extract letters, and post them here. Is there meaning to what I’ve found? Will there be meaning to what you find? Let’s dig deeper….
OK. Just “saw” something … or it might be my imagination. There may be a pattern to each cluster of characters in the red seal. Each cluster may contain THREE letters.
For instance: I initially thought the first cluster was the word “NO.” But looking more carefully, there may be a capital “T” laying on its side there, bisecting the “O”. NOT, maybe?
Perhaps extrapolating from that “three letter” rule might help. Then again, I could be seeing things…
@Geordon VanTassle: The outer and inner envelopes are unremarkable. It’s clear that the “TB” logo and the contents on the paper are the showcase pieces here.
[...] in a “rabbit hole” of a possible new alternate reality game that JC Hutchins found, check this out. I know some of you are clever/obsessive enough to be interested in this kind of a game, but I [...]
@Mark Smith:
I think the hardest thing about the hieratic theory is that the writer can combine symbols. It’s both pictographic (like Chinese) and phonetic at the same time. We might be seeing some combinations of characters that are full words, and then some words being spelled out.
Of course, Occham could be laughing at the idea while getting out his stropping strap.
Looks like jc is doing pretty much the same as me. Breaking out the letters is giving me some other ideas. This may be numeric combination. Any one try sounding some of these out. Because “no eon” could be ” no one”. “8ed” could be “ate” .
OK, so here are my thoughts so far… if the paper is seethrough, maybe you need to fold it so that the symbols overlap? I can’t print this out, but maybe someone else can try it. I would suggest folding down the center since there are 2 columns.
Also, if there are three letters in each, it COULD be a bunch of 3 letter words, or it could be the kind of thing that you eliminate 2 of the three letters from each triad based on what letters are duplicated in the one before and after each triad:
VER
EVE
MNE
ENA
For MNE you can eliminate the E from MNE and an E from EVE above it. And then from EVE you can eliminate the V from VER above it. Below MNE you can eliminate the Ns. That would leave you with (ER)-E-M-(EA) I can’t tell what all the letters are around the circle, but if they could be deciphered it is possible that this style of elimination might leave you with less letters to deal with, and might actually state something with the spaces missing.
I hope this helps! I am greatly intrigued. -i
There is another reference to this mystery on google, if the URL I’m pasting doesn’t make it then search for:
strange mail red seal tb
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/strange_mail.html
The website is www yesbutnobutyes com
They also got one of these in the post.
From Twitter:
@JCHutchins very interesting video.. you aren’t alone apparently http://tinyurl.com/686g9b
(link: http://twitter.com/m1xzg/statuses/817268712)
There is definitely something bigger afoot.
Putting a few words relating to this puzzle (red seal, black envelope, tb) into Google led me to this blog entry:
http://cactuspix.blogspot.com/2008/05/something-weird.html
It describes the same kind of envelope that JC got, but the message contained therein is in yet another language.
Definitely feels like an ARG. We might need to pull in the unForums on this.
JC, you are not alone. Someone else recieved a black envelope with a red seal, too. The red circle on his message seems to be identical at first glance, but the text is a different script.
Check it out at http://cactuspix.blogspot.com/2008/05/something-weird.html
anyone see roman numerals in the red stamp letters?
Ignore my posting above, I didn’t see the other comments on that.
But there seem to be some more versions around.
All viewable at http://chishio.jp/
There are people who think this may be viral marketing for the coming Mummy 3
Aha! You guys rock. We haven’t cracked the RED SEAL code, but thanks to your googling, we do know that at least two other people have received these letters, and are equally stumped.
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/strange_mail.html
http://cactuspix.blogspot.com/2008/05/something-weird.html
Thanks to @m1xzg and @3rd Bob for those finds! The other recipients received similar — but not identical — messages. The RED SEAL appears to be identical, but the “mail” language is completely different. Check out those links.
So. Three letters featuring three possible ancient languages. Thoughts?
A bizarre connection that struck me.
YBNBY is a popular pop-cult blog. The one I found seems to be related to video distribution over the web, and of course Hutch.
Ancient languages, new media.
Looking at the collection of the various letters in one place, they all look like they’re different Fertile Crescent languages.
We’ve got heiratic, cunieform of two types and one other, which I suspect is similar. I’ll post a “translation” of at least one of them within an hour or so.
Frack! I’m stuck in a hotel all day, with nothing to do, and I wander across this, and I don’t have the one resource that could help (potentially)!
http://chishio.jp/images/123_07.jpg That’s the 3rd from left on the master page, the one we have yet to see in the wild. That would appear to be runic in nature. Some characters are oh so very close to the standard Norse rune set, and here I am without my book.
Definitely Hieratic. I see an aleph, and a zain, surely.
You can always send an email to the domain contact. Or would that be considered cheating?
http://whois.domaintools.com/chishio.jp
JR Merlin, those are defnitely not Norse (Elder FUTHARK) runes, nor Celtic. They REALLY look like later-era cunieform.
Scratch that idea. There isn’t enough correlation between the runic alphabet and the image. Grr.
The black text from th http://cactuspix.blogspot.com/2008/05/something-weird.html page is in Ugaratic and comes out as follows:
NMS ‘ ZWH ‘ HDT
MDN ‘ LDBDT
DLN ‘ DD ‘ DLM
Some of the letters are variations. to see my source, go to http://ancientscripts.com/ugaritic.html
Now to find the yesbut… syllabary again
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/strange_mail.html black text is in Hittite. reference http://ancientscripts.com/hittite.html
Red seal letters:
N T O
E N O
E A N
S ? ? (maybe a T in there)
S C O
O D W
O W ?
E M R
E R V
E V E
V E V (Not NIN, sadly, E is lying down, with a V on each end)
A E N
A N N (one N is upside down, at an angle)
N ? ? (maybe an X and a T)
O T N
seems a comment got lost in the ether.
Cactuspix black text is in Ugaratic and corresponds to the following letters:
NMS ‘ ZWH ‘ HDT ‘
MDN ‘ LDBDT ‘
DLN ‘ DD ‘ DLM
some letters are variations, but that’s the basics.
go to http://ancientscripts.com/ugaritic.html to see alphabet.
Language of 3rd image from http://chishio.jp/ closely related to Venetic and Etruscan, but neither is quite it
Another RED SEAL envelope has been spotted in the wild … and this one’s identical to the letter I received:
http://forum.escapeartists.info/index.php?topic=1620.0
@Shua Mullikin That rules out anagrams on that then. Distinct lack of vowels and all…
The third letter looked to me like Aramaic or Old Hebrew. Neither Venetic or Etruscan seem to have a character that really looks like the 5th character in the letter. Both Aramaic and Old Hebrew do.
Though the 7th character on the second line doesn’t seem to match a character in any of those four languages.
Chishio means blood in Japanese apparently.
Hoping #3 on chishio.jp is an actual language, and not a mash-up of Early Phonecian and Venetic. Between the two, all characters are accounted for, but some characters appear in both and have different sounds. no luck so far finding a common descendant.
@ JR Merlin
Ugaratic is a Consonantal Alphabetic. the closest thing to a vowel is the ‘ . Though from what little I’ve found, it seems to be more of a breath mark or a pause.
On suggestion of @MacMoov, I checked the whois info for the domain.
Email contact: chishio01@gmail.com
Phone: +6469370339
Address: 166-0002 (postal code) 3-43-13 Koenji-kita, Suginami-ku Tokyo
I’ve sent an email to the address; no reply yet. Tried the phone number locally; non-working number. I’ll call the number in Japan when SkypeOut works for me.
In the meantime … is there significance to the numbers themselves? Pattern?
@Chip Burkhead letters 6-8 on line 2 seem to be variants on yod, mem, and qoph, respectively.
I also received one of these letters yesterday and posted about it on my website, which is movie and TV related if that helps any.
http://screenrant.com/archives/is-this-a-new-movie-viral-camp-1666.html
Vic
Image 1 on http://chishio.jp is Akkadian. http://www.ancientscripts.com/akkadian.html
It’s a syllabary, not a character for character representation.
There’s a separate page for numbers, http://it.stlawu.edu/~dmelvill/mesomath/Numbers.html .
I’m gonna look at it for a bit this am.
Another thought (and since I’m colorblind I really can’t tell)…but would a red filter placed over the images make the letters clearer?
A little work in Photoshop with the red channel might DRAMATICALLY change the text.
Found this info on a website…regarding the address you located.
Contact Information: [公開連絡窓口]
[名前] Darkoogle Japan
[Name] Darkoogle Japan
[Email] info@darkoogle.com
[Web Page]
[郵便番号] 166-0002
[住所] 東京都杉並区高円寺北3-43-13
[Postal Address] 3-43-13 Koenji-kita
Suginami-ku
Tokyo
[電話番号] 0423080268
@Brad: Sure its Akkadian, because similar looking scripts include:
http://www.ancientscripts.com/hittite.html
http://www.ancientscripts.com/ugaritic.html
http://www.ancientscripts.com/oldpersian.html
http://it.stlawu.edu/~dmelvill/mesomath/Numbers.html
Just some more of my 2 cents….
I was looking at the writing at chisio.jp, and it looks like the alphabet second from the right may be Phoenician. As a reference, check out http://www.phoenician.org/alphabet_phoenician.GIF.
Sorry I can’t help out more. Today’s an utter train wreck.
I knew mentioning the unForums was a good idea. Pretty much all they do over there is solve puzzles like these.
It helps that there’s a few BetaClones among them.
Speaking of…this is like the puzzle solving scenes in the book - minus the shared memories, of course.
Sent off an email to http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/nmcusa/Askstudent.html to see if they could clarify my latinization of the graphic 1.
So far, we’ve got Akkadian, Dometic?, Phoenician, all fertile crescent stuff as previously noted. Intriguing. Maybe it’s an ARG mixing up the conflict in the Gulf?
hmm, mass produced mailers, stamps.com, being sent out to techies, I would bet that whoever is behind this wouldn’t go too far down a google list to have the custom wax stamp made… if someone was intrigued with some time to blow… I bet a couple of phone calls….
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/strange_mail.html
Links to links led me to this - same campaign by the looks of it, but with a writing I recognize: Akkadian cuniform (archaeology geek, long story). I am working to translate that one - it has been a while - and will post findings later…unless someone beats me to it.
I’m wondering about the connection between the different people who have received these letters. My husband got the one that appears on Cactus Pix. He’s an aspiring screenwriter. JC Hutchins is a writer, and it appears that a couple other people who received these are bloggers… is there a connection here?
Check this out, matches one of the cards:
http://www.theology.edu/QHST/Images/ugar.gif
Vic
Well, I’m not sure if this was a good idea or not, but I submitted the chishio.jp page to Digg and linked this page in the description.
http://digg.com/odd_stuff/RED_SEAL_Alternate_Reality_Game_in_progress
Digg it up and see if this rabbit hole has any legs.
@Vrijen They’re all definitely related. The most matches came from comparison with the Akkadian, though. For me, the 12th character combination (looks like 3 horizontal flags and 4 triangles turned 45 degrees…) was the clincher.
Now, I’m not a cunie/eiform expert. So, I sent off an email to a group of people who were… we’ll see if they get back to me.
@pj : I’ve never formally studied the really old stuff, but I’ve always been a bit of an Egyptology geek (I have a rosetta stone paperweight on my desk even as I type) and the glyphs got me all shivery… “Wait! All those hours shan’t be wasted!!!”
GO, EAGLE, GO!!!
I stumbled onto this site after my friend received the SAME letter (still doesn’t look like anyone has received (and posted) the fourth letter yet…. Anyhow, if you go to http://www.macopz.com/forum, it’s the only real active thread.
@kevin - The only results I could get in PS with JC’s images were improved contrast and clarity, and I got those largely by changing the blue and green channels…..
I ate at a Thai place today and I swear the black letters look like Thai or Lao.
Also I’m going to manipulate the image a bit and see if I can come up with something helpful to others.
2 of us over at YBNBY got the mailers. Both are different. One link has already been posted above, here’s the new one.
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/i_got_strange_m.html
I suck at these decoding games but i did also notice there’s banners for this idea as well. They seem to be on tech sites (i saw one on gizmodo)
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2008/05/strange_mail_up.html
Perhaps it’s a old media/new media promotion to hype a new game or movie. Others are speculating that it has something to do with Fangoria magazine since some people that got it are also subscribers. I am not a subscriber however.
IS IT RELATED TO LOST? REMEBER THE PAGE THAT USED TO BE ONLINE FOR THE HANSO FOUNDATION? IF YOU RECALL WHEN YOU MOVED THE MOUSE OVER THE CORIDNATES THAT MATCHED THE COMBINATION FROM THE SHOW. IT DISPLAYED AN ISLAND THAT LOOKS SIMILAR TO THE CENTER OF THE LOGO ON THE PAGE.
@ Big-O> It’s not Thai or Lao. it bears a stronger resemblance to Demotic, but I don’t think that’s it either…
I received one of these notes today. Mine contains the note matching the text that is third from the left on the http://chishio.jp/ site.
I’ll be posting images on my myspace blog at http://www.myspace.com/jameszahn shortly.
Now I’m hunting for clues…
Photos up of the one you had yet to see in the wild…
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=4933910&blogID=397842663
K, so if J.C. is behind this, or a part of it, which is a suspicion I have… we must take note of one part of the video, where he says, “I’ll be tagging it… Red Seal… R-E-S-E-L.” Unless I missed something, we have a MAJOR inconsistency… i took a little trip down Google Lane and came up with…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resel
Possible lead?
Gorram.
I read a very small amount of Ugaritic, once upon a time, for a biblical history class in university. One of the other pictures on Chishio definitely looked Akkadian.
Guys, let’s try to centralize this investigation… it seems pretty scattered among blog comment boards and such. I started a thread on an ARG / viral site:
http://www.immersionunlimited.com/index.php?topic=2900.0
I don’t have time to actually get into this tonight, but figured I’d pass along a website that could be useful for identifying the scripts and then decoding them: http://www.omniglot.com
Here’s what I have so far from the red symbols.
Each symbol is three letters, every occurrence of a letter seems to be an exact copy, although sometimes mirrored and/or rotated.
The letter groups as far as I can tell are:
NOT ONE SEN SEC SCO OMC OMR ERM ERV EEV ENV ENA ANN ANT NOT
The Ms could be Ws. The letters are repeated in groups of three so the first three symbols contain N. The second through fourth contain E.
If you continue the pattern (and wrap around the circle for the last two groups) you get:
NESCOMREVENATO (or NESCOWREVENATO with W instead of M)
I see several words:
NES COM REVENATO
NESCO MR E VENATO
NESCO MR EVE NATO
This could be an anagram.
[...] first heard about this from JC Hutchins. His Flickr page has the best images of the red symbols (which I have focused on after failing to [...]
Has anyone attempted to decode the barcode on the stamp yet? It’s either Semacode or Data Matrix. Data Matrix is used by the USPS, but if it’s Semacode, that’s potentially 3k+ ASCII characters waiting to be unlocked. There are 2 different codes sequences sitting next to each other on the stamp. I don’t have anything that can read it, though, but there are reader programs available for cell phones available for free on the net.
Unfortunately, I have no input on the translation of the other scripts. Other than to say that this looks like an extremely clever promotion, probably for a movie, targeted at known internet saavy marketeers.
Naturally, I would like to know the outcome.
just an observation. where is the postal printing on the stamp or any where on the envelope?
Mine wasn’t postmarked at all, but it was in a larger outer envelope with an apology from the postmaster for delivering me “damaged mail”. The clear envelope with the stamp on it was torn on one side.
P.S. Ads featuring the same imagery and linking to the Japanese site are now being distributed via Google’s adsense. I’ve posted a screenshot of a leaderboard ad from horror.com on my myspace blog.
Seems like there’s been a breakthrough, someone has decoded the message (see http://www.immersionunlimited.com/index.php?topic=2900.0) And the Red Circle is decoded to: revenantones.com, which had the tb logo… When I visited the site, there seems to be a countdown timer… with just over 6 hours left until it hits zero…
Another thought: Could the script message be the username/password to enter beyond the countdown timer?
So, apparently the chair on the site is driven from UStream.
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/184835
BIG new clues on my site:
http://screenrant.com/archives/is-this-a-new-movie-viral-camp-1666.html
Including a hidden phrase, references to a new name and the logo for Revenant Ones.
Vic
MYSTERY SOLVED!!
See the link above. It’s about a new HBO vampire series called “True Blood.”
Vic
ROCK ON!!!! THRILLED to see the mystery’s been hacked, slashed and solved. Too cool. Thanks, everyone, for lending a hand here. And ScreenRant.com — thanks for sharing the good news!
[...] there’s JC Hutchins, he posted an excellent video of one of the mysterious [...]
The countdown on http://revenantones.com has ended and there’s some hottie there on webcam but there’s no audio although it seems like there should be.
Pretty lame and unprofessional IMHO after all the excitement and mystery.
Nice. Snooty chick on the other end of the line. I’m just another stupid, blood-copy person… Guess I’m not worthy of the ARG. If someone gets in, I would like to know what’s on the other side. Kind of a letdown… Oh, well. Life resumes it’s normalcy.
Click on the queue button, and you’ll enter the wait to speak to the hottie. She’s the GateKeeper, and it seems that you need to read her the translated letter.
Yeah, well.. . somebody let us know how it turns out.
Vic
Got to the head of the queue…she could hear me (she held up two fingers when I asked), but I couldn’t hear her. She hung up.
A friend was on Skype with me when I went on (possibly the reason I couldn’t hear her). He got on with her, told her that I had a question for her and asked how I should get in. She said, “That’s not my problem.”
Hmmm….wonder what the magic phrase is?
She just said that she has granted a couple of people access to the site…”they must have said something that you didn’t.”
So, it’s clearly not over. What’s the deal with the lady?
This is something going on in real time, it’s a shame moderation is limiting how we can communicate here.
[...] first heard about this from JC Hutchins. His Flickr page has the best images of the red symbols (which I have focused on after failing to [...]
the timer is back up. it will run down at 9′o’clock est tonight. we will see then
A post from the Charlaine Harris (she’s the author of the “Southern Vampire” books that True Blood the series is based on) message board led me here. I can’t read ancient languages, but I’ve read all of the books in the Southern Vampire series (except for the most recent one that just came out a few days ago). If there are any questions that the girl at revenantones.com asks that I might be able to help answer, let me know.
I don’t know if it’s useful or not, but here’s a link to the thread I followed at Charlaine Harris’ board. My post there contains links to casting notices that I found online for a True Blood “internet project” (probably what we’re all trying to figure out the clues for) and the casting notices could provide hints for what may play out at revenantones.com and any other show-related web sites like bloodcopy.com. Blood Copy is mentioned in the casting notices. I’ll check back here after the timer runs out tonight and let you know if I was able to get in.
I don’t know if it’s useful or not, but here’s a link to the thread I followed at Charlaine Harris’ board. My post there contains links to casting notices that I found online for a True Blood “internet project” (probably what we’re all trying to figure out the clues for) and the casting notices could provide hints for what may play out at revenantones.com and any other show-related web sites like bloodcopy.com. Blood Copy is mentioned in the casting notices. I’ll check back here after the timer runs out tonight and let you know if I was able to get in.
http://charlaineharris.master.com/texis/master/search/showmsg.html?id=48380e0110&Catid=457073b03#m48380e0110
Sorry for the duplicate post, but I’m a doofus and forgot the link in my second post.
Rhoswen, the gate keeper at RevenantOnes.com keeps asking why we think we’re worthy to have access to the site. Any ideas?
Also, you might want to join us at Unfiction:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25684
Why you think you’re worthy to have access? I can’t remember any questions about worthiness being asked in the books. Maybe the answer is in the 4 coded messages, like a password. Or maybe you could get in if you say that you’ve got some TruBlood (that’s a synthetic blood that vampires can drink instead of real blood). I’ll go check out the discussion at unfiction.com - thanks.
because your the keymaster? you know like in ghostbusters?
I got one of these letters, too. The lettering in mine appears to be a form of cuneiform, possibly Hittite. My wife and I have been trying to decipher it, to no avail. Until we found this site and one other, we thought it was some sort of elaborate birthday greeting; the letter arrived on my b-day.
I am seeing “your” red-seal and text graphic and a link to chishio.jp as a sidebar on lifehacker now.
Sorry if someone already mentioned this.
[...] Alternate Reality Games, but I was browsing around J. C. Hutchins‘ website and happened upon this post of what he believes to be either an ARG starting up or some pretty elaborate marketing campaign [...]
Wow, I stop paying attention for a couple days, and suddenly there’s a website, but people still haven’t quite figured out what this is.
Of course, Neither have I.
I did check out bloodcopy.com where they’re showing a video split-screen of the woman doing the gatekeeping and a caller. It appears that she’s looking for something specific (Yes, probably in the encoded dead languages.) Has anyone attempted to actually translate these letter for letter? You know, use simple cryptography with the phonetics to match letter for letter?
Ok, I suppose I should try that myself. So, I’ll practice violin first, then apply gray-matter to the problem.
Let me know if someone solves it.
[...] A few days ago, people all over the net began receiving cryptic letters in the mail. The envelopes contained sheets of paper covered in what appears to be text in an ancient language and everything is marked with a red seal with a TB logo. Novelist JC Hutchins was one of the first to post about it and you can see a video and more detailed photos of the red seal letter here. [...]
O.K. I have received the EXACT same letter as you have (the envelope and everything) and it freaked me out for a little bit. I am a Law Enforcement Officer and I am not in the entertainment business. Sooooooooo What do I have in common with you? I subscribe to Fangoria magazine and that’s it. Do you subscribe there?
[...] Novelist J.C. Hutchins Video - His video explains how he received the letter [...]
how about put it under blacklight and see what comes up or different kinds of light to see is something is hidden?
the language it is written in is called Akkadian cuneiform. revenantones.com has the same exact “TB” logo in their address bar as well as on a “vial” of synthetic human blood. TB stands for “TruBlood” which, True Blood is the name of a new HBO series premiering in September of this year, which ironicly has a synthetic blood in it called True Blood which allows Vampires to bypass the feeding of humans. The series is to be based of some novels by Charlaine Harris.
The forums of the Revenant Ones seems to be passed off as a legit forum as some of the members have hundreds if not thousands of posts, however it can also be said that it is a mere publicity stunt to get people to watch the series, in either case i will be watching it, as well as keeping tabs on the events of “TB” for myself, as well as everyone of you here. I am about to open up a forum on my website dedicated to the keeping of ever one posted and up to date.
I hope this info helps people.
http://www.charlaineharris.com/trueblood_press.html
The source code of the .jp page points to an upcoming HBO series.
Agreed. The source on the Chishio.jp page has some big clues in it (found this before I read all the posts and am just confirming above post).
__________________________________________________
<!–
s.pageName=”HBO: True Blood: Pre-Premiere: Chishio”
s.server=”hbo.com”
s.channel=”"
s.pageType=”"
s.prop1=”HBO” // channel
s.prop2=”Original Series” // category
s.prop3=”True Blood” // show
s.prop4=”Chishio” // content
s.prop5=”" // subcontent
s.prop6=”" // season
s.prop7=”" // episode
s.prop8=”" // actor
s.prop9=”" // special
s.prop10=”"
s.prop11=”"
s.prop12=”"
s.prop13=”"
s.prop14=”"
s.prop15=”"
/* E-commerce Variables */
s.campaign=”"
s.state=”"
s.zip=”"
s.events=”"
s.products=”"
s.purchaseID=”"
s.eVar12=”"
s.eVar13=”"
s.eVar14=”"
s.hier1=”HBO|Original Series|True Blood|Pre-Premiere|Chishio”
s.hier2=”HBO Global|” + s.hier1;
Anyone notice the new tatoo that Angelina drew on Brad Pitts back? Arkkadian?