Monday, May 18, 2009

Twitter ARG Update 2 -- Real or not?

Even since yesterday, there has been quite a lot of buzzing going about Twitter regarding several new Twitter accounts, including the aforementioned Simeon Hobbes and Epithet Alpha, as well several new and questionable Twitter accounts that may or may not be related to the ARG (which is itself quite questionable as far as "official" goes). Below are the new ones listed, as well as my take on if they are real or fake. However, I could very well be wrong on any or all of these, so don't unfollow or follow based on my opinion.

The first new account that may or may not be connected to this possible ARG is @elliottgraves, who popped up yesterday and accused @simeonhobbes and @epithetalpha of being responsible for his brother's disappearance. Graves' avatar, the number 27, corresponds directly to the video "Who is Simeon Hobbes?" on YouTube, in which the morse code spelled out 27 repeatedly. Out of all of them, this one seems most likely to be connected to the this possible ARG and not some extraneous fan concoction.

Even before Elliott Graves popped up, someone named Esau Solon (@esausolon) also appeared, with their first post reading "You burned the Bad Twin. Shames on you." The misspelling of "shame" seems perhaps a reference to Lawrence Shames, who ghostwrote the book Bad Twin as Gary Troup. This post was followed up by "Teneo , MEUS NOMEN EST LOST. VOS Ero ELECTUS 7.1.2009," and then by "The Tryon holds the question." Though this seems interesting, I'm leaning toward unconnected. Very recently (while I was writing this blog, in fact), Esau Solon posted a base64 code which translated to "The professor of film holds the question. Tryon is the way towards the Swan." The account then messaged @chutry, an apparent real-life and unrelated Twitterer, with the message "Dad, give them the question." It is unknown what is meant by that or if @chutry is even involved with the @simeonhobbes game.

Soemone named Edmund Cartwright (@edmundloom) popped up about 23 hours ago, with the opening tweet "
We Shed so that we may Pick. We Pick so that we may Batten. We Batten so that we may Take Up unto Completion." I'm not exactly sure how this is connected, but I want to lean toward unconnected on this account as well. However, this account was mentioned by Elliott Graves, so it may be connected. I'm going to go with questionable.

Graves also mentioned Menhit (@FleurDeNoire), whose only post has been "The Empire Never Ended," which is a reference to a Philip K. Dick quote. Dick, who wrote the book VALIS which was featured in the episode "Eggtown," had many dreams about the phrase "the empire never ended," leading it to become a recurring quote in his books, including VALIS. As for the legitimacy of this account, I'm going to say that it's too soon to tell.

Another name mentioned by Graves was Opet (@TheCruxAnsata), who most recently posted a Tweet that stated (in morse code) that "It begins tomorrow." What begins is unknown. As with FleurDeNoire, it's too soon to tell.

Meanwhile, it appears that @epithetalpha's Twitter account has been hacked (likely as part of the game) by a person naming themself as
Aidoneus, and posting a link to 27project.org. It seems likely to me that this Aidoneus is actually Elliott Graves, who apparently has a similar vendetta against epithetalpha and Simeon Hobbes. Whatever the case, Aidoneus certainly believes that epithetalpha and Simeon Hobbes are bad people.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this new Twitter based potential ARG yet. Is any of it connected to the show, or is it still a fan having fun? Stay tuned for updates.


Update 1: No sooner do I post that than a new account pops up, courtesy of @edmundloom. @mrsmarkham, or Elizabeth Penrose, posted a link to a YouTube video which featured paintings being shown to music. The paintings appeared to be about battles between angels and demons.

Update 2: It certainly seems that the only accounts actually connected to the Simeon Hobbes game are @simeonhobbes, @epithetalpha and @elliottgraves. Is it official? Still uncertain, but its certainly interesting to watch!

Update 3: Due to the content being posted by @esausolon, I'm almost 100% certain that account is not related to the SimeonHobbes ARG.

28 comments:

  1. Another link that seems important is http://whoissimeonhobbes.wordpress.com/

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  2. this is soo fake...i unfollowed all of the accounts.

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  3. Also, http://lostarg.wordpress.com/, which is a user blog detailing what's been going on in ARG.

    For the record, it looks like according to @elliotgraves that *only* @epithetalpha and @simeonhobbes are "in game".

    @esausolon seems bent on confusing people, including causing problems for the author the blog "The Chutry Experiment" by linking him into the game, although he seems to know nothing about it.

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  4. It seems that the only reliable sources are

    @simeonhobbes
    @epithetalpha
    @elliottgraves
    http://whoissimeonhobbes.wordpress.com/

    http://www.27project.org/

    The rest It think are fake

    @elliottgraves tweeted "is pretty sure @TheCruxAnsata, @edmundloom, and @FleurDeNoire are just trying to give him a headache. Interest = 0″

    and “As in, I don’t think any of them are going to help me find my brother. And on that note: new blog coming shortly.”

    So sounds like those are fake

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  5. It's 27project.ORG, not .com. The site is RL, rather old and run by a British politician (who is very confused about all the traffic he's getting), which gives me doubts about Epithet and the ARG as a whole.

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  6. From simeonhobbes:
    "May the light of Jacob be with all this day, as we celebrate musical Aegocerus."

    Check out www.aegocerus.com

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  7. "Check out www.aegocerus.com"

    Following on, the author of the site is Martin "Myrick".

    Don "Myrick" was part of musical group the "Phenix Horns" and before that original part of "The Pharaohs"

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  8. More information regards Aegocerus:

    Aegocerus "goat-horned" was an epithet of Pan.

    I'm calling it now that Pan and greek/roman methology have something to do with Season 6

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  9. At LOSTARG.wordpress.com there are quite a few editors so between us we're filtering out the more questionable material, we will try to keep the site up to date as new information becomes available. The general consensus agrees with @elliottgraves , @simeonhobbes and @epithetalpha currently considered the legitimate accounts.



    @esausolon is posting many links to legitimate businesses and stirring a lot whilst @fleurdenoire has engaged in 3 long conversations claiming to reveal much material and asking people to keep secrets. I am almost 100% sure these last two accounts are fake.

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  10. Best thing to do is to stuff all the possible ARG accounts into a TweetDeck column, keep another search column open with #lostarg and leave it alone. It's interesting, but it still has a pretty high probability of being fake as fake's been.

    Another way to keep abreast of the action/nonaction is http://lostarg.wordpress.com

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  11. I'm following all this stuff on twitter. It's interesting even if it's not "official". I like the Elliott Graves blog - I hope that one keeps going.

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  12. @esausolon was either removed or deleted from Twitter today. I think this solidifies not only his status as a fake, but lends a certain amount of credibility to some of the other tweeps.

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  13. Ok, if this thing IS real then should we be interpreting this "With this fire I purify" thing to be relevant to Jacon as he was pushed into the fire?

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  14. As of....well, 5 am EST (why am I still awake?) we've had a lot of activity, including several responses from @FleurDeNoire that might indicate the legitimacy of herself, as well as @edmundloom, and @theCruxAnsatain addition to the previous known "in-game" profiles @elliottgraves, @epithetalpha and @simeonhobbes. So far no knew blogs on Elliott's site, but one retweet from him reaffirming his earlier denial of @Fleur and @Edmund, and @TheCrux.

    All of @theCrux and @Fleurs updates have related to making a choice, or trying to debunk @Elliott. A twar?

    May or may not be related, several of us have had conversations with a user @Hotth where he claimed to be The Historian, and told us we'd have to make a choice. Read all about it here:

    http://lostarg.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/a-choice/


    that's all for now!

    @themabster

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  15. Five reasons to belive this is a hoax:

    1: There has been no clear rabbithole, the tweets just started.
    2. Too many RL sites run by RL people involved. Some of them have been around for years (like Project27).
    3. No direction or trail of any kind, just tons of random, cryptic clues leading in a million directions.
    4. Everything we've seen so far has been on a social network site or other free media. Noone involved seems to have any kind if money.
    5. It all just seems far too disorganized, messy and low tech to be an official ARG.

    @2: Epithetalpha, one of the few sources considered "legit", linked us to 27Project, but site owner Howard Dawber has no clue what's going on and the site has been up since 2006. Today new pointless "clues" on the site lead to other unaffiliated RL sites (a Wikipedia entry and a drawing in a blog--the blog owner confirmed he's not involved). Either Dawber added those links to play along, or it's been vandalized.

    So I'd say some bored students started this and a hacker is playing along, or vice versa.

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  16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_Concerning_Human_Understanding

    I found this on Wikipedia. Very interesting. The next one is also very interesting. Has references to people named Hobbes and Rousseau. Hmmm. A link from this page will take you to the first where you will also see John Locke referenced from the 17th century.

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  17. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_Concerning_Human_Understanding

    I found this on Wikipedia. Very interesting. The next one is also very interesting. Has references to people named Hobbes and Rousseau. Hmmm. A link from this page will take you to the first where you will also see John Locke referenced from the 17th century.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_rasa

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  18. My opinion is they're all fake. If they had started before the finale, I'd give them some benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, you're giving far too much attention to wannabes..

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  19. The avatar of @edmundloom is similar to the last picture on the 'Hen to Pan' Youtube video referenced by @mrsmarkham

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  20. 27 is the number of years before the end of the world according to the Valenzetti equation.

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  21. I'm on the fence as to if this is official or not but one thing to watch is the background image of @fleurdenoire which is referred to as the blueprint and which started as a few lines and has grown in complexity.

    Twit page:
    http://twitter.com/fleurdenoire

    Image:
    http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_background_images/13663272/blueprint.jpg

    Annotated blueprint:
    http://www.twitpic.com/5j9lp

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  22. What is this now?

    http://simeonhobbes.webs.com/

    Anybody get the password for the avi file? The Hebrew is "goat horns".

    Anybody know what UXphZnhCcU5TODg= could be? And what's up with the 27 photo in the hotel website?

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  23. OK, I have the password, and it appears I'm the first to dl the avi. I'll report again soon.

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  24. OK, the avi file 27277222727.avi is an audio file with military letter codes read by a male voice. Each code (three or four letters) is read twice, with a tone in between.

    Here's the whole message:

    LGJ
    MLU
    KYJ
    TIT
    GOD
    YVE
    ZZFA
    BQIR
    KJEB
    HIGN
    DOYC

    Anybody have a clue how to decode that?

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  25. OK, I solved another one. The string UXphZnhCcU5TODg= (which appears on http://simeonhobbes.webs.com/), is Base64 / MIME code for QzafxBqNS88, which is a youtube video ID for Simeon Hobbes: New Hope. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzafxBqNS88

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  26. That new Simeon Hobbes vid is morse code but I can't work out the breaks.
    This is all going Foucalt's Pendulum... some folk are making stuff up and others are helping to perpetuate the lie, wittingly or otherwise, and everyone else is running around in circles... The fact there was an actual pendulum in this season reminded me of the book and this is just helping the spin...

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  27. Let the intellectual self-destruction begin, fellow LOST fans... The "new ARG" is officially CONFIRMED FAKE. Taken from a post this morning at whoissimeonhobbes.wordpress.com:



    "META Update: And yes, in response to the recent news that this ARG is unofficial, I will confirm it. I do this with great reluctance because “TINAG” is one of the most important rules of the genre, and a Puppetmaster never likes coming out from behind the curtain, even when his legitimacy is called into question. But I felt the need to address it in light of the recent controversy and hijack attempts, because I don’t like the word “hoax.”

    Playing an unofficial ARG inspired by an official property may be considered a waste of time to those only hoping for the real deal, so to them, I apologize and say farewell. But the truth is that I never envisioned this to be a hoax or a waste of time, at least in the sense that I planned quite a bit out ahead of time and did it because of a genuine love for the ARG medium and the epic story that is LOST. I didn’t do this for the laughs.

    So on that note, “WISH?” will be continuing. Whether it continues with 20 people or 200 people in light of this recent news doesn’t matter to me, as we’re going to help Elliott find his brother regardless. But in order to distance ourselves the controversy, and leave the way open for a possible official ARG revelation at Comic-Con, please refrain from using the #lostarg hashtag on Twitter. #simeonhobbes will do, in order to prevent any confusion.

    So there you go. Hopefully this post put an end to a lot of the confusion."

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  28. What the #### was @esausolon posting?

    I'd like to know.

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