Lost Memories

Lost Memories
Discontinued
A multi-media ARG filled to the brim with codes, characters, and lore.
Type	Unofficial
Creator	Unknown
Discovered	2016-10-25

Main Page > List of Investigations

The Lost Memories ARG (also known as "Olhg Nvnlirvh" or "Incoming Transmission"), is a multi-media ARG that involved a YouTube page [1], email address ([email protected]), Twitter page [2], bandcamp page [3], Skype, and a Discord account, which gives cryptic messages and riddles to players about symbols, and as many as two unidentified characters.

Two days after the first video "November 1st" was uploaded, the ARG was discovered by the /r/GameDetectives community and an Overwatch community in Korea, believing it to be Sombra related (although on 2016-10-27 this was disproven). Upon discovery, the ARG quickly grew in popularity, and now receives hundreds of views per video. This is largely due to it's incredibly cryptic but somewhat simplistic nature, and it's use of bandcamp (which is believed to open on November 1st).

NOTE: Since the ARG has started and its fanbase has developed, the ARG has been growing increasingly harder. Although the ARG started out being simplistic, it is now regularly creating unsolved puzzles.

Build Up to November 1st

November 1st (Video)

On 2016-10-23, the YouTube page for Olhg Nvnlirvh uploaded a video titled "November 1st." [4] The video featured dashcam footage of an unknown area, accompanied by heavy static, and extremely loud and distorted music. In the description of the video was the morse code message ".. -. -.-. --- -- .. -. --. / - .-. .- -. ... -- .. ... ... .. --- -.," which translated to "INCOMING TRANSMISSION." Also, the description contained a link to the bandcamp page.

YouTube Channel

After the initial video was discovered, users investigated the YouTube channel page, and discovered a Base64 cipher message which translated to "Testing Testing 123."

Email

After seemingly everything had been solved at this point, a curious user managed to track down and send an email to the address "[email protected]." Once the email was sent, an automated response was sent back with the same INCOMING TRANSMISSION morse code message as the subject, and a columnar transposition message that when translated, gave the following message...

"TEST

Hello? Hello? IfAnyoneCanReadThis,PleaseHelp. IDon'tKnowWhat'sHappening. I'mScared..."

Twitter

On 2016-10-26, an Olhg Nvnlirvh Twitter account was found. The Twitter page had the same Testing Testing 123 Base64 cipher as the YouTube page.

The Owl

On 2016-10-26, the Olhg Twitter posted the riddle "5. The one who stalks the night, whose curiosity knows no bounds. They hide in the shadows, to everyone's delight. Who is this key?" followed by an upload to YouTube entitled "The Owl" [5]. This video contained footage of an owl, accompanied by heavy static and extremely loud and distorted music. In the description of the video, users found two ciphers, and in the video itself, users found a spectrogram image of the letters "NNNM" (note that the "NM" portion may not be visible on some spectrogram software).

Later that day, users decoded the first cipher to "MortalKombat," which stumped and confused everyone involved. The second cipher would remain unsolved until the next day, when Olhg tweeted "The Owl: I help others discover the truth behind initial deception. I know how we work. totMam6olbrKa." In this tweet was an Atbash cipher that translated to "MortalKombat6" (more commonly known as "Mortal Kombat: Deception"). After deciphering the reference to Mortal Kombat 6, users tried the second cipher with the key "Deception," and cracked the code to be "NickNocturnetheNightMind."

After deciphering the second cipher, users were again perplexed as to why such a strange reference was made. It is believed that Nick Nocturne (also known as the owner of the Night Mind YouTube channel), has nothing to do with Lost Memories, and that this reference was nothing more than a symbolic device in the story.

The Creator

On 2016-10-27, the Olhg Twitter posted the riddle "4. Not a god, but has affected others like one. Although godlike, they share the body of man. Who is this symbol?," and this time answered answers from users attempting to solve the riddle. The Twitter page even went so far as to taunt users, by uploading a picture of an open box (telling them to "think outside the box"). About one hour later, the YouTube page uploaded a video entitled "The Creator" [6]. This video contained footage of a tree losing its leaves, accompanied by heavy static and a pitched down edit of the song "dlp 2.1" by avant-garde composer William Basinski.

The description of this video contained two ciphers, both of which were solved within 5 minutes of the video's upload. The first cipher translated to a quote from the pitchfork review of "The Disintegration Loops," that read "It'sthekindofmusicthatmakesyoubelievethereisaHeaven,andthatthisiswhatitmustsoundlike." The second quote translated to "WilliamBasinski." This second cipher is believed to have the same symbolic meaning as the Night Mind cipher in The Owl. An important thing to note here is that the WilliamBasinski cipher was translated with the code "911." Because of this, and the fact that The Disintegration Loops is often regarded as "The 9/11 Soundtrack" a theory about the story of Lost Memories being about 9/11 conspiracy theorists began, stating that the owl was a metaphor for the government, and that The Creator affecting people like a god is a reference to how 9/11 affected those involved.

Discord Invasion

After The Creator was solved, the Olhg Twitter posted "The Creator: My purpose is to heal the wounds that plague you. Whether they are physical, or deep in your memories, it doesn't matter." A user then posted the quote deciphered from the The Creator video to the Olhg Twitter, to which someone calling themself "The Creator" responded with "@BoobieSweater The Creator: I see you're familiar with my method." This began a lengthy conversation between users and what was presumed to be The Creator. Through this conversation, multiple things were learned.

1. The Creator and the manager of the Olhg Twitter are separate entities.

2. The manager of the Olhg Twitter (hereby known as "Riddle Giver" or "Riddle"), is not a human with a body like The Creator.

3. The Owl is another entity as well.

4. Both have signatures, with The Creator's being the post prefix "The Creator: ."

5. The Owl did not post their after riddle tweet, as The Owl's signature is the post suffix "- Owl."

6. The Creator and Riddle do not get along.

7. The Creator is paranoid of Riddle tracking him.

8. The Creator is a former resident of New York City, New York, United States of America.

(*) 9. Apparently, The Creator is still a resident of New York City, just not in the same New York City we have.

10. The Creator is a child and adult psychologist.

11. The Creator loves rain.

12. The Creator loves pizza.

13. The Creator is a kind, talkative individual.

(*) - Point 9 helped bolster the previously mentioned 9/11 theory, as many New York City residents claim that New York was never the same after the 9/11 attack.

After this conversation, The Creator asked a user if a link was a profile of Dann2442 (the user that talked the most with The Creator). After the user being questioned stated that the link was a profile of Dann2442, The Creator stopped talking on Twitter, and a few minutes later he joined the Game Detectives Discord server as an account named "TheCreator04." A few more things were learned from this conversation.

1. The Owl and The Creator's signatures hold some type of power over Riddle, blocking information from them.

(*) 2. The Owl loves fighting games, in particular, Mortal Kombat especially.

3. The place of residence for The Creator is nicknamed "Lost New York."

4. Twitter posts from The Creator should be trusted 75% of the time, while conversations on Discord should be trusted 95% of the time.

5. The Creator does not care too much about his signature being abused by Riddle, which is why he uses a prefix signature that can potentially be mimed by Riddle (with an example of this being the post made on the Olhg Twitter after the The Creator video was released).

5. Riddle is aware of pretty much all ARGs, and uses them as inspiration for their own ARG.

6. There is an ARG inside of the Lost Memories ARG.

7. The Creator made his Discord account to be more secure from Riddle.

8. Whoever has dominant control over any given Lost Memories account is decided on a first come first serve basis.

9. If someone other than Riddle has dominant control over an account, it is believed that Riddle is "info blocked" to said account.

10. The Owl is a very reserved and quiet person.

11. The Owl is very to the point.

12. The Owl is very tech savy, and enjoys mysteries.

13. The Owl does not own a single account, nor does he want to.

14. The Owl is best friends with The Creator, and also lives in Lost New York.

15. The Creator describes The Owl as "an antihero," and "like a Shadow the doesn't suck."

16. The Creator is 56 years old.

17. Anything posted from "their side" to "our side" suffers transitional artifacts that degrade the quality of the post. The only person who can freely control this change is Riddle.

(*) - After this revelation, two users realized that the background music to the The Owl video was the main menu theme for Mortal Kombat: Deception.

Note: The Creator is almost universally loved by the Game Detectives community, and ARG community alike, and has even been given community roles on the Discord server. Many users in the ARG community have since joined Lost Memories due to this character, and he and the other characters in the ARG are regarded as some of the most well-written characters to have ever been written in an ARG.

Shortly after The Creator joined Discord, The Owl briefly used the account with The Creator's permission to do a quick question and anwser session regarding the ARG. In the session, it was discovered that...

1. The Owl is 21.

2. The person asking for help at the beginning of the ARG, is connected to November 1st and the bandcamp page.

3. The person is referred to as "New Guy."

4. The Owl believes that he is being tied to Nick Nocturne by Riddle due to them sharing some characteristics. He also has the same theory regarding The Creator being tied to William Basinski.

5. The Owl STRONGLY dislikes Riddle, calling him "a cunt" and other obscenities on numerous occasions.

6. The Owl was doing this session because he knew The Creator wanted him to.

7. The New Guy is 16.

8. The New Guy is in "Lost Boston," and has been safe in an apartment since his arrival.

The Proxy Videos

On 2016-10-28, Riddle posted "3. I am the light, I am the dark. I am the wind, I am the rain. I am the sun, I am the moon. I am everything you need me to be." Users tried posting guesses, but this time Riddle did not respond at all.

Shortly after this post was made The Owl and The Creator had a conversation on the Discord server. [7]

The Owl: Hey bud. @TheCreator04 someone's sending something on the bigger side and it's not riddle. The Creator: What? Why aren't you sending this through text? The Owl: You haven't been responding The Creator: Oh... that's the connection issue The Owl: It's that bad over there? The Creator: Yeah The Owl: Ok. The Creator: You think it's the new guy? The Owl: Maybe we should move this C. The Creator: Where? The Owl:Try Skype? The Creator: Ok I'll try.

Users quickly freaked out over this and managed to save the conversation before it was deleted.

After that conversation, the YouTube page uploaded a video titled "The Proxy III." [8] The video contains heavy static, yellow footage of a city, and a reversed audio track.

In the video users found two ciphers, and a spectrogram at the end of the video that said "EMAIL." The first cipher was revealed to be the name of the original song used in the background of the video, "Jynweythek Ylow" by Aphex Twin, and the second cipher was the name of the vaporwave label Dream Catalogue.

Users who emailed the Olhg email address were given the message

"iAs?ladygaiwncktloiehettnsunfnicm h?reIeeradlohH

tjjv://nnn.rpfdbzdpp.vlr/ddpn/rvr7fztn9v49b49/Ztbvjdlb.nvj,"

and Riddle tweeted "III: If I am the walrus, they are the walrus."

After some time, Riddle tweeted "Bastard should've used a key that made sense. acck://jjj.dtilbelgt.xzd/yltj/dxq7irnj9k49o49/Enoxclzo.wkp" and the link (which now replaced the link cipher in the email) was cracked using the mm/dd code for November 1st (). This image was revealed to be an image Dann2442 had previously posted to the vaporwave Discord server "Ocean Lounge," and lead people to believe that Riddle was taking more than just inspiration from other ARGs. In response to the cipher being cracked, Riddle tweeted "pixlr + these 2 VHS effects = recreation Thanks @Dann2442," along with two images of effects from Dann2442's image. The first cipher was cracked the next day, and read

"Howcanthingsfunctionlikethishere? AmIreallydead?"

NOTE: Due to the first link being broken, and Riddle's response, it is believed that New Guy isn't actually trying to cipher, and that the ciphers are a result of the transitional artifacts.

On 2016-10-29, Riddle tweeted "2. I do not share you, but I share with you. You are not me, but you share through me. I am a wall, that only you can pass." This was followed by a video titled "The Proxy II" [9] that was in the same style as the The Proxy III video. In the description of the video were two ciphers, one translated to another Aphex Twin song from the same album as Jynweythek Ylow (drukQs), and the other translated to the vaporwave label Lost Angles. After the video was uploaded, Riddle tweeted "II: If I am a shadow, you are the caster."

Shortly before this video was uploaded, someone presumed to be New Guy tweeted a slew of ciphered tweets that were very quickly deleted by Riddle, who remarked "So I see. The boy cares more than I thought. I'll have to keep a better eye on him." When translated, the messages read as follows.

"Testingagain.Hello?" "I don't think anyone will be able to see that..." "Is there even a point?" "I don't even know if this method works. Maybe this is pointless." "Why does everything act this way? Am I in the afterlife or some bastard-child dimension?"

Afterwards, New Guy sent an email that read "RQL ZL DQB WQ TWEL!!!" To this day, the email has not been deciphered.

Any attempts to reach New Guy from this point have lead to a hostile reaction from Riddle.

On 2016-10-30, Riddle tweeted "1. If earth quakes, we will be there. If volcanoes erupt, we will be there. If tsunamis fall, we will be there. Who are these symbols?" This was followed by a video in the same style as the The Proxy III and The Proxy II videos called "The Proxy" [10]. This time around, the song was Strotha Thyne, and the vaporwave label was Bedlam Tapes. Users also noticed a spectrogram at the beginning of the video that read

"ON WE CAN HELP YOU YOU KNOW WHAT TO."

The video was followed by the tweet "The Proxy: We serve the cause without question."

The Anomaly

On Halloween 2016, Riddle tweeted "0. Who am I?" Users then tried guessing, but everytime Riddle responded with a thumbs down emoji. A couple hours later, a video titled "The Anomaly" [11] was posted. The description contained the phrase "TheCreator04" (the username of The Creator on Discord), and the link to the Olhg bandcamp page. Literally everything about the video itself is unsolved, and it also breaks many of the patterns seen on the previous videos posted from the Olhg YouTube channel (not having static, using multiple clips, seemingly random song, seemingly random video length). After this video was posted, Riddle tweeted "I am... The Anomaly." From this point forward, Riddle is now known as "The Anomaly."

NOTE: Multiple users have stated that the The Anomaly video is very unsettling and creepy. If you do not want to watch the video, you will not miss anything important from the ARG.

2016-11-01

abe?Cyheadrnoanym

On 2016-11-01, at 12:00am, the Olhg bandcamp became active for the first time, and uploaded a track called "abe?Cyheadrnoanym" [12]. In the song's description were five items.

The first item was a ciphered password that allowed the file in the second item to be opened.

The second item was a ciphered link that led to a file that was password protected. In the file was what appeared to be a journal entry from New Guy, in which he calls himself ON, and describes the environment of Lost Boston. From this point on, New Guy will be refferred to as "ON."

The third item was "Skype" spelt with the greek alphabet.

The fourth item was a ciphered link to a spectrogram that translated to the header of an autopsy report.

The fifth item was an official statement from The Anomaly that the ARG was an ARG.

Throughout 2016-11-01, and during the morning of 2016-11-02, five posts were made on Twitter that notified the five people and companies mentioned in the videos accompanied by riddles. These tweets contained ciphered messages that when put together gave the word "EMAIL," and the code to decipher the title, which was discovered as a result to be "Cananyonehearme?" Two of these posts were from The Anomaly, however the other three were from three users who seemed to have been serving Anomaly, and are believed to be "The Proxies." When people sent Olhg an email, a response came in that read "This response has been blocked by: "Anomaly"." It is believed that the response email was a message from ON that was blocked by Anomaly.

Almost all the users who have listened to the song have noted that it is a perfect replica of a song in the style of The Disintegration Loops, and has extremely well thought out and executed production. It is believed that these songs are the glue that holds everything together in this ARG, and the PM for the game has a background in music production and audio engineering.

NOTE: abe?Cyheadrnoanym has been incredibly successful on bandcamp due to its production quality. Because of this, it is unclear how long bandcamp will allow free purchases on the Olhg bandcamp per month. If you are wanting to listen to the music on the Olhg bandcamp page for free, purchase it ASAP.

Skype and Craig Harris

Shortly after the third item from the abe?Cynheadrnoanym bandcamp page was solved, a wiki-editor from the Game Detectives Discord found a user on skype with the same username and avatar as The Creator named Craig Harris. Attempted contact was made, and it has been confirmed that Craig Harris is The Creator. From this point on, The Creator will now be known as Craig.

Through this conversation, a few more pieces of information were discovered.

1. ON finally got through to everyone.

2. ON is still safe and no one should worry.

3. The lost cities are all on the same planet, but in a different dimension.

4. Generally the lost cities are more peaceful, but are also quite party happy at times.

5. It is almost always night in the lost cities, and there is no proper day time.

The Stalking of Dann2442

NOTE: Due to the nature of the events that occurred in this section, certain information has been replaced with the phrase [DATA EXPUNGED].

A few days after abe?Cynheadrnoanym was released, Anomaly tweeted coordinates to a Blaze Pizza location in Toronto Ontario, Canada. After the tweet was posted, The Owl contacted Dann2442 and told him that he has reason to believe Anomaly is tracking him. Dann2442 and the chat subsequentially became extremely paranoid as Dann2442 realized what the coordinates lead to, and that Toronto was where he lived. He told chat that he would visit the coordinates while he was out during Rememberance Day 2016.

The next day Dann2442 received an email from Anomaly that when deciphered read

"Hi Dann, I see you found my message. This message is for you, and meant for you alone. If you are wondering, yes, this is The Anomaly.

Firstly I'd like to thank you for finding my ARG, and I am glad you and your friends find it interesting. Unfortunately I have a feeling you may know too much; more than what the ARG was supposed to show you. Your gang seems to treat you like a leader due to your little find of this game, so that's why I'm targeting you for this.

It has become very apparent that you folks have discovered that The Creator and ON are real people, and I just can't allow you to go any deeper. You led them to this discovery, and you led them to their first. I don't know how much you've led them to, but this can not continue.

I'm telling you to leave this ARG.

If you continue playing I will pay you a visit.

Because I know where you live.

[DATA EXPUNGED] Toronto, Ontario Canada, Earth."

The expunged data in this email was a ciphered version of Dann2442's actual phone number.

Immediately after this message and the phone number were decoded everyone became very confused, and began questioning just how far the PM was willing to go with the ARG, as Dann2442 was very clearly doxxed. Since this incident multiple people left the ARG for a couple days, wanting to keep their distance for a short while to make sure things were still safe. On this day, Dann2442 also quit the game, and instead took a backseat position like he had originally had at the beginning of the game, with the only difference now being that he wasn't going to help solve anything. As Dann2442 was the game's second most experienced member with ARGs, this was a big blow to the team playing the game, and has extremely hindered progress for solving puzzles, especially since the difficulty of the puzzle have been getting noticeably harder as the game has continued.

The Pizza Box

On Remembrance Day, 2016, Dann2442 went to the coordinates stated in Anomaly's tweet, and as a joke ordered food from the store the coordinates led to. After ordering a pizza and not finding anything in the store, Dann2442 and other users were surprised to find that a cipher was inside the pizza box Dann2442 ordered.

"Dbhz'gg bhmm; sre ep dqim.

Bvi bixxebmqh hib lyqieui...

Pjpgmowqh hibo'm undnghhh..."

2016-11-15

ON

On 2016-11-15, the Olhg bandcamp posted a song named ON [13]. It was in the exact same style as the previous release on the bandcamp, and contained more puzzles.

The puzzles posted with the release, when decrypted, were a picture of the song's cover art under heavy distortion with the phrase "I'm thinking of leaving," a spectrogram image of a stegosaurus along with the phrase "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here," a steganography image of dirt with the hidden phrase "How do you feel?

'I feel so alone, gonna end up a big ole pile of them bones,'" and the phrase "Does Matthew really now?" spelt in the greek alphabet. Both the spectrogram and steganography images tie back to the song "Them Bones" by the band Alice in Chains, which contains lyrics about inevitable death. This led people to believe that Craig, The Owl, and ON are all dead.

First Contact with ON

Two days after ON was posted, a "jam" was started, and the community were able to talk with ON for the first time. Unfortunately, most of the community was not online at the time, and Anomaly became frustrated, asking why people were not talking to ON and subsequently turning off the jam. No progress was made with ON because of this. Since this event, ON has gone completely silent.

This event led users to believe that the Anomaly is seeking attention, and this was further bolstered on 2016-12-04 when Anomaly went out of their way to thank a fan who sent them an email regarding the music on bandcamp.

Pizza Box Solved

On 2016-11-29, the pizza box cipher was finally solved and confirmed suspicions that everyone in this ARG is dead.

"They're dead; all of them. But something was missing... Something wasn't achieved..."

Craig and The Owl's Discord Account Compromised

On 2016-12-06, Anomaly posted a very complex letter number cipher that users worked together incredibly fast to solve. The cipher called out Doctah, and acknowledged that Anomaly had somehow gained knowledge of the Discord server.

Shortly after, Craig made a public statement on twitter, announcing that his Discord account had been compromised (presumably by The Anomaly). The Anomaly then changed the name of the now taken over discord account to "Awesomeusername," and posted "boop" in the Lost Memories chatroom. After the text post was made, The Anomaly left the discord server.

Awesomeusername

Discord account Awesomeusername#7959 posted "Expect us" within the Lost Memories channel. This supposed "hint" was answered when Awesomeusername started speaking in Zalgo text. The person talking in the account at the time identified himself as ON (linking bandcamp), and said that he was captured by the Anomaly.

He was currently speaking from a dark room with machinery tied to a chair. He apparently was living in an apartment prior to that (unclear if he was there because of the Anomaly or not), saying "I shouldn't have left that apartment building," implying that he had left it willingly. He seems to be in panic during this time, as he doesn't know where or what "world" he is in. Here is the de-Zalgofied text:

I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS GODDAMN WORLD, OKAY? I'M STILL A NEW GUY HERE!

Throughout his talking, ON is constantly interrupted by the Anomaly making comments in plaintext. Comments that take particular notice are ones in which the Anomaly will say "Time's up!" and "[blank] hour". ON is blocked off and the Anomaly speaks through the account.

Unsolved Pieces

Please be aware that not everything in this list is an actual puzzle waiting to be solved. This is just a list of items that currently have no explanation, or have not been properly decoded yet.

1. Nothing from the The Anomaly video has been solved or understood accept for the mention of Craig's username online. [14]

2. The intro autopsy report was only partially decoded, and it is not known how the rest can be decoded despite the key being discovered. [15]

3. Nothing from the abe?Cyheadrnonym song itself has been solved or understood. The current theory is that the song is a metaphor for disintegration and lost memories. [16]

4. Nothing from the ON song itself has been solved or understood. The current theory is that the song is a metaphor for disintegration and lost memories. [17]