| To do:
- Update with the site's return on October 21st.
- Update with the shipment and Tythonic's website.
- Update with the pillar website and email interactions
- Update with the earnings call and RogueScout23
|
On October 7th, 2020, the main Twitter account for the video game PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS shared a post with a YouTube video link and the caption:
On tonight’s episode of Mysteries Unknown we explore the dark history around a plateau in Peru with some perplexing properties.
The Tweet also included a link to a new 'PUBG Lore' website.
Pre-website
Before the PUBG Lore website opened, 9 popular PUBG influencers were sent packages containing several items, including one of nine mysterious fragments of a stone tablet, supposedly originating from Paramo, appropriately named the "Paramo stone". The other items included were a letter from one "Dr. Burton A. Northrop", the key to decipher the stone's text, and an image of the complete stone showing the layout of the fragments. Some of the fragments ended up stuck in customs, and the complete stone was never assembled. Parts of what was deciphered and the key to the mysterious text can be seen in this YouTube video.
October 7th
At first, the website showed a collection of several photos and objects, with a "Get Notified" box allowing an email address to be entered, a button to allow browser notifications, and a share button for Facebook and Twitter. This form of the website is what was later called the Staging Area. While the staging area could no longer be accessed on the main website after the full site was released on October 15th, a copy of it was later found on a separate domain.
After a user entered an email address, 6 objects in the background image would start glitching and become clickable. On clicking one, a very short audio-less video of a few seconds would play, and a prompt would appear to enter a passcode.
SPOILER
Each of the six objects corresponded to a specific map in the PUBG game.
Entering the proper map name would display a specific quote from a PUBG lore video, and the image corresponding to that map would cease to be interactable.
The passcodes and what they were attached to are as follows:
Once all 6 passcodes were entered, a new message appeared in the background:
You have proven yourself. Magna Venari.
October 15th
On October 15th, it was noticed that the website had been updated and the staging area had disappeared. The new version of the website contained several lore articles, such as characters' lore, journals, and other stories. One article of significant note was "The Journal of Dr. Burton Northrop", consisting of a transcript of the eponymous journal – this journal would later become of significant relevance to the ARG.
Some of the locked lore entries, seen on the main page of the website, each displayed a date upon clicking on them, speculated to be their unlocking date.
SPOILER
The following line was discovered in the website's source code, included with the other meta property tags:
<meta property="Yes, you!" content="Ubj bevtvany, n Pnrfne plcure... Trg ernql sevraqf, guvf vf bayl gur ortvaavat.">
The text was identified as a ROT13 Caesar cypher, decoding to the following:
How original, a Caesar cypher... Get ready friends, this is only the beginning.
October 16th
On October 16th, the website was placed in an apparent maintenance mode, displaying the message:
Updating
Coming back online shortly...
No way was found to access the articles from the previous iteration of the website while it was in this "Updating" phase.
SPOILER
The ROT13 text from the previous iteration of the site remained in the source. A new line also appeared an hour after this was found:
<-- Status: 1% -->
And again changed a few hours later to:
<-- Status: 3.14159265359% -->
This new status number consisted of the first 11 digits of pi, although no significance to this was found in relation to the website.
October 18th
On October 18th, the website's background image changed. This new image showed four short braille texts, three of which were shown as 'locked'.
1st Unlock
SPOILER
At the same time as this update, the 'Status' comment in the source code was also updated:
<-- Status: 11% -->
The first braille text was translated to a difficulty level and a link:
Beginner
OVG.YL/#5468753
The second, third, and fourth braille texts (the 'locked' ones) translated to only the difficulty levels:
-
Medium
-
Hard
-
GDBeginner or 74Beginner
The first five letters in the 'Beginner' link used the same ROT13 cipher that had been used previously (translating to BIT.LY). The # indicated that the following characters were numbers and had to be removed, as was also indicated by the braille character being yellow. Thus, the decoded link was bit.ly/5468753, which led to an Imgur post consisting of an image of a journal entry and a caption. The caption below the image was as follows:
XxxxxxxXXxxxx did discover the method used by the Dr...
letting us know when skeletons expired
XxxxxxxXXxxxx never did he have an email address
since 1980 did he himself rest
[email protected]
Notably, mysecretwebmail.com redirected to the PUBG lore website.
Combined, the journal entry and the caption pointed towards the process of radiocarbon dating, a method used to determine the age of an object containing organic material. The credited inventor of this method was chemist Willard Frank Libby, who died in 1980.
Condensing this name to "WillardFLibby" would fit with the formatting used for the email address in the caption, and indeed, sending an email to [email protected] would result in an automated reply:
Hi friend!
Thanks for contacting Willard Libby. Unfortunately, he died in 1980. To continue your quest for knowledge, reach out to our office directly.
Phone: 1 346-766-2103
Toll-Free: US: +1 833-877-5048 | Canada: +1 833-345-0727 | UK: +44 808 169 4350 | FR: +33 805 08 08 99
More branch opening Soon...
The quoted phone numbers, when called, all brought the caller to a menu with several options, spoken by a woman with a sourthern USA accent. This menu is transcribed as follows:
Welcome friends!
Please be advised that our menu has changed, so listen carefully.
For journal entry number 1, press 1.
For journal entry number 2, press 2.
For journal entry number 3, press 3.
For journal entry number 4, press 8.
Yeah, I know. IT sometimes are like that.
Pressing 1 to reach journal entry number 1 gave the following entry from Dr. Northrop's journal, narrated by the same voice as the menu:
June 13th, 1982
The proud warrior people of Paramo had no words in their language to mean “sickness” or “health.” They simply lived and died. I have seen references to the same individuals over unnaturally long stretches of time – longer than any normal human lifespan. Perhaps they passed their names down to their children, generation after generation? Yet, even in the modern day local village at the base of the mountain, there is no hospital, no medic, no doctor. A strange coincidence.
The answer to this riddle is here, somewhere, beneath my feet. We begin our first excavation in one week.
Pressing 2, 3 or 8 gave the following:
This entry is not yet unlocked.
Pressing 4, 5, 6, 7, or 9 gave the following:
This is not a valid option, but we admire your curiosity.
Pressing 0 gave the following:
All our offices are closed right now, there's no one to talk to.
Pressing * or # would just loop back the phone menu.
2nd Unlock
Around an hour and a half after the first braille text was made available, the second was unlocked with an updated background image.
SPOILER
The 'Status' comment in the source code was also updated alongside this:
<-- Status: 13% - uploading new audio entry -->
The second braille code was translated as follow:
Medium
OVG.YL/V6239245
While the yellow character was different this time, it could still be removed, producing the link bit.ly/6239245. This led to a Pastebin post, transcribed as follows:
The key is constant, irrational, calculated as men breathe or as eagles sustain themselves in the wind: with ten fingers only.
Answer: bit.ly/entry_XXXXXXXXXX
Searching up the first part of the riddle revealed it was a reference to Euler's number, represented in decimal as 2.71828.... The second part of the riddle, referring to "ten fingers only", was taken to refer to the first 10 digits of the number. Combined with the partial 'Answer' link, this produced the link bit.ly/entry_2718281828.
This second bit.ly link led to Imgur for another journal entry, and at the same time unlocked journal entry number 2 in the phone menu:
December 21st, 1983
Wheeler has been pressuring me to come to a conclusion about the mass disappearance and whether there is truly anything extraordinary about this city. He mentioned something about an advanced timetable, about how things will soon be “out of his hands.”
About 30 minutes after the second braille was solved, the 'Status' comment in the source code was once again updated:
<-- Status: 26% - Entry updated -->
3rd Unlock
Third unlock background image
A screenshot of the site at the end of October 18th
Almost 2 hours after the second braille was solved, the third was unlocked with an updated background image.
SPOILER
The status in source code changed to update to the following:
<-- Status: 61% - Status: 8 unique ID calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. -->
Notably, the yellow character in the second braille was corrected to be a # instead of a V in the updated background.
The third braille code translated to:
Hard
OVG.YL/#1259437
This third braille link followed the same principal has the other two, translating to bit.ly/1259437, which in turn led to a Pastebin post with the following text:
Climb a tree whose roots are logs, from its single trunk to the sixth level, and count the branches along the way.
Answer: bit.ly/entry_XXXXXXXXXX
The solution to this riddle involved the used of a binary tree with logarithmic roots, leading to the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64. The solution was thus bit.ly/entry_1248163264, which led to Imgur for a new journal entry and unlocked journal entry number 3 in the phone menu:
July 9th, 1983
Very, very good news today. And, unexpected. We have located a massive burial site just north of the residential area. Too busy making preparations to go into further detail just yet.
The source code changed several time during the day, though the fourth braille link remained locked. The following is the progression of the changes to the 'Status' message:
-
<-- Status: 61% - Status: 8 unique ID calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. --> - When the third lock opened.
-
<-- Status: 61% - Status: 12 unique ID - 61 calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. --> - About an hour after the third lock opened.
-
<-- Status: 61% - Status: 15 unique ID - 87 calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. --> - About two hours after the third lock opened.
-
<-- Status: 62% - Status: 18 unique ID - 96 calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. --> - About three hours after the third lock opened.
-
<-- Status: 70% - Status: 21 unique ID - 113 calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. --> - About six hours and a half after the third lock opened.
The final thing that was noticed was a slight change to the website, with the maintenance message returning to its initial appearance.
October 19th
SPOILER
The status message continued to be updated:
-
<-- Status: 70.1% - Status: 27 unique ID - 137 calls received. Activity Low. More resources required for the next unlock. -->
October 20th
4th Unlock
On October 20th, the background image was updated, revealing the fourth braille link.
SPOILER
The status message in the source code was also changed, to:
<-- Status: 85% - Status: 71 unique ID - 297 calls received. -->
When calling the phone number, the resulting message had also changed. It now stated the following before the usual menu:
Hi, please enter a unique 7 digit code to continue. Do your best to keep this code nearby – You have no idea when you're gonna need it. You can also attach it to your tail, you know; if you prefer body bag and stuff. Press # at the end of your code.
The fourth braille code was translated as:
GDBeginner
OVG.YL/V9534561
The first line could have been either GDBeginner or 74Beginner - this was subject to debate as both GD and 74 use the same braille characters.
This fourth braille link, bit.ly/9534561, led to another Pastebin post with the following text:
In an anomaly of magnitude, find the frequency of these leaders: 2196
Answer bit.ly/entry_XXXXXXXXXX
The solution was Benford's law and the wiki page specifically. Using the percentages associated with the 4 numbers found in the example led to the solution of bit.ly/entry_1763014667. This redirected to an Imgur post of another journal entry from Northrop's journal. No new phone entry was unlocked and no 7 digit code was found.
Journal Entries
| To do:
Update (or merge into the above sections), given the fact that a transcript of the entire journal is available on the website. |
This is a list of the current entries from the journal of Dr. Burton Northrop discovered as part of this ARG's second phase. They have been placed in chronological order and include their source.
June 13th, 1982
Entry from pressing 1 when calling the phone number. Refer to the first unlock for details on the number.
SPOILER
June 13th, 1982
The proud warrior people of Paramo had no words in their language to mean “sickness” or “health.” They simply lived and died. I have seen references to the same individuals over unnaturally long stretches of time – longer than any normal human lifespan. Perhaps they passed their names down to their children, generation after generation? Yet, even in the modern day local village at the base of the mountain, there is no hospital, no medic, no doctor. A strange coincidence.
The answer to this riddle is here, somewhere, beneath my feet. We begin our first excavation in one week.
February 14th, 1983
Entry from
milestone 2 after solving the second braille puzzle. Refer to the
second unlock for details on the puzzle.
SPOILER
February 14, 1983
Third straight week of excavation in the upper residential section. There is much to decipher and translate. Ceramics, baskets, cookware. It is exhilarating, to be so close to the everyday lives of these long departed ghosts, to imagine one’s self sipping from a carved wooden ladle, or relaxing by a mud and stone hearth. Perhaps if I could think like them I could [REDACTED]
Received a distressing letter from Evelyn today. Miranda has lost the ability to speak. Perhaps permanently. The physician could not determine if it is physical or psychological, but it is not uncommon when approaching the advanced stages of her condition.
Is it possible I will never hear my child say “I love you” again?
July 9th, 1983
Entry from pressing 3 when calling. Refer to the first unlock for details on the phone number.
SPOILER
July 9th, 1983
Very, very good news today. And, unexpected. We have located a massive burial site just north of the residential area. Too busy making preparations to go into further detail just yet.
July 14th, 1983
Entry from
milestone 1 after solving the first braille puzzle. Refer to the
first unlock for details on the puzzle.
SPOILER
July 14, 1983
Astonishing! There are skeletons here that are, unthinkably, far older than any human being in our modern world could imagine. We have carbon dated four skeletons so far. Two of them, ordinary citizens, were in their nineties when they died – a ripe old age. But the other two, the warriors – Frisell has estimated their ages to be at least one hundred and thirty and one hundred and fifty years old! Both warriors were buried with armor, emblazoned with this symbol:
["TEMPLE SPRING"]
I have sworn Frisell to secrecy. Can’t risk this getting back to Wheeler before I [REDACTED].
December 21st, 1983
Entry from pressing 2 when calling. Refer to the first unlock for details on the phone number.
SPOILER
December 21st, 1983
Wheeler has been pressuring me to come to a conclusion about the mass disappearance and whether there is truly anything extraordinary about this city. He mentioned something about an advanced timetable, about how things will soon be “out of his hands.”
March 4th, 1984
Entry from
milestone 3 after solving the third braille puzzle. Refer to the
third unlock for details on the puzzle.
SPOILER
March 4, 1984
It is over. It is all over. The crew has abandoned me. Just as we have entered the final stages of our great discovery. They have all been bought out – every last one. By whom? No one will talk. Non-disclosures. I am willing to bet Wheeler’s company is behind this. How did he know about the artifact? And the bodies? And the well? I have kept the true meaning of all these discoveries so close to the vest… and still… there is nothing that a corporation with unlimited funds can’t buy.
No – they can’t buy me. I will stay here until I finish what I started.
Symbol over willing: R
Symbols over true meaning: RETU_; The fifth symbol seems incomplete, likely intended to be R (the full word likely being RETURN)
March 5th, 1984
Entry from
milestone 4 after solving the fourth braille puzzle. Refer to the
fourth unlock for details on the puzzle.
SPOILER
March 5, 1984
(Unreadable)
the sky . . . goddess. . return ...will not die
The version of this entry as transcribed on the website reads slightly differently:
March 5th, 1984
[REDACTED]…to the peak [REDACTED]…gateway to the sky [REDACTED]…goddess [REDACTED]…return [REDACTED]…will not die
