Project 11:Timeline

It begins

In June 2016, someone posted to the Facepunch forums about a Discord user named Project 11 who had joined their server and linked to http://projecteleven.comuf.com, the center of this ARG (since it often goes down, an archive is available here).

The website showed the following words:

This project involves the leak of a game which you shall know its release date only when the time comes.  
It is divided into three steps, ran two times to ensure effectiveness.  
Only to the worthy, the date and the game name shall be revealed.  
In the meantime, you can keep track of the progress below.

Its favicon was the Steam logo.

Commented in

Hidden in the source of the page was this:

<link rel="icon" href="icon.bmp" />
<!- A picture is worth a thousand words. -->
<!- /watch?v=3tNMHYD9IJY -->

This link leads to the following video entitled "clue"

The video was uploaded on June 2nd, 2016 on the Project 11 YouTube channel.

Project 11 Youtube Channel

The Project 11 Youtube Channel hosted two other videos besides "clue". One entitled "It begins" and the other entitled "aaaa"

Video: clue

The YouTube video "clue" is 11 seconds long and is mostly comprised of static, except this time 2 seconds a image showing what may be blue and green writing flashes up on the screen. At 4 seconds the image changes to the message:

IT HIDES IN THE LAST 2 BITS

Video: It Beings

The YouTube video "It begins" is also 11 seconds long. The video itself is static before switching to a message after 6 seconds stating:

THE FUTURE IS GLORIOUS

Video: AAAA

The YouTube video "aaaa" is 12 seconds long and mostly static once again, before text appears saying:

NATIONAL ALERT
LOS ALAMOS County, NM
Primary Entry Point System
--
Issued An
--
Emergency Action
Notification

APPEND THE BYTES

This was connected by discord users to Emergency Alarm Systems, Specific Area Message Encoding and Emergency Action Notifications.

Discord Hint

A hint was given out on the Discord by a user Project 11 stating:

I'd like to take this moment to give you an unique hint that I shall reveal in this very chat room only.
The two iterations shown in my website are in fact represented by two people.
I shall make my leave

Verification of whether these messages came from the ARG creator or a 3rd party troll is unknown, so most took this lightly.

Video: AAAA #2

An Image from the video "aaaa" was soon after found to be a color-inverted photo of a Black Mesa HECU Marine wearing night vision Goggles. The same type of marine can be seen in game here

Video: It Begins #2

An Image of a building and a crane shown in "It begins" was later found to have come from the "Water hazard" level in Half Life 2

Favicon Steganography

In the "clue" video a blurry tab of the Project 11 website as well as the HTML code. These linked towards the websites Icon (The Steam Logo). This was combined with the quote "IT HIDES IN THE LAST 2 BITS” to produce the solution to the puzzle.

Extracting the last two bits from each byte of the RGB values in the altered steam logo and combining every 4 into a series of bytes produced the hidden message:

Good things come to those who wait. http://bit.ly/1r4iQHE

The bit.ly link linked to an imgur which shows the following message:

The Projector

The linked image from above shows a projector. There appears to be no stenography in the image.

Video: steps

Another "video" was uploaded this time being 25 seconds long and containing less static, instead showing text saying:

THE NIGHT GIVES WISDOM

I HAVE YET TO SOLVE IT

AND SO DOES MY PARTNER

YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR WAY INTO THE ICON

THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY LESS TRUE

PATIENCE WILL REWARD YOU GREATLY

New Website

The website was moved with an archive. It contained the text:

Hard work pays off.
-
This project involves the leak of a game and its release date.
-
Once the steps are complete, the date and the name will be revealed.
-
Hard work pays off.

Video: Wisdom

A new video was uploaded. It was once again 11 seconds long and this time showed the text:

You can see it too

At the end of the video a Frame with hidden text is shown. It appears to say:

E * R * P * O * E * T * N *

The answer to this was believed to be "DECRYPTOVERTONE"

At roughly 0:04 there is what seems to be an A, similar to the P in the later discovered video "time".

New user (Game-jacking Attempt)

A new user entered the discord server, sent a link, then left the server.

More permanent link to the image: link

It was pointed out that the image is a texture from Half Life 2.

Full texture here found by @Kaiba in a Garry's mod map (gm_blackmesa_sigma)

NOTE: User's connection to the game was the subject of a gamejacking

Video: plan

The video, "plan", was uploaded and contained DTMF tones transcribed below:

5 3 7 4 6 5 7 0 2 0 7 3 6 3 6 2 7 6 6 9 6 3 6 7 2 0 6 9 7 3 2 0 7 0 6 1 7 2 6 1 6 2 6 2 6 5 6 2 2 0 2 6 2 0 6 1 7 4 2 0 6 3 6 9 6 7 6 8 7 4 2 0 6 3 6 3 6 2 7 9 2 3

These numbers, when converted to letters, then grouped in groups of two and converted to hexadecimal, this was the result:

Step scbvicg is parabbeb & at cight ccby#

This was later deciphered to:

>Step solving is parallel and at night only

Meanwhile, a fight broke out between two users claiming to be the [Puppet Master|puppet master] resulting in a temporary lock down of the chat. Neither user could provide proof.

Video: time

A new video "time" was uploaded. The video itself contained the text:

WE SHALL LAY LOW FOR A BIT

WE NEED TIME TO SOLVE IT

NEW VIDEO SOON

P

Later, the Project 11 discord user joined the channel to say:

time 0:10

This time corresponds to the P in the video. The user left the server shortly after.

Announcement

The Project 11 discord user (now confirmed to be the PM by an HTML comment on the website) made an announcement of an upcoming Q&A session:

Greetings, friends.
-
I shall announce an event.
-
Within the next 2 days, I will come into this chatroom for exactly 2 minutes, feel free to talk to me and ask me questions within that time.
-
Stay safe my friends.