Friday 18 January 2008

Chapter 3- Video Diary

Update 1/19: Opium at Dark UFO did a little creative picture editing and found an image of Maxwell (from the Wiki) in one of the blips in Sam's video. Is hunting through Maxwell stuff the key to this password? Maybe we need to look here some more? ~Ange

In tonight's video diary on find815:

Sam begins by telling us that he couldn't convince the captain to let him off the Christiane 1, and that he's, "In for the long haul." He also give us a little insight into what he's discovered as well as a little about Sonya. He tells us:

  • Talbot is working for Maxwell Group.
  • No one told Talbot that Sam was part of the expedition and Talbot won't be telling him what he knows any time soon.
  • Sam has finally worked out the e-mails. They have coordinates and he doesn't know where they point to.
  • He'll hack into the chart plotter and find out.
  • Sonya hated sneaking around. She wanted things out in the open and If she had something on her mind would bring it up. She would want Sam to do the same and he hated it.

We had a hunch that there would be a password for the stegged image in the video tonight.

  • I managed to grab a random screen cap of some electromagnet blips that had braille in them pretty early on, but we've not had any luck finding a translation that will work as a password in OpenStego to scan the stegosaurus picture.
  • Sam also has some writing on his shirt that seems to change as the video progresses.

Also from FYSB in comments, could this be Morse Code?

morse code

So that's it as of 11:27 pm . As usual there are a bunch of screen caps in the OC Photobucket. Keep working, e-mail us with anything you come up with, and we'll update as things become clearer!

71 comments:

Carol Dunstan said...

first?

Carol Dunstan said...

I just went out to the kitchen for a drink and found my daughters playing on the kitchen bench. This is what they were playing... shenanigans!

Ellen said...

carol-cute!

Patch said...

*lol* Carol, you've indoctrinated them! :)

This is pretty frustrating eh? I really think the 79- on Sam's shirt is important, as he says he needs to get things off his chest.

Carol Dunstan said...

I should explain that the plane is one I doctored for an Apollo photo for TLE. And it was only when I went out to the kitchen to finally get that drink, and I was thinking "hmm, would particular figures be particular characters?" that I noticed there are two white rabbits...

I should email Sam and tell him I found 815

AS6 said...

I've made an attempt at cracking the braile but so far all I get is jibberish. Anyone got a better translation than this?

with
D or do
X or it
I
H or have
(accent sign)
D or do
F or from
J or just
(italic or used to form a contraction) or I

I may have to go back and have a look at the morse code as well...and rewatch the whole vid. I daresay there has to be something there. On its own the vid doesn't give us much if we don't look further into the morse and the braile.

Carol Dunstan said...

patch, are you offering to help him get the 79 off his chest? ;)

I picked up on all that too but thought I was going a bit far with my train of thought

Ellen said...

you could be right patch...I just don't know...very, very frustrating.

Well, ya'll, I'm going to run to the store and get some sleep...snow in Atlanta again tomorrow. (ugh...but I'm thankful for the moisture!)
Good luck, see ya tomorrow!

Carol Dunstan said...

as6, oooh, words! I can get part sentances... "I have it from", "do it with"... "just do it".

any chance we add the 79 from Sam's shirt to the 36-15-whatever from a previous clue?

AS6 said...

Cheers Carol. I was even considering reversing the braile and trying it the other way around to see if anything comes of it.

This is the sheet I've been using for "translations".

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_histedbl-23.jpg

Patch said...

Goodnight Ellen. You were brilliant today! :)

Carol, I wouldn't mind helping with that at all! *lol*

as6, You're doing a great job too. :)

Patch said...

Ange and Jess, great catch up post again. Thank guys!

I hope your internet feels better tomorrow Ange.

Aimless22 said...

Hi Guys,

Okay first up, I totes love this blog, it is my favouritest of them all! Am usually a lurker but you guys are doing some terrific work!

There's some great screen caps over on Dark ufo from the latest video, especially the one that looks like a chicks face in the corner and the creepy one that looks like a man....although it sure does look like Joop to me!!

Carol Dunstan said...

aimless, yeah I saw those. The chicks face one looks to me like it might even have two other images mixed in over Sam, a blonde Oceanic woman and a CU of an eye (possibly closed). I also agree that one is another face over Sam's (I mentioned it in a previous thread) but haven't had a closer look as I'm playing with the braille at the moment

oh, I also meant to say before, given we now have some braille, should we go back to Fenris' red dots in the stegosaurus pic?

maven said...

I had to leave for a while...thought for sure when I got back everything would have been solved! You guys sure tried a lot of different things. I'll have to leave my thinking cap on for a while on this one...night...

Carol Dunstan said...

is anyone still around with opensteg going?

I think the braille is (I looked over previous comments but couldn't see anyone with exactly this)-
with
d/4
x
i/9
h/8
a/1
d/4
f/j
i/9

I think the password will be a combination of these numbers and letters. So we had the morse code telling us "openstego" and now we have braille saying "with d/4 etc..." so we have to open the stego (stegosaurus with openstego program) with d/4 etc

I think...

Patch said...

Carol, I don't have the program but it wouldn't surprise me if you cracked it. You always were great at this stuff! :)

I'm off to start dinner and watch a bit of tennis. See ya later.

Unknown said...

Cloverfield was awesome!!!!

oh....my.....god.....

*slaps hands over mouth*

you MUST see it (to all).

Carol Dunstan said...

they've "cracked" one of the video glitches at Dark, it was a picture of Maxwell

Ange said...

Good Morning!
To sum up yesterday we have:
*Video blip with Maxwell.
*2 spoiler not spoiler hints at Dark one in REVERESE and the other from OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
*Sam has numbers on his shirt and needs to get something off his chest. Maybe a 79 (?)
*The whole thing about Sonya in the Video Diary was weird no?

So what can we read into all this? We've had lots of ideas as to the braille. If I have time, I'll try to put together a list of what we tried already (I actually am going out for most of the day though so if someone beats me to it I wouldn't be sad).

I woke with a screaming headache and the thought that maybe we reverse the letters in the braille, find a copy of Our Mutual Friend, turn to pg. 79 (?) and use it as a cipher??

I. Need. Coffee.

Fenris said...

Well as for the shirt there is no doubt that it's different by the end, because for a start there seems to be three figures. Trouble is there isn't a clear shot of it in the video. The statement about getting things off his chest was something that I thought was a blatant clue at the very start. But I was trying all that at the start and got nowhere.

The problem is, they say there will be a clue in this video and then they drop a variety of frame blips, including a braille code in and have Sam go on long indirectly plot relating ramble that screams HINT all over it yet seems to actually tell us nothing.

Way to make it easy. Lol.

Speaking of which, if I ever write an ARG my keyword will be CONSISTENCY. None of this going from "find the domain name at the bottom of an email with a load of garbage and a clear domain at the bottom" to... well you know.

Fenris said...

that should be non-plot relating ramble.

Yeah. Coffee.

FYSB said...

Good morning everyone. I had my coffee, but shockingly, I'm no closer to figuring out the puzzle. Awesome.

How are you guys grabbing the screen caps?

memphish said...

I'm still working on coffee injection, and I have a date with the kid to start assembling the remote control LEGO dinosaur from Xmas this morning. That story continues in 30 minutes, and no it is not a stegosaurus.

Fenris, I saw on DarkUFO's site that someone believes the 3rd number on Sam's shirt is 2 giving us 792, but no one's figured out how to use it.

Also in DarkUFO's Find815 feed there's a post that apparently got removed because I don't see it on the site about the braille being embossed printing and giving us

st d g i h a d f j i

The thing that jumps out from these letter to me is fiji which is where the pilot of 815 and Desmond said they were heading. What if we're still off a letter or two and it's a message like

staged fiji

or staged @ fiji given that one form of braille gave us an @ symbol.

Ange said...

Fysb: Use the print screen button. It takes a picture of your whole screen. On my computer I have to have a picture of something else open and paste (ctrl+v).

The screen cap shows up in my pictures and then I edit as I see fit. Although that is just my computer. The basic premise is the print screen button. What comes after that might be different with your photo program.

Read here for more.

Ange said...

Memphish: 792 hmmm Our Mutual Friend has 821 pages. It could be a page number. Maybe I better add book store to my errands today.

I'm starting to feel like the braille is not going to give us the password but help is figure it out. Lead us to it somehow once we figure out what it actually says.

Also I updated the main page this morning. I forgot to mention.

memphish said...

Ange the problem with the page number theory for OMF is that I'm sure there are numerous editions of it and there's no clue which one to use. Who knows how many times it's been reprinted since it was written.

But if you're interested in reading it, I really enjoyed it. Other than lots of characters who overlap across class boundaries it's not particularly LOST-relevant though. (At least that's what I thought after S2 when I read it.)

FYSB said...

Thanks ange.

Fenris said...

I'm assuming OMF is in the book club list anyway. So probably worth getting it and may as well try whatever word is on that page. But yeah editions is a problem.

Twinkle said...

So somebody's probably tried "Sonya" for the password, huh?
Has somebody just tried the letters as found as a password? If it's obvious enough for me to think of, then it's probably been done.

All these references to Maxwell make we wonder if this there's a connection to the MaxwellGroup.com site, but that username and password isn't supposed to be active until February, right? I'm amazed that the guy at Dark figured out the picture of Maxwell hidden in the file. He had to invert the colors and assemble the pieces. Would that be a clue to what we have to do with the braille?

Twinkle said...

BTW, I loved Sam's Sonya speech even if it doesn't lead to a clue!

Tess315 said...

Ok I'm going out on a limb here.
Sam's shirt has a 79 and a -
Going back to the morse code could the code be 79T the - in morse code is a T.

Twinkle said...

Pondering the t-shirt: Does it say "79-" at first and then "792"? The dash is clearly visible at the start of the video and the 2 at the end. Also the red pic is right before end where the 792 are revealed. What's been investigated about this and it's relationship to a possible password?

Twinkle said...

Have Mum's phone messages been checked for morse code?

Tess315 said...

twinkle
Yes someone check Mum's messages for morse code. There's wasn't any code in them.

Twinkle said...

Thanks! Well then the t-shirt seems to be the best lead until we understand the braille better. It seems that someone might still be providing guidance in Dark UFO's chat so if we don't catch on soon, I'm sure we'll be prodded in the right direction.

lost2010 said...

Wow! You guys have been busy!

I just knew you guys would have it cracked this morning.

Guess I'll go over to find815 and watch it for myself and see if anything pops into my head.

Fenris said...

Okay, I've been on the T-shirt since early and have tried loads to no avail. My most recent thing was to try 79-2 i.e. 77. I figured "Enter 77" links it.

However "77" doesn't work

"Enter 77" doesn't work

"Locke" doesn't work and "John Locke"

Shame because the lost link was there. :(

Fenris said...

Braille for 77 would be 2-3-5-6 2-3-5-6 right? I tried that too to no avail.

lost2010 said...

The second number on the shirt looks like either 792 or 298 or 292 or 2S8 or 7S8 or 2S2 or 7S2.

I tried all those as well as playing with it by going 79-those numbers.

Are they pretty certin it's 792?

I also thought it might be significant that he says Sonya liked things to be straight forward and she'd hate all this. Wonder if it's a signal that it's backward.

lost2010 said...

If you take 79-798 and do a straight alphabet cipher - you get G.I. Gig.

I don't get braille much, but one chart gave me 'with DIHA DFJI'

GI Gig with Dharma Initiative.

I'm reaching.

Tess315 said...

Hey guys
I've already posted this earlier but maybe you didn't see it. Or maybe you already tried it and it didn't work.
Anyway at the start of the video Sam's shirt says 79-
If you stick with the morse code theme could it be 79T - is T in morse code.
Some thought the first bit of the braille was with. Could it be 79T "with" the rest of the braille.
I don't know just a thought.

lost2010 said...

I'm lost. Type out exactly what you want me to try in quotes and I'll give it a shot.

Tess315 said...

lost2010
Am I making you lost?
"79T(or79t)qdxihafji"
"79tdxihafji"

Tess315 said...

Or if the - isn't a t
"79-qdxihafji"
"79-dxihafji"

lost2010 said...

sayid'sgirl - thanks. Yep, I didn't see what you meant. But no, none of those opened it.

So, these are the things that picked up that I thought might be clues:

-this string of braille
-2 numbers on sam's shirt
-he makes special note to get things off his chest (numbers?)
-he says that Sonya likes things straight forward and she'd hate this (we're supposed to look at something backward?)

Tess315 said...

lost2010
Ok I knew it was a shot in the dark. Thanks for trying it.
Sorry I confused you.

lost2010 said...

sayidsgirl - no problem. It made perfect sense after you typed it out. I was just in the fog this morning.

Actually, he doesn't say straight forward does he? He just says out in the open.

I think this is worse than guessing in the dark - for me anyway.

Tess315 said...

Something else he says which may hint that the clue is in his Sonya speech. Is, "When something was on her mind she'd want to bring it up and she expected me to do the same. Which I hated. I mean sometimes you just don't know what's on your mind. I suppose it brought me out of my shell."
I know this is a huge stretch but dino's hatch from shells. He wants us to bring the dino out of his shell. lol I know I'm sorry. I'm desperate. I have to out for awhile. I know thank goodness right? No more goofy posts for awhile. :) Good luck working on the clue.

lost2010 said...

Did a search on Maxwell Braille and got this:

Kevin Maxwell, in 1995, converted this version to run within Microsoft Word, version 2, and renamed it Braille-it


Don't suppose it's significant do you?

FYSB said...

Sayid's girl, you're doing great! I just downloaded the openstego program and will be playing around with it this afternoon. And with Braille. And Morse. Is there any code we haven't looked at? Semaphore? Ralphie's decoder ring? I swear, if this thing reads Drink more Ovaltine....

lost2010 said...

I actually hope this really is hard. I hate to think we've just overthought it to the point we can't come up with it.

sayidsgirl - you're doing better than me. I'm fresh out of ideas for the moment. I tried turtle incidentally - just in case.

Did someone try hatch? Surely they did - out the shell hatch - lost hatch. . . .

maven said...

Morning! I'm injecting my coffee now, and I'm in awe of you guys looking at all the possibilities here.

Something Memphish said earlier that the braille is getting closer and closer to saying "staged @ Fiji" really jumped out at me. The ending of the braille being "fji" had me thinking "Fiji" from the start...something the pilot said. Too bad we can't get it to actually say "staged @ Fiji"!

I also like the idea that the numbers on his shirt are meaningful in terms of the getting it off his chest hint. I know you've worked on it diligently, Fenris, but there does appear to be no clear look at that shirt. I applaud you for trying all the variables.

Maybe there's Morse Code or Braille somewhere else, too. I'm sure everything has been looked at already, though.

Will keep thinking...

FYSB said...

Where does the Morse pop up in the video? I wonder if something he says just before or after is a clue.

...going to watch the video again

FYSB said...

Ok, it's right after he talks about the numbers and how he'll have to input them into Talbot's chart plotter. Flash. Then he says he'll have to hack in but that's a piece of cake.

Why would you have to hack in to a chart plotter? Can't he use google maps like the rest of us?

Fenris said...

Lol. FYSB. That is a good point. But then Sam has strange internet where things like Google and Wiki don't actually exist.

Btw, I am almost done with the Summary. It is a pain to do it with this thing still up in the air, but there are always updates. *shrug*

maven said...

Good point, FYSB! For an IT guy, Sam seems a little behind the times. LOL

However, maybe Talbot's chart plotter is one of those monitors in the Bridge (although Sam would have called it "Ockham's" chart plotter, wouldn't he?).

Tess315 said...

Didn't Talbot make a point of saying he was going to install some security after Ockham had everything ready? Maybe Sam means he needs to hack around the security.

FYSB said...

This symbol is making me nuts:
_*
**
**

The only way I can make it in to a letter is to flip it upside down, so it looks like this:
**
**
*_
Then it becomes a Q.

But if you flip them all upside down, you end up with symbols that don't exist.

Thoughts?

lost2010 said...

So we don't think it just says, "With Dx (ham radio), I had fj(with the character that indicates abbreviation)."

Or - With ham radio, I had fiji.

lost2010 said...

fysb - one of the braille charts gives that symbol - "with" as a meaning.

FYSB said...

Just found the "with" symbol, those contractions add a whole new dimension lost 2010.

With dx i have a d fjea

The dot in the 2 position can read "ea" as well.

dx=ham,diagnosis, wrestlers, and the danish air transport.

Think we're getting closer?

FYSB said...

I have "h" as have, not had. Different dictionaries?
DX is 510 in roman numerals.

Fenris said...

Thinking of it, the real reason he has to hack the chart plotter is......so we have an activity to do on monday.

Lol.

lost2010 said...

I got 'had' from just translating the fifth through 7th characters as straight letters.

lost2010 said...

I went back and re-read the e-mail where the guy tells him he probably picked up a ham radio broadcast. I haven't had any luck.

FYSB said...

I'm too tired to href. Here's a link to Braille contractions if anyone else wants to play.

According to this, the H code can also read "have".

With
D=4
X=it
I=In,9
H=have,8
A=1
D=4
F=from,6
J=just
comma=ea

http://www.99main.com/~charlief/brl/brl2.htm

Hilarious Fenris!

lost2010 said...

fysb - I think you're getting close.

fenris - I hope hacking the chart plotter is easier than this one! :)

Tess315 said...

Here's something I got using a chart I found on another site. But it doesn't make much since.

q = quite
d = do
x = it
i = i
h = have
a = a
f = from
j = just
i = i
That is if I'm even reading the chart right.

lost2010 said...

From darkufo's board -

Tom said...
Last night OMF42 kept saying things were not as they appeared to "BE". (Capitalized.)


Can anyone get anything out of the fact that B and E are the variables in the Maxwell equations for magnetic field and electric field. I know someone over here was trying to come up with electromagnetic words yesterday.

Fenris said...

Okay, Summary is up.

Wish it was complete. But you know....

New Post!