New update or just an error- It's not over until Oscar Talbot sings?

UPDATE 2/7/08- The new email from M Smerdon is now gone. (Thanks Codysmom) If it was necessary to complete progress, why did they put it up and then take it down? Your guess is as good as mine. Happy Lost Day, Everyone!!! Jess


There's a new mail on Sam's computer (thanks Maven for mailing about this). It's text reads as an error but it's sender is Mark Smerdon.

We've seen the name M Smerdon before on Talbot's cell phone along with the number 259 194 032. Is this mail really just a progress place-holder, or is something afoot?

Maxwell Updates with a Press Relaease and Sam's on TV Again

Update 2/2- The Maxwell Group site has returned after disappearing for a day, and it's had some enhancements (thanks oodles and tallone).

• If you're having trouble with the site, you can still access and download an mp3 of the press release here.
  
• *If you download the mp3 and then look at the properties (right click-properties) there are some letters and numbers in the "comments" area. So what's this all about?

00000062 00000073 00002140 00001429 000000B6
000138F5 00007DB1 00006151 000000D0 000138DB

Oceanic Air Commercial

1/31- 11:02 pm: During the show Eli Stone on ABC, they had an Oceanic commercial. In it they are touting a "Golden Pass" but Sam hacks the commercial. (Please excuse the video quality...I did my best.)

• There are some undersea pictures of the wreckage of Flight 815.
  
• Sam tells us, "We found it," and "You can't trust these people."
  
• The flight attendants in the commercial continue to direct us to www.FlyOceanicAir.com for details.
  
• DocArtz has the HQ version of the commercial up.
  
• Find815 has a new look. It seems they are trying to attract all of the Lost viewers that missed the game the first time around.

The Maxwell Group Updates

1/31- 11:27 pm: The Maxwell Group site has a new press release from Oscar Talbot.

• There's an audio interview there detailing how they found the wreckage. Click here or here (UCLAradio link from the page) to listen.
• The Maxwell Group reports a new message when you attempt to log-in as of 7:01 am 2/1:
  

  Authentication Error

  The username or password you entered was incorrect.
  
  Click here to return to homepage
  
  Server updated and secured.

*Robin Hood sent us some reversed audio blips on 1/31 from Sam's final video diary.

• HERE is the version Robin Hood sent.
  
• Fenris did some noise reduction, and compressed and normalized it. HERE is the modified version.
  
• After listening to both I can hear the words "two" (at 1 min. 21 sec. in the press release) "common" (at 1 min. 27 sec. in the press release) and "half-hour" (at 1 min. 46 sec. in the press release) in both sets of audio.
  
• These "blips" are certainly sound bytes from the press release. ~Ange

Chapter 5 - Find the Black Rock.... or did we?

Today's final update starts with a video of Ockham communicating with the crew of the Christiane 1 to lower the ship's ROV. Ockham is counting as they lower the ROV. The final number he says is 480. Is that 480 feet?

Once this is successfully done, we are led to the...

FINAL ACTIVITY

Find the Black Rock:

• The object of the game is to maneuver the ROV through ten different way points that could be the Black Rock.
• You have 3 minutes to complete the activity.
• If you have a slow internet connection you are advised to click the low resolution button.
• Thewonderllama sent in a PICTURE of one of the paths that works. (Thanks!)
  

Upon completion of the activity we are given our...

FINAL VIDEO

• As Sam watches the ROV top a crest on the ocean floor, Oceanic Flight 815 comes into view.
• Sam is extremely distraught!
• Talbot has a very smug look on his face.
• Then the video changes to Sam watching the news about how Oceanic Flight 815 was discovered. The news anchor reports that sympathies are flooding in for Sam Thomas.
• The news cuts to an interview with Oscar Talbot. Apparently Talbot "hopes this discovery will bring some closure to the families". Talbot says "Sam had studied every aspect of the plane and in an extraordinary twist of fate, he had his answer"!

FINAL THOUGHTS

As usual, there are screencaps posted in Oceanic-Conspiracies Photobucket Album.

It seems were are left with a lot of unanswered questions. Talbot's final words have me thinking that we were right all along about this being an "accidental" find. What do you think? Who is Oscar Talbot working for? Exactly how deep was the wreckage? I would assume that since Sam used an ROV to find it, it was too deep to "recover" the bodies. How did it get there? Who put it there? Last, but not least, how will they explain finding the wreckage in the Sunda Trench?

In closing, I just wanted to say (and I am sure I speak for the whole Oceanic-Conspiracies Team) how much I have enjoyed working with everyone here. I can't wait for S4 tonight! I look forward to chatting with everyone over at The Lost Community!

Thanks Everyone!

Thanks to Robin Hood who sent us some reversed audio from the video diary from last night. No doubt there is a voice in there. I've uploaded the file as sent (it is reversed, trimmed audio from the video). I also did some noise reduction, compression and normalization on it and put the modified version. HERE is the original, and HERE is the modified version. Check it out and post what you think it says. ~Fenris

NOTE: Don't forget, in theory the Maxwell site goes live at 7:08PM EST. So there may be one more part to this puzzle.

Chapter 3 - Oscar Talbot's "Syndicate"

Update 1/15: Ninja has found the Sydney graffiti (picture in our "Image" area). Thanks to Carol (aka Lavenda) for the e-mail about this. ~Ange


Chapter 3 begins tonight at Find815.com with a recap of Chapter 2, a video, and an activity.

• The video:

Begins with, NONE OTHER THAN, a discussion about Christmas Island. How ironic considering Patch, Capcom, and Ellen spent today discussing just that! Sam learns from Mr. Ockham that the Christiane 1 will not be returning to Jakarta until January, after Christmas. (So we get a little idea of a timeline here.) Sam questions Mr. Ockham about who provides the "deep pockets" for Oscar Talbot. Mr. Ockham replies, "a syndicate", so they can plunder heritage sites without spoiling their reputation. As Sam walks away from the conversation, he sees Talbot leaving his room. Of course, he has to go in, which leads us to the activity.

• The activity for Chapter 3 takes place in Oscar Talbot's Cabin. The objective is to find the clues that:

1. Lead to Talbot's briefcase (see the above picture *click to enlarge).
2. Find the code to open the briefcase. (Hints: Think where numbers would be stored, and check the initials on the briefcase.)

Once you are able to open the briefcase you are taken to another video. This second video shows Sam going through Oscar Talbot's briefcase. You can see what he finds HERE. It seems we do have a connection to Widmore.

Chapter 2 - All Aboard.

*Update 1/9 7:00am- The find815 website no longer has our new found Black Rock website on Sam's laptop. It's now been replaced with a web site called Sunda Stories from findoutpedia.com which details a time line of "List of notable ships and planes lost in the Sunda Trench".

• Lots of interesting things on the time line but I saw this and thought Berlin (In 1981- Pleasure craft captained by West German business tycoons disappeared). Could this be our Berlin tie-in per the billboards?
• There is also a mention of Amelia Earhart (that someone searching for her disapeared).
  
• Also on the time line: "In addition to these, there have been reports of high incidence of unexplained electronics failure in the area. Compasses have also been know to behave erratically."
  
• There are again two missing images from the Sunda Trench site (perhaps to reflect the poor internet connection?). -Ange

The website has updated with 2 new emails and a new website and as you can see above, Sam's desk has changed to reflect his new surroundings!

The first new email is to Trace asking for yet another favor.

• Sam is after information on Mr Talbot.
• His first name appears to be OSCAR.
• Sam believes Mr.Talbot is old money and a company man.

The second email is a reply to his application for employment with Austral Air. A person named Isaac Chapman replied saying they have no positions but will keep his file on record.

Finally, have a website on the Black Rock (provided by Trace? Maybe, we don 't know). The website tells us stuff we already know from the previous experience. But to recap:

• The Black Rock is one on three 19th century slave ships thought to be owned by "The New World Sea Traders".
• Usually sailed from Portsmouth, England to Africa and then on to the Americas or the Pacific Ocean.
• On it's last voyage it left Portsmouth and went to the South Indian Ocean where it collected gold from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to exchange for Slaves in Africa.
• However on leaving that area, instead of heading west to Africa as expected it headed in an easterly direction and was never seen again (well until Lost anyway).

There are two missing images from the bottom of the article that read "image not loaded, check network settings". Perhaps they will turn up later

Chapter 2 - Finally

Morning all. Fenris here. Seems I can access everything this morning so let's get with the update!

After a brief recap of episode one we see Sam arrive at the Christiane 1. The captain (Mr. Ockham) isn't keen on having him tag along, but an opportunity presents itself in the form of a broken chart plotter. IT guy extrordinaire Sam offers to fix the plotter himself in return for passage aboard and the Captain agrees.

Here follows a timed game (*Click here to see the solution. Thanks to Elizabeth for e-mailing the picture!). The game itself is simple but with three minutes to do it, I have to admit it took me three tries. The game basically involves rotating squares on a board to get the circuitboard to match up with no loose lines. There are three boards to fix in the time.

Once repaired the captain lets you on board. However a mysterious Mr.Talbot, who's company is paying for the expedition (and has "special requirements") seems suspicious and appears to know more about Sam then he is letting on. Fortunatly, Mr.Ockham, wanting to honour his word to Sam, comes to his defence and states "Given our destination I can't rule out a complete electronics meltdown..."

Mr Talbot

Back to the Sam's Desk and we see there has been some activity before Sam left.

• As reported during the Chapter 1 recap, Sam has sent a further email to his friend Trace, asking if she can find information about "Black Rock" and how it may link to the Christiane 1.
• Sam has sent a response to Sean Dowling at Oceanic claiming he has indeed returned all their property and he sees no reason for them not to release his final pay pack.
• Finally Sam has received a very mysterious email from an unknown sender. This email is nothing but numbers but if you look closely at it you can see some numbers are written in grey rather then black and appear to be as follows "-1 1. 1 7 8 4"

According to the "My Progress" section that is all for this update. However there are in total 6 Emails (1 found, so I guess some of the above didn't count), 3 Web Sites, 1 Video, 1 Message, 1 Activity (complete), and FOUR clue hunts (makes sense while your on a salvage boat) listed as part of this chapter.

That's it.
~Namaste, Fenris

PS: I've left this last bit from the original Post as Ange has a good point. It's a bit early to be breaking down the doors of random companies (Unless their names are Hanso, Maxwell, Paik or Widmore, naturally). [Fenris]

I don't even need to really say this, but please just be patient. I don't think it's wise to start e-mailing the companies hired to create this game for us (until we know for sure who they are). No one could really ever mean for this to happen. Just my two cents.
~ Ange