11b-X-1371

On October 12, 2015 a website called “GadgetZZ.com” posted an article on their site saying they’d received a “creepy puzzle” from Poland. The package contained a DVD with a code written in Sharpie on the top. The DVD was not a data DVD, but a standard video DVD with a menu. The background of the menu had a pile of human bones and skulls, and the video itself was titled 11B-X-1371. The DVD contained no other information, just the video.

A link to the article was posted on Reddit with the title, “This Creepy Puzzle Arrived in our Mail”. From there, it took off with users from Reddit going through this video with a fine-toothed comb, decoding the puzzles within it.

This video has to be seen to be believed. It features a man in a plague doctor mask standing in abandoned buildings, holding his hand open while a light flashes. The movie features many different elements, photos and text with puzzles sometimes appearing on top of the video. The audio is just screeching noises, like nails on a chalkboard. There is something greatly unsettling about the video itself, very reminiscent of The Ring. Filmed entirely in black and white without any real inherent threatening signs, it still manages to be very creepy.

Unraveling the mystery

Reddit users poured over this video for months to unravel all the puzzles contained within. Some puzzles were invisible to the naked eye upon normal viewing, but going through the video frame-by-frame revealed patterns that looked like morse code. Other patterns were just a series of arrows traveling in different directions. Others were seemingly random phrases or just random letters in a row with no spacing or differentiating marks.

The first decoded puzzle was the easiest. The bizarre markings on the front of the DVD itself was a simple Base64 encode of the video title itself, 11B-X-1371. Base 64 encoding is used frequently on the web to turn binary data into text data, but in this case it was used as a simple, easily decoded encoding algorithm.

Reddit user M4nic_H3dgehog extracted the audio from the video and sent the data through a spectrogram. Spectrograms are commonly used to analyze sound, but in this case it found more hidden messages within the soundtrack itself. The spectrogram revealed an image of a skull and 2 cyphers. These were decoded, however the results were essentially nonsense.

The other file within the DVD contained many disturbing images from various movies or crime scenes. A voice repeating the phrases “We are the antivirus” and “5 o’clock” can be found hidden in the audio track.

Other hidden images appear to be Magic Eye puzzles with the text, “you are already dead” overlaid. The Magic Eye pictures themselves were also nonsense.

Seemingly random letters appear at different intervals throughout the video. When the frames are taken out of order and the letters lined up, the phrase reads, “Strike an arrow through the heart of an eagle”. This wasn’t the only vague threat towards our political system. Other anagram, once decoded, read “Kill the President”.

Even more, 20 pairs of 2 character strings appear for just a few frames. These have been decoded to be the GPS coordinates of the White House in Washington DC.

A block of text written in the Wing Dings font has been decoded to read, “a new order is on the rise. You will join, or you will fall. The virus has spread too far; it must be stopped. We will dike it as it’s root. 13 ani 50, you will burn”

A pigpen cypher revealed text in latin to read “To Target Men”

A series of chess moves were displayed briefly which represent a 4-move checkmate.

The seemingly random series of letters and numbers was a cyphertext revealed to read “SOON COMES THE FALL / ANOTHER GREAT EMPIRE. THE FALL / THE EAGLE ON THE HORIZON. JOIN US. THE EAGLE = INFECTED WILL SPREADD HIS DISEEASE. WE AARE TTHE ANTIVIRUS WILL PROTECT THE WORLD BODY.”

The light in his hand flashes in morse code throughout the video. This code reads, “2015 there will be three”.

The final cypher reads, “"IPAZ COMPLACENT ARE THE WEAK STAND AND FIGHT WITH US TAKE DOWN THE BLACK BEAST KILL HIS DISEASE OR FALL WITH THE REST"

This mystery moved beyond the DVD and the video itself, into the real world. Reddit user srajfon recognized the location used to shoot the video and traveled there. It is in a town called “zofowka”, and is a popular urban exploring destination, as well as an unofficial paintball arena.

The psyciatric hospital where the video was shot was built in 1908. Nazis contucted experiements on psychiatric patients there in 1942. MOre than 100 were killed and buried in a mass grave. The town also houses abandoned homes, mansions, and hotels.

Other sources stepped forward to reveal other copies of this mysterious DVD. A user on 4chan insisted he found it on a park bench and uploaded his raw files. They matched the files that were obtained by the “gadgetzz.com” website.

The other copy of this video was uploaded to YouTube a few weeks before these mysterious DVDs were found. The description simply stated, “Are you listening?” and was uploaded by the user Parker Wright. Who is Parker Wright? The YouTube video was different than the DVD for a couple reasons. First is that the video was high-definition, which DVDs are not capable of handling. The audio was also full-spectrum and did not compress in the same way as the audio from the DVD.

It seemed clear that whoever uploaded this video to YouTube was the creator, or at least had access to the creator. So the question becomes, who is this Parker Wright?

Another reddit user, godscream, posted a comment giving Parker Wright (mispelled) credit for the video and that other social media users, namely AETBX, were “riding the fame” of the puzzle video. However, this comment was quickly deleted. Was it a friend of Parker Wright who spoke too soon and tried to cover his tracks? Another reddit user took a screenshot of the comment before it was deleted, which is not proof of anything but sure does seem a little shady.

The user godscream was defending Parker Wright because some video screenshots around the internet had the user “aetbx” overlaid on them. This user was followed over on Twitter, and this user followed the website Gadgetzz.com and… Parker Wright. Is aetbx Parker Wright himself, or just a friend?

That’s not all we know about Parker Wright. Parker Wright was found on Twitter talking about his twin brother Jayson who graduated from UCSD. Parker Wright publically denied on Twitter any involvement in the video, but more signs were pointing towards his involvement. A Google Cache of the video itself produced only an error that the video was not available outside of UCSD. Was the YouTube video originally uploaded to only be viewed within the school? Was it a simple student video?

The search moved from what the video meant into who created it. And why.

With Parker Wright, the most obvious candidate for creating the video, publicly denying it and any further digging discouraged as to resemble stalking, the case grew cold for quite some time. The video had been picked apart, decoded and the filming locations visited. Speculation that it was a prelude to a terrorist attack or a simple movie promotion died when there was no follow-up, no sequel, no anything really. For me and many others obsessed with mysteries found the high-resolution YouTube upload, the mystery itself was dead. The person who uploaded it also created it, in our minds. The mystery package delivered to a random website or discovered on a park bench were more thrilling of course.

The YouTube user Parker Wright may have created it, but the Twitter user of the same name denied it. It is not a stretch to think there’s more than one Parker Wright, or that the YouTube user was using a fake name. But without any additional details, any more digging into this mystery seemed futile. The broad strokes were discovered and that’s all we, as internet users, needed to know.

The Sequel.

Of course, that feeling of futility and silence ended just a few months later. In November of 2015, a new Twitter account was opened. Not just as Parker Wright, but Parker Warner Wright. The original video had caught the internet by storm in a few random internet circles, and the problem with that is that there was now a variety of copy cats. Other black and white creepy videos with puzzles were hitting YouTube. Other people pretending to be Parker Wright were joining social networking sites. As with most of the internet, you can never be sure who is telling the truth. So this new Twitter account who followed sites like Gadgetzz.com could simply be an imposter. When the account revealed that a sequel would be announced on the same YouTube channel that housed the original, people got excited.

And the user delivered with the sequel to 11b-X-1371, titled 11B-X-1369. The plague doctor in a gas mask was back. This time with a strange woman with a bandaged face in a similar setting. The scope of this video was larger, moving outside the abandoned sanitarium and into the woods. The flashing hand was back. The original mask was back. This was a clear sequel by the original creator. He himself was out of the shadows, revealing yet another mystery.

This man also answers by Parker Wright but assures us it is not a real name. As further proof, he released photos of his plague doctor mask which was hand-made, challenging others to create a similar mask. I don’t think many challenged him that it was the same creator as the original, so his insistence and over-proof was off-putting to many, including myself. Parker Warner Wright also took to Facebook to share videos and interact with people. He’s even done his fair share of interviews about the videos to, seemingly, just about anyone who asks.

These interviews did clear up some remaining mysteries. The original video was seeded in the real world. Some on park benches, some as files on 4chan. Whether any of the “real world” seeded DVDs ever made its way onto the internet, no one really knows. If I had to guess, I’d say the real world DVDs made their way to trash cans the Parker himself uploaded to 4chan and YouTube. User AETBX still claims no connection to the video, but this gets harder to believe every day.

Parker claims these videos are just art projects, and as long as there is a desire for his art, he will continue to produce them. However, it seems to me that the real art he created, the real heart and soul to this project wasn’t the video itself. It wasn’t the puzzles contained within it. It wasn’t the threats to the president or the White House. No, the mystery had always been the source of video. Who created it and why? With those questions answered beyond the shadow of a doubt, the video fulfilled its purpose and will go down forever as one of those weird things that happened on the internet one time. No one will talk about further, and all interest has subsided. This is even apparent in the subreddit, once an active hub to decipher the mysteries but is now mostly dead with just the occasional post about another alternate reality game. Even the video and its 2 sequels never gained traction. The original on YouTube is sitting at 2.6 million views. Part 2 and 3 are at 665K and 60K respectively.

With the mysteries solved, no further sequels are needed. The feelings of tension and unease from the original are now gone, and with the other sequels never even existed. The mystery and puzzles were solved before the videos were ever released.

Thanks for listening to the first episode of Internet Freakshow. On the next episode, we’ll be covering John Titor. Feel free to follow me on twitter, @timwasson.

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