WEBVTT - True Mysteries of the Internet 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:05.000 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.080 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:15.560 It's just us. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:20.120 There's no Jerry there maybe never was camp and this 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:26.480 is stuff you should know. Camp What Camp? Oh? Camp? 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:27.920 Inside joke? 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:29.880 Yeah, Jerry's at camp right now. 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.360 Can I do a quick CoA at the head here? 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:36.240 Sure? 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.839 The things we're going to be talking about today, folks, 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.160 Internet mysteries times three. There are a lot of people 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.360 who get very into this stuff, specifically you know, the 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.880 three things we're talking about, as with most Internet mysteries, 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.160 but we are certainly not going to get into it 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.840 in the detail that will satisfy you if this is 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:04.440 something that you have researched a lot have been super into, 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.880 because you know, they're getting about fifteen minutes apiece, and 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.680 you know, just give us a break. We're doing our 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:13.560 best to kind of cover it in a short amount 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:13.880 of time. 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.760 Yeah, for sure, I think that was a good CoA. 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.280 That was like a true bonafide CoA. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.640 Yeah, because I've answered the question that you're probably going 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:24.520 to want to email, which is how could you not 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:25.479 talk about blank? 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:27.880 Right exactly? We're going to talk about as much as 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.480 we can. And like you said, we got three amazing 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.360 unsolved mysteries of the Internet to discuss. There's plenty out there, 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.639 but in my book, these are probably the three best. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:39.400 I think. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:40.560 Ooh, all right. 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.400 I mean there's a lot out there, and I don't 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.679 I'm saying I'm excluding true crime obviously. These are just 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:52.200 oddities that have not been solved at this point, maybe 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.080 never will be solved, but probably could be at some point. 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:55.880 You never know. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:02.560 Well, now we're just eating into our cicada. 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.640 So let's talk first, I guess, then yes, about Cicada 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.160 thirty three oh one, shall we? 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:12.119 Sure? This was a series of three puzzles that were 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.160 put out starting January fourth, twenty twelve, then a year later, 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.160 same date on the thirteenth, and then again same date 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.680 on the fourteenth on four Chan, and then eventually some 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.280 clues would come out on Twitter, but they were posted 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:34.160 online under the banner thirty three oh one and have 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.120 since become known as Cicada thirty three oho one because 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.919 many of the messages and clues ended up containing an 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:42.119 image of a cicada. 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:47.360 Yeah, kind of like a stylized line drawing of a cicada. 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.160 I've seen it compared very much to like the moth 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:52.560 on the Silence of the Lambs poster. 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:54.360 Yeah, totally. 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.640 Especially the first image had a cicada, and cicadas are 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.560 important because they come out every a certain number of years, 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.399 but those years are always prime numbers. It's very interesting. 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.560 And in that first message that they sent out, they 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.560 posted it on four Chan, and the post said, Hello, 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.239 we are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.000 we have devised a test. There is a message hidden 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.560 in this image. Find it and it will lead you 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.960 on the road to finding us. We look forward to 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.120 meeting the few that will make it all the way through. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:30.360 Good luck. Cryptic, it was super cryptic, but it definitely 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.480 caught the attention of people. They posted it on the 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.280 right social media platform. Four Chan was a great one 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.480 to post it on to get the attention of people 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.080 who would want to do this, and the whole thing 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:46.360 spread pretty quickly. People have obviously immediately started trying to 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:50.320 figure out what the hidden message was. Staganography is what 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.760 it's called hiving a message inside something else, usually an image, 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.800 And it turns out there's all sorts of tools out 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.920 there on the Internet that you can use to decode 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:02.920 stuff like this, and some people just kind of said 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.600 about getting busy with it as some people. 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:12.640 Say, yeah, and one of those kids, I assume you 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:14.520 read the Rolling Stone article or no. 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.560 I don't know. I don't think so. No, not for 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:17.960 this one. 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.240 Okay, they had a really big, super long one that 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:24.640 talked to two of the guys who were teenagers at 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.000 the time, who were the I mean, I think probably 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.599 some of the first people that solved it. I'm not 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:32.240 going to go on record and say the first, but 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:35.280 one guy would only go by tech t e KK 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.920 and another guy's name was Marcus Wanner and they would 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.640 eventually hook up online. But initially this kid tech as 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.480 a fifteen year old, learned that when he copied that 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.560 image as a text document and notepad that you got 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:55.640 what you would expect, which is a wall of text, 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.880 but part of it was readable text that said Tiber 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.760 Claudius Caesar says, and then it had a bunch of 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.480 alphanumeric text. He knew that the Caesar cipher is one 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.520 of the oldest ciphers, one of the oldest kinds of encryption, 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.440 which is a substitution cipher, where like this, I don't 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.760 know if the Caesar was literally as one bs two, 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:21.760 but you can apply it to different you know, numbers, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.040 And he knew that Caesar was the fourth emperor, so 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.240 he substituted four letters down from each of the letters 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:33.880 that followed and discovered a hidden message. Yeah, a website in. 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:35.800 Fact, Yeah, that was the thing. So one of the 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.960 reasons why the Cicada thirty three to h one puzzles 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.440 captured the attention of some really smart and capable people 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.000 is because they were multi layered. Like if you wanted 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.440 to unlock one puzzle, you had to kind of go 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.840 off over here and unlock a couple of other puzzles 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.080 to unlock the key that you would take back to 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.680 unlock the first puzzle. Essentially, it was multi layered, multi 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.680 step process. And this was no exception to it that 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.760 that that cipher that you had to decode from the 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.680 first image took you to a website, I guess an 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.800 imager image of a duck that just said only decoys 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:14.040 over here, and so you would think you just went 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.040 were sent intentionally done a blind alley. No, there was 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.320 another hidden message in there, even though it didn't say 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:21.960 that there was one, and so people would decipher that 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.240 it turned out that there was an encoded book. Uh. 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.120 And then you could also find a link to a 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:30.400 subreddit and there were more passages from that book, and 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:33.520 it turned out that book was a Welsh ar theory 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.000 and legend. And another reddit post contained some Mayan numerals 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.800 that you had to decode. That became a key that 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.520 you could use to analyze the Arthurian legend with. And 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.880 then you got another solution or another hint I guess 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.480 to use from that point on. And what it said 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.320 when you use that that that key to decode the 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:00.119 Arthurian legend, it said, Hey, here's a phone number, give 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:00.760 us a call. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:06.920 Yes, all this to say that some super smart nerdy 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.080 people were doing some super smart nerdy stuff. Yeah, having 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.280 a good time figuring this stuff out. And when they 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.800 eventually got that phone number and called it, they got 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.080 a message that said, very good, you have done well. 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:24.280 There are three prime numbers associated with the original JPEG image. 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:26.960 Thirty three oh one is one of them. You will 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.200 have to find the other two. Then multiply all three 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.240 of these numbers together and add a dot com at 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.080 the end to find the next step. Good luck, goobye. 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.480 Yeah, And I didn't read the Rolling Stone profile, but 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.880 another solver I think he was profiled in a National 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.840 Poster or Telegraph article the same is Joel Erickson. He 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:48.680 was from Sweden. I'm not sure how old he was 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:53.080 at the time, but he figured out that probably the 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.960 other prime numbers were the dimensions of that image five 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.440 hundred and nine pixels by five hundred and three pixels, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.480 and it turned out he was right. So he multiplied 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.840 all those that took the answer, put a dot com 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:06.920 on the end, and it took him to a website 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.080 that had a countdown clock and a picture of a cicada, 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.600 so he knew he was at the right spot. He'd 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:17.320 multiplied correctly and guessed correctly, and when that clock finished 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.080 counting down, the website updated and there were a bunch 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.920 of GPS coordinates that were posted. 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.200 All of a sudden, Yeah, and all of a sudden, 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.800 it's had fined our symbol at the location nearest to you. So, 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.200 all of a sudden, this thing jumped from the Internet 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.120 out into the real world with real physical coordinates, and 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.000 it turned into kind of a scavenger hunt. There were 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:46.760 fourteen telephone poles all around the world America France, Japan, Poland, Russia, 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:51.120 Spain and other places, and all of a sudden, like 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.000 you would, I mean, if you could afford to and 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:55.960 had the time, I guess you would go to the 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.720 one closest to you find that telephone pole flyer and 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.240 that had a QR code it again with a picture 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.000 of that cicada, and that led to another cicada image 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:11.839 with another riddle, and this one contained some poetry. I 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:16.480 think it was from cyberpunk writer William William Gibson's poem 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.800 Agrippa that was from nineteen ninety two. And if you 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.000 applied the key that they originally came up with to 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.840 that poem, it led to another puzzle that would eventually 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.199 lead to a website. Wow. 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:34.000 Yeah, the website was the end. And so there's the guy. 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.360 Joel Erickson made it to the website. By the time 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.040 he got there, it had been shut down for a 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.520 couple of reasons. One I think it was shut down 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.319 a little under a month, and I guess they had 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.840 posted on that website that they were disappointed that some 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.720 people were collaborating, and they said they wanted the best, 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.320 not followers, so they stopped the game. But apparently in 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.160 the meantime they had some people had solved it and 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.400 gotten to the site, because a month later on that 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.959 reddit subreddit that they've been posting Arthurian legends and mining 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:09.440 codes on, they said, we found the intelligent individuals we 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.680 were looking for, right, So, but the fact that Joel 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.320 Erickson made it to that site, that was it, Like 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.440 he solved everything. He's considered a solver. He just got 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.320 there too late because he heard about this after other 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.040 people who started before him did. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.439 Yeah, like Marcus Wanner and tech exactly. 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.400 And Marcus Wanner is one of the few people who's 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.880 known to have made it past that site or gotten 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.800 to that site within the timeframe the alloted timeframe, and 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.760 actually was in communication with the people who were behind 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.000 Cicida thirty three to ZHO one. He still has no 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.720 idea exactly what they were doing or what they wanted, 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.920 but based on the interview that they subjected into and 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.800 some of the interactions he had with them, he guess 0:10:55.400 --> 0:11:00.280 that they are some sort of hacker collective that is 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.520 very much interested in promoting internet privacy and internet freedom. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.000 Yeah, it sounds like they may have been looking for 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.920 code breakers, because they gave him a private test of 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:18.960 creating a decryption mechanism right, and he failed that, I guess, 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:20.559 or wasn't able to do it, so they, you know, 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:21.319 they got rid of him. 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:23.200 I had the impression he blew it off. 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.600 Oh really, I saw that he didn't wasn't able to 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:27.920 do it. 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.520 Yeah, he just didn't deliver the goods. But I for 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.240 some reason, one of the readings I had about him, 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:34.800 it just made it sound like he was just like 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:36.440 he lost interest. Maybe I don't know. 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.480 Oh interesting. So to be clear, I believe what we 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:45.840 just described was just that first puzzle, right, and you know, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:47.640 we don't have the time to get into the rest 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:49.080 of the puzzles. And I don't think I think the 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.520 first two were solved. I don't think anyone ever solved 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:56.080 the third really before they permanently just removed every reference 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.080 to it. I think about a month after that final 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.439 puzzle was removed, they did post a message on four 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.840 Chan once again that said we have now found the 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.520 individuals we sought, sort of like that original message. Thus 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.640 our month long journey ends. You're undoubtedly wondering what it 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.600 is that we do. We are much like a think tank, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.000 and that our primary focus is on researching and developing 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.920 techniques to aid the ideas we advocate liberty, privacy, security. 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:26.319 Yeah, and you could tell it was written by a 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:30.000 computer person because there's like very little punctuation and lots 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:32.640 of run ons and all that, so it seems legit. 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:33.760 It checks out. 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.000 So who is it an SA or CIA or somebody. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.000 A lot of people say that that it was an 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:45.120 elaborate scheme to recruit, you know, cybersecurity people and hackers 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.199 from like the dark reaches of the Internet. Somebody said 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.760 that doesn't really make sense because they posted on four 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.680 Chan and this was the era of Snowden, so they 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.640 probably wouldn't have wanted people from four Chan at the time. 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:02.079 That's not true. Leaked in twenty thirteen, and the first 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.400 puzzle was twenty twelve, so it's possible it was the government. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:10.760 Entirely possible, but there were some other aspects of the 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:15.360 whole contest that suggests it might have been otherwise, Although 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.520 some of this seems to have been purposely deliberately misleading, right, 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.520 Like there was a poster named Wind from Michigan and 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.760 she was kind of joining in like these this collaborations 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.640 on different sites until somebody figured out that she seemed 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:35.000 to deliberately be giving out misleading information. And then there 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:39.160 was a claim on Pastebin from a somebody who said 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.640 that they were an ex Cicada member, that they were 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.160 a military officer from a non English speaking country that 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.240 had been recruited by a superior and that he said 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:52.160 Cicado is actually a left hand path religion disguised as 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.920 a progressive scientific organization, and that it was comprised of 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:57.920 very smart people who weren't happy with the way the 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.520 world was going, so they wanted to trasform humanity into 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:02.960 the Nietzschean uber minch. 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.640 Well, I did see stuff about religion. I saw some 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:13.160 people positive that it was Julian Assange there. I mean, 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.040 there's all kinds of fun theories out there on who 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.000 it might have been. I think the one thing is 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:22.040 pretty clear it I feel really, really strongly that it 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:26.000 probably wasn't just some like somebody having fun doing some 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.200 cool scavenger hunt mystery puzzle thing on the internet, like 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:34.040 it seemed like it was probably some kind of legit recruitment. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.800 I agree, But I think my money's on a hacker collective, 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:39.960 whether white hat or black hat, I don't know, but 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:41.960 a group of hackers. 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:43.920 Does that mean good guys are bad guys? 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:45.280 Yeah? 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:46.880 I don't know all this terminology. 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.240 Well, I mean it's pretty straightforward. You know, you can 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:50.280 guess you just did. 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:52.720 All right, there you go? Did I pacitize? 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.200 You did? You made it onto the next riddle? 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.000 Did you just text me a wooden duck? 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.360 That's right? Just here, I say, we take a break. 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.120 Can we move on to the next mystery of the Internet? 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:05.720 How about that? 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:08.520 Oh, tension builds. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:20.400 Stuff you should know, Josh, And shock stuff you should know. 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.160 All right, So mystery number two, and I'm shocked. I've 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:37.720 never heard of this one as a music guy. Had 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:38.360 you ever heard of it? 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.040 Yes, I don't remember exactly where, but I'd never really 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.480 researched it until we started researching this. So for all 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:47.120 intents and purposes, not really. 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.560 Okay, we're gonna be talking about what's become known as 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.840 the most mysterious song on the Internet. And this was 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.480 a song that sometime between eighty two and eighty four 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:02.800 a guy named Darius s recorded in Germany on the 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:04.880 north coast, the coast of Germany. 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.240 Josh, there's no such thing. I mean, some sort of 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:09.120 landlocked border. 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.160 I think I think so reference to Old Bearer by 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.000 the way. But yeah, this guy did what all of 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:17.720 us did in the early eighties, as we would sit 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.040 around listen to the radio and record songs from the 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.880 radio onto our cassette deck so we could take them 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:25.600 on the road with us. And he was doing this. 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.320 Had a big mixtape of all these things from you know, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:30.840 the people that you would expect to hear from in 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.320 nineteen eighty four, about twenty five of them. He wasn't 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.880 sure who the songs were, and it sounds like he 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:40.680 figured out who all of those songs came from. Save one. 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.120 Yeah, I think so, I don't. I think that was 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.600 the only one that he did never figure out. He 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.960 called those unknown ones his unknown pleasures. A joy Division 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.800 reference right, because most of this music was post punk 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:56.320 new waves. And this song, this most mysterious song on 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.360 the internet, is no exception. It sounds like a Rolling 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.280 Stone writer put it. It has a rigid beat and 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.919 dry monotone vocals and sounds like a synthpop hit you 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:08.920 would have heard in a dance club in the eighties, 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.040 which is true, like all of that is true, But 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:17.320 it also it has like a strong guitar riff like 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.399 early Joy Division. It kind of has a little bit 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.800 of that, but it's also more produced than that, and 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:28.360 the vocals, the lyrics and the vocals are incomprehensible except 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:32.399 in little snippets that you hear just enough that to me, 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.679 the fact that you can't fully understand what the person's 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.320 saying and it's so open to interpretation, I think that's 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.760 what starts to suck people in the most. 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.200 Yeah. Probably so. The only thing I'll disagree with about 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.480 the Rolling Stone is that it sounded like a hit. 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:49.520 I don't think the song's very good. 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.080 Oh really, I find it I wouldn't say good, but 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:54.240 I find it definitely catchy. 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.800 I mean, it's okay, and I have been walking around 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:58.679 singing it, and so it must be a little catchy. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.679 But compared to the music of that era, and this 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:07.000 is just my dumb opinion, I think it sounds like 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.240 what I think it is, which was a fairly amateurish 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:15.320 Eastern Bloc person recording a song. Okay, it sounded a 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.080 little bit like, you know, the rest of the music 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:17.520 of the era. 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.680 So the thing is, I don't know if we've said 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.200 entirely yet, no one on the planet seems to know 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.040 what the song is, what the name of the song is, 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.679 or who the artist is, who created this, what the 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.600 band is or the solo arts whoever, not a single 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:36.840 person on the planet, And you might be like, well, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:39.560 you know, maybe you just haven't looked deep enough. Wrong. 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.320 People have looked into the depths of nineteen eighties Germany 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.200 using all sorts of different tools to analyze the song digitally. 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.320 I mean, like, people have really dug into this. And 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.520 the other thing about it that makes it so impressive 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.480 that it remains mysterious is that people have been searching 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:02.800 for who made this song since for twenty ten. Let's 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:04.360 tell them about that story, shall. 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:07.480 We, Yeah, you mentioned using you know, modern tools. One 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.439 of the one of the mysteries from Darius was he 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.800 was like, I guess, in this German accent, which I'm 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.639 not gonna try good said, I'm not even sure you 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:18.639 know for sure that I taped it from this program 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.879 on the in day oar Heintz station in Germany, the 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.520 music for young people program that he listened to. He's like, 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:29.040 because I recorded stuff from other stations and other programs. 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.720 But they have since proven that proven that basically using 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:40.000 spectrogram analysis, they actually pinpointed it and said, no, there 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:45.320 was a ten kilohertz line that this station used as 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.160 like a modulation scheme that isn't found on other stations. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.440 And they found that that modulation line in that song. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.600 So there was like, at least we know it was 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.160 definitely from Inda our hes. 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.240 Right, So they figured that out. They also figured out 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.000 that it was at least from nineteen eighty four because 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.840 the technics deck is it technics are techniques. 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.119 I always said techniques, but who knows? That may have 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:10.560 been wrong. 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.199 Okay, the tape deck made by technics or techniques, you know, 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.199 the brand that he was using to record off the 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:21.920 radio wasn't made until nineteen eighty four, and you might think, well, okay, 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.960 it could be nineteen eighty five eighty six. The song, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.040 the other songs that are on this tape, which are 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:31.639 known as Cassette four, were songs from XSTC The Cure. 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:34.760 I could not, for life of me find what songs 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:39.280 they were, but everybody seems to be satisfied that these 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:41.960 ecstasy songs and Cure songs and other songs that were 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.680 played on that were recorded on the same tape came 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.720 out in nineteen eighty four or right before nineteen eighty four. 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:52.840 So the guess is that this this was taped off 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.800 of the radio between nineteen eighty three and nineteen eighty four. 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:59.600 Yeah, and you know what, there's people that have time 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:04.000 on their hand in technological wherewith all that we don't have, 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:09.879 I'm calling on somebody somewhere to find and make a 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.200 playlist of cassette four and put it on your whatever 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:14.479 your favorite streamer is. 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:16.160 Yeah, I can't believe it's not out there. 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:18.760 Actually, I bet that's a bangin playlist. 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:22.280 I'll bet it is too. So back to the story, 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.320 the initial story of where this all came from. Darius, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.000 he apparently was content with just putting a question mark 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.359 next to the song or in the song's place on 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.240 the track listing on the cassette, but his sister was 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:40.280 not satisfied with that. His sister, Lydia, who just goes 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.720 by Lydia h in this Rolling Stone interview, she always 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:46.920 really wanted to know who made this song. I don't 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.119 know if obsession is the right word, but it was 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:53.040 certainly something that drove her to some extent, and as 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.399 the Internet kind of blossomed and grew, I think in 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.840 starting in two thousand and seven, she started sharing it 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.520 on the Internet. There's a couple of sites that she 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.520 put it posted it on initially, one a Canadian site, 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.840