[Coffeebean]

The other hook symbol (same shape with line through it):
"In each, the blackness will be *?*"

I agree that it's unimportant to know how Sandra got to WF, but it is important to note that she is in-game because she would not have found that site otherwise. Anyways, she definitely had to leave an IP number or email when leaving a comment there....so I think she was provided for a reason, and we should use her to gain information.

Can someone send me ethan's blog address? (yes i'm too lazy to look through all the old posts)

*taking notes in shorthand so mort has to decipher them later

[petunia]

Re: The Ritual

[petunia]

Sylvia wrote:

You guys can call yourselves what ever you want. But I want to remind you that it was my idea back in this post. http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=425473#425473 to give ourselves a group title.

Sylvia, I liked your ideas for group names then and I still do. Either the PMs liked the idea too, or you foresaw its usefulness before anybody else. Either way, the game will suffer for your not being a part of it, though I understand your decision.

[mortality]

Take a three day weekend, see if I care! (And see if you still have a job when you get back. )

I'll be gone, too, anyway, so do as you please. Or maybe you should stick around so I can get the CliffNotes when I get back?

[Coffeebean]

Oh Sandra...... doh, where did I get Janet? Maybe I need a day off, Boss? How does Friday look? (maybe I was drinking on my lunch break: FIRE ME! hehe)

*mort : stop trying to make me understand the Simpson line....it's of no use! I'm hopeless.

Enlil was God of Wind and Storms....with his name on a triangle.......and someone mentioned Pirates....and now I am starting to think Bermuda Triangle.....definitely need (to drink at lunchtime) a day off.

[mortality]

Re: The Ritual

[Coffeebean]

Should we start compiling a list of questions to ask Janet?

What was the actual shape?? Draw us a picture?

What did she type to find that site? (definitely IG character...Whitechapel doesn't show up on any of my googling metal shapes)



I wonder if one of those hook shapes in the cipher is what it looks like.

[casablanca]

The Ritual

[mortality]

I'm checking up on St. Petersburg's paranormal history; I'm curious as to whether there are well known "places of power" in/around the town. Apparently their meatspace Museum of History had an exhibition on the supernatural. I wonder if they'd put up with some inquiries from us.

Pirates are the most common references I find. I guess it fits. They were a superstitious lot...strange sea beasties, mermaids, Davey Jones' locker, and an assortment of other stuff.

P.S. this made me laugh

ETA: a meatspace paranormal investigative agency in St. Pete. ...one of many there.

Ghosts don't strike me as the right tack to take. The AC stories with djinn, fairies, vampires and the like mesh with 0702's concept of a magic ritual that creates a beacon for The Terror--whatever it is. Those things don't seem to sync well with the kind of ghost stories I'm pulling up for St. Pete.

I'm not sure what search terms to use to get something that fits better. Magic? The occult? Wiccans? Native American rituals?

Maybe we're not supposed to find the legend. Maybe there's another book in the Black Library having to do with Florida and the New World. Fountain of Youth or something.



Re Case 0701
If MSG1 is a poem, maybe we can identify the likely poet. Given that those books were all online, I imagine the poem must be, too. We should be able to identify the poet first, the poem second. The # symbol seemed like it might lead to Ezra Pound, but no matches appeared.

A lot of the books the PMs have fed us dealt with magical realism and/or the occult. What famous poets covered those subjects?

Another thought: the video project is called InQuest. InQuest was also the title of a magazine about that card game, Magic. Magic had a large bestiary...the kind of stuff that would interest an organization like WF that studies Crytozoology. The game had cards with pictures of the creatures, and a description of what the creature could do and usually some lines of text about its origin. What if the X-file is a Magic card's encrypted text?

[surfzoned]

Sweet

[mortality]

It's as good a lead to follow as any, even if we don't know what to do with it yet. The PMs have gone out of their way to provide us with references to books that have, at the very least, portions available to browse online. It kind of piques the interest as to whether there's more substance to the references than just providing us with atmosphere.

I wonder if there's a translated, searchable text floating around online somehwere. The cypher mentioned iron, magnetism, shapes, and glowing. The Amphithaetrum is an alchemical text. I wonder if those things relate.

In the meantime, here's another lead, from a comment left on the 0702 case at the WF page.

Quote:

1. sandra_n Comment by sandra_n | 2007/12/12 at 00:56:09 Dear Whitechapel Foundation, I'm leaving this comment because something very strange happened to me the other night and I am hoping that you may know something about it. I did a search on the internet trying to find some info on what I saw and what happened to me and your web site came up on the search. This has to do with one of the pages on your website that mentions glowing iron and fear and there is a diagram on that same page that goes with it too. What happened was that on this past Sunday night I was driving home from my mother's house over on Tanglewood Drive. I live in St. Pete, FL, on Davison Ave and Pine Street. It was about 11:30 and I was almost home driving down Pine. I had just turned off 62nd Avenue onto Pine and was just crossing over 61st Avenue when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye in the middle of the road to my left. It was glowing, very bright, sort of a deep orange color. I guess it must have been metal, because I can't think of anything else that would glow like that. It was like the eye on a stove that was really really hot, but the color was more orange than red. I never stopped my car or anything, I just remember thinking at that time that it was very strange that something like that was just laying in the middle of the road with no one around. I think that is the thing that I noticed more than the metal, that everything was very still and there was no one around. I suppose I must have thought that some kids were messing around and had run off when my car came up. Like I said I kept driving toward my house, which is just up the street a couple blocks from where I saw that. It was just as I was turning onto Davison when I felt like something had hit me hard right in the middle of the stomach. Not like bad pain, more like how you feel when all the wind gets knocked out of you and you can't breathe at all. And I felt a wave of goose flesh pass from the top of my head all the way down to my feet like a wave. I've never felt anything like that before, but thinking about it now I would have to call what I felt as something like terror. It seems like it took about 2 or 3 minutes for the feeling to pass, then I just sat there getting my breath back and wondering what was going on. When I felt OK again I pulled on up into my driveway and went in my house. The sort of funny thing is after that feeling passed I didn't really think about it again until the next day. I know I didn't feel afraid anymore or anything. But the next day at work I remembered the feeling and how strong it had been and I also remembered the glowing thing and I figured that seeing something so out of place like that must have spooked me. Then today at the end of the day I was still thinking about it and thought I would search online and see if there was any mention of glowing pieces of metal showing up in strange places (like how you hear about it raining frogs sometimes and things like that). That's when I found your web page with that diagram and that's when I remembered that the piece of metal I saw in the street was the same shape as that diagram on that paper - bent, sort of like a hook. I've got to tell you, the words that went along with that piece of paper with all the symbols don't make much sense to me, but they do talk about glowing iron and feeling fear and blackness and I have to think that has something to do with what I saw. Your main page says that you look into this sort of thing, so I am really hoping that you can let me know what this is about. I'm putting this here as a comment since I think it is directly related to this paper and I'm hoping that the people who look at this site might also know something about it. Thank you for your time, Sandra

Reasons why this is probably IG:
1) Florida is where Djinn is located...they might have particular knowledge about the location mentioned.
2) The timestamps on blog comments appear to be Eastern. I don't think there was a comment left around 1AM. The PMs probably altered the timestamp themselves.
3) Ethan's closing comment on the post is that maybe someone will recognize something from real life.
4) It's unclear how many non-uF players are browsing the game, but Sylvia is the only uF player to identify one's self in a comment on either blog by using a given name, not a pseudonym or abbreviation of a uF handle. The only other people who did so--on Ethan's blog--were IG.

So did someone unleash a demon in bumble-fu-Florida?
How does 11:30PM fit?
And what phase of the moon was that night? (ETA: turns out it was a new moon)
Significance of the hook?

I pulled up the satellite imagery on GoogleMaps. Davison and Pine is right near a set of streets laid out in concentric circles. Some kind of manifestation of "a place of power"? I wonder if the lat/long have any significance. And is there a path that starts 1 league/3 miles away?

Since Ethan is out of his office today (cf. his blog post last night), if we need to contact him it'd probably be best to send to his gmail account (ethanagrant@) and CC his WF account.

ETA: Maybe since Djinn is located near St. Petersburg, FL, whoever at WF is working on InQuest, their paranormal documentary, should contact Djinn about heading over to the location. Take some video, some still photos, interview Sandra and generally poke about.

[badaim68]

Amphitheatrum

[mortality]

Again, mea culpa. I fully agree that reading and participating in the forums should not be unpleasant or harmful. I did not intend the remarks in either of those posts to be demeaning. I was jesting, but I admit that the writing is inadequate and may not accurately convey my intent. I can only say that I'll try to put more effort into making the content and style of my posts more civil.

Coffee, re applying Sylvia's idea of using simson lines, Zizka posted this way back when:

Quote:

first thing you need for a simpson line is to identify the circle around the triangle: the point P will have to be on the circumference of the circle. If you draw perpendiculars to a point on that circle, they will form a simpson line. As you move the point along the circumference of the circle, the line moves. I was thinking that if you oriented the line such that it passed through the period, we may get a letter or two.

[Rogi Ocnorb]

mortality wrote:

I apologize for coming off as callous and dismissive of your idea.

I've got to admit that considering this:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=424355#424355
this:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=433690#433690
and this:
http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=433699#433699

callous and dismissive were terms that came to mind.

[Coffeebean]

I did not know you suggested a name before, Sorry Sylvia. It was at Shannon's request that she have a name to call the ones that solved the last puzzle. We have not chosen a name yet, please add your suggestions. You are definitely part of this group. Did you see that video I just added about the Simpson Line? I thought you came up with that theory earlier, so in my lame attempt at trying to understand it, I found that video. And since I STILL don't understand it, I don't know if that is a helpful video or not.

And ditto to everything mort said/says/is about to say.