unforum

[pipakin]

[Coffeebean]

X#xxxx, X#xxx, X#xxxxxxxxxx

My first thought to this section, I came, I saw, I conquered (but one too many x's)

I am thinking the # is a space.

[Andh]

A poem seems likely. The structure would be a quintet first and then a tercet.

[zizka]

[THESB]

Shakespeare was a big "hyphen-ater"

[zizka]

'scuse me while I...

[WolfHawk]

[Coffeebean]

more random thoughts

[zizka]

[Coffeebean]

What about morse code? X = dot x = dash (since we are including all of our farfetched ideas ) skip the #s....and it looks like this:(with punctuation in brackets)

. - - . (--) - - - -(,)

. - - . (--) - - - - - -(,)

. - . . - - -(,)

. - - . . - - - -

. - . - . - - . -(.)

That's just the first half: and not able to make any real words yet. Somehow, I think we have to change this message into a different code. And the reason we received this message AFTER the second and third, may be important: meaning, there is something in the other messages that will help us solve this one.

[petunia]

Like something to do with ancient Sumeria perhaps? Sumerian poetry maybe?

I still have to get my brain around the # = space idea, but in the meantime - when I look at this and imagine it being read aloud, it kind of feels like the commas are being used to make a list. As in, "This, that, the other are like so. Whatsit, thingy are otherwise."

It's curious that the last line says "The # was not a #." Why specify past tense??

It's funny about that tape... Makes total sense that it was used to tape the envelope to Whitechapel's door, where it of course fell off and blew down the street into the bushes by the lawyer's office. What doesn't make sense is why somebody clever enough to come up with these codes doesn't know that painter's tape sucks unless you're painting!

I was going to suggest getting the NY guys to check their door to see if they could see evidence of anything having been taped there, but then I realized that not leaving marks is the one thing painter's tape IS supposed to be good at, so... nevermind.

How well does it stick to paper, though? Maybe we can get them to steam open the next one (assuming there is one).

[surfzoned]

MSG1`

[yellowcard]

I like Pipakin's theory that capital X's denote the beginning of a word. It looks like good English poetry when done that way.

Given that, I don't think #'s look like spaces since X's already provide space, X's begin each line, and there aren't enough #'s to justify translation as a space.

"The # was not a #," reads to me that the character "#" was not intended to represent what "#" traditionally represents. Either a keyword or homophonic word to a number (as has already been suggested) makes sense to me.

The big key to me is the hyphens. My guess is that the punctuation needs no decoding, and therefore makes the hyphenated words valuable. What kinds of words begin with "X-..."?

[Sylvia]

looking at it from a different angel

[Sylvia]

# in the wiki