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[In Progress] Cat Snow/Zena Manuscript
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nintendo
Boot

Joined: 01 Dec 2015
Posts: 39
Location: A Space Diner

[In Progress] Cat Snow/Zena Manuscript
A little something found on /r/ARG

So, about two weeks ago over on the good ol' /r/ARG, something popped up. The original post title was, "New ARG- Cat Snow needs your help!" posted by a user named "seventwosevenone". So far, the only person who's been working on this ARG is myself, and I'm stuck. The whole thing started with a link to this URL: http://catherinepsnow.wix.com/blog, with the newest post being the one with the statue and the square with numbers inside of it. The story as it's told on Catherine's blog is: Catherine goes to Arthur University. Catherine makes friends with her History Professor (Dr. Ignace). History Professor disappears after rambling on and on about a "Zena Manuscript". Catherine receives letter in mail (the statue one). Through some internet magic, I discovered that the statue was Polybius and the code that needed to be used was the Polybius sqaure. This resulted in an email address. After shooting the address an email, I received a reply that seemed to be a giant scam letter. Pissed, I emailed the contact given on Catherine's blog, and she too said it looked suspicious. Using some Google Search magic, I found a website that encodes short messages to look like spam letters. Using the decode function on the site, I got a link. The link was another .wix site that just had the text "ERROR", which upon inspecting gave a ROT88 cipher that turned out to be a letter to Catherine from Dr. Ignace who apologized about leaving, but said it was because someone was chasing him down after he had bought the Zena Manuscript from them. Here's the exact letter.

Quote:
Cat - I'm sorry for disappearing without telling you, but I had to do it for everyone's safety. I got involved with some black market rare book dealers and now I'm in trouble. Money motivates people to do bad things and now they are after me. They think I ripped them off when I purchased the Zena Manuscript, but it's not my fault they are uneducated on rare books. You need to find X – he will be our middleman and keep us all safe. Find my website and it will lead you to him, roger that?


I sent that note to Catherine and she replied with:
Quote:
Nice job!

He says to find his website, must be a new one because his old one (http://sebastianignace.wix.com/arthuruniversity) doesn't work.

Who says "roger that?" anyways...


So what I assume is that this new website has something to do with the phrase "Roger that" but I have no idea what. This is where I'm stuck right now. I don't know if this is where I'm supposed to post things like this, but I figured that I'd give it a shot.

You can try to run through this thing yourself, starting with the Polybius Square and email Catherine your results. Not sure if she'll reply like she did with me, because the ARG is already moved along, but it's worth a shot.

PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 3:07 pm
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themightymooker
Veteran

Joined: 29 Nov 2015
Posts: 109
Location: Not Quite Lincoln, NE

Hey, I'm fairly new to ARGs in general, but I've done lots of reading and am in the middle of one now. I'm not sure how helpful I can be, but I'll give it a shot! So, I did a quick Google search of who HAS famously said "Roger That," and found a song by Young Money Entertainment. While I doubt the song is part of this, maybe looking to past uses of the phrase is the way to go?

ETA: Also, I think "Roger" was originally a term used by American pilots?

PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 4:27 pm
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bobdamnit
Boot

Joined: 06 Dec 2013
Posts: 66

"Roger" was and is still currently used by U.S.A. radio operators {both civilian and military} to ask for confirmation that transmission was received and understood.

For example {A civilian example, like a Ham radio operator}:

"Storms here in Northern Iowa are getting bad. They should be reaching your area in about an hour. Roger? Over."

Response:

"Roger that. I'll keep you informed as to when the storms reach my area. Over and out."

I hear that military is getting out of using that lingo anymore and are using newer updated terms for their radio operations. I'd almost bet that whomever typed that is either ex-military or a military wannabe. Or they've watched too many war movies. Smile

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 4:59 pm
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Durston Stout
Greenhorn

Joined: 03 Dec 2015
Posts: 3

I have been playing around with the military phonetic alphabet (since we referring to a radio term). For example:

Sebastian Ignace=Sierra India

Then: http://sebastianignace.wix.com/sierraindia

To no avail, but thought I would give you my line of thinking and maybe it would spark other ideas.

PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2015 5:12 pm
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Fall3nfromfate
Kilroy

Joined: 04 Dec 2015
Posts: 1

I found something while looking at it on mobile... Down at the bottomit says
Quote:
WHO AM I?
Hi there! My name is Catherine P. Snow and I'm a Ph.D history student at Arthur University. I love travel, photography, puzzles, crytography, and of course, history!

U2VuZCBtZSBhbiBlbWFpbCE=


That code at the bottom is base64 and it says send me an email!

I'll look at this blog somemore while I'm at work and probably send an e-mail... I'll post more when I find some other stuff...

PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2015 9:36 pm
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Crescent
Decorated


Joined: 05 May 2006
Posts: 281

names...

Sebastian Ignace - why this name, if just to give us two letters though?
I've googled it and come up with places - not looked anymore but thought might give a different thought?
_________________
matter of fact I could leave....

PostPosted: Sat Dec 05, 2015 10:33 am
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nintendo
Boot

Joined: 01 Dec 2015
Posts: 39
Location: A Space Diner

Fall3nfromfate wrote:
I found something while looking at it on mobile... Down at the bottomit says
Quote:
WHO AM I?
Hi there! My name is Catherine P. Snow and I'm a Ph.D history student at Arthur University. I love travel, photography, puzzles, crytography, and of course, history!

U2VuZCBtZSBhbiBlbWFpbCE=


That code at the bottom is base64 and it says send me an email!

I'll look at this blog somemore while I'm at work and probably send an e-mail... I'll post more when I find some other stuff...


Yeah, emailing is how I've gotten the ARG to progress. I tell her what I find, and she hints me where to go next.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 12:12 am
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recursivePaste
Greenhorn

Joined: 06 Dec 2015
Posts: 4

Just found this, not sure if you've already come across it though. Sent him an email.

http://sebastianignace.wix.com/copy

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 5:46 am
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arthurdent11389
Decorated

Joined: 01 Oct 2010
Posts: 184

recursivePaste wrote:
Just found this, not sure if you've already come across it though. Sent him an email.

http://sebastianignace.wix.com/copy



on this page, you can

Spoiler (Rollover to View):
click on the "scissors", you go to another page with a toucan on it with the code "=F+h#D.7C!AnV" and page is titled "Copy/X"

and

on "/Copy" page, the pictures are actually letters, like:
"B or G from glasses", "O or I from I-pad?", "O from coffee cup?", "L from watch", "O from camera?", "X from scissors", "? from pencil?"
= BOOLOX? BIOLOGY? BOOLEAN? GOOGLEX?? (not correct, just some initial ideas!)


"C from computer monitor","O from doughnut", "D from triangle", "E from book/tablet"
= CODE


- a message to decode !

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 12:17 pm
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Durston Stout
Greenhorn

Joined: 03 Dec 2015
Posts: 3

recursivePaste wrote:
Just found this, not sure if you've already come across it though. Sent him an email.

http://sebastianignace.wix.com/copy


OF COURSE! Good job!

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 5:43 pm
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nintendo
Boot

Joined: 01 Dec 2015
Posts: 39
Location: A Space Diner

recursivePaste wrote:
Just found this, not sure if you've already come across it though. Sent him an email.

http://sebastianignace.wix.com/copy


Brilliant! Thank you. Shot Catherine an email as well, telling her what we've found.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 6:02 pm
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nintendo
Boot

Joined: 01 Dec 2015
Posts: 39
Location: A Space Diner

Anyone got any ideas on =F+h#D.7C!AnV ? Some sort of cipher, I guarantee, but I have no idea what.

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 6:04 pm
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recursivePaste
Greenhorn

Joined: 06 Dec 2015
Posts: 4

Check the website out on mobile. It says "X marks the spot". Not sure if the Toucan image is a red herring or not. Also, I tried playing around with the x in the url of the page with the toucan, nothing so far. Tried to see what type of encoding was being used for the string, not luck yet.

Did Cat reply to the most recent email?

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:09 pm
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nintendo
Boot

Joined: 01 Dec 2015
Posts: 39
Location: A Space Diner

recursivePaste wrote:
Did Cat reply to the most recent email?

Yessir! She says:
Quote:
Oh nice job! It looks exactly like his old website landing page we used for updates, minus that X marks the spot thing. That is definitely something...I've seen it before but I can't place it. Kind of reminds me of base64, but that's not it. Hmmm...let me know if you figure it out!

So something similar to base64?

PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:52 pm
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recursivePaste
Greenhorn

Joined: 06 Dec 2015
Posts: 4

Cat also posted an earlier blog entry titled "Cipher Fun" with the message being this:

Kvpgsfbz qn tttcknh rg sktuqm jkpijz! Jqmnjva vhf bwyf "pjsmhrpmj" jlnox yw sgt nj suqw ztc dgrf xcjeetxnbn

I think solving this might help us.

As an aside remember X will be the middleman! I've tried decrypting the X code. No such luck as of yet. Any one else got any ideas?

PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2015 11:32 am
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