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[MsDirection]

Interesting thought on the poosible relationship to Dunkirk!!

I wonder what to make of the missing letters. Is there anything else unusual about paper? Too bad we can't hold them up next to each other.

[curiousmofo]

[kosmopol]

OK, a good friend of mine (Hiligaynon , she has right now some issues with registration here at unfiction and hopefully will come to us soon), wanted to communicate some facts she's found.

* Isle of Men is also known for the internment camp to the times of WWII, where many Germans and Europeans were hold ([OFFTOPIC] Btw. also the artist and dadaist Kurt Schwitters, who was strictly against Nazis, escaped from Germany and was detained in this camp as a possible spy - he grounded MERZ-art, and that's why my nickname is Merzmensch[/OFFTOPIC])
http://melbourneblogger.blogspot.de/2009/11/isle-of-man-internment-camps-1940.html

* Great Yarmouth was bombed 1940: "The town suffered Luftwaffe bombing during World War II as it was the last significant place German bombers could drop bombs before returning home, but much is left of the old town including the original 2000m protective mediaeval wall, of which two-thirds has survived" (Wiki)

* The Bird could be visually interpreted Eagle, symbol of Royal Air Force, who defended the land 1940 in Battle of Britain against German Luftwaffe.

* And now: "On 13 and 15 August, thirteen and thirty aircraft were lost, the equivalent of an entire Gruppe, and the type's worst losses during the campaign.[93] This trend continued with a further eight and fifteen lost on 16 and 17 August." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain, Topic: "Fighters")
=> Happened between 15th and 22nd August 1940.

So it looks like, the date should be August 15-22, 1940. (Not the date of the photo, but perhaps the symbolic date, remembrance of the photo)

And about the man/men - we discussed, perhaps there was (were) some secret unit in Royal Air Force, and these men /or this person belonged to this unit. So they sacrified their identity for the victory.

And now - here they come. Unknown. Forgotten. Believed to be dead.

What do you think about these our brainstorming?

P.S. @JumboTron Interesting note about fading words as aging consciousness!

P.P.S. Awesome job everybody! This begins to take interesting shapes.

[MsDirection]

Love the brainstorming!

A couple of thoughts: maybe I'm crazy, but looking at the picture of the second note it looks like there's a white/brighter white area around the typewritten letters could the paper be treated in fine way? Like maybe invisible ink or something?

Also: who in this thread do we think is part of the game, if anyone?

[Cherry]

[MsDirection]

Interesting! So what strikes me about that analysis is the section that reads as IAMB, which is a unit (foot) of metered poetry. Iambic pentameter is the most widely discussed, probably because that's what Shakespeare wrote in for many of his plays. Is this a tangential connection to Shakespeare? That seems like a stretch...maybe another poet? It would be a clever play in words: " do you know who i am(b)"?

Regarding the man and the date, I agree that it is probably meant to be the same man. They don't look that alike to me, but 28 years is a long time. I am most inclined to think the date in the first one is "1940", mostly because we know how the author makes a "y" and it looks very different from the character preceding the 0.

[curiousmofo]

Great spot MsDirection. My friend has confirmed there are dents in the page just above the text. What do you think he should do? I was going to suggest rubbing with pencil because the photo has pencil writing on it and the back of the photo also has a sort of square pencil bit at the bottom left as if it that's a clue.

Since then, I have also received an email from some a Hillman car expert online who I enquired with about the photo:

They said:

[MsDirection]

Yes, curiousmofo! That's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking! If your friend can make a pencil rubbing maybe we'll get another clue!

Good call on enlisting the Hillman expert!

[kaaate]

Ahh I'm excited to see all these replies!

I'm pretty much completely certain it says 19Yo and not 1970. The way the Y is looped would make it seem to be the case. I can try to zoom in and take a better photo if you'd all like?

In response to your update @curiousmofo - I'm not sure that is a mark on the photo. I think he actually is holding a cigarette. You could take your sunnies off to pose for a photo which I think is what happened here. The marks on the left hand side of the photo on the trees show up on the back of the paper when held to the light but the cigarette (or whatever else it may be...) doesn't.

I noticed in the photo you uploaded here that the area around the text is a lot whiter than the rest of the page. That doesn't seem to be the case on the one I found.
I wonder if the positioning of the text on the page is also relevant. On the one I found, it's almost right at the top on the left. Yours is further down and more towards the middle. I wonder if there are others which move further down the page? I'm still waiting on a response from Lost Property to see if any others have been handed in.

[JumboTron]

@kaaate - out of interest, on which underground line did you find the first envelope please? And what date did you find it?

curiousmofo found the second envelope on the Piccadily line on the 15th/16th July... just wondering if an envelope gets left on a specific line on a specific date during the month.

I think we need a blacklight or the typewritten page held upto the light. It's possible that there could be something in morse code written above the letters.

Also - the bird. Is it a crow, a raven, or an eagle?

[kosmopol]

Also, there is one thing: I hope, if it's what we hope it is, then it should be a long term project. Kaaate has found this envelope already end of the May. Another envelope was discovered by FUNHOUSE journal staff on the 12th Jule
https://twitter.com/funhousemag/status/885388722891575297

This is kinda long time range for a grassroot, it seems to be a well prepared project. Wondering, what's behind.

[kaaate]

[curiousmofo]

[kosmopol]

Great idea with Lost Property. I hope they could find something.

I tried to define the bird using AI of google.


Looks like Common Raven, Corvus Corax


I even found similiar raven as lithography:
https://kenspeckleletterpress.com/shop/raven-with-feather-wood-engravings/

There is Corvus Corax available at Isle of Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_the_Isle_of_Man
(But that's not so surprising, this bird is everywhere)

I hope that the answer, whether this story will continue, is not, like, you know, "NEVERMORE".

UPDATE.
Now this is interesting:

[MsDirection]

@kosmopol: Very cool! I was thinking raven, also! In case anyone was wondering, The Raven was written in trochaic octameter...the previous possible (though perhaps unlikely) reference to iambs/iambic pentameter made me want to point this out.

I would honestly be surprised if it becomes necessary to analyze poetry to such a specific degree to get anywhere in this game (if indeed it is a game), BUT you never know.

@curiousmofo - curious to hear/see what comes out of the investigation into the paper!!

UPDATE:
Did some reading about RAF 254. They were active in something called Project Emily from 1959 - 1963, and were also active during the second World War. See below. I was hoping that this would help us determine our starting point for a timeline (1940 vs 1959 - 1960), but no such luck:

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/254_wwII.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Emily