Mysterious, unexplained video footage appears

My kind of Halloween story.

An odd news story has been making the rounds that has a sort of "paranormal bouquet" as Fox Mulder might call it.

A Swedish blogger received a video in the mail. There was no identity given as to the sender. After watching the video...and getting creeped out in the process...the man uploaded the vid to Reddit and the sleuthing began. Who created the video? What does it mean? Are there secret codes embedded within it? First, let us examine "the thing itself." Click here to view the video (a few images may be NSFW).

Let's recap what we just saw. Someone in a black cloak and mask stands in an abandoned factory or another such example of urban decay. To me, the get up is similar to that of a 17th Century plague doctor only with a post-industrial, postmodern spin (see the pic above.) The eerie figure makes several furtive hand gestures, holding a blinking light in his(?) palm. Is the light flashing Morse Code?

Several images are then wallpapered over the main video for split seconds at a time. These hidden images are of women being tortured and killed. The phrase "YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD" appears, as does a string of binary values. Once decoded, one binary phrase becomes "Muerte," Spanish for "dead." Also appearing in Spanish is “Te queda 1 año menos,” translating to "You have one year left." Another deciphered code reads "RED LIPSLIKE TENTH." This can be inferred as an anagram of "KILL THE PRESIDENT." A few have even theorized that GPS coordinates are included within the binary strings, specifically the coordinates of the White House.

Not like anybody really needed those as it's fairly simple to find, but there you go.

It is claimed that a few of the flashed video images are from low-budget horror films. At least one of the images, it is argued, is a real-life crime scene photo of a victim of the Boston Strangler.

So what's going on here? What follows are a few of my own conjectures in descending order of creepiness and ascending order of likelihood. If that makes any sense.

-This might be video from a new serial killer. Possessed of a truly Batman-villain-level of sociopathic tendencies, this maniac is taunting authorities...and everybody else...to try to solve his/her identity before someone else dies. As of now, though, law enforcement does not seem particularly alarmed by the video.

-The figure in the video might not be human. It is a paranormal entity, a shadowperson or barghest imparting ill omens for humanity. But why and what is the specific message?

-It is an intricate puzzle put together for people who can't resist a mystery and jinkies, Scooby, there sure are a lot of us that fit that description. Somewhere, there is a diabolical son of a bitch that knows this and is enjoying the view as she watches the Internet's biggest brains decipher, infer, and trace. Whoever they are, they have great insight into the human psyche and the nature of consciousness, knowing what we can't resist. But if someone does at last crack the meaning of all this (if there even is any), the creator(s) will likely revel in the problem-solving abilities of the would-be detective. In a way, it reminds me of "the footage" from William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.

-It's all marketing and publicity. This is a viral ad campaign for a new movie or video game. Or energy drink.

In a way, that latter capitalistic possibility might be the most disgusting of all. Might be, I said, but I know the serial killer theory beats it for sheer ick factor. Sorta.

Right now, it remains a fun, even if slightly disturbing, Halloween mystery. The current status of the case is that a few broadband investigators claim to have determined a geographic point of origin for the video...an abandoned sanitarium in Poland.

Yeah. I know. Marketing.



Like ESE on Facebook

Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets