ARG's

Wiki says "An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions."

You can find a few of these on YouTube and below is one that seems only have been running since January this year. I will be highlighting a few others in later posts.

The games normally consist of codes and hidden clues and secrets that people have to work out and follow to find a message or meaning behind it all.

This channel uses Hex code along with others.  You can find decoders on the net just by Google searching for them.

I have not yet seen all the way through this channel myself but I am working my way through and have decoded some of the Hex in earlier videos.  The video 'Nervous Hex.avi' is numbers and letter read backwards.  I downloaded the sounds and ran it through Audacity to flip it.  Then I typed them in to a converter online and it said 'Northampton State Hospital Hassachusetts'.  No idea if the typo is intentional or not.  This is just an example of the kind of thing you might be looking for to follow an ARG.

UPDATE: I have gone through more of Slob Room and the channel has changed now with the creator talking about ARG's and YouTube channels.......still in the mask though.

Slob Room

The Voynich Manuscript

Wilfred Voynich was a Polish book dealer who purchased the manuscript in 1912.  It's origins are unknown.

It is a codex, written in a text that is indecipherable but on studies by code breakers, they find that it does have some meaning behind it rather than random jibber jabber, and it is written left to right.

It has around 240 pages though there are some pages missing.  It is filled with strange drawings and diagrams.  Carbon dating has shown that it was made some time in the early 15th century.  No one has been able to read it and no one knows what it is or what it means.

Ricky McCormick and the Encrypted Notes

Ricky McCormick lived in Missouri until his death in 1999.  He was found dead and very decomposed in a corn field only five days after going missing.  He was a high school drop out and it was said by his family that he could only write his name.

He had been seen getting a check up in hospital on the 25th of June, he had heart and lung problems.  He was then found in an advanced state of decomposition by a woman driving through a field which was 15 miles from his home.  He was identified by finger prints.

12 years later the authorities announced that he had actually been found with two notes in his pockets written in some kind of code.  His family didn't even know about this finding until it was on the news.  They said there was no way he would be able to write such a thing.  The FBI have been appealing for help in cracking the codes, believing it may lead to his killer, but as yet there have been no breakthroughs despite all the interest in the case.  It is being listed as a mystery along with the likes of Tamam Shud.