This blog is a short insight on the internet mystery, cicada 3301.
It all began on the 4th of January 2012, when an anonymous user posed an image on 4chan.
Once the image was opened with the help of a text editor, it contained a cipher that once deciphered sent the user to this particular image.
At first, it really looks like a decoy that doesn’t make any sense. But look at the image again. There are two words, Guess and Out. When users tried out an application “Outguess”, they were able to decipher a coded message from the first image (not the duck) that led towards a book, then leading the users to a phone number: (214) 390-9608, which had a pre-recorded message: “Very good, you have done well. There are three prime numbers associated with the original final.jpg image. 3301 is one of them. You will have to find the other two. Multiply all the three numbers together and add a .com on the end to find the next step. Good luck. Goodbye.”
Nobody could find the other two numbers and finally decided to leave the task considering it a troll, but later found out that the other numbers were the height and width, 503 and 509. Multiplying the three numbers gave them www.845145127.com.
This led them to a website with a countdown and an image of a cicada. When the countdown reached zero, the users were provided with a list of co-ordinates pointing to 14 locations in five different countries around the globe.
These locations had images of a cicada and a QR code, when scanned led to another picture.
The code led to an image, the image led to a riddle, the riddle led to another book, leading to a website, where only the first few people who accessed the site were accepted and the site closed down saying “We want the best, not the followers”.
The site warned the contestants to not share their results nor collaborate with anyone. And the few who followed the rules advanced to the next stages before reaching the very end of the puzzle.
After almost a month of silence, there was another picture in which cicada told that the individuals they sought after were found and their month-long journey had come to an end. This sudden end made everything seem like a hoax. However, as it later turned out, it was only just the beginning….
That’s it for this blog. More about CICADA 3301 puzzles in the future. As always, let me know in the comments down below what you think about CICADA and be sure to follow me on twitter @dhruv_vibhu. Thanks and have a great day!
Mystic Wilderness 