Morning Star

337 Mystery
The best way I know how to introduce this is by bringing up the Reiver's Music/Now The World Picture disc that was released in late 2002/early 2003. It was available at Hot Topic, so I managed to get a copy ahead of time. I had been lurking on the AFI board for about 6 months or so (I was too intimidated to post!). I distinctly remember the discussion about this record and something about Gavin (AFI Board Webmaster Extraordinaire) saying it was "336," first introducing us to this weird....number.

This eventually led to either Gavin or a band member saying that the next step was "337" or something like that. (Hey, it's been over 3 years. A lot of shit has happened. Cut me some slack.) This led all of us on the A.F.I. to begin to obsess about this obscure reference. My friend Daniel (astateofaffair1), myself, and a few other kids spent an entire night researching numerology after the board went down and Gavin linked us to a site about numerology. This, in turn, led to about 234,273,123,086 theories about what this all meant, including shit about reincarnation, how Sing The Sorrow was an out-of-order concept album about Davey's death, and other random (and nonsensical) ramblings. A lot of us thought we had it all figured out.

Then AFI releases Clandestine and makes all of us scratch our heads. I'm not gonna link it here; you can find it on YouTube if you so desire. It was a short movie starring the band, Gavin, and a bunch of DF members. It involved a black box with the STS leaf stenciled in red on the lid, a rabbit, an old pocketwatch, the number 3, 37, 333, and 3:36. Yeah. No one ever truly figured out what it meant and the ominous ending on the beach didn't help.

Fast forward to modern times....

Big Day Out
Most of us enjoyed the Clandestine/337 mystery because of it's ambiguity and ability to be interpreted as we desired, much like all of A.F.I.'s songs. In addition, the entire search was so incredibly intellectual, something those who know me know I love. I am a nerd. Reading about esoteric numerology is only a joy I understand. But I know I was incredibly bothered that there was no definitive "answer" to the whole thing.

Then Mikey Rhino (AFI family member and Sound Man Extraordinaire) made a strange entry on his Myspace. It read, "2 4 15"and many people tried to guess what it means. Some people assumed it was keyed to the alphabet through an alphanumeric code: i.e.,  2 = B, 4 = D, 15 = O, BDO. This stood for Big Day Out, which was a major show in Australia AFI was supposed to be at but never made it. This gave hints to AFI touring for their new album. After many people guessed what it meant, Mikey replied by saying, "Only one of you was warm like the winters." Great. Now more cryptic shit.

I'll admit, at the beginning, I was a cynic. Part of me was burnt on being so personally involved with the previous "hunt" and getting nothing tangible out of it. I was a freshman in college at the time, so, believe it or not, I had lots of free time to spend researching what technically amounts to a bunch of crap. (Not meant to be an offensive attack!) But now, I was working 45 hours a week; I had just joined Future Primitive and was working on practicing/playing shows; I had no consistent internet connection at home. Plus, I wasn't as amped on being a part of the AFI community as much as I did when I was 19. (That is a completely different and epic story that will be saved for another day.) I still loved the band as much as I did back then (probably more), but you grow out of those things when you're 22 years old and you possess an inherent hatred of Hot Topic. (Not meant to be an offensive attack either!)

And then the shit hit the fan.

One day on the message boards one random user, who has never posted since, made a thread. It said: "Why is my name on the weight of words website?" And it had a link to the weightofwords.com site,  which is now unaccesable. The poster's screen name was "invierno," which meant "winter" in Spanish. Winter was the word that linked Mikey's response to this strange post made by a guy who never posted in his life other than this one time.

In his board profile we found his name to be "Hector Garcia," but that was all. So we go to the website.

All it was was a menu of a restraunt's orders, which was later found out to be a Vegan restraunt that I've seen AFI at 8 or 9 billion times. (Truly Vegan) It had a list of names and their orders. There are five names on this menu and the each ordered something. Those names are:

Charlotte
Hector
Julian
Catherine
Georgia

On the menu, Hector is the first name on the list along with others. There is also latitude and longitude cordinates leading to the Pheonix Theature which is where AFI has had many shows. (I'm pretty sure it's what "Days of The Phoenix" is about.) Charlotte, being a name on the list, ordered the Breakfast of Champions (which is a mighty fine order from Truly Vegan, if you ask me.) This was also the title of the site. The number 17 (which was next to the order name for Breakfast of Champions) was actually a hyperlink; it led you to the new AFI website, which is how we knew charlotte was involved and that this was legitimate. It also had a phone number on the bottom, that when phoned gave you a message. We knew to call it because the number was: 1-337-935-0150. That damn number again. The message was of many people talking over each other; there were two distinct male voices and three distinct female voices. When some people called this number, they got calls back from this number: (000) 012-3456. It was nothing but a looped music track, a mumbling man, a woman counting, and a girl asking questions. I decided to transcribe what was being said:

Woman One: Ready?
Man One: One.
Man Two: Four.
Man One: One.
Woman One: Ready?
One Man Two: 8
Woman Two: 2...1....2
Man One: 0
Woman One: 9. Ready?
Woman Two: 2
Man One: 0
Woman One: What?...
Man Two: 8
Woman One: 9
Woman Two: 4...5
Man One: 1
Woman One: 9
Woman Two: 2
Man One: 0....1
Woman One: 9
Woman Two: 5...4
Man One: 1
Woman One: What?
Man Two: 3
Woman 3:-Ready?

Yeah. Fucking. Weird.

Now, when this message was looked at closer, we realized it was a message. "14, 1, 18, 21, 20, 9, 20, 18, 9, 4, 5, 19, 20, 19, 5, 4, 1, 13." Now, there were a few theories as to what these numbers meant. The actual file used in the message was taken from the Conet site (link please?), but AFI had taken some liberties in switching the numbers around and stretching them out to fit whatever needs they had.

The numbers awere also formatted in the formula of old radio spy codes, in which a number is first used to identify the addressee (which is probably us), and then to denote how many character groups there are following that. (In this case, 11.) When deciphered by an alphanumeric code, (A=1, B=2, etc.) it gave you the word "Narutitridestsedam," which when put into a web address took you to a new site: www.narutitridestsedam.com

Now the meaning of Narutitridestsedam: "Na Ruti tridest sedam" Means "On route 37" which pertains to the song "Rabbits are roadkill on route 37"

When we went to this site there was only a movie. It was of a person's head wrapped in bandages that are slowly unraveled by a mysterious hand. When it's unwrapped, the face is assumed to be Davey's by the lip ring. We see him mouthing words. What they found out was the words uttered by Davey were "Tell", "Charlotte", and "Nothing" which we found out to be Charlotte's Aim screen name: "Charlottenothing" Also at this time, there is a new message when calling charlotte's number. It said:

"Hi, this is Charlotte. If this is Georgia, I've been trying to reach you on I-M but I can't so leave your number so we can talk."

Listen to it here: http://www.gnbn.net/mats/audio/charlotte_georgia.mp3

The point of the video thus far was to get the AIM screen name charlottenothing (which we found out through what Davey was saying in the video as well as the phone message.)

Well days went by and we were without a clue until we got a message sent to us by Charlotte's screen name and it was the same message from Mikey Rhino's Myspace. DUN. DUN. DUN

This was the message sent to us:

"Prononcé comme une lettre
Mais constitué de trois
Elles ne sont que deux lettres
A faire partie de moi
Je suis unique et double
Je suis bleu, noir et gris,
Lisible dans les deux sens
Et la meme dans les deux directions."

It's French. The English translation:

"Pronounce as a letter
But constitutes of three
They are not but two letters to form part of me
I am single and double
I am blue, black and gray
Readable in the two directions
And the same one in the two directions."


Oh silly AFI! It's a riddle. It didn't take long for us to figure it out:  EYE.  So translate that into french, since that's the original language of the riddle, and you get the word unoeil. Put a www. and a .com on it and there you go, a new website to explore.
 
(At the same time, there was a new message on charlotte's answering machine that is now her current message. It is just noises and beeps.)

When you get to the site you find it's close to the other one; small, one window website with a flash display on it. Except this time instead of a movie you get a paragraph slowly being lit up. This is what the paragraph says:

"If you waste this day this pain will not open my eyes to cracked faces. To this nature I won’t deny. Will you believe in a boy hung in your room, cooling from within? I can’t. I just anticipate what awaits...darkness. Oh my beautiful one. I will hold onto your heart as I submerge. I will die drown. There will be no angels. There are no flowers. I’m on display my beloved. I’m on display."

Now I admit, this sounds like a suicide letter or something, but in reality these are just a bunch of davey's lyrics all mixed into one big story. For example,"There will be no angels. There are no Flowers," is from "This Time Imperfect" from Sing the Sorrow. "I just anticipate what awaits..." is part of an ending verse for "No Poetic Device" on Black Sails in the Sunset. And so on and so forth.

Now if you go back and look at the paragraph you notice that you can click on words, and when you scroll your mouse over them some glow and some don't. Misfits69 (Tom)  figured out that if you click on words in a specific order (DON'T, BELIEVE, PAIN) it led to a NEW website:

www.theprocessofseparation.com

The website was like the rest. It was one flash animation but this time it was a movie. A movie played backwards. The movie showed a message on a notepad scribbled out and played backwards. A hand, which is assumed to be Jade's, slowly unscribbles, and unwrites everything. When you get the whole message it says:

"Toronto Star Classified Antiques and Art. Plain Text Run Schedule 21 days. Five Flowers."

At this point, shit was just getting ridiculous. Website after website, riddle after riddle. Where the fuck was this going? Well 21 days on the spot, an ad was ran by someone named Charlotte and it read as such:

"Axis Comics and Records at ( address removed ). Place your orders with joe at (phone number removed)"

The number and address were removed for concealing purposes. Axis Comics and Records is affilated with AFI and confirmed in Sing the Sorrow's thank you credits. Naturally, we AFI fans are quite insane, so we asked Joe all sorts of vague questions about 5 Flowers. He said if we wanted to see the five flowers we would have to go see him in person at the store. At first account many of us thought this may be date rape, but because AFI fans are terribly devoted  we thought visiting the store was actually a lead in this mystery.  Only on the AFI board. The poster Justknish’s uncle was sent in and Joe hooked up a TV for him.

He was shown a DVD which apparently had Hunter from AFI driving through various streets and gave the directions:

Get In Car, Turn Left, Stop, Turn Right, Keep Strait, Turn Right, Dead End, Get Out Walk North, Trough Glass Door, Elevator Basement, Turn Right, Left Up Stairs, Walk In End Of Hall, Trough Door, Up The Stairs, and then Hunter hands you a red apple.

What the fuck? We spent some time researching through MapQuest and Google maps, seeing if these physical directions led us anywhere, but all to know avail. We felt that we were finally stumped.

About this time, Charlottenothing's Away Message said, "Myspacing," which led us to find her MySpace profile, which proved later to be a clue.

When we went to Charlotte's MySpace we found it to be like an ordinary profile. There are a few important factors to note here however:

-Her main picture was of a snowy, apparently dead tree
-Her caption read, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
-The caption of her only picture of the tree read, "Avenues lined with trees, strangled words for the day"
-She had one friend who was known as "Apple."

With that last note, you remember that Hunter was holding an Apple at the end of the Five Flowers DVD, so you go to click on Apple's myspace. ( Apple's Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/apple) You see a myspace at first until it quickly loads to another site.

www.theinterviewwitness.com

This site leads you to a movie like the rest. The movie starts off with someone sitting in a chair with a white bag over his head. There were blood-stained clothes hanging up on clotheslines and what appears to be rabbit skins. The person sitting with a white cloth over his head, who was recognized to be Adam by the tattoos on his arm, also had five flowers in his hand. The movie itself first hinted us to the idea of "The Five Flowers" being an actual clue, not just something Joe from Axis Comics referenced. However, in the background of the video, there are weird noises (something myself and other kids recognized as reversed music/words). When you use the audio ONLY and reverse it, we got this message:

"It was october 1971. Everything was hunkey dorey, and I was listening, when at eight, 2:04 end, I found what I was looking for."

The message was hard to decipher simply for it's outright absurdity. But lo and behold, the amazing AFI board figured it that it wasn't as obscure as we though. This message, like all the others, was to lead us to the next clue.

What we gathered was this: October 1971, David Bowie released an album called Hunkey Dorey. The eighth track was called, "Andy Warhol." So we go to that track, listen to the words said at 2:04 and get a next website. (Really.) The lyrics were, "Tie him up when he's fast asleep." Enter that into a website and you got our next clue. www.tiehimupwhenhesfastasleep.com

*A few notes:
-This meant that all four band members had been in one of the movies, a very significant thing to know.
-The five flowers that Adam put into a vase are said to be a rose, tulip, iris, lily, and a daisy.

The "Tie Me Up" site is flash and words only. The message reads:

"February 15th - February 27th
From South to North, West to East
No Fire Will Burn
But there will be blood."

The word "blood" was a hyperlink and took us to another part of the site. This time the message reads:

"Listen to Brandon but don't ask him
He who knows wears it on his sleeve.
He sells the rest to every guest,
if you propose the answer is free.
Any ring will do..."

Now we've finally concluded the answers to some of the paragraph and they are as follows:

-"No Fire will burn" There will be no AFI where this answers lies.
-"But there will be blood" But Bleeding through will be there
-"He sells the rest to every guest" Referring to the merchant selling AFI and BT merchandise
-"If you propose the answer is free, any ring will do." If you present a ring to the merchant and ask for an answer, you will be given one.

Now this was done by "Sleepingtodream" of the MB and he was given an answer.



















He was given this pin.

Yeah. I don't know.

The answer the message board member was given was a pin that read nothing more than "Where are the five flowers?" Now if you think anything like we have been for the past months, you'll realize that's probably a website. In going to this website we used to get a message saying the website was "staging.",In the meantime Bleeding Through was added to Charlotte's friends list on myspace. After a month or so of waiting, finally there is a change in the site. We get a 404 error as if the site died, but press the back button on the page and a new window pops up. Like all the other sites, this website is also flash, but it is only a picture, a picture of the clandestine box from Sing the Sorrow. This is one of only two times that something from the previous mystery is referenced in this Charlotte business.

 First thing to notice is in the browser, you see the name of the picture file and it has a number in it (4403731238). When you call this number you get a British lady on the answering machine, one that sounds just the same to charlotte's old one. The message says:

"The person you are trying to reach is not available, please leave a message after the beep."

Now looking around the site, you see four squares around the four corners of the box. Click inside those squares and you get another window pop up, this time revealing quicktime media files. Each file is named after 1 of 4 differant characters: Hector, Georgia, Catherine, and Julian. These names can also be found in the Weight of Words menu, and were added to charlotte's myspace not long before "Where are the five flowers" came up. Each media file gave a number and clues. They are as follows:

Catherine: 646 736 1275 (New York)
-The number was found by playing with musical notes and converting them to numbers.
-When calling you hear a message adressed to Hector, speaking spanish, saying, "Leave a message. If this is Hector, I lost my connection, you can find me at Craig's."

Hector: 323 319 6237 (LA)
-Number found by counting beats in the mp3.
-When calling you hear a man saying, "I'm at Craig's. Where are you?"

Georgia: 415 373 6047 (SF)
-Number found by reversing audio, and converting French letters to numbers.
-When calling you hear "Julian, it's Georgia. This is it - it's ending! I'm losing my connection. Look for me at Craig's!"

Julian: 716 514 8870 (NY)
-Found by reversing the mp3 and turning the volume up really high.
-Mp3 almost exactly similar to Charlotte's.
(-A scream is heard in the end, assuming to be Juilian's scream while being killed. (I don't understand this reference.) <-- This is an iffy theory because the loud noise/"screaming" is on both Charlotte and Julian's mp3s.)
-When calling you hear, "This is Julian. We missed each other. I'll be at Craig's."

Charlotte: 805 624-6485 (Central Ca)
-Found kind of late in the game by reversing the mp3 and turning the volume up super high.
-Mp3 almost exactly similar to Julian's.
-You hear, "This is charlotte. Leave a voicemail. If this is Hector, find me at Craig's. And don't be late. There's not much time."


-Charlotte's mp3 wasn't found on the Clandestine box along with the other four (this may be significant later on), but since Charlotte was already a given, someone just added /charlotte.mp3 to the end of the mp3 addresses (wherearethefiveflowers.com/georgia.mp3, for example), and voila. (Thanks Oboeish.)

**Because Julian's phone number is from NY, and not Canada (more than likely for long distance reasons), and Charlotte's number is from Cali, and not Ohio, the phone numbers do not all match their myspace locations. It may be important to note, though, that both the phone number found on the page title of WATFF.com (440 373 1238 - the one with the British woman voice message), and Charlotte's myspace location are from Ohio.
 

And here comes the best part. Five ads were found on the wonderful website, www.craigslist.org. They are:

San Francisco: http://www.craigslist.org/sfc/mis/152101447.html

It's Georgia:

Julian,i hope you see this soon.
Meet me at
Axis Records and Comics
2877 Chapman
Oakland, CA
On Thursday the 20th between 4 and 6pm
bring me any of the five and don't forget your id
There's not much room, so get there before the supply runs out

Los Angeles: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/mis/152102042.html

It's Hector:

Georgia, i hope you see this soon. there is not much time.
Meet me on Thursday, 20th of April
Pan Pacific Park corner of Gardner and Beverly
dont judge a book by its cover.ill be holding flowers waiting for you
I'll only be there between 4pm and 6pm. bring me any of the five and
don't forget your id

There's not much room, so get there before the supply runs out

New York: http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/mis/152102652.html

It's Catherine:


Hector, i hope you see this soon
there is not much time

meet me on thursday 20th of April at
110 Greene St. #605
New York, NY 10012
ill only be there from 7-9pm
bring me any of the five and don't forget your ID

There's not much room, so get there before the supply runs out

Toronto: http://toronto.craigslist.org/mis/152103243.html

It's Charlotte:

Hector,
Meet me on Thursday, 20th of April
Ill only be there between 4pm and 6pm
Buffalo Records
2111 E Thompson Blvd
Ventura, CA
bring me any of the five and don't forget your id
There's not much room, so get there before the supply runs out

(I copied the text from all the ads because they'll expire soon.)

We all spent a good three days arguing. I'd say more than half of all the kids following the thread said these were fake, that this was too ridiculous, that this was too "out there." I guess it's understandable, when viewed from afar. Meeting strangers at Record Stores and parks? Give them a flower? Get something in return? Sounds like a perfect opportunity to either:

1) Rape a bunch of people.
2) Film a bunch of gothy hardcore kids and make fun of them on the internet.
3) Other acts of sadistic violence.

But you know what? Someone had to go to a comic book store to get a clue. And we'd been driven all over the internet. And we'd incessantly studied numerology, Buddhism, Time Codes, World War II secret codes, Roman history, and a bunch of other shit to find the next clue. Was this really so far-fetched?

So this is where I come in. Restless, I left work yesterday at a quarter to three and headed off to Pan Pacific Park. (It's actually about 5 minutes from my apartment. I didn't even know it existed! Now I have a new place to run at.) I was carrying a bag full of food/water/shit for the show that my band was playing later that day in Ventura at the Alpine.

(On a sidenote, if you've ever read any of my Metro Bus stories, the first one I ever wrote was about the bizarre mother/daughter combo who asked me to stop drinking blood. In a bizarre bout of coincidence, they were on the exact same bus as me that went down Beverly. They demanded an explanation for my Bad Religion Crossbuster tattoo and told me that while it was good that I don't drink blood, it doesn't matter because I don't believe in Jesus. So I should just start drinking blood.  ............................)

I arrived at the park just around 3:30. I met Major Tom (who had a bitchin' skateboard) and a few other board members. We were all weirded out by this whole concept and, even though we'd shown up, we still didn't know if this was real. I walked around the park and gathered the troops who were spread about the grounds of the park. The general consensus? Someone better fucking show up or we'd all feel like fools.

Stacy (slyabney) and I walked around the park for a bit, trying to see if we could find "Hector," but it was too no avail. And that's when, about 5 minutes later, we see Smith walking down the street. (He is Jade's brother and Roadie Extraordinaire.) He seems to be avoiding us and he keeps walking up and down the street in front of the park that runs perpendicular to it.

He finally comes to the parking lot and we approach him. He tells us he's there to do homework (he had a binder full of papers). When someone asks him if we were supposed to give him flowers, he told us he wasn't the person, BUT the person was in the park and that we were actually very close to them.

Behind us, sitting up against the wall, was a blonde-haired girl reading a book, with a boquet of flowers sitting beside her. "Don't judge a book by its cover...." We should have known!

This is what we received for giving a flower:
April 28th. Henry Fonda Theatre. Guaranteed passes into a show.

What.
The.
Fuck.

It was real. All these fucking clues, all the haters saying we were insane. And the 25 or so of us show up to a park in Hollywood, flowers in hand, and we get free passes to a Private Event with AFI. THAT FUCKING RULES SO MUCH!

UPDATE 4/27 (From ernie1one):

New York passes:

San Francisco Pass:

Links: In Order as they Appear
http://www.myspace.com/mikey_rhinoceros - Mikey Rhino's Myspace
http://board.despairfaction.com/showthread.php?t=49679 - Invierno's thread to Weight of Words
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y15...Random/boc.jpg - Weight of Words Menu
http://afireinside.net - AFI's official Website
http://www.narutitridestsedam.com - Davey's Muttering Words Video
http://www.unoeil.com - Paragraph of Many Lyrics
http://theprocessofseparation.com - Jade's Handwriting Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=jFPukyM9g34 - Hunter's Directions Video
http://www.myspace.com/charlottenothing - Charlotte's Myspace
http://www.theinterviewwitness.com - Adam's Flower Video
http://tiehimupwhenhesfastasleep.com - Bowie's Lyrics and the Bleeding through Involvement
http://tiehimupwhenhesfastasleep.com/blood.html - Blood half with Instructions
http://www.wherearethefiveflowers.com - 404 Error Site
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y15...dom/BUTTON.jpg - Pin given to those who propsed
http://media.putfile.com/hector-323-319-6237 - Hector's Phone Message
http://media.putfile.com/title-440373-1238-57 - 440 Number's Message
http://media.putfile.com/georgia-415-373-6047 - Georgia's Phone Message
http://media.putfile.com/catherine-646-736-1275 - Catherine's Phone Message
http://media.putfile.com/julian-716-514-8870 - Julian's Phone Message
http://h1.ripway.com/Nuviremus/Georgia_Reverse.mp3 - Georgia's Audio Reversed
http://h1.ripway.com/Nuviremus/Hector_Reverse.mp3 - Hector's Audio Reversed
http://media.putfile.com/juliansnumber
http://media.putfile.com/charlottesnumber
Numbers sites:
http://home.freeuk.com/spook007/
#21 is the weird music box that some people got called back with, before the numbers.
http://www.archive.org/details/ird059
This is the one that most of the voices were taken from, I think. (Thanks, Desiree, for these last two links.)



Credits for some info goes to etoile of the Despair Faction
Credits for the Websites and the mystery itself goes to AFI and Interscope Records
Credits for the summary goes to Sephirothox of the Despair Faction.
Credits for the phone message links goes to Alli, Moderator of the AFI MB
Credits for the "Where are the five flowers" Phone descriptions goes to Oboeshi of the Despair Faction
Credits for links go to the members of the Despair Faction and those involved with the mystery on the board.
Credits for Axis Record's DVD goes to SaraPlate
Credits for Georgia's Number goes to Infatuation & MPS of the Despair Faction
Credit goes to Oboeish for the wonderful corrections!!!

Thank you. Thanks for everyone for putting so much intelligent thought and heart into this. I appreciate it.

I will edit this as more information is provided and we learn more about this mystery.