Jan 8, 2008

New Email: [no subject]

UPDATE 7:29 GMT: The speculation in the comments has grown a life of its own. There are many theories that I encourage all to read. One, for example, is the idea that the highlighted numbers are representing coordinates on a map (latitude) which cross-sections with the Sunda Trench. Could this be a clue for Sam when he arrives there by boat?

UPDATE 6:28 GMT:Updated text of the new version of the email has been added. (Thanks Ryan!)

UPDATE 6:19 GMT: Images of the new version of the email were added (click button) - And thanks David!

Original Post:
There is a very cryptic new email in Sam's inbox. One that hopefully will keep people busy for a bit. I am going to post it behind a button since the site is down for so many people, many of whom may wish to wait to see it for themselves.

NOTE: reading the comments may spoil the email as well!



Also, just to officially note it in this post (though many in the comments have already begun speculating about this) the highlighted numbers make out 11.1784. Many in the comments, at this point, are guessing it's a date. What do you think?

114 comments:

Jrcaporal said...

so another code thing?

too bad it won't still load to me!!!!!!

Cody said...

At fist glance of the code the thing that stands out is on the second screen shot on the 8th row there is a "-" hyphen or dash

Cody said...

on second glance there is a + on the 4th row of the first screen shot. Maybe that dash is was referring to in my previous post is a minus sign and this is a math problem.

Unknown said...

I just logged on to the game and there is no new email for me, but there is a new flash video that loads then doesn't play. it's just a light blue screan in front of sams bulletin board.

Unknown said...

It appears that while most numbers are black, some are grey. That would seem to be significant, hmm?

PopeJPMcD said...

I got a similar but not identical email with more hyphen/minus sign? and some gray numbers....

Valiant said...

i've scanned the e-mail on my screen (in-game, not screen caps) and there are light grey numbers throughout, when put together, the make 11.1784 (i'm fairly certain the decimal point is light grey, too) is this the significant bit? or is this the key to unlocking the rest?

Congested said...

weird. hmz.... can you screen it so I can post it?

Also I think since there are many lines to convert into plain text (so we can try and decode it) we should divide it up... I've got several of the first rows done already (10) - but that's only of my version of the email.

Anyone want to help? email me @ im.congested@gmail.com

Unknown said...

I'm seeing as the grey numbers:

-1 1. 1 7 8 4

Anyone else seeing something different?

Joey said...

thats what i saw

Dr. Candle said...

Could it be map co-ords. or a radio freq.?

Congested said...

Hmm if those #'s were letters of the alphabet all I can muster up is:

AA.AGHD
K.AGHD
AA.QHD
K.QHD

Any other guesses in terms of making sense of those #'s?

plosfas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
plosfas said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
XaRen said...

Maybe it's also interesting, that some of the lines are longer than others. if you read the last numbers of these lines, you'll see

3125404

Don't know if this means anything at all.

Congested said...

DP (sorry)

...And only the first one turned up an anagram on wordsmith.org:

Aha Gad
A Ad Hag
A Gad Ah
A Gad Ha

LouieLou said...

Hey guys, could it be coordinates?
i checked -11.1.784 on google maps and found this.......

[IMG]http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w123/loudogz74/africa.jpg[/IMG]

Bolivar Baez said...

The only gray numbers I see are -11.17

Valiant said...

mailing this to dark right now so maybe he can post it for everyone... mind you i have'nt double checked it. the numbers surrounded by *'s are light grey in the e0-mail

Valiant said...

76-*1*5661653967349753495349573009808
4957349573495349534795734934798799
5893475389475349753495783457987722
8345734*1.*985739857349857398573980123
5798573948578934573942340284094546
2342342422342344234324234233245745
56*1*5685979958574663434553534534344
5654564564564564564566464646645899
4564565464646656464564564568129382
4500242094803948239048230482..2*7*233
2340723407820209420945897097650721
0438204820348023480234980298402389
2038482038340238097698745697959677
9384798327423975924560943695487988
2384723940927592759237497982344567
2394794560465967526794230472472439
23948749724920142397927592569725611
3924723948792472965379560640*8*111302
9807079787897987123123123472658345
3457678665865239495603256034256525
29374627654286757385682375628346234
38274628369858695687569262394624240
23498623463284632842555054036305054
1212034862130*4*32945791699533512508
1208461238462992344921943269423906
1236130293209471230913525915972343

Joey said...

it's strange, there are two periods next to each other on one line. not sure if it has any significance.

Cody said...

Ok I finally was able to get into the site and my email is also a little different. the numbers are the same but i have no + sign here are the grey number that i have

-1 1 7 8 4

Cody said...

miss a number

-1 1 1 7 8 4

I cant tell if the decmial point is grey or not could be

-11.1784

Jen said...

if this is a coordinate, it's several hundred miles off the coast of africa, near angola.

Unknown said...

hey guys, there's a new sent e-mail on sam's laptop. the one we already knew about... he's talking back to oceanic.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure it's a date. Nov 17 (19)84

MikeNY said...

It might be a latitude.

11.1784 South puts you just at, or a little bit south of, the southern-most portion of the Sunda Trench (according to Google Earth's main layer anyway).

Nice work on pulling out the numbers everyone!

Anonymous said...

I find it ironic but coincedently enough - The very first Concord jet left the US (Seattle) on Nov 17 1984 for it's first "Flight to Nowhere"... I know it's a stretch but still even it is just a coincidence it's a rather entertaining one.

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=4261

Hoku said...

I zoomed in and I am positive mine shows -11.1784

Dr. Candle said...

Good thinking! Anyone know anything about librarys and the Dewey(?) decimal system? It kinda reminds me of that.

Dudu Maroja said...

Looks like a latitude or something..

Unknown said...

I was thinking it's a date too.

Unknown said...

if it's lattitude. that's interesting too. but without a longitude we only have half the info

Valiant said...

dewey decimal is traditionally triple digit prefix, so it would have to be 011.1784... so who knows...

Cody said...

why would the screen caps in the original post be different than the emails that we are getting?

Unknown said...

hmm according to my GoogleEarth
-11 17 84 is about 1760 miles West of the Sundra Trench

Pat Erley said...

342423424243242442423688608768686
76-1561653957349753495349573009808
4957349573495349534798734934798799
5893475389475349753495783457987722
83457341.985739857349857398573980123
5798573948578934573942340284094546
2342342422342344234324234233245745
5615685979958574663434553534534344
5654564564564564564566464646645899
4564565464646656464564564568129382
4500242094803948239048230482..27233
2340723407820209420945897097650721
0438204820348023480234980298402389
2038482038340238097698745697959677
9384798327423975924560943695487988
2384723940927592759237497982344567
2394794560465967526794230472472439
23948749724920142397927592569725611

Pat Erley said...

I knew doing data entry 12 hours a day for 2 years would come in handy one day.

Looks like musical notes.... Anyone play a mean touchtone?

Dr. Candle said...

Yeah! Like the code they used in the Looking Glass!

XaRen said...

looks like we're all getting different mails. So we should find out what similarities we have.

Hoku said...

I went to Google Earth and if you use those numbers (-11.1784) as the first coordinate for latitude it runs right thru the sunda trench! I bet in a future email we will get a new set of numbers giving us the longitude coordinates so we can pinpoint either the island or something else....

Pat Erley said...

39247239487924729653795606408111302
9807079787897987123123123472658345
34576786658652394956032560342560525
29374627654286757385682375628346234
38274628369858695687569262394624240
23498623463284632842555054036305054
1212034862130432945761699533512508
1208461238462992344921943269423906
1236130293209471230913525915972343

And the follow up to the copy/paste mistake, haha

Bolivar Baez said...

the numbers are random, the only constant is -11.1784

plosfas said...

As has been previously stated, by email is different than others. However, my grey numbers are exactly the same. Therefore, I think the rest of the numbers are just randomly generated, and meaningless.

Valiant said...

i may have missed the first row when i typed mine... or some of the rows are in a random order?

Anonymous said...

I thought they were coordinates when I first saw them too, but the date idea has me second guessing myself...

LOST MIANO said...

In the cryptic email Sam receives thats full of coded numbers, 6 numbers in it are grey instead of black like the rest. They are 111784
perhaps the maxwell group site password?.....

LOST

Unknown said...

my first impression of the numbers was a radio feq. (possibly for the sat phone?) but i also like pat's idea of a song (long-shot but intriguing)
btw - I also got 11.1784

Pat Erley said...

@Ryan, Maybe you missed it, maybe not... I've been having moderate issues with this whole thing under linux. I can say that I keyed in a lot of rows twice to make sure I got them right (if I stumbled), but having gotten them all, and accurate would require a diff...

--- mine 2008-01-08 01:18:17.000000000 -0500
+++ ryan 2008-01-08 01:18:59.000000000 -0500
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
-342423424243242442423688608768686
-76-1561653957349753495349573009808
-4957349573495349534798734934798799
+76-15661653967349753495349573009808
+4957349573495349534795734934798799
5893475389475349753495783457987722
83457341.985739857349857398573980123
5798573948578934573942340284094546
@@ -18,10 +17,10 @@
23948749724920142397927592569725611
39247239487924729653795606408111302
9807079787897987123123123472658345
-34576786658652394956032560342560525
+3457678665865239495603256034256525
29374627654286757385682375628346234
38274628369858695687569262394624240
23498623463284632842555054036305054
-1212034862130432945761699533512508
+1212034862130*4*32945791699533512508
1208461238462992344921943269423906
1236130293209471230913525915972343

melissadab said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
melissadab said...

If we're thinking it's a date ending in '82, instead of 1982, what about 1882?

We know the Black Rock plays into this... and according to Lostpedia (and clues from the Lost Experience,) the elder Hanso's company was sold in 1882 to East Ocean Trade Group

(source: http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Black_rock )

Sawyers_Stash said...

I to think its a date..

MikeNY said...

Anyone know of a date for the alleged Montauk hyperspace thing?

I know it was in 1984...

Joey said...

when i type in those coordinates it comes out to somewhere off the east coast of africa

Anonymous said...

a date sounds like a good guess, but the fact that these coordinates do run through the Trench seems like they might be coordinates


I guess we'll just have to wait two more days...

*sigh

Anonymous said...

ok, i don't think it can be a date, because then what would be the point of the -? it's like a negative sign, it's gotta be coordinates or someting like that, doncha think? I also got west africa when i looked it up. I tried to zoom all the way in to see if i could catch a glimpse of the losties beach camp, but i got nothin ;-)

Joey said...

yeah, WEST africa, my B.

Hoku said...

Joseph T- they are only one half of the coordinates, the -11. refers to 11 degrees south of the equator...just go to google earth and put your cursor on the sunda trench just south of indonesia. You can look on the bootom left corner and it will give the two different coordinates, first latitude (our number) and then longititude.

papaspudly said...

If it is a date, the numbers 11.1784 could refer to November of 1784. A date in this era might correspond to the Black Rock reference in the email.

Hoku said...

In the future I assume they will give us the longitude (probably something like 107.1233 or something like that)

Joey said...

3125404, any significance?

Pat Erley said...

As far as the whole picture goes, it's 27 rows, ranging from 33 to 36 characters.

Joey said...

ah, hoku, i went to search for the coordinate...

Unknown said...

have you seen the other email in the sent items with the auto reply?? Heaps of symbols and stuff in it???

Unknown said...

Here is the official lineup of grey numbers: -11.1784

or
-1 1. 1 7 8 4

The dash and decimal point ARE grey

ᴋᴛ said...

I definitely think that the numbers are coordinates. I looked at the first '-' again, and it is grey like the other numbers. I went to google maps and figured the '-' meant south so I found it in relation to the Sunda Trench, and drew a line for all to see to help those that want to see it but either can't find it or don't have google earth. The line is at 11°11'17.84ish. I put ish because I got it as close to that as I could, I think it is at 17.65 or something technically. It does run across the extreme southern point of the trench. Here is the img:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ForgetIt55/Lost/photo#5152992834515561762

tvwatcherinvt said...

pretty sure it is a latitude 11.1784 - checked it on Platialthe people'satlas http://www.platial.com and it does hit the sunda trench!

Unknown said...

Hello?? DO you guys know what I mean?? Or is that an old find??

Rants Go Marching said...

I gotta say that the number structure matches the flightplan coordinates on Sam's wall in the first chapter...always two numbers followed by a decimal followed by four numbers. I am going with the theory of the latitude off the coast of Africa.

Unknown said...

Am I getting ignored??? HELLO!!!???!?!?!?!?!?!?!
ALL YOU NEED TO SAY IS YES IT'S OLD NEWS... HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?????? Somebody........ anybody??

ᴋᴛ said...

Craig...
That email is old, and it is in the inbox, not sent folder. I haven't been able to find any connection between the two emails.

Anonymous said...

I figured that it might be coordinates but seeing as how I didn't have a partner for it I needed a frame of reference, the only landmark I could think of was the Sunda Trench, the only reference from the was Christmas Island(the only thing I could remember nearby) so I checked it out on Google Earth and it appears that Christmas Island lies only slightly north of latitude 11.1784, Im wondering what the longitude will point to...the island, the freighter, something we haven't thought of...just a thought anyway

Unknown said...

Egg on MY face.... Whoops!! It IS in the INBOX... sorry!!
BUT....

THANK YOU VERY, VERY, VERY MUCH ...kme..

I appreciate your response!! Whew... I can rest easy now!!

Again... Thanks.

papaspudly said...

Creepy stuff...

I went to www.platial.com and as the page loaded, it has a search bar in the top right. The Search bar reads:

Search for [______] NEAR PORTLAND, ORE. (emphasis mine)

Hoku said...

I just made up a longitude of 107.111 and entered it with the number we found in the email as latitude. Go to this link and you will see it puts you smack dab in the sunda trench area! Wanna bet they give us a number like 107.111 soon? Check the link below:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=-11.1784,107.1111&mid=1199775426 Go to the link it will show you on the map!

Anonymous said...

I'm not too familiar with Google Earth, so forgive me if anyone can do this, but when I looked up the Sunda Trench it was labeled "Lost - Find 815." Is this from a fan or automatic because the two are googled together or what? I'm getting spooked. :)

Unknown said...

craig, the other mail is old stuff... as for the numbers e-mail, you guys can print screen and zoom it in a paint program, and check that the minus is really grey... so, -11.1784... it can only be the coordinate...

Unknown said...

yup - I'm firmly in the latitude boat, as well.
Just waiting on the longitude...

Hoku said...

Thank you Monk Satyr! Finally someone believes!!!! Sigh....

meep said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

;) hoku
The number seems to specifically point to the line of latitude that corresponds with the sundra trench. little too close for coincidence, in my book

Hoku said...

Yes Monk!!!!! The reason the others are getting africa is that they are not entering a longitude so it is defaulting to 0 longitude! We have not been given a longitude coordinate yet in the game....

Congested said...

My big question at this point is what was the email I saw early on when the site was having problems (see post for pictures)??? and why did it change?? and is that significant or was it just a mistake?

OMG Questions *congested asplodes*

I will say this: This email definitely takes me back to TLE. I think this is much more thought provoking and challenging and I welcome more of this type of clue-hunting down the line. :)

Unknown said...

ok, it has to be a lattitude.

I wonder the reason for it though. We know he's going to the Sundra Trench. Could it be the exact location of the downed flight 815 that Naomi was talking about?

Congested said...

Good question. And if it is who the hell knows this and why are they sending it to Sam? =O

Anonymous said...

Could it maybe be the password or username to the Maxwell Group Homepage????

Unknown said...

I was thinking on that myself congested. my take on it (for now ;) ) is that we have a kindred spirit that works at maxwell (what maxwell's connection to all this is beyond me atm). A whistle-blower if you will. And that both coded emails are from the same party (there are things to discredit this though, such as the new mail being from 'Sender' and not 'unknown', but the 'unknown' letter was an 'auto-response' so maybe my theory holds up???)

Matt said...

Where does latitude 108 put you? The island is where the sum of The Numbers is, perhaps?

Hoku said...

We know the "NOT PENNY'S BOAT" was in the area already looking for something...could it be that the Christiane I IS "NOT PENNY'S BOAT?" Maybe TPTB are showing us the point of view from the boat as it approaches Lost island and as the ARG wraps up on season 4 premiere day, we see the boat arrive on the island. AHHHH my brain fried and it is bed time here on Oahu....hope the Find815web site behaves tomorrow! Aloha

Matt said...

Someone should check the voice of the ship captain (Occam, it sounded like) with the voice on Naomi's phone? That person would need to be, at least, on crew of the Christiane I.

Hoku said...

Matthew- latitude -11.1784 and longitude 108. is roughly 200 miles due east of Christmas Island, still sunda trench! Could be....

Smullie said...

Just read trough all the replies.
I think that both the date as well as the longitude theories are very plausible.

As far as the longitude goes; some mentioned Christmas Island. (wasn't that also visible on some of Sam's maps in one of the early video's?).
Anyway, didn't the producers say that Christmas would ne addressed in season 4?

Concerning the date, there are also multiple theories.

november (11) 1784? Could have connection to Black Rock / other slaving ships. Possibly Richard Alpert & co?

november 17 ??84 ??
well Orwell's 1984 did have the ministry of truth (posted a while ago).
Also, if it's 1984, wouldn't this be in the Dharma era?

At last (stay awake dudarino's!), considering the Orchid video:

They said something about negative 20 (minutes?)
What if the - has to do with time travel / time related?

Sorry if you fell asleep reading this, but hopefully it's something...

RFisher33 said...

The 8 and the 4 are no longer grey. They only grey numbers are -11.71

This email keeps changing!!

Anonymous said...

I don't think we were 'supposed' to find this clue yet. If that makes sense. The site keeps track of all of the clues you find, etc, and the fact that it's not recognising we found it (it's not clickable or otherwise proven - and is still listed as unreleased on the progress chart - as well as the email itself was listed as unreleased even though you can look at it)...

To me it looks like they are trying to get their updates ready and are having issues hiding these updates until they are ready. Might explain why we only have half of the coordinates, too.

Anonymous said...

rfisher33 mine still has -11.1784 in the grey. (Although I have to admit that the negitive and period does appear to keep turning black then back to grey on me.

Creed said...

I just skimmed all the comments, so I may have missed something... but has anyone tried working backwards? Taking the -11 number as Latitude puts it near the Sunida Trench - if you take approximate Longitude values from the general area, does it correspond to anything we've seen already? Perhaps hidden in the gibberish of the first bounced e-mail (unlikely, but anything is possible...), or just something to come later...

After all, we're BARELY into Chapter 2, and there's still much material to be released for this chapter...

notlost said...

christiane1 cant be the boat (not pennys boat)...the s4 trailer has helicopter arriving on the island from the boat..did anyone see a helicopter on the christiane1?

Anonymous said...

The number is going to be a frequency on the sat-phone....if you bring up the sat phone and move your cursor over the buttons...you will see that the up and down keys are active...but have no function at the moment. I think the phone will begin to function soon and we will have to use the up and down keys to enter those digits or to move to that frequency

PJamma said...

I put in the grey numbers if you read each row left to right, along with the numbers if you read them top to bottom and came up with -11.1784, 111.487 which is right in the Sundra Trench. Thoughts?

PJamma said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

1st to answer some earlier posts...
@Smullie yes Christmas Island is in the vid (I initionaly thought that CI was an important island :shrugs: .
Aslo, don't believe that the #'s are a date (jus' my theory, but don't think so)

InRe: to the sunda trench and the 'coded' numbers - I am nearly absolute in the though that it is a latitude coordinate.

Paula said...

for those of you wondering, the Christiane I seems to be too small for it to be Naomi's freighter!!!

And Cp Ockham is not the guy that talked to Jack on Naomi's phone either!

But since Talbot is on Christiane I (and my guts tell me he's a "boatie") maybe the freighter and the Christiane I will meet in the near future... just my guess....

Unknown said...

paula - LOVE the term 'boatie', it should be adopted for the duration, imho.

Not to bait you, but can you provide us with a sound sample that you think 'proves' your assertion that Ockham is *not* the guy in the sat-phone with Naomi? btw- i agree :)

s3phy said...

Considering 111784 could be a date... It could be 11/17/284, date when "Diocletian was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers." according to Wikipedia... A possible link with the 4-toed statue ?

Also, could there be a meaning in the other numbers of the mail ? They may not be here just to "hide" -11.1784... (I mean, they could have hid this elsewere, but they chose to hide this in a block of numbers)...

Maybe I'm searching way too far :o)

L. Nikulicz said...

i vote latitude theory~!

Unknown said...

I think Cristiane I is going to find the fake 815 plane in the coordinates we (half)got, full of dead people, just like Naomi said. It would be a nice ending for the ARG...

Jess said...

Doesn't anyone find this interesting regarding the timeline of this ARG? It starts on Dec 31, 2004. Season 3 ended on Dec 23, 2004. I think the writers are skillfully avoiding the Dec 26th Tsunami that happened Northwest of the Sundra Trench. Does anyone think that Season 4 will pickup where the the ARG leaves off?

melissadab said...

That's my question: Time.

Is Sam going to the Christiane in 2004, or, in that video we saw of him offering to sleep on a hammock -- is that video in 2008???

In Sam's video diary, he mentions the plane disappeared on Sept. 22. He doesn't give a date, leading us to believe it's still somewhere close to 9/22/04.

However, the press release on Oceanic's home page (the page Sam hacked) is dated December 2007.

Does anyone have thoughts on the time period this is taking place?

Unknown said...

342423424243242442423688608768686
76-1561653957349753495349573009808
4957349573495349534795734934798799
5893475389475349753495783457987722
83457341.985739857349857398573980123
5798573948578934573942340284094546
2342342422342344234324234233245745
5615685979958574663434553534534344
5654564564564564564566464646645899
4564565464646656464564564568129382
4500242094803948239048230482..27233
2340723407820209420945897097650721
0438204820348023480234980298402389
2038482038340238097698745697959677
9384798327423975924560943695487988
2384723940927592759237497982344567
2394794560465967526794230472472439
23948749724920142397927592569725611
39247239487924729653795606408111302
9807079787897987123123123472658345
34576786658652394956032560342560525
29374627654286757385682375628346234
38274628369858695687569262394624240
23498623463284632842555054036305054
1212034862130432945761699533512508
1208461238462992344921943269423906
1236130293209471230913525915972343

vee said...

I think Pamela made an interesting observation. Perhaps the 'grey' numbers in the mail represent both latitude & longitude coordinates.
Key the decimal coords Pamela mentions (-11.1784 & 111.487) into the google map site below and you land smack-dab in the Sunda Trench.
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocationv3.php

BucksterMcGee said...

what have we found out about the meaning of the numbers that are sticking out on the right?

Anonymous said...

I suspect the-maxwell-group.com Username and Password won't come into play until Chapter 5. I tried different combos and it says the site will be back up on Feb. 1, 2008. Since this ARG ends before then...

I like the latitude thing better.

If it were a date, I had a hunch and referred to my old notes on Radzinsky's Invisible Map. If the number is a date, 11.17.84, then it would have taken place between two dates written on the map:
10.28.84 ('Suspected Shutdown Date') and AH/MDG Incident of 1985.

K said...

I believe both codes will be used for a latitude and longitude.

-11.1784
3125404

The latitude is straight forward here
LAT: -11.1784

The longitude is essentially calculated based on distance away from the prime meridian in terms of degrees. I believe the second set of numbers is equal to 312.5404 degrees. But in order to have a proper longitudinal point, we must subtract 180 degrees from 312.5404.

Longitude = 312.5404 - 180 = 132.5404

If we look at this on Google Maps it puts us right in the middle of the South Pacific

-11.1784, 132.5404

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=-11.1784,+-132.5404&ie=UTF8&ll=-11.178402,-132.539062&spn=90.699818,124.628906&z=3&iwloc=addr&om=1

andralbo said...

I'm not sure this is significant in any way, but I noticed that each of the sets of numbers posted here, my own included, has the last 3 lines starting with the same two numbers. I tried som deciphering of my own, thinking that this was a homophonic substitution cipher. Just finished a frequency analysis of the numbers in my version, I doubt it'll lead anywhere though, there are too many numbers for it to be a 1:1 substitution and too few for it to be a % substitution.