This memo, dated January 30, 1985, supposedly comes from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and concerns the demanded resignation of a scientist named Eugene Gough. The memo came in an unmarked UPS package containing several very odd items.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Update 1:14 p.m. PDT: This has been edited to reflect some new information about what's in the package and its source.
Usually when I get a UPS package it's some boring book or prospectus. But the Express Envelope that landed on my desk Wednesday certainly got my attention.
Inside were the following things: a sticker with the words "Scientific Anarchy Now" and "Holomove;" a photocopy of a memorandum purportedly from Los Alamos National Lab dated January 30, 1985, regarding the termination of a scientist named Eugene Gough; and lastly, and most disconcertingly, a cut-open package of Emergen-C vitamin C powder. The tracking number on the package had been manually scratched off.
The package contained this 'Scientific Anarchy Now' sticker and a cut-open package of Emergen-C powder.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Now, if it hadn't been for the powder packet, I would have taken little notice of the package. I would have assumed--and actually, I still do--that the contents were clues for some new alternate-reality game. I am one of the most frequent writers about ARGs, and it was only a few weeks ago that a box arrived on my desk with a series of odd items that ended up being clues for a large-scale new Olympics-themed ARG called The Lost Ring.
But the powder packet, I must admit, is pretty worrisome. This, after all, is the age of anthrax attacks and the Unabomber. True, the anthrax attacks came in envelopes with hand-lettered addressing and not via UPS packages.
True, even though the tracking number had been meticulously gotten rid off, CNET's mail room slapped on its own sticker that did have the tracking number on it. So I was able to determine, by calling UPS, that the package originated from the San Francisco office of the global ad agency McCann-Erickson.
Still, this is pretty weird. A call to the ad agency got me nowhere and some woman in its mail room is supposedly trying to find out where it came from. I don't really expect a call back.
But as my editor put it, even though these probably are just clues for an ARG, it's in pretty bad taste. Does anyone really think sending unmarked packages with cut-open powder packets is a good idea these days?
The tracking number for the package was also scratched out, though a secondary sticker had a tracking number that seemed to originate from the San Francisco office of ad agency McCann-Erickson.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)What if, instead of trying to track down the package, I had freaked out and called security? I think the folks over at McCann-Erickson probably would be getting a visit from some law enforcement officials right about now.
Of course, PR agencies sending clues to odd projects in bad taste would be nothing new. My colleague Charles Cooper said that in 1989, he got a package sent to him that contained a spent bullet and a hostage-note-like letter--compete with cut-out words--that said, "Who's killing all of Computer & Software News' readers?" He later got an apologetic call from a PR person taking responsibility for the package.
Back to my package...the included memo, by the way, purports to involve the employment status of Eugene Gough, a LANL employee who was supposedly up for the position of the leader of the lab's Weapons Physics division. But the writer of the memo seems unhappy with Gough's personality and says that rather than promote him, Gough should be forced to resign.
"This isn't a policy position, nor is it personal," the memo, written to "Pat," reads. "(Gough's) work ethic is outstanding--how many people regularly get in before you!--but the emotional issues...and his reluctance to meet with the counsellor leave me with few options. We've got a role to play here, and he's made his choice. Now, it's time what we do the same. We'll need his resignation by the 1st."
The memo is signed by "Michael."
The back of the Emergen-C package had the logo from the Scientific Anarchy Now sticker pasted over the nutrition facts part of the package.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Lest you think I'm lazy, I Googled most of the phrases (see addendum below) involved with this package that I could think of. And nothing came up. There were some results for "Eugene Gough," but nothing meaningful. Nor was there anything at all for "Scientific Anarchy Now."
Generally, these ARG clues actually lead somewhere when you Google them, so I'm a bit confused by the lack of any search results.
Neither did the two leading ARG Web sites, Unfiction.com and ARGN.com, have anything on this.
So, for now, I'm waiting for my call back from McCann-Erickson and hoping that someone who reads this blog post will know what it's about.
In the meantime, I know that I've probably started the PR campaign for whatever game this is. If so, then I guess the package was successful.
Addendum: A reader of my Twitter post about this rightly points out that the "rabbit hole" for this--which indeed is an ARG of some sort--was the word "Holomove." I had Googled it, but never clicked through to Holomove.com because the Google result didn't look relevant. But now, clicking through, it becomes obvious that it is, in fact, related to this package.
Among the information on the Holomove.som site is a link for information on "Dr. Eugene Gough," who "was the founder of Holomove, Inc....Gough worked as a researcher at the Los Alamos National Lab as well as Ames Laboratory. In 2004, Dr. Gough's interest in holographic representations led to the creation of NexTech, which subsequently became Holomove."
The site says that Gough died in 2007.
So, now that my fear of dying has been alleviated by a little bit of smart sleuthing by an astute reader who pushed a little farther than I did, I'm mixing up my Emergen-C and looking for more clues to this puzzle.
'Find the Lost Ring,' a brand-new alternate-reality game, is a promotional vehicle for McDonald's and the Beijing Olympics. The game, which went live on Monday, is centered on a woman named Ariadne, who claims to have woken up with amnesia in a South African corn maze on February 12.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)
For anyone who follows alternate-reality games (ARGs), it should come as no surprise that the latest entry in the genre, The Lost Ring, is the brainchild of, among others, Jane McGonigal.
Until now, it was only suspected--though with extremely high levels of confidence--that the game, which is centered on helping a fictional amnesiac woman named Ariadne discover her identity, was a promotional vehicle for this summer's Beijing Olympics.
But McGonigal, who is keynoting at the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin on Tuesday, confirmed to me that the game was in fact designed in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee and that McGonigal's partners in the creation of the game were McDonald's and global interactive experience design shop, AKQA.
"This ARG extends McDonald's historic sponsorship of the Olympic Games in a brand-new direction," said McGonigal, who is a research affiliate with the Institute for the Future. "Its goal is to create global collaboration and bring the spirit of the Games to people around the world. It will invite players from across the globe to join forces online and in the real world, as they investigate forgotten mysteries and urban legends of the ancient games."
McGonigal, an alumna of leading ARG design firm 42 Entertainment, has either been lead designer on or helped create a wide variety of multimedia games such as A World without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, Last Call Poker, and I Love Bees.
Since The Lost Ring went live on Monday, its Web site has offered up a number of clues for players to follow, while ARG-related sites like ARGNet and Unfiction have been actively discussing the game. It will play out over many months, likely not finishing at least until the closing ceremonies of the Olympics on August 24, 2008.
'Find the Lost Ring,' a new alternate-reality game that seems to be tied to the Olympics in Beijing, went live Monday morning.
(Credit: findthelostring.com)
As I predicted Sunday night, the Web site for a new alternate-reality game that seems to be tied to the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing went live Monday.
The game, known as Find the Lost Ring, is built around a story line in which a young woman named Ariadne says she woke up on February 12 in a South African corn maze with amnesia and knows nothing about who she is or where she comes from.
The game's conceit will be to have players help Ariadne find her identity through a complex series of online and, most likely, real-world clues and puzzles. Somehow, it will all be tied in to the Olympics. One clue on the game's site says she offers up the "fact" that, after waking up, she spent a week in the hospital being treated for her very rare form of amnesia and that doctors there "say I'm an Olympic-caliber athlete."
To me, it's all very Bourne Identity-ish, except probably without a lot of gun play and CIA involvement.
For the full list of clues that launched the game, see my blog entry from Sunday night, which includes photos and the text of the initial clues.
The clues from a new alternate-reality game that seems tied to the Olympics and which is slated to start Monday.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)For months now, I've been hearing whispers that a big new alternate-reality game was on the way. I never got any details of what it was about, but when a box arrived at my desk on Friday filled with clues, I knew this was it, and it seems that it's linked to this year's summer Olympics.
If you're not familiar with these types of games, known popularly as ARGs, they tend to be mixed-media affairs that task players the world over with solving puzzles, both individually and working with others, online and in the real world, with the goal of reaching some ultimate solution.
Often, these games are put on as a publicity adjunct to some larger product. For example, I Love Bees, perhaps the best-known of this genre of game, was built around the larger story line for the hit Halo video game franchise and was timed to finish just as Halo 2 was set to launch.
Now, I'm not going to pretend I'm all that good at solving puzzles, so when the box arrived Friday, I was a bit at a loss to figure out what the included clues meant.
The box included three postcards with historical Olympics pictures.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Inside the box, there was a reproduction of what appears to be a 1920 Olympics poster with a figure of a discus thrower on the front, and the text, "VIIe Olympiade. Anvers (Belgique). 1920 Aout - Septembre 1920. Subsidee par les pouvoirs publics."
On the reverse, there's also the text, "It's a secret someone has been keeping for a very long time."
There was also a ball of string and three postcards with historical Olympic images on them. The reverse sides of the three cards were endowed with the clues, "March 3, 2008. Find her...," "March 4, 2008?? Find the others...," "March 5, 2008? Find him...," "March 11, 2008?? Find the secret..." and "August 24, 2008. Save the world."
And August 24 is, in fact, the closing ceremony of this summer's Beijing Olympics. As a result, it's a fairly quick, logical jump to conclude that the ultimate goal of this game is to save the world at the closing ceremonies. Or some such.
The box itself, which came FedEx, had the return address of "T.L. Ring, 1920 Olympic Way, San Francisco, CA."
No such address exists.
A clue on the back of the Olympic poster that came in the box reads, 'It's a secret someone has been keeping for a very long time.'
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Others, apparently, got other post cards, all with the same clues on the back.
According to the leading publication on ARGs, ARGNet, this game is called, Find The Lost Ring.
The way these games work, there will be months of developing story line, with players all over the world working together to try to keep up. There will be active Web sites and there could well be mobs of people running around various cities trying to solve different elements of the game.
That the Olympics would be the subject matter for an ARG is rather exciting, it seems to me, because it's almost certain to bring a great deal of attention to the game and the genre.
Each of the three postcards had clues on the reverse, each with a date and a cryptic command. The final clue reads, 'August 24, 2008 Save the world.'
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)For years, ARGs have been existing just below the mainstream surface. To be sure, thousands upon thousands of people have participated in the most popular ARGs, but if you were to stop random people on the street, I'd be willing to bet that most would have never heard of the genre.
No one knows who created this game, but you can be sure that it wasn't the International Olympic Committee. Usually, an agency is hired by a client to put an ARG together. The leading ARG creation agency is a small company known as 42 Entertainment.
If the clues are to be believed, this game will kick off in earnest Monday morning. So be prepared, if this is your thing.
In the meantime, if you have any idea what these clues mean, feel free to drop me a note. I'd love to know.
Update March 2, 2008, 9:49 p.m.: I discovered just after I posted this entry that there should have been a slip of paper tucked into the ball of string in my box. I don't know whether I missed it, or whether it wasn't there. But according to the site, Despoiler.org, the slip of paper reads, "You will soon discover an alternate reality. The adventure begins when you meet Ariadne. www.findthelostring.com."
A visit to that Web address returns an odd error message: "SRVE0255E: A WebGroup/Virtual Host to handle / has not been defined."
I don't know if that's a valid error message, or if it's related to the game. But I would guess that if it is a valid error message, that site will be live and begin to have some information on it as of Monday, which is, after all, March 3.
Unfortunately, a Whois check on that URL returned no useful information.
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