Thunderbird 2

Hello everyone!

A couple of days ago I finally found the time to get a monkey off my back that had kept nagging me for ages - "is there anything in there?"

Let me start a little earlier:
The Mentalist is the one show I can watch over and over and over again and it never gets boring. It's changed my perception about what you can do in visual storytelling. It does some old tricks and really takes them to a new level. It shows what can be done if you're coming from the angle that themes *may* be "sixth grade stuff", but painting's preschool and look what Rembrandt's done with it. And the best thing: if you want, you can just watch it and enjoy it and it's good entertainment. And if you're from my homeplanet Freaktopia, you can get your teeth into it and get deeper, and deeper, and I've been doing this for some... about 5 years now I think and the bottom's nowhere near in sight!

I've got a friendly neighbourhood sceptic, who frankly thinks I'm crazy (and in my opinion, if I don't hear that from someone at least once a day, I've done something wrong), and if I start to talk about Coins and Dogs and how Hansel's fake finger bone, take you on a journey along the Mississippi following White Pebbles, tell you some fairy tales, contemplate the Greenback... you'd probably very quickly agree with my friend about my state of mind long before I could get to the sign of the four or any mirrors.
I'll skip that part; let me just say I'm currently remodelling the house and once I'm done there'll be plenty room on the attic so I can try and work out in 3D what I can't seem to get working on a 2-dimensional sheet of paper. The big picture blows your mind, I've had enough headaches to prove that.

Now back to the zoo - about that monkey on my back... it's a bit like a good old conspiracy theory or a myth, but have you ever found yourself thinking about something that could be hidden inside the show, like some code, some riddle, some secret and adventure?

*deep breath* Found something. No dramatic music for effect, please. ;-)
Like everything else I've ever discovered on this show it keeps getting bigger and more enjoyable with every episode, so, what do I do with my discovery?
On the one hand, I've had so much fun and excitement finally solving the (first) puzzle and I explicitly do not want to spoil it for anyone else. I'm new here, I'm not exactly a forum-dwelling creature and I haven't figured out yet how to mark spoilers here (help welcome! ), so I'll go about this a little old-fashionedly and just warn you.
It could be something that's already well-known, like I said: not the forum-dwelling type, but with an amateur research on your usual search engine nothing jumped at me. So, I may make a laughing-stock of myself by putting all this drama around it - but, on the other hand, you really have to be a bit Mulderesque and want to believe there's something there and everyone I've ever talked about this with sort of didn't believe in the Easter Bunny anymore. Somehow, this world has grown disillusioned, and snarky, and hateful-ironic, and derisive and what not, it doesn't resemble the colourful, easygoing and adventurous and all-in-all great place where you looked at the future with a bit of awe and excitement I remember from my younger days anymore. That may only be some personal impression, or the result of years of adult life and work, or trying to do what should be your job while the system in use tries to make you do something that doesn't bear the slightest resemblance.. ah, rant. Stop.

This is growing too long too fast. I'll try again to shorten it down - please forgive me for babbling before coming to the heart of the matter. No ill intent - I just like to talk.
If this is already well-known, look at me as you would at a child (as you know well, growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional) , smile and please try to forgive me.

However what I think is that there's many people who just don't dare to believe or who can't thanks to the society we've created for ourselves to live in believe anymore there's really a riddle hidden in something as ordinary as "your show" - even if your show is extraordinary. Ever mentioned the term "efficiency" to a nurse? (sorry, straying again). It wouldn't be efficient to put so much effort into something if you just want to make a lot of money fast - and everyone does in this world of ours, right?

Wrong. Not those guys.

The one place that I was sure I'd find something if I ever had some time to look into you can look at for yourself in episode 1.4 (Ladies in Red) - that painting with the sail boats that have numbers on it that open the door to the safe room Jason Sands has locked himself in and died (I really took the back door on that one).

Remember what Montague said in 3.12? The picture is in the numbers? Remember all those "if you could see the big picture"-remarks that made yourself smile at yourself because you wouldn't let yourself be fooled by this?

If you wanted to transmit/communicate something, say a small message, to someone who you can't have a direct conversation with, how would you go about it? Learn from the best, you don't have to reinvent the wheel on a daily basis.

---------------------------------------------------- SPOILER WARNING ----------------------------
--------------------------------if you want to figure it out on your own, and I highly recommend you do, leave this post right now ---------------------------------

----------- I mean it, really---------------------

------------and if there's a better way to mark spoilers, please tell me---------------

------------Highlight to continue---------------

-------------"more light", hah!------------------

So, who else has had to figure out a similar challenge?
Think of NASA and the Voyager-message.

----------------------------------------Go back to the painting and figure it out for yourself. Don't be just a consumer, use your own head, please. We all should do that a lot more.--------------

Yes, of course you use binary code. On/off, red/blue, black/white... it's the easiest thing.
Ockham's Razor.

Now you'll have a bunch of "0"s and "1"s.

How do you arrange them in a way they make sense?

In my youth, that is, before the internet was invented - also known as Stone Age, if you wanted to be part of a fan-community you had so-called "fanzines". I most fondly remember getting lyrics to filk songs and those fantastic pictures people "painted" on their typewriters using only X and O.

In order to do so, you need to know how many rows and columns.

How many?

We all know the universal answer is 42.

4x2 equals 8, most of the time.

8 bits also happen to be a byte.

Do the simpliest thing.

One byte per number per line.

Time for squared paper and a crayon...

The result still looks somewhat... gibberish, right?

Yes, there's a final trick, and this is your chance to figure it out on your own....

-------------------------------- THEMES -----------------------------
-----------------------------------ARE--------------------------------
----------------------------------NOT--------------------------------
----------------------------------JUST-------------------------------
----------------------------------FOR-------------------------------
----------------------------------SIXTH-----------------------------
----------------------------------GRADERS-------------------------

As you can tell, I'm lousy at arranging any symbol into beautiful patterns.

If I did it, so can you.

Probably even better.

In all likelihood, better.


Okay, look at the sails again.

What do you see?

The numbers on the other side of the sails - as mirror images.

Now, mirror, where have I seen or heard that before???

Anyway.

Yes, imagine a line at the end of each byte and mirror the d*** thing.

When I saw the result, my first thought was "Hmmm."

Then: "Wow!" (fittingly, it barks.) Actually, I thought "Wau!" (but I'm no native speaker, you see)

Then I thought: you just want to believe it's there, so you see something.

I brought in my handy sceptic and asked him - nothing better to keep you grounded than a sceptic.

He went for something like "looks like (something-mana-wizard-something) from a (something) computer game" (Sometimes I don't think he's exactly sane either, but as far as my Mentalist-Theories go, he's definitely an approved and certified sceptic).

But at least you see *something* there?

We could agree on that. Eventually even on what it is. I see a dog (a very cute Foxterrier, by the way). He admits it *could also be* a dog.
I call that success.

Now, I'm not Brains, I'm T-Bird 2. The last time I was Robin Hood, I was about seven. Nowadays, I'm more like Hora--- Alan-A-Dale (as you can tell with this post growing longer and longer).

But I've had enough contact with science to know that once you've fomulated a thesis, you need more proof.

On to the next episode...

If you've followed me that far, being spoiled probably either isn't your concern or you've done the first puzzle by yourself (Cheers!) and came back (thanks!).

There's something Adore, adore (the Yoav-song, and mind the first line you can clearly hear and understand the lyrics of in the episode), the dih-dah-dih-dah of "Für Elise" and some other bits have in common.

"repeat" - which also fits the bigger context very, very well and will return in the finale.

Now all you need is love, er, numbers.

Take the clue and have fun. ;-) It makes so much sense if you do understand the structure, and it's revealing, if not somewhat creepy, to see it in context with the scene in the forest at night...

It's not the easiest of things to make out of those 8-bit-thingees, though - Yoav and my sceptic definitely helped.

Since it is still a bit debatable whether there's really something or I'm just imagining, let's go on...

1.6
Again, you will find many clues as to how to go about it.

This time, following them, I got one picture. Part of which was a lot easier to identify due to some colourful image. Doh.

Playing around with my picks and re-arranging the order I got more pictures that somehow also made sense.

If I didn't already know and fully accept I'm crazy, this one would have brought me close. Too late ;-)

One thing I can say about the puzzles, besides I now BELIEVE, at first they look like tough nuts to crack, then when you figure them out they're (as far as I can look ahead, which isn't that much further ;-)) not *that* difficult to solve in hindsight - probably kids would get them faster than us fossiles. And they're always very, very fair.

1.7
We have a chocolate thingee that's actually called "Surprise Egg" here in Germany. I don't know how far around the world the makers have marketed it. The advertising line went "Suspense. Fun. Play." - I think "you've got your work cut out for you" is not entirely unfitting, unlike, as my favourite sceptic, you insist on being able to do it all in your head. I prefer tinkering and recycling remodelling garbage such as cardboard. Figuring out the concept was probably a bit easier for me because I'm really bad with numbers. True! I call myself a psychosomatic discalculus. Bad thing? Somewhat, but it also reminded me of the number lock I had on my bycycle when I was a kid and a skill I had to develop due to me not being able to remember four numbers. I like letters. I hate numbers.

This one will probably keep me busy for a good while. I'm close to getting what I think might only be the first one - I see patterns in the letters that make me think there could be more than just one, I just have to work my way around the numbers.

This thing may make me get rid of this discalculus bit - like I said, it's a psychosomatic thing. I can explain it, doesn't mean I can resolve it. This here... yeah, that's The Mentalist in a nutshell for you.

I've had a look ahead at the next one and am looking forward to getting into it. 1.8 is pretty much in accordance with the fact that if I'd have to take a wild guess as to whom I'd make prime suspect... Rambling. Silly me.

I'll finish here - as you can see, it's still early days for me, too. But I think fun is one of the things that grows as you share it, so I thought I'd look around to see if there's someone like-minded out there.

With all the remodelling and moving it may not have been the best of times to stumble across this, but hey, life is what happens... you know. ;-)

I hope I could convince you to at least give it a try, too. If nothing else, it's a very good excuse for another rewatch

Have fun, folks!


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Once I was crazy and my ace in the hole
was that I knew that I was crazy...

Paul Simon, Ace in the Hole

FoxPhile

Wow is right. I'm not sure I followed more than 10% of this, but it sounds like a fascinating Easter Egg hunt. And being an X-Files and Fringe fan, I'm all for that. I may have to read this another 2 or 3 times before I get it, though

To hide spoilers, you can put [ sp ] at the beginning and [ /sp ] at the end - but leave out the spaces inside the brackets []. That will make them appear like this:



Your spoilers can be as long as you need - several sentences or many paragraphs. The window will expand when a reader clicks on Show

KeithUrbanfan

Um what??????

FoxPhile

Yes, that was my reaction.

I know on The X-Files there was a running thing where the numbers 10-13 and 11-22 would come up often. 10-13 was the birthday of the creator, Chris Carter. I think 11-22 was his wife's birthday, but I'm not sure I remember that right. That led to an online game where people would throw out a number and other TXF fans would try to find where the number appeared in the show.

This sounds a lot more complex.

KeithUrbanfan

I suck at math

Thunderbird 2

Thank you! That should make it a lot easier in the future

Yes, this is some really fascinating thingee, and I'm surprised I can't find anything about it online... I did some searching when I was looking at the Bertram's thumbdrive code thing for the umptieth time and remember someone wrote he'd let his computer program take a shot at it as well as some other stuff, and only once came up with something that may or may not have been something, IIRC - I think the post was on Reddit, but can't find it again.

(By the way, I'm not big on social media and I haven't got one of those phones that do the thinking for you, otherwise I'd start something on Twitter or Facebook or whatnot and start sharing it - in my experience every Mentalist fan knows others too and even if it doesn't exactly "trend" I believe it's called maybe we could get a couple more posts in here, you know? ;-) )

It makes sense if you see what they're doing in the next couple of episodes - no computer can crack this, it takes human intellect to figure out which numbers to put where first and then the computer may or may not help you in drawing the picture(s).

As far as I can tell there's a logical progression (and it seems to be a steep learning curve ;-))



This is The Mentalist for you - it keeps surprising me with new angles to look at it.

Btw, "FoxPhile" - rings some vague-ish bell. Have you ever been around an X-Files-Forum (long time ago) where some of us were hanging out in a thread called "The Medusa Lounge", by any chance?

Take care everyone, and have fun.

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I have learned to see and hear
Everybody loud and clear
But the truth comes out in riddles that are
Safe enough to share
[...]
If I leave my grin behind remind me
That we're all mad here, and it's okay.

SJ Tucker, "The Cheshire Kitten"

FoxPhile

I was a frequent visitor to a number of X-Files sites back in the day, and I was the admin for a small forum called Something X-tra for a while. I don't remember The Medusa Lounge, though.

KeithUrbanfan

This is still confusing

FoxPhile

I'm going to have to watch those episodes to see if I can figure it out.

KeithUrbanfan

Me too

Thunderbird 2

I wish you both a lot of fun! ;-)
(Let's face it, rewatching an episode of the Mentalist really is a haaaaaaaaarsh punishment *g*)

1.7 is still giving me headaches - as far as I can see there's an easy solution that gives you a nice toy (tbh, I did check the original airdate and was surprised it wasn't April 1st ) [maybe that wasn't the planned outcome and I overdid it a bit]... and then there's codecracking for advanced classes. I've broken it down to the smallest pieces now (I think), and finally I'm getting something that's starting to give me clues about how to write the bits down - I have a basic idea how it's connected, but I'm still not as clear about the read/write info as I would like to be. I think I know what'll be on the picture once I get it, but... wow, this really is far, far advanced [and maybe just getting the toy would have sufficed].
Numbers are my sworn enemy, but my curiosity seems to keep getting the better of me and I keep running against the portcullis.

If I'm ever able to get it finished, I really have to think about doing this YouTube-video stuff...

Again, have fun and be safe!

EDITED to add: @FoxPhile: I was part of The Medusa Lounge on an X-Files-Forum around 2001, but I wasn't that high on the post count list. Other names I remember were Meridyem (spelling?), DJFX60 or 61, Rihannsu, Entilzha, someone I have fond memories of "talking" to but can't remember the nickname, some Charlie (2020?)... those are the names I do remember right now.

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There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief

Bob Dylan, All Along The Watchtower

KeithUrbanfan

Wow you really are figuring it out

Thunderbird 2

Like I said, this is the one show that never ceases to surprise and amaze me. ;-)
I'm just a little sad this picture-thingee has gone unnoticed for so long - those people put a lot of work into it and I wish they could see how much this is appreciated.

I'm learning as I go along and am looking forward to this next joyride.

1.10 made me realize that you can write Letters in binary form, too - have to go back and check if this really is the first time they did this or if I've missed something, and


I spent a day at Spiel Essen (one of those conventions where us Freaktopians hold our secret meetings) and I think the series might soon get two or three new fans

I've always loved solving puzzles and figuring out problems, and this brings back happy childhood memories when I really was into all the "secret Codes and Adventure" stuff - looks like this comes right down my alley.

Currently I'd like to recoin an old phrase and say "if a person gets tired of watching the Mentalist, they must be tired of life" - hats off to the creators!

Stay safe.

---------------------------------------------
I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold
I've been in my mind
It's such a fine line
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold

Neil Young, Heart of Gold

KeithUrbanfan

I kept rolling my eyes when they had women say they were trying to kill cause they spen all their time with this guy I was scared they were trying to tell us something

FoxPhile

It would have been bizarre if Red John turned out to be a woman.