Welcome back everyone - those of you that have watched me a lot know I love talking
about Reddit.
Other than YouTube, its one of my favourite sites.
Theres a lot of cool stuff on there, a lot of interesting communities - theres also a
whole load of rubbish - so its a good reflection of reality I think.
Sometimes, Reddit users put their heads together and solve real world problems.
I did a video talking about those times ages ago, it did really well but for some reason,
I never did a follow up - Im here today to correct that.
My name is Danny Burke and this the Top 10 Insane Mysteries Solved By Reddit.
Starting off at number 10 we have Cicada 3301[a].
Those of you who used to watch my old mystery videos may recognise this name.
Cicada 3301 was an internet mystery that gripped Reddit and the internet at large when it was
posted in January 2012.
It was a set of puzzles - its purpose? - to recruit new codebreakers from the public.
The puzzles were extremely difficult to break - even with an entire subreddit of people
banding together to attempt it.
The puzzles spanned across many different forms of communication media including internet,
telephone, original music, digital images and even an unpublished cryptic book written
in ancient runes.
A handful of Reddit users claim to have actually solved the puzzles, which were repeated every
year for a few years after.
Reportedly, they were then contacted by a secret organization who asked them questions
about their support of information freedom, online privacy and freedom, and rejection
of censorship.
If they liked their answers, they were invited to a private forum where they were instructed
to device and complete a further project.
After that, the storys get blurry.
These days, people are convinced that another Cicada puzzle could drop any minute now …
At number 9 now we have 11B-X-1371[b].
Thats the name of this 2015 viral video that Reddit obsessed over.
Its two minutes, all in black and white, showing a person in a plague doctor costume walking
through an abandoned building.
There was also this strange, buzzing noise playing in the background.
CLIP.
Redditors found messages hidden inside the video and its sound spectrogram, as well as
images of tortured or mutilated people.
People speculated that it may have been made as a threat of bioterrorism against the US
- but many people felt that it was all just for fun.
Their suspicions were confirmed when, months later, a man called Parker Warner Wright admitted
to making the video as an art project.
Mystery solved then!
Doesnt make the video any less creepier … CLIP END?
Coming in at number 8 we have The Squirrel[c].
In 2015, a Reddit user posted this image stating that it had been generated by his friends
computer who was working on AI.
People were amazed - and freaked out - and they wondered how exactly a computer managed
to do this?
All we know is that the computer started with the image of a squirrel lying on a wooden
rail.
OK - thats fine - but how did it end up here?
Look at the weird snail tentacles and the dog faces everywhere.
Theres even a few frog faces in there somewhere and at back, on the right, I think I even
saw a weird looking alien.
Redditors were stumped - but then user Regregex put forward their theory that the computer
started with a normal picture of a squirrel, but then did google searches on tiny parts
of the image and blended in the top result each time.
They also said -I guess that small bright spots tend to match eyes and small dark spots
tend to match animal noses.
As the images are composited the spots start to look even more like animal faces, and this
influences searches in the surrounding area in the next round.
The compositing process here apparently normalises the pixels towards grey, resulting in this
extreme HDR-gone-wrong appearance- … well there you go!
That makes total sense to me, ahem.
Next up at number 7 we have The Old Tape[d].
In 2016, a strange recording began circulating on Reddit.
It was reportedly played on various radio stations in the mid 90s and had surfaced once
again.
Before we go any further, take a listen.
CLIP FROM START AND MIDDLE WITH NAMES.
According to rumours, the clip was from Columbia Universitys WKCR 89.9 radio station - they
say that its signal was hijacked in order to play the creepy clip.
As for those names, well, Reddit deduced that they were obituaries, including that of Robert
Oppenheimer, the man credited with the creation of the atomic bomb.
That doesnt seem to be an accident.
People began speculating that about what the names meant and who hijacked the station - perhaps
the whole thing was an elaborate fake.
In the end, the Unresolved Mysteries subreddit deduced that it was nothing more than the
college DJ just having some fun - perhaps to creep people out for their own amusement.
If thats true, it does remove the question of who did this - but it doesnt make it any
less scary.
Moving on to number 6 we have The Song[e].
Have you ever had a song stuck in your head for a long time and you just cant remember
the name of it?
You try singing it to other people but they don't know what the song is either.
Its frustrating, right?
Well, not as frustrating as this.
In 2002, someone shared a song on a message board and asked people for the name of it.
This is what it sounds like.
CLIP.
It sounds like its from the 80s, but other than that, nobody could find anything about
this song.
It was dubbed -Stay (The Second Time Around)- and was posted to YouTube in 2007 - bringing
the mystery to a whole new community - but still, nobody could figure out what the song
was.
The only new knowledge was that it had been recorded from a German radio station in either
1984 or 1986.
Then, in 2013, a breakthrough came on Reddit.
A Reddit user named Stefan, who worked for a Swedish radio show, recognized the song.
It posted to Reddit that it was by an artist called Johan Lindell.
Stefans radio show got in touch with Johan and interviewed him.
He told them that Stay was actually called Up on The Roof and was from his 1985 album
Ghost Rider.
The next question was, why didnt Johan help with this internet mystery?
Well, he said he never really uses the internet.
I can relate to that.
Ahem.
Moving on to number 5 we have The Button[f].
For April Fools Day 2015 - the Reddit team did something very strange on the site - they
created a big red button for everyone to click.
There was also a timer next to the button - and was pretty much it.
There was a short post that said -The timer will count down from 60 seconds.
If the button is pressed the timer will reset to 60 seconds and continue counting down.
You may only press the button once- … naturally, everyone went insane.
What would happen when the time reached zero?
It was a total mystery.
Unfortunately, everyone was clicking it so much that the timer would barely get to 58
seconds before it was reset.
Users could only push the button though if their account was created before that day
- and they could only push it once.
This meant there was a finite amount of people who could press it.
To make things even more interesting, users would be given a coloured flair depending
on when they pushed the button - purple if they pushed it in the first 8 seconds, blue
in the next 10, then green, yellow, orange and finally red.
This encouraged people to never let the timer hit zero - everybody wanted a flair.
Eventually though, after 2 months and a million users pressing the button - the timer reaches
zero.
They were finally about to get their answer - and it was underwhelming.
A Reddit mod simply thanked everyone for their participation and archived the thread.
Not all mysteries are satisfying when theyre solved.
Next up at number 4 we have The Whistler.[g] In 2016, a Reddit user posted a creepy story
about hearing a strange whistling noise in the swamps and woods near their childhood
home.
It sounded like a bird but each whistle was so different that it was almost human like
- high - then low - then high again.
A few years later, they heard the noise again - a chilld went down their spine.
Even their Mum was terrified.
As the years went on, he thought about it less and less.
At the age of 24, he was with his girlfriend watching some fireworks by a river.
When his girlfriend left to get more beers, a dark figure began paddling down the river.
He stared at the figure for a moment - and then he heard the whistle - the exact same
whistle as before.
He was terrified, and asked the figure who they were, there was no answer - they just
whistled one more time and and paddled out of sight.
He came to Reddit asking for an answer, but nobody could help.
Finally, 2 years later, a user called Nasvan77 posted the answer.
They recognised the whistle as that of a Black Capped Chickadees Fee Bee call.
They said it was a common bird within the US and that the dark figure may just be the
sound of someone imitating the call.
Mystery solved - hopefully.
At the number 3 spot we have the Shooting of Walter Scott[h].
In April 2015, Walter Scott was fatally shot by Michael Slager, a Police officer in North
Charleston.
The incident gained widespread attention due to a bystander filming the whole thing on
their phone.
The footage was shaky, blurry and difficult to watch.
Over on Reddit, a Canadian cinematographer called Daniel Voshart managed to stabalize
the footage using software which made the events a lot clearer.
He said he got involved because the truth is the foundation of everything.
The footage made it a clear that Scott was fleeing from Slager, which directly contradicted
his police report.
In December 2017, Slager was sentenced to 20 years in prison for second degree murder.
Next up at number 2 now we have Sad Satan[i].
A few years ago, a game started being spread online that claimed to be the most terrifying
game on the internet - it was called Sad Satan.
The game was creepy to say the least - it was reportedly from the dark web.
The player is taken down monochromatic corridors while horrifying samples loop in the background.
Strange images pop up on the screen - but then the game took a darker turn.
Convicted murderers and pedophiles appeared - and then images of their victims did too.
There were was even a clip of a beheading.
The violent gore and child porn was embeded into the game itself.
A community on Reddit discovered the full extent of the horrors in the game and decided
to do something about it.
They created the Sad Satan subreddit and patched together a clean version of the game, without
any of the images Ive mentioned.
Moving on to number 1 we have The Giant Purple Cube[j].
In August 2018, Fortnite players were stumped by a huge purple cube that spawned on the
map.
It had been summoned by a lightning storm and had seemingly random movements.
Players tried to attack it but received electrical strikes that damaged their health and even
killed them.
Users on the subreddit fortnite put their heads together to figure out what was going
on.
They mapped out the path of the cubes movements to try and figure out the mystery of where
the cube would go to next.
They deduced that the final location would be loot lake.
This was later confirmed by data miners who discovered a command saying Move To Lake inside
the games code.
Sure enough, the cube eventually dropped into loot lake, turning the whole thing into a
huge bouncy bad.
One of lifes greatest mysteries - solved.
There we go Want more?
Any reddit fans?
Go and check out 1st video, it was a while ago, some of you may have missed it.
Until next time, thanks