Click here to submit a clue for this page.


Clues people have sent in:

From Craig Kasper:

=AltaVista-ed the addresses on this page.  490 L'Enfant, washington
is the US Dept. of education;  for more on Augustus Owsley Stanley and
1647 Virginia, check out arts.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/other1.html....

Webmaster: Good old owsley :) Maybe the guy is an acid-feind and this is all the work of a fried wasteoid :)
Anyone wanna speculate on the dept. of Ed?

From Chris Ashton:

The Chinese from top to bottom reads "Mao Zhu Xi Wan Sui" (Chairman Mao, ten 
thousand years).  The first character, Mao, was printed in the 1985 issue.

From repubgirl:

An Appogiatura is a "grace note."  The formal definition is a "leaning note or
long grace note extraneous to the melody and the harmony.  The Character [of
the note] is almost always yearning, sorrowful or tender."

The quote is from Act 5, Scene 2 of Hamlet (Hamlet speaking to Horatio).

also, number 11's quote is from Love's Labours Lost, Act 5, Scene 2.

Re: Number 14,
Kitchener was the British commander who led an the army of 25,000 Brits &
Egyptians up the Nile to victory in the Dervish capital of Omdurman in Sudan
(1898).

The quote is probably some reference to Kitchener nearly loosing the entire
army when he mistakenly assumed the battle was over after winning what was only
the first wave of the attack by the dervishes.

Hector MacDonald's brigade of 3000 was all that stood between Kitchner's army
and 20,000 Dervishes approaching from the rear.  MacDonald's brigade
successfully held off the Dervishes until Kitchner could arrive -- saving the
army and resulting in only 50 deaths.

Also...
Here's the quote from Hamlet in context... "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes?"
The latin is from Corinthians II 2:16 - "aliis quidem odor mortis in mortem aliis autem odor vitae in vitam ET AD HAEC QUIS TAM IDONEUS?"
In English - "To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. AND WHO IS SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS?"
"ora pro nobis, ora pro me" means "Pray for us, pray for me" (I think)



Carlos did a bunch of digging:

May 1, 1986:
------------

* Leitmotiv: "Apri la mente a quel ch'io ti paleso/ e fermalvi entro;" is
  from Dante Alighieri's 'Divina Commedia', in Paradiso, Canto V, verses 40
  and 41. Its translation is "Open thy mind to that which I reveal,/ And fix
  it there within;" (Longfellow's edition), and it is part of Beatrice's
  discourse on vows and compensations on the ascent to the Second Heaven
  (where reside spirits who for the love of fame achieved great deeds).

* 1) Neva Bridges: they are in St. Petersburg, Russia, and one of the main
  public demonstrations that led to the Russian Revolution of 1917 took
  place across them.

* 6) "O tardium gaudium meum": latin for "oh my delayed joy", reference
  unknown.

* 9) "The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft" is from Shakespeare's
  'King Lear', Act 1, Scene 1, Lear's words.

* 11) "Opus alienum": latin for "the work of a stranger", reference unknown.

* 12) "Dum in partibus infidelium": latin for "while in the land of the
  infidels", reference unknown.

* 14) "Sub sigillo": latin for "under seal", reference unknown. Often used to
  refer to the facts learned from and preserved by the secret of confession in
  catholicism.

#7 - 10100111111111001 - is a reference to 85-may1.html.
michelle 06.26.01
clue:  Finally found what somebody asked me to look for.  The address on
Virginia street appears in a book by Tom Wolf (Wolfe?) about the 60s and 
it is where Owlsey lived.  Its like he started out there or the first 
stop.  He was an oddball chemist and a jerk but the remark that went with 
him was "yeah but he makes righteous acid."  I heard years later that he 
had sworn off all dope. Who knows but it could be true.  Maybe the address (first time just 
beginning) fits with the bad Spanish.  Mexicans along the border do talk 
that way but you'd hear oftener with gringos trying to speak Spanish.  
Like they are learning or beginning.

Bob 07.12.01
clue:  The New York address, 475 Riverside, is the National Council of
Churches, and many religious organizations have offices there. Whether 
this was so in 1986, I don't know.  

bob 07.24.01
clue:  Forgot to write this earlier, and it's almost certainly trivial, 
but the Aurora was in the Neva River when the Revolution occurred. It's 
sailors supported the revolt, firing on the Winter Palace which housed the 
government and contributing greatly to the speed with which the revolt 
succeeded.

Bob: 08.14.01
clue:  I'm pretty sure the coordinates are misidentified in the lexicon. When I check these, I get Waxahachie, not Corsicana.
Waxahachie is in Ellis County and it was in Ellis County, Texas, that the superconducting supercollider was to have been 
built.

Bob: 08.15.01
clue:  8. The first part means "with great force." The Spanish is weird, as Michelle points out. I live on the border with 
Mexico and just asked a student from Mexico to translate. It's literally, "While you are resting, make bricks." So, a more 
meaningful translation might be something like, "Be productive even as you rest."

near a terminal: 08.29.01
clue:  The quotation "periods of terrible sanity" is from E.A. Poe and I think it is
found in "The Tell-tale Heart."  It may also be a paraphrase or refer to an error which
became a collector's item.  I have a couple of friends who are collectors of rare books
and every collector specializes.  If it is a misquotation then it probably comes from a
rare edition that only Poe freaks would know and wealthy freaks at that.  There seems
to be a lot of that type of thing mixed into these, speciality items that make no sense
unless you are collector of high-end items.  I'm not sure what that tells us but if you
look at all the coin references that apparently make no sense and then think of very
rare collectors' items, that seems to tie them all together.  The practical point is
that the tiny number of people who collect Byzantine coins or rare books or whatever,
would be the only ones who would have "a window" into many of the references.  That way
this whole zoo of stuff could be published in a totally public medium, look crazy as
hell and still pack lots of information to the right people. I think that answers the
question about is it a prank or something else.  My bet is that it does convey
information and it is structured as dis-information. In other words, reading through
some of the comments, this an "obey giant" with a real giant.  I doubt that the giant
is a person but many "causes" would fill the bill and in the early correspondence to
the webmaster there are references to a cause.  This explanation pulls together more
strands of the puzzle than any other approach. 


anonymous 09.27.01
clue:  The phrase "periods of terrible sanity" appears on a few of the pages, and I've spent a good deal of time trying to 
track it down, with no success. Following "near a terminal's" clue, I tried again, and have been unable to find the exact 
phrase in any of Poe's work. However, I did stumble across the following at the Edgar Allen Poe Society of Baltimore's web 
page:

"In the essay by Montenegro, we see cited a statement by Poe himself that appears essential, and it is that in which he says, 
"I lost my reason between long periods of horrible lucidity. During these attacks of absolute unconsciousness is when I drank. 
Only God knows how often and for how long. Of course my enemies attribute the mental agitation to drinking, instead of seeing 
in that the cause of it." "

Another "intentional" mistake? Or maybe we still haven't tracked down the original source of the phrase.

Bob: 11.01.01
clue:  11) 2:"To make theirs our, etc." is from "Love's Labours Lost."  The young ladies are discussing their paramours, 
when they find that the gentleman are about to approach them in disguise. They decide to turn they game around: They'll 
disguise themselves as each other, and keep their backs turned to the men. The relevant lines:

Boyet: Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart, 
And quite divorce his memory from his part.
Princess: Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt, 
The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out. 
There's no such sport as sport by sport o'er-thrown, 
To make theirs ours and ours none but our own:
So shall we stay, mocking intended game, 
And they, well mock'd, depart away with sham

cynic2 01.02.02
clue:  Paradox is embedded in these things.  I'm pretty sure the Italian musical("con molta forza") direction means
"with much force."  Then look down the column of clues that people have sent in and apparently the closest 
translation of the Spanish is, "While you are resting make some adobes."  This is my day to be obsessed with 
British imperialism but it seems to be a paradigm.  Work very hard while you appear to be resting, close in on the 
enemy while you appear not to be moving.

cybaea: 05.04.02
OPUS ALIENNUM is an important theological concept, and the reference is from Is 28:21 

"sicut enim in monte Divisionum stabit Dominus sicut in valle quae est in Gabao irascetur ut faciat opus suum
alienum opus eius ut operetur opus suum peregrinum est opus ab eo"

NIV has

The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,
he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon-
to do his work, his strange work,
and perform his task, his alien task.

Read the whole passage at

http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=Is+28%3A14-22&language=english&version=NIV-IB

01.08.03

clue:  "Mistah Kurtz is not dead" is taken from the book "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.  The sentence in the book,
however, reads: "Mistah Kurtz- he dead"  Mr Kurtz was an ivory trader in the Belgian Congo.  In the story, he sets himself
up as a God to the natives to get their obediance, but after a while he begins to believe in his own divinity.  He dies
completely out of his mind mumbling "The horror, the horror!"

sjwk: 09.07.2003
#11:  According to some paper I found (server not responding so have to rely on google's cached copy), "Luther used
to say that God's word of law was God's opus alienum".

The quote in #10 seems to be from Bunyan about grapes.  Any vineyards in Corsicana?

Joe23: 09.11.2003
"Ora pro nobis" and "Orate pro nobis" are used when reciting the litany of the saints.In the latin responses 'ora pro
nobis' becomes 'orate pro nobis' when more than one saint is invoked.Hope this helps...

Mason:09.11.2003
May 1st, 1986  Mayday Mystery Notes:

Dominant Theme:  'Open thy mind to that which I reveal,/ And fix it there within'

1)      The Man/God ?jesus? is not dead, but will arrive and assist the revolution

2)      Our Best Guess is 490 L'Enfant Plaza East, SW, 20219

3)      Instrument and Visual Marker-August 1st -86

4)      Visual only Marker, June 25th '87 (June 25, 1530 The 28 articles of the Lutheran churches are presented to the
Emperor Charles V. (The Augsburg Confession). 


5)      Having made the necessary change: Owsley, 1647 Virginia Street, 94703 ('65) (note, Owsley had his first LSD factory
here)

6)      Set the time as per 'oh my delayed joy'

7)      Periods of Terrible Sanity:  Note the binary swapped to decimal reads as the ZIP-code of Augsburg Germany.  The
Lutheran church sees the 'Augsburg Confessions' as true to the word of God.  These confessions were placed before Henry the
Fifth on June 25th, the date mentioned in (4)  


8)      With much force: advance on your enemies while appearing harmless

9)      National Council of Churches-'the bow is bent, make from the shaft'-get out of the way of this anger


10)     32.17N 96.47W is near Nangqen China, 'the lips of those who sleep' is a quote from Song of Songs in the bible^Å
Matthew, Chapter 7 verse 9 '9 And the roof of your mouth like the best wine - Going down smoothly for my beloved, Gliding
through the lips of those who sleep.'
  
11)     Opus Alienum:  Luther said his work in preaching the Law of the Lord, as opposed to preaching comfort, was his Opus
Alienum.  His method was to comfort, not to reproach sinners.  'To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own' is quoted
from Shakespear's 'Love's Labour's Lost' Act V. 
 
'Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt
The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out
There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,
To make theirs ours and ours none but our own:
So shall we stay, mocking intended game,
And they, well mock'd, depart away with shame.'


12)     "Dum in partibus infidelium" Latin 'Dum' means 'while' and 'in partibus infedelium' is a term meaning 'in the
lands of the unbelievers," words added to the name of the see conferred on non-residential or titular Latin bishops, for
example: "John Doe, Bishop of Tyre in partibus infidelium. Formerly, when bishops were forced to flee before the invading
infidel hordes, they were welcomed by other Churches, while preserving their titles and their rights to their own dioceses. 
'Freedom is the recognition of necessity' is a quote from Hegel's 'Tragedy of the Commons'.  I believe it has to do with
restricting individual rights in order for the state/common freedom to thrive.  

13)     Looks like repubgirl and the others hit this one, though I note that besides being quoted in Hamlet a number of
times, the Catholic Church often exchanged indulgences for ducats.  

14)     See repubgirls comments

15)     To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. AND WHO IS
SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS?

So it seems that there is a heavily Lutheran context to this page, and the nod to Hegel and Mao.  I don't see how the
LSD/Owsley thing fits in, nor the Mao quote.  I took the liberty of widely interpreting a few of the entries, to possibly
provoke some thought.  Although I wasn't able to find much information about a connection between LSD and the other two
topics, Lutheranism and Communism have a strongly antagonitic past, which I find odd when so many of the pages here deal with
both^Å


Beacon 09.30.2003
32.17N 96.47W ins not in China. It is five miles from Rice Texas between a road and a railway. link point 10 in Masons post of 9/11/2003
dan
As pointed out on 01.08.03, "Mistah Kurtz - he dead" is from Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness. However, it is also
prominently quoted at the opening of T. S. Eliot's poem, "The Hollow Men", which is famous for ending with the lines: "This is the
way the world ends/Not with a bang, but with a whimper". Could be some clues in the poem.

leakingpen 05.28.2004
theres more import to the "binary" i think.  btw, for those that flipped it, an alternate flip (of the decimal
equiv) would be 89006.  still, the first appearance says coordinates (0,1) : binary.

and the repeat has the (o,1) also, making me think that theres an importance there.  the "binary" is either giving the
location of (0,0), or perhaps further modifiying it.  i dont know why, but i feel like it represents part of an equation
for a gemetric figure, with teh values 0 and 1 giving the rest.  

as for the spanish, we are talking about a group of well read, well educated old fogies, right?  why in the world would
they use mexican spanish?  they would use the court spanish of old spain.  in which case, theres small differences im sure,
but the big one that points out to me, adobe does not mean brick.  adober means to marinate or soak.  adobes means you
marinate or you soak.  so the meaning changes significantly, and is likely part of a proverb. for example, a friend of mine
has what i could only describe as a mini scimitar with a spanish phrase on one side that translates as "when the dead do
defy, save your cold blood"  its likely part of an obscure proverb.

also, these are code freaks, and im reminded of Asimovs short mysteries, where the aged Griswald told stories to younger
men.  one was about using books as codes, where a book would be mentioned, and a page number, and a line number, and using
the words from there in some pattern one would decode what was there.  so it is possible that the literary refferences are
giving a book that all members would own, and the quote itself identifiying a starting point.  it could even be that it is
used as a public key to decode completely seperate messages that were sent in other ways.  

also, there are instances of the use of provebs as a code, for example, thieves cant, when it existed, and even cokney
speech.  in cockney, if you refer to your limehouse, thats your stomach, because a lime house was a room with the walls
made of lime, and was used for keeping food.  thats because the lime would absorb odors and prevent food from cross
contaminating.  (the reason we use baking soda in fridges today)  there are other examples, and i cant help when reading
these notices but to think of the stng episode darmoka and jalad at tanagra.  for example, when 475 riverside is mentioned,
maybe its a reference to an actual event that occured at that address.  in which case, the codes being used are truly
unbreakable by th eoutside.  (well, shy of a LOT of study of the principals, but that would require some serious work, and
chance of discovery.)

Shana: 06.24.2004
Okay - I know this may sound strange, and I have just started reading this wonderful Mayday stuff - but have you ever turned
this article upside down? The Chinse characters in the left margin, seem to make a combination of numbers and letters when upside
down. Now, perhaps this is just a strange coincidence... but it still seems odd to me.  Anyone else notice this?

anon
06.27.2004
Re #10:

There is a Russell Stover's candy manufacturing plant in Corsicana, TX. The full quote from Bunyan is:

"Now I beheld in a dream, that they talked more in their sleep at this time than ever they did in all their journey; and being in a
muse thereabout, the gardener said even to me, "Wherefore musest thou at the matter? It is the nature of the fruit of the grapes of
these vineyards to go down sweetly as to cause the lips of them that are asleep to speak."

The combination of "sweetly" and there not being much else in Corsicana, leads me to think that perhaps the point of the messages
is to encode a meeting location and time and also to tell any potential new recruits what items to bring with them to identify
themselves. A box of Stover's candies is fairly conspicuous, if carried.

nick 07.09.2004
very small note....Bob suggested that 8. was translated to say something like 'while you are resting, make brick'....made me
think of the Israelites in the first part of Exodus who are commanded to continue to make bricks for the Pharoah instead of taking
time to spend with God. Their lives became inseparable from the making of bricks....

tashi 12.18.2004
Off-topic: "Limehouse" is rhyming slang: Limehouse Cut - gut. The Limehouse Cut is a canal in east London.

Paul 12.18.2004
Kitchener was a Boer War figure, though not at the time this message was sent ...

MuaPetahl 04.18.2005
clue:  1)"Mistah Kurtz" - is from T.S. Elliot "The Waste Land"

This fits more with "The Orphanage's" use of classic works than "Heart of Darkness"

Michael 09.03.3005
Just a correction...as stated before, the line is not from "The Waste Land," but in "The Hollow Men." Also, "Heart of
Darkness" was published in 1902 (23 years before the publishing of Eliot's poem). Eliot's work is considered more modernist, and if
anything, Conrad's would be the focus of "classical literature." 

It doesn't matter. I think that the point is the connections. In both references, the line is one of desolation, one referring to
the fate of man who seeks to become God. It's important to remember that these quotes aren't here just to be looked up and
cross-referenced, but rather to be applied in some relevant manner to the (sometimes creepy sounding) task at hand.

D. Thomasson 03.23.2006
Date (9/1/98) in item #14) "Sub sigillo:" is flipped over 180 degrees. Rotate it back to
normal to get 86/1/6.  This is a key stating that other numbers in the announcements should be
rotated, flipped, or even mirrored occasionally.  It may relate back to the binary number in #7)
"periods of terrible sanity:" If the binary is converted to decimal as is, it become 86009.  After
rotating it 180 degrees, it becomes 60098 that points to Woodstock, IL.  If 86009 is mirrored, it
becomes 90068 pointing to Hollywood, CA.  I think the 60098 is probably accurate.

Here is a fun twist to the same idea of rotating and mirroring numbers that actually ended up
pointing to an excellent movie about Martin Luther.  However, the movie is in 2003, not 1986.

I rotated the binary number to get 10011111111100101, then converted it to decimal (81893). I
didn't find anything for 81893 so I mirroed it to get 39818, which is located in the heart of
Bainbridge, GA (not related to the announcements).  I did a search on "Bainbridge Reformation" and
came up with a Bainbridge Cinemas."  Check out the movie review for Martin Luther:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/movies/141295_luther26q.html

D. Thomasson 03.26.2006
	Addresses listed in #2, #5, and #9 are actually Pi numbers found within the first 200
	Million digits of Pi.
	
	#2) 490 L'Enfant Plaza East, SW, 20219:
	
	49020219 is located at 47,202,469 decimal digit of Pi
	
	#5) 1647 Virginia Street 94703:
	
	164794703 is located at 99,886,377 decimal digit of Pi
	
	#9) 475 Riverside, 10115:
	
	47510115 is located at 54,287,522 decimal digit of Pi

blankenship 08.27.2006
Since not only millions of digits of pi but literally billions of digits, could be trillions by now, are known
in their exact sequence, it seems that Thomasson's point is very well taken.  You could send a very detailed and
complex message that had no obvious connection with the verbal text if it were geared to the sequence of digits in pi.

John S. 09.14.2006
Virtually any sequence of digits can be found at some point in pi if you carry it out to enough decimal places.  I have
found my birthdate, my address, and basically any random numbers I could think of.  Do not place any value on the pi theory.

anonymous 10.04.2006
clue:  #2 Is very probably a street address in DC, as SW is a quadrent, 20219 is a zip code that fits with dc zip codes and
L'enfant plaza is a nieghborhood and metro stop.

Eri 10.17.2006
"O tardium gaudium meum" (see Carlos' clue on this page) also shows up in the September 20, 2000 announcement.
Another mention of chronometers can be found in the 2/22/88 announcement. Marine chronometers are obsolete technology-wise,
but they're valuable - well, at least expensive - collector's items. http://www.bottomoftheharbour.com/chronometermain.html
But of course "chronometers" here could just mean very precise clocks.

Dor H. 11.18.2006
Appogiatura is a term in music. I dont remember it's meanning.

Preterite Pete 02.07.2007

Near a Terminal suggested earlier that "periods of horrible sanity" was from a misprint or rare edition of one of Poe's works.

This is not the case.

Poe wrote a letter to George W. Eveleth dated January 4, 1848. Here is the relevant passage:
Six years ago, a wife, whom I loved as no man ever loved before, ruptured a blood-vessel in singing. Her life was despaired of. I took leave of here forever & underwent all the agonies of her death. She recovered partially and I again hoped. At the end of the year the vessel broke again--I went through precisely the same scene. Again in about a year afterward. Then again--again--again & even once again at varying intervals. Each time I felt all the agonies of her death--and at each accession of the disorder I loved her more dearly and clung to her life with more desparate pertinacity. But I am constitutionally sensitive--nervous in a very unusual degree. I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

So, "intervals" for "periods" and "horrible" for "terrible."

Intervals may be significant in this rigamorole somehow. I'm more interested in the idea of these as confessional--a type of coded confessional that dreams of bringing something into being.

The date of the location for the Superconducting Supercollider was after this ad appeared, so Bob's comment of 8/14/01 is misleading.


Charlie P. 05.12.2007
Comments: The prase "O tardium gaudium meum!" appears in The Confessions of St. Augustine, book 2. (Augustine, 2.2.2)
(http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/conf/text2.html#TB2C2S2)

Griffin 06.24.2008
'While you Are Resting, Make Bricks' May be a cryptic message for

'Don't forget the cause, even though we can't meet'.

Just my two cents.

leitmotiv 01.15.2010
leitmotiv
"Mutatis mutandis" basically means "with the necessary changes having been made".

Swift 06/17/2010
Comments: When a genius appears in the world you will know him by this sign: the dunces are all against him.

S.K 05/25/2015
	In 1986 we are given the dead reckoning as an address yet in 1987 we are given a key. K90370625A. Perhaps a serial number.

Carmen 06/10/2018
The Spanish sentence is badly written: "Mientras que descansas, haz adobe". 
It's not the same 'has' as 'haz'. It is the imperative form of the verb "hacer" (do, make, produce). The form 'has' is the wrong spelling because of the similar 
sounds between /s/ and /z/ in some linguistic Spanish variants (in South America  or some southern areas of Spain). 

As for the sentence itself, it is an old proverb, not very popular indeed (I have never heard it before). And it was used by farmers or peasants after finishing 
their farm labours. So that was the moment of their rest. Instead they used to make 'adobe', an uncooked brick made of sand, hay, mud and so on. Then they would 
sell those bricks so that the neighbours could build their houses. That's why they used to say in those resting moments: as you are having rest, make some adobe. 

Well, I cannot think of any reason why the author of this mystery used that proverb. It is only known to farmers and peasants, not commonly used in daily life. 
And very old indeed. 

Hungerford (!!!) - 07/04/2022
RE: Carmen--her remark was just brought to my attention.  It is CORRECTLY written because it is colloquial, uneducated Border Spanish.  
They actually speak and write  that way along the upper reaches of the Rio Grande.  They do not learn any form of correct Spanish--hence the citation.
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