Every once in a while, an unusual video arrives online and leaves the Internet to deduce its true meaning. In 2013, there was the curious case of the Pronunciation Book YouTube channel, which turned out to be promoting an art show. Now, two years later, there’s another cryptic video in the crosshairs of Internet sleuths. It comes from a YouTube user named aetbx, and its true meaning is currently unknown.
The video, first uploaded in May 2015, features a lone figure dressed in robes and a plague mask. He or she is accompanied by a loud droning noise, and abrupt cuts do their best to creep viewers out. In their analyses, many viewers have hearkened back to The Ring, the 2002 horror film that centered on its own creepy black-and-white video.
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories
Interest in the video reached its peak after it appeared on a mysterious CD sent to a Swedish blog earlier in October. Since then, viewers have scoured the video in search of clues. Its title and description, both written in binary, translate to a Spanish message that reads “Death: You have a year or less” when translated into English. A group of coordinates shown in the video refer to the location of the White House, and a hidden message anagrams to “KILL THE PRESIDENT.” When the droning sound is placed into a spectrogram, it reveals a graphic image that reads “you are already dead.”
Based off the sinister nature of these clues, some people believe the video is the work of a criminal mastermind. The more likely solution, however, is that it’s some sort of viral marketing campaign or art piece. One Reddit user has noted how closely some of the clues relate to the plot of Inferno, a book by Dan Brown. A film adaptation of Inferno is indeed in the works, and it’s due out on October 14th, 2016. In other words: You have a year or less.
So that’s our working theory, for now. Some dissenters have quibbled with it, as they believe the images in the spectrogram are too graphic to relate to a PG-13 movie. If you have any other theories, you can contribute to a growing Reddit thread. This video has certainly caught our attention. Has it captivated you as well?
