Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Ruins of Alph Embedded Images and Strangeness

Defying my belief that this should be kept confidential, I will share this in the sole interest of two individuals. My name is Ruben. I have always been interested in subliminal techniques, regardless of the media or way in which they are conveyed. However, I did not go looking for this particular example. No, it found its way to me. It’s certainly no coincidence that the move ‘Curse’ was introduced in Generation II with the release of Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal versions.

Often heard that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover? A sound should not be judged by the way you hear it. There can be so much more, that of which the single sense of hearing can not handle by itself. Sounds are visual as well, despite what some may say. Any piece of music can alter your state of mind and emotions. What else can sounds do? Maybe a certain group of individuals set out to answer just that.

New concepts were realized with version 1.0 of the Lavender Town music released in early Pokemon Green and Red cartridges in Japan. There’s no doubt that there was interest from the sound team to create an eerie effect from special inflictions in the music, most notably the high pitched frequencies which could only be heard by those with especially acute hearing. Version 1.1 of the Lavender Town music soon replaced its older counterpart in newer cartridges in order to avoid suspicions. Perhaps enough data had been collected anyway.

The person who posted the previous video was surprised to find that his friend, Anthony, had developed a special way to retrieve the frequencies that were lost when the developed music was redesigned in order to fit within the limitations of the Game Boy. According to him, certain hints were left in the music which encouraged him to develop a way to analyze the sound and insert special tones which mimicked the original intentions of the music.

Although Anthony may have never realized this, the tones which he added constructed unusual images within the sound when combined with the original Pokemon music. These images had been embedded into the music through certain methods of steganography. In Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, these images were waiting for their key to be unlocked.

Likewise, two sound files from the Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal soundtrack fit together in an interesting way. One you are most likely familiar with; the other you would have only heard if you had listened to your radio while within the Ruins of Alph. These files can never be played concurrently while playing the game. However, they can be while using a computer.

I am not the one who posted the previous video. I will refer to him as Edwin from this point on. When he looked through Anthony’s laptop, he copied more than an audio file and just a few pictures. Edwin found an entire algorithm which Anthony had written which was able to reconstruct the lost images within particular Pokemon sound files. Anthony had created the sound file featured in the last video from this algorithm and a generic binaural beat, which he had downloaded from the internet, and many viewers/listeners have recognized.

Subsequently after discovering Anthony’s creation (lavender.wav) and his homemade algorithm, Edwin himself became obsessed with the oddness of Lavender Town. Despite what he wrote in the previous video, he did not lose interest. Edwin spent his time up until posting the last video testing Anthony’s algorithm. He became quite familiar with it and tried it on numerous sounds from the early Pokemon games. Eventually, he tried combining the Ruins of Alph music with the erratic sounds that play on the radio. After running this through Anthony’s algorithm, results even more astounding than Anthony’s original discovery were found. The outcome is this video.

To my dismay, I am the “sound enthusiast” which Edwin mentioned in the description of the last video. This is why I know so much of this ordeal and have felt the need to write this description as well as post this video. Edwin contacted me through the internet requesting help with the lavender audio file, so I sent him a spectrogram program. He began to send me more and more details about the problems he was facing as time went on, and I grew to know him pretty well. Eventually, he sent me the password to this account along with a terrifying note.

“Even after researching the sounds which caused Anthony’s death for so long, I still don’t feel better about it. It was my fault he died. If I had just played through my Blue version with him, he wouldn’t have become so interested in the Lavender Town stuff, we would have just kept playing. He was my best friend, but I let him down. I wasn’t a true friend. It’s like I hardly knew him anymore after we went our separate ways. I can’t stand living with this burden.”

He attached the audio file playing in the video above as well as a password so I could access this account. To say the least, I was baffled at the time. The day after the previous video was posted, Edwin was found dead in his room, astonishingly with no flesh wounds to be found. Had he figured out the exact cause for Anthony’s seizure? Was it suicide? Both?

Never did he mention any specific details about this audio file, other than what has already been mentioned in this description. I didn’t want to have to get involved further in this incident, but as I have already stated, I feel like it is my obligation. I don’t, however, feel the need to describe the occurrences that take place in this video. I will let you decide for your own about that.

Keep in mind, though, that in the game the scientists in the ruins claim that Unown communicate with radio waves. What was constructed in place of the Pokemon Tower in Lavender? The Kanto Radio Tower. I must let you know that this sound file was created with Anthony’s algorithm with a binaural beat added in the background. Do the Lavender Town theme and the Ruins of Alph music have something in common? An accident? Something that could... drive someone insane?

43 comments:

  1. I always found the music in the pokemon games to be erratic and creepy :/

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  2. "Our words shall remain here for the ages"

    "Thus we shall erect a pokemon statue outside"

    "We humans must learn to walk in harmony with them"

    "They possess great insight and refuse the outside world"

    "Escape"

    Pausing the video sucked. x_X It always seemed like it was still moving... Anyway, this is what it says. Strange, eh?

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  3. If you read the first letter of almost every paragraph you will see a disturbing message that says:



    DONT LISTEN

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  4. How strange... But yay for an acrostic.

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  5. Odd, it actually gave me a headache. That's very hard to do; but I'm chalking it up to the power of suggestion and leaving it at that. Still, it's creepy, powerful, shit. I love it!

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    1. I found that too... After about 30 seconds with the symbols, I got a throbbing at the base of my skull, as well as behind my eyes.
      Creepy, creepy shit.

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  6. I dont mean to kill anything cause i love the creepy/paranormal stuff here but man, i honestly dont know whats going on, as what i can see, someone just tampered with the audio, inserting the images/words to make it seem like theres a secret message.

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    1. What if paranormal beings that aren't humans but are balls of light and fire are these beings contacting us, and what if satoshi tjiri discovered a way to contact them

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  7. when you do read everything it says DONT LISTEN but there is three other paragraphs and they start with A H K now if you just flip A and H you get HAK

    as in DONT LISTEN HAK lol i think that is very clever. hahaha

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  8. maybe its meant to be like "Dont listen" ahk as in the choking noise but idk

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  9. Oh, the audio's definitely been tampered with and the images/words are inserted - I know that. Nonetheless, I did still want to find out what the messages were, and it was a nice touch to add an acrostic into the tale. It's not paranormal at all. I do give it creep factor, though, if only because the Lavender Town theme has always been freakish.

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  10. You know what's going to make me kill myself? That thrumming in the background. I'm just sayin' guy, I think that's what happened to your friend.

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  11. I officially love the poster above me.
    Marry me?

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  12. Listened to it without reading the story.

    Btw, the weird noise is what happens when you play a note and another note a half step above it in tune at the same time. It's a rather ugly sound.

    But anyways, the song did nothing to me.

    It's power of suggestion.

    Oh, and I would take this more seriously if it weren't for the fact that that same person posted another YouTube video I saw a year or so ago on Lavender Town, and they made the "message" SO FAKE AND ULTRA HILARIOUS :D Seriously, look at his channel. I think it's 8 minutes in or something.

    I lol'd, and I just want to say that you are all over reacti--OH MY DEAR GOD I NEED TO TURN OFF THIS SONG IT'S DRIVING ME FUCKING CRAZY

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  13. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK2iLnTR9V8

    There's the link. Skip to 8:49, and prepare to SHIT BRICKS. LOLOLOLOL-
    Actually, in my opinion, the way he edited the song afterward is still unsettling. idk man.

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  14. The story/concept is kinda stupid.The fact that you have to remove the sound files individually and piece them together and alter them.kinda rules out the whole "by design' aspect of it. Eliminating any real mystery or creepiness. Kinda like saying 'Hey look there's ghosts in this movie. All you have to do is take this other movie. Merge the 2 video files together. Remove the fore ground and back ground from movie A.Then you'll be able to see them periodically through out the movie.Creepy right????"

    That aside the edited and altered music did make my temples hurt and gave me a mild headache.Which is really strange however.I'm the type of person that never gets headaches.

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  15. I actually remember seeing some of those messages myself. Never thought anything of them.

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  16. dontlisten.ahk a possibility?

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  17. very odd... i wasn't effected by it, but my cat was quite obviously hearing something more than I. He woke up, his ears started alternately twitching/responding to it and he came over to bat at the speaker

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  18. I'm a researcher of "beta" content, such as the stuff in game that was cut,unused and left in the game's code also The "early" versions of game trying to find out why it was cut or how it used in-game, anyway I've always had a strange uneasy feeling about this song like how there was something inside this game that was...was..un-natural like something connected to the Unknown Pokemon not sure what though...

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  19. My dog sort of reacted, but not much. She went over to the door, cocked her head at it, and then looked at me and the computer. She whined a little.

    I think the person went a little over the top with the whole thing...Like if they'd made it only say 'Escape' instead, I'd have been scared silly.

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  20. It's a rather clever story yet I don't think the radio waves create symbols using unknowns but if they do then I guess...The creators of pokemon are awesome :D

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  21. To the guy who said dontlisten.ahk:

    >mfw .ahk is the extension for the program AutoHotkey

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  22. My dog is barking upstairs.

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  23. I think one thing you're all failing to notice is that the video is supposed to be a visual representation of the audio in the recording.

    with that in mind, pay attention to how the visual matches up with the song. listen for the deepest part of the song you can hear, then find the correlating imagery.

    note, then, the white bar with erratic beats (matching nothing in the portion of the audio file that can be heard) that is below that deepest note.

    makes you wonder.

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  24. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc

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  25. I heard my friend say his friend (XD) was whereing hearing aid they listened to this and the hearing aid didn't work at all after the "unown screeching".

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  26. I use this song when I dig in minecraft XD I relised something though too does anyone think it would be scarier if the screen flashed towards the end where it sounded a little choppy or make it scarier if while the unowns made their sounds that the screen would become slightly disorted?

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  27. Ah, yes. Those symbols were totally not pasted into the scrolling image or anything. Also, I swear I've seen those symbols as crop circles in the news back when that crazy crap was popular.

    Watching it scroll by was very headache inducing. I don't get headaches easily. I: My cat is also glaring at my laptop while this plays.

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    1. Of course they were pasted in. It doesn't have to be real to be interesting or scary or whatever you want out of it.

      Also, they're the Pokemon Unown, which are shaped (roughly) like letters. If someone did use them as crop circles, they're very unoriginal.

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    2. but pokemon unown came in the 90's and what Ai is saying is when the crop circles were popular in the 60's and 70's.

      Delete
  28. My dog got up and growled at my speakers so I can't play it unless the dog is outside EVEN with headphones.

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  29. Odd, the music itself was whatev. I've played pokemon a lot, but when the Unown screeching came in, my head did start feeling funny. I'm not sure if it's the sound itself or because everyone was talking about headaches. Anyways, not a badly written pasta. Not creepy enough though, imo.

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  30. Damn you Binural Beats and your tampering with the psyche of us creepy pasta lovers. =_=

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  31. Anyone ever think that this actually might be true? I mean, if you think about it, a lot of the things people thought was crap in the past everyone knows now. like how the earth orbits around the sun. Everyone in the past thought it was bull, but today, its common knowledge.

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  32. Oh.My.Gosh. Uh ill be right back gota go change my pants and i assure its not pee. XD

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  33. When i posted Up tere The wierdest thing happenned the capocha said LEAVE NOW in unown letters But im not scared you know why? beacause i have 8 foot thick tittanium wall 6 miniguns Infinite ammo (Reality Hack)
    A 7 foot thick Bullet proof milatary Taitanuim door 7 master balls 2 ultra balls 50 Pokeballs And 4 great balls And my 3 best weapons Bruce Lee Chuck Norris And jet li ;)

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  34. now this is definetely some bullshit. animals react to this shit cause it bothers them, no shit. but the messages don't fit with the actually good music. But the whole thing is creepy nonetheless

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  35. has anyone noticed the "messages" in the song are just messages that were ingame once you beat certain areas

    (im serious, in the ruins, these are the EXACT messages you see spelled on the floor when you beat these puzzles based off items, moves, pokemon, etc.)

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  36. I can't believe no one has suggested to find out what the images say I hope you Pokemon nerds know that the unknown are alphabetical and that the images in the video say something

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  37. I don't even know what to think about this.

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  38. God, I always listened to the music in the ruins of alph. I got a headache simply listening to a small piece of it. This crap might be true.

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  39. Im sure the song and video would have been creepier if my ghettro phone wasnt slowing down every two minutes. But i like it, its more indepth of a story then 'OMG POSSESSED LAVENDER TOWN RUN FOR YER LIIIIIIIIIIVEZZZ'

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