Hi all, first time poster here. I've followed some ARGs in the past but never posted until now. So, anyway... I wanted to put all the information about this potential ARG in one place. Credit for a lot of this stuff goes to other users from unfiction, RelicNews, Reddit, and Youtube, so... thanks everyone for your contributions!
Youtube video What's in the Box? - Test Film 2009 posted on Mar 13 2009 from account Timacious, registered June 22 2007. Comment reads "This is a early temp version. Will be deleted soon." Video is said to contain heavy Half Life references including a similar universe and concept, borrowed sound effects, usage of the phrase "What's in the Box?", and a news ticker reading "MILLIONS FEARED DEAD - NO NEWS FROM DISASTER AREA - LARGEST SINGLE COLLAPSE IN HISTORY SINCE BLACK MESA", leading some viewers to immediately assume the video to be a viral add for Half Life 2: Ep 3. Some claims are made that the video is an advertisement for Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, or Acer because of the product placement. Also, it is noted that most of the music in the video is ripped directly from Lost, written by Michael Giacchino, with the possible exception of a track from The Lost World - Jurassic Park 2 by John Williams when the man in the video runs from the bus around 5:00 into the video. The scenery in the video is recognized as the city Nijmegen, Netherlands.
There are 3 other videos uploaded by the Timacious account:
Discovery Mythbusters - The Phone Book Myth, uploaded Nov 20 2007, shows the Dutch student Tim Smit and friend Steven Roeters attempting to separate two interwoven phone books as a part of Discovery Channel's Be a Mythbuster contest. At 3:53 a red logo of a tilted square with a question mark in the center shows, with unreadable text beneath it. This appears again at 4:31. According to this article, Tim Smit and Steven Roeters are Natural Science students at Radboud University, won the contest, and flew out to meet the real Mythbusters in Feb 2008. The article also mentions that they are working on What's in the Box.
Terminator 2 - Sweded, uploaded May 13 2008, is a humorously low-budget re-enactment of the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The credits for the video, shown at 1:17, list Tim Smit among other names. The same logo of a tilted square with a question mark in the center can be seen twice during these credits (bottom-right at 1:17, bottom-left at 1:19).
Storm Chasers - Becoming Tornadoproof, uploaded Dec 16 2008, appears to be an entry for Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers contest. The video is a spoof instructional video about becoming "Tornadoproof" and features a character named "The Extreme". At 0:14 in, the gearshift of the car can be seen to be a Terminator's metallic skull. At 1:00, a piece of debris resembling part of a wall falls to the ground in the background and is destroyed. As the piece is falling, the logo of a tilted square with a question mark in the center can be seen on it for a split second. The email address Timaciousd.at.gmail.com can be seen at 1:17. This email address seems to be a reference to the band Tenacious D.
Website http://whatsinthebox.nl/ displays a tilted square with a question mark in the center. The square pulses with light, revealing that is actually 3-dimensional, a cube or box. The box appears to have sparks emanating from it. 4 digits in the center of the screen cycle between a number of strings. At the bottom of the screen, motion picture-style credits read:
PRODUCTIONS presents a MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES production "WHAT IS IN THE BOX"
writers TIMSMIT THIBAUT NIELS music created by STEVEN ROETERS directory of photography TIMSMIT production design THIBAUT NIELS TIMSMIT
special effects TIMSMIT screenplay written by THIBAUT NIELS TIMSMIT website complex by TIM MEEUWISSEN TIMSMIT film editor TIMSMIT produced and directed by TIMSMIT THIBAUT NIELS
additional thanks to FRANK TER ELST JURI JOOSTEN and MARKUP
2007 A PRODUCTIONS official series. All rights reserved
When moused-over, the box flashes red, text appears within and below the box, and question marks appear over certain letters within the credits. With some visual adjustments, the text in the box can be seen to be the lyrics of Tenacious D's song Beelzebob.
The letters from the credits which are covered with question marks read something like this:
OTION nts ST WHAT IS IN THE BOX
TIS CREA TEV O ector phy BAUT
SM S TH IS EEU S dito MS c ec MIT T
dition R TER EL U OOS d AR
or this:
O TION nts ST WHAT IS IN THE BOX
s TI crea TEV RO ector phy BAUT MSM
SM TH IMS EEU S MS c ec MIT UT
ditio R ER EL U OOS d AR
or this:
O(T)ION NT (S) ST "WHAT IS IN THE BOX"
ST(IM) CREA TE (R)O (C)TOR
PH(Y) BAUT MSM
S Th IMS EEU SM EDI-(Possibly DIT from the word EDITOR) CE ED MIT UT
DITO R ER ELS OOS(T) D R
It's hard to tell which letters are actually supposed to be covered and which are not, because in some cases a question mark covers part of a letter but not the entire thing.
Decompiling the flash object on the page reveals that the 4-digit string is an array called bullshitArray, and contains the strings:
0001 WSAD 134G ASDF 123A 1234 5223 QWER FASG 4213 UUUU READ FAST JFSD 2123 BOXR SAGA JFSD 2123 6335 2347 2678 7856 1111 0003
When the source of the page is viewed, a comment can be found which reads:
Every medium, as its ancestors
Every pro, has his anti's, now you think about that
Also, a link to the image Anti.jpg, which shows the box and credits again, but with different text behind the box. With visual adjustments, this text has been found to be from this page about Dye-sensitized solar cells. The numbers 71-73.5% and 87% are highlighted in red and differ from the numbers on the site, and the word ATTAINABLLNESS is overlayed near the bottom. This seems to be a misspelling of "attainableness". Rather than a question mark in the center, the box contains some math formulas and images of squares. It has been suggested that the 4 cube graphics within the main cube are representations of a hypercube rotating in 3-space. The top math formula (V2n=integrals) integral is the volume of a cube of side length 2n, but the rest of the math at this point seems to be insignificant. The EXIF of the image shows the graphic was made on 2007/03/12 at 15:19:54 using Photoshop CS for Windows.
A whois of the site shows that it is hosted in the Netherlands, was registered by "T. Smit" 2006-07-13, and was updated on 2006-10-03.
Other info about Tim Smit and Steven Roeters:
- Tim Smit apparently designed an Urban Security Suit which bears resemblance to the generic-ish jumpsuits worn by the men in the What's in the Box video
- Steven Roeters may have some connection to Biosurface Spectroscopy Research: http://www.amolf.nl/research/biosurface-spectroscopy/group-members/amolf-person/article///ce40933c27/?tx_ooipamolfpeople_pi1[showUid]=10891
- Tim Smit's name is a palindrome (TIMSMIT is the same backwards and forwards); Tim Smit is also not an uncommon name in the Netherlands
Other notes about the What's in the Box video:
- The device that the "box" is in at the beginning of the video is an Atomic Force Microscope
- The phone number that the runner is attempting to dial is 59462
- At 5:21 when the runner removes the Brain Computer Interface, it has a Windows Blue Screen of Death, specifically a page fault (error 0x0E)
- At 6:44 when the runner is hiding in the house, as he turns, an image of a face can be seen briefly. It was suggested that this face resembled a Heavy from Team Fortress 2, but I think this idea has already been dispelled because it was discovered that the face is merely a wall ornament in the house
- All of the birds in the background fall dead out of the air at 8:20
- It was suggested that 3 different brands of cell phones were shown because of a law in the Netherlands that requires at least 3 brands of a certain product to be mentioned in order for a film or TV show to not be considered advertisement. I'm not sure, however, what this says about the Acer handheld at 1:05 and the Philips monitor at 0:54
Links to other threads:
Reddit Videos
Reddit Gaming
RelicNews
My thoughts:
- The usage of Half Life sound effects and ideas, Lost and Jurassic Park music, and the brand names of Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Acer, and Philips is undeniable, but I think they are (intentionally or unintentionally?) sidetracking people into thinking this is an advert. Sure, it may just be a HL2:EP3 viral, but then again it may not be. Let's find out. Also, if it IS a HL2:EP3 viral, doesn't it seem weird that it would use borrowed music and such? Seems like that would be a copyright issue.
- Both of the Discovery Channel videos, as well as the Terminator video, show the box with the question mark inside. This may just be the logo for Tim Smit's studio PRODUCTIONS, but nevertheless the concept of the box has been floating around for a while now. The registration date of the http://whatsinthebox.nl/ URL and EXIF on the anti.jpg image confirm this. If Valve is somehow involved, and this is indeed a HL2:EP3 viral, this would mean Valve was already planning it before they released HL2:EP2.
- The Tower of Babel and the Box seems to be the main focus of the video, with the math formulas and hypercube illustration possibly hinting at some 4th-dimensional stuff. But, the website, anti.jpg, and Steven Roeters page bring up another topic, which is the solar energy stuff. To me, the red highlighted numbers in anti.jpg, which are higher than the numbers from the Biosurface Spectroscopy Research, are directly related the ATTAINABLLNESS; that is to say, that with a some sort of new technology/research/whatever, some sort of high-efficiency solar energy capturing device/ethod could be attainable.
- There seems to be a Terminator theme going on here, between the Terminator 2: Sweded video, and the Terminator gearshift in the car in Discovery Channel: Storm Chasers. I don't know if this means anything; probably just that Tim Smit and his crew like the Terminator. ALSO: about the solar cells, "These cells were invented by Michael Graetzel in 1991 and are also known as Graetzel cells". 1991, same year as Terminator 2.
- There also seems to be a Tenacious D theme, between the TimaciousD email address and the lyrics in the background on the page. Again, I have a feeling Tim Smit just likes Tenacious D.
Where to go from here:
- Decipher the 4-digit strings of text from the website, if there's any meaning to them. This is doubtful, considering they are from "bullshitArray".
- Figure out the significance of the other math formulas on the anti.jpg image, if there is any.
- Figure out the meaning behind 71-73.5% and 87% and ATTAINABLLNESS, if there is anything beyond what I've stated above.
- Is there any significance to the phone number 59462?
- Do Discovery Channel, Terminator, or Tenacious D have any meaning? What about Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Acer, and Philips? What about Half Life, Lost, and Jurassic Park?
- Can we find any more information about Tim Smit or Steven Roeters by googling around?
- Email Tim Smit? He did give us his address after all in the Storm Chasers video.
![[Gavo]](https://eg-forums-escapist-data.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/33/33764.jpg?1620201950){kind=avatar}
