Thinking Sideways: Publius Enigma

donating to that local organization. So look up who it is it's around you, and take the time to help out. Thinking Sideways up broke the ideas I don't know stories of things we simply don't know the answer to. Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Thinking Sideways the podcast I Am Devin, joined as always by Joe and Steve Hi. This week we're going to talk about a mystery that I thought was an Internet mystery at first, but it's not. It's actually like a puzzle mystery of an Internet starts

at to start out Internet mystery. It was suggested by Jack and Simon and maybe some other people. I don't but I think it was just Jack and Simon. Uh and it is called the Publius Enigmas. You guys argue about that. By the way, enigma is pronounced edema. Yeah. Okay, so I don't think so silent, and I'm just gonna

say that. I at the night of recording this, so what three weeks ago, when you guys are listening to us, I tweeted that this was one of the most grueling research processes that I had ever had, and everyone so excite did because I think everybody meant that or thought that meant that it had just been doing it for years and it had been so deep and hard hitting. No, it was just like really painful. Uh so great, you

guys ready to listen to my pain and fleffery. Okay, So this mystery is actually it's kind of an internet mystery, but it's mostly a Pink Floyd mystery, music mystery, kind of music fan mystery. Yeah, so who was this guy paint Floyd? Listeners want to know Pink Floyd is a band, not a person. And the mystery why we think it is kind of an internet mystery why you keep going back and forth? Is it actually originated on a u s net forum back in the nineties. You guys, remember

you snat basic of basic Internet boards. Yeah, you can still find this forum on Google because as mentioned in the last episode that we talked about using you may or may not have listened to that episode, but using that kind of merged into Google goal forms forums. Excuse me, so most of them still exists in this world today. So when I see them on Google then looking at stuff this man like migrated over over from and archived exactly.

But although you will may have noticed that in some of those that I linked, the updates were as recent as a couple of days ago, so it's not as though they're dead. One of the ones that you linked here actually was updated just this morning, Yeah, exactly, so it's still ongoing. This whole mystery began with a cryptic message posted by a user identifying him or herself only as Publius, which I keep wanting to say Polebius, but

it's not. That's a different mystery, different mystery. This post was made to the unmoderated news group Alt dot Music dot Pink Dash Floyd. Publius proposed a riddle in connection with the Pink Floyd album The Division bell y'all didn't know that Pink Floyd released something in the nineties. Did yet, Yeah,

they did. It didn't end after the wall. So the post basically promised that an answer to this riddle puzzle would lead to a reward, and to this day, which is like twenty three years later, it remains unclear if the quote unquote enigma involves a genuinely solvable puzzle or it's part of an early kind of Internet based contest or a hoax or something that helps entirely just not

necessarily a hoax, but just not solvable. Yeah, totally. So this whole thing kind of it was primed, I would say by how Columbia Records promoted the Pink Floyd Division Bell Tour in America. And that was so same year as the album released. So Columbia Record Records, who was the record label, flew a giant zeppelin that they called

the Division Bell with an E at the end. Yeah, they flew the Division Bell, this zeppelin that was a hundred and ninety four ft long, which is fifty They flew it between concert locations, so they would start in you know where the last concert had happened and then fly it to the next city where the concert was and they hit what two or three dozen cities in this country. It was pretty scible. And I saw with the map of all of the concert locations across the world,

and they went everywhere on that door. Yeah. Absolutely, party, party, yeah, yeah, I guess in conjunction with this, Columbia Records did release a electronic press kit, which are totally ubiquitous now, but in those times it was kind of new tangled things. Yeah, And it included things like promo spots um that had been interviews with band members, footage of the airship in action, and a segment that included the following little snippet quote.

A spokesperson for Pink Floyd has issued the following statement. You have spotted the Pink Floyd airship, Do not be alarmed. Pink Floyd have sent their airship to North America to deliver a message. The Pink Floyd Airship is headed towards a destination where all will be explained. Upon arrival, Pink Floyd will communicate unquote. That kind of made people think there might be something else going on with this tour

or the album as a whole. So when Publius showed up on the use net forums, people were already a little inclined to believe that there was maybe something more going on here, just given that official statement from Columbia Records. So everybody's anticipating egg of some sort, or you know, even just additional press kit information, even just something little. But what happens is Publius on June posts a message called the Message onto that forum the dot music dot

pink Floyd that says, Joe, can you read it? Sure? My friends, you haven't heard the message pink Floyd has delivered, but have you listened? Perhaps I could be your guide, but I will not sell the inding before you. All of you must open your minds and communicate with each other, as this is the only way the answers can be revealed. I may help you, but only if hop skills arise. Listen, read, think, communicate. If I don't promise you the answers, would you go

cryptic a little? Yeah? Super cryptic, and especially when well some might say that, but some might say super meaningful, particularly when taken with the original release. Right this message, where this this hair airship is headed towards the destination where all will be explained. Yeah, So that that kind of spawned a lot of responses people saying, you know, like okay, dude, like what's what's going on here? Like really?

And so there was a clarification post and I can I can read this one, so Joe doesn't have to read all of them. Yeah, I know, reading it's hard. So it said, as some of you have suspected, the division Bell is not like its predecessors. Although all great music is subject to multiple interpretations, in this case there is a central purpose and a designed solution for the ingenious person or group of persons who recognize this and where this information points to a unique prize has been secreted.

How and where the division bell. Listen again, look again, as your thoughts will steer you leading the blind while I stared out the steel in your eyes. Lyrics, artwork and music will take you there. So a lot of these are actually lyrics from the album, a lot of

these phrases. But obviously that did pique interest. One thing I mean to just pause here and say, off the bat, is that one of the really interesting things that was happening around this was many of these posts were reposted multiple times within seconds of each other, with varying degrees of grammatical and spelling errors. And just typographical errors. Honestly, so you can look through all of the posts. I don't remember, to be honest, we have looked at so

many different versions of these posts. If they're all still on the forum, or if it's just people have the historic screenshots of what these looked like, I honestly can't remember. But either way, there it's kind of interesting to see that a post was posted in like two seconds later it was posted, and none of the errors that occurred, you know, in the first one, we're in the second

one in etcetera, etcetera, and that, and that happened multiple times. Actually, all of these posts, if you get them as images and you're able to kind of, you know, flip through them one by one, one right after the X next, you can actually see the text change and shift as those little bits any happy on the time stamp, they're

they're happening within seconds. They're really close. And again I don't have enough familiarity necessarily with usenet to know if you could go back and delete posts if you were rereading your thing and went, oh, crap, I misspelled that word or I put put a weird comma there or something to edit. Yeah, I was had a weird format thing. I don't know if you could edit or even delete and repost, and I don't know how good the the system was at deleting posts and the timely fashion listen.

It is a giant pain even in Facebook sometimes to edit stuff or to get it to delete properly. Twitter. Looking at you, Twitter and something that's twenty plus years ago on the Internet, it doesn't shock me that it wasn't user friendly to edit or get rideut I think you'd probably so that could be one explanation for all these posts. And I'm gonna go ahead and say we're going to read one more post and then that's it,

because there are a ton of posts. And if this yeah, well already you both are yawning already, which I'm really excited about, but not hot and hear anything. I will say there are tons of really great, great There are tons of analysis out there that go really, really in depth. And if this story is one that grabs you, we I'm trying to make this a not five hour long episode. I will tell you I watched a series of videos that was literally seven hours worth of analysis by one

person just talking into a mic. I don't want this episode to be that. So we're not going to do that. But if that sort of thing, if this does interest you, go out and watch that and not will link to some of it or I'll just talk about it later. But there was one more post that I would do you want to talk about? Because there was this one. Well it's it's it's interesting. I don't know if it's proof or not, but it's an interesting thing that happened.

So there was this outcry right of people just saying, hey, you're just a dumb internet troll. Obviously you know you have no connection. You're just you know, pulling our leg. Prove it, Prove it somehow, just prove it. So this third post that we're going to read, Steve, do you want to read? This? One? Sure to validate the trust of those who believe, as well as to reconcile the

doubt of others. I have gone to great lengths to plan the following display of communication Monday, July East Rutherford, New Jersey, approximately thirty pm, flashing white lights. There is an enigma trust, and the crazy thing is is this happened. It actually happened, and it happened, so it's so happened that this footage from this particular live event is actually the footage they used in the archival. You know, they

always release a DVD of it a live to. This is part of this particular one concert is in that so you can even pause a DVD and see, oh my gosh, actually happened. And so what happened is the setup of the stage. Thank you Pink Floyd. For those of you who aren't totally Floyd to file, well you don't, you have to, You just have to kind of vaguely know about them. They were kind of one of the last vestiges of these crazy rock concerts that were kind

of experiential more than a laser light shows. Yeah, and Nine Inch Nails still does this, um but in the nine inch Nails but differing. Yeah, they're they're older, so they sunk and only eight inch Nails, um, but they do it's it's in a different, more artistic, less like

flash bang way. But so the stage of this particular tour, the the division bell was they had this big kind of arch over the entire It was kind of like a Yeah, it was like a half to opening up and it had white lights all over it and then at the bottom of the stage, which was also an arc. Yeah, I was kind of mirrored. Were just panels of LED lights? Well, it wasn't actually led s. I think it was probably

just light bulbs. I think they were actually l E ed not not would they have been using L E D s in that kind of show Devon alright, it was, so it was it was light panels. It was you know, four by four panels with a bunch of little light bulbs in it, which I would call an L but you're right, it probably wasn't actually l E ed. So you could project, you could just do you know, flashes of light, but you could also write designs on their

or words. And what happened is, I don't remember what exact time it would is almost exactly ten thirty pm on that night at that location across the bottom of the screen it said, or the bottom of the stage it says enigma, right, And you can see, like we

I printed a picture on the it's there. And if you watch the footage of it, there's these really weird what appeared to be made up characters strong in that light panel across the bottom of the stage, and then all of a sudden, the intensity of some of them changes and that's when they morph into actual letters. Yeah, so it is. It's almost like it's alien writing or it's not actual. I'm not claiming it's a language, but

it's something it's that's what it's kind of modeled after. Yeah, I gotta admit to I stared at those weird, those weird hieroglyphics for a while and then lost patients and stop the video before it actually flashed to an enigma. But yeah, we do. Yeah, But so it actually happened and not to me is pretty crazy, although totally explainable under many of our theories, but I just think it's

really interesting that that actually happened. Quick question for clarification is that obviously people were filming the Pink Floyd shows all the time when they were at them, and this didn't occur at any other show. Correct. It is my understanding that this was the only time that this happened.

That was mine too, and I just want to make sure and on top of that, just to you know, reinforce the fact that not only was this the only time that happened, but this was the time that Pink Floyd put this performance on their DVD, which means at the very least something they were at least aware of something happening, although let's be honest, the lead members of that band did enjoy tweaking people a little bit for sure, yes, and might have actually been just cheer randomness that that

they might have actually listened all the shows and this is the one where we screwed up the least, so that's going to be the official or this is the only one that we had the official video from because that happens too. Yeah. Absolutely, there are a lot of reasons, like I said, totally explainable but also at least a little interesting. But we're not we're not in the theories yet, so no, we're not. No, a little more to go. Unfortunately, we have more to go. You mean awesome for twelve hours.

As mentioned, there are a ton of other posts and will link to at least one resource for you to be able to see all of those posts. Now, there's a zine you guys knows you remember zine right the nineties. For those of you who don't know, I'm gonna do my NPR thing where they're like Batman. For those of you who don't know, is a zine is like a magazine. But it's more it's an independent, self published, self published I was going to say, a self published publication usually

really small. Usually, you know, it's distribution is local, you know. We I used to see them at Powells a lot, and it would be the sort of thing where literally you could like they were printed off at home and stapled and put you know, the person who was creating them would come in and say, like, the twelve more copies of this this issue, and PALS employees would be like, okay, just put them over there. It's fine magazine, Yeah, old

main entrance. Yeah, yeah, totally. And it's not you know, not to say that they were not of any value, but that is the kind of thing that they were. And this zine was called maybe still is called I couldn't I found one publication that is still in I guess what you would call circulation. That's called Brain Damage. But I don't think it's actually the same one anymore. I think it's it's it looks like it's just been around for the last couple of years. I don't think

it's even a spinoff. I think it's just somebody like I don't know, it's it's like an anime drawing. It's different. Yeah, so I don't think it's in any way related. But I also can't, for one say that that's not what this morphed into. I guess it's kind of probably a kind of a common name for yeah, novels and zines and everything else. Yeah, So this zne was called brain Damage and it was a Pink Floyd fan zine that started in April of nineteen eight six, and there was

an alleged correspondence component of it. Yeah, but the way it was sold was you would write to this character named Uncle Custard that as in the food yea custard or yeah, like the food, and uh. They it seems like fans for some reason thought that this was somebody who was either an actual member of Pink Floyd or

had very close relations to Pink Floyd. But a lot of people point to the fact that Jeff Jensen, who was the editor of Brain Damage, editor and creator, the only person on staff, he never revealed the identity of Uncle Custard, So that meant that to these fans, So that meant that this was a very credible source that was close to the band. I'm not a completely made

up source. I'ment sure it was actually just Jeff Jensen answering these waters himself or making stuff up wholesale, which you know, yeah, he could have been writing the questions and the answers as well a national lampoon and penthouse always to totally totally Yeah, but you will see a lot of people say that this is a totally credible source. Close to a lot of people say yeah. A lot

of people do say it's Nick Mason. And they say that because and I quote, Uncle Custard is phonetically similar to ugly car stud is such a fan, is such a car guy. Yeah, he is a car guy. First of all, I take Uncle Custard an ugly car stud. No, no for me. Second of all, do you think no, I just there's lots of lots and lots of big problems with this. But fine, whatever it could have been to that of this whole circle of people, you know, maybe they all contributed to. Maybe I said I had

a great idea for a letter to the editor. I'm going to write the letter and the answer and just give it to you and you can publish it. Yeah, but I don't have the impression that there was actually any kind of even tangential relationship between the people at Brain Damage and the actual members of Pink Floyd and then whatsoever. I don't I don't have that, but I'm sure that some listener will be able to tell me more about that. Yeah, probably Uncle Custard himself. So if

you are Uncle Custar pleas right, Yeah you can. You just wait till the end of the episodes find how our email address. Anyway, this is what this very credible source had to say about this, and I'll just read both parts of this. Actually, no, I'm gonna have Joe read the answer as Uncle Custard. But the question that's going to be your name from now on I think. I don't think so, I call me the Rock. No, You're far from it. Yeah, But the question that was

posed was who is Publius Enigma? Pause? I'm sorry. Also, that's the only time I've ever seen it referred to as who is Publius Enigma? Not like what is the Publius Enigma? But whatever? Or who is? Plus? Yeah, who is Publius Enigma? What is the meaning of it all? And what is the treasure to be had? Questions all to know the answered to. Here's my answer is Uncle Custard. Quote. Yes, as the infamous Q has emphasized. Quote, you humans are

so limited unquote. This is a project for all those out there with higher I q s. It does require a mastery of diverse languages, along with a lot of spare time. Now get with it. The lights were brighter, the meaning is worn inside out. The bell has told, and the surrogate band is coming back to life. The actualized nonlinearly within the paradox of the theme of the division bell communication breakdown Hint Perrine, Hint watch the Learning to Fly video close Perrinne. It may also involve an

anomaly in the spacetime continuum. There's an obvious solution, and you do not need to be a pink floydd story and to figure it out. Winners will receive official entry into the Mensis Society and some dry hays to cool down all those neural pathways in your brain. It is important to note that neither I nor anyone involved with this zone will enter into any correspondence on this topic. It's a puzzle for you, devised by the one who

loves you and to drive you mad. Besides, I'm much too busy creating crop circles and executing think tank projects for the Pentagon. So obvious, trolls obvious. But I will say that there are some people who have taken this to an extraordinary level of research to further support their

claim that they have solved the Publius Enigma. But, as I said, an effort to keep this episode under four hours, we are not going to dive deep into this rabbit hole, because we could sit here and spend as I said, probably seven hours analyzing the lyrics to all of the different songs, and you know, diving deep into the artwork, which I know is Steve's favorite part of this whole thing. And but we'd rather not sit here talking about this

for seven hours. I would really rather not. I'm sorry, Um, but like I said, I spent seven hours total of my life watching this video. See series called Unraveling the Publius Enigma on YouTube. This series is produced by a guy named David Valentine. And if this mystery hooks you and you have a high tolerance for monotone voices and um kind of crazy ideas, at the very least, he does do a very interesting breakdown of the lyrics of the songs. There is an hour and a half long video.

I think it's the second video where he analyzes the artwork and at the very end of an hour and a half of my life said, but this artwork has nothing to do with it, which anyway, Um, but if you know that it was an interesting breakdown of the lyrics at the very least of some of the songs. His theories are a little out there for me. We are going to talk about his theories in the theory section, but I would recommend at the very least giving some

of it to try there. You can also obviously follow the links well, try to post links not to his YouTube videos because I've just told you about the YouTube videos to watch him. Skip the artwork one because obviously he says it's bunk and it's different in every country. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, Joe, I mean, Steve sent me

this thing. Because I think I had moved far through all of these, I forgot to say, well, so, I actually I forgot to like tell you guys, you know the last we had said, I said, yeah, it's probably worth watching at least you know, some of this stuff, and that first one may or may not. It's kind of an interesting primer, but that second video is like don't don't bother. But I had forgotten to tell you that,

and Steve sent me this email. It was like, here's all of the different artwork from all of the booklets from all around the world. So this video was dumb and I was like, ah, man, I could have saved you so much time and heartache a background noise. It wasn't It wasn't really worth it. Um But yeah, I mean it's an interesting one. At least, Please don't email me saying like this was a waste of my time.

I'm telling you right off the bat it might be, but it might also be really interesting to you, and you might actually watch it and actually, you know, you love a brainstorm, and you'll solve the mystery. It's totally possible. Yeah, all of that having been said, we're gonna um dive into theories. But first we're going to take a quick break. You have a hundred dollars in your pocket, Bobby asked tomorrow and says he will pay you back at a daily compound interst rate of five point three two over

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as an interest rate. You'll get it a couple of years we're back. Theory number one would be it's just an internet troll, But as previously mentioned, I don't think that's a very plausible theory. Just given the light show that happened, I would think that it would be at least somebody connected with it. Though, as my wonderful fiance pointed out, he said, Oh, it could still be a troll. It just happens that that troll is like the lighting designer or knows the lightnings. Yeah, I was gonna go

there too. He works there or knows. I mean they hired kids to run the freaking gates. This is the middle of the show. The kid could have had access for a while to go in and just play with something and change if they know how that system works and had acts. I will tell you from working at venues for events not of this caliber, but of lesser caliber, so would probably likely be even heightened. It would be hard for somebody to gain access to that without the

proper security. You would think that would not let somebody go in there and mess with their gear, you know, kind of vitally important. But if it were the lightning designer or somebody on the staff, somebody on staff, that

could be possible. Sure, yeah, totally, so okay, fine there next. Well, No, I was just gonna follow up by saying, the other thing is that I saw in a couple of places, not all the places, but a couple of places that some of the rereleased mini discs and other you know, CDs that were being re released after this whole Publius Enigma thing reportedly had in the artwork, like there was a picture of a rock wall that had Enigma written in it, or like there's a picture of a field

and there was like a Publius like hidden in the grains. Which I don't know how much I believe that I saw the pictures that these people were talking about, and I agree that in the pictures that they were showing online it looked like that. However, I do not believe that these people would have then above photos shopping them themselves and then putting them out there for public consumption and buy yourself some pink Floyd. Well, even if I did, you know, the argument is always like, oh, you just

didn't get the right copy right. It's that same thing with the Aladdin the films, some of them that had to be recalled because the animators had put like sex and then the Little Mermaid with the castle thing right. So the argument, yeah, so the argument against those when you say like, well my copy didn't have it as, they're like, you just didn't get the right copy, right, So that would be the same argument there. But the whole Little Mermaid castle thing actually just an urban legend.

I think that didn't actually see. That's exactly what I'm saying is that, like, it would be very easy to say to somebody you know, who says, oh, had that copy. Well, they say I had that copy, and you'd say, well, I didn't have that copy. Nobody knows except for you had that copy. And they'd say, well, you just had weird copies then, right, And then all of the pictures online are just photoshops, super easy to do. So I and I'm tired to believe actually animators would go to

that much trouble. In me, animation, especially back in the old days, was a pretty labor intensive process whose movies, and I don't know, it wouldn't surprise me that much that they I mean, you know, there's some of the jokes I had on in current kids movies. They're adults, so it wouldn't surprise me too terribly much. But I don't think it's just random troll on the Internet that is responsible for this, but it's possible. I think it's

some kind of troll, a Bank Floyd troll. Yeah. Next theory is the one that I spent a long time learning about because at the beginning of this whole ruling experience, this person David Valentine said, oh, the answer to this is spiritual enlightenment, and I thought, great, I'm really interested to see how this is going to pan out. But no,

it turns out that theory is actually about possession. I have quote for one of his movies, say, right now, the Division Bell is literally an album whose songs incorporate themselves together to describe the process the spirit took in possessing the listener. Unquote. I didn't say quote any but let's quote it's quote. That's his theory is that actually this entire album is about how Pink Floyd m hm, how Pink Floyd possesses their listeners. Is that what he's

saying that what he's saying the spirit. Is he saying the spirit, But the spirit does he mean just your own soul possessing your body? No, spirit of the band. It not even spirit means the actual band members are physically possessing. All five of them are in me at once. Weird, I know. And he says that actually, this is something that most artists do, is they possess their listeners. And this is and I should clarify that you it may be worth going and watching this for you guys to

understand that I should clarify. This is not just like uh oh, the spirit of the music it's so good, like it possesses me and it overwhelms me. No, no, no, This is an actual physical overtake of your nervous system and body that these people are capable of doing through their music, through you listening to their music. According to this theory, so don't drive and listen to Pink Floyd because they'll take over and they may not be very

good drivers and they take the car. Yeah. And so the argument of like, you know, me being able to say, well, like listen, dude, I listened to Division Bell and I didn't get possessed is like, well, okay, So it describes no, so it describes exactly the dif the situation and how it has to be in order for the possession to

take place. So maybe you did den the lights when the artists told you to dim the lights so you were able to not get possessed, or maybe you looked away so you were able to not And so again if that you know, self confirmation of what you know what's going on? Really yeah, so if you if you wouldn't mind the tie, this seen exactly to the Enigma mystery. So the Enigma Mystery is thank you because I spent so much time in this that I didn't even tie

it in. The whole Enigma Mystery is pointing you towards analyzing the lyrics of the Division Bell. And according to this theory, there's a silence triad, which is three of the songs that tie together. I should clarify on on this album there are two of the tracks are just instrumental, and then there's the silence triad, and then of that triad,

two of the three of the songs. I wish this was like a physical thing so I could be showing you guys the listeners, But basically it's there's two songs that are the Horizontal Farm, and then there's the third and from that third one, the other two songs on the album are all describing the same event, these three songs. So it's a try. It's a major interpretation of the

it is lyrics. It is I can embarrassingly enough, I can kind of get there with the explanation of how these all kind of get together, because there are actually recurring themes within the lyrics in all of the different songs, Like there are literally phrases recycled over and over again in different songs on the album that seemed to kind of describe the same sort of thing. And now Pink Floyd for you know, be fan or not. They're not

lazy artists there. I mean, they may have become lazy artists by but I can I can get behind the thought process. I don't buy it, but I can understand where the thought process comes in of saying, like, listen, these are almost verbatim copy paste lyrics from one song to another. Therefore they must be describing a similar thing. There must be some reason for that. And you could say the same thing about straight out of Hampton Well to the same same phrases same. But here's the thing.

But you you're this is where you're not listening to me, because I'm saying that this theory stipulates that every single recording artist to ever have existed does this exact same thing. The trick to this is that the division bell is meant to expose it. This trick, yeah, to expose the fact that artists are possessing there. But but here's the problem I have with this theory. I can't defend this

theory very well. First of all, well, first of all, it has there there you know, there really is no tie in to the actual I mean, and that's the problem I have with Actually, this mystery, the enigma, the mystery that you're supposed to solve, Well, nobody ever says what it is. You don't know what it is. It's it's how can you solve a rider? But you don't know what it is? I mean, And well, I mean, but but usually a riddle has a beginning, in an

in the middle, and an ending. Fair enough, in this particular case, the guy, the guy refers to a mystery, but it doesn't tell you what the mystery is. And so I guess, and this is what you're saying. This guy was saying, is that the mystery the contest is to say, listen hard to these lyrics and the true meaning will will pop out at you. Yeah, and that is and that is So that is the mystery is

the mystery of what's in these lyrics. But of course that's all subjective because well, no, the mystery is I mean, there's a there's a reported tangible prize at the end when you solve the mystery of the division bell right, and a lot of listeners stipulated and we'll talk more about this like in later on in the theories, but a lot of fans said, well, obviously we have to travel to a physical location to physically retrieve a prize that has been hidden somewhere quote unquote secreted away to

to quote Publius. But this theory stipulates that it's actually the prize is actually solving this riddle. That's this larger concept. I can't I honestly, I cannot defend it at all. I can see parts of it, I can get to parts of it. But I also think describing the same thing over three or four different songs on an album is just great album making, you know, just telling a story from multiple different angles. It's just a great storytelling.

I don't think it's anything nefarious or anything. So I can get behind the idea of you know, there's an actual, you know, continuum of like this is this song is leading up to the events that's happening in these three songs from three different angles, and then this is the aftermath. Totally, I can totally get there, but I can't get to the part where it's like and then it was spiritual possession, man, Like I can't get there. I can't. It's not even spiritual,

it's just it's possession. I can't. I can't get there. I'm so sorry. I can't even get halfway there to be. But he's not the only one who's come up with this kind of idea. I mean that I saw a whole bunch of stuff where people are like, it's all about connection, man, and it's one world and one love and one people. That I was going to say, that's the next the next kind of I don't even I don't even understand this one. But somebody else stipulated that

actually the prizes feedback and control feedback. I couldn't wrap my head around this one. I'm only putting it out there because you'll see it out there. But I couldn't. I literally, I can just say that this person thinks that instead of actual possession, the solving of the riddle is feedback, feedback. The word feedback. I can't. I can't get there. Well, that feedback can be usedful, I suppose. Yeah, I don't know. There is a connection, interestingly to Douglas

Adams another theory we're talking about here. It's kind of an addition. It's a weird bit of more information on the whole enigmas. Yeah, like maybe it's source. Yeah, maybe the source. Maybe you know, maybe Douglas Adams is responsible for the whole thing. So yeah, I guess it is a different theory. In general, I think if Douglas Adams have been involved in this, it would have been funnier. Well, I mean, so there's this really interesting quote frum Douglas Adams.

He did like a what I would call an a m A on a uth net forum in like two thousand on like the Douglas Adam fan And by the way, we're talking about the Hitchhiker's Guide author Douglas Adams and doctor just so everybody knows. Yeah, so he's actually responsible. He has credit on the album because he is reportedly responsible for naming the album. David Gilmour had asked him to kind of look at some lyrics and stuff like that as well. I don't know. I there's some so

there's some speculation with him being involved in it. The speculation is that, well, maybe he was responsible for the whole concept behind He was actually responsible for the whole concept behind the album in in totality basically that he had essentially written the lyrics and that he had the album, and then he came up with this sort of prize thing so that he would be responsible for the concept behind it all. Not necessarily it's execution. Not necessarily it's execution.

But I I wish, I guess would more explain why there would be some really crazy interpretations of it. But I don't think. I don't think he's actually responsible for most of it, So I don't really know. I agree with Joe that if Adams had been involved in that way, it would have been much cleverer. His style is pretty unmistakable. Yeah, I would agree with that totally. Yeah, but I wanted to throw that in there because I thought it was interesting.

I didn't really know that he was I mean that he was even involved with pain for apparently he was like a huge rock rockhead. Why do you say that rock fan, fan fan? He was fan groupie. Yeah, no,

definitely not a groupie. The next series one that I haven't actually seen anywhere else, but I thought was kind of an interesting It's kind of a half baked theory, but you have it, the idea that maybe Publius was actually just a Markov chain generator, because it's you know, that's the ergo of my life or airgot the Internet. But it's kind of an interesting idea of what if somebody just fed all of the lyrics of the division

Bell into a Markov Chang generator. It would help explain all of the weird typos and stuff like that, and the you know, simultaneous reposting. The posts weren't necessarily they got longer as we as you go through the timeline, and they don't necessarily become more coherent. But I don't I don't actually I don't know if I really Yeah, it's one of those things where it was like I

had the idea, so I had to add it. But also like the problem with this theory is that Markov chains, when they have access to a rather large library of words, have a hard time stringing sensible sentences together. And then if you only feed it the leader the lyrics for what eleven or twelve songs, it's a very small pool of words because most of those words are repeated, So it's it's got a much it can't it's not enough words for it to have done even a remotely comprehendible job.

Or maybe they fed in the markout chain from everything Pink Floyd ever did. Maybe, but then the word I didn't talk about the wall, so that good point. Now I'm thinking the mark out change just remember this to mark out chains existed. But at the same time, I don't know pink Floyd in the gang where all that technologically advanced where they think about doing something like that. Rather, I would stipulate that it was just like that was an extension of the troll, that it was just some

random person online. But again the light show. That's my big hold up with saying it was just like some random person. I just still man. I mean, the whole thing about Pink Floyd is they figured out very early on that they could go on big solos and they could use crazy light setups and big laser shows, and you said, make this kind of giant experience. So I I don't see it as being such a stretch as somebody saying, hey, dude, have you seen this crap? You

should just like put it somewhere in there. It was like, go ahead and do it. I mean, I could just totally see that being the case. It's entirely it's the Tyler. Possibly. Yeah, they saw that crap and I thought, hey, let's have some fun, like you said, totally and then the next show that the person who does it, hey, you want that in there? Getting no, and we just thought that was dumb. We shouldn't have done it. I don't care, you know, to put it back to normal totally. Next

theory is that it was an actual physical treasure. And I found this little snippet on Reddit what the reward is, well, maybe where it is, and this user posted that some of us still chip away at this every once in a while. The page numbers of the Division Bell booklet contain hidden binary code, a zero for every even numbered page and a one for every odd numbered page. Stop looking at me like that coupled with the duel heads on page eleven, it winds up pointing to the date

of the First Armistice, November eleventh, nineteen eighteen. The last of the Publius posts promised two clues that would lead to a physical location that needed to be visited. A reference to the page numbers holding great significance was the first clue. The second clue that was was never given. The anonymous remailer that Publius was using was shut down

due to end quote unrelated circumstances. We never actually specified that the us eventually shut down, like not too long after this whole thing got going, right, how long after this did it? I actually don't remember the date that usenet got shut Well, it was that particular anonymous server that he was or she was the thing. But when did this this server do you remember? Don't to be honest, I suddenly can't remember if it was months or years later.

I thought it was years later. It wasn't one to scenario, Okay, the shreaditorytelling is my best guess is that something was hidden at the glade of the armist armist the location where Germany surrendered in World War One, and we're France surrendered at World War Two. Of course that would have been twenty one years ago. No telling if what it would be or even if it were still there. Sure it was never there, because I mean, there's no point in hiding a treasure when people have no possible way

of understanding how to find the treasure. Because all the ever done has made right vague references to the mystery which made may not exist. I will see the one interesting thing. Um. I don't know if you got a chance to actually go through all of the booklet artwork, but at least in the United States original release of the Division Bell, the page numbers were on little heads. They look like it looks like the heads from Eastern Island. Well,

they look like the heads on the cover, right. Well I'm giving people who don't know what the heads looked like. They looked like the heads from me Islid Yeah a little bit, Yeah, they do. Um. But the page numbers were on little heads, and some of them there there was no consistent placement on the page, and they each

number was in a different language. And some of the heads were transparent, and some of them were like bright orange, and some of them were black, and some of them one of them had like a cutout of this the next pages word under the white writing. So I mean there was like a lot of variants, so that varied from country to country as well. It did, for sure. But I think it was interesting certainly that there's some

reference to the page numbers. And I think it's even more interesting that some people were like, yeah, obviously it's the binary instead of like looking into the crazy page numbering system. That well, part of the page numbering was in reference to God. There was one that was in God. I want to say, it was an Indian um, what is the what is the language in India? And thank you? And it was written in that based on the image

that was on the page. Like that seemed to be from what I understood in the reading, that was the impetus of why this one was in this language and this one was in something different some of them, but the color scheme was different different, But again it's artistic. It's artistic, and it varies by country because that was the mirror ball page on in the one of the books, the words are on an arc that followed the ball,

and on the other countries they're square, so it's it's inconsistent. Well, and it's I mean, there's all kinds of like weird things going on the artwork there. You could read all kinds of stuff and all kinds of things in the absence of the actual proof of any existence of a mystery at all, given that nobody has given us a clue what the mystery even is. Again, this is the problem I have with this story. Not nothing. I have a problem with you Devon at all, or with Pink Floyd.

I love Pink Floyd, but this guy kept referring to a mystery. He told us. You never gave us the tiniest hand of what the mystery even was, fair enough. And that's the problem that I add with this. Okay, So I'm sorry. I see her. Yeah, the book that we're going to sell for like ten million dollars better you're going to burn. I'll probably try to sell it. I'll just steal it from you and not tell you. Guys.

But dear Diary had my first kiss today. It was great. Um. But so that must mean you have something you want to add to this. Well, I didn't see it in your stuff. Was there is out there? God? I cannot think of the name of the website now, but it's you know, it's it's got pink Floyd in the name. But there's the guy Albert Moogli. Do you remember him. Yeah, So this guy has these huge writings talking about how he has been involved with the band, almost as if

he was a silent member in the band. It sounds like he started out more of a roady and then moved up through the ranks with them. But he tells this story about how, oh god, who is it. It's Mason, um, Nick Mason, thank you. I think it's Nick Mason came up with this crazy code because he was mixing languages to try and get everybody to know that Mooglie was in the background and was the secret partner and helped

with all the lyrics. And if you translated it and figured it out, you would fig out that it was I can't remember what he called himself. His name is Albert Moogli, but he it was, you know, the moogie or something. And then he went on to say that Stephen Hawking wrote the band and he had cracked the code, but they couldn't tell Hawking because then it would all

come out. Sounds sounds pretty legit. Oh yeah, just as legit as the story he told where he lost all the gear for the band in the river and then hit the van and punched himself a couple of times, and they believed that he had been beat up. You know. Actually reading all this stuff, you know, and I've gone through quite a bit of it, actually starts to make all the fandom surrounding princess and the paparazzi and all

that scene almost rational. Yeah. So the last theory we have, either of you have any theories that you want to add, No, I think this whole thing is just interpretation of lyrics. So um, the last theory we have is that this was a marketing ploy by Columbia Records, which is the theory that I believe most of all. Reportedly in April of two thousand five, so ten years after the whole

release of this thing. Nine, I guess Nick Mason, who I guess is the only member of Pink Floyd that would ever talk to anybody, because that's where all the quotes come from. Are He's the only one who talked

about it. Maybe I don't know. He wrote he had written this biographical book called inside Out, A Personal History of Pink Floyd, Apparently he was at a book signing and somebody asked him about it and he said, yeah, the publius and does exist, but it had been started by the record company, the band had no involvement in it, and the prize was said to have been something like a crop of trees planted in the clear cut area of forest or something like that. Really crappy, actually, I

think I think that's a joke. You know. It's like you win, you win, and they just show you a photograph of of a clear cut that's been replanted and they're like, here, here you go, this is your prize. Is actually happy, Well, it's similar to what Uncle Custard said. The prize was, right, was like complimentary entry to men and some dry eyes. Great, okay? Cool. Um. So the quote that it is attributed to Nick Mason about this

is um. The ploy was done by E M I. They had a man working for them who adored puzzles. He was working for E M I and suggested that a puzzle be created that could be followed on the web. The prize was never given out into this day remains unsolved, and frankly, the puzzle for me is what was the puzzle Yeah, I know, I said that already, but you had twelve times. Apparently there had been a different interview with um the Pink Floyd lighting and production designer whose

name is Mark Brickman. He was apparently the person who was responsible for putting a name up Publius and the like I like Publius because it sounds more like pop. I like Publius because it sounds like I'm going to go to the pub. All right, fair enough. Mark was responsible for putting the lights up, and he basically said that it was some CIA or FBI guy from some encryption guy. Yeah, who you know what, intentionally made it so there was no real mystery and no real solvable anything,

and it wasn't really traced. Um. But however, later um Mark did we can't. He said, I didn't never say any of that in that interview, basically accused the interviewer of having made up that entire statement. Yeah, um, well, it is kind of an incomprehensible quote, so maybe it was made up. It could have totally been made up. Try and read it verbatim. Yeah, so I think marketing

employee is the most likely of these. But I will say the storm thurgis Thurgerson, who was a longtime Pink Floyd collaborator, famously once said rumors are only true and denied. So the denial Pink Floyd continuing to deny that they had no personal involvement in it maybe means they actually did have some sort of personal involvement in it, just only because I know that they did love kind of toying with people. They did. But I really feel like

that's just that's an easy answer. But I also feel like the whole answer to this thing is just read and interpret our lyrics, because everybody reads and interprets these things differently. And that's what you find on the internet. I can read a patchage of thorough and take it one way, and you can read it and take it in a slightly different way for a totally different ways, a totally different way, and you know, and and that's what that's what it is when you read stuff like that,

because it's not it's not linear. It's not meant to be a linear thought, so which I don't think you know really, which to me means unless they have some encrypted message in their lyrics, which is possible. It is possible unless they had that. If you want to just read the words and discern the meeting. While you're like, you say, it's subjective, so that's really not a valid mystery puzzle at all. Totally agree it's not at all.

So I just think it's a really interesting thing. I don't know why I grabbed me so much, because I did. Do you know, you may not know by the length of this episode, but I did so much research and and watching and listening and hours and hours seconds. Um, but I you know, it is interesting to me for sure, and I hope that it is interesting to at least some of our listeners and that they'll go do their own research and it will engage some sort of conversation.

So while I will agree that I don't think the mystery is as robust as it is made out to be, the reading can and is interesting in places. So I mean it's I don't feel like I wasted time. Well I kind of do feel like I wasted time, but it didn't waste time, if that makes sense. It does because I'm in the same boat where I'm like, I was so mad, I like through things when I got to the end of that video series and was just like, oh my god, how did I just waste so much

time on this. But at the same time, I am happy that I watched it because there's some really interesting stuff going on there. If only it's an interesting examination of how people can extrapolate out given the tiniest little bare bones of information. That's exactly it. And it said that the phenomenon of people reading so much into this that was and maybe that was the point of the whole thing, was to say something just really vague and meaningless and just see if people jumped on it and

how far they took it. Well, I mean, it's an interesting idea, right, Like as as you said, Joe, when I was starting to talk about this mystery, You're like, well, it's a really old mystery though, right, it's from like the eighties, it's pre internet. And I said, no, no, it's from ninety four, and you said, but Pink Floyd was making right, you know. And I think there's something to be said for a marketing team to try to

create almost like a pre viral sense around this. I mean, do you think as many people would still be talking about this album anymore if there wasn't this weird thing.

I mean, we certainly wouldn't be doing an episode for our hundreds of listeners are tens of listeners, you know, I mean, because it just wouldn't be like, we wouldn't care that Pink Floyd released an album in ninety four, but now we're talking about but a lot of people are going to be like, oh crap, they did, like, let's go listen to Actually, I was reading the song list and realized I knew at least one of the songs off of it. Yeah crap, But they's good. It's good.

They are a band that I always associate to be farther back in time. It's like, yeah, except for it was like the Eagles, except for that that one Hell Freezes Over album that they made there. Yeah, yeah, And so you always just oh, well, now I'm going back to this time frame of music totally. Yeah, that's kind of that. That's when I knew Pink Floyd. I was a kid and I was listening to their stuff, you know. So yeah, I just thought it was kind of an

interesting little industry. Oh yeah, it's sorry to make you guys trudge through the research again. It's it's just it's just, like I said, an interesting study for the psychologists of how people can see it's on one tiny, vague little thing and makes something huge out of it. Yeah, so do you have I mean, I think it was a marketing ploy. Um. Have you ever you know that that the word the title of Division Bell was supposedly maybe suggested about that Adams? Yes? Do you think maybe he

was really talking about the Nazi bill? Yes? I mean I feel more comfortable talking about like World War two and Nazis and stuff like that, and I do about this gibberish. I know you do. I'm sorry, I'm sorry to make you talk about Steve. What do you think? I I well, I would like to think that there

is something much larger to this. It is it is either the marketing ploy or it is some fan who just came up with a interpretation of lyrics and through some unknown stroke of luck, managed to get that onto the stage at the right time at the right I mean obviously had it set up beforehand, based on the fact that I didn't say this saying this now in

the wrap up. But that post that Publius made was like almost a week before it actually happened, So it wasn't even like, oh crap, I like, man, I did it like it's an hour before and when you know, post real quick. Oh yeah, I mean like it would have had to have been at least a little bit

planned out, which is interesting. I gotta do something, I gotta I gotta hurt up and meet the lighting designer and like persuade him and then uh, you know, and and then somehow get it done and he did, you know, and then yeah, yeah, I made drugs blackmail who whatever it took. Yeah, well, I will buy your theory though that it was a marketing ploy and I thought, let's do this new weird usenet thing and see if this new internet thing, yeah exactly. Well, well we all know

it's not going anywhere. That internet thing, it's never gonna take off. Never. As previously mentioned, we're going to post some links. I'll try to post the most interesting, useful links to you. I can't make any promises. UM. Those links, along with links to merch and also UM. The ability to listen to and download our episodes can be found on our website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can find us. If you don't want to listen to us through our own website, you can find us

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and join the group. We have a Twitter which is thinking Sideways. We also have a subreddit which is thinking Sideways no trend anywhere. If you are Publius or Uncle Custard or Uncle Custard or Nick Mason or any other person involved with this case, what I think he's yeah, that's okay. We've asked dead people to email us before you kid Arthur C. Clark. It doesn't work if you are anybody who wants to get in contact with us

for any reason. If even you just want to yell at me for like butchering the idea of pink Floyd, that's fine with me. UM. You can send us an email at Thinking Sideways podcast at gmail dot com. UM, and we do respond to every single email we get. But it does sometimes take us a little while. So thanks for your patients. In that all of that having been said, I think we're going to go ahead on

out of here. That wasn't a coherent sentence, wasn't. It was just like you've been reading great, Uh yeah, nothing, I'm nothing here by Hey, guys, you want to see that really cool wig that I got from the Pink Floyd concert. Yeah, we have hair again. Let's do it cool. Bye bye,