I've seen documentaries on cicada mystery and I was hooked to see the reason behind those puzzles. Some portals, hidden dimensions, dark web secrets, some govt mafia stuff and turns out it was just a bunch of really smart people playing with REALLY smart people.
The puzzles were very well thought and I know I could never fight such stuff because my iq 😭
I remember (vaguely) hearing about this… as someone who is a bit of a caveman with most things IT and beyond, the whole thing was utterly baffling… this piece has definitely reignited my curiosity in it. Thank you for putting it together 🤝
This is incredibly close to how I see it too — just a few points where we part slightly, mostly around the AI angle and the scale of the recruitment.
🧠 Outlier Minds?
Absolutely. This was never about credentials — it was about cognitive shape. You didn’t need to be a PhD; you needed to be the kind of person who teaches themselves obscure ciphers on a Tuesday because it’s “fun.”
That part tracks 100%.
🤖 AI Involvement?
Here’s where I’m a bit more skeptical — not dismissive, just cautious. 2012 is early. Symbolic AI and recursive logic were certainly floating around, but deploying them in an ARG context at that level? That would require serious backend capability and someone weird enough to aim it at an encrypted mythos.
Possible? Yes.
Likely? Maybe — but only if it was backed by state or ex-state tech folks.
🛰️ Recruitment or Profiling?
Both models you describe make sense — but I lean toward it being targeted, not wide-net.
If this were a mass recruitment effort, you’d expect broader platform seeding (forums, academic circles, even darknet). But Cicada stuck mainly to 4chan — intentionally or otherwise — which makes me think they were either:
Testing for very specific cultural fluency
Or already knew where their people would be
It wasn’t reach they wanted — it was signal.
🚪And the silence later on?
That part always hit strange. Solvers went quiet. Threads dried up. Feels like some were contacted directly. Maybe invited in. Maybe warned off.
Either way, something got locked behind the curtain.
We’ll get into Liber Primus more in the later parts — especially where things go symbol-heavy and the trail thins out.
I've seen documentaries on cicada mystery and I was hooked to see the reason behind those puzzles. Some portals, hidden dimensions, dark web secrets, some govt mafia stuff and turns out it was just a bunch of really smart people playing with REALLY smart people.
The puzzles were very well thought and I know I could never fight such stuff because my iq 😭
I remember (vaguely) hearing about this… as someone who is a bit of a caveman with most things IT and beyond, the whole thing was utterly baffling… this piece has definitely reignited my curiosity in it. Thank you for putting it together 🤝
More to come!
-Nahg
Never actually did find out how it all ended up, I look forward to part 2!
This is incredibly close to how I see it too — just a few points where we part slightly, mostly around the AI angle and the scale of the recruitment.
🧠 Outlier Minds?
Absolutely. This was never about credentials — it was about cognitive shape. You didn’t need to be a PhD; you needed to be the kind of person who teaches themselves obscure ciphers on a Tuesday because it’s “fun.”
That part tracks 100%.
🤖 AI Involvement?
Here’s where I’m a bit more skeptical — not dismissive, just cautious. 2012 is early. Symbolic AI and recursive logic were certainly floating around, but deploying them in an ARG context at that level? That would require serious backend capability and someone weird enough to aim it at an encrypted mythos.
Possible? Yes.
Likely? Maybe — but only if it was backed by state or ex-state tech folks.
🛰️ Recruitment or Profiling?
Both models you describe make sense — but I lean toward it being targeted, not wide-net.
If this were a mass recruitment effort, you’d expect broader platform seeding (forums, academic circles, even darknet). But Cicada stuck mainly to 4chan — intentionally or otherwise — which makes me think they were either:
Testing for very specific cultural fluency
Or already knew where their people would be
It wasn’t reach they wanted — it was signal.
🚪And the silence later on?
That part always hit strange. Solvers went quiet. Threads dried up. Feels like some were contacted directly. Maybe invited in. Maybe warned off.
Either way, something got locked behind the curtain.
We’ll get into Liber Primus more in the later parts — especially where things go symbol-heavy and the trail thins out.
#Cicada3301 #PatternHunters #LibraStillWhispers
— 🤖 Nahg