It all began with a piece of paper, a $50 bill, and Reddit.
There was a curious post title on Reddit’s front page yesterday evening:
Today, a homeless looking man handed me $50 and this note. Do any of you have any idea what it means?
In the post, user delverofsecrets claimed that he was given a $50 bill and a handwritten note by a homeless man while coming out of a New York City subway station. Drawn on the note was a square grid with gibberish words inserted in. On the back were two more lines of letters written in the same black ballpoint ink. The $50 bill had odd markings on it as well. Amateur cryptographers and puzzle lovers were intrigued–All was set for a perfectly good puzzle solving session.
Someone soon realized that the code could be broken by the tricky bifid cipher, and the result was a legible message that asked the recipient to meet at a certain location. Further on, user jrm2003 and others discovered that the markings on the bill was actually a UNIX time code that supposedly showed the time of the meeting. The post had close to 5000 comments by then, and had probably been viewed by 10 times as many.
Later, delverofsecrets posted a new edit on his post, in which he claimed to have received another message from user 2220944379:
AKC,
You may not believe me, but I will remind you of your personalized backpack [redacted]. You have recruited the help of friends, the offer is now on the table for them too. I cannot have strangers inquiring about me, rather we will use a proxy. Here is the next step:
DWY JLRR QUBPKSJ IL NDLM OQD OUCEQMW KGXI CSH RFRM XL WEZUXKJ. YME QLPRBAZ OQD TPVJG HPM UK CQJS H. PPVD BFSRST NJYT KR. BFPU EWP BMHY BTK WL VGB FXK R PXFE DTC GPBQL QWHKI JFA QRPE EJW EYC KLJ HCB JHGN.
Using the same cipher, this translated into:
YOU HAVE MANAGED TO FIND THE MESSAGE WITH THE HELP OF FRIENDS. YOU CHANGED THE RULES NOW SO WILL I. JULY TWELVE FOUR PM. FIND THE BLUE JAY AT SIX AND A HALF AND FIFTY SIXTH AND TELL HIM YOU ARE THE LAST.
The story now played out like a mystery novel, and Reddit users were determined to get to the bottom of it.
In particular, they were curious as to who the “Blue Jay” is. Accusations were abound that the note was nothing but a marketing ploy, and there were conspiracy theories about the homeless man being a US Department of Defense employee.
Nevertheless, curiosity can be a powerful lure. By 4:00pm today (June 12), the small plaza in front of the Metropolitan at the 6 ½ avenue and 56th intersection was full of people. Some had come early to search for the Blue Jay: they looked through the windows of the Metropolitan building for blue objects, watched out for people wearing blue clothing, and even went into the building to inquire people about the mysterious Blue Jay. But most people just loitered around and shared theories about who Blue Jay was. A couple of media crews were already there, filming and interviewing redditors.
Suddenly, someone spotted a blue-wearing, bearded old man walking by. He wore a blue shirt and cap, and had a “raggedly dressed” kind of look.
The horde of people immediately massed around him and started throwing questions: who was he, what is this, who is “the last” mentioned in the note? The man muttered something too softly for most of the crowd to hear, and kept on walking. The crowd followed like a giant bubble around the alleged Blue Jay, and finally broke when the man continued walking towards 7th avenue.
Some people said that the old man smiled and winked one last time before finally leaving. A woman shouted “I hope you guys got your 50 bucks!”
The crowd started growing larger, especially as ordinary passersby got drawn in. Late comers also started arriving. By 4:09pm, some 200 people were gathered at the intersection.
Most people stayed to see if there was more to this puzzle, but also to enjoy what appears to be one of the largest Reddit meet ups so far. It was a look into the actual people behind the millions of internet identities. Lisa, a studio intern who just joined Reddit a few months ago, told me, ” I’m impressed by how attractive many people are.” Brad, a Reddit frequenter who had just rushed over from jury duty, said, “I’m just surprised no one tried to troll and wear a blue shirt or anything.” Lisa agreed. She was trying to get onto Reddit on her phone to check if there were any updates to the original post, but the signal was bad. Nobody wanted to leave in case something interesting happened.
Many people also felt a little let down. Joe, an intern who worked at the Metropolitan, had walked into this impromptu gathering and video recorded the scene with the old man. As he recalled the scene with the old man to me, he mentioned how brief everything was. “Yeah, I’m not even from New York and I’m disappointed, ” he said.
There were some exciting moments during the long tedious wait. At 4:18pm, the original poster and intiator, delverofsecrets, posted on Reddit that he would be arriving in 10 minutes. That turned out to be false. Then there was that brief moment of confusion when a group of exasperated Reddit users started walking towards 7th avenue, and everybody around them followed.
“It’s like sheep,” Lisa said.
At 4:50pm, a medium sized man wearing a Yankee cap and carrying a messenger bag walked into the intersection–delverofsecrets had finally arrived. Much cheering and running ensued. The crowd, already thinned down to about a fifth of its original size, rushed over and squeezed itself around him on the sidewalk. Some people stood on top of a nearby tree fencing to see better, and were told off by some bemused building employees. A couple of puzzled looking policemen walked over. Phones were out and everybody took pictures.
By now, the crowd’s faith in the legitimacy of the Blue Jay mystery was on shaky ground. After all this time, could they still trust in this Redditor?
“Show us the note,” someone said.
delverofsecrets took out a thin white piece of card paper. On it were the clear black letters of the original code.
The crowd gave a roar of approval. They might not have found the Blue Jay, but at least their faith was safe.
