Halo 3: The Cradle of Life

On June 14th, 2007, a website related to Halo 3 (http://www.halo3.com/comic/) went up. It was found by Bungie.net user crazyBoy3. The Cradle of Life is a story about a Tribal Elder, N'chala, who watches the Forerunners build what may or may not be the Ark. On the last page (page 4) of the comic there are three comic strips that can be clicked on over and over and/or dragged to reveal mysterious numbers. These numbers are as follows: Strip One - 206., Strip Two - 16. over 223., Strip Three - 65. These numbers were later discovered to be an IP address by Bungie.net forum goers. By typing http://206.16.223.65/ into the url box, people would be linked to a webpage owned by Microsoft with a message saying that you do not have permission to view this page. Later in the evening, the webpage opened to reveal an alien looking website with the text:

Iris Initiated - Vio Transmit + 3 588 000

'Searching Re-route...... /confirmed/'

'System Bypass In Progress. - Realignment Proceeding'

000 000 000 000    Remaining

("0" represents the numbers in the countdown. From left to right, the four three-digit numbers represented days, hours, minutes and seconds.)

When bookmarked, the page will be named by default "Transmission Log". Nobody yet knows what the webpage is counting down to and it is strange that the countdown will skip numbers with the digits 7, 8 and 9 (for example, it will countdown like 32, 31, 30, 26, 25, 24, etc. It will also countdown like 102, 101, 100, 66, 65, 64, etc.). It is also strange that the "minutes" and "seconds" (and possibly "hours") columns of the timer start at the number "113". However, the digit skipping could be explained by the possibility that the timer is counting in Base Seven instead of Base Ten. If this is true, the timer is counting down to midnight on Thursday, June 21, 2007. June 21 happens to be summer solstice.

The IP address of the site has been traced to "Microsoft Way - Redmond, Washington".

(In the following series of text changes on the countdown website; "0" represents the numbers in the countdown. From left to right, the four three-digit numbers represented days, hours, minutes and seconds.)

The text on the webpage changed around midnight on June 14, 2007 to:

Rotate Transition Point /negative/

Local Interference - Negligible

/confirmed/ Realignment Proceeding

000 000 000 000    Remaining

The text on the webpage changed around midnight on June 15, 2007 to:

/confirm bounce alignment/

Confirmed - Alignment Request Compiling

Hibernation Resumed

000 000 000 000    Remaining

The text on the webpage changed again around midnight on June 16, 2007 to:

Transmission Interruption - Go Dark /negative/

Possible Intercept - System Bypass Imminent

/adjust bypass according to threat/ Fluctuating

000 000 000 000    Remaining

The text on the webpage changed again around midnight on June 17, 2007 to:

Iris Transmission Complete.

Awaiting Delivery

/time to awareness/

000 000 000 000    Remaining

The text on the webpage changed again around mid-afternoon on June 18, 2007 to:

System Breach.

Failure ##myqse7##rf

/report.................../

000 000 000 000    Remaining

The timer also sped up considerably. People say it's 17 seconds for every minute that elapses.

The text on the webpage changed again at midnight on June 19, 2007 to:

/system override/

Core Relevance 37% and Rising.

/negative - system control diverted

000 000 000 000    Remaining

At 1 PM Eastern Standard time the timer on the countdown website ran down to 0. It was shortly replaced by a much longer, much slower moving countdown. And then replaced later with a stationary countdown with the numbers '001 012 034 053'.

On June 19, the text above the countdown changed again:

'/Systemic failure. Root cause unknown./'

/ rebooting /

000 000 000 000    Remaining

The countdown has now stopped at 001 012 034 053. It is unknown if and when it will restart.

In the evening of June 19, all text disappeared from the page. All that currently remains is the still-frozen countdown timer:

001 012 034 053    Remaining

BoonIsha at unfiction noted that the stopped countdown timer of "001-012-034-053", when treated as GPS coordinates 1.12, 34.53 result in a location in South Africa. Further investigation reveals that the point is in the middle of the largest caldera in the world, at the tip of Mount Elgon, also home to some "unusual caves", and not far from Voi.

On the morning of June 21st, all notion of the time disappeared and it now redirects you to a new IP address. It redirects to: http://206.16.223.61/E5h2JK/flash/web/index.html and this site has a screen asking you if you live in North America or Europe, and asks for your birth date. After gaining entrance to the site, a flash animation appears and a Forerunner looking robot comes from out of a hallway and starts floating and spinning in front of you. The user has the ability to spin the robot in any horizontal direction. When you bookmark this page it is labeled as "Server 5 Open". This is almost definitely in relation to the the 5 servers on the Halo 3 webpage. The robot is clearly Forerunner in design and upon further inspection, has the same symbol on it's back as the one in the Iris page.

Related Links

 * Iris
 * AdjutantReflex
 * Forerunner Email