d10 Anomalous Media

This is an entry based on posts themed about anomalous media, as I mentioned on my link roundup. I was gonna make it to twenty, but I'm too wordy and I was taking too long. There'll be ten more coming soon, though.

1. Relato Sobre os Hábitos do Violento Povo Clingão, Encontrado nas Profundezas do Rio Amazônico
Travel report written in 1588 by Portuguese courtier José de Alvarenga, during a visit to Brazil, describing a violent and xenophobic indigenous tribe. He claims that, despite their tendencies, a group from the "Clingão" tribe invited him to attend an important ritual for the tribe on an island on the Amazon river. This report brought him to immediate fame, until news arrived that no one could corroborate the existence of the tribe, and even the island was nowhere to be seen. Alvarenga was shamed and arrested for attempting to trick the king. Later historians would suggest that Alvarenga didn't invent the entire story wholesale, but rather heard it from someone else and tried to pass the encounter as his own, unaware that it was invented. Contemporary sources suggest that Alvarenga insisted his report was correct until his death; in fact, he may have returned to the Amazon after being released from prison, trying unsuccessfully to find proof of his claims.
Except for the technological level, every sociocultural element described in the book - including a short language appendix that contains basic grammar structure and short vocabulary samples - describes the Klingons, a fictional alien race invented in 1967 for the TV show Star Trek.

2. Body_Harvest_Debulhado_Completo.txt
Portuguese language guide for the videogame Body Harvest, released for the Nintendo 64 in 1996. Originally hosted on the website GameFAQs, removed circa 2002 due to profanity, but still easily found on text dump sites.
The initial sections contain a somewhat perfunctory walkthrough of the game, followed by a list of secrets, weapons, enemies, and vehicles. These lists are very detailed, containing (for instance) every location in a level where a monster or vehicle can be spawned. The following two sections, "Important Locations" and "Suggested Actions", contain, respectively, exhaustive descriptions of specific locations in the game and actions that can be performed in it, such as shooting certain monsters with specific weapons during specific moments of the game. No explanation is given as to the relevance of this data.
The next sections include a short but inclusive guide to living. It includes, amongst other things a reasonably strict diet, considered by nutritionists to be very healthy for an adult female of average build, that only allows the consumption of meat on Fridays; affirmations for self-improvement; and a weekly guide to activities that includes some time for 'electronic contemplation', which the author's guide stresses is 'very different from playing videogames, even though it uses the same equipment, and should not be done immediately before or aftwerwards'.
The final sections include a list of locations and actions that can be performed in videogames, much like the previous ones, except these are not specific to Body Harvest; it seems the author intends readers to find other games in which such actions are possible.
Examination of later games by Body Harvest's developer (DMA Design, later Rockstar North, better known for the Grand Theft Auto series) reveals that around 85% of suggested locations and 80% of suggested actions appear in some form in their later games.

3. Abigail Smith's Manuscript
Manuscript of best-selling book The Home Botanist's Complete Guide to Natural Food and Medicine, published in 1989 by self-styled 'home botanist' and housewife Abigail Smith. The book contains a very complete guide to plants that can be grown or found in gardens, including several that had very little literature written on, which caused it to become very famous amongst both its target audience of rural-area housewives and the academic circles, and caused Smith to be granted a honorary degree in botany by the Arizona State University.
During her moment of fame, Smith said her original manuscript contained even more 'tips and tricks', and she was looking for a new publisher to print an extended edition. She was having grat difficulty finding one, and after complaing about it during a TV interview, one publisher she had approached revealed they had declined the publication of the entire book because she demanded every entry be published, including one about coca leaves. This caused a great stir, and while academia supported her decision, she fell out of favour amongst her highly conservative primary audience and disappeared from the public eye.
The manuscript is apparently the source for the first book, and what she was shopping around for the new edition. It does include coca leaves, as well as several plants with properties know only to small indigenous groups, some plants from fictitious or mythological stories, and a few that seem to not exist. Additionally, it contains a final chapter in which Smith warns the readers against 'know-nothing charlatans', railing against a myriad of problems in a rival text she neglects to identify. No text published in the last century matches her complaints; however, her descritpions of illustrations and diagramation perfectly matches the Voynich manuscript.

4. A Guide to Trains of Europe
Coffee table book, lavishly illustrated, containing precise and plentiful information about how to identify trains common in Europe from train lenght, shape, markings and the moment in which they were seen. Book lacks catalographic information; the trains included suggest it was published on the early 1990's, which is consistent with ink, bindings and photo quality. Textual analysis suggests it was somewhat inexpertly translated from a Uralic language, likely Finnish or Estonian.
The book suggests trains are living beings, and treats trainspotting as an activity akin to birdwatching. It warns readers that, while trains are usually harmless, they become incredibly deadly if they feel threatened or their path is blocked; that human figures that appear to be inside trains are mere mimetism and not a concern; and that one should leave the premises as quickly as possible if one sees a stopped train, especially if its 'human-shaped appendages' are moving out of its doors.

5. Mon Canard est en Feu
1931 Surrealist film. Produced in Paris, France, author unknown. Concerns a couple in love who tries to get the moon to come out of cloud cover; the moon falls out of the sky and runs into a Bohemian neighborhood. The couple chasing the moon is then a thread linking several bizarre events, in manner typical to movies in the movement. The film was not very successful as it doesn't use many of the unique avant-gard techniques common to other movies of the time, and was better known for its strange, warbling soundtrack, which doesn't synch with any events on screen.
If the film's soundtrack is recorded on a cassette tape and placed on an AMX computer, it will compile as a simple adventure game. It has no title card, but the interface is written in French. It appears to be a companion piece to the film, containing the same Surrealist logic and several leitmotifs in common; some analysts suggest it takes place within the film, with the player character being the moon after it jumps inside a balcony. The game freezes after the first room is completed; this seems to be due to small damage in the sole surviving print that warps the soundtrack, however, it so far has been impossible to restore the full game, despite access to its source code.

6. latest_from_the_greatest_live.cda
Music file. 143 minutes long. Found on filesharing sites; lower quality .mp3 and .wav versions also exist. Seems to be a live recording of several proeminent musicians from the last half of the twentieth century, all of whom were dead by 2000. Musicians include Elvis Presley, Nina Simone, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur, each of which sings only one or two songs. Audio analysis suggests that it was recorded in a single, continuous take. A large audience is clearly heard clapping between songs (as well as during Freddie Mercury's rendition of We Will Rock You), but no voice from the audience is captured.

7. Cool Games To Play by Yourself When You're Tired of Boring Solitaire
Book by one Bianca Fernandes, first released in early 2015, received a new edition in mid-2020. Details five solitaire card games played with a standard deck. The first one, Confusão, is a game Bianca claims was taught to her by her grandmother and is a folk game played in the Alentejo region of Portugal. (No such game exists.) Afterwards there is a modernized version of that game and three completely new games, all created by Fernandes.
All games are unplayable, as they require a "standard 74-card deck". From the games' description, this deck would include a third unnamed red suit, a fourth face card (The Page, worth less than a Jack) and two Joker-like cards that have no numerical value or suit, the Trump and the Dead.

8. ThinkFest Proposal
E-mail sent in February 2015 to several colleges and groups associated with the Rationalist movement across the United States. The e-mail invited its receivers to participate in or sponsor an event to be called ThinkFest, that would "celebrate fact-first, thoughtful discussion" through several panels that would discuss a myriad of topics. Over a hundred panels are suggested, including a very broad array of subjects, such as if feminism is compatible with free speech, if videogames are art, if the United States should replace every single crossroads with roundabouts, and if hot dogs are sandwiches. Each panel also has a list of people suggested to argue for each side, all of them respected experts in their field.
A paragraph after the signature, seemingly not meant to be sent, explained that this was a summoning ritual for the goddess Eris Discordia, who, once manifested at the event, would be irreversibly killed using a special dagger smithed with a fragment of the Lance of Longinus. This would cause humanity to become passive and accepting for the next few decades. The final intent with this operation is not mentioned.
ThinkFest did not take place.

9. The Real Leak
Zip file uploaded to several subreddits related to the card game Magic: The Gathering on August 2015 by a user named FreedfromtheReal1024, since deleted. Posts contained no text; zip file is named "future_sets.zip" and contains several folders named after a month and a year, each related to a then upcoming card set for the game. Each folder contains images of ten to fifteen cards. There are twenty-one folders, with the latest named August 2021. The Magic community quickly identified the leak as 'fanfic', i.e. they believed the user had posted unofficial cards they had created as upcoming cards. This conclusion was reached due to the fact that the development time for Magic sets is well known, and most of those sets would not have been locked down, let alone had had art comissioned for them; that later cards have strangely written text, suggesting they were written by someone familiar with English; and that they July 2021 folder included a card using an old kind of border that had not been used since 2003. The fact that some of the leaks were accurate for the next set did not change the community mind, as they believed the leaker had simply mixed a few actual leaks with self-made cards.
Cards in the leak match official cards released in actual sets up to mid-2017, including cards that hadn't had their art comissioned. After that, cards start having progressively greater differences from printed sets, usually in a sense that rewards slow, controlling playstyles over aggressive ones. Language in the cards also changes progressively, becoming simpler and more direct, and art becomes less expressive and more realistic. These differences become more and more drastic until the 2021 cards are completely unlike regular Magic cards, and appear to be written in a language different enough from English to be considered a dialect. The language resembles Simple English but several rules for preposition and conjunction placement are differente. Card names are completely changed and lack any references to combat or violence. All art in these cards is extremely realistic and show Caucasian men, either completely naked or wearing only a sash, having no beard or body hair, walking or conversing. Background either shows plants or Greek-style architecture. While the first folders contain a somewhat well-distrubuted number of cards amongs the 'colours' of the game, 2021 folders lack any black or red cards.
The card in the 'old border' was actually released on July 2021 as part of a special 'retro' style printing. It is the only card in that year that matches an actually released card, albeit with radically different art and wording.

10. Y Sus Ojos Miraran El Mar
Novel released in 1979 by Alonso Herrera, a little-known Spanish author of detective novels. Most of his work is considered derivative and formulaic. Y Sus Ojos, while also having a simple, predictable main story, is considered his best work due to the strange, strong worldbuilding, causing it to become a cult classic amongst SFF fans; it is cited to this day in worldbuilding classes (although not always positively). While the novel contains no supernatural elements, it appears to take place in a secundary world, as the unnamed city it is set in contains elements from societies all over the world, as well as a few with no real world equivalent. One such element is the presence of Elite Investigators, a kind of special police that has the power to declare anyone anathema and execute them in the spot; in turn, any citizen who discovers an Elite has committed a crime can legally kill them without legal repercussions, although it is implied that anyone who does so will be hunted by other Elites and possibly regular police officers. This worldbuilding is performed confidently and simply stated, as if the reader will be aware of the unique societal structure presented.
The book's modest success did not help Herrera, who died in debt a few years afterwards, after failing to sell a French translation of the novel to any publisher.
Textual analysis of the novel suggests it is so wildy different from Herrera's other work that all experts agree he is extremely unlikely to be the author. Comparison of the Spanish language 'original' and his French translation suggests that both are, in fact, translations, although it is unclear what the original language would be; it seems to have the sentence structure of a Romance language, but no such language matches it completely.