Currently on Blair Witch: Season 2...

After the SuperNeutral rented van gets towed by the Burkittsville authorities, Ed tasked you with finding the location where Emma hid something for him. You used all of the documents he sent to find out that there was a message hidden in the tailpipe.

Ed breaks into the impound lot to check and finds the remnants of a map Emma and Ray were using. With this new information, you were then able to deduce that Emma and Ray went to The Trench. When you relayed this information to Ed, he indicated plans to go in after them.

Now, Ed has taken a day trip into the woods to search for Emma and Ray's campsite. What he finds there throws him into shock. Among the scattered notes and papers, there are pieces of flesh - human skin - littered on the ground. The flesh appears to be carved with mysterious symbols that also appear on a lot of the documents. Ed turns to you for help as he believes the symbols could spell out a message.

Hints

Carved Alphabet

• The symbols on the carved flesh are also spread across multiple documents in the box to form words and phrases. Try to find which words you can decipher based on the context first and then test certain letters to see if any make sense in the documents before trying to decipher the flesh

• The Carved Alphabet can be translated using this guide:

• Decoding the flesh as it appears in the photo will not return a phrase that makes sense. What could be done to the letters to make them make sense?

Flare Gun Package

• The messages encoded on the back of the package are written in Morse code. Remember, the notebook from Episode 1 includes a translation guide.

Logging On

• Check Ed's letter for the specific task Ed assigns you. Ed wants you to translate the symbols carved into the pieces of flesh he found at the campsite. Submitting the accurate phrase to Ed's chat box on www.superneutralpodcast.com will complete the episode. The website's password is CHAMP.

Note from Harriett

bonus content between Episodes 3 & 4

• Is there a clue to deciphering the phrase inside the flower image?
• Is there another similar cipher somewhere else in this or a previous episode?

Rhymes of Burkittsville Email

bonus content between Episodes 3 & 4

• Is there anything unusual about the capitalization in the rhyme?
• Is there a message that can be created out of the capitalized letters?

Reveals

Carved Flesh

• Decoded, the following letters are written in the carved alphabet:

  • TUSE
  • K
  • O
  • EN
  • H

• The letters spell out "KENT HOUSE" when unscrambled. This is the message written on the carved flesh. To complete the episode, type the phrase "Kent House" into Ed's chat box on www.superneutralpodcast.com.

Casting Call Poster

• Decoded, the following phrases are written in the carved alphabet on the back:

  • Not yet
  • for you
  • Or is it already with us?
  • Hyde
  • going to have to do something drastic
  • He's turning her against me. I have to get her back
  • DIE
  • Kill or be killed

Flare Gun Package

• Decoded, the Morse code messages Emma writes are the following:

  • I need to defend myself
  • No one would blame me
  • Calling to me
  • Ray dead
  • Someone screaming
  • Sounds like James
  • What happened
  • Can't trust myself anymore

Have You Seen This Man Poster

• Decoded, the following phrases are written in the carved alphabet on the back:

  • Is it you I've heard whispering to me?
  • whispering in my ear
  • looking up at me
  • inside my head
  • wrong
  • me
  • I am he

James's Notebook Pages

• Decoded, the following phrases are written in the carved alphabet on the second page:

  • Ed Ed Ed
  • Rob
  • Watch
  • Rob
  • Wait
  • Get him before he gets you
  • Now
  • He wasn't writing
  • He was reading
  • The words are mine

Letter to Wife

• Decoded, the following phrases are written in the carved alphabet on the back:

  • Someone
  • kid, a young man, really
  • his face
  • his voice
  • alone
  • together
  • With both of us. We're changing.
  • contorting us all, but it's affecting him faster.

Note from Harriett

bonus content between Episodes 3 & 4

• The keyword to decipher the encoded sentence is hidden inside the image of the flower. Finding and unscrambling all the letters will create the word "departed".

• Using "Departed" in a keyword cipher results in the following substitution alphabet:

• Decoding the sentence using the keyword will reveal the message "Which fate is more accursed, to be her victim or her instrument?"

Rhymes of Burkittsville Email

bonus content between Episodes 3 & 4

• The capitalized letters in this email are N-I-D-F, which create "FIND" when unscrambled. So far, the Rhymes of Burkittsville emails have spelled out the phrase "You will find".

Transcripts

Casting Call Poster

Back → Ray's Handwriting

• We can make it back. We can make it. We have to make it.
• Emma's got me writing everything down. Says logging everything is important. I think she's right. Can keep track of where we've been. We're so lost, but it's not my fault
• [6 characters in carved alphabet]
• I'm doing this f̵o̵r̵ ̵h̵e̵r̵ [6 characters in carved alphabet]
• Something's coming, but I don't know from where. It's following us. [19 characters in carved alphabet]? We need to hide [4 characters in carved alphabet]
• We're out of food and water [31 characters in carved alphabet]
• I see James and Emma whispering
• [22 characters in carved alphabet]. [17 characters in carved alphabet]
• What is this? I can't remember writing this. I just want to go home. This can't be how I
• [3 characters in carved alphabet]
• [13 characters in carved alphabet]
• W̵e̵'̵l̵l̵ ̵m̵a̵k̵e̵ ̵i̵t̵ ̵o̵u̵t̵.̵ ̵W̵e̵ ̵h̵a̵v̵e̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵m̵a̵k̵e̵ ̵i̵t̵ ̵o̵u̵t̵ .
• I can't just sit around and wait

• I have to get them o̵u̵t̵

Ed's Victory Audio Recording

[Ed clicks on a light.]

 

Ed (tired, but eager): The Kent house? That's what brought us here in the first place. Of course. Of course, that's where the next piece of this puzzle is.

 

[Ed takes a deep breath and nervously rubs his hands on his knees. A long moment passes.]

 

Ed: Should I call Gail before I go? In case something happens? It's not like any cops would believe me anyway.

 

[Ed hoists a heavy pack onto the desk. He places supplies into it, paper and wrapped protein bars.]

 

Ed: No, I'm on my own for this.

 

[Ed zips his pack closed and flings it around his shoulders. He sighs with heft, like an adventurer who expects to never return home again. He walks to the door, slides open the chain lock, unclicks the deadbolt, and pulls the door open.]

 

Ed: The Kent house. Here we go. Hang tight, Investigator. I'll send you another package with, well… whatever I find. Thanks.

 

[Ed shuts the door and turns off the recorder.]

Flare Gun Package

Back → Emma's Handwriting

• Out of everything. Thought I was hungry before. Had no idea.
• Found James last night.
• Was his hair always that long? He acts all friendly, but it's a trap.
• Set up camp. Alternating watch. First shift.
• Scratching outside. Whittling? Too loud to sleep. Ray and James haven't budged. Why?
• Woods always around. Everywhere, on everything I touch, words I don't remember writing. Even here on this page. Did they do it?
• If one doesn't get me, the other one will.
• .. / -. . . -.. / - --- / -.. . ..-. . -. -.. / -- -.-- ... . .-.. ..-.
• -. --- / --- -. . / .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. / -... .-.. .- -- . / -- .
• Mom, Dad, if you find this, I love you. I'm sorry for all the times I forgot to call. I'm sorry I told Dad I didn't want to come home this summer. I'm sorry I blew up at Mom when she said I always put school before family. I'd do anything to take it all back. I'd do anything to be with you right now. I'm sorry I'm writing this down alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I deserve this. I'm so sorry.
• Ray said he doesn't want to hide anymore. James is trying to talk him out of leaving, but maybe Ray's right? No, of course not.
• Ray's "keeping watch" tonight. Someone should be watching out for him.
• I can't sleep. There's that sound again. Less like whittling. More like scraping.
• -.-. .- .-.. .-.. .. -. --. / - --- / -- .
• Even when I cover my ears, it's still there.
• .-. .- -.-- / -.. . .- -..
• ... --- -- . --- -. . / ... -.-. .-. . .- -- .. -. --.
• ... --- ..- -. -.. ... / .-.. .. -.- . / .--- .- -- . ...
• .-- .... .- - / .... .- .--. .--. . -. . -..

• -.-. .- -. - / - .-. ..- ... - / -- -.-- ... . .-.. ..-. / .- -. -.-- -- --- .-. .

Have You Seen This Man Poster

Front → James's Handwriting

• Found by the lumber mill - I feel like I've seen you

 

Back → James's Handwriting

• [29 characters in carved alphabet]?
• Over by the creek no was it the tents? No
• These nights can't last forever
• Darkness reaching from the underbrush
• I can hear you [17 characters in carved alphabet]
• Where is he? In the river [13 characters in carved alphabet]?
• He's [12 characters in carved alphabet]
• Sulfur in the air, opium in the soil, that's what's doing it
• [5 characters in carved alphabet]
• Is he [2 characters in carved alphabet]?

• [5 characters in carved alphabet]

James's Notebook Pages

Page 1

• SEO: Surviving the Blair Witch; Skeptic hour, Burkittsville Horrors, -
• Business cards
• Wilting Tents? Seriously. Wish I could get out of the woods and away from these crazies.
• Looks like we might be here for a while. A long while. Great.
• Lost them somehow. Alone all day. Emma and Ray last seen at the water flow? Moving water? Why can't I remember the word for this?
• Read a thing once about soil tests w/ chemicals in the ground. Makes you crazy or paranoid or forgetful. Something like that. Can't remember, feeling weird.
• Writing will help me remember. Help me think. Maybe? Probably not. Worth a shot at least.
• Ok center clearing start, head straight. Nonono. Nope.
• Same damn tree
• I keep going in circles. Trying to keep track here.
• Gotta sleep. At least when I'm asleep I'm not in the woods.
• There was someone here just now. I saw him I saw him. Roots digging through his feet, pulling him down, sticks in his fingernails. He was here. Sleeping? Not breathing, but alive.
• H̵e̵ ̵w̵a̵s̵ ̵t̵r̵y̵i̵n̵g̵ ̵t̵o̵ ̵t̵a̵l̵k̵

 

Page 2

• I got up to run, and he was gone.
• Am I dreaming? Please. Got to wake up, got to wake up.
• No. I wrote it down. That means it's real.
• It was. It is.
• There's a scratching in my head. Not an animal, haven't even seen a single animal all day.
• Must have been a tree. A tree that looked human. Maybe all the trees out here are the same.
• Trees make paper, paper tree, paper from tree paper from me?
• I'm not even making sense. It's only been 1̵ ̵d̵a̵y̵.̵ ̵3̵ ?
• I shouldn't be out here. This shouldn't be happening to me.
• [6 characters in carved alphabet] Step right up and get your spooky thrills. This is what you wanted isn't it?
• Found a house. No one was there. I haven't been indoors in so long.
• Someone came to m̵y̵ the house. Not the other one. A real person. [3 characters in carved alphabet], he says. We're gonna help each other.
• Have I seen him before? In passing? In Burkittsville?
• He's sleeping. I should too. Finally not alone anymore.
• [5 characters in carved alphabet]
• [3 characters in carved alphabet] swears it wasn't him, but who else would take my notebook? Who else would write these weird things in it? Letters I can't read. He won't admit it. Why?
• [4 characters in carved alphabet]
• He's writing and writing and writing. Is he writing to someone?
• He's going to steal my n̵o̵t̵e̵b̵o̵o̵k̵ thoughts. I see the way he's looking at me.
• [21 characters in carved alphabet]
• [3 characters in carved alphabet]
• He's gone
• It's over
• [14 characters in carved alphabet]
• [12 characters in carved alphabet]
• [15 characters in carved alphabet]

 

Front → Rob's Handwriting

Dear Harriett,

I love you.

I love you, and I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry so so sorry

Harriett, I won't be coming home. I have to go. I need to go. You were right, I should have quit that job years ago. I shouldn't have kept going to that tower every day. It's been nearly 15 years now, and I can't take any more. I can't fight anymore.

You deserve better

The woods can talk. The woods can hear. The woods can feel. They called out to me. Told me to do horrible things. Things I would sooner die before I'd do to you. They won't let me go, and I can only think of one way to stop them from using me to hurt you.

Please, listen to me, don't come after me. Pick up everything and leave. Forget me, forget us, forget everything. I [unintelligible] don't want to hurt you. I wish I could have stayed the man you married, but I'm changing. In ways I can't explain, and I need to protect you. From me. From what I'm becoming.

Don't think about how I left, or about why. Think about the camping trip for our second anniversary. Remember the stars watching overhead as we walked in a woods that didn't frighten, but mystified us. How you tried to teach me how to ride a horse. I never learned, but it wasn't because you were a bad teacher. Live in those moments. In any one other than this one. Please.

I love you.

 

I promise I do, Robert

 

Back → Rob's Handwriting

• I wrote this whole letter and never gave it to you. Maybe it's for the best.
• Are you upset with me? You shouldn't be.
• I can't tell how much time has really passed. Days? More? I let it wash over me. What would it do to me to fight back? I know there's no winning.
• I miss you. I think. I can't remember what it is I'm supposed to feel. Longing, I think, is correct. I think I'm stuck. Frozen. But I can't come back. If I did, I might bring her with me.
• You wouldn't like it here. It's too quiet. The flowers, they turn their faces. They turn away from me, afraid of what I'm becoming.
• Do you miss me?
• Where are you? Have you left yet?
• Today I found [7 characters in carved alphabet], a [3 characters in carved alphabet], [9 characters in carved alphabet], [6 characters in carved alphabet]. I had to struggle to see [7 characters in carved alphabet] or hear [8 characters in carved alphabet]. The world seems a million miles away. Listening from inside the husk of a hollow tree. Is there a way out, now that I'm no longer [5 characters in carved alphabet]? I fell apart when I was alone. Could there be hope [8 characters in carved alphabet]? [Unintelligible] But could I? Could I see you again?
• I'm afraid you wouldn't recognize me.
• where where where where where where where
• There's something wrong here. [24 characters in carved alphabet]. She's [39 characters in carved alphabet].
• He pushed me, accused me. So angry and afraid. Like how I was, but worse. But I didn't do what he's accusing me of, I swear. I haven't lost my mind. I wouldn't write that. You'd believe me, wouldn't you?
• I'm sorry. I let the woods take me from you, my love. I let that happen to us. I still sing to you sometimes. Do you hear it coming through the trees?

 

Back → James's Handwriting

• Is this really how it happened? I don't remember. Save this, in case I forget again.

Note from Harriett

bonus content between Episodes 3 & 4

Written Haphazardly Inside the Flowers

• E-D-A-T-E-R-P-D

 

Beneath the Flowers

• Wcfpc tdsr fq jlor dppuoqra, sl er cro vfpsfj lo cro fkqsoujrks?

SuperNeutral Podcast: Will-o-the-Wisps Audio Recording

[INTRO MUSIC, fading to the introduction by our hosts Kristen Flanagan and Shawn Bauman.]

 

Kristen: Welcome to SuperNeutral, the pint-sized paranormal podcast that pits a believer: that's me, Kristen Flanagan…

Shawn: Against a skeptic like me: Shawn Bauman. And, you know, I am excited that we are finally going to talk about Will o' the Wisps.

Kristen: So am I. I've heard about Will o' the Wisps before, but never in such a murderous way.

Shawn: Oh, they've got quite the body count.

Kristen: Yeah, sounds like it. What struck me about the newsletter you wrote, though, more than the story itself, was that it felt like something I would write. You're supposed to be the skeptic here, right?

Shawn: Yeah. See, this is where I think that I'm - maybe I'm an unusual skeptic. There's not a single part of me that believes in the Will o' the Wisp myth... but I love it!

Kristen: I'm straight up hoping you've got a down-to-earth explanation, because all night I just imagined lights outside trying to kill me.

Shawn: Oh, yeah, I definitely do.

Kristen: Okay, good, so what is the deal?

Shawn: They are completely real.

Kristen: What?

Shawn: Sorry, what I mean to say is that weird lights DO flash in the dark sometimes. And supposedly people HAVE died trying to locate what's causing them.

Kristen: Okay, but you're saying there's not like a little elf guy gleefully drowning people in a disgusting swamp, right?

Shawn: Correct. Yeah. The truth is swamps and stuff are just full of decaying matter... and when things rot, they give off natural gas. Some of those gases ignite when they come into contact with oxygen, and bam! So there you go. It's something rotting gives off gas, then the gas turns into a little fireball, some weary traveler follows it, and before they know it, they're drowning in a bog.

Kristen: Ugh, am I insane or is that almost worse than a little monster?

Shawn: Oh, I definitely think so.

Kristen: Ugh!

Shawn: You know, ultimately, the story about the evil creature is just a really fun explanation of a perfectly natural phenomenon. We just made up the story to try and explain something otherwise unexplainable.

Kristen: Or we point to something explainable to comfort ourselves about the evil creature.

Shawn: Oh, boy.

Kristen: Do not look at me like that. That is exactly how James looks at Ed when he talks about ghosts and stuff.

Shawn: Yeah, correct.

Kristen: Listen. All I'm saying is that the story of Will o' the Wisps and the story about swamp gas have the same purpose: Be careful about chasing random lights in the dark. I'm not going to say that swamp gas isn't the explanation for these kinds of cases, I'm not. All I'm saying is that if we stay away from those weird lights, maybe we're accepting the scientific answer as the ONLY answer.

Shawn: Um... do you think that there are things that defy science? Just in general.

Kristen: No. Well... no. I think there are still things left for people to see, study, and measure. But, honestly, I think people who believe in the supernatural often come off sounding goofy because we're usually put in the position of arguing against science. But what I really think is that there's a whole world of creatures and phenomena out there that just need to be properly studied and then they'll shift from "made up supernatural stuff" to just another category of the natural world.

Shawn: Hm, yeah, I like that.

Kristen: Right?

Shawn: You know, there was a time when people sounded nuts for claiming that the duck-billed platypus was real. And it sounded insane to people to say that there was a mammal with a duck beak and poison glands... but then we definitively found it, studied it, and proved it to the world.

Kristen: Yes, it's exactly that. So just keep an open mind, right? Maybe the swamp gas light show is only part of the explanation.

Shawn: You know, I truly believed that this is a topic we would both completely agree on.

Kristen: See, I think we do agree. The Will o' the Wisp story is... there's something almost elegant about it. Either way, it's real. It's just whether or not you think it has a mind, right? Is it intentionally trying to kill you?

Shawn: You know - sharp pivot, but that reminds me. The name. Will o' the Wisp. A "wisp" is a small bundle of sticks, which people used for a torch in the dark, so the idea is that the lights trying to lure you are the "will" of the torch.

Kristen: Ah, okay, like the torch has its own will. That's cool.

Shawn: And not only that, but the term "jack-o-lantern" was once a name for a Will o' the Wisp.

Kristen: Oh, even cooler. Well, everyone, I think that takes us to the end of this week's edition of SuperNeutral.

Shawn: Mhm. We'll be back next time for more creepy creatures, but until that time comes, it's safe to turn out the lights.

Kristen: Wait, no, no, no, no it's not, don't go anywhere near that light!

 

[The music concludes, leaving us with a post-show snippet.]

 

Shawn: You know, is there any place worse to drown than a swamp?

Kristen: Sewage treatment facility.

Shawn: How the hell did you come up with that so fast?