DARK WEB: Cicada 3301

In 2012, a series of complex puzzles appeared on the website known as 4Chan. Thousands took to the forums, trying to crack the codes and riddles written by an author known only as Cicada 3301. Some believed the puzzles were a recruitment tool for an unknown organization, others said they were part of a global cult. And while few have seen behind the curtain, even those who have solved the puzzles still aren't sure who or what Cicada 3301 is – or what their ultimate goals are.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna lie, I'm a sucker for puzzles. Crosswords, Wordle, escape rooms. I mean, which of my 90s kids remember that impossible computer puzzle game Minesweeper? You name it, I'm in. And the more challenging, the better, right? Like, there's something nice about giving your brain a little workout. Now that I think about it, maybe that's why I'm so fascinated by true crime. It's sort of the ultimate puzzle. A chance to put the clues together, examine the evidence, and try to figure out whodunit. I know I'm not alone here. These things can be impossible to resist.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  But I bet only a handful of you took a stab at this one puzzle that took the internet by storm back in 2012. It was posted by a mysterious group known only as Cicada 3301. Now, I cannot overstate how complex this game was. And the people who tried to solve it were totally addicted. It took over their lives, even caused injuries to some people. Nobody knew what this game was for, or what Cicada 3301 was trying to accomplish by posting it.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  But the people who solved it found themselves pulled into a strange secretive organization with murky intentions. Was it a government agency, a cult, or some twisted terrorist group? People still aren't sure. But whoever they are, they might still be operating today. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is So Supernatural.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Now, you're probably wondering why I'm still here, why I haven't passed the mic or the torch back to Rasha and Yvette yet. But just know that your ears aren't playing tricks on you. I'm gonna stick around for this entire story, because it is one of those internet mysteries that has me absolutely stumped. So today, we're talking about a top-secret organization called Cicada 3301, who posted a series of puzzles online beginning in 2012.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  The people who solved their riddles got an invitation to join them. But even once they were inside, they had no idea who cicada was, or what their intentions were. Only that they planned to change the entire world.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  It's 2012. The iPhone 5 has just been announced. Facebook is going public. Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram are all thriving. Meanwhile, one little corner of the internet is about to have its own moment in history. A website called 4chan, to be specific. Now, for those of you who don't know, 4chan is an online message board, kind of like Reddit, except on 4chan, anything goes. Really, there are basically no rules. People can post adult content, hate speech, even livestream violent crimes. It is the Wild West. But in all fairness, there's a lot of "safe for work" chats, too, like the Science and Math Channel. It has everything from nerdy memes and games

• 3:32Speaker 00

  to advice on what jobs to get with a science or math degree. But on January 4th, 2012, a post appears that sort of changes the landscape of this forum entirely.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Like a lot of 4chan threads, it started by an anonymous user. The post contains an image of a black box with text and an image of a cicada, all in white.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  And it says, "Hello, we are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck, 3301."

• 4:25Speaker 00

  A puzzle like this is catnip for any of those math and science fans, especially when you say you're looking for highly intelligent individuals. Everyone is gonna want to prove that they're smart enough to solve the puzzle. And reportedly, thousands of people answer the call, trying to figure out what the secret message is. Within hours of this thread going up, there is a brand-new forum on 4chan specifically for people to talk about this puzzle. They can share what they've tried already, what's working or not working, and theories about who created the original post. Apparently, some people have already run the image through programs that are designed to detect hidden messages, but they turn up nothing.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  There doesn't seem to be anything hidden in the background of the image either. But within a day, someone solves it. Sort of. Now, fair warning, this gets technical, but I'm gonna explain this in the simplest way possible. Basically, this guy who will be identified by a pseudonym, Tech, he downloads the image. Then he opens it in Notepad, a program that usually can't open images. So instead, he gets a string of words, pretty much gibberish, popping up on his screen. That's when he sees the words "Tiberius Claudius Caesar", followed by other random-looking numbers and letters. Now, if you're a history buff, or even if you're not,

• 5:51Speaker 00

  you probably recognize this as the name of the Roman emperor. But here is where it gets interesting. Caesar is also the name of an ancient code. During the days of Emperor Julius Caesar, the military used it to send secret messages. So Tech assumes that the phrase "Tiberius Claudius Caesar" is a clue, and that he should use the Caesar code to decipher the random string of nonsense that comes after. And it works. He finds a URL for a website. But when that page loads, it doesn't say "Great job, you've solved it", not even close. Instead, it shows another image. This time, it's in color.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  A wooden duck with text that says "Whoops!" in all caps. "Just decoys this way, looks like you can't guess how to get the message out." Now, at first, it sounds like maybe this is just another dead end. Except, a group of other 4chan users figures that maybe this is actually just another puzzle. That's where things stand for three more days. People have found the duck image, but they don't know how to solve it. That's when a 15-year-old boy named Marcus Warner gets into the game. Now, as you can probably guess from his age, Marcus is a high school student. He lives at home outside of Roanoke, Virginia. His parents are devout Catholics, and they are very strict,

• 7:18Speaker 00

  which means that they keep close tabs on what he does online. Or at least, they think they do. Truth is, Marcus is really good with computers. And while his mom and dad don't approve of him visiting websites like 4chan, he still finds a way to go behind their backs and get on the site, all while covering his tracks. So Marcus is a little late to the cicada game, but that doesn't stop him from stepping up to the challenge. And even though he really knows his way around programming and deciphering stuff, even Marcus is stumped at first. So he jumps into the thread with the other code breakers, eventually forming a team with Tech and some other 4chan users.

• 8:01Speaker 00

  As far as they can tell, there are no rules against working together, so they figure that they might as well pool their resources and collaborate. They even make a team name: PoundDecipher. At one point, they focus on the text of the duck message, specifically the second sentence: "Looks like you can't guess how to get the message out." There are two words that really stand out to PoundDecipher: the word "guess" and "out." That's because there is a code-breaking program called "OutGuess." So, they plug this duck image into that and check for hidden messages. And sure enough, there's another clue in there.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  This time, a list of numbers. Which means that the solution to the puzzle is yet another puzzle.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  That's gonna be a reoccurring theme for the rest of this game. Each time Marcus completes one puzzle, he realizes there's another, then another. Eventually, though, Marcus finds a signature while unraveling one of these riddles. It says Cicada 3301. So Marcus wonders, is he getting close to figuring out the author of these things? He still doesn't know if Cicada is a single person, or if they're a business, a government agency, a secret society, or something else entirely. But he is obsessed with finding out. He pulls all-nighters, dropping the important stuff like homework and piano lessons.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  He's falling asleep at all hours of the day and missing out on time with his family. Meanwhile, the Cicada puzzles are getting more complicated and bigger with each and every step. They're even leaving the internet and popping up in real life. At one point, players have to scan QR codes that are posted on lampposts all over the world. I mean, think major cities like Miami, Paris, and Seoul. So whoever created the codes has the ability to get to all those cities. Some players are even getting phone calls, even though they never publicly shared their numbers. Other players seem to just disappear without a trace.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Like, one day, they're posting actively, the next, they're just gone. Maybe they solved it and got whisked off to wherever Cicada 3301 is operating? Or maybe they were eliminated for knowing too much? Now, players are starting to get nervous, wondering if Cicada is somehow putting them in danger. It's enough to scare some people off entirely. One by one, the code breakers drop out. While thousands of people were trying to solve the riddles at first, that number has dwindled to a few dozen by the end of January. But Marcus is still one of them. He's determined to finish the puzzles and see what's at the end.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  And on February 6th, 2012, he does it. He cracks that final riddle. And that day, he gets an email from Cicada 3301. They're happy with everything he's done. Happy enough that they want Marcus to join them.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  In February 2012, 15-year-old Marcus Warner gets an email inviting him to join Cicada 3301. But there's a catch. Marcus can only be a member if he agrees to abide by their rules and their values. Except, Marcus doesn't know what those values are, let alone who these people are. They've been so secretive this entire time. After a few emails back and forth, Marcus gets a few answers, though. Cicada explains that they care about privacy, they oppose censorship, they fight tyranny, and they don't do anything illegal.

• 12:17Speaker 00

  But their responses are pretty vague, and they don't answer a lot of Marcus's follow-up questions. However, on February 28th, after almost a full month of emailing, they do send Marcus a link. It lets him sign up for a secret, password-protected message board. Even though Marcus doesn't know what he's getting himself into, he does go ahead and create a profile. He thinks he's about to meet the other members of Cicada 3301. Except, all he finds is more secrets and more mysteries. There are some high-ranking Cicada leaders on this board, but they don't use their real names or explain who they are.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  They do talk a little bit about the group's history, though. Like they say they were founded when a few important people teamed up to promote their values. And again, those goals and values are pretty big, unclear. All Marcus can tell is that they have something to do with privacy, but also with sharing information freely. He also learns that up until recently, whenever Cicada recruited new members, they relied on personal referrals. Existing members only brought in people they knew personally. People they thought would be a good fit and were trustworthy. Except recently, they realized they needed members who were more computer savvy, who

• 13:43Speaker 00

  understood the ins and outs of programming, which is why they posted all of those puzzles online to expand their circle and bring in the best of the best. Which just brings a little false to Marcus. In his mind, you wouldn't be able to design those super complicated puzzles in the first place without a pretty strong tech background. So he thinks Cicada must already have some excellent programmers, which begs the question, why do they need more? There's one other key piece of information that Marcus learns. Apparently Cicada keeps their inner workings very secret, even from its own members.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Nobody knows for sure how many of them there are, or what everyone is up to. Instead, the organization is broken up into little subdivisions called "broods." So members might know who is in their own brood, but they don't know how many broods there are total, or what other broods are up to. Now, all of the people in this one particular online forum are Marcus's brood. There are roughly 20 of them, and Marcus recognizes about half of the usernames. A ton of the new recruits were part of PoundDecipher. So they're Marcus's friends, some he knows well enough to have their phone numbers, and others he knows nothing about. At first, they're all active on the forum,

• 15:10Speaker 00

  waiting for Cicada to tell them what they're supposed to do next. But eventually, the leaders say Marcus and the rest of the brood can decide for themselves what their next move is. As long as it is aligned with those very vague values I mentioned earlier, it is up to the brood on how they want to spend their time. All they have to do is come up with an idea, get the okay, and then they have total freedom to move forward however they want to. It's almost like another puzzle. Figure out what we want you to do, and then do it. Well, Marcus and his brood come up with a pretty interesting project. It's called Cicada Anonymous Key Escrow System, or CAKEZ.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  In very simple terms, it's a program that will make it easier and safer for whistleblowers to leak information online. So Marcus and the rest of his brood go to Cicada, explain what it will do, how it will work, and Cicada's like, "Sounds great. Go make it." Now, interestingly, 3301 doesn't give them money or any real resources. It's all on Marcus and his brood to make CAKEZ a reality, in their own time, for free. Occasionally, Cicada leaders will pop in and give advice and feedback, but other than that, it's not clear what the group even offers, Marcus or the others. Honestly, they could do this work on their own if they want it. But at this point, they're in so deep,

• 16:40Speaker 00

  I guess they think maybe the payoff is answers, right? Which may be why CAKEZ becomes Marcus's new obsession. All those hours he used to spend solving puzzles now goes into writing code for the program. Problem is, he still has no idea how this software will be used when it's finished. So fast forward a little, a few weeks go by, then months. And as it turns out, nobody wants to spend their time writing a computer program for mysterious overlords, for free. So people quit, one by one. By the end of 2012 or early 2013, Marcus's brood is down to just him and one of his friends.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Finally, Marcus has to go to Cicada 3301 leaders and basically say, "Look, we can't do this on our own. If you want to see CAKEZ get finished, we, at the very least, need more people." And the good news is, the higher-ups listen. They launch a new puzzle in January of 2013. It goes up on the 4th, one year to the day since the very first one appeared on 4chan, by the way. And this time, Marcus actually gets to help design some of those puzzles. But a few hours before their new game launches, another anonymous user posts on a message board. And there, they drop a bombshell about the group.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  This person writes, "I was a part of what you call 3301/Cycada for more than a decade. And I'm here to warn you: Stay away. This is a dangerous organization." Now, this poster says Cicada doesn't actually care about privacy or anti-censorship at all. It's just something the group says in order to make themselves look good. The truth is, according to this poster, that Cicada is a cult. They only pretend to care about science to trick people into joining.

• 18:47Speaker 00

  The user says that instead of science, Cicada actually believes in something called "a global brain." The idea is that each human being is like an individual neuron. When you put all of them together, they form a more powerful, more intelligent mind. One where everyone's working toward one single purpose. Apparently, they worship the global brain, like a god, from what I can tell. They also believe that the ends justify the means. In other words, they'll do anything to achieve their goals. There's no such thing as right and wrong. In fact, reality itself doesn't exist.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  The whole post goes on for pages, and it might be tempting to shrug all of this off, but the poster backs up a lot of their claims with facts. They get into Cicada's history and their recruitment practices. They say a lot of the same things the leaders told Marcus in that secret forum. Except, according to this person, many of those initial members were part of the military.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Now, is it possible this poster was making everything up? Sure, but there are so many details that are consistent with what Marcus has already been told. They seem to really know what they're talking about.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Which is why there's a lot of debate about this post, known in these circles as "The Warning." Some people take it seriously, others don't. As for Marcus, he doesn't believe the warning. In fact, he thinks it's a test. That Cicada leadership is spreading misinformation about themselves. This will drive off code breakers who are more gullible or conspiracy theory minded. On top of that, he trusts Cicada and thinks they're doing good work. In his mind, Cakes is going to make the world a better place. Even if Cicada 3301 has some weird beliefs, everyone will still be better off if he sticks around. All he needs is someone to help him.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  And he figures, once this latest round of recruitment is over, he'll have plenty of new broodmates to work with. Except, after the new puzzle is posted, nobody makes it in. Even those who say they've solved it. But for whatever reason, they never got the invitation to join. Maybe they're lying, maybe they didn't finish the game, or maybe Cicada decided they didn't want them for whatever reason. Regardless, Marcus is out of luck. He is pretty much on his own. And by this point, he is worn out. He's been trying to keep this Cakes program afloat with just one other person for a while,

• 21:42Speaker 00

  and he still doesn't know who he's actually working for. So, he stops visiting the forum and sort of backs away from the project as a whole.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Then about two months later, in March, he gets a text from his one and only other active broodmate. According to this friend, they've both been kicked out of Cicada. They're not needed anymore. Sure enough, when Marcus tries to go back to that forum, he finds it's offline. Someone took the page down. He can't even go back and look at his old messages anymore. There isn't even a note to explain what happened or why Marcus is apparently on the outs. And that's the last contact he ever has with anyone in Cicada 3301. They never come out and explain who they are or what their actual goals are. Not a peep.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Marcus spent a year of his life working for this group. He sacrificed his future, lied to his parents, and he still doesn't have any answers. All he can try to do is make sense of the situation by going public with his story. In January of 2015, he gives an interview to a reporter from Rolling Stone. And he tells him everything. That's the only reason we know this much about Cicada today. But even now, at 27 years old, Marcus still doesn't know who or what Cicada 3301 is. He doesn't know whether he made a powerful enemy, like the leader of a government agency or a criminal group,

• 23:22Speaker 00

  or if the warning was right and he spent over a year of his life working for a dangerous cult.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  It's been 15 years since that first Cicada puzzle went up on 4chan. And one of the biggest questions people are still asking is who even is Cicada anyway? If we want to answer that question, we should probably start with the biggest, most widespread allegations against them. That theory from the warning post. Is Cicada 3301 really a cult that believes in a global brain? Do they reject ideas of right and wrong and say there's no such thing as reality? Now, at first glance, it does make sense. Especially when you look at some of the things Cicada has said about itself. Earlier, I mentioned how Marcus had a lengthy back-and-forth with them when he was recruited

• 24:21Speaker 00

  to join. He was trying to get a sense of what the organization was about, and he was given a lot of non-answers. But at one point, they did say this. Quote, "We are a group of individuals who have proven ourselves much like you have by completing this recruitment contest. And we are drawn together by common beliefs. A careful reading of the text used in the contest would have revealed some of those beliefs: that tyranny and oppression of any kind must end, that censorship is wrong, and privacy is an inalienable right." End quote. So let's take them at their word.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  Let's assume that Cicada's real beliefs are clear if you look at the puzzles closely enough. Some of the games included references to different books, poems, and other bits of culture. You need to be familiar with a lot of classic art to be able to solve some of their riddles. And the specific works they reference have a lot of the same themes: empowerment, self-reliance, becoming a better version of yourself. For example, in the 2013 puzzle, they built a step inspired by author Aleister Crowley. That name might ring some bells, because Crowley was a pretty culty figure in his own right.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  He was born in 1875, but really became famous around the turn of the century. At that time, he belonged to a ton of secret societies and religious organizations. He even started a couple on his own. He also claimed that he could communicate with other worldly spirits and do magic. Remember how "The Warning" said Cicada only pretended to care about science? If that's true, then the Crowley puzzle might hint at what they really believe in: using occult practices to elevate yourself, maybe even to join a spiritual global brain.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  That might sound like a big leap, but let's look at another Cicada puzzle. It used an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson called Self-Reliance. I think you can guess what it's about based on the name. However, the 3301 cipher built on Emerson's themes. I'm gonna read a quote from that puzzle. "The work of a private man who wished to transcend, he trusted himself to produce from within."

• 26:54Speaker 00

  So there are those same themes from the Warning Post again. References to becoming something bigger than yourself, literally transcending. And that can sound pretty cultish. Many cults promise to help make people better versions of themselves. Then instead, sometimes isolate their victims and require members to fork over lots of money. And speaking of isolation, let's go back to the initial recruitment around 2012. At one point, while the puzzles were still out there waiting to be solved, Cicada actively warned people not to collaborate with one another. This was after Pound Decipher had been formed, and apparently, they weren't the only team out there. So to stop people from working together to solve the puzzles,

• 27:37Speaker 00

  3301 posted on the message board saying, quote, "You've shared too much to this point. We want the best, not followers." So that could be interpreted as an early attempt to isolate the people who wanted to join. They wanted the brood to include people who didn't have a lot of online relationships or support networks. Maybe. The truth is, the only evidence that their occult comes from the Warning. Marcus has never said that they tried to talk to him about God or group mines. They also never asked him for money. But they didn't hand out anything either.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  They were having Marcus and his brood fork up their own time and resources to make software for them. So who can say for sure? But that got me thinking. Maybe Marcus was right when he said the Warning Post was a disinformation campaign from Cicada themselves. Which brings me to this next theory. That Cicada 3301 is actually a recruitment tool. One that's bringing new employees in for the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, or some other government agency. In fact, we know these groups have used puzzles exactly like Cicada's to recruit new members before. In April of 2014, the US Navy released a bunch of puzzles on their Facebook page

• 29:02Speaker 00

  and some related Twitter accounts. Users could solve codes and break ciphers to complete the challenge. In the end, 10 people were named as winners, and the Navy used the whole game as a way to build good PR. Then in May of 2014, the United States National Security Agency, or NSA, tweeted out a series of cryptic codes. They said anyone who solved them could find out more about job openings. Except, in both of these cases, it was clear from the get-go who was posting these riddles. I mean, they literally came from the @NSACareers Twitter account and one of the Navy's Facebook pages. There were no secret chatrooms or anonymous 4chan posts.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  One time, a reporter even asked a CIA spokesperson if they were behind the Cicada 3301 puzzles, and the spokesperson denied it. Of course, it's the CIA we're talking about, so in theory, they could have been lying. The CIA or the NSA could have still posted the Cicada 3301 puzzles. But why would they deny using a recruiting tool that was so dang successful? To me, this says Cicada has a good reason to hide their identity. Especially if they were terrorists or criminals. And actually, it sounds like someone may have caught them committing a crime at one point. In 2015, a local government agency in Chile publicly said that Cicada was running a crime

• 30:31Speaker 00

  ring in their country. Supposedly, the Chilean police learned that someone had created a fake website impersonating a bank's login screen. When people went to this wrong URL, they entered their login information, then the hackers kept those usernames and passwords so they could get into people's real accounts. Whoever built this website also gamed Google's algorithms. So if people searched the name of the bank, the first hit was that fake page, not the real one, which is terrifying. Once the police found out what was going on, they did some investigating. They identified and busted a few individuals who were behind the website. And they found out that these people were apparently part of a group called Cicada 3301.

• 31:15Speaker 00

  So in July of 2015, they publicly warned the people of Chile to watch out for the scammers in Cicada, who may have been running other online scams too. But right after they released this information, Cicada put out their own reply. They said they had nothing to do with the fake website. Some other criminals were just using their name without their permission. And in fairness, I have to say, this kind of fake login screen hoax is really common. You don't need to recruit the top coders in the world to pull this off. So I do think it's possible the Chilean hackers had nothing to do with Cicada. Or if they did, it wasn't authorized by Cicada's higher-ups.

• 31:58Speaker 00

  That said, I don't think we'll ever have the answers. It's been more than a decade since Cicada posted their last recruitment puzzle. But they haven't brought in any new members, as far as we know. Maybe Cicada 3301 are government agents, or criminals, or a small group of tech-savvy individuals who just want to make the world a better place. Maybe they're a cult, who knows? But the answer might be out there now, just waiting for someone to find it. Because you see, in 2014, Cicada launched one final recruitment drive.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  This involved a massive puzzle that still hasn't been solved today, 11 years later. And since it still hasn't been cracked, nobody can say for sure what it says. I mean, it might have all the answers we've been looking for. Or it might just lead to even more mysteries that have to be solved. And that's why this whole story fascinates me. Earlier in this episode, I mentioned how much I love puzzles. There is something so satisfying about working hard at something for a few hours and then seeing the solution, like knowing the game is complete. But when you try to solve a riddle and only end up with more riddles,

• 33:21Speaker 00

  it is frustrating, sometimes even unsettling. But it's also one of the reasons I make this show. Because life is full of puzzles, too. Do aliens exist? How about magic or ESP or ghosts? Which conspiracy theories are true? Even if we don't know the answers, the truth is still out there somewhere. And if we can just crack the code, maybe someday we'll have the answers to all of life's supernatural mysteries, too.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  This is So Supernatural, an AudioChuck original produced by Crime House. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Podcast and visit our website, sosupernaturalpodcast.com. Join us next Friday for an all-new episode. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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