Shepard’s Mystery Clues, Part 1
I’ve heard it said that serving in the military during wartime involves long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror. Well, you can probably chalk this one up to those long hours of boredom.
A few months ago, while he was still serving in Iraq, my cousin Shepard sent me a very mysterious email. It really made no sense at all, and I found myself wondering if his account had possibly been hijacked by someone else. This is what it said:
THe MUPPEt SHOW (i.e. An ichthyic act)
P.S. Save this e-mail and be sure to say hello to the folks for me.
In addition to the weird text, the CC field was littered with email addresses for friends and family that were all intentionally broken by at least one character. I scratched my head and sent him this reply:
LOL. I’m a bit confused… did some attachment not make it through or something? All I got was the text below, and I can’t make heads or tails of it…
Also, all of the CC addresses are hackerized/corrupted with weird characters… *queue twilight zone music here*
You okay? :o)
He then replied with this:
To the best of my knowledge, the following observations are correct Sir:
- You are “a bit confused”.
- All you got was “the text below”, as there are no signs of attachments having been included.
- You “can’t make heads or tails of it…” (yet).
- Some characters in the CC addresses appear to have been deliberately rendered so that they are not quite deliverable in their displayed condition.
- Twilight Zone music ought to be playing right about now. (I can’t believe what it costs to rent an orchestra these days!)
For the present, I must respectfully disavow any and all further knowledge of the E-mail to which you refer. And yes, I’m okay.
P.S. Don’t forget to say hello to the folks for me.
After reading that I felt reassured that I really was talking to my cousin, and that he was still more or less sane. But something strange was definitely afoot. Without any formal announcement or explanation to prepare me, he was activating me as a player in some kind of game. A mystery game. And the best clue I had to go on seemed to be the (repeated) suggestion to “say hello to the folks for me.”
Clearly, I was supposed to get in touch with the people in the CC line and work together with them to try and figure out what was going on… but toward what end?
Find out next time in… Shepard’s Mystery Clues, Part 2!
TO BE CONTINUED!!
13 Comments So Far
2. Lisa wrote:
VERY interesting!!! 
So hey, Clint, have you heard about those NUTJOBS in Berkeley CA who are protesting the Marines? Yeah…the CITY CONDONES IT. Morons.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/07/berkeley.protests/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/13/berkeley.marines/
3. prnsis_anita wrote:
I can’t wait to see were this goes……
4. Jason wrote:
And now… through creative and deliberate means… he sucks us ALL into the twisted game through which our minds will be manipulated and our spirits held hostage until such time that Clint decides to release us once again to the freedom that we all enjoyed before being subjected to this madness. Good luck all.
6. JohnnyB wrote:
Hmm, was the fact that some of the letters in the original email were cap’s and other were lower case have anything to do with the “clue’s” that have been suggested?
This is quite interesting, I beleive I’ve been sucked in as well.
7. Jason wrote:
ich·thy·ic (ĭk’thē-ĭk) Pronunciation Key
adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of fishes.
9. Annabellissima wrote:
The only crack I can think of is that perhaps the letters in the sentence “say hi to the folks for me” (paraphrase) or in the Muppet portion are for deciphering the rest? Or perhaps they have something to do with the mispelled e-mail addresses. Other than that, I am ambivalent and clueless 
10. Calliegal wrote:
Clint, I am thrilled! This is my type of thriller, I guess. I’m also thankful that you seem to be getting somewhere with the clues Shepard sent, as I have no talent for it!
Can hardly wait for the next part!
11. Joan Kwasiborski wrote:
Clint, I am thrilled that YOU are working on this! Although I think Shepard expects that it is only as we work together that we will solve it, as if each of us would understand some parts that others might not get. I don’t know for sure.
12. Joan wrote:
Regarding the clue sent to me:
A POLITE DELeGATION TO A SCIENTIST AND A FINE MAN?
This really puzzles me. For one thing it has just that one letter e in the lowercase, which we all know means something.
Then there’s the whole thing itself, with the question mark.
Why even have the question mark?
It reminds me of those statements which when spelled backwards still says something, but I tried that and that didn’t seem to make any sense.
Then the reference to the scientist and a fine man…Shepard did read a book I recommended to him written by a scientist, Richard Feynman.
But I’m not sure that has any connection, nor what it would have to do with the polite delegation.
13. Joan wrote:
I’m not sure that oglerworld is not just a synonym for the internet.
When I search A&W, I even ran across some photos of the A&W sign.
I this comment I am writing, I tried to copy and paste the “A&W” from the list of clues, but when I pasted it here, the sign for “and” changed. Does that matter? I don’t know how to get the character which Shepard used, but in the photo I saw for A&W Root Beer, the character symbol in the photo was the same as the character which Shepard use. It would have been easier, wouldn’t it, for Shepard to have used the character “&” which we get by simply using the uppercase for our number 7? So I am wondering, is this some sort of clue connected to the root beer? Is it hot but cool?
1. Spencer wrote:
I took the red one… am I dead now? =P
ooOOoo… interesting!