More bits and pieces

[BuzyBea]

Yeah, the tearoom has mugs like that.

And you cannot understand the ewness of ew that was the spider webs and dust in that forge. I know it's authentic looking and all, but just... ew. :S

[cortez]

5th August

Nailshop - Silver 'artwork' replaced coals/nails?
Church - Newspaper (dated 5th August 2169) replaced Hymn-book

Gave us the message: "You don't understand what you are doing. Stop your interference. There are consequences you cannot predict. Transtemporal relocation is not a game."

July 29th
Brewhouse - Newspaper (dated July 30th 2170) was spotted on July 30th but appears in pic posted on 29th and replaced an empty soap-box.

Gave us the message: "No seriously, stop messing with spacetime"

July 20th
Tollhouse - Newspaper dated July 6th 2168 replaces a piece of puzzle.

QR codes gave a bunch of dead web-addresses for the newspaper stories

July 16th
Prefab - Happy 130th Birthday card from 'Pheonix' replaced WW2 pamphlet


So, that's what we have so far. Any ideas?

EDIT:

FWIW, I think that the items from the future are coming from the same place as there seems to be a logical narrative progression. The 'no seriously' comment technically comes after the 'You don't understand' message (in terms of the chronological sequence). Therefore one might reasonably conclude that the objects from our present are appearing in one future person's present with gaps of around one year, whereas to us it's a matter of weeks or days between appearances. Also, whoever it is that's getting the stuff from the museum in 150-ish years from now understands time-travel and believes it's us that's causing these switches.

[Anna D]

This is a brilliant summary! Thanks Cortez. I agree with you about the chronological order of messages thing!

We had another look around the site today. Found the oddest thing... it's a black 2010 diary, which wasn't anything odd in itself, but some of the stuff in it was well weird. We didn't find it til the end of the day, so didn't have time to photograph or anything (will do so tomorrow). It's clearly not something that's come from the future since it's from this year... but there is something really odd about it. Odd sets of numbers and words that don't mean anything.

[cortez]

Ooh, you've got to post pics. (or scans would be even better )

[CathCat]

Would you believe there's no scanner in the office? Mad, I know.

We've taken photos of some of them... all the weirdness up to August 6th. I'll transcribe the rest for the moment because I'm worried about having too many pictures making the board load slow or something. If you want I can photograph any of the extra pages too.



















And the other bits...

12 Aug index
4/1 5/3 9/1 9/2 2/1 5/4
Tin box

16 Aug education
28/1 2/1 12/3 8/1 4/3
Circus leader’s home

23 Aug index
5/1 3/1 26/1 5/5 8/4
Paid lodging

20 Aug index
5/2 2/1 9/1 8/4 1/1 9/2 13/3
16/3 11/1 1/3 14/3 4/3
13/1 16/4 12/1

31 Aug about
7/2 3/1 4/1 4/6 2/1 4/3
Caravan

25 Aug index
1/8 3/1 9/1 9/2 2/1 10/4
Links

4 Sep index
26/1 3/1 5/1 5/5 8/4
2 storey Victorian

2 Sep education
28/1 3/1 12/3 1/2 4/3
2+2

18 Sep about
10/2 3/1 16/7 6/4 1/6

[cortez]

16 July 'Made before' = Prefab(ricated) - birthday card found on this date in prefab

20 July '6-sided house' = Tollhouse - Newspaper found on this date in tollhouse

29 July 'Beer & Laundry' = newspaper replaced soap-box on this date in Brewhouse/Laundry

4 Aug - Silver artwork replaced 'pins' from nailhouse (forge)

6 Aug - 'Sanctified' = newspaper replaced Hymnbook in the Church


My guess is these are records of what appeared in the future and if so, we already know when the next appearances from the future will take place and in most cases where they will appear.

Judging by the dates, I think we've missed two items on 23rd July and 3rd August.

Is there a schoolhouse at the museum?

Numbers need a closer look.

Cortez

EDIT: The diary seems like it's being filled in in our present, as we already know that the items appear in future up to a year apart and I don't think that whoever received the items from our present would necessarily know that they came from 2010. Could be wrong on this though.

[mravoncroft]

Aug 6, 2010 15:43:10 GMT CathCat said:

We found a few things that were clearly not supposed to be there... a mug in the barn

Oh dear, the mug is my fault I fear, I'd just got a capuccino from the tea room when I was asked to show some visitors in the windmill as we didn't have a volunteer in that day, so I downed the coffee and tucked the mug behind one of the ploughs - is that where you found it? Sorry, what with mother having to go into hospital and missing the joust weekend, I've not been keeping up for a few days - she's out again now in case you wondered. I seem to have missed things somewhat.

[mravoncroft]

Oh, have only just found all these further details about what has been happening - I replied to the mug comments before seeing all this about the diary. This is all very strange - I have to say there's clearly something going on which is very worrying as what else might disappear next. Don't you think we should call the police Cath - at the moment there's nothing of any great value which has disappeared, so I'm not sure they would want to spend time investigating - but who knows what might disappear next? I'm afraid I'm still trying to catch up after mother's fall, but the diary entries seem to suggest other things are likely to happen if only some of the items in the diary have been discovered so far. Could you check out the Showman's Wagon Anna - it's the only other one which might fit as far as I can see - in terms of Circus Leader's Home - though in fact it was a Fairground Showman (ie funfair rides) not a Circus Showman's home. It may also be what they refer to as the Caravan. We don't have a school at Avoncroft and apart from the Toll House (which as I said at the start of the project is technically Georgian not Victorian) we don't have many two storey buildings - the Victorian Cell Block is single storey, as is the Church and the Counting House and the Nail and Chainshops.

I'll think about this tomorrow now things have settled down at home and the home helps and meals on wheels are sorted, and I can be here for full days and see if I can shed any more light.

[shrtyscott3]

silly mravoncroft

[mensvenatus]

Nice job Cortez; consider yourself duly exalted...:>
So there are the numbers to figure out, but also the 'about's, 'education's and 'index's, is that right?

On the road for awhile; contact may be spotty...

[cortez]

Cheers MV.

I think it's a substitution cypher - each of the individual codes represents a letter. Just got to figure out the key.

Eg 3/1 appears very frequently, so could be an 'E' or 'S'.

[myf]

I've got it! about, index and education are pages on the Avoncroft museum website. The numbers are word/letter on that page. Either I'm a bit rubbish at working it out, or there's a couple of hiccoughs with the codes.

Seems they translate as follows:

16/7 = test paper
20/7 = test paoer - I guess this should read paper (this error recurs in other places - might be me, or the code!)
23/7 = dentist 13.15
29/7 = test paper
3/8 = doctor
4/8 = test
6/8 = oaper
12/8 = fabric
16/8 = paper
23/8 = paoer
20/8 = library books due
31/8 = fabrhc (presumably this should be fabric)
25/8 = fabric
4/9 = oaper
2/9 = paper
18/9 = paper

[cortez]

Excellent work myf


It strikes me as odd that all but one of the odd letters are 'p', the other being 'i'.

P.I.P.P. The name Pipp?

[shrtyscott3]

There are 5 errors. 4 of them are supposed to be P but changed into O's, and the other is an H supposed to be an I.

P- 2nd row, 7th letter
P- 7th row, 1st letter
P- 10th row, 3rd letter
I- 12th row, 5th letter
P- 14th row, 1st letter

I don't see a pattern. Also, the is a clear difference between "paper" and "test paper." So far, we have only seen "test papers". Maybe "test papers" are one paged and a full "paper" with be similar to a modern newspaper.

[Anna D]

That is awesome! I'm very impressed with your code cracking skills. So what's the diary then? A record of strange occurences?