The mysterious 11-second sequence of red and blue rectangles could easily have been lost, unexplained and unappreciated among YouTube’s plethora of kittens and music videos.

But 28 minutes later Webdriver uploaded an almost identical video, and another an hour after that, and another, until eight months later – apparently happy with nearly 80,000 clips – they fell silent, with 236 hours of video to their name.

Almost all of the uploads follow the same pattern – 10 slides, each with a red rectangle, a blue rectangle and a computer-generated tone.

The shapes change size and the notes change pitch. Each video appears to be unique, but the format stays the same.



  1. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

    I don’t know, but I bet Andre would enjoy a few hours of it after dinner.

    Why didja tag it with “extraterrestrials” when the sources are known to be hoomans?

    Marching to their own dumbbeat.

    • McCullough says:

      Humans? Or just human-like…. hmmmmm?

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

        Now that you mention it, isn’t human like much better than human? That would allow for all the good stuff and less (perfection never the desired standard as who wishes for failure?) of the bad stuff.

        Cherry 2000 kind of stuff.

        • Tim says:

          You’d totally fuck that android!!! I knew it. Funny, I always thought of you as kind of the *Lester* character…. Or, at least, the barmaid… “one hand job, $22.50…. one hemorroid massage 37.95…

    • Dinner with Andre says:

      No matter how many times I watch it, slide 7 always makes me laugh!

      Do you agree?

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

        Andre, only at your instigation did I try the stewed okra and that was about as tastee as your love of rectangles.

        ……………but out of respect for our long friendship I looked at Slide 7 …twice. The humor of its representation just escapes me as does most of your insights and ruminations and regurgitations.

        Slide #8 though looks like a vagina to me. I’ve screen captured that and plan to have it made into a wall sized poster. A little joke of mine for the ex.

        Food for thought.

  2. Tim says:

    Some say it’s like a ‘numbers station’ broadcasting instructions to bobbo.

    Some say it’s like a form of stenography to hide instructions to bobbo.

    Some say it’s a long-running project to communicate with our *mentor* aliens which doesn’t really include bobbo.

    Seen it before — Close Encounters of the Third Kind…

    Lewis did five hours on this last week…

    After that, I just concluded that someone was using the ‘webdriver’ api to automatically post a bunch of crap to youRube. bobbo, please don’t send me any of those… it IS always MP.

    • McCullough says:

      “Some say it’s a long-running project to communicate with our *mentor* aliens which doesn’t really include bobbo. ”

      You are wrong, it’s well known that aliens have a communist bent.

      • Tim says:

        Yes. But, ‘communism’ in its’ pure sense and not what some tyrant says “”I live this way and all ya’ll ask me if you can grow a turnip.

    • Tim says:

      *webdriver torso*…

      Hmm. Anagramsolver.net yeilds *roost* and *roots* for ‘torso’. ..

      Which is it, bobbo? Are chickens herd animals or is humanity, as a whole, just “”I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babys…

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

        I used to work on a “chicken ranch” and in 3 years moved up from chicken shit shoveler to sales. There is more pleasure in not having to deal with customers, but I HATE IT …. when the wheelbarrow falls over.

        Herd.

        • Tim says:

          “”I HATE IT …. when the wheelbarrow falls over.

          I’m sorry, I miss-ascertained your attitude toward your clients…

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

        Thats a shitty website.

        wouldn’t do webdriver torso or webdriver alone.

        Missed soot, sot, rot, rots, root, sort, tor and thats before slang and abbreviations are admitted.

        • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

          hmmmmm…..one definition google did give me before I lost attention was that to be an anagram it must be “perfect”. Didn’t define perfect, but if it is to use all the letters then maybe that website was opining that “webdriver torso or webdriver alone” did not have anagrams?

          That makes sense. Still a shitty website though as that is the exact kind of positive report back loop that should be express. “No Known Anagrams” or “None Found” but NOT the first reaction of “nothing is happening.”

          So…. shitty website…. which is it?

          • Tim says:

            Now where did I learn of the construct ‘anagram’???

            Oh, yea. Jim Morrison — Mr Mojo risin’ …

  3. Kiwini says:

    “The shapes change size and the notes change pitch. Each video appears to be unique, but the format stays the same.”

    Joe Biden’s gonna be pissed…. someone has revealed his speech-writing software.

    • Cap'n Kangaroo says:

      So you are accusing Senator Rand Paul of pirating Biden’s software?

  4. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

    To be fair, I wondered if by definition anagram required the use of all the letters, or just some of them, without repeats of course so I went to google and searched (define anagram).

    That old AI is working overtime …… but actually developing a sense of humor better than most? Heh, heh. Androids, indeed.

    A La the Red-Green Show: all I have to do now is duct tape my I Phone with Suri to the top of a fleshlight, and I should be good to go?

    Did you mean: nerd fame again
    Search Results

    an·a·gram
    ˈanəˌgram/
    noun
    noun: anagram; plural noun: anagrams
    a word, phrase, or name formed by rearranging the letters of another, such as cinema, formed from iceman.

  5. M0les says:

    Steganography.

  6. Love Deluxe says:

    This is the stuff of which creepypasta is made.

  7. orchidcup says:

    This is a video that is designed to cause people to wonder what it is, thereby wasting their limited time on earth like much of the content on the internet.

    Or it could be a message from a religious cult that reveals the true date of the return of Bhudda and the end of civilization and the beginning of nirvana on earth.

    Or it is a signal from the New World Order to begin the process of eliminating most of the population of earth.

    Or it is simply art. It is what you think it is.

  8. Sounds look Vodoo science to me or perhaps some Mexican shaman

  9. MikeN says:

    It’s a test to find the best codebreakers. I won’t tell you the address it tells you to go for the next step.

  10. IM75 says:

    I’m surprised that nobody seems to have sensed the connection of these video clips with the two major political parties together with obvious size and spacial relationships of ….
    What’s with you people?

    • Ninety-Seven Percent Bag of Water! says:

      You get that from some annoying “red” and “blue” shapes irritating your ears?

      Ya! I can see why you say that.

      😉

  11. sargasso_c says:

    Very, Manchurian Candidate.

  12. deowll says:

    This sound track was as joyous as having a firealarm blown in your ear.

  13. Rainman says:

    I’d tell you what it means, but I just dropped 498 toothpicks on the floor and it’s time for Wapner.

    Where are my fish sticks? Six please.

  14. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

    Dvorak Uncensored: One weak post in FOUR days.

    Why such lack of interest????

    Whats going on?

    Whats not going on is readily apparent….. so what’s keeping this blog from posting at least one relevant issue per day?

    What is it?

    I know Pedro’s donkey has worms, but surely that isn’t it?

    What has captured your attention?

  15. Rich says:

    Here’s a thought- download that video, rip the audio track and load it into Audacity, and take a look at the waveform. The tones sound pretty pure (narrow-band) and shift up and down in frequency, so plot the frequency of each and see if that number sequence means anything (2kHz, 1kHZ, 4 kHz etc.) .

  16. dexton7 says:

    Either it is a grid cipher with the tones being a secondary cipher key.. or the guy is nuts or took too much lsd.

  17. dexton7 says:

    Typically a grid cipher will look like this –>

    http://tinyurl.com/n6svdq3

    Although there could be cipher algorithms that use grouped block patterns that translate into something. Or the guy is nuts. ^_-

  18. Glenn E. says:

    What this is, it reminds me of the 1968 movie “Sebastian”. Specifically the part were this UK code breaking expert is called upon to crack a Soviet spy satellite’s strange sounding jumble of noises, as a secret telemetry code. But of course it’s just a movie. So the sounds were completely random and meaningless.

    And that’s what I think may be going on here. Either these video clips are part of an elaborate code. And you can bet the NSA has taken a hard look at them. Or it’s just brain teasing nonsense. That’s meant for fun, or to tweak the noses of those who would take it too seriously. Perhaps the YouTube version of the Numbers Stations’ transmissions.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station


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