In the Dark of Night (Solved)

[Firefly]

Feb 5, 2022 9:01:31 GMT -5 jrrag said:

well that didn't take long...congrats Firefly.  Guess we should've taken you up on posting your ideas before the clue 

No! I haven't solved it. Just translated the Cipher.

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

I just received the first correct submission, so I have a winner for the first prize (the name of this super sleuth to be revealed later)!

Don't give up, second prize is still waiting to be claimed!

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

I have received a second correct answer!

The winners of In the Dark of Night are....(drum roll!)

First prize: susb8383

Second prize: team stercox-forestblight

Congratulations to the winners! I will post the solution and prizes later tonight.

Thank you all for playing. I hope you had fun :-)

[jrrag]

Great job folks!  Finally the torment can cease...

[njarchhunter]

Congrats all!

[stercox]

Congrats susb8383!!!! Thank you FHH! As always, is was super fun!

[flash911]

Congrats!

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

Here are the solutions to the different parts of the puzzle:

Solution to In The Dark of Night:

Person: Graffiti artist Ichabod, who sometimes goes by ICH and usually paints train cars.
Place: Skull Cliff in Lynnfield, MA, painted by Ichabod in 2001. (I would accept Saugus, MA)
Quote from the cipher: YOU MUST KNOW THAT ONE DAY YOU WILL BE THESE BONES, AND ENJOY NOW ALL THAT IS PRECIOUS.
Actual, corrected quote: TAKE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU WILL SOMEDAY BE THESE BONES AND ENJOY NOW ALL THAT IS PRECIOUS. ICHABOD. YME. 2001

1) Books:
Each book has one main character named Sam, for 1 Samuel in the Bible. There are four books = verse 4, so 1 Samuel 4:21 (4/21 is on the train schedule)

2) Train Schedule:
April 21 refers to the verse and line of 1 Samuel 4:21 where it says, "And she named the child Ichabod"

Train 1:
2:55 pm & 3:05 pm = 255305
Train #31924: 3= C, 19=S, 24=X. = CSX
CSX 255305 is the designation of a train car painted by Ichabod. You can google this train car to see his artwork.

Train 2:
3:18 am & 11:45 am is a simple substitution cipher: 3-18-1-14-5 = CRANE, a hint to the name Ichabod.
Train #2001 = the year Ichabod painted Skull Cliff

3) Man running with a ghost chasing him is Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

4) Ghostly man-skull is the real Ichabod B. Crane, the namesake of Ichabod in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

5) The fish has colored bands similar to the Skull Cliff paint. If you look closely, it also has two white spots on it, a disease called Ich.

6) Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel has the line "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..." which is about graffiti, and is a reference to prophets.

7) The cliff and skulls = Skull Cliff.

8) The Offspring Conspiracy refers to the song, "Conspiracy of One" by the band, Offspring. A group of ravens is called a conspiracy, so a Conspiracy of One = one raven, or "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. You can find this poem online to use with the book code.

9) Apply the book code to The Raven. Each set of numbers refers to verse, line, and word. No. 1 on the Simon & Garfunkel album tells you to take the first letter of each word, which spells out, "YOU MUST KNOW THAT ONE DAY YOU WILL BE THESE BONES AND ENJOY NOW ALL THAT IS PRECIOUS." This is close to, but not the actual quote painted at Skull Cliff. The stamp saying "correct and return" means you must first solve the cipher, then find the full, correct version of the quote as it was written by Ichabod at Skull Cliff:

TAKE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU WILL SOMEDAY BE THESE BONES AND ENJOY NOW ALL THAT IS PRECIOUS. ICHABOD. YME. 2001

Two side notes:
1. The fact that three of the four books have falcons on the covers was a complete coincidence. I was just looking for books with main characters named Sam. Who knew?

2. Now that you know about Ichabod, pay attention to train graffiti. I never really noticed train graffiti before, but since working on this hunt, I've seen quite a few train cars decorated by Ichabod! His paintings typically have his name (Ich or Ichabod) and a skeleton or skull. Sometimes the skeleton is pointing a finger.

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

Here is an explanation of the two clues I posted:

Clue 1 was a list of terms for groups of things shown in the puzzle:
A consist (train consist -a group of train cars)
A stack (of books)
A school (of fish)
A bag (of bones)
An anthology (of music)
And who's not a fraid of ghosts?! A fraid is a group of ghosts!
Hmm, did I miss any? Yes, a conspiracy is a group of ravens, which would point you to The Raven

Clue 2 was a poem written in a similar metric and rhyme scheme to Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven (but I am no poet LOL!).

The 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th lines of each verse all rhyme with "ore", as in The Raven

Lyrics and books, fish, codes and trains, ever seeking, but not in vain!
Every day pondering, wandering, looking for one thing more.
Each night I dream, then awaken, my mind swirling, my eyes aching.
Almost there, I am caught napping, back to thoughts I can't ignore.
Nothing comes, conspiracies run, nothing makes sense anymore!
Prophets knocking at my door...

Open my notes, pencil in hand, if I look close, I'll understand.
Overthinking, (sometimes drinking!), I have seen this all before.
Reading now, I see the truth! Alas, I'm not that great a sleuth.
Ever faithful, I keep prying, looking for this mystery's core.
Even after all the trying, one more notion to explore!
Still awake, I pace the floor...


I also 'borrowed' some phrases and words from the poem:

Pondered, wandered, napping, prophets, mystery, more, explore, core, before, floor, knocking (rapping) on my door.

Prophets knocking on my door also refers to the prophet, Samuel, in 1 Samuel 4:21, as well as the lyrics to The Sounds of Silence, where they say, "and the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls."

The mention of conspiracies is a hint to the title of the cipher, and to a "conspiracy" (group) of ravens.

Alternating the first letter of each line spells: E.A. POE'S LENORE.

[forgottenhistoryhunt]

And finally, here are the prizes. First prize is the two ICH coasters. Second prize is a key chain made from colorful bits of graffiti rubble.

[susb8383]

Wow!! First of all, thanks for the congrats.

Now for the things that fit so well but were total coincidences:

Bird Imagery Throughout:
The three books all had to do with a falcon, the fourth with eggs.
The fish is a tetra *cardinal*
The connection between April 21 and a train: On April 21 a black congressman was asked to move from First Class to the Jim *Crow* section of the train.

Sleepy Hollow References Throughout:
The story took place in a Dutch community. The fish was striped blue, red, white which is exactly the flag for the Netherlands.
The cliff looked to me like a hunk of wood: Ichabod encountered the headless horseman in the woods.
All the bones: Ichabod's nemesis is named Brom Bones.
Sounds of Silence: the Headless Horseman was silent.

Misc:
*Art* Garfunkel was superimposed with skulls: Ichabod was a graffiti artist.

Here are things that I totally got wrong:

I did look at 1 Samuel in the Bible (the Catholic Bible because of tetra cardinal) but was was trying to solve the cipher with it.

I did get CSX and knew it had to do with trains. But I thought the departure time minus the arrival was significant.

I went down the Son of Sam rabbit hole (offspring and Sam from the books). That was a dark hole to fall into.

I identified the picture of Ichabod as the cover of an obscure Czech book translated as "Happy and Scary." And the Czech flag is also red, white, and blue (but not striped):
www.databazeknih.cz/knihy/stastne-a-hruzostrasne-antologie-stedrovecernich-hororu-479653

I figured out the hint as all being collective nouns but thought the collective noun for the missing thing was a hint at how to solve the cipher. So since books can also be anthologies, I thought the missing thing was the picture of the man. A group of men? A set of men? From this line of reasoning I thought the cipher was not a book cipher but something that needed to be grouped into sets. So I spent a LOT of time coming up with a total of how many times each numeral appears, then by column, then how many times a unique total appears.

Then I thought maybe the missing thing is just drawing attention to one of the items; the books. I noticed four books and each of those books including the comic book can be found online. So I thought maybe each different book is used to solve just one column. That took a while!

I made no headway at all until the hint. I thought it was obvious that the words themselves had no significance. So I counted letters in each line (nada), words in each line. That seemed promising when it started to look like a real sentence:
MILL HELI
but then went south.

I finally realized the words reminded me of The Raven, especially the tapping at the door. When I saw the poem had 18 stanzas and referenced a prophet, I knew that was it. It was only then that I remembered thinking early on that the cipher looked like it went with a poem because of the small middle number which probably represented lines in a stanza.

Phew!!!

Great fun!

Congrats Stercox and Forest Blight!

And a big thanks to FHH!! (Hope your dog enjoyed her walk).

[njarchhunter]

Great hunt! Thank you, again! I may have been able to put a lot of things together if I had only searched for "Ichabod" together with "train". I had searched so many combinations, but that one escaped me. I love the tie-in's, very clever and well thought out. The only one I do not get is the "A fraid is a group of ghosts!" I found one reference in Quora, but if you try to find it in a dictionary, there is no mention of ghosts. Please let me know where I can find that reference?

[susb8383]

One question...what did screenplay represent? (I tried to find the collective noun for films, scripts, etc).

[susb8383]

Personally I found A Fraid in two places:

A book:
www.oliverjeffers.com/a-fraid-of-ghosts
It doesn't specifically state that it is the collective noun but since this book was a collection of ghosts, I made that connection.

A tweet:

Didn't see this at the time, but there's also this list:
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_collective_nouns_by_subject

and this:
facts.co/collectivenouns/ghosts/

[njarchhunter]

Perfect! Thank you susb8383!