About

My name is Willow Ashens. I am an amateur cryptologist as a hobby; usually I apply this to ARGs and sending coded messages to my friends. However a few years back I was scouring unFiction's trailheads threads when I found something that... didn't seem to quite connect to any ARG or game I knew of.

It was November 15th, 2012 when I noticed that a new thread had appeared in the "Trailheads" section of the forum. The thread had been created by a very new member (against the rules), username "⊕" (pronounced "zohr" or "X-O-R"). There was no description in the thread, just a Skype username (which was also ⊕). The moderators were understandably upset the person broke the rules and the thread was quickly locked and deleted, but I was curious and created a separate Skype username and account to contact the person anyway. I added ⊕ to that account's friends list and proceeded to ask them what the thread they'd posted was about.

I obtained a link to a Google Document titled "HELPMEMAKETHEMKNOWN" in reply, which contained what appeared to be several transcripts of intercepted messages between someone going by the name of "Enigma" and an unknown party acting for some group called the Sycamore Foundation. Some of the messages were still encrypted (some of them quite simply, apparently Enigma wanted these messages cracked by whomever they sent them to), and others were plaintext. All of them... disturbed me, and made me question exactly what ⊕ was asking me to help them do. None the less, I kept close contact with ⊕ as they sent me messages upon messages, oftentimes in the form of what appear to be stories or anecdotal evidence of something's existence. I was not sure what to make of this knowledge at the time, but on some level... I'm not entirely sure I want to make sense of it.

Around October 28, 2013, I suddenly lost all contact with ⊕. All attempts to contact them failed, and about four days later, their Skype account disappeared for good, apparently permanently deleted. I had saved all of the transcripts I received, however, and will be posting them here as I can decrypt them. I still don't know who "Enigma" is or what their association is with this mysterious Sycamore Foundation, nor do I know why ⊕ wanted their secrets made public. All I do know is that I'm uncomfortable with having the information, and I feel panicked and jittery knowing what I do about it now. Honestly, I think I'll feel much better with the information up here instead of on my hard drive, and besides, I think someone else could make much better sense of it than I could.

I'll be updating as needed. If I ever don't update and I don't give a reason why, assume I'm no longer able to do so. And as for ⊕... I haven't heard from them since.