Mysterious DVD appears in BB reader's front lawn

Michael Donaldson says:

I thought I'd share this evidence of a recent discovery with all of you as I feel it might be of interest. Yesterday this was found laying in the center of my front lawn. The disc was carefully wrapped in multiple layers of Saran Wrap and sealed at the center, supposedly to protect it from the elements. Once the wrap was opened there were a few evenly cut pieces of white paper folded over the eventual reveal. No idea if I was specifically targeted or if someone was going through my neighborhood throwing these out for everyone. Of course, I'm hoping this was meant just for me but will go for a walk in a bit to see if other specimens can be spotted in my neighbors' yards. I'm a bit hesitant to follow the instructions.

BB G+ers are demanding that Michael upload the audio file, but Michael says he;s having trouble playing it. Do you have any tips for him?

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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http://www.facebook.com/people/Flugfrei-Jones/1403604860 Flugfrei Jones

oo, a realtime schizo rant? you really should upload this..

as far as tips, (to start, anyway) is there a file on the disc? if so, what kind?

you probably don’t want to let it autoplay, at any rate, hah..
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants

But what’s on it? I need to know what he said about Natalie Wood!
- Boundegar
  
  What kind of wood doesn’t float?
  - Quiche de Resistance
    
    Remarkable she didn’t.
  - http://irinarempt.pip.verisignlabs.com/ Irina
    
    Ebony, and other kinds of ironwood.
  - http://www.appliedesoterics.com bfarn
    
    Churches!
  - madopal
    
    Lead!
  - Aeron
    
    Very small rocks!
nixiebunny

I once worked with a lady whose understanding of how video signals made their way from the broadcaster to her eyes was akin to this person’s understanding of how a particular DVD can control which remote control’s button will allow one to hear it.

Which is to say, not very good.
drono

you should try playing it on Video 1. Maybe press the TV/Video button.
- vonbobo
  
  Thanks! Now the big question: what remote to use?
  - ChickieD
    
    Place DVD on table. Point remote at DVD. Press TV/Video. Select Video 1. Voila!
DreamboatSkanky

I wonder what kind of tipper this preacher is?
- oasisob1
  
  A bottle tipper, apparently.
- Woody Smith
  
  Careful! We don’t want to be slipping on Tipper Gore….
- http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland
  
  He’s the kind of preacher who gives you a tip. Just the tip.
doniphon

As has been said billions and billions of times on teh Internets: “Congratulations… You opened it!”
- nowimnothing
  
  Yep and now he has implicitly agreed to the TOS. Sorry for you bud.
Eark_the_Bunny

Oh no, not another AOL disk!
Snig

If you see what looks like statues of angels where you didn’t notice them before, keep your eyes on them, back away, and don’t blink, not even for a second. Someone will be by for the disk in just a bit. Or a couple years. On second thought, if nobody does come by, please leave message for your descendants to expect someone to come by for the disk.
- Mike Robinson
  
  You. I like you.
theophrastvs

That attached note was typed on a typewriter. That alone should send shivers. ((he drank all the whiteout))
- bill_mcgonigle
  
  It’s an old person with a tenuous grip on technology sending himself a note to the future him, who will have forgotten the previous discovery by time it’s seen again. My grandfather used to over-label everything like this. He didn’t want to learn how it worked, just wanted to completely codify every step required to make it work.
Jeff Baker

Some TVs will only play audio files on one of it’s inputs. Other inputs require a video signal before it will pass the audio through.
My bet is it is an audio file burned to a DVD.
- Rider
  
  My bet is it’s blank DVD placed in the yard by a crazy person.
  - http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland
    
    Or the greatest troll in history. I imagine he, or she, has traveled the world, searching for a plastic surgeon that will give him/her a real-life COOLFACE.JPG.
    
    When the victim is at the exact moment of total decompensation, our happy little fellow will round the corner and offer “u mad bro?” in American Sign Language.
Phrosty12

You have seven days.
ChickieD

It would be helpful to insert the disk into a DVD drive and view the files on the DVD to see what format the file is in. If it is an MP3 file, then I’d rip it in iTunes. Then he can email it to Boing Boing or, if technically savvy enough, upload it somewhere.

Somewhat curious as to this weirdness.
- Uthor
  
  If it’s an mp3 file, there is no need to “rip” anything. Just copy and paste it.
  - Gilbert Wham
    
    Preferably not to itunes…
Marcelo Teson

Put it in a computer and see what’s on it. It may be a data DVD with an audio file on it or something. It may be a VIDEO_TS folder. It may be that he burned it to CD and then tried to “burn”it to DVD and it’s just a bunch of blank crap because it’s not compatible without ripping the CD first. We must know!
Mark Dow

Damned kids these days, leaving new media where just anyone could pick it up. Get off of my lawn!
- Null Manifold
  
  Doesn’t anyone use teh google any more?
  
  http://new_haven_ct.livejournal.com/190091.html
  - GawainLavers
    
    Ever notice how the patter of an evangelical preacher and the patter of a schizophrenic (preacher or otherwise) is essentially identical? I’m not saying all evangelical preachers are schizophrenic, just that the cognitive source of their “revelation” is pretty much the same.
    
    That’s not some huge suprise, but I think what’s important and interesting, and I think worthy of study, is why so many people find that obvious nuttery to be so appealing. Is it a cultural thing (it drives me up the wall) or is it some built in wiring in our brains, a kind of hypnotism?
    - Mark Dow
      
      Or, more generally, flavors of mesmerism:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_magnetism
    - http://jambeeno.com/ Jambe
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctTsnTHk6Uw
      
      [Prof. Robert Sapolsky, Spring 2002, Human Behavioral Biology & The Biology of Religion]
      
      In short: no, it’s not surprising, and there are actually solid biological reasons to suppose that religious behavior (and especially codified or organized religious behavior) is related to both normal/healthy humans’ desire for the numinous/transcendent and the ability of schizophrenia-spectrum types to provide such experiences.
  - annoyingmouse
    
    There’s also an mp3 on http://tindeck.com/listen/iwhj although admittedly I have no idea if this is from the original disc or just somebody reading from that livejournal entry. (Sadly, I suspect the latter is more likely)
  - Jorpho
    
    It reads like the sort of beat poetry for which people make amateur Youtube animations.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000266687773 Jim Wile
    
    I KNEW I had seen this before! Thank you – now I no longer need to Google.
- nixiebunny
  
  DVDs are already obsolete.
  - Mark Dow
    
    That’s what they said about TV Guide.
    - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
      
      What’s a TV?
  - http://blog.headsign.de/ mat
    
    Obviously, this will happen earlier than for typewriters
Roose_Bolton

For the love of god JUST BURN IT AND DON’T LOOK BACK.
http://profile.yahoo.com/KV3PDLBSUEJ3YCGEWYUGDQ664E Leo

I cant believe you picked that shit up and proceeded to unwrap the saran wrap. That thing has anthrax written all over it. Or at the very least it’s been handled with jizzy-fingers.
- http://www.facebook.com/ArtNull Arthur Null
  
  BRING IT ON ANTHRAX DVD!!!! wait….no powder…just white goo..*o fortuna playing* DB NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
http://twitter.com/stuck411 David

Where there other lawns with the disc? I’m curious now. As to playing it, I’d use a copy of VLC on your PC. If it’s playable at all in whatever format, VLC should handle it.
ZikZak

Please let this be the beginning of the awesomest ARG yet…
- ViolettVerq
  
  Yupp. Looks like an ARG rabbit hole entry to me. The special writing style looks like a riddle to me, the strange white paper shapes(?) as well, and definitively the data/sound on the DVD.
  
  Unfiction having any word on it?
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

He had me at “This is a DVD.”
signsofrain

If y’all want to know what’s on the disk you should check out @google-9120f29af0aa7d927bd5555ee4cd4c04:disqus ’s post above. Looks like an identical package was found in 2008 and the finder posted some info about what was on the disc.
Jellodyne

I suspect the sermon would be about as applicable to my setup as the instructions on how to play the DVD. I’ve got a pretty sophisticated personal life philosophy/home theater setup.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

Probably some variation on “Toynbee Idea – Resurrect Dead – Kubrick Right on Planet Jupiter 2001.”
http://twitter.com/sweekly sweekly

That disk has “social engineering” written all over it, I would NOT put that i a computer. This is exactly the kind of thing that a social engineer would do, distribute a bunch of disk about, and hope that the curious would stick it in a PC, only to open a backdoor hack and steal your stuff. This is a favorite tactic of pentesters, drop several USB drives around in a parking lot outside a target company, and then allow the curious to backdoor a machine inside when they insert the disk to see what was on it.

You have been warned.
- http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland
  
  Did you just watch The Net?
- carillon246
  
  A USB key might have been better
- http://www.facebook.com/ArtNull Arthur Null
  
  LMAO get in the back door of my computer for all i care all you will find is the single most disturbing collection of porn you have ever seen
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ZH5LQHHJPERMWNVHCR2Y5GRHHE Jose

Do NOT play that DVD! Haven’t you people ever seen The Ring??
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants
  
  He’s going to make you watch it next Jose.
http://blog.headsign.de/ mat

It might contain the ultimate breakthrough about Natalie Wood’s mysterious death. Maybe you have been chosen for a long-kept secret to be unveiled by the mysterious typewriter man before he gets quiet forever.
http://twitter.com/MomJokes Mother Joker

I would try uploading it to YouTube, it should convert it for him.
dayhat

Christ on a bike don’t listen to it – didn’t snowcrash/the cell teach you anything?
- doniphon
  
  ”The part of Natalie Wood is played by Joelle Van Dyne” – didn’t “Infinite Jest” teach you anything?
- http://www.aarongilliland.com/ Aaron Gilliland
  
  Naw, it’s okay. We haven’t advanced computer technology to the point where a monitor will break down fundamentally and display snow…
  
  Ya… like TVs on a dead channel… because monitors are just TVs, right?
  
  That’s one part of Snowcrash that still drives me up the wall(hack).
feetleet

I keep trying to open it with Winamp, but something called Realplayer just pops up instead and freezes my computer. My son says he might have saved Grim Fandango on there too. That probably explains that file GFGA144_-facia.rm. I tried reading it from B: drive, but the disc doesn’t fit. When I finally figure this out, I’m just going to buy a pallet of CD-RWs, so I never have to deal with this again.

Maybe it’s sandy. I’ll try blowing on it.
http://twitter.com/intensitystudio Antonio Carrasco

Sounds like the beggining of a David Lynch movie. Your whole world is fixing to get real weird, bro
http://www.facebook.com/joe.misto Joseph Misterovich

Could you put in on a PC and see what the file format is? Might be easier to determine how to play once you do that.
dirklosander

This reminds me of the troll from kuro5hin.org, Michael Crawford.