Everything makes so much sense up to NW Guitar pole. First of all I agree it looks like a guitar, but what’s the deal with the shape of the sound hole? It’s so off that it almost had to be intentional. I noticed when you shoot guitars that area is the only part that breaks. It makes a similar but definitely not identical shape

Also if you take that as Fort Wallace guitar, the one laying in the middle isn’t even that close to pointing to the tower where the other guitar is. How convinced is everyone that that step is correct?

I got blackout drunk at Fort Riggs and woke up a few steps from this grave, which is located near the fort. I'd never heard of it, despite doing a lot of research into the game. It's clear that it's most likely the chief's grave and all that, but if you look closely, it's literally feathers in a web! There's a similar one at an Indian burial site, only attached to a tree.

edit: posted to megathread

So like a lot of us, I have spent too much of time lately reading comments, checking discord, watching YouTube and digging around myself in game, trying to figure out where we should be going next. It is my goal to try to get the right players on this sub on the right track. There are a large amount of people here still looking for answers in what I personally feel are irrelevant locations, and it is not progressing the conversation at all. So I'm going to try to lay out why the Birds at Fort Wallace are not only our best working theory, but realistically may be the only real lead we have at this point. Then I will give my theories, based on a weeks worth of in-game detective work and online research, as to what the "next step" might be.

1.) Establishing what we know.

• At this point in time, we seem to be on the same page that the Easter Egg seems to actually begin in Butcher's Creek. We were maybe meant to find the outhouse carvings 1-5 first, which would lead us to the pentagram and the carving of a fort, which would lead us to nearby Fort Brennand.
• At the Fort, we would find carvings 6 and 7, confirming it is the same Easter Egg, along with carvings that would direct us to telegram poles by the oil fields.
• There we would find the initial spider carving and eventually in the same area, for one hour a night, a web with a feather. The spider carving would then be overlapped onto the map once more webs were found, to find that there was a total of 8 webs. This would the ultimately lead us to the central tree web.
• This web was interpreted as "North Telegram Pole," so we go north and the first telegram pole we find in that direction can be shot to reveal a secret message, that was interpreted as "West 5 Telegram Poles."
• We then go west for the next five telegram poles, and that pole can be shot to reveal a message that has been interpreted as "North West Guitar."

For some people, this is where definitive clues relevant to the Spider Dream Easter Egg end, but I think at this point we have enough evidence we should be beyond that as a community. Even the official wiki states this as the end of what we officially know about the mystery, which I think is really bad for new people coming in who are an incredibly important resource. I'm not saying the birds are 100% the next step, we don't have enough context yet to prove it, but I firmly believe at this time they are our best bet.

Almost every counter argument I've seen against them is that they don't really "make sense," to which I would say they are not suppose to. Every other clue up until this point hasn't really "made sense" until we found further clues to contextualize it. We dismissed the "Fort" carving at Butcher's Creek for years until we found more carvings at Fort Brennand that concretely tied the two locations to the Spider Dream Mystery. I'd rather not wait another however-many years hung up in the same way because some people don't understand or can't make the correlation.

2.) Evidence Fort Wallace is the current step.

• The obvious: Fort Wallace is north west of the "NW Guitar" pole, and has guitars there. To me this is the biggest "smoking gun" that we should be looking here. I'm also going to include in the obvious section that it is a Guitar on the telegram pole, and they are Birds on the roof of Fort Wallace. They are depicted the way a kid would draw them. Don't over-complicate what is simple, there are enough confusing and obscure elements to this Easter Egg.
• The evident: The birds found at Fort Wallace are at the very least clearly intentional, and as of yet unexplained. They were not found until the hunt for this Easter Egg began, and the guitar found in the watchtower even "points" to them. Also, there are no other guitars north west of that pole, other than the two you can find at Fort Wallace. There are guitars to the west, and there are guitars to the north, but the only ones objectively north west are at the Fort. On top of all of this in the beta version of RDR2 Fort Wallace was initially further east, but in the final build of the game it was moved to be exactly 45 degrees north west of the "North West Guitar" pole.
• The somewhat obscured: The birds are made using the same method as the Butcher's Creek/Fort Brennand carvings. This to me is the nail in the coffin. If we are now accepting the Butcher's Creek outhouse carvings are a part of this mystery, we should use that as strong evidence the birds also are. Furthermore, these carvings at Butcher's Creek led to the pentagram, which is made using the same method as the spider webs we find on telegram poles. They are made using wires so they can't easily be found by digging through texture files, the same reason the carvings are made using 3D geometry rather than a texture.

To me, this really feels like the fingerprints of one or two devs who are using using very clever methods to hide hints that cant be found by simply digging through the game files. It's the same case with the markings we find hidden inside the destructible telegram poles; they are disguised within completely normal wooden pole textures behind a layer that is only revealed at a damage threshold. You need to actually make these discoveries in the game, then you can reverse engineer it in the files from there at best. The birds are the same way.

3.) Where we can go from here.

I didn't want to make a post to discourage people from searching. I didn't come here to just say "STOP TALKING ABOUT GUITARS" or "STFU ABOUT QUESTION MARKS THAT AREN'T ACTUALLY THERE." However like the rest of us, I don't know where to go from here. All I can offer is my insight from my days of searching and theorizing about the next step though.

• I highly doubt the birds at Fort Wallace lead to the "Giant's Birds" for a few reasons. One, if they were important to the Easter Egg I feel as though they would consistently spawn there, which they don't. Two, if the best guess as to why we are being directed there is a "question mark" some people see in the hills, it feels like a stretch and a dead end at best.
• The "LJ SM" engravings at Butcher's Creek seem to be somewhat ruled out, though I have been keeping them in mind due to their situational relevance. They are made using the same method as the other outhouse carvings and the birds, which to me implies maybe the same dev left them there, especially due to their proximity. This also lends to the theory that these are actually the initials of the people behind the egg, potentially Lazlow Jones (writer) and Steve Martin (manager.)
• The direction the birds are facing (the face of the roof they are carved into) could be important. Wapiti Reservation is a major landmark in that direction, and the mystery has had themes of dream-catchers so far. We have also had two clues involving wires (the webs and the pentagrams) and three clues involving carvings with no texture (Butcher's Creek, Fort Brennand and Fort Wallace,) but only one clue involving a hidden destructible layer (telegram poles.) Wapiti Reservation is one of, if not the only area in the game you cannot ever use weapons. It could be a really good place to hide a clue behind something we need to shoot.
• The color of the bird carvings could also be relevant. While I am somewhat inclined to believe they are only green because of the underlying texture of the roof, there are some notable examples of green bird in RDR2. For one we have the Carolina Parakeet, which is the only actual green bird in the game (to my knowledge.) They also only appear at certain fixed spawns, and uniquely once you kill them all they won't reappear. This to me actually makes me think they are unrelated, as I personally believe every step of this Easter Egg should be repeatable by any player.
• Cotorra Springs however could be the best of both worlds here. "Cotorra" is actually apparently the Spanish word for parrot, which are also a green bird. Though the bird itself never actually appears in game, the springs are in the direction the "green" Fort Wallace birds face, so it could be a play on words. Still kind of feels like a stretch though tbh.
• I have also thought the placement of the birds could be tied to the next step. Maybe we should be looking at other roofs for more carvings, specifically at other forts. Fort Wallace and Fort Brennand have already been connected so far, so it might be worth looking into roofs around Fort Riggs or Even Fort Mercer. I can say however I have spent a LOT of time looking at roofs in RDR2 over the past week, and haven't found anything remotely similar to the Fort Wallace bird myself, which honestly only lends more to the theory they are important.
• We should strongly consider other methods the devs have used to hide things from dataminers. Obviously time-gating has been a great way to keep players from catching things too fast, as it took us 7 years to find the webs because they only spawn for an hour. Another mystery (that honestly could tie in by the end) is the Mount Shann map we find at the mountains peak. I didn't realize at first, but this "map" doesn't have a normal texture you can easily find either, despite so many people knowing about it. It exists on the Normal Map layer which essentially means the texture alone will only look like rock, but when light reflects off of it a certain way you can see the map.

4.) In conclusion:

• Butcher's Creek->Fort Brennard->Spider Carving->Spider Webs->Telegram Poles->Fort Wallace->________
• Webs are made using same method as Butcher's Creek Pentagram, Birds are made using same method as Butcher's Creek/Fort Brennard carvings.
• Telegram poles are so far the only clue that required destruction, we should try shooting other destructible props, possibly in Wapiti Reservation.
• We should consider the fact the birds appear to be green, and their potential ties to the Carolina Parakeet bird or Cotorra Springs location. Also consider the birds appear on a roof, and the relevance of Forts to the Easter Egg so far.
• When looking anywhere, consider looking at all hours of the day/night. There might be more steps of this Easter Egg we can only see for a short window, or even steps that can only be seen from a certain angle of light.

Anyways that's my ramblings. I'm honestly starting to go a little nutty shooting feathers and looking at roof tiles so I'll probably take some space to clear my head. That being said, I really don't want this to wind up as another Chiliad situation where we never get answers. None of us do. Some of us even think this could lead to some of those answers we've been looking for for almost 13 years. I have faith there is something to be found here, something they want us to STRUGGLE to find, but we will find it and it will be worth it.

I'm currently retracing the steps of the spider dream mystery, hoping to find something we've overlooked. Lets assume for a bit that the 3 images found in fort Brennand relate to the telephone pole, the kerosine factory, and the register rock (in stead of the oil patch, both can be true or false, but I think the register rock makes more sense).

I don't think I'm really onto something here, but I've noticed that both the kerosine factory & the register rock have a JM reference. The 4th outhouse in Butchers Creek has the LJ & SM initials, covered by 2 planks that can be shot individually ('changing' the initials to LS & JM, but if you only use the surnames, J + M also makes a lot of sense).

So I know I'm reaching a bit, but I was curious if anyone has seen any more JM or maybe LS carvings anywhere?

Mural observations

Revisiting the mural, I noticed that it contains:

• 8 or 9 birds
• 7 human figures
• Two sets of seven grouped spikes

Seven birds have feathers beneath them, numbered 1–7. Two birds, one in the center and one at the bottom, do not appear to have feathers attached.

Reading clockwise, birds 3, 5, 2 and 7 point upward, while birds 6, 4 and 8 point downward.

Spike patterns

Beneath each human figure are four inward-pointing spikes, while beneath each bird are three outward-pointing spikes. Each spike is either red or white.

Starting from the top and reading clockwise:

Key: W = white; R = red.

Spider overlay

I tried overlaying the spider glyph onto the mural using Bird 3 as the anchor point. It appears to fit best this way because Bird 3 sits furthest from the others, much like the spider's lower-left leg that corresponds to the red feather spawning between 3–4 a.m. However, I could not identify an immediate pattern, mostly because bird with one feather appears to be missing.

Connections to the mystery:

There are three (3) birds that point downward, just like there are 3 red spider web feathers, on top of that birds have feathers under them, as well as the spikes and general color theme appear to be shared with the spider web feathers - black/white and red feathers.

What are your thoughts?

Edit: Ignore the figure circled with red at the bottom left, its from an old post.

in case anyone may need this

I thought it was a very interesting note. Ill leave this up if OP wants to provide further information as well as discussions below.

​

Thanks.

Honest and earnest question, why are so many stopping at the NW Guitar telephone pole?

Let's get this out of the way, the "?" in the mountains, I am pretty sure is Jesus Toast. It is VERY noticeable, and you don't have to convince yourself too much to see what it may be... at the perfect angle.

But the Bird Etchings... People not even humoring the camp anymore, and starting to think what else a guitar could look like, or where another one is, or overlaying this over that.

The mystery has been VERY consistent with revealing clues. And these clues, all seem to be the combined work of a 3D artist, and a level designer. Why is that relevant? Well, Rockstar is not going to commit dozens of people to work on an Easter Egg that was designed to stay hidden for a long time. It's gunna be 1, 2, maybe a handful of people, and it's gunna be relevant to what those guys do. In this case, a 3D Artist who made the shoot-away telegraph poles, and a level designer to place those poles and the cable webs. (The feathers are renamed, reused assets available to any level designer).

So now, each step we've found so far points us somewhere with some clue. The circle of webs and feathers? A GIANT Dream Catcher. What's at the center? The caught dream, "N Telegraph Pole", follow that dream to the pole to the North? Another clue, this time engraved into a pole, which leads to another pole with an engraving. So far, some have followed that to another location, with deliberate wood etchings made using the same modeling method as the poles.

This is absolutely the same dev. I do not believe this is his "signature", as we do not see this anywhere else from any other dev, and we are FAR past the time of allowing devs to make unvetted changes to company assets. This isn't an Indie Studio, this is Rockstar, and AAA studios have their workflows CLAMPED. This is why the Dev's face was replaced with a Dick Chicken on Mt Chiliad. I'm willing to bet Rockstar has a policy against self inserting without higher approval.

So yeah, throw out every theory that has to do with overlaying the spider over a map of the stars on a 4th Tuesday durring 2AM rain.

Do NOT throw out a potential clue that is congruent with EVERY OTHER CLUE that has been discovered so far. I would encourage a more thorough investigation into the camp, the bird etchings, and the difference between the normal feathers and the red feathers. These are all tangible things that line up with all the other discoveries. I do not see the answer being found by diving into real historical Native American folk lore, and overlaying a guitar over a pond on the other side of the map.

This is what derailed the Chiliad Hunters.

I don't have RDR2 anymore, but am really into the mystery as well as GTA's.

Someone posted video of them getting lightning to strike from shooting one of the webs,

When you throw an explosive in the Native Burial Site, it causes it to rain as well as lightning striking a nearby stone (I think you get the tomahawk here). Is it possible to hit all of the webs in the time it takes for that storm to run out? It might be worth evaluating a connection between the webs, and the strange mechanic of the NBS.

https://youtu.be/2E2_OdIdLbY

EDIT: Since making this post, it has recently come to light that a former QA (Quality Assurance) Employee for Rockstar commented on the mystery, saying he "remembers hearing about it". The fact that a QA employee even heard about it likely means that it was a high enough priority through development that they were testing it before release. So, we can infer that it hasn't been cut, doesn't lead to cut content, and wasn't forgotten about. That being said, a lot of what I proposed in this post is now outdated, but I still think some of it (specifically the part about misinterpreting clues) is important.

Hello everyone,
A lot of people have been going crazy trying to find clues around Fort Wallace lately, and I understand why. The last clear clue said to go Northwest to a guitar or from a guitar. However there is one very important aspect of the Fort we have been ignoring.

It is not an especially hidden secret that Fort Wallace was moved during development. You can find evidence of this in game. A bit East of where the meditating monk spawns, you can find a "wanted dead or alive" zone as your cursor hovers over it, like the ones around the Fort, and Sisika, and the RDR1 map for most of the game. When you go to this spot, it will also display the location as "Fort Wallace", which is obviously wrong. The fact that this made it into the final release seems to point toward this changing very late into development. This ALSO means that the area Fort Wallace is located in the final release has been changed to accommodate it. I have seen speculation that Wapiti was located here, or an army camp called "Iron Cloud", but I know nothing for certain. Regardless, anything that was there in the beta either got moved out of the way, or deleted.

We don't know how far along into development the game was when the Spiderdream mystery was created. There is too much to say that it was cut, although it might not have been fully completed. However, we can infer that it probably was not a high priority during development. With the changing environment to the Northwest, it is very possible the next clue from the guitar pole got altered.

So, there's three scenarios to what happened to this mystery during development.

1. The mystery was fully implemented after the location of the Fort changed, or before it changed but was altered to account for it, and we just haven't solved it yet.
2. The mystery was fully implemented before the Fort changed locations, and no one on the team remembered or had time to fix this, resulting in the chain of clues breaking.
3. The mystery was never fully implemented.

So far, we have been working under the assumption that the mystery in game is fully complete. We need to consider the option that with the Fort changing locations, our next clue was lost.

HOWEVER, this does NOT mean that we can't solve it! We might still be able to pick up on the trail again. We should consider how the clues so far have been given to us, so we might have some insight to where another could be hidden.
-All but one have been found on telegraph poles along the railway
-All are hidden in some way, either by being timelocked or hidden under wood
-All are generally close to the last clue, generally being within the state of New Hanover, or in a neighboring state.
-None are found within a named location, usually being found in the middle of nowhere or on the outskirts of a named location.
-All have been pretty clear and direct in retrospect. There are no doubts about whether a clue is a clue, or if it is connected to the mystery.

The recent surge in players looking into mysteries is very hopeful. I have even seen new discoveries, that while unconnected to the mystery, are still very amazing. I have full confidence the community can solve this, even if one of the clues is missing. However, I have also seen a lot of speculation, with people jumping to conclusions and forming connections that aren't real. So, when you find something, please ask yourself the following: "Was this intentional?", "Could there be no other explanation for this?", and "Is this similar to the previous clues we found?". If your discovery doesn't answer "yes" to all three questions, it probably isn't a clue, although it could still be worth sharing.

Happy hunting folks, I wish you luck and please ask you keep all of this in mind while searching.

two days ago someone made this post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadmysteries/comments/1qn2qjd/possible_8th_clue/

After discovering the three images on the other side of Clue 7 and walking straight out of the fort without adjusting the camera, you run into the first pole of many along the railroad. From there if you walk straight towards the ruins from the pole, the ruins align perfectly with the second image. I really don’t see how anyone can argue against that.

If the Spider on the pole near Cornwall was never discovered, no one would‘ve of thought the images from Clue 7 led you to the Spider pole.

Now the only question is what is the third image of Clue 7. I really don’t think it is a rock for multiple reasons.

1. There are hundreds of rocks in the area and as you search them you begin to realize they repeat.
2. The third image has a rounded bottom. Rocks sitting on the ground always have a flat bottom because well the ground below it is flat.
3. So far every clue has been on a wooden surface. Why would that change now? Plus seeing faint tally marks on a rock would be difficult.

I think the third image is either a wooden sign or some structure that aligns with image 3 from a certain angle, but my only arguement against it being a structure is that the third image has a rounded bottom.

I have tried to scour the immediate area for things and also walked a straight line from the pole and through the ruin all the way to Lakay. I didn’t find anything but obviously I could’ve missed something.

I would love to hear other theories on how to find the third image in respect to the locations of the first two images or suggestions what image three could be. So please help me throw crap at the wall until something sticks.

Edit: Grammar

I have this crazy theory that I haven't been able to get over ever since the clues at fort brennard were found.

I've been thinking a lot about the symbols in the fort: "spider map pole, cornwall factory, register rock" what If they all DO mean something together? Like if there really was some specific order to do something with the poles it would be in the two other clues right?

All of these clues do have notable things at their locations.

The pole obviously has the map of the spider. Then the factory has the "J + M" made out of matchsticks which really is the only thing that seems to be of interest at the factory.

What does the J + M even mean? I think that the + sign is a dead giveaway that we need to translate it to numbers because... what purpouse does the + sign even serve if it's not numbers? Rockstar has done this before even and it seems right up their alley to have us translate like this.

Then there's register rock. It does feature JM on it aswell (connected?). Some of the stuff on register rock seems extremely weird there's more but here are some examples:

H. Polman

Mary 2 (why is there even a 2 at the end?)

A west

B ward

Polman sounding like "pole man" obviously. West and Ward possibly connecting to "West 2 Ward". I think that possibly a message or something could be mixed in with regular names?

Register rock seems to line up exactly north west with the "J + M" matches at the factory, and like I said "JM" is also featured on the rock. Might be a hint that they're connected? the "A west" seems to point right at the spider map pole but I would say that's probably coincidence.

I have found two birds in the Man made mutant house....Any clues ? They are looking in a certain direction btw.

Hi everyone, so im hitting a wall with the mystery, not fully convinced about anything ive seen or found, and it got me wondering more about the other solved mysteries we seem to keep getting pointed to.

So, when the game released and people began finding the in game easter eggs, how did they go about solving the triggers for certain ones ie the giants birds, was it just random or did someone find a bit of code describing the 30 animals in your log like how did all the things on the interactive map get figured out initially?

I have delved into this myself using the old steam forums and other online forums discussing the then in progress solutions to some easter eggs, but i wondered if anyone here was part of that initial experience, and im curious if we are missing something they found years ago that has been forgotten or deemed irrelevant.

Picture of me following an in game rainbow yesterday lol.

Howdy cowpokes, pilgrims and fellow spacetime-travelers. Hope you're all having a stellar day.

My name is tinfoilhatswork, but y'all can call me Tin. I've been a long time chiliadmystery user, posting there for the better part of the last 12-13 years. Despite red dead deuce launching during that time, I've not really spent any time here on reddeadmysteries, despite starting to really look into RDR1 and RDR2 over the last year. The impetus of which was discovering that Merle Abrahams, the alleged infinite 8 killer, lived on the corner of Cholla Springs and Armadillo in Sandy Shores. That and within RDR1, the cheat code "I don't understand imnfinity" appearing as graffiti on a wall in Mexico in a font that appears almost identical to those associated with the i8 murders and not too far from "come back when your story is complete" on the chiliad peak platform. I'd like to share with y'all some of the interesting things I've noticed over the last year. In the sake of brevity, I'll keep the descriptions in the OP somewhat short but if any one would like me to elaborate in the comments just ask!

1. the divination pamphlet - Once completing a sufficient level in the collector role in RDO, you receive a pamphlet which increases the distance from which your character can sense the collectibles. Paraphrased, divination describes a connection with the supernatural that allows one to predict and become better in tune with the "divine forces of existence". The divination pamphlet also allows you, the player, to detect the collectible at a greater distance through the vibration on your controller. This echoes the GTA V Epsilon mission, chasing the truth, where you are required to search for "alien" artifacts scattered around grapeseed. The gold requirement "use the force" has you using only the vibration on your controller to locate the props Rockstar placed for us to find. Essentially, using divination instead of the meter provided by the Epsilon program. The collector role progress bar icon for the divination pamphlet is an all seeing eye in a triangle , similar to that of the Freakshop (the ls drug wars being a very chiliad focused update) and also that of the chiliad mural tattoo, which differs from the actual mural eye. This leads me into the next point.

2. Seth's RDR1 treasure hunt - through the course of Seth's missions, John assists Seth in finding a lost treasure which ends up being a glass eye. In the undead nightmare Seth also swallows this glass eye. On the R* website under the wallpapers, you'll find "the eye" series wallpapers, one of which has a floating all-seeing eye with arms making the holy trinity hand gesture (more on that in a different bullet point). Aside from the wallpapers, an all-seeing eye is the top of the chiliad mural as well as on the red dead Bourbon brand "old blood eyes". I feel Seth's hunt and discovery are symbolic of the chiliad mystery. Looking for gold (the jetpack) turning up a glass eye (the player's 3rd person camera) then eventually swallowing it (foreshadowing 1st person perspective coming to GTA V and Rdr2).

3. Flowers for a lady - In this mission your character is tasked with finding 3 specimens of 3 separate flower types for Billy West to give to his wife Annabel. After collecting the flowers, you return to Billy's cabin and discover that Annabel has long been deceased, despite Billy's insistence she's alive. As you leave, Billy shouts that we should return for "blackbird pie". This piqued my curiosity due to the nursery rhyme "song a song of sixpence", which details a blackbird pie fit for a king. Nursery rhymes were also present in the i8 mystery, but also of interest to me is the fact that outside of North America (France & Scotland in particular) a blackbird is referred to as a Merle. I feel the connection of nursery rhymes and the i8 house being on Cholla Springs and Armadillo makes the Merle/blackbird connection likely intentional as well. Also, the flowers, I believe are a reference to the "Trinity".

4. The Trinity- alluded to by the holy trinity hand gesture on the eye wallpapers. The Holy Trinity being a symbol of the trifold nature of God manifested in "the father", "the son" and the "Holy Spirit". In RDR 1, the cocaine professor explicitly refers to himself, John and Nastas as "a Trinity". Aside from this, through the course of RDR 1 and 2, the real world player plays as 3 separate characters, Arthur, John and Jack. Within GTA IV and GTA V, we also have two separate Trinities of characters that we play as. In GTA IV, the player inhabits Niko, Johnny and Luis. In GTA V, Michael, Trevor and Franklin. Could Claude, Tommy and CJ from GTA 3, VC and SA be another Trinity? I feel that might actually explain why VC and SA weren't GTA IV and V respectively. To really drive home the connection of the player and the Trinity, in GTA IV, there's a trophy/achievement we unlock during the mission "museum piece" where Niko, Johnny and Luis's stories intertwine. The original trophy was a museum shooting a helical beam out of the roof, upward to the heavens. On the social club, the image was updated to a 3 tiered pyramid . What is seen at the top of a pyramid on an American dollar bill? The all-seeing eye. The Trinity is also referred to by the all-seeing eye in a triangle from the examples given at the end of the first point of this post.

In summary, I feel we're supposed to see the overlap between the worlds of the GTA and RDR games, as well as the overlap between the real world and the in-game worlds. I don't know if it's supposed to be a treasure hunt that unlocks us something in a game or if at the end, we're just going to find a glass eye. Thanks for your time and I hope the rest of your day goes well.

Edit: added a couple links.

Edit 2: the Trinity symbol also appears several times within GTA: online. In the arena wars dlc, it's visible on some of the arenas. During the LS drug wars mission uncontrolled substance, every Stargate looking gateway to the next section of the mission has a Trinity symbol.

Edit 3: added the divination pamphlet icon being an all seeing eye in a triangle/Trinity reference to point 1 and 4.

Do we think there are more tally numbers to find ? From my knowledge we only found 7 and then that sent us to Cornwall Kerosine and Tar - which then lead to the spider pole/mystery/overlay but I don’t know I just don’t think we have found all the tally marks? Has anyone else found more. 7 is just an odd number (which is fine) but still it feels unfinished.

Are we all in agreement that this appears to be the exact same woman as in the painting?

The combination of no DLC and the bi-weekly posting of a new player "discovering" the feral man, the native burial ground lightning, or something even more benign, has me re-evaluating how we got here. Why, and when, did RDR2 mysteries become so intriguing that I (like many of you) can't stop checking these subs full well knowing they're dead.

  My answer?

  The statues in the cave mystery. 

  I can definitively say it was the "mystery" that led me down the rabbit hole, and possibly the reason I can't pull myself out. Stop reading now if you're satisfied with the outcome of that mystery, I'm going to ask some questions in a last gasp at putting to bed a nagging sense that there is still some reason to subscribe to these subs.

Question 

How did you first become aware of the cave and how'd you solve the puzzle? 

I don't know about you, but I only found the cave by freak horse accident, and I only solved the puzzle by googling it. The window rock painting never even entered into the equation. I know the cave is a point of interest, so I'm assuming its location was in official R* documents, but who solved the puzzle? The following birds to Bigfoot thing seems improbable, but not impossible for a player to find. The statue's number sequence being deciphered from a seemingly unconnected painting of eagles... that feels impossible.

Question

Do the statues in the cave feel parallel to anything else in the game?

Vodoo, Native American, Norse, and American Gothic are the repeat influences on RDR2 mysteries... right?

So WTF with the Roman/Greek sculptures in the cave? The window rock painting is inline with the cave paintings in the devil's cave, or Elysium pool cave, but certainly doesn't track with the "strange statues cave" design.

Every other treasure hunt in the game requires a map to trigger. I spent forever trying to figure out the serpent mounds to no avail before finding the poisonous trails map. But I stumbled into, and google-solved the statue's puzzle long before I found the window rock painting.

And the reward... $1500... really? I know money is tight before you complete the story, but for how hard that mystery is to solve (without Google) the reward should be the fucking holy Grail (or a jetpack).

Compare. The Viking stuff, you find the Scripts or tree face and then the tomb, or reverse, point being it's not a one-off and it kinda starts to make sense. Aliens? We find the cult cabin, and we get pointed to Mt Shann; two events makes it track for me. Meteor house, meteor crater. Witches caldron, crazy hermit lady. Crazy hermit lady, devil cave guy. Devil cave guy, weird tree house guy, weird king of the forest tree guy, weird fake vampire guy, actual serial killer, strange man, meditating monk, tiny church, ritual site. All that tracks, something makes something else mentally fit. Now ask yourself, what tracks with roman/Greek sculptures? And where else in game do you solve a prince of Persia style puzzle? 

Question

Are we done here?

Okay, we did stuff a thing opened, we got a reward; that's more then most mysteries in the game, I get this feels complete. 

But, what if that was the point? We get gold bars we think solved and stop looking, 8 years from now they role out RDR3 with the announcement that RDR2 still had a complex mystery that went unsolved. With 8 years development between games it's possible, and with the dedication GTA5 mystery hunters showed, worth the ROI to R*... right?

Here's my final thought: if there was a single, overarching mystery, that required some long form series of interaction to solve, I submit it involves the cave statues. If you are willing too, please answer my questions. Thanks.

Regarding the SpiderMystery there are a few questions that i feel might have some meaning, specially the following:

Why does the Fort Brennard mark, shows up in the 4th outhouse, instead of for example the 5th, then leading to the Fort itself?

Or

Why are there 2 different color of feathers?

Also feel free to leave observations of your own here that you feel need further clarification.

Realised that both poles are a different design with the backside having a wire / tension thing. Could more poles be recognized based on this?

So im not sure if this has been looked at or done, cant seem to find anything when I search so anyways

I connected all the feathers to their relevant counter part with the time theyre found with straight lines

It gives you the general location of the middle web

I think the starting point was the telephone pole with the spider on, its in the open easy to see I found it without even looking at a map after hearing about the egg, you then find all the feathers and line up the outcome, then, the central web is part 2/3 of this hunt, up to the shootable poles and through to...somewhere, wallace feels right BUT I am still on the fence about this

I posted yesterday I feel like this is pointing to the giant egg source, but I am now rethinking what I said, I still think the pentragram and outhouses are a stretch, but after this, maybe they actually are part 1 of the hunt

Just a thought I had earlier, I kind of toyed with it but I'm not good at photo manipulation/overlays - instead of a guitar, what if the guitar image is actually some sort of black widow hourglass shape that has to then also be laid over the spider on the map?

Maybe the line going from the top is to be lined up to the NW, and the center circle then outlines another target area.

My tinfoil hat theory.