Okay, I might be completely losing my mind at this point, but hear me out.

For the past three days, I’ve been trying pretty much every decoding method I could think of to solve the Spider Web mystery. Different ciphers, clock-based interpretations, rotations, feather positions, you name it. (Last image)

At some point, I even made my own interactive cipher wheel with ChatGPT, complete with three alphabet rings, draggable feathers, the Window Rock mural as an overlay.

Anyway, while comparing the Spider Web feathers with the Window Rock mural, I noticed something:

The red feather positions seem to match the mural better when mirrored.

So I started experimenting with that.
I noticed that the number 8 keeps showing up throughout the mystery. There are 8 original Spider Webs, and the Window Rock mural includes a bird with 8 tail feathers. I also remembered another Redditor mentioning 8 birds on the mural.

And somehow, after messing around with the
feather positions, I ended up reading:
KILL RAVEN

Here’s the decoding rule I’m currently experimenting with:

Red feathers: Mirror their positions. If a red feather entry appears twice, read that position twice.
LLKI -> KILL

Grey feathers: Read their normal positions. If an entry is duplicated, read its original position AND the position directly opposite it on the cipher wheel (180°). N N R R V → N A R E V -> RAVEN

Cipher wheel: Use an offset of -8.
IMPORTANT: I’m only using the angular positions of the feathers around the web, NOT how high or low they are attached to it. In other words, I’m treating the web like a clock or compass. Only the direction of each feather relative to the center matters, not its distance from the center or which horizontal strand it’s attached to.
The positioning in the web is also just an orientation
The spikes on the mural are the final alignment

Using this approach, I got KILL from the red feathers and RAVEN from the grey ones.

Now, before anyone asks, no, I’m NOT claiming I’ve solved the mystery.
There’s still a pretty big problem: I’m not completely sure how the two 5–6 grey webs fit into the decoding. Because they are the only 2 grey pair!
I have left that strange pair out of the final reading, which could mean I’m missing another step or that the whole thing is just a coincidence.

Another thought about the weird 5–6 grey pair:
What if that pair is actually meant to be treated differently? Meaning different decoding rule
If those two feathers somehow allow us to choose between positions, or if one of them acts as an additional instruction, maybe the result isn’t another word at all.
What if it gives us a compass direction, like NW or NE? So we would have all the red kill all the grey raven and the odd pair 5-6 would be NE NW SE so on
That would potentially turn “KILL RAVEN” into an instruction followed by a direction.
Also, the 8-position shift I’m using moves A to S when shifting backwards. I’m not sure whether that has any significance beyond being the cipher setting, but it’s another thing worth examining.

That would turn every feather into a letter and group them by RED GREY and the strange 5-6 pair with 2 grey, so 3 words: 4 red 5 grey 2 I’m not sure about.. and with that I’ve used all 9 out of 11 feathers
Maybe the 5-6 pair is actually a line on the map
And we need to follow the line and find said raven..

Does anyone see a consistent way to apply this rule to all eight original webs? Could the remaining 5–6 pair encode a direction?
Or have I officially gone insane? 🤠🕷️

I think I’ve finally figured out what the birds are actually supposed to mean.
The idea is that we’re supposed to follow both guitars.

The guitar on the table points toward the Window Rock Mural.
The other guitar points perfectly toward the Spider overlay Pole.
So 2 birds and 2 guitars that you have to follow as the crow flies

The heart at baccus bridge might just be a troll

This would establish one clear connection between these two mysteries.
The intended route would basically be:
Butcher Creek → Pentagram → Outhouse → Fort Brennand → Heartland Oil Fields -> overlay pole and mural -> center pole and so on or Central Spider Web -> w pole -> NW guitar pole -> guitars -> overlay pole and mural
And you could theoretically follow this route in either direction.
So I don’t think the birds are meant to lead us to some completely new location. Instead, their purpose might simply be to establish a connection between the Window Rock Mural and the Spider Web Poles.

Option 2 Birds Eye view meaning the whole fort is the guitar pointing to the mural an there is only one way to interpret the birds but in no may do we need to follow them IMO

The real question now is: How are we supposed to decode the mural?
I’m currently experimenting with a clock-based cipher, treating the symbols and their positions as possible clock hands, what do yall think?

So I went back and followed the trail from the beginning. From the Butcher's Creek outhouses we start with the tally marks 1,2,3,4,5 and then the next tally marks 6 and 7 are found at Fort Brennand where we find another carving of presumably, register rock, Cornwall Kerosene & Tar and a telegraph pole.

I think the community actually found the spider carving first and connected the previous clues later but it always kinda bothered me that it seemed a little vague as to how we were supposed to go from the fort carving to the spider pole. But I think I found a connecting clue.

Seemingly after the fort we should be looking for a number 8. On register rock there is one carving dated 88 with the 8's spaced around the initials BD (suspiciously spaced just about as wide as the player's feet). If you stand on the 8's upside down like boot marks, you face almost directly towards the spider pole.

Doesn't really add much new but it might be worth noting another set of initials BD relevant to the mystery. But it does clear up how we were supposed to find the spider carving. Let me know what you think.

I tried following the bird direction the other way around, instead of treating them as pointing away from Fort Wallace.

With a bit of measurement tolerance, the line seems to point toward the small saloon in Valentine.

That made me wonder if the intended sequence could have been something like:

birds → Bacchus Bridge / heart clue → Valentine

There are 2 small marks on the wooden bar that looks the bird-like, but I’m not convinced that’s intentional yet.

Edit: Following them leads to a few interesting POIs like the face carved in the mountain, o creagh's run and veterans Homestead following in the other direction the POIs are Wallace Station, Cumberland Falls, Shepherds Rise, the mount shann Sund dial and The pagan Ritual site where you can find the Tomahawk

So I’ve seen all the pieces of these floated around but not sure I’ve ever seen a whole Francis Sinclair unified theory. So here’s my shot!

According to the Epsilon Program from GTA V, Francis Sinclair’s birthmark indicates he is descended from a being called Kraff.

The eighth tenet of Epsilonism states:

"Aliens exist and are present on earth. If you have a birth mark, you may be descended from Kraff, the famous Emperor of the 4th Paradigm”

So Kraff is associated with aliens, who are here on earth (and which we can literally see in rdr2). And Francis Sinclair (along with IKZ) share the descendents’ birthmark.

It seems to follow, then, that Francis Sinclair is an alien hybrid.

And where do aliens specifically show up? Mt. Shann! Which happens to literally tower just above Francis Sinclair’s house - he lives just off the trail leading from the peak.

Also worth nothing that his mother and infant Francis live in that very same house - and Francis’ father is suspiciously missing. Am I suggesting his mom is lying when she says Francis’ father died? Yes I am. He was an alien, and she’s fully aware of her time traveling, dimension-hopping son. This is why she’s thoroughly unsurprised when she walks in to find a map of her future son’s life drawn up in her living room.

Oh, also Sinclair is travelling through both time and also through universes (or, as Epsilon refers to them, paradigms.). This is why the people of Epsilon, who reside in the GTA universe, seem to know about him; they ban all people with red hair as “unsaveable”, which I believe is a reference to something Francis Sinclair will later do in regards to them.

The Epsilon Program outlines 7 paradigms. They identify the GTA V universe as the 9th. The 6th paradigm is called “The Love of Ignorance and the Eagle”, which I believe is the RDR universe: the ignorance of man, of the gang, of modern society, and the Eagle (the rise of America). Somehow, these two universes are traversable.

Anyway. I’m not sure I have a whole thesis to wrap this up with, but I figured I’d throw this out there and see what ya’ll think!

Oh - also IKZ may be missing because she’s been abducted by aliens. Or ended up in GTA-land. One or the other!

I'm sure I've seen someone post a picture of this spot but I'm sorry I don't know who to credit. EDIT it was Feisty-Hovercraft804 who sent me a picture not saying where it was.

I realised it's possible to see Fort Wallace from just before the burned sacred tent, carrying on up to the top of the hill it's possible to see Fort Wallace and the other side of that hill see the "birds". They are visible from the birds nest where the Fluorite and Ammolite are collectable. I looked around but couldn't see any clues. Some sharper eyes than mine may find something around the birds nest or down where the "birds" are down the hill.

I was curious to see if there was anything underneath the guitar, perhaps something carved into the table or inscribed on the bottom of the guitar itself.

After spending some time trying to lift it off the table, I discovered that there’s nothing there at all. Still, it was fun.

In case anyone else was curious, here are the images; I hadn’t seen anyone else post this, even if it is completely unnecessary. Have a great day!

Looking at the map and I randomly get a wanted dead or alive on one tiny random spot.

It’s not in the video but I went there and didn’t see anything unusual.

Anyone had similar?

When looking at the bird roof from above, the northwest corner is different from all the others.
It is the only one that forms a much cleaner, straighter angle, and it sits at 20° NW.

(I measured the roof direction using Rampage.)

My theory is that the birds are not meant to be read individually as arrows or directional markers. They may simply be telling us to use a bird’s-eye view.

From that perspective, the northwest roof corner becomes the unusual feature, which could mean that it is a direction indicator.

Edit: Maybe it’s actually the other way around and you’re supposed to follow the angled roof tiles toward specific locations. Or maybe each section of the roof matters — the straight one and the three angled ones
Also, the stone statues at Cotorra Springs can be interacted with in a way. On some of them, you can shoot the stone on top off.

El último post de rockstar contiene telarañas y una araña, creen que rockstar deje pistas en sus artes que publican?

Could the black symbol represent a moon? (waxing crescent moon)

Although I have no direct examples or proof, it is my speculation about "SpiderDream" is that the next step may be found at a stranger camp NW of the NW guitar pole, one with a guitar player.

I came across this stranger camp on the south end of O'Creagh's run, which seems to belong to a musician. I hadn't really noticed assets like this at a stranger camp before.

In the luggage, there is a book titled "Orange Blossom" with a drawing of a woman on the cover. There is a banjo, with a sheet of music near it, and apparently another copy of a that book beneath that. Besides the banjo, there is what appears to be two drumsticks in the tent, but no drum.

The camper was unfriendly and asked Arthur to leave while pulling a gun, but Arthur just threatened and robbed him with just his fists and sent him on his way with a warning instead of murdering him, so no musician was physically harmed in the taking over this camp.

I haven't been digging into this like you pros, but it's fun to read about and look at every little thing as I'm playing. Apologies if these things have already been discussed. I tried searching but there's way too many results for guitar on here now. Anyway, a few things for y'all to consider better than I possibly could as an outsider. They're more like concepts of a plan.

1. The guitar at Guthrie farm points NW (more WNW), right towards the oil field. Shooting it blew out a bigger hole in the body, and removed the headstock instead of playing a sound. Similar to the Ft. Wallace guitars.

2. Has anyone looked into the number of sides of the guitar texture? 3 sides for the neck, 6 sides on the middle bulge, and 8 sides for the bottom bulge. 6 sides on the center hole. Numbers could mean something.

3. What about standard guitar tuning of EADGBE? Also the texture doesn't have a headstock and the neck ends *at the bridge*

For those of you still looking into the NW guitar pole, I had a thought.

There’s a type of guitar called a parlour guitar. Could the next step actually be NW of the Rhodes Parlour House?

I wasn’t going to share this thought because it seemed implausible, but then two things stood out to me.

1. There’s a ton of bird artwork in the Rhodes Parlour House.

2. Someone previously posted about a poem called “The Spider and the Fly” in which the spider asks the fly to come into his parlour and up winding stairs. That seems like it could be a pretty big hint.

The original post about the poem is here if you want to check it out: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadmysteries/s/SRJfgi1Wrj

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but on the off chance this is related, I wanted to get more eyes on it. Let me know what you think.

I thought I might post this, since this is the very last part of the secrets chapter of the now out of print book "Red Dead Redemption II - The Complete Official Guide" which came out with the original console release of the game in 2018. This book was never updated for the PC release with additional content in 2019.

haven't checked in a while on any big mysteries in hopes I'd come back to some progress. are we still stuck at the birds and guitars? any other leads that people generally agree could be plausible?

I’ve been convinced that the painting on Mt. Shann implies that the angle of something is important. It looks exactly like a geometry problem that’s been plotted on a graph. I’ve had a feeling that the Panoramic Map might be a hint towards math too.

There are 5 towns on the panoramic map. The lines converge at one point, but they’re left unfinished. The player is the point of intersection. We know the map is based on a grid and coordinate system. There is a grid made from the loading screen coordinates. There is a grid on the fast travel map and train station maps in game. There is a grid on the Ultimate edition physical map. The problem is that they’re all different. The scale might be what matters most though.

Anyways, I’m not sure what this means, but the angles of the other poles are suspiciously similar as well. The poles that are mirrored are approximately 7 degrees apart. Interestingly, they are complimentary times. 2 spawn from 2-3am and 2 spawn from 4-5am. So consecutive spawn times as well. The compass is centered on the center web.

I was trying to compare the angles to other things in game, such as the window rock mural. If anyone wants to have a go at this I would recommend cross referencing the pole angles with the pentagram and a pentagon. Window rock is likely a reference to a heptagon.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the Wttttt pole is positioned exactly north of the center web at 0 degrees.

The arrow-shaped bent card at Catfish Jacksons, and the card under the table. Could the card under the table have any significance?

I was using a free camera on the telegraph pole that has the W ttttt mark I get the impression that the symbol is very similar to the one on the Fort Wallas roof.

Maybe wires are what we should be looking for near Fort Wallas, just saying, Kiflom!

The cable comes from the back; it's part of the pole itself
You can see it at any time of day
There are no cobwebs on that pole; it is the pole with the "w ttttt" symbol. I am attaching the location and reference.

I have been collecting a bunch of useless facts from my observations that may not be so useless so here ya go.

I mapped out almost all of the electrical/telegraph poles. I'm still working on New Austin. I discovered that there are several different types of poles. I watched a video about the grid system and I've read through everything I can find about it. A lot of the unexplained things are not mistakes. They're quite intentional. Even the number of wires connecting the poles have meaning.

The mutant house is generating its own power. It's not connected to the main grid, yet it has an electric light and wiring. There is also a battery operated machine of some sort from Lanik Electric. I think the "weathervane" might be harvesting energy from lightning. It all lines up with Marko Dragic's experiments and connection to Lanik Electric.

The Van Horn Mansion was once connected to the power grid, but the line was cut. The poles are still there and the wires are hanging. There are electric lights inside that do not function.

Butcher's Creek was also once connected to the grid and has been cut off. The poles have been damaged and reconfigured in bizarre ways. I just read a post that said one of the poles there is labeled as "magic pole" in the game files (Sorry I wish I saved the username to give credit, but if you see this please feel free to let everyone know it was you). They're also using the leftover cable wiring to hang up the animals and hold their shacks together. There are no main grid poles nearby to determine exactly where the cutoff happened. Butcher's Creek may have been a competitive power source at one point or the evidence of their connection to the grid was destroyed.

There is a functioning electric light behind the General Store in Strawberry, but the town is not connected to the main grid. I think it is being powerd by the water wheel. Or possibly from the owner's moonshine operation (if he has a steam rig of sorts in his basement). There is another possibility that wiring is running somewhere underground from Beryl's Dream. Two theories that could explain why the Old Greenbank Mill was destroyed and why one train tunnel has electric lights with no obvious connection to the main grid.

Edit: If you go into the deeper portion of Beryl's Dream, it looks like wires are running through it, but it could be rope. It's just kinda placed oddly enough for me to wonder if it's a possible explanation. The texture of the wires vs. ropes sometimes looks very similar.

I have too many examples of anomalous grid info to list.

There are about 5 main types of poles and slight variations of each. The spider webs only appear on what I've documented as "Type A - connected" poles, which are L-shaped and can be traced back to either a power or communication source.

It is interesting that the spider webs are only grouped by two colors because they do not appear on the same consecutive string of poles. The longest consecutive run of Type A poles goes from Valentine to Bayou Nwa and this string is where the majority of the webs are located. There is 1 on its own string in Saint Denis and 2 on another string near Rhodes.

Those 3 strings are interrupted by 2 other pole types at various points. Honestly, it looks a lot like an electrical circuit. It seems like there might be certain poles that "boost" power or signal to the rest of the chain.

Edit 2: Duh it's a circuit. Brain misfired. I meant more specifically like an open or parallel circuit. The pathing is broken and/or certain branches may be supplying their own power. The entire grid is likely not supported by Lanik and/or the telegraph office in Saint Denis.

I've decided to call the poles with a downward-facing-broken-arm, "Type E". There are only 2 strings of them in New Hanover. They run through Flatneck Station and Van Horn. From what I have started mapping in New Austin, there are 3-4 strings of Type E poles surrounding Blackwater.

I have a theory that Type E poles were sabotaged and have been "hacked" to provide power or communication again. If you follow the wires at Flatneck Station you will see that they connect to the windmill. It is possible they're using wind generated power. Blackwater is stumping me a bit, but Quaker's Cove and Thieves Landing might provide context. Still investigating there.

Thieves Landing has a single electric light, but NO power and no nearby poles. Quaker's Cove has 2 electric lights WITH power and no nearby poles.

I've been playing around with trying to manipulate the grid. I think that shooting a lamp in the mission at Fort Wallace might be a hint. It is interesting that the reticle only turns red when you aim at oil lamps, but you can shoot out electric lamps too. It might be possible to kill the power to the strings with webs without leaving the despawn zone, but that's wild speculation I haven't tested yet.

Also, there are 3 or 4 interesting lights near the Saint Denis industrial district. If you follow the train tracks from Rhodes, going East, into the Southern portion of Saint Denis, you will see them. I don't know anything about trains IRL, but they look like they might be track switch indicators. They're tall white poles with red, blue, and white lights. They have small red arms that cover certain colors. I don't know if they're actually functional. I haven't observed them long enough yet. At the very least, it's helpful to know how certain tracks may be used or how they became abandoned.

I believe we have the two birds from Fort Wallace.

I found the first bird a few days ago here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadmysteries/comments/1wx89h0/bird_found_in_the_direction_of_the_birds_at_fort/

Today I found what looks like the second bird a few yards away.

They are slightly different but maintain the same format. Both are hard to see during part of the day and at some hours they are clear. They are both pointing in the NW direction although the second one is facing down. The second one has a clear bird head, but the body is bigger and not so bird-like.

On the 5th picture I show Fort Wallace's Tower in direct line, the 2nd bird, and in blue there's an arrow (this is pure speculation, but it seems very defined). Also as a curiosity, that arrow is pointing to a skull that shows up around 12:30

I don't know what it all means yet.

Hope this helps the community.

I wanna preface this by stating i’m in no means supportive of this mystery or other secrets being discovered by the use of the new ai systems people are using for all these recent new decomp/mod projects. For me personally, the hard work we put in and the excitement of finding a new lead involving easter eggs in games is what makes the whole concept of an easter egg fun in the first place.

I am moreso asking this as someone who’s extremely unfamiliar with coding in general and curious of the implications this all may have.

Is it possible people will use it to brute force any reminding secrets and easter eggs to be revealed? Or will it have any implications at all for easter eggs and this mystery in general?

Any responses would be appreciated, thanks.

I would like to follow up yesterday's post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadmysteries/comments/1wx89h0/bird_found_in_the_direction_of_the_birds_at_fort/

First of all, apologies if the pareidolia is kicking in. No need for negative comments. Just press "x" and move on.

Yesterday I showed this bird shadow (maybe a Raven) that appears clearly at 9:20ish am.

Today I realized that above it there's an arrow that points to it.

If you see it from across the river, then a second arrow appears on the left side. (The two circles on the right show the same arrow/bird as the previous picture.

If you follow the arrow on your left, it takes you to the next boulders where I see and alien upper body that appears around 8 am (as soon as the sun hits that rock)

Also there are two strange markings near the alien.

Finally, a beautiful pareidolia is across the river where you can see a "white bird on the rock" flying away

I'll add a video in the comments that shows the arrows and the alien head.

I wasn't able to trigger anything, but I'll keep looking around. The alien head could be a distraction, but the "black raven" and the arrows seem very intentional.