Last week I reported on a strange delivery we received at our home. Since then it has become more than just a scary video. The video led us to a website called push11.com that showed an elevator that went down a level each day. Last monday it arrived at level -11 and stopped. This day was a very exciting day. While Barbara from berlinkriminell.de, another receipient of the video, followed the number 11 and made an unexpected discovery at the Leipziger Platz 11 in the bar Eleven, the elevator on push11.com opened its doors, led us through the gloomy corridors of an old hospital and finally showed us the locked up door of room 217. This room number seems quite familiar, especially if you’ve read Steven Kings novel The Shining. But the reality is far less scary. On a later visit to the Charité hospital the room from the video was discovered, but it’s nothing more than a broom closet. But now let’s get back to the bar Eleven, where Barbara discovered a table with 11 candles and 11 chocolate lady bugs, along with a lighter and an invitation to the birthday party of a kid named Horatio. And the party takes place in no other than the mysterious room 217.
Berlinkriminell opened up a special forum where new information is gathered and theories are being discussed. A couple of more bloggers received personal invitations to the party by mail. TV journalists also became interested in the story. Tonight a short feature aired on Polylux at ARD which you can see in the video below. On Tuesday 4 of the bloggers who received the video met in Friedrichshain at Kaspar+Hauser to personally exchange the latest news.
Today we had some exciting new developements. With the help of the mysterious lighter a hidden message became visible on the invitation card. This message led to the personal blog of Horatio, who seems to be a dying tumor patient. In his blog he mentions the TV show CSI:Miami, that seems to be the source for his nickname. He also talks about the movie 1408 which seems to have inspired him for this whole scary room thing. The receipients of the video and the invitation as well as some other curious readers now discuss and analyse every detail of the blog that might lead to the actual location of the room.
All of this seems to be part of one big game, a so called alternative reality game. Behind it there is probably a big marketing campaign, but who is the initiator? There have been a lot of games like this in the States, even some here in Germany that advertised for T-Mobile or a CD from Enigma. But what might be behind this one? Who would dare to use a dying child as a marketing campaign?
