The
Publius Enigma is an obscure
mystery involving a
riddle
proposed in connection with
Pink Floyd's
1994 album
The Division Bell. It originated and
has been followed predominantly on the
Internet and began, according to some sources, as a
Web-based contest implemented to promote the album and its tour.
Although the true nature of the puzzle has never been revealed and
the consensus is that it was largely abandoned by its creators, the
challenge remains unresolved as of 2009 and the matter has yet to
be brought to an official conclusion.
Publius
The Publius Enigma is named after a messenger known only as
Publius who posted the following and more to
the
Usenet newsgroup,
alt.music.pink-floyd, on 11 June 1994, soon after the
launch of
The Division
Bell world tour:
My friends,
You have heard the message Pink Floyd has delivered,but have you
listened?
Perhaps I can be your guide, but I will not solve the enigma for
you.
All of you must open your minds and communicate with each other,as
this is the only way the answers can be revealed.
I may help you, but only if obstacles arise.
Listen.
Read.
Think.
Communicate.
If I don't promise you the answers would you go.
Publius
In a follow up, Publius clarifies the challenge:
AS SOME OF YOU HAVE SUSPECTED, "The Division Bell" is not like its
predecessors. Although all great music is subject to
multipleinterpretations, in this case there is a central purpose
and adesigned solution. For the ingenious person (or group of
persons)who recognizes this - and where this information points to
- aunique prize has been secreted.
How and Where?
The Division Bell
Listen again
Look again
As your thoughts will steer you
Leading the blind while I stared out the steel
in your eyes.
Lyrics, artwork and music will take you there
Many of the newsgroup users were harshly skeptical, so Publius
agreed to provide proof of his authenticity. On 16 July 1994 he
delivered a prediction:
To validate the trust of those who believe, as well as
to reconcile the doubt of others, I have gone to greatlengths to
plan the following display of communication:
Monday, July 18East Rutherford, New JerseyApproximately
10:30pm
Flashing white lights.
There is an enigma.
Trust.
On the night in question at approximately 10:30 p.m., white lights
in front of the stage at the Pink Floyd
concert in East Rutherford
spelled out the words ENIGMA PUBLIUS.
Confirmation of the enigma was given again nearing the end of the
tour, this time to a much larger audience.
On 20 October 1994, during a
televised concert at Earls Court
, London, the word ENIGMA was projected in large
letters on to the backdrop of the stage. The word that
appeared at this time was originally without embellishments, but on
the
P*U*L*S*E DVD of the
concert, extra markings were added so that it could still be seen
but was less obvious; the clue was overlaid with L = mc² at first
and subsequently changed to E = mc². The projection is visible
during the song "
Another Brick
in the Wall ." The DVD's authoring company, Das Boot, uses an
enigma machine as their logo, which
can be seen at the end of the show.
After the end of the Division Bell tour, Publius postings occurred
with less frequency. In the year following his final posts, the
anonymous
Penet remailer service
through which Publius' messages had been routed shut down, making
it impossible for him to return without having to once again show
proof of his authenticity.
In the aftermath of Publius' disappearance from the newsgroup,
others began to step in to fill the void. While many of these
characters were simply inspired by the original Publius and tried
to continue in his spirit, some blatantly attempted to impersonate
the messenger and capitalize on the vulnerability of those willing
to believe. One of the most infamous examples of this kind of
activity resulted in the false verification of Craig McGee's
so-called "solution post," leading to subsequent confusion as to
whether or not the enigma had been solved.
The identity of Publius remains unknown. The DavidGilmour.com FAQ
mentions the search for his identity:
Solution controversy
The article "A Brief History of the Publius Enigma" on the Pink
Floyd & Co.
website contains information
regarding Publius-related Usenet activity which some readers may
find misleading or confusing. The post archive presented contains
an anonymously attributed "solution" (originally submitted by
enigmatist Craig McGee) which describes The Division Bell as being
"a wake up call" and urges fans to "make the connection with the
Right One." Shortly afterward, a user claiming to be Publius posted
a declaration that the enigma was "finished" and that the majority
of enigmatists had been "disgraced." This was quickly followed up
by another post claiming that the prize would be "unique as
promised" and that it would be "the decision of the winner to
discuss it with the rest." This message also contained irregular
capitals interspersed throughout the text: the letters SNIWEEGCM,
which, in reverse, spell "McGee wins."
Both posts were made in 1997, long after the Penet service had been
terminated (and thus after legitimate Publius activity had ceased),
and had been instead sent from "nobody@replay.com," the default
address for an entirely different anonymous remailer. Not only did
this "Publius" fail to provide proof of authenticity, McGee himself
never received a prize or any form of official confirmation. The
Pink Floyd & Co. website explains:
Official statements
In April 2005, during a book signing of his biographical work
Inside
Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd, Pink Floyd drummer
Nick Mason acknowledged that the Publius
Enigma did exist, that it had been instigated by the record company
rather than the band, and that the prize was to have been something
along the lines of a "crop of trees planted in a clear cut area of
forest or something to that effect."
The comments made by Mason corroborate parts of a previous
interview with
Marc Brickman, the
Floyd's lighting and production designer and the man apparently
responsible for putting the "ENIGMA PUBLIUS" message in the lights
at the New Jersey concert.
In 1996, an enigma hunter named Sean Heisler arranged this and
other interviews with key Pink Floyd personalities including cover
artist
Storm Thorgerson and band
manager
Steve O'Rourke. While
Thorgerson and O'Rourke's responses lacked definitive information,
Brickman was very forthcoming. According to Heisler, this led to
job-threatening tensions between Brickman and O'Rourke:
Brickman later brought the accuracy of his testimony into question
when he denied having told the truth to Heisler and refused to take
responsibility for a series of enigmatic Usenet posts made in his
name.
Uncle Custard
While it was still in print, the Pink Floyd resource, Brain Damage
Magazine, had a Q&A section reserved for a correspondent known
only as "Uncle Custard." The name (phonetically similar to "Uncool
Car Stud") was created by Glen Povey, apparently an allusion to
Nick Mason's passion for
auto
racing.
Issue #34 of the magazine contains the following:
Although the answers given by Uncle Custard over the years have all
been written by several different persons affiliated with the
magazine, this particular answer has been attributed to former
editor and final publisher of the printed version of Brain Damage,
Jeff Jensen. The accuracy of the content of this answer and under
what authority (if any) Jensen had to produce it remains
unclear.
In the media
Various Pink Floyd releases and publications have included hidden
as well as obvious references to the Publius Enigma:
- In the artwork for the MiniDisc release
of A Momentary Lapse of
Reason, the word "PUBLIUS" has been inserted into the
photo of the man in the rye field. The word "ENIGMA" appears in the
lower corner of the picture of the man standing on the edge of the
cliff.
- The words "Publius Enigma" can be heard spoken just before the
song One of
These Days on the 2003 DVD release of Pink Floyd: Live at
Pompeii.
- Storm Thorgerson's cover for
John Harris' book "The Dark
Side of the Moon", published by HarperCollins in 2005 prominently includes the
word "ENIGMA" alongside an ellipsis.
- Page 13 of the The Division Bell's CD booklet contains
an anagram of the word "enigma," hidden in
third column from the right of the top verse of the lyrics to
Wearing the Inside Out, perfectly aligned with the page
number "jyusan." Anthony Moore, who
wrote the lyrics to the song, has denied that the anagram was
intentional on his part.
11:11
There are several notable instances of either coincidence or
synchronicity regarding the number
11 and the
11:11 phenomenon that can be related not
only to Pink Floyd and
The Division Bell, but also to the
enigma:
- The page numbers of The Division Bell's CD booklet are
written in various languages and printed on silhouettes of the head
statues shown on the cover of the album. Page 11 shows two head
silhouettes. Printed on either one is the German word for eleven,
"elf," resulting in "elf elf," or, "eleven eleven."
- The trailer for the pending-release film 11:11 features the
song "High Hopes."
"High Hopes" is the 11th track on The Division Bell.
- The release date of David Gilmour's On an Island, March
6, 2006 (also David Gilmour's birthday), is
exactly eleven years and eleven months after the U.S. release date
of The Division Bell, April 5, 1994.
- On June 11, 1994,
Publius made his first enigma post to the Pink Floyd newsgroup.
Eleven years later, on June 11, 2005, Roger Waters, David Gilmour,
Nick Mason, and Richard Wright agreed to reunite as Pink Floyd for
Live 8. During the broadcast (and as seen on
the Live 8 DVD), the band took the stage just shortly after 11:00
p.m., and by 11:11, Pink Floyd were playing together as a four-man
lineup for the first time in 24 years.
Trivia
Publius was the
pen name under which the
Federalist Papers were published.
The
authors who used this name were Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James
Madison, some of the Founding Fathers of
the USA
. The alias was named after
Publius Valerius Publicola, a
Roman consul
known as the "friend of the people."
References
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search