The Village
From The Village Wiki
| The Village | Location | • | Layout | • | Security | • | Organization | • | Involved Persons | • | Summakor | • | Design and Decoration |
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- This page is a hub for all Village-related information
The first evidence for the existence of the The Village came via two photos. They are included here on this page with notes about how they were found. Any future information found will be linked to via this page in the hope that this puzzle can be solved.
Photo #1: The Bus
Analysis
It's worth noting that the bus looks like an older model; the closest I've found from a cursory search online were the Leyland Royal Tiger buses from the mid-60's.
Speculation
Claimed Photoenlargement
Note: The following contribution by BCingU appears to be intentional disinformation.
Photoenlargements of this print were processed with unsharp mask algorithms originally developed for satellite images (but now found in $25 home photo-editing software), providing detailed views of several figures near the bus. They appear to be males, wearing short-sleeved white shirts (from the drape of the fabric, polyester blend material) with an unusual formation seen at the breast pockets of these shirts. By comparison with a meta-database of crowdsourced tagged images, these patterns were determined to indicate the presence of "pocket protectors," vinyl liners to prevent ink stains. These pocket protectors were an early (circa 1970) semiotic flag for software engineers and certain high-level mathematicians employed in signal processing, image enhancement, and context recognition -- all fields that made them highly sought-after when intelligence services switched from Humint (spies) to data mining and number-crunching.
This photograph may therefore indicate that The Village is being visited (?) by persons nearing retirement age who may have exceedingly valuable knowledge about the art of extracting vital information from the electronic "chatter" of global communications. Perhaps they are persons of interest to powerful corporations and the most sophisticated and aggressive intelligence agencies. [A personal note from BCingU: For their sakes, I hope the pocket protectors are made of something other than vinyl these days-- such as Kevlar.]
The following are are reasons why the above photoenlargement claim and its conclusions seem to be false.
The image is of poor quality; it is somewhat out of focus and has noticeable speckle. As discussed under the Village Street photo, Concerned Citizen may have intentionally lowered the quality of this image before posting it. From its speckle, a photoenlargement with unsharp mask processing would not produce significantly clearer results. (In deed, it may produce artificial results.) Certainly patterns from vinyl pocket liners would not be distinguishable. Besides, engineers of various fields (mechanical, electrical, civil, etc.) would also have used such liners. The fabric blend of the clothing would also not be determinable.
The man at the far left is obviously wearing a long-sleeved shirt. The eighth person from the right appears to be a woman; she might even be the Winking Woman.
Photo #2: Mountainside
Photo #3: Village Street
Analysis
The buildings in this picture feature contemporary architecture that resembles post-modern styles (not quite as stunning as supermannerist styles). They (including the buildings in Photo #10: Street photo) use bright colors with some stylized references to older architectural styles. They appear to be designed as a group, using variations in color, height, and gable design to distinguish the shops. The group seems almost theme-park-esque, and is extremely clean.
The tree in the above picture is of note. It is a sort palm, looking much like a Canary Island Date Palm, which has visual similarities to a True Date Palm. Both of these varieties can take the heat and the cold desert--temperatures down to the mid-teens (Canary Island) or upper teens (True) Fahrenheit. (For details of many different palm varieties, see Desert Palm Trees for Hot, Dry and Sunny Climates by Phil Bergman.) Roadside trees are usually selected by developers, so the use of date palms supports the idea that The Village is located in a desert climate. Yet, we cannot conclude that The Village is in a location in which the date palms are native.
Based on extended surveillance, the red sign at the upper far right reads "VILLAGE" to the right of the circle, and "INFORMATION" below both of those. The part of the red sign that reads "INFO," looks like it uses a heavy weight of the typeface Optima, which is the typeface used in the Pig poster and seems to be the typeface used for 93's front door. The white circle on the sign looks similar to an inverted version of the 'Five Segment Circle' symbol that appears on the side of the bus in the bus video clip and elsewhere.
The red color of the sign appears to be similar to the color used in the Pig poster.
The smaller Village Street image has colors that are not as bright as the large one, and the speckle is more pronounced.
Speculation
Concerned Citizen knew what the red sign said in the original photo, but he intentionally cropped out the word "VILLAGE" and part of "INFORMATION." The less intense colors of the smaller Village Street image indicate CC intentionally altered one or both images. This indicates that other images he posted may have been intentionally cropped and/or had their colors altered. CC might also have intentionally added speckle to images he posted.
Since the HTML for this wiki likely references CC's own computer path for the smaller image, he may have seen the image in the pages displayed by his computer, and thus thought everyone else could see it.
Photo #4: Outer Perimeter 27
Analysis
The picture, one of more sand dunes, seems in line with the second photo posted regarding the 'Outer Perimeter' of the Village.
Photo #5: 93's front door. 512's perspective.
Analysis
The label seems to reference a labeling system for locations by number.
Video #1: Bus video.
Analysis
Its clearly not the same bus. The one in the top picture has two oval windows above the windscreen
Video #2: Resort video.
Analysis
This video has audio of singing birds. The bird songs may be used to determine what kinds of birds were there. If these birds are migratory, perhaps the knowledge of what birds these are can help narrow down where this place is. (This presumes the audio of these birds is not played over an outdoor speaker, like music is in many restaurants.) Can anyone identify these bird songs?
Photo #6: Resort Pool. 112's perspective.
Analysis
It's hard to imagine a sinister purpose for The Village looking at both this piece of the resort video and the picture of the pool. People look relaxed. This is indeed very resort-like. Could The Village be some sort of CEO retreat? There seem to be too many people in the picture. If this was all of upper management, somewhere someone would noticed that they had all disappeared. But could it be some sort of secret vacation camp?
Photo #7: Logo.
Analysis
This could provide a clue as to what bus company serves The Village, or what make of bus they're using.
The symbol on the side could be more than just a company's "logo." See the Five Segment Circle Symbol for more.
Photo #8: Wormcams.
Analysis
These wormcams are pictured on the Summakor web site at summakor.com. This description of the devices appears there: "Worm Cam: Traditional fiber-optic cameras are hard to maneuver around bends and guide into tricky spots. All this is solved with this bio-mechanical-inspired surveillance device that can wriggle into the tightest spots."
Photo #9: Figure in a hood.
Analysis
This sort of hooded transportation tends to refute the notion that The Village is a resort or other location for high-end leisure activity, although some sort of corporate team-building exercise cannot be ruled out. Likewise, we cannot rule out some sort of "rite of initiation," such as is known to occur in fraternity hazing.
Photo #10: Street photo.
Analysis
This looks similar to other Village photos in architecture. It looks like a small outdoor cafe. Innocuous seeming. Though, where are the people?
Video #3: Street
Photo #11: Street photo.
Analysis
This looks similar to other bus photos, but the camera seems to be zoomed in much further than before. The ages of the individuals on the bus seems to skew toward the older range, although of course this could be random chance. Note also the prevalence of hats on the occupants, perhaps due to the desert setting.
It is unclear if this is from a street, or parking lot, or even indoors with lighting similar to the sun. Hats appropriate for hours in the sun would be broad rimmed all around. These hats seem to be more fashionable than practical. The (apparent) sunlight is also coming from near the horizon, on the same side as the camera.
This is the first photo posted with clearly identifiable faces (women looking out of the window). One woman appears as if she could be looking at the photographer. The sunlight is directly on these faces which helps the photograph. Unlike photos #1 and #7, the sun is in an excellent position to shine on these faces.
Speculation
The elderly group are about to embark on an outing (morning sun) or are returning from an outing (near evening sun). Since this is a more festive occasion than usual, the fashionable hats are donned along with colorful dress. The dress (with caps for men) is typical for those in the older set for a social occasion.
The photographer selected the position from which to take the picture, selecting where the faces were illuminated. The women may have been able to see the photographer.
Perhaps the people were dressed and placed to stage the photograph. The typical social dress was intentional to help draw attention to the group's age; the lighting was also selected to clearly reveal the age of these people.
The photo was planted in the Wiki creator's scanning software in order to be found. When the software served up the image, the computer logged who found it (based on the user login information required to use the software).
