On August 19, 2019, I talked with an early member of the original Cicada 3301, known as gHOST3301 on the deep web and as Dustin757 on YouTube. I was delighted to conduct this interview, as no inner circle members of Cicada’s Early Period (2011-4) are publicly known, and accessing them is difficult.

This interview with gHOST3301 is the first conducted by any social scientist with an inner circle member of Cicada’s Early Period (2011-4). This is my second interview in the Cicada Files: the first was with Arturo Tafoyovsky (Lestat), chief videographer during a part of the Middle Period (2016-8), published earlier on this site, August 15, 2019.

I am researching a long interview (40,000+ words) that I conducted on May 22, 2019 with Manuel Chavez III (Defango) about the nascence of QAnon. Chavez was also an inner circle member of Cicada 3301 late in its Middle Period (2014-8), and he was personally responsible for its implosion on May 7, 2018.

Chavez’s central role in the Cicada narrative, and his account of his betrayal of the organization’s legendary secrecy is riveting and historic. I am exercising due care in the transcription of his interview and my commentary upon it, and I will release it in installments in coming weeks.

These preceding interviews with Tafoyovsky and gHOST3301 are necessary preliminaries to the Chavez interview, providing crucial context. Interviews with further Cicada insiders will give us unprecedented insight into this most enigmatic phenomenon of the internet age.

In this interview, gHOST3301 and I review the complicity of Thomas Schoenberger, formerly one of two “head composers” in Cicada, whose greed and mismanagement of Chavez triggered the collapse of the order. We discuss the prospects for a reemergence of Cicada 3301 on January 5, 2020. We address Schoenberger’s colleagues, composer Michael Levine and television producer Richard Lech.

I first asked Thomas Schoenberger for an interview on April 16, 2019. He ignored me, then he blocked me on Twitter, and he directed his co-conspirators to do likewise. I was subsequently blocked by DJ Genki and qntmpkts, despite an absence of prior interaction between us, and by several Schoenberger sock accounts.

I later reiterated my invitation to Schoenberger in the interest of fairness and completeness. He continued ignoring me until I published my interview with Tafoyovsky: then he complained that I did not ask him for a review before publication. I no longer need Schoenberger’s input. His critics and a large tranche of internal Cicada documents in my possession evocatively speak for him.

gHOST and I discuss the tenuous ownership position of Schoenberger’s profiteering cabal. Schoenberger and his crew may be able to sell the story of Cicada to Hollywood, but withstanding legal challenges by the artists who actually created Cicada’s infamous puzzles may prove difficult: the project could be paralyzed by a single judicial injunction.

gHOST and I discuss the origin story of Cicada 3301, and the role of Debian Linux creator Ian Murdock, who was known as early as 2011 as The Architect: Murdock was allegedly a leading member of the original Cicada clandestine cabal, which remains covert today. We resuscitate a puzzle made by gHOST3301 at the personal behest of Ian Murdock, known as The Message, and illustrate it for a later generation of Cicada loyalists.

gHOST and I discuss certain IRC channels as the native habitat of the earliest Cicada members, whose number and actual identities remain unconfirmed. We contemplate Liber Primus, core text of Cicada 3301, which remains mostly unsolved. We touch upon clues for solvers, and agree to galvanize the solving community.

gHOST and I discuss the tragic deaths of former Cicada member Sam Fullerton (Zelador Petroff), and Sheriff’s Sergeant Michael Stephen, and illuminate false paths propagated by Schoenberger. We restore focus to the cypherpunk ideals that germinated Cicada 3301.

Those who are interested in Cicada 3301 and the perplexing puzzles that it created will find this interview interesting. For the political scientists in my audience, this is an analysis of organization, functions and goals of Cicada 3301.

I detail how Cicada was organized, how its organization changed over time, how it functioned, and how it sought to achieve its goals. For social scientists, this is a glimpse into a digital secret society, a cypherpunk order whose lifespan is not yet complete.

For that global community of solvers who are attempting to break the layered encryption of Liber Primus, a community which remains stymied, I hope that this interview renews their impetus.

Revised in 17,466 words on September 1, 2019, and published with the kind collaboration of gHOST3301 on September 2, 2019.

gHOST3301 Interview (Audio Only) August 19, 2019.

Transcript (minimal commentary).

Edited and Redacted Revision.

00:10 Audio begins.

[00:06].

gHOST: “Alright can you hear me now, Stephen?”

Trujillo: “Now I got you.”

gHOST: “Awesome, sorry about that. I would start the video for you but I have some stuff going on in the background. So maybe in the future, we can do it. This was a little bit last minute, for OPSEC reasons I really do not want to show too much behind me.” [00.32].

Trujillo: “I was going to say if there is a better time, I want you to do this when you have time to focus and relax. So if we need to put this on pause, we can.” [00.44].

gHOST: “I was thinking we can probably talk this time and get to know each other, I can give you some background and then we can come back again and actually sit down when I have a little more time during the week to where we can actually do an in-depth interview uninterrupted for an hour or two.” [01:06].

gHOST: “I know Lestat very well and he speaks highly of you. I also know that you talked to Defango. We have never really been close, I first found out about Defango a couple of years ago. When I was searching—every now and then I will search my name on Google just to see what pops up and I did it a couple years ago and some videos popped up that were connected to my name and I clicked on one of them and it was Defango back in 2015 or 2016, I’m not sure on that, he was speaking about me, that  is how I first kind of found him.” [01:55].

gHOST: “Since then I kind of just keep an eye on him. (Laughs). Lestat and myself are really close, I’ve been working for the past five months with him on his Discord, we’ve done quite a few interviews together, we try to come up with a way to help expose Thomas (Schoenberger) and all these lies. And so it has reached a pinnacle point where we are done with phase 1 and are crossing over into phase 2.” [02:36].

gHOST: “Phase 2 consists more of bringing social exposure to him to where—I do not think that we can ever really stop what he does, how he co-opts movements, I do not think that will ever stop, but if we bring enough media and public exposure, and if enough know about him and know kind of what he does, the signature of his puzzles and things that he creates, it will allow people to see the false path and not go back down that or get lost. And that’s kind of what Lestat and I are talking about.” [03:19].

gHOST: “It has got to the point where people do not know what is real and what is fake. It’s merged.” [03:25].

Trujillo: “I think all we need to do is help him expose himself.”

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “We just need to let him walk into his own trap. I have a very poor opinion of him, I’ve never spoken with him, but I’ve been doing a lot of research, and as you put it, I would not want to break breadsticks with him.” [03:55].

gHOST: “Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Well he has, that’s what Lestat and I talk about. He has a history of being a con man, if you go outside Cicada, and look at his character for who he is and the stuff that he has done, and you see how many people, or other people in the music business, and you start going through and reading, it’s like that old saying, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is probably a duck. And all these people are saying these negative things about this man, and calling him a scam. There has got to be some kind of validity to those statements.” [04:35].

Trujillo: “Well, I have researched his criminal records, I haven’t really gone into it, I just threw a couple of links up, but I will go into it when I do a complete treatment. Unfortunately he’s been—I do not know how in the hell he infiltrated. Can you tell me how Thomas Schoenberger suddenly came in like that and took over? Can you explain that to me?”  [05:11].

gHOST: “Yeah, definitely, when Lestat and I talked about that, how we were going to explain his taking over the movement–when you have a group or a movement that is faceless, when they do not have any kind of social media, you know, a personality that interacts with social media and lets people know “this is us, I’m a spokesman.” When you do not have somebody like that, and the whole point of Cicada was never for money or fame or acknowledgement, it was all based on, this is a group movement, every individual needs to find their own path and higher consciousness, but when you go in the group, it is about the group movement, and not about individuals.” [06:01].

(Unintelligible).

gHOST: “Exactly. That is what I told Lestat from the very beginning, the very fact that he is coming out and saying that he is behind it defeats its very purpose from the get-go. That is why I said over the years, it has never been about the Messenger, it’s always been about The Message, that is what matters.” [06:28].

gHOST: “And so many people fail to understand that, and so that by far is the easiest way to know. If somebody is coming out and they are trying to do this in public, more than likely they are not doing it for good reasons. It’s all about money. He wants the trademark. That’s what he wants. He wants the trademark.” [06:52].

Trujillo: “The trademark is now held by Primus Holdings, LLC. I have not delved into that to try to figure out who the stockholders of that LLC are, but I think that we can assume that we know. If we do this correctly, we can make it irrelevant. He can own his LLC, but his ability to demonstrate ownership of the intellectual property of Cicada 3301, that’s another issue. And it will fold, it will just collapse, at the slightest nudge of a legal challenge. Because he can demonstrate no ownership.” [07:39].

Trujillo: “I am in possession of a significant cache of documents that illustrate the conversations that were had, during his era. And they demonstrate that he was a participant in a creative process, but he wasn’t really a leader. They say “there are no leaders.” Well one was more equal than others to make the decisions that needed to be made, but that is not enough to grant him an ownership position of that intellectual property.” [08:15].

Trujillo: “So he can own all the trademarks he wants, it’s going to be useless because when SONY or Warner Brothers or Insurgent Media or whomever it is, when they realize how tenuous his ownership of the intellectual property is, they’re going to walk away. He won’t be able to make a deal. The only way that he is going to be able to make a deal is if he cuts everybody in for a piece of the stock. If he conducts that LLC like an appropriate Limited Liability Corporation and cuts everyone in for a piece.” [08:52].

Trujillo: “If he is overwhelmed by his greed, it will be his doom. But if he cuts people in, if he says, ok, gHOST, you were involved from this period to this period, we are going to allocate you x-number of shares in the LLC, and that will entitle you to x-amount of the profits, or the proceeds, then guess what, then he will be able to make a deal, because then people will cooperate.” [09:18].

Trujillo: “If he doesn’t want to do that, if he is overwhelmed by his greed, he and Richard Lech, and Michael Levine, they can be easily shut down and I think that they realize it. These guys, this is their tableau, this is how they think, they are thinking in terms of business. These are not creators, man, these are not artists, these are con men.” [09:43].

gHOST: “Definitely. And that is what Lestat and I really talk about. He has a history of—anything that he thinks he can make some money on, he co-opts it and gets behind the movement, and he has a history of doing this, and he’s done it with other people in the music business, and in the art business, so long story short, the reason why he was able to co-opt this movement so well, we talked about this, for many hours, he —when you are a group and you do not have a designated representative for your group, then anyone can step in and say that they are part of this group, because how can you say that they are not? Because you do not have anybody who sets the standard, so what he did was, he knew that, so he decided to start making and incorporating his own puzzles that had a very similar resemblance to the Cicada puzzles, and this was the icing on the cake. He used—anyone who has done the Cicada puzzles knows that music is a big part of these puzzles.” [10:56].

Schoenberger is now known as the creator of the Pi.Mobi puzzle, a puzzle which Cicada purists consider a derivative, an imitation of the genuine Cicada product–a false path. Any purported puzzle from Cicada must be signed with the organization’s PGP key, or it will not be considered authentic. Schoenberger is also exposed as the perpetrator of the A858 reddit mystery. This is discussed in detail in my previous interview with Arturo Tafoyovsky (aka Lestat).

gHOST: “Thomas knows that, he isn’t stupid, music is incorporated, and so he has this guy, a composer, he uses the composer, to get more validity that maybe he actually is connected to it.” [11:19].

gHOST: “Maybe he’s the one creating this music to go along with these puzzles. So he uses all these small little factors to create this conception that he is behind it, that he runs it. And all of this is bogus, it is fake. He co-opted the movement, and he used it for his own gain. And he has a history of doing this in everything that he is involved in.” [11:44].

Trujillo: “This is unbelievable. I am aware that your initial contacts with The Architect took place in 2011. I’ve watched your videos with Lestat carefully, and I will look at them even more carefully after this conversation. I do not want you to be frightened by that. I want to caution you and let you know that whatever I publish incorporating our conversations, you will see it before anybody, and you will have a veto over it.” [12:20]. (Dustin757, “gHOST3301 LESTAT TALK CICADA 3301 PART 1,” YouTube, June 30, 2019).

Trujillo: “If you say, hey, Esteban, I don’t want it to be like that, I would prefer it like this, believe me, you are not going to be upset, we are going to work that out. Because my motive, my goal in this, is to simply tell the truth, from the standpoint of the protagonists, and dude, you were there. You were interacting with The Architect in 2011. Right?”

gHOST: “Yep.” [12:45].

Trujillo: “So what I need to do, maybe this isn’t the time to do it, maybe we need to think on this, but I need to flesh out those interactions between you and The Architect and anybody else because the creation history, the legend, that Schoenberger  is propagating is not holding up to water, it’s not holding up to scrutiny.” [13:11].

Trujillo: “Now you said that he might be one of the three founders. I got to tell you, I find no documentary evidence—”

gHOST: “—Yeah, [13:24] Thomas was never, I don’t ever remember saying that, but Thomas was never one of the original creators. I can tell you that I know for a fact that Ian (Murdock) was definitely connected to Cicada and I can guarantee you this, I know this for a fact, he was one of the original members, because it is kind of funny, as some months back I did a video calling out Defango and Thomas and I explained in a 6 minute long video on my channel, and I explain where Cicada came from.” (Dustin757, “#Thomas Schoenberger #Defango #Fake Cicada3301,” YouTube, May 27, 2019). [13:57].

gHOST: “It started out in Berkeley with a bunch of cypherpunks. And it’s so crazy because this big channel just released a bunch of episodes about Cicada, they released episode 4 yesterday, and they talk about tying it back to Berkeley, and it’s good to see that stuff that myself and others are saying is actually being investigated and verified to the best extent that you can verify something.” [14:32]. (Great Big Story, “Cracking the Code of Cicada 3301 | Episode 1,” YouTube, August 14, 2019).

gHOST: “What I can try to do is see if I can find some old IRC chat logs, it may take a while to do that, it’s been years, I will have to go into storage and pull out an old laptop it might be saved on. But maybe I can find some old IRC logs from 2011-2 that show…” [15:07].

Trujillo: “—That would be gold—”

gHOST: “—Definitely. That is how I originally met, I didn’t know anything about this or anything, I’ve always been fascinated with computers. I’ve always loved to program and create things and figure things out. Long story short I ended up on the same platform as a few of the founding members. A lot of people don’t know about this IRC channel but it is still up to this day and it is still running, it is called anarplex and if you look—” [15:44].

Trujillo:” —I’ve looked at it, I just haven’t logged in, I haven’t had the balls to log in—”

gHOST: “—Yeah, I got you. You can reach the IRC server from the regular internet, or through TOR, or through I2P. The guy that runs it, his name is Smuggle_r, I know him very, very well, he actually did an interview 2 years ago about the deep web and censorship and anonymity, and things like that, it’s big, it’s an actual documentary, he met with some BBC guys, he is the one who owns anarplex, he’s kept it on, he kept it online since 2008-9 give or take.” [16:35]. (canal tofu, “BBC Horizon – Inside the Dark Web,” dailymotion, September 25, 2015).

(The deep web, or deep net, is that predominant proportion of the internet which remains un-indexed by web crawlers, and so does not show up in standard web searches. The dark net is a segment of the deep net which is encrypted and deliberately hidden, requiring specialized software or procedures to access it. TOR (The Onion Router) is the standard example. The open internet that you are reading this article on right now is termed the clear net).

Trujillo: “What an amazing resource.”

gHOST: “Oh, yeah.”

Trujillo: “You can imagine the talent that has filtered through there, it is incredible.” [16:46].

gHOST: “Some of the most intelligent individuals that I have ever met, I met on the IRC, or people who just know a massive amount of information in a certain field. I met a guy called Wireless Warrior, the dude is into SDR and dongles, encryption, and covert operations, covert communications, he wrote the book on it. You meet some very intelligent individuals, like that, and it just so happens that I was in the right place at the right time. I’m not extra special, I’m not this, I’m not that, I just happened to be on the same platform and I interacted with people.” [17:35].

gHOST: “Over time there is alway people who lurk on IRC (sic), and they started to see who knows what, what are you talking about, how do you structure your sentences, are you intelligent, where you may eat, where you may live, based on the words that you use, there’s a bunch of OPSEC involved, but that’s what happened and it got to a point where I was reached out to, and the things that you like, the things that you talk about, are very similar to what we like and would you like to be a part of our little group. At the time they did not even call it Cicada. It was just a little group.” [18:16].

gHOST: “I was never an inside insider, I was close, when I originally joined, there was always 4-6 members that would come in and out (sic). And that’s the best way to explain it. And to this day I really don’t know because not everybody shows up at the same time to meet, but at the time, there were 4-6 members that came in and out of there, and the main guy that I always dealt with, his name was The Architect, that is what he went by, and I truly believe in my heart that was Ian. I believe it was him. In my heart it was him. Because of the amount of knowledge that he knew about operating systems, when you start knowing how to create your own distros, you crossed the Rubicon, so yeah, this is how I originally first met these individuals.” [19:35].

Trujillo: “Have you heard of Bruce C. (Cooper) Clarke? Was he involved? Have you ever heard of that guy?” [19:45].

gHOST: “I definitely heard his name. He very well could have been. The OPSEC that Cicada has used, I cannot even explain it to you, I do not think that governments could maintain the kind of anonymity that has been pulled off. I will share something with you that I just shared that a lot of people do not know. About Liber Primus. I’m going to tell you why not one person can break it. It is because a lot of people created it.” {20:32].

gHOST: “This is the secret that I’m going to get to. (Unintelligible) It took a lot of people to create it so one person cannot know how to fully break it without knowing the other steps used by the others that helped create it. This was implemented in the creation of the book to help keep the integrity of the book and protect the puzzle if one decided to go rogue and public. So long story short, the Liber Primus was created with the intent that there could be somebody from within that could go rogue and try to break the book, for the public, and that is another reason why PGP keys were used, because we knew that Thomas or other individuals like him, there could be a chance in the future that they would want to co-opt and take this movement over for themselves.” [22:01].

gHOST: “So that is what I explained to this other individual yesterday, I pulled up what I wrote to them, I’m looking at it now, and I wrote to them, Thomas, yes, because he asked me, you all anticipated what Thomas would do. And I told them yes, Thomas and any others that would want to co-opt and steal the movement or go rogue and go public from within the group. This is why Liber Primus was made that way, and the reason why PGP was used to help validate the puzzle and the messages. These were foreseen calculations implemented for these reasons. We had a feeling that this was going to happen.” [22:38].

gHOST: “So the steps needed to break Liber Primus are already in the puzzle. See that’s the key. You have to solve the puzzle to get the steps. So not one individual person knows all the steps. These steps were implemented in the creation of the puzzle, so it took many people to create the puzzle, it took many people to create Liber Primus, and that was implemented from the beginning to help protect that puzzle and to help protect the integrity of the book.” [23:06].

gHOST: It’s kind of like when you make money. Not one person knows how to make the money. You’ve got between 6-7 different people who are doing the casting, they cast it out, so that one hand can’t replicate it perfectly. I was watching this thing on counterfeiting, and how to make money, and the Federal Reserve does that, they actually use 5-6 different individuals to do the hand-details of the cast that they use to print the money out. So one person can’t leave and know how to completely replicate the dollar bill. It is the same concept for the book.” [23:46].

Trujillo: “Does a clear text of Liber Primus exist?”

gHOST: “Um, yes, I’m going to say yes, I’m pretty sure. We had to have a base to work with, we had to have like a template, and then from there levels of encryption was put on top of one another (sic).” [24:10].

Trujillo: “Have you read it?”

gHOST: “Um, yes, to some extent, yes. I have not had my hands on the actual unencrypted original version where it was English before it was translated over to runes. So I have not seen that. I have seen the .pdfs of the runes before, about 37 pages before they were encrypted, which means that all you have to do is convert the runes over to English to be able to decipher a message out of it.” [24:37].

Trujillo: “The reason I ask is because there is a school of thought that posits that it is possible that Liber Primus was a concoction by Thomas Schoenberger, Iona Miller, and Dr. Richard Alan Miller. Do you think there’s any possibility that that’s correct?” [24:55].

gHOST: “No. There’s no possibility that that’s correct, because in the 2014 puzzle, when it was released, at the very end of that puzzle, you were linked to Liber Primus. So if you follow Liber Primus, you’ll see that it ties back to the original Cicada puzzles that had PGP signatures to verify that they’re legit.” [25:18]. (In the audio file gHOST says the “2013” puzzle. He caught this during a fact checking review: it was an error, so the transcript is corrected to state 2014).

Trujillo: “Thomas Schoenberger did not show up until 2014.”

gHOST: “Exactly. Schoenberger showed up on the scene towards the end of 2015, going into 2016, they dropped their first puzzle. So, and that’s the timeline, I keep trying to give to people. That technically after 2014, no more public puzzles were released by Cicada.” [25:44].

gHOST: “That’s just so everything after that, unless you have a PGP signature, it’s not, it’s not legit.” [25:52].

Trujillo: “Who holds that PGP key at this time?”

Trujillo: “Well, you know, I think that the PGP Key is a central chokepoint here. Because without that PGP key, there’s a certain category of solvers that will not engage with any puzzle.”

gHOST: “Oh, definitely. Without that they’re not going to, it doesn’t matter how well the puzzle is put together, it doesn’t matter if—if there’s no PGP signature, they’re not going to work on it.”

Trujillo: “That’s right. Well, we know that the PGP key is valid, that it exists, because it was used as recently as 2017. That is not that long ago.” (A Guest, “Message from 3301/Cicada,” PasteBin, April 4, 2017).

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Beware false paths.  Always verify PGP signature from 7A35090F.  

3301

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: CicadaPG v.3301
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=6zQ2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

gHOST: “Yep. Definitely. Because he—I mean, this is the reason why I got involved, because like I said, it’s gotten to the point where, you know, I told you earlier that people didn’t realize, people could not decipher what was real and what was fake.” [26:00].

gHOST: “But it’s even more than that, it got to a point where, where Cicada was being tied to MAGA Coalition and LARPs and Q and then Isaac Kappy dies, and Cicada’s brought up, it’s just like all these—I mean it got to a point where it just became ridiculous, people were trying to tie all this stuff together that had, that is not connected, and so that was another reason why I came out, just so that, to get some clarification.” [26:30].

gHOST: “You know, so that people would stop with all this, because Cicada has nothing to do with the MAGA Coalition, Cicada has nothing to do with Anonymous, Cicada has nothing to do with Q, it had nothing to do with any of these things. Now is there some members that may be affiliated with Anonymous? (sic) Yes, you know, there could be. But are all these connected in the same group? No, they’re not.” [26:54].

gHOST: “And so, it’s kind of like, light had to be shone on all this, so I agree with you a hundred percent and that’s what Lestat and myself talked about. We may never be able to fully stop Thomas, but if we can at least expose enough of him to the public, people will learn to stay away from him.” [27:13].

Trujillo: “Well, one of the ways we stop him is, we demonstrate that the intellectual property is not in his hands, and that he does not actually have a product to sell. And at that point, he’s checkmated, there’s no more game to be played. So, we have to think about how we do that. The target there is the corporations that want to buy it. Now look, I’m not a member of Cicada, I was never honored with that, right? But I am enough of an old cypherpunk to admire the ideas and to get involved to the extent that I can, to protect those ideas, ok, and I’m not going to lay back and let Thomas Schoenberger pull this shit, it’s not going to happen on my watch.” [28:07].

gHOST: “Yeah, definitely.”

Trujillo: “So um, how about this guy, Zelador? (Cicada member Samuel Fullerton). Who just died. Did you know him? [28:13].”

gHOST: “Um, personally, no, but his name had definitely come up, before, but I did not personally know him, no.”

Trujillo: “Yeah. I do not really know the story behind his death—But it definitely sounds very tragic.” [28:29].

gHOST: “Yeah. I mean, there’s quite a few people in the past two years that either were connected or seemed to have connection that seemed to have just disappeared or passed away. I’m not…” [28:45].

Trujillo: “Let me ask you this. You know, you were there at the inception, I believe, interacting with The Architect. You believe that The Architect was Ian. I got to tell you. I’ve seen indications that that’s correct—” [29:00].

gHOST: “—Yeah I truly believe, if I was to place a bet, I mean, I’d go all in on Ian. There’s just too many things over too long a period that just, it just ties back to him, somebody was not going to know certain things, only somebody who’s in a certain field that’s prescribed would know these things so easily, you know”? [29:23].

Trujillo: “Right. Well, what we do is we lay down the timeline on top of that and look at what happened before and after his death, those indicators are going to tell us, they’re going to confirm or deny and help bolster a story—I’m still on the trail of Bruce C. Clarke. I have found no evidence that he’s involved. We’re talking about an 88 year old man at his death, ok?” [29:49].

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “My route to this, is to ask you, do you have a clear text of The Message?”

gHOST: “Of the actual… Message… oh, you mean from the song that I created? [30:07]. Is that what you’re talking about? Umm… actually no. I could sit back and translate it all over to English and print it out to English because what I did was, I took—I know exactly what you’re asking about now.” [30:20].

gHOST: “When I talked to The Architect and he came to me it was in 2014, towards the end of 2014 going into 2015, we spoke, and he asked me to create a last, a small puzzle, not a full-sized puzzle, but a small puzzle, that mainly focused on a Message, and what he wanted, what truly he felt in his heart, and what he wanted to portray to the mass (sic). And he kind of told me that, you know, just based on his ideals and based on the puzzle, and how we have to constantly improve ourselves and push the boundaries of our higher consciousness, and to, you know, find the peace within—that was one thing that I heard him say before and I’ve said a couple times since then. He used to call himself a peaceful warrior and so do I because the battles that we fight are on the inside, and that’s really what this whole thing was about. The goal is not to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. That has been the goal from the very beginning.” [31:50].

“He used to call himself a peaceful warrior and so do I because the battles that we fight are on the inside, and that’s really what this whole thing was about. The goal is not to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”

gHOST: “It was never about the money, it was never about the notoriety, or the fame or the recognition, it’s always been about The Message—and trying to get people to understand that there is a lot more to this life than what’s being presented to us and there are so many secrets out here and the human history of us has never really reached a beautiful pinnacle point, we’ve always reached a certain point and then we collapse upon ourselves before our own selves.” [32:23].

gHOST: “And we have a history of doing this, and so it’s kind of like we’ve reached that Armageddon point where we have to change as a whole or we will kill, we will be the destruction of ourselves, there is no way around it.” [32:36].

gHOST: “So that those are the main ideals that we try to push in these puzzles, is for people to look within themselves, if you want problems to stop around you then you need to start with yourself, and if every human can do this, then there is not going to be any problem.” [32:48].

(Messages in the picture text are binary at the top: “Fear not, I am the first and last.” At the bottom, hex ascii: “Hear what others can not… See what is not in plan (sic) site https://clyp.it/q0lirphq.” The lead decipherment is a reference to Revelation 1:17: “And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and last.”)

gHOST: “And you know, we know that that’s not, we know that not everybody’s going to—but the fact of the matter is that if enough people can start making a change, it’s a movement, and with a movement comes action, regardless of how small, how little the movement is, there’s going to be an action, an equal and opposite reaction, regardless of how small it is, and so that’s what I try to explain to people, even if you are a small pebble, if you drop a pebble into a lake, eventually those ripples will hit the bank.” [33:16].

gHOST: “It may take awhile, but eventually they will spread out, and so that was the whole thing, you know, and so, yeah, to get back to The Message, that’s what he wanted to portray, that’s what he wanted to get across to people, is that you know, within this life—so for example, the first part of The Message was from The Great Dictator, the movie with Charlie Chaplin.” [33:40].

Charlie Chaplin Official, “Final Speech from The Great Dictator,” YouTube, March 10, 2016.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business.

I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone—if possible.

Jew, Gentile—black man—white. We all want to help one another.

Human beings are like that.

We want to live by each other’s happiness—not by each other’s misery.

We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone.

And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.

Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little.

More than machinery we need humanity.

More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together.

The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men—cries out for universal brotherhood—for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world—millions of despairing men, women, and little children—victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.”

gHOST: “And to me that was always outside of that being used in that context, that’s a very powerful message. Just within itself. And that message really speaks to the human condition, because we truly have been brought together, we have all these amazing things, but yet, we fail to go to the next level.” [34:05].

gHOST: “You know and so it’s kind of like that was, that was why the first part of that was used in The Message, was to try and portray to people that we have to work together, that we are in this all together, and that, these things, that we created, you know, allow us to communicate, they allow us to bring us together, but yet we’re so distant, we’re so far from each other, and yet we have such animosity for one another, but yet we’re so  interconnected.” [34:33].

gHOST: “And that’s why that was incorporated in the first part. And then that’s why, in the second part of The Message, was kind of more into like looking into what truly makes you happy. What, why are you here. Why are you living. And that was kind of why—” [34:50].

Trujillo: “—Are those the actual words of The Architect?”

gHOST: “To some extent, yes. I can’t, because this has been years, I can’t really sit here and tell you these are like his words, like verbatim, what he said—”

Trujillo: “—No, no. I am not asking that. I mean was the voice that you hear, the old man speaking, was that his actual voice?” [35:09].

gHOST: “Oh, no, no, no. That wasn’t his voice. What I did was, I edited that from a movie.” [35:15].

sonuye1, “Meet Joe Black – Speech,” YouTube, July 31, 2012.

“Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Well, you forget your head, and you listen to your heart. And I’m not hearing any heart. ‘Cause the truth is, honey, there’s no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven’t lived a life at all. But you have to try, cause if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”

gHOST: “So what I did was, yeah, yeah, so he took, like I said, he explained to me, he gave me an outline, pretty much, of these are his ideas, and this is what he would like to portray, and he asked me, you know, to make a puzzle that incorporates this, and that’s going to be The Message. I said ok.” [35:30].

gHOST: “So he said, once they break, you know, they have three or four steps that they have to break, so after they break that final step, the final output would be the song, The Message.” [35:42].

gHOST: “And so, and so that’s why that was done in that manner. And so what’s so crazy, is that, you know I did that for him, um, and then, you know, it was like I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I kind of sat on it, and then, you know, the situation happened with him, and it was like, he contacted me and was like, listen I’m not—and this is what is so crazy because I—nobody truly knew, I think what was going to happen to him. And because I’ve never, I never thought that he would go that route, to want to, uh, because from what people are saying, it looked like a suicide.” [36:20].

gHOST: “And so, you know, he wasn’t, he wasn’t murdered, because you know I’m not a coroner, I’m not an investigator, you know, like a detective, you know with forensics, or whatever, so—but from what we can tell, um, you know, he took his life.” [36:36].

gHOST: “And so what I’m getting at is, when I spoke to him months before that situation arose, I never once got that off of him that he was, in that frame of mind, that he was—you know what I’m saying?” [36:51].

Trujillo: “Yeah.”

gHOST: “But at the same time, I can see—it’s so crazy, at the same time I can kind of see how. It was like he had this wonderful thing, he had this wonderful thing… and it kind of just fizzled out and got—you know, it, it—when it started, when it originally started, it was like being in a movie. It was like things were happening so fast. You know. And this and that, and I think it kind of got to a point where, he seen (sic) like an idea of his, being… I don’t know, I guess maybe not appreciated as much, or cherished, I just, I don’t know.” [37:28].

gHOST: “I tried to sit back and kind of think over it myself, you know, over the past couple of years, and figure out why things, you know, transpired the way that they did… you know and it’s kind of like some people are like, no I would have known, I would have said something, it’s kind of the same boat I’m in, you know, if I would have known I would have been like, hey, what’s going on, this and that, um, and so he, yeah, so you know I released it, and then uh, we heard news that, you know, that he was no longer with us.” [37:58].

gHOST: “And so, I mean, and that really affected me, after that I, uh, you know, like I told Lestat, that was the very last puzzle or anything that I ever created that was tied to Cicada. I’ve never created anything since then, um, for the group. I’ve never, I haven’t created any puzzle that tied, you know—that was the last thing, you know, and then, so honestly, it’s, 2015 was really my last active year, with them. And I haven’t created anything else since, using either Cicada or the logo.” [38:32].

Trujillo: “I think that we can rejuvenate, maybe get a rebirth of those words, if you can help me with the clear text of, of—I mean I can find out the first part, I can research that out, but the second part is difficult for me to hear, and I have not tried, to try to, to deconstruct the layers of the file. I don’t know if I can even do it. But if you can help me with a clear text of—” [39:02].

gHOST: “Ok.”

Trujillo: “—what that second part says then we can make sure that that clear text gets a rebirth, it gets a new life, it’s heard yet again, alright—”

gHOST: “—umm hmm (yes)—”

Trujillo: “I mean it’s out there, and people who are searching will encounter it, but maybe we can help people find it. You know.” [39:24].

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “It’s very powerful, it’s very powerful and it’s frustrating to me that I can’t quite hear everything.”

gHOST: “Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I mean anybody that’s ever ran across that, um, has always said that. They always said that it touches them and moves them.”

Trujillo: “Yeah.” [39:42].

gHOST: “I mean, and it’s because that was, and for me to hear that, you know over the years, it makes me feel happy inside to know that I was able to put something together that, that arouses these feelings in people, that, that wants them to, you know what I mean, it’s like a sparkle in the eye, you know, and they need to start living, I need to start looking at things, you know, it’s—for me to even have this small little play in that to me is just amazing man, you know.” [40:16].

Trujillo: “I get it. I get it. Well, when we do this, how do you want me to refer to you? Do you want me to call you Dustin? Or gHOST? Or—”

gHOST: “—Whatever, I mean, whatever is more comfortable to you. I’m not, umm, I mean I can go by Dustin757, you can call me Dustin, you can call me gHOST, whatever you feel is more comfortable for the end viewer and everything else, I mean because it’s, you’re going to be the one putting the format out and everything, so whatever you think works better for kind of what you got going on, we can just see what happens.” [40:56].

Trujillo: “This, this is going to be very much a collaborative effort. I mean you saw Lestat’s interview, so you see how I work—”

gHOST: “—Yeah—”

Trujillo: “You see how I do this. I mean it’s Lestat’s words, you know, and I put my commentary in there… Lestat saw it, you know, before it was published. I asked him, is this cool? Are you good to go with this? And he said yeah. Pull the trigger. So I did. And… a lot of people just don’t give a shit.” [41:26].

Trujillo: “But some people do. Alright. Some people do. And I’ve had some very interesting feedback as a consequence of that, and I think that when you and I work on our interview together and do something it’s going to cause even greater repercussions, and I mean repercussions in a good way. OK.” [41:43].

gHOST: “Oh, definitely. Because Lestat, I mean because Lestat works, Lestat and Defango really know Thomas better than most people, because they actually (unintelligible) in the woods with him, like they know him, (unintelligible), like they know him. And so talking to Lestat, and you’re right. That’s what’s going to happen because Lestat has told me that Thomas has tried to use my name, and you know, I wasn’t connected with him, he’s brought my name up to try to get some validity to them or to what he’s saying. Or attack. Like he knows somebody… so definitely, so like when my name comes out, and yeah: So however you want to do it that’s fine. If you just want to do gHOST or if you want to do Dustin, because like I said, about six months ago I finally just drew my line in the sand, I’ve been watching this go on for almost three years, I can’t sit back and just watch this anymore.” [42:37].

gHOST: “Like I said once I started seeing it tied in, to Mr. Kappy and all this other stuff, and to Q, and then this, then it started being called a LARP, and I was just like alright, this has gotten out of hand. And so that’s what caused me to step out of the shadows, and say listen, because I, I, because like I said it was just never about the individual, it’s always been about the group, the group effort trying to push something, and so, that’s why I never wanted to come out as an individual, but like I said, it got to a point where somebody had to try, somebody had to speak out, that was not involved with this LARP war going on between all these parties. And so that’s kind of like, I’m not, I’m not in these debacle debates with Defango and Thomas and Frank Bacon and this person and this person and Leppo and this and that—I’m not, I’m an outside party coming into this. So I have no monetary gain, I have nothing to gain from this, if anything, this is going to create more problems in my life.” [43:44].

Trujillo: “Well, why do we have guys like brotherBox act like they have an ownership position in the Cicada franchise?” [43:51].

gHOST: “I’ve still been trying to figure that out. I honestly believe because they, I think because they’ve been trying to solve it for so long that they just, and they just go like—and I mean it’s understandable, if you’ve been working on something for a long time, and your little group has kind of gotten more attention than all the other solvers, I guess you’re going to kind of feel like maybe it’s yours, a little bit. You know? I mean that’s understandable, but at the end of the day, they’re still solvers. They’re not, they don’t, (laughs), like I don’t know how to explain it, but they never was an original part of the group, (sic) like, I hate to say it like that. I understand that they put, you know, years and hours and this and that into it, umm, but you know, you kind of knew that getting into it.” [44:42].

gHOST: “The first puzzle, as they say, the first one is always the easiest. It’s to hook you. After that, the other ones become harder, you know?”

Trujillo: “Is Frank Bacon going to be successful in bringing off a rejuvenation—a rebirth?” [45:00].

gHOST: “Ah, no. No. I don’t think so. I know that uh, I think that Frank Bacon is, from what I’ve heard from Lestat, he’s a righthand guy of Thomas. I’ve heard other people say that it might be Thomas, because supposedly Thomas has like a hundred sock accounts or something, so I’m not sure. But I do know that Frank Bacon is subscribed to me on YouTube, and he’s a follower of what I’m saying, I know that for a fact. Because it’s funny, but as soon as I started putting out the very first video calling Defango out and calling Thomas out, uh, all these like seven or eight different characters all subscribed to me at one time, and when I started looking at the names, and I said, ah, you all (laughs) we got a bunch of Thomas’s guys right here.” [45:53].

Trujillo: “Lestat says that there is going to be a new puzzle come January 5th, and I hope it’s true.”

gHOST: “Well this is where, yeah, yeah, I don’t want to interrupt you but yeah just for that, so I don’t miss that, yeah, he, umm, Thomas, excuse me, Lestat did ask me about three months ago, when me and him were trying to get all this information to come out, umm, would there be a reemergence.” [46:21].

gHOST: “And so and I told him, umm, yes, but at the same time, like I’m not, I can’t speak for the group like that. You know what I’m saying? I’m affiliated with it, I’m connected to it, but I cannot speak for the group, so like I said this is a group movement, so it’s, I can’t say that yes, we’re going to create something, yes we’re going to give a valid PGP key on January 5th, 2020. Do I want this to happen? Yes. This is what ideally, this is what I would like to have happen, is phase 2—phase 2’s already started and what we’re doing now is a part of phase 2.” [47:03].

gHOST: “And so once we get enough clarification on this, you know, and we get Thomas—and we’ve exposed him enough, then that’s when I truly believe a legitimate puzzle has to drop, so that we can just verify everything and say listen, we took care of him, the fake paths have been uncovered. Now here’s the real path, let’s get, let’s continue back down it. Because what I would like to do is, if we create, if another puzzle is created here in the very near future, I would love for this puzzle to help kind of summarize and help complete Liber Primus.” [47:44].

gHOST: “I would like this next puzzle to incorporate more hints or clues that allow these individuals who have been working for years to solve this to be able to finally solve it and move on to the next step.” [47:56].

Trujillo: “Is page 56 a key?”

gHOST: “Yes.”

Trujillo: “Is it connected to Constellations?”

gHOST: “Yep. Page uh, page 56 and also page umm…seven (7) if I’m not mistaken.” [48:14].

Trujillo: “And how about the orb that’s held by the Christ figure in the Da Vinci painting. Is that connected?”

gHOST: “Let me see… 1, 2, 3, yeah, I just want to go by memory, it’s the 7th page that, uh, those dots that you see lined up on the 7th page in Liber Primus, yes, those apply to the constellations, so does page 56, umm, and for the orb, umm, run that one back by me again, I was talking while you were…” [48:44].

Trujillo: “There was an orb held by a Christ figure…”

gHOST: Mm-hmm….

Trujillo: “In a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, it was just purchased by a Middle Eastern, a Saudi potentate, a prince, and he is holding a crystal orb in his hand and the orb is anomalous, because there’s dots (unintelligible) to light dots, and they appear to, you know, be in a stellar configuration, so my question was, is that a false path? Or is that a valid indication?” [49:19].

gHOST: “I truly believe that’s a valid indication. I mean that’s… I mean because, if you look at the puzzles many times, you know, astrology (he said astrology, not astronomy) has been brought up in these puzzles, and Thomas seen that (sic), and that kind of stuff, and he used that for the 2018 and 2019 puzzles. He jumped right up on the constellations…” [49:39].

Trujillo: “He wrote an article about that painting.”

gHOST: “Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean like I, pretty much everything that’s been in every single… in the 2012, 2013, 2014 puzzles, had—if you see something inside there, it’s legitimately tied to something in real life. I mean…” [50:00].

Trujillo: “This is one of the problems that I have. I interviewed Defango (Manuel Chavez III) for like three hours, he told me that he recovered deleted files from a lady named Linda, she was the girlfriend, the cohabitation—co-habitating girlfriend of Thomas, and he used her Macintosh to work on Liber Primus and Defango says that he recovered the second half in clear text, and I haven’t been able to get it out of him yet. And he’s kind of touchy, he’s mad at me because I published Lestat’s interview first, you know and honestly I didn’t intend to piss him off, I didn’t do it, it didn’t ever occur to me that he would, you know, flip out the way he did, but he got mad, because like, there’s a real rivalry between those guys and the thing about Defango is the guy’s got to win, you know. He’s absolutely got to win, and if he’s not winning, he’s mad. So he called me a “fool,” and a “douchebag,” and I don’t take kindly to that…” [51:08].

gHOST: “Yeah, that’s not, he, he did—it’s funny because like he recently, like I said, I been (sic) watching his livestreams and I did, I know exactly what you’re talking about, about three or four days ago he brought up the Lestat interview between you and Lestat, and in that stream he was frustrated, he definitely was frustrated in that stream and he did say actually, going by memory now that I’m thinking about it, why was Lestat published before mine would be published.” [51:40].

“So the other news today, we got Lestat actually coming out with an interview with some fool. I actually talked to this fool too, I talked to this fool I believe before Lestat but I guess he posted Lestat’s interview before he posted mine, because—well, I don’t know why? I called him a douchebag because he posted Lestat’s shit before my shit and Lestat’s shit is always half true. He did a pretty good job, you know, going through all these letters.” (Defango TV, “News #hongkongprotest #lightwave – Defango TA 8-13-2019,” YouTube, August 13, 2019). 

Trujillo: “Dude. As infantile as that is…”

gHOST: “Yeah, that’s….” [51:44].

Trujillo: “He flipped out. Look, and I didn’t do it because I’m choosing sides. I did it because Lestat’s came out to 10,000 words and Defango’s is 40,000 words, man. And unless—”

gHOST: “—Yeah, that’s—”

Trujillo: “—Unless you have an understanding of the amount of work and labor and attention to detail and focus and concentration that goes into producing a document of 40,000 words alone, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You know?” [52:11].

Trujillo: “And Defango, he’s learning disabled, he can’t really read, and he can’t write, ok, this is why he does these videos, ok, and I feel sorry for the guy, alright? I really do. But he’s found a way to compensate and work around his disability and that’s cool, right? That’s good. But he lashed out, you know, so I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get more out of him or not. It doesn’t really matter, like I said, I got him on the record for three hours, then again: he’ll see his interview before it’s published. You know, I’m not trying to engage in gotcha journalism or ambush anybody. I’m trying to produce an historical artifact that will, you know, clear up one of the great mysteries of the internet age.” [52:53].

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “And I’m trying to ultimately do it in a way that serves the goals of that great project, alright?”

gHOST: “Yes.”

Trujillo: “And it’s not going to be beholden to the egos of people like Schoenberger or of Defango, alright? These egos. They’re going to get put in their place.” [53:13].

gHOST: “Yeah. Definitely.”

Trujillo: “They’re going to get put in their place. Like I said, I’m not trying to ambush anybody. I’m trying to do a straightforward direct job of political science and history, alright?” [53:24].

gHOST: “Yep.”

Trujillo: “And I’m trying to produce an artifact that will endure, that can endure and resist attacks and analysis and that will ultimately be used going down years, decades, into the future. That’s my purpose. Because the ability to write the complete definitive history of Cicada—dude, I don’t know if it can be done. Because who else do I talk to? After I’ve talked to gHOST3301, and I’ve already talked to Defango. I talked to Lestat and I continue to talk to Lestat, we talk often. Who do I go to next?” [54:01].

gHOST: “Yeah, that’s going to be, that’s what I’m saying. That’s going to be hard. Because that’s the whole thing, is that it all goes back to it’s never about individuals.”

Trujillo: “Well, this is where we get into egos, like do I try to talk to Nox Populi? Do I try to talk to Wanner? You know. These guys, they’ve got egos, they’ve got agendas of their own, and their agendas probably conflict with mine. You know?” [54:31].

For the record: my agenda is to excavate the details of Cicada 3301 from the standpoint of political science, examining the organization, functions and goals of that secret society, and to produce an historical artifact that can inform future research down the decades.

It is not my intention to interfere in the moneymaking schemes of anybody, including Schoenberger, Levine and Lech, or even of Marcus Wanner and brotherBox or anybody else. But I will continue my research, and it will yield what it yields. If that runs afoul of certain schemes, so be it.

gHOST: “Yeah. See the problem is going to be that you’ll be able to find people after 2015 that may have been connected to Thomas and Cicada, but trying to find somebody that predates that like myself is going to be very, very hard. And I’m just going to be honest. It’s going to be hard.” [54:54].

Trujillo: “Like, I’m asking you. Who do I talk to?”

gHOST: “If you mainly look me up you’ll see that, I’m not on, if you want to find me you find me on the deep web. The only social media that I’m on is YouTube, I’m not on anything else, you can’t find me on Facebook you can’t find me on Twitter or anything else. And a lot of the members are like that, we don’t want to be—it defeats the whole purpose. When you are known, you now can be targeted, and that’s the whole concept, we don’t want the light exposed on us, we don’t want to be known as individuals. That’s when it becomes dangerous. And the fact of the matter is, and this is what I really want to touch on, because a lot of people don’t understand this.” [55:44].

gHOST: “If you work in the United States and you are working on encryption software, I’m telling you now, you are under investigation from intelligence services. They will watch you. They will monitor you. They may even try to jail you. Because that is one thing that they do not like, is when people start working on anonymizing software and encryption software. Because immediately the government goes whoa, whoa, whoa, and so that is mainly what we have been working on. So why would we want these things to be public? Like, I don’t know if I can explain to you but (laughs) if you just look at what Thomas has done it completely defeats the ideas behind Cicada. Like it’s the complete opposite. It’s crazy, man.” [56:33].

Trujillo: “It is. It is. No, I think you just explained it very accurately. There’s a conundrum there. I guess my thoughts are this. Those people who must remain anonymous, they can speak with me. And again, I will never publish anything without authorization, and that includes how they want to be described, if they want to be described. If they want to be on non-attribution, that’s fine, I can just say I spoke to somebody and that’s it, say nothing further, right?” [57:12].

For those individuals who by dint of position or knowledge possess information pertaining to Cicada 3301 which should be disseminated, I encourage you to contact me: anonymously if you prefer. You will need to establish your bona fides with me, but if you prefer to remain anonymous, I can accommodate that.

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “But I can put out the information. Because there is some information, held by others, that should be shared. That needs to be shared. That can assist and support, our agenda, which is to get the truth out. Right? And can preserve this beautiful thing that needs to be preserved. OK? Because I refuse to permit Schoenberger to have the final word on this. It’s not going to happen, man. Not on my watch.” [57:42].

gHOST: “Yeah. I’m with you, man. I’m there with you.”

Trujillo: “That’s not happening. So these other guys, that you know. You know. Think about it. And if it makes sense to you, just tell them, hey: Talk to this guy. Keep it under wraps. They don’t have to come out, they don’t have to give me a name. They got to give me bona fides so I know that they are legit, they are for real, right?” [58:08].

gHOST: “Yeah, definitely. I can definitely, umm, I’ll just put it like this. Because I don’t want to speak too much. But they’re… long story short, umm, I’m not going to sit here and say if I’m still active or not, but I will—because it’s just a little too much. But what I will say is, I do know, some active members that are still very active. Umm, and I will speak to them and see if you know, maybe they could, you know, give their side of the story. Maybe add a little light to the situation.” [58:47].

Trujillo: “They can think about what they want to say, what message they want to get out. Right?”

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “And then I can do that.”

gHOST: “Yeah, yeah. I mean I’ll definitely do that. And then, umm, just kind of see where that goes from there. And if they’re willing to do it, then I’ll definitely get them to get in contact with you. And that’s, like I said. I mean it’s frustrating because the whole movement that this was created to be has just been completely ran through the middle, man, and so like I said, that’s why I’ve come out. A lot of people have asked me. And that’s one of the biggest questions that I’ve got, is people ask me why did you come out, why, why now.” [59:32]

Trujillo: “You had to.”

gHOST: “Yeah. I didn’t really have a choice. I could no longer just sit back and watch these things, I mean, and it was kind of like, when it was just with puzzles, and fake puzzles, or this and that, it was kind of alright, we knew this was a foreseen calculation, we knew this was going to happen. Umm, but you know, it really can’t, you know, really co-opt the movement, but then when it came to the point where the media’s calling, you know, an intelligent organisation a LARP, and we’re working on software that the government can’t even…(laughs), like I say, alright guys, it just got to the point where it was like, alright…”

Trujillo: “That’s right.” [1:00:11].

gHOST: “So I mean those are the reasons why I came out. It’s not—It’s not for the fame, it’s not for the notoriety, or for any of that, it’s for that somebody outside, a party outside of what’s going on, had to come out and say something about this. And like I said, I talked to other people before I decided to do that. And it kind of became an agreement that if there was somebody to do it, it would probably be best for me to do it. I can protect myself pretty well, you know, online, and I have quite a vast knowledge of technology and INFOSEC and OPSEC and trying to protect myself, and so it was kind of like, I’ll be the one to do it, and once you do that there’s really no turning back. Because ever since then I come under attack from Thomas, I’ll come under attack from—umm, the thing with Thomas though is that he won’t interact with me directly.” [1:01:23].

gHOST: “He, umm, (laughs) he always uses these sock accounts but it’s so crazy that they still don’t give me half the hard time that they do other people. Umm, like, they absolutely go after Lestat, and (unintelligible) I don’t know what’s up with Defango and Thomas, I don’t know if they are still working together, I don’t know, but I do know that Defango has a disdain for him, currently. But like I said, I’ve never met Thomas in person, and I’ve never even spoke to him, umm, online. I’ve never communicated with the man. So I don’t know him nowhere near on a personal level that Lestat and Defango do, you know, so for them to say those things and then to see his track record it just all lines up.” [1:02:19].

gHOST: “So it’s not like somebody can be like, “you guys are lying,” no, no, no, if you just go through his history and see all the complaints, he’s been in like 30 court cases, people tried to sue him for taking their money and not promoting them, and businesses and bands and then we get into music, and then you get into the puzzles.” [1:02:38].

gHOST: “His history. Anything that he thinks that he can make money off of. And that’s really what it is because I truly believe that he got involved with it originally maybe just to bring more recognition to himself. Maybe to promote his own music. I mean that’s—I really tried to figure out why would he try to co-opt this and try to take it for himself? What does he really have to gain? Because if somebody is doing something for gain, on average it’s monetary gain. So I’m like, he’s doing this for financial reasons. So then I started trying to look at why, you know, why would he be doing it and how would he gain financially and then it started to add up.” [1:03:21].

gHOST: “And I’m like, for the first couple of years, he was just watching. And then when he seen that it became literally a media hysteria (sic), like it became an overnight sensation, to where, you know, businesses, CNN and all these people are saying, you know this is the world (unintelligible) problem you know, who are, he realized oh, man, there might be some money involved in this.” [1:03:44].

gHOST: “And I truly believe—”

Trujillo: “—I can tear him down. I’ve got the internal documents, I’ve got his emails. Defango told you, he gave me all of it. He did.”

gHOST: “That’s good. I’m glad he shared that with you.”

Trujillo: “Well. He trusted me that much. Because you know he wants to get it off his chest.” [1:04:04].

gHOST: “Oh, yeah. He’s been dealing with this for a couple of years. And Thomas used him. And like if you go back and you watch the videos, like Thomas was using him to, for his puzzling and for his memes. Like if you look at Defango out in the desert trying to find this Spear of Destiny, you see how disheveled and how rough and how lost he looked. Like he, you could tell that he was just…(laughing).” [1:04:28].

Trujillo: “This is the thing. Defango was betrayed.”

gHOST: “Yeah. Definitely.”

Trujillo: “But the problem was, his reaction was to betray in turn.”

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “So betrayal is the theme, the constant theme in Manuel Chavez, his psychological makeup. Ok. Now I’m going to try to help him. He doesn’t, he doesn’t—he’s very distrustful, right, and he took a chance with me and it was a good chance, because I will not fuck him over. Right. I’m going to make him come out looking pretty good. But I’m doing it not because I’m doing him favors, I’m doing it because his actual role justifies it.” [1:05:14].

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “It’s the truth. I’m going to show the truth, through the documentation, he’s going to come out of this looking great. Alright. But if you talk with him, tell him that. Tell him that he doesn’t need to be upset because I published Lestat’s first. That’s infantile, man. That’s childish.” [1:05:34].

gHOST: “It really is. Like he, I even read where you said that you published Lestat’s first, like you wrote it on the website. Because it was like 40,000 words.”

Trujillo: “It is.” (My interview and commentary with Manuel Chavez III is actually more than 40,000 words long at this point, but I am dismantling it into smaller segments to make it easier to digest. What will actually be a series of interviews with Defango will be rich in the internal documentation of Cicada 3301 during its Middle Period).

gHOST: “So it’s not … you clearly articulated why you did what you did, so for him—”

Trujillo: “—I’m not choosing sides.”

gHOST: “Yeah, yeah. For him to get…that’s kind of umm…he should look at it like, he should actually look at it with appreciation because he’s trying to make sure that, when he posts this, that it’s on. That it’s on. You know. So he should be looking at it like that. Not the other way.” [1:06:17].

Trujillo: “Well, you know, and like I say, it’s a process, it’s an interactive process, so I’ll be sending pieces of it to him, you know, we’ll go step by step, and I’ll say how does this look, right? Because there’s going to be errors, and there’s going to be corrections that need to be made. And it’s tied in to other mysteries, like for example, “who is Microchip?” [1:06:37].

gHOST: “Alright.”

Trujillo: “Like who is Microchip? Things like that. Or qntmpkts. Do you know who qntmpkts is?” The pseudonymous character using the alias qntmpkts blocked me on Twitter after I asked Thomas Schoenberger for an interview on April 16, 2019. There was no interaction of any kind between myself and qntmpkts. And he was not the only person interacting with Schoneberger who blocked me: so did former Cicada insider DJ Genki. We see, as a consequence, whom is communicating with whom, and the nature of those communications.

gHOST: “No. I uh…that sounds really familiar. But…”

Trujillo: “Do you know who Microchip is?”

gHOST: “Yeah, I know who Microchip is.”

Trujillo: “Can you tell me?”

gHOST: “Uh, not like on a personal level, but I do know who Microchip is. Like I’ve had interactions with him…”

Trujillo: “Can you tell me for non-publication? So I know whether I’m going down the right path or not?” [1:07:17].

gHOST: “Um, alright. So…”

Trujillo: “If you can’t, that’s cool.”

gHOST: “Well, see, can I validate his authenticity? No. If that’s what you’re trying to get at. Have I heard their name within the circles, yes.”

Trujillo: “We’re dealing with composite identities, these are not just singular people, these are multiple people that are using the identities.”

gHOST: “I will say this. I don’t remember that name popping up on the IRC channels, I’ll just put it like that.”

Trujillo: “They’re not. These are political operators. They’re into politics, they’re into QAnon, they’re not involved in IRC, they’re not involved in cypherpunk, they don’t know anything about cypherpunks.”

gHOST: “Ok. Ok.” [1:08:09].

Trujillo: “They don’t know about Cicada.”

gHOST: “Alright. I got you.”

Trujillo: “And that’s fine, that’s that part of the story, but what I’m basically trying to do is not waste so much time, because honestly bro, I’m 58 years old, alright, and a fortuneteller told me I’m going to die when I’m 62: I don’t have that many years  left.”

gHOST: “Oh, man. (Laughs). [1:08:38]. I got you.”

Trujillo: “I’m trying to get this shit done, right.”

gHOST: “Yeah, yeah. So you’re not chasing just random leads, I got you. What I can promise you man is that I don’t know the person, I don’t know Microchip personally, have I heard their name before inside of circles? Yes. Are they, were they ever on the IRC channel? No. Do I think that they are connected to Cicada? No. But have I heard their name? Yes. But I do not know them on a personal level.” [1:09:11].

Trujillo: “How about James Brower?”

gHOST: “James Brower? Yes I’ve heard his name.”

Trujillo: “But again he’s a political operator, he’s not involved with Cicada.”

gHOST: “Most of these names, I’ve heard them tied in connection to Thomas…I haven’t really heard them tied in anywhere else.”

Trujillo: “That’s right, that’s right.”

gHOST: “That I do remember. These circles I heard, those names they were kind of “Thomas.” {1:09:44].

Trujillo: “Well, you know, this whole IRC thing in a way, I’m going to mention it but I don’t want to talk about it too much, because I don’t want the wrong people finding it, because the right people are already there, the right people already know how to find it—”

gHOST: “—how to get there, yeah.”

Trujillo: “—Yeah, they know already, alright. So I’m going to be very cautious and careful when I talk about the IRCs. But you know I’ve run into this dilemma with the brotherBoxes, with the Lone Cicadas, the Frank Bacons, the Nox Populi, the Marcus Wanners, I mean do I even bother trying to approach these guys? Because I think that they’ve got their own agenda man, they’ve got their own plan, and it’s in play, they’re pursuing it, I mean you saw that little piece that just came out, I liked it. I thought it was well done.” [1:10:42].

gHOST: “I think they did, yeah, I agree with that. I think that they did a very good job. They didn’t chase all these other things, they actually documented what they could know for a fact, and that’s how a documentary should be done. And the fact that they actually spent the money to get an investigative journalist and actually hired professional people to look into this, and it’s so fun because, everything they looked into ties back to a few people that’ve gone on record, like myself, before these documentaries ever were released, saying the same thing. So when you (unintelligible) people can tie it back to a group, that are saying the same thing before somebody went and paid a big company to go and investigate, then you start to see where things start to line up, and you can actually get some validity to these statements.” [1:11:31].

Trujillo: “And that’s where I want to go. Because you are the only person that I know of, who can go all the way back to 2011. You’re the only guy. You’re the only guy who can say that Ian was involved, Ian was probably The Architect. You’re the only guy who can say that. No one else can say that.”

gHOST: “Yeah, that’s what me and Lestat talked about. Lestat and myself spoke on the same thing, he said the same thing, you’re the only one that can really—and that’s what he said, that’s why he said if you can interview with me, we can kind of bring some more—because with him, he felt like he was backed into a corner with Thomas and he had nobody that he could really call his own that could jump in and say hey, listen like, there is a clear separation.” [1:12:16].

gHOST: “So when he, when I was able to prove to him my identity, and I logged into a few, a couple of websites that were owned by gHOST that were public record and had been there for years, that hadn’t been logged into for years, then I log into them in realtime for him, you know, so once you are able to actually figure out who I was, and that I really am who I am, that’s why he was immediately, why we really need you to jump into this and help us get some clarification for what’s going on. So what I can do for you, I’ll reach out to some of my resources that I have, and bring up to them, you know, and tell them that I met a very good—I’m going to call you a journalist because that’s what I look at you as—” [1:13:03].

Trujillo: “—As a writer—”

gHOST: “—A writer, ok, I’ll tell them that I met a—”

Trujillo: “You know what? Honestly (unintelligible) in my youth when was young I was a soldier, I was a Green Beret—”

gHOST: “—oh, that’s awesome—”

Trujillo: “And I was trained, I’m a graduate of intelligence courses, ok, so I’m bringing a certain discipline to this that no one else can do. But I’m a political scientist and I’m an historian, and that’s all. That’s all that I am. I’m not a partisan, I’m not picking sides, the only agenda that I’m pursuing is history, alright. And guys like you and me, we can come together, and we can protect–we can work with Lestat, alright, and we need to find these other people who can come in and say look: drive the ground rules. If you don’t want to be identified, that’s cool. I know how to keep a secret, believe me. That’s part of being what I was.” [1:14:04].

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “But I also think, as a cypherpunk, and man, I go back, all the way back with this shit. I was in this a long time ago. Alright. I’m 58 years old. I was on the internet in 1992. You know. So, I’m not saying this because you need to worship me. I’m just saying that I’ve got history with this shit. And this is stuff that I care about deeply. I care about this shit.” [1:14:34].

gHOST: “I can see and I can tell. That’s why before I reached out to you I went and I looked at your website and I looked at the things that you wrote and your interaction between you and Lestat, before I reached out to you, you know what I’m saying, because you reached out to me and then I waited a little bit to contact you back, and that’s why I kind of did a little of my own homework and I definitely agree with you, I feel a hundred percent happy, and secure in doing an interview with you now and in the future. And working to try to bring—” [1:15:12].

gHOST: “Oh, yeah. You’re fine. You’re fine. Whatever we talk about is absolutely fine.”

Trujillo: “You will have a copy, you’ll have a copy of the audio, right, and I’ll keep the video because all it shows is–but when we do a video with you, I’ll give it to you. But the thing is, it is not my intention to publish a video interview. It is my intention to do the audio only and then with a transcript. Because what that does gHOST, is it brings the focus around to the data, instead of people being lazy and sitting back watching a video, and getting information that way, they have to interact with data, with text. They have to work, to read it. Alright. And if they want to listen to it, they can. But the commentary, right, the actual transcription, is what the historical artifact is. So I’m trying to make people read. The deal with YouTubers is these people don’t read.” [1:16:13].

gHOST: “Yeah, they don’t.”

Trujillo: “That’s not what they do. Alright. So, you know, I’ll meet them halfway. I’ll give them the audio, but for those people who do read, for people who are journalists, there’s the data. There’s the transcript, right. So that’s why I do it that way, I make a deliberate choice to do it like that. So even when we do do a video, I’ll keep it. And I may publish it at some point but believe me you’ll know about it, I’ll ask you, what do you think about this, and I’ll show it to you beforehand, you know—” [1:16:48].

gHOST: “Yeah.”

Trujillo: “—Anything that you are a party to, you will have access to it, you may say, hey, I don’t like the way that looks, and I’ll say ok, let’s fix it. Because I’m not a journalist.”

gHOST: “I gotcha. I gotcha. I got a lot of respect for you. I can definitely tell you’re passionate, and I can tell you’re being a hundred percent with me and if I didn’t know these things, if I had any doubt then I never would have reached out to you, so yeah. No worries.” [1:17:17].

Trujillo: “It’s a risk for you. And I get that. It is. It’s a risk. And the only way that I can show you that your risk is a good risk is by how I conduct myself.”

gHOST: “Yes, sir.”

Trujillo: “So this is our first step, our first conversation—”

gHOST: “—Yeah, because in the future, yeah, definitely, because in the future I plan doing a live video with you. But when I decide to do that, I’m going to try to, I’m going to modify my environment around me, just to throw that out. You know, just for OPSEC reasons.”

Trujillo: “I get it.”

gHOST: “But definitely, like my own thing was I really wanted to reach out to you and do an initial talk with you so where we could meet each other and you could kind of just ask me some questions and we could kind of get a ground work going. To where you could get some questions answered, I could kind of see, you know, how the interview goes, so we get to know one another and then from here we can continue this on, because I honestly see a good working friendship right here and a way to definitely combat back against Thomas and his disinformation.” [1:18:29].

Trujillo: “We’re going to finish him. We’ll finish him. And we’ll do it the right way. We’ll do it with truth. He’s vulnerable. That’s the vulnerability of all liars. They can’t withstand truth. Or fact. So we’ve already got him. I just need to do some work. And I will. I will do it. But listen, I thank you, very much, for taking the risk to talk with me. I’m grateful to you. I understand that you’re—you have every right to be cautious. Because you are correct. You are a walking munition. You are. And governments are going to be very interested in you. So, let’s just work together you and I, and let’s just make sure that I protect you the way that you need to be protected. And then I showcase what you need to have showcased, and that we establish an historical artifact here. That can really withstand scrutiny, and that people can trust.” [1:19:38].

gHOST: “Yes.”

Trujillo: “So they can know, this is the real deal, this is the real deal. This is the real Cicada. And then they’ll know it. They’ll know it.”

gHOST: “I couldn’t have said it better myself. I agree a hundred percent with what you just said.”

 

Trujillo: “It’s just so good to find an ally.”

gHOST: “Oh, definitely. Definitely. Because like I said it’s a very small group that are trying to combat all this disinformation because, there really has not been a lot of things that have been able to, you know, affect people the way that this puzzle has. This puzzle has grabbed people and —” [1:20:16].

(Unintelligible).

gHOST: “—that’s what I’m saying. There’s never really been such a viral media, uh, like, like this and so for us to try, for us to be able to rein it back in and get it back on the correct path, I honestly believe that we couldn’t do any better. And that’s really—” [1:20:37].

Trujillo: “—All we really need to do is focus on the cypherpunk ideal. That’s it. And if we get that one message out, that one message, that information needs to be free, that alone, that is an utterly powerful statement.” [1:20:52].

gHOST: “Oh, yeah. Definitely. That’s really what it’s about. Knowledge is power. And not only is it power, it’s empowerment. And so yeah, definitely, and that’s always been our biggest focus. And you know, because governments and nationstates, they want to control information so they can control the narrative. And if you control the narrative, you can control the population and the consciousness of that population. And that’s been our biggest thing because you know… humanity has reached that point where we got to change as a whole.” [1:21:30].

“…because governments and nationstates, they want to control information so they can control the narrative. And if you control the narrative, you can control the population and the consciousness of that population.”

Trujillo: “You know, I’m thinking here. If you can, spend some time thinking about how we can package and present clues to solvers of Liber Primus to take the next step. Because they are stuck. They are just stuck.”

gHOST: “I know. When I watched that last episode and they were at DEFCON just going around asking everybody—”

Trujillo: “—Random people with a stack of papers in their hands. Come on, man. We got to be better than that.” [1:22:00].

gHOST: “That’s why I brought up that because, there definitely will be a reemergence. And when it does happen, the puzzle that’s released, that’s why I said, I really would like for it to touch back to base on Liber Primus, and give, not give, you know, not straight up hints but, at least reincorporate the steps needed to do the puzzle, so that people that had missed it, can maybe see it this time, in a different factor.” [1:22:37].

gHOST: “Maybe they didn’t see it that way before, so we can present the same thing, but in a different way, that they actually get it this time.”

Trujillo: “Well, just get them solving again. And working together. Because what people describe to me is an artifact that requires crowdsourcing, it must be a group effort.”

gHOST: “It has to be because like I said, it was created—many people came together to create the puzzles of Liber Primus, so it’s going to be impossible for one person to break it, unless they know every single step that was involved… and the only people that know that are the individuals that helped create it. And they themselves don’t know the whole steps because they were just a small part in the putting it together.” [1:23:24].

gHOST: “So, and like I said, that’s the biggest thing is that, uh, people have been stuck with that for so many years.”

Trujillo: “And if you can think of a way, you know, for us to package, something that can help nudge that community and get them back solving… let’s do that. Let’s figure out a way to do that.”

gHOST: “Definitely.”

Trujillo: “We’re smart guys. We can come up with something. Right?”

gHOST: “Definitely. Definitely. I’ll sit back and start brainstorming and start working on some ideas.”

Trujillo: “Yeah. Make it a background process. And the other thing, is that I personally want to ensure that the second half of The Message gets a wider publication than it’s seen. And that it is seen and heard and heeded. So if you can help me with a clear text of that…” [1:24:17].

gHOST: “Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. What I can do is I can go back through, and because I know, off the top of my head, I can’t remember exactly, but listening to it, I know exactly what’s said. I can just go and like get a notepad, and just make a text of something real quick…”

Trujillo: “Thank you, thank you.”

gHOST: “I’ll send it to you, to your email.”

Trujillo: “Thank you. Listen. We’ve been talking now for about an hour and 28 minutes so I’m going to let you go. I don’t want to wear you out.”

gHOST: “No worries.”

Trujillo: “You and I, we’ve established rapport, right.”

gHOST: “Yes, sir.”

Trujillo: “You got a feel for who I am and where I’m coming from, and I know where you’re coming from, so let’s give this some thought and let’s meet again, and let’s talk again, and let’s figure out in the future how we can help and we can make sure that the PGP Key is protected, right, and we’ll drive a stake through his heart, and we’ll finish him, and we’ll get this thing going back again the way that it is needs to be going, we’ll get people solving again, alright.” [1:25:23].

gHOST: “Yes, sir.”

Trujillo: “And we’ll get the focus back on the ideal that information needs to be free. And that’s it.”

gHOST: “Yes, sir. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Trujillo: “Thank you. Thank you so much. I got to tell you I’m just so delighted to make your acquaintance, thank you so much. Really.”

gHOST: “No, I thank you, Stephen, I really do. And I thank you for the opportunity to try to bring more clarification to this whole situation.”

Trujillo: “And it’s going to be a group effort. I can’t do it by myself.”

gHOST: “Yeah, I understand. I can’t even do it by myself and it’s gotten bigger than an individual now, so…”

Trujillo: “You know I was looking at something and someone was saying I bit off too much. How do I handle this gigantic project. And the answer is you just take the next step.”

gHOST: “Yeah. Yeah.”

Trujillo: “That’s all you do.”

gHOST: “Yeah, definitely. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed. Once you get momentum going, things tend to fall into place.” [1:26:23].

Trujillo: “Well, you know I’m a product of a pipeline, a training pipeline, where most people do not succeed. And the way that I triumphed over those challenges is I simply didn’t quit. That’s it. Bottom line. There was no way to make me quit. And my attitude was well, they can kill me. They can’t kill you deliberately but they can do it by accident, but if they don’t kill me, then I’m going to be one of the few guys left standing. So I’m not bragging to you, I’m just telling you that this is how I came through these challenges in these training pipelines. And I’m just going to bring the same discipline to this. I’m going to outlast, and I’m going to endure, and I’m going to get this done. I’ve only got a few more years, like I said a fortuneteller told me I’m a dead man at age 62. I’m 58 right now, so. I know what I got to do.” [1:27:20].

gHOST: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. I’m impressed—”

Trujillo: “—don’t be.”

gHOST: “—Yeah I’m impressed that I couldn’t have asked, honestly, man, this has been a joyous conversation for me to have with you. And I definitely see a friendship developing here. And I definitely can see with all of us working together helping to accomplish those goals, and tasks that we talked about.” [1:27:51].

Trujillo: “With you and Lestat onboard, we can take care and pull this off. We can do it. It doesn’t matter what Thomas Schoenberger brings to it. We’ve already got him beat.” [1:28:00].

gHOST: “Exactly. Exactly.”

Trujillo: “Alright. I’m going to let you go.”

gHOST: “Yes, sir. No worries! Stephen, I really appreciate it, sir, thank you and what I’ll do is I’ll start working on those things, you give me about a day or two and I’ll contact, I’ll get back in contact with you and we’ll try to set up another time here to get back on this again.”

Trujillo: “Thank you very much gHOST, I appreciate it.”

gHOST: “No worries, Stephen You have a blessed safe night, and I’ll talk to you soon, sir. Thank you.”

Trujillo: “Have a good Sunday! Ok!. Bye bye.”

gHOST: “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

===End Transcript, End Interview===

Summary

Some may complain about the length of this interview: indeed, it is longer than I intended. But these things take as long as they take. Others may cringe from the wall of text that confronts them here, but one of my pet peeves is the laziness of those who prefer to passively absorb information through videos rather than doing the hard work of reading.

This is why I provide only the audio of these interviews. I may at some future point post the video with additional analysis, but for now, I consider the video an impediment. I include the audio file as a SoundCloud download in the interest of authenticity. Anyone can review the audio and compare it to my transcript. Best of all: text is searchable, and unlike video, it is indexed on the net.

You will find no filler here. This is raw, usable information, for students of Cicada 3301, for social scientists researching this phenomenon of the internet age, for historians to come. I comment on these interviews and I place supporting information adjacent to where it is needed. Anyone can dispute my commentary or the information that I provide, but the data itself stands on its own merits.

I consider myself fortunate to speak with the Cicada insider gHOST3301, and we should all thank him for coming forward to shed light on the “most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age,” as Sam Scott so memorably put it in his seminal 2013 article. (Sam Scott, “Cicada 3301: The most elaborate and mysterious puzzle of the internet age,” Metro, December 16, 2013).

This is the first interview ever conducted by any social scientist with an inner circle member of Cicada’s Early Period (2011-4). More interviews with other Cicada insiders are forthcoming. This is just the second interview in the Cicada Files. The first was with Arturo Tafoyovsky (Lestat). Multiple interviews with Manuel Chavez III will be published in coming weeks.

In this interview, gHOST3301 and I address Thomas Schoenberger’s culpability in the collapse of Cicada 3301 on May 7, 2018, and his infiltration of the order between 2015-6. We recount the efforts of Schoenberger and his colleagues, Michael Levine and Richard Lech, to monetize the order, excluding the actual puzzle creators from their schemes. More detail, more information, much of it in the form of Cicada’s internal documentation, is forthcoming.

For the corporate lawyers reviewing this interview, consider the tenuous ownership position of the profiteering triumvirate. They may hold a trademark, but they can demonstrate no ownership of the intellectual property of the order. The internal documentation of Cicada 3301 itself demonstrates that Richard Lech played no discernible role in puzzlemaking, Michael Levine’s involvement appears titular and marginal, and Schoenberger’s participation was collaborative.

The stockholders of Primus Holdings, LLC may own shares in a Limited Liability Corporation, but if that firm fails to include the actual creators of Cicada’s artistic projects, what does it actually own? I am not a lawyer, I am merely an informed bystander, but I suspect that sharks will soon begin circling on behalf of the artists who created its enigmatic puzzles.

Finally, the protagonists know precisely where the PGP key is held. Without the authenticity of the PGP key, no solvers will engage with ersatz puzzles. I am advised that further attempts to coerce the holder of the key will provoke the whirlwind.

gHOST and I also discuss the origin story of Cicada 3301, and the role of Debian Linux creator Ian Murdock (The Architect). We explain the puzzle made by gHOST at the behest of Murdock known as The Message, and illustrate it for a later generation of Cicada aficionados.

Finally, gHOST and I discuss the primacy of certain IRC channels in germinating a clandestine cypherpunk cabal which remains covert. Even Cicada 3301 needs a public relations strategy. We discuss additional clues for solvers of Liber Primus, and the tragic deaths of Samuel Fullerton and Sheriff’s Sergeant Michael Stephen.

With this series of interviews and the work that they inform, I analyze the organization, function and goals of Cicada 3301.

I hope that you enjoy my efforts. Corrections and comments are welcome. More, much more, is coming. Stay tuned.

September 2, 2019.

Estéban Trujillo de Gutiérrez

Bangkok