Question: What are these mysterious messages that occasionally appear in the Daily Wildcat, like the one on the back of the paper on April 30? What is the meaning of their cryptic and vaguely religious code? Is it the work of Freemasons? Aliens? A campus cryptography club? Or is ASUA just trying out a new means of releasing announcements in hopes that if we don't know what it says, we won't realize how little they do?

Answer:

Finally! A GREAT question! Usually questions go, "What's this fence for?" or "Why is this building named this name?" or "Would you be interested in a chance to win 40 pounds of free lobster?" Thank you so much, Mr. Bruce.

Interestingly, this "May Day Mystery" is a lot more comprehensive in depth and scope than I had originally believed - this paid announcement was not, in fact, a pompous, intellectual version of snakes and ladders.

I tracked down the individual responsible for the maydaymystery.org site, who has been researching May Day since 1994: Bryan Hance, former Wildcat Online webmaster-turned-applications systems analyst for Arizona Student Media (i.e. our resident computer techie).

On his Web site, Hance has posted PDFs of all the May Day announcements since 1981. And while the solution to this mystery (if there is one) remains elusive, Hance tells me that he is at least hazily sure of a few things.

"It sounds like multiple entities are being represented here," said Hance, who has met with the anonymous lawyer who drops off the announcements at the Wildcat.

Furthermore, the person(s) responsible have done their homework, utilizing cryptic but not altogether nonsensical mathematical notation and historical tidbits concerning "people who sparked mass-sweeping changes in religious/ideological thinking," Hance said.

Whoever is behind all of this is putting down a lot of money, said Hance.

These ads don't come cheap and it wasn't the only full back page ad that's been put out by "SR/CL," according to Mike Spohn, Wildcat advertising manager.

Here's where it gets interesting: "There have been allusions to a possible safe deposit box. There was a hazy image of one in a previous announcement, and with it, an address to somewhere downtown where there used to be an old bank," said Hance.

Hance's Web site notes: "There seems to be a reward, or an endpoint. ... I am not promising anything as I have not yet unraveled the mystery."

People ranging from physics professors to smarmy math students, from bored National Security Agency cryptographers (no joke) to luckless campus detectives have been trying to solve the mystery, but to no avail, Hance said.

Over the summer, I will try to delve deeper to find the answers. Until then, feel free to check out maydaymystery.org/mayday to get yourself started. Just cut me in if you find your way into that safe deposit box.

This case is wide open.

- Investigation by Detective Kris Cabulong catcalls@wildcat.arizona.edu.