"This Will Be A Good Place to Begin." Halo 3 Viral Marketing?

On Monday, a cryptic message was left by administrator "Adjutant Reflex," on the Halo 3 Bungie forums in bright yellow text: "This will be a good place to begin." "Adjutant" also posted more baffling dispatches at fan Web site Bungie.org, causing a stir among forum members and causing Web sites to speculate that another "I Love Bees"-style viral marketing campaign -- which was done for Halo 2 -- is on the horizon.

Then yesterday at 4:16 a.m., we received a strange e-mail from Xbox. The title simply said, "Look for the signs, the keepers of the flame." And in bold, the weird poem stated, "The enemy is almost upon us / Yet a Journey must commence." Hmmm.

This afternoon, as my co-workers and I went for a cup of coffee outside of our Times Square office, we couldn't help but notice these noisy protesters wearing blazing yellow T-shirts. They bore the acronym "S.O.T.A.," which apparently stands for "Society of the Ancients." Sidewalk stalkers are nothing new in Times Square; we're got our fair share of Scientologists, comedy club promoters, the Falun Dafa, and even angry Star Trek fans. But these guys were different; we recognized a familiar symbol that we had seen a few days earlier in the Bungie forums and then in our inboxes. So we ran upstairs, grabbed a camera and shot some video (just in case). It turns out these oddballs didn't know anything about Halo 3. But they sure knew a lot about aliens...

So is it Halo 3 viral marketing? We'll soon find out. For now, check out the Web site to see what that crazy guy was talking about. Also, more photos after the jump.

This is the flyer they were handing out.

They believe in aliens... and pretzels.

This woman was going off about how the Mayans' mathematics were more advanced than ours today. I wish I could tell you more about what she said but I kinda stopped listening...

Not just a huge X-Files fan; we think he actually believes this stuff. After this photo was taken, this guy started screaming, "Aliens are real!" and made a baby cry.

Comments

[[HSM]clan]

Halo3 is linked to this if u dont belive go to halo3 forum @ bungie.net

[thebruce]

numerous forums are investigating, lots of intriguing stuff. forums.Unfiction.com is a great ARG community covering it (search for Halo 3), as well as args.bungie.org, there's halo.wikibruce.com, and a number of other fan resources covering it... fell free to link!

[ashofpompei]

wow
just wow

[Bronson (SiD)]

Wow, Microsoft really is going all out on this one huh? I'm interested in seeing how this all turns out.

[Dan Kennedy]

It takes a real jerk to make a baby cry.

[ashofpompei]

these folks have been spotted in london
any news there?
http://args.bungie.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=221&p=3086#p3086

[Lolz..]

LOL ... HE made a baby cry!!! lmao.. and, yea this is connected to Halo 3... Everyone be awake on the 21st !!!

[gerry]

this is awesome, i have been there and met them, i know they will be in central park tomorrow, columbus circle 59th and Central park West 11 am come support the troops, we need the believers and the HALO 3 crowd see u there G

[Guild_Navigator]

You can look at a baby the wrong way and cause it to cry. They just cry.

[V R . G F X]

hey guys i dont know if this is already been discovered but I went to the http://27.com and viewed the background image and looks interesting... check it out

http://www.27.com/ar.jpg

[Phyllis Chan]

I saw a job posting on craigslist to be one of those crazy promoters for $16/hr for san francisco. They said it was guerilla marketing for a video game where you pretend to believe in aliens so I'd say this is it.

[SpartaX]

Make me a favor, all of you! Google: The Cortana Letters, you'll findout that there was also a website, I beleive It till exists. It had the same format as the societyoftheancients.com page. And it was mass viral marketing just like this one. Incase you are interested

[staticthreat]

People sit and question why this is all being done.. Microsoft and Bungie have just turned all of the game reporting sites into commercials for HALO 3 :D Think of how much exposure they have gotten from all the reporting on this rubbish lol...

[timmer]

ET phone home

[SuperSaiyan4]

What I dont understand is:

1) We know there is a Halo 3 duh!
2) We have or many have played a Halo 3 beta
3) We know when Halo 3 even comes out!

So what gets me is this...

Why on earth do we need to have viral marketing when we all know that Halo 3 is coming September 25/26?!

[Judas Savior]

We found this link embedded in the script of the society of agents membership site, as the link didn't work thought we'd take a closer look and found this member ship sign up form=S

http://www.societyoftheancients.com/sota_images/SOTA_membership.pdf

[katie]

yeahhhhhshhhhhhhhfook yeah!!!

[Guilty Spark]

Timmer, it's meant to create hype for the game.

[Alex]

uhmmm remember these guys r fuggin nerds y r u gunna believe them we haven't before y start now its just a BIG coincidence and wats up with these ancients crap. I HATE NERDS!!!they are so weird i just wanna pik one up and throw him through a window or sumtin seriously holy fuggin shit

[ange]

GET A JOB

[Are You Kidding Me ..]

Oh Cmon .. Halo 3 Did This? You People Are Pathetic.. HALO 3 IS JUST A GAME , AND A VERY GOOD ONE ON TOP OF THAT! It is The best game ever made .. but anyone who thinks this crap in a ziplock is realted .. you need to get a life

btw , i would own any of you Noobs in halo , get at me

[josh]

u r frickin crazy

neah this is boring

[sousa]

for those who belive that life on this planet started by aliens.the same aliens that help us with evolution. the same aliens that make earth in a zoo...
stonehenge is a calendar built by the creators of life on this planet.
it help us understand that there is only one think that canot be recovered: TIME.
we can see the past by traveling in a very high speed(for humans), but it is impossible to travel.
stonehenge wasnt the only thing that they built no earth.
some say that easter island is "conected" to sotmehenge.
stonehenge...an giant clock ticking away

[Smigle]

i just think that when god created the earth he talked to 3 man and 2 women about the most beautifull thing in the world: online gaming XD
and they wanted it so much that they gonne mad.
so god made the stonehenge with the simbol of halo and sayd:
"you will pwn in this game in you next life" and then sayd: "i pwn all things" and them god went to heaven to play gears of war. lool

of curse i dont belive in this theory because god dont exist. it is just an invention of man to explain certain things , to feel safe and used by the religions to keep the poor conformised... but that is another story.