In July 2015, a woman posted a blog on Hubpages, an account which seemed to corroborate earlier testimony of a cult that existed in the dead MMO “worlds.com”. The blog post was found among a host of other files on a .rar file, on the website ‘Anon Files’ containing clues, cryptic messages and tasks, labelled “Disk001”.
The writer’s name was Tarah, a British immigrant born in Kenya who moved to London when she was 16 and apparently fell in with the wrong crowd.
Souped up on Ketamine and the party lifestyle, it didn’t take long until she found herself in the clutches of a strange cult. Some time after leaving the Cult behind, she enlisted her friend Richard to help tell her story.
At first, Tarah didn’t suspect anything about her new friends. Growing up in a strict christian household, it’s unsurprising that she would gravitate toward an ideology that would allow her to separate herself from the religious zeal of her parents. She started to become close with Lucy, a creative, artistic and well read woman who seemed eager to show Tarah new worlds of information, who eventually introduced her to the leader of the cult Frank Webster, known to wear a balaclava and fedora, and have a love for anarchy and chaos. In the hazy dreamworld of ketamine abuse and partying she realised that the grandiosity of the leader Frank Webster was verging on dangerous territory.
This is one of the multiple breadcrumb trails that make up the The TITAN ARG.
Possible one of the longest runnings ARGs on the internet, the TITAN ARG dates back to at least around 2010, and has been updated at odd intervals ever since.
This recently uploaded video summarises the history and origin of the ARG fairly well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c6wj5BnlDk&lc=UgwNvBe_jrnoha4j07t4AaABAg
Source:
https://www.thecodexobscura.com/true-internet-cults-the-cult-of-saturn-part-1/
The journal in the above link describes the cult, who formed out of a hodge podge of quasi spiritual ideas, as they decided to enlist the internet and an Alternate Reality Game as a recruitment tool. Eventually they infiltrated the website worlds.com, which is where the modern history of the cult (or ARG) begins.
As outlined in the ‘TITAN’ documentary, some users named Nexialist and Jimbly then began to lead people into their ARG on worlds.com pertaining to clues given out by this ‘Cult of Saturn’ group.
For a while, the cult’s activities were unknown, leading many to believe they had disbanded. As they seemed to disappear from the online arena, after a run in with a rival group of self proclaimed trolls on 4chan, who had decided to tear down their ARG.
However, throughout this period —documented accounts of ARG jacking were happening during famous tie in games in series like ‘Mr Robot’, ‘Twin Peaks the Return’ ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘No Man’s Sky’ with references to the original disk of files, and clues from the cult’s ARG.
Recently, there have been multiple reports of people being harassed in Virtual Reality spaces. On the 2nd of June 2022, a twitter user (Ben 81241919) posted the link to a file, after exploring the virtual worlds of VRchat. The file was labelled ‘Disk002’ and seemed to be a follow up to the original disk found on Anon files in 2014.
https://twitter.com/Ben81241919
Disk002 (for those game enough to open it) contains all manner of nefarious images and videos, including one of someone cutting their arm, and painting the image of a monkey in blood on the bathroom mirror. (Apparently an initiation into the cult).
Testimony from other members of the cult have also been found on the disk, which point to other activities the group were engaged in, such as building VR worlds, infiltrating other VR spaces, and inciting people to violence. This cult has also been linked to other well known ARGs such as the game “Kanye Quest”.
The disks contain a veritable rabbit hole of clues, video games, puzzles, fiction, and strange occult artwork. Many of the puzzles remain unsolved to this day.
But the real question comes into it, with such a vast ARG, seemingly for no purpose, who is behind the funding for the ARG?
Because of the speculation around the cult who worship Saturn, there is some speculation that the ARG itself was funded by powerful groups, a prominent belief being the ‘Fraternis Saterni’ group:
And another group called Worldcorp or Worlds incorporated known to create VR spaces:
https://confessionblacksun.ghost.io/ontogenesis/
If the whole thing is just an ARG, no criminal speculation need exist. But if the rumours of violence and urban terrorism are real, then one has to wonder how deep the money trail flows…