Season 5 coded message in alias theme?

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Cadet
Hi. This is my first post to All Alias. I wish I had found this website earlier!

I've tried searching this site (and the internet generally) for an answer to this but I can't find one. If it's an old old old matter already resolved long ago, my apologies (and would someone point me to where?). I'm new to Alias messageboarding, but I figured that this forum was definitely the place to ask.

Being all procrastinaty one day recently I decided to decode the message in the fifth season theme song. I was hoping I could confirm my solution to it with someone else who has done the same thing.

I can't tell if the coded message necessarily means anything specific for the series finale. It could just be a red herring. Or something that might have been intended to mean something back when it was first devised, but will no longer mean anything due to storyline and cast changes. And I didn't check to see if the message has stayed the same since the first season. But there it is, nevertheless!

Can anyone help me?
 
Hi. This is my first post to All Alias. I wish I had found this website earlier!

I've tried searching this site (and the internet generally) for an answer to this but I can't find one. If it's an old old old matter already resolved long ago, my apologies (and would someone point me to where?). I'm new to Alias messageboarding, but I figured that this forum was definitely the place to ask.

Being all procrastinaty one day recently I decided to decode the message in the fifth season theme song. I was hoping I could confirm my solution to it with someone else who has done the same thing.

I can't tell if the coded message necessarily means anything specific for the series finale. It could just be a red herring. Or something that might have been intended to mean something back when it was first devised, but will no longer mean anything due to storyline and cast changes. And I didn't check to see if the message has stayed the same since the first season. But there it is, nevertheless!

Can anyone help me?

Well did you find when you decoded it, what did it say?


Well did you find when you decoded it, what did it say?

Sorry i ment "well what did you find..."
 
Hmmm... dont really know if this has anything to do with it but there was an Ariana Kane in Season 2 who was head of counter intelligance for the Alliance and came to SD-6 to investigate Sloane's wifes death and she thought that Jack had done it. Doesnt really fit though.... :blink:
 
Doesnt really fit though....

Yeah, seems like. But that's what makes me wonder why it's there...

I had somehow forgotten about Faye Dunaway's three episodes. I decoded the "Agent Kane" message and had to get my wife to check over my results -- she's ten times the Alias fan I am -- and I asked her, "does this mean anything?" She then reminded me about Ariana.

She also pointed out that in season 5 that Dean mentions the 12 in his codes. I'm trying to remember -- was the Alliance called the "Alliance of Twelve" at times?
 
She also pointed out that in season 5 that Dean mentions the 12 in his codes. I'm trying to remember -- was the Alliance called the "Alliance of Twelve" at times?

Yes. I believe that in the Pilot episode, when Jack is telling Sydney about SD-6, they call the Alliance the "Alliance of Twelve."
 
This is really interesting. You really have made me wonder what it could mean?

This is really interesting. You really have made me wonder what it could mean?
 
I'm on a trip away from home right now. When I get back, I should be able to post my decryption. Unfortunately, it's too much to remember completely off the top of my head. (Although I think they've even given hints about it indirectly in the series' dialogue too -- I'm sure many people on this board will have a better memory for those details than I do). Then if anyone wants to confirm my results, they can.

It'd be great if anyone wanted to go back and see if it's the same all the way back to season one. Once I noticed the 'hidden' (in Fight Club subliminal fashion) <O> in the theme song I went back and saw that it was there from the very beginning in episode 1.1 -- so I'm wondering if the message as a whole was already there too (ie, a year and a half before Agent Kane makes her first appearance) -- although, they've changed the actors' names and images in the theme a lot over the years, so, maybe not. Theoretically, there could be entirely different messages in every episode's theme. (I have also remembered that when that lame show "The Mole" was on a few years ago, they had apparently given away the answer to the mystery all the way back in the theme of the first episode -- or at least, so they claimed in the finale.)

And regarding the hidden 47. Of course, this could be just another one of those ubiquitous 47s. It could be just a hint that there's something Aliasy going on here. Or, since Agent Kane appears between the 47 and the <O> the speculating part of me wondered if she has something to do with Page 47 of the Rambaldi Journal. The other part of the code, after all, is the repetition of the letter R throughout the entire theme (which I figure has been obvious enough that I can't be the only person who noticed that). Despite the supposed confirmation of some physiological clues, Syd has proven that she's not really the one there depicted, hasn't she (by travelling to some place it mentions, thereby disproving it)? I remember the speculation that the woman there depicted might have been Irina instead. And I remember people pointing out how much Ariana is made up to look like Irina too. (And then using the transitive property...) In the APO book that came out this year, there's one photo of Ariana Kane. Of course, I'm sure it's a complete coincidence, but her head is in the exact same position in that photo as that of the woman in the Page 47 drawing. Plus Ariana and Irina are similar enough phonetically that the Rambaldi box that had the name on it (it was there spelled IRENA, wasn't it?) could refer to Ariana instead. These are just some of my musings however, and probably nothing but silliness.
 
Yeah. I've seen the <o> and the R in the theme song. Kane does look like Irina now that you mention it. I've never noticed the similarity before.
 
Whoa... we're all getting so detective-like now :Ponder: But some interesting theories, I have to say
 
Yea...And I read somewhere that they were thinking of casting the woman who played Ariana as Irina. So it would make sense that they look alike.

And I too have noticed the <O> in the theme song. But, even though I've seen it a million times, I haven't noticed the r's. :blush: I guess I don't really pay attention.
 
I can see the <O> in the ALIAS sign, but nothing else. Where did you see the rest? What character pics are there when the Kane thing appears in the theme song?
 
The R's flash during the opening credits too.

.-. = R

The AGENT KANE message appears right before the <O>

I'll try and remember what I can without my notes:

You'll notice that the flashing letters go a little wonky starting at the end of the I, running through the second A, until the <O> on the S. That's where the message is.

Decoded, you get:

...RRRRRRRENAKRTNREGA <O> RRR...

R is background noise. Take it out and you get:
ENAK TN EGA <O>

(Remember the code once given on the show to some villain, EMETIB?)

The fact that the noisy Rs break the message into syllables helps confirm that it's no accident.

So we have <O> AGENT KANE (now reading backward from the <O>)

Backing up, the flashing of the cursor before the first letter A also appears wonky. It is something like a leader, telling the viewer that there is going to be a message in what follows, so pay attention to the flashing letters (especially when they go wonky again, out of their pattern of Rs .-. .-. .-. ).

(It's something like the word "Peace" in the Telling device's message tape, maybe?)

During the A,L,I and S The .-. Rs of the background noise is formed by the following repeating pattern:

unflashed letter - [cursor flashed letter] : 10-[5]-5-[10]-5-[5]-10

Where the 10s and the 5s represent the number of frames that something is held onscreen.

So that in between long breaks (unflashed letter of 10) the cursor flashes [5] [10] [5], or, .-.

During the leader (before the first A), the flashing is irregular. Given that the 5-10-5-5-10-5- otherwise reliably flashes throughout the message, when something holds on screen for another value, I figure it's no accident. I won't have my exact numbers til I get home, but in between the usual 5s and 10s, and before a 33-frame pause that separates the leader from the letter A, there are exactly 47 frames of flashed and unflashed cursor.

Decoding the letters in the message AGENT KANE depends similarly on taking note of when the flashes of the cursor use something other than 0, 5 or 10, just like in the leader. And this is what helps you to separate out specific letters from the tapping of longs and shorts. It's all rather systematic, and in fact, quite intuitive and thus rather user-friendly, if you care to try for yourself. I found the message on my first attempt to discern a pattern (although, as I've mentioned, I needed my wife's assistance to remember that the name "Kane" signified someone--shame on me for forgetting Bonnie Parker). I should be able to post all the details later this weekend.

And so, the message contains the message <O> AGENT KANE 47 starting from the Rambaldi symbol and read backward to the beginning before the first flashing A, overlaid over an otherwise uninterrupted series of Rs.

As I said in my original post, I don't pretend to know if this means anything. And I only used one specific theme (I think it was episode 5.6) and the message could well be different in other episodes. If it's been the same message from the beginning, then that's kind of telling. At least, perhaps, of the original intent. I wouldn't be surprised if the Agent Kane message would have been more relevant if the creative team could have stayed with the original story plan (ie, if Lena Olin hadn't left). But, by the end of the 4th season, after a season and a half of meandering, the story looks like it might have got more or less back on track, and maybe season 5 will end as the series was originally intended. Who knows. We fans probably never will anyhow. Unless, of course, it's a special feature on the season 5 dvd.
 
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