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cAn YoU hElP mE??? I tHiNk Im BeInG pOsSeSseD!!!111

APRIL CROP CIRCLE DISCOVERIES

- A small selection of some of the most recent threads on the CryptoNet boards.

It's a slow day on CryptoNet. In fact, it's always a slow day on the self-professed 'Largest cryptid-hunting forum in the UK!'¹⁾, where self-professed Cryptanoraks, conspiracy wonks and - supposedly - ordinary people meet up to discuss the latest supernatural and conspiratorial goings-on in the UK.

Born out of the vestiges of the Usenet board alt.crypto.uk, the CryptoNet community - if not the site itself - is as old as even its most veteran members can remember. UFO chasers, cryptid-hunters, crop-circle enthusiasts, amateur inventors (of the patentless kind), paranormal investigators, fans of The X-Files and those who just want to ogle the bizarre goings-on flock to it to discuss anything and everything going with even a whiff of conspiracy about it. While there are certainly no unified beliefs across the site - never something to be expected when even accepted truths must be questioned - pretty much everyone is agreed that everyone else needs to hear what they have to say. After all, how can the Real truth get out there if they're the only ones that know it?

With the growth of the internet to new, unprecedented levels, new users have been making their way onto the site for a while, and with it the community has grown to the point that small, IRL meetups have been starting to occur. Not that it's been easy to coax some of the more paranoid members out of their hidey-holes.

Superconspiracists across the UK were devastated when, on a day that seemed just like any other, they clicked their trusted CryptoNet bookmark only to find a HTTP 404 error. After a week of conspiracy theories about why and how this could have happened, one email from the forum admin to all CryptoNet users served to douse the flames of these conspiracies with gasoline:

sorry all i spilt pepsi on the main server. don't worry we'll be up and running again soon.
cryptonet admin

With little else to go on, some users moved to other forums to pick apart and analyse this email to an excruciating level of detail²⁾. Time passed, buzz died down, and, just as some were considering making peace with the 404 error and accepting other forums as new discussion grounds, another email arrived:

we're getting there. complete refresh needed. old threads and accounts getting cleared out. but i know you guys. the spirit of cryptonet won't die that easily. see you june 29th. new accounts and all. be nice to newbies cos you'll all be new soon.
cryptonet admin

At almost the same time this email was sent, rival forum ParaBoards revealed their discussions with the CryptoNet admin to merge the two sites shortly before CryptoNet reopens on the 29th of June. With both new and old CryptoNet users expected on the supposed reopening of the forum, the new blood is expected to push some of the supernatural investigations further than ever before³⁾.