A few weeks have passed, and it seems as if no Colbert Nation member has definitively solved the Persian Gulf puzzle posed on the J.J. Abrams episode. And we Zoners have tried, as have the ColbertNation.com forum members.
We’ve been given quite a few hints, including a super secret hint from Stephen’s Twitter feed. And yet we’re still a bit stumped out here in the Nation. However, the show would really like someone to solve the puzzle, and we received a super special letter from Peter Gwinn, one of the ‘Colbert Report’ writers, giving us a few more hints as well as some of the history behind the puzzle.
Greetings, Colbert Nation,
We hope you’ve all enjoyed working on the puzzle hidden in May 4th’s show. We’ve been watching your progress on various forums, and we thought it might be time to give you a couple hints.
Here’s one: the location and time of Stephen’s upcoming Persian Gulf trip are not hidden in the 7 numbers you found during the show. Solving the number code will instead direct you to Phase 2 of the puzzle.
Also, people have been asking to hear a little more about the process of creating the puzzle. Initially, I wanted to tell the story. Then we thought we should wait until it’s solved. But now it seems like as good a time as any to tell the tale, starting here:
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been excited by puzzles. Rob Dubbin, a fellow Colbert writer, was inspired by JJ Abrams’ Wired Magazine issue to hide a puzzle in the Colbert Report episode that JJ Abrams would appear on. As soon as he made the suggestion, I got excited. Stephen liked the idea too. Everyone on the staff was fired up to help.
Let me tell you, the best part was getting to work with JJ Abrams and Bad Robot. Every step of the way, they were incredibly helpful and generous. They suggested putting Stephen in authentic Romulan Makeup. They found people in New York who could do the makeup job. Even though we only had 45 minutes to dress up Stephen (normally a 2-hour job), he looked amazing. Romulan Stephen was almost unrecognizable! Stephen walked the halls in his costume and no one recognized him.
From that point on, I knew this was going to be good. Really good. Over the past week, we had discussed dozens of code possibilities. Most of them were discarded, but we felt great about what remained.
Stephen gave us feedback on the code. Under his guidance, we made some tweaks. Do we write out all of the code components in normal numbers? Or is that too easy? Keep all of the numbers in plain sight, or hide some? Ultimately, we found a good mix—the numbers were easy to find, but not too easy.
(People found 6 of the 7 codes right away. Unbeknownst to us, there was a way to shift the letters in those 6 codes to spell KUWAIT. Thankfully, people found the 7th code, and knew they hadn’t solved the puzzle yet.)
Completion of the puzzle didn’t happen until just before the taping. Over the course of rehearsal, we decided that some codes were just too obvious. Last-minute checks also revealed that the code on JJ’s mug was wrong! But we were able to fix both issues. (Elvish script was used to make one code less obvious.) Right before the audience was let in, we looked over everything one more time. The puzzle was locked, loaded, and ready to go.
I was nervous that one of the codes somehow wouldn’t be seen on the air, especially the one on my T-shirt. Not to worry, they were all shown clearly—even if some were onscreen for less than a second.
From the minute the show aired, we were checking the forums. Online, solvers were gathering to work together. Usually, people’s guesses were pretty wild. Right guesses, however, were usually recognized as such when they appeared. (Thank god!) Hopefully, people would solve it without hints!
Confusion, however, soon took hold. One big problem was that we had a segment in the show about Obama using empathy as a code-word, which people thought was part of the puzzle. Leaping on the “empathy” non-clue caused some solvers to lose the trail. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only problem. Many solvers headed down dead ends. Nevertheless, we think that someone will still solve the puzzle before our trip to the Gulf in… well, I can’t say!
Also, if you’ve always been the kind of person who checks the back of the book for the answer, you might want to check out this post.
Thank you, Peter, for the lovely note and for addressing the empathy code-word confusion. I know hubby and I took that one and ran with it, thinking it was part of the code.
Just by watching the ticket release dates for the month of June, though, I had a hunch they’d be going sometime early in the month.
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Like you, I’ve been closely following TCR ticket releases. I’m pretty sure I know when they are going and to what country. I can’t wait to see if I’m correct.
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Heh, I was one of the ones who brought up the empathy “clue.” Whoops.
I would assume they would be there next week, though. I mean, when better to prepare for such a trip than a week off?
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Based on his guests next week, it looks like Stephen will still be in NY…unless this is a red herring!
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I hope not, I have tickets for Monday!
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Oh, you weren’t the only one; no worries on that front. In fact, I’m fairly certain that at least part of that “hint” from Stephen’s Twitter feed was “NO EMPATHY”. I just wish I had more free time (and, frankly, “mad skillz”) to pore over the clues we’ve seen so far.
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has anyone figured out the puzzle? i don’t like super hard, unsolvable puzzles.
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Nope, not solved yet. And yeah, it’s a tricky one.
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Ah, but it’s clearly not “unsolvable”, or hints would be useless.
I actually like that this hasn’t been a “throwaway” sort of challenge; one of my favorite things about this show is that it assumes its audience is smart. One of my main gripes about most TV is that it’s so simplistic that I feel dumber just for being in the room while it’s on, never mind whether I’m watching it or not. The Colbert Report never makes me feel that way (same goes for The Daily Show), which I just love.
That said, I do hope that I get some free time at some point so I can have a go at this puzzle in earnest.
Oh, and by the way, how much do I love that Peter stopped by to give us these details?!
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“Love” isn’t a strong enough word. How about totally freakin’ awesome? Yeah, somewhere in that vicinity. I’m thinking it also means they really, really want us to keep trying to figure it out.
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I agree! Peter Gwinn, thank you so much for taking the time to write to the Nation:)
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I really have no idea how to go about this. I think they will follow through with it, ’cause they’ve done even crazier things with the Nation! We figured out the letters but we’re not sure where to begin on the numbers. Has anyone figured out a method or a formula for reconstructing what the numbers mean?
Also – just from guessing – I’d say that he’s going in the second or third week of June. Next week we may see the basic training footage.
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At this point, knowing the answer won’t help you solve the puzzle because the code does NOT say the time or location.
Apparently it leads you short of it. Am I getting that right?
Also the letter says that he’ll provide a few hints. First, there is no time and location for the Persion Gulf trip in the code. So, what is the second hint in his letter? Is there any?
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He did obliquely confirm that the COLBERT-aligned numbers are the puzzle, and that everything else is a dead end.
It’s nice that he wrote the letter, but we’ve been stuck for weeks, so when I saw this post, I kinda expected a more helpful nudge in the right direction. Especially since it’s only the first part!
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This is indeed a super special letter! Okay, I guess I’m going to have to put aside the Sudokus and try once again to crack this code.
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The code could lead one someplace else, such as donorschoose.org, and THEN we move on from there?
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I’m guessing it’s a phone number. Tried out a few of my hunches, but so far no luck.
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I think I know what this is supposed to be, the letter gave it away (if I’m right!) but so far no luck. I’ll rewatch the show to see if there are more hints that fit. This is fun!
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can’t believe i’m the first to notice this, but taking each of the first letters from each sentence after he starts telling the backstory gives: “erase letters from sudoku put colbert in fourth column”
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Holy crap! I can’t believe someone figured that out! (I know I sure didn’t.)
Thanks for catching that, and for posting it on our site!!
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Double holy crap! Wow!
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You’re highly observant!
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Wow! Amazing! I knew that he couldn’t just be telling us that whole backstory for no reason. Go you!
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