Frozen Indigo Angel

April 26, 2007 3:26 PM

Frozen Indigo Angel Video producer Paul Denchfield recently noticed the words 'Frozen Indigo Angel' appearing on some work he'd produced for the BBC's Radio One website. Wanting to know what it was about, he contacted the corporation but they were evasive about it and not long afterwards he was told his services were no longer required. Not wanting to take it lying down, he's started blogging about the phenomena, which is virally spreading across the BBC's digital content, even popping up in the information window of DAB radios, trying to get to the bottom of this thing which has apparently cost him his job. Simple marketing or something more sinister?
posted by feelinglistless (40 comments total)

Survey says: The beeb goes viral marketing.
posted by PenDevil at 3:40 PM on April 26, 2007

Is it somehow tied in to the new NIN record?
posted by gcbv at 3:42 PM on April 26, 2007

I bet lonelygirl15 did it for Pepsi.
posted by imperium at 3:44 PM on April 26, 2007

Right there on the first page of Google search results.

Next?
posted by genghis at 3:51 PM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

Somebody got himself in big trouble with the F.I.A.
posted by wendell at 3:52 PM on April 26, 2007

I wonder if Paul would be willing to produce his termination paperwork? A refusal wouldn't be proof that this is a big ol' hoax of course, but if he could produce it that would be a mark in favor of this being real weirdness, though not definitive proof of that either.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:58 PM on April 26, 2007

Yeah, this seems like the BBC virally marketing something for Radio 1. I find it pretty hard to believe the BBC would actually fire someone over finding this — they're hardly the CIA — so I'm in the it's-a-fake camp. The Paul Denchfield site seems pretty convincing at first glance — more so than the usual viral efforts.

Some text seems a bit out of place, though, like "Attn: FROZEN INDIGO ANGEL There's a cover-up at the BBC to do with the words 'Frozen Indigo Angel. I was fired because of them, and now I need your help to investigate this. Check out my first video, and then watch the rest." This reads like standard marketing text, particularly the 'call to action' of "now I need your help".

The domain is registered to a Paul Denchfield, with a real address and phone number (could people not post the details in this thread, in case Denchfield is in fact bona fide...).
posted by Aloysius Bear at 4:06 PM on April 26, 2007

See -- now I'm not so sure.

You know, I wonder if it's a Doctor Who related phenomena. Paul mentions it on the blog, and if you google the words with " around them....

BBC - Radio 1 - Colin Murray - Tracklisting - 26 Apr
Frozen Indigo Angel Live Music Rewind - Support I Was a Cub Scout - 'Pink Squares' (Lamacq Session) Live Music Rewind - Headline Set ...
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/colinmurray/tracklistingarchive.shtml?20070409 - 24k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this - Filter

BBC - Doctor Who - Episodes - 2007
2007 EPISODE GUIDE. Smith and Jones Judoon on the Moon. The Shakespeare Code The play's the thing. Gridlock Caught in a jam. ...
www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/index.shtml - 15k - 25 Apr 2007 - Cached - Similar pages - Note this - Filter

And looking at the catch for the page says that the words have been used to link to the episode guide, but don't appear within it.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:09 PM on April 26, 2007

Hmmm, Dr Who, eh? Based on the first few episodes of the new season, there's going to be some underlying theme about a politician named "Mr Saxon" (sorta like the "Big Bad Wolf" and "Torchwood" memes of the past two seasons).

There is one result for "VOTE SAXON + Frozen Indigo Angel". "Frozen Indigo Angel" is invisible text in one of the comments. And one of the comments has a pdf of a "VOTE SAXON" poster. You may be on to something.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:16 PM on April 26, 2007

That post would account for the link to the Doctor Who episode guide. Plus, Utopia is an episode title in the new series.

In addition:

http://frozenindigoangel.wordpress.com/

Whose single post includes the digits: 7001900OBW07 in an 'Antarctica' catagory.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:26 PM on April 26, 2007

It also has this:

32°F 450-420nm 78:25
FZGNGEL

32 fahrenheit is the freezing point of water - hence maybe frozen. "nm" is presumably nautical miles although not sure what 450-420 signifies. What about 78:25?
posted by greycap at 4:31 PM on April 26, 2007

Oh and http://frozenindigoangel.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/frozen-indigo-angel/

Which has a link to a Chris Moyles fan site and a set of co-ordinates.

32°F 450-420nm 78:25
posted by feelinglistless at 4:34 PM on April 26, 2007

And Psalms 78:25 reads "Man did eat the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance". So that's perhaps code for the angels bit. How does 450-420 make indigo? (Not that any of this gives anything more away than the original three words, but still).
posted by greycap at 4:35 PM on April 26, 2007

Right, 450-420 is code for indigo on a random US patent site. So the 32°F 450-420nm 78:25 is just spelling out Frozen Indigo Angels again in a different way.
posted by greycap at 4:36 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Here's the myspace for the guy whose got the words blanked out in his unofficialscottmills profile:

http://myspace.com/_timsk_

Features this YouTube clip based on Doctor Who:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXVQQw3FStA

So that could be a red herring.
posted by feelinglistless at 4:42 PM on April 26, 2007

450-420nm. Nanometers, people. Visible spectrum. Cute little game.
posted by phooky at 4:49 PM on April 26, 2007

Blair Witch meets the X-Files meets Doctor Who...

Didn't they already have an episode with a guy video blogging about the Doctor? The one with the girl who plays "Moaning Myrtle" in the Harry Potter movies?
posted by semifamous at 4:52 PM on April 26, 2007

Ah - thank you for filling in my scientific illiteracy.

The 7001900OBW07 string of characters may also yield something - could the OBW be occupied bandwith?
posted by greycap at 4:54 PM on April 26, 2007

That timsk person has also posted the words here.
posted by feelinglistless at 5:00 PM on April 26, 2007

Incidentally (and I asked Jessamyn before posting this) I found all this via a post at Off The Telly, a website I sometimes (though rarely) write for and which features an email that was sent to them by Paul Denchfield.
posted by feelinglistless at 5:05 PM on April 26, 2007

He's also digged it:

http://digg.com/users/TimskUK/news/dugg
posted by feelinglistless at 5:15 PM on April 26, 2007

As for FZGNGEL - if you take the letters FZGNGEL out of Frozen Indigo Angel, you get ROEINDIOA. Which is an anagram of Radio One I (or I Radio One, maybe).
posted by greycap at 5:15 PM on April 26, 2007

I could be reaching, but http://timsk.wordpress.com/ suggests that the timsk is called 'Tim Morley'

There's a Tim Morley at the BBC who is Head of Legal and Business Affairs, Drama and CBBC and responsible for: CBBC and CBeebies Business Issues.

That's assuming its the same man who writes the blog posting to the Scott Mills website. Interesting that the FIA blog and that blog are both on Wordpress.
posted by feelinglistless at 5:25 PM on April 26, 2007

There are a lot of Tim Morleys in the world.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Tim/Morley?trk=ppro_find_others
posted by feelinglistless at 5:29 PM on April 26, 2007

ARG.
posted by everichon at 5:30 PM on April 26, 2007

Actually I messed up that anagram - I missed out an N which remains. Which leaves "in radio one" which is perhaps not so neat.
posted by greycap at 5:33 PM on April 26, 2007

Genghis: I agree with the guy on your link. Denchfield is participating in a Viral. And it does, everichon, indeed look like they're combining soft ARG components into it. Someone has been reading Pattern Recognition.

All of Denchfield's sites are new. His flickr account has been set up to look like it has a variety of photos from a long history of posting, but all of them were taken during the same week and a half in 2002 with a sony Cybershot (are we to believe that he has a digicam, but only used it during a single week and a half?) (note: all photos were uploaded recently).
posted by honest knave at 5:59 PM on April 26, 2007

Indeed. I would heartily prefer it if the OP took this opportunity to go drink his Pepsi Blue elsewhere.
posted by genghis at 6:13 PM on April 26, 2007

YOU WILL SEE SUCH PRETTY THINGS
posted by OverlappingElvis at 6:29 PM on April 26, 2007

Did you folk not read ghengis's link?

You can quit investigating. The cat is out of the bag.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:43 PM on April 26, 2007

FFF wins it.
posted by rleamon at 7:21 PM on April 26, 2007

No, ghengis wins it. By leagues.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:52 PM on April 26, 2007

Did you folk not read ghengis's link?

Yes, I did read it - but there's a difference between who's behind this and working out some of the puzzles they've put in it.
posted by greycap at 11:39 PM on April 26, 2007

What greycap said. Although v. disappointed that I was taken in by Denchfield's story -- I thought I was more savvy.
posted by feelinglistless at 12:44 AM on April 27, 2007

there's a difference between who's behind this and working out some of the puzzles they've put in it.

Argh. Perhaps you'd like to click on some spam in your bulk mail folder now.
posted by dreamsign at 3:05 AM on April 27, 2007

I hear they're counting down to something big in Taos. You guys wanna check it out? Lemme know when you find something....
posted by grateful at 5:38 AM on April 28, 2007

Surprised you guys have abandoned this really...

Matt Deegan has more conjecture on his blog, there have been several further appearances of the phrase in audio/video and internet material from Radio 1 (including on emails to Radio 1's Big Weekend registrants - note OBW referenced above), and Paul Denchfield's blog has all gone a bit theatrical!
posted by Timsk at 12:08 PM on May 2, 2007

Yes, I suppose I should listen to Radio 1 far more often.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:10 PM on May 2, 2007

I don't know a whole lot about ARGs in general or this story in particular, but I just stumbled upon this post and thought I'd note that there seems to be some connection to Perplex City.

Guardian games blog
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:08 AM on May 21, 2007

Wikipedia
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:12 AM on May 21, 2007