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MEMOS

[Project Overview] WingMakers: Ancient Arrow Project

William Stevens
[Artifacts Chief Scientist
Overview]
Classified Document No. 021797-10X-L11

Language Analysis

Over the past six months, a research team consisting of our best linguistics
and decoding experts have painstakingly analyzed the available data from
the Ancient Arrow site looking for patterns that would enable us to
construct our translation indexes for the WingMakers' language, or
pictography.

Their wall paintings are clearly designed to convey a set of messages, and
we know believe that their purpose may be to facilitate the unlocking of the
optical disc, particularly since there appears to be no technological solution.
Hence our efforts have been to try and construct a translation index so we
can make some sense of the symbols and stories that are encoded within the
paintings themselves.

We also believe that the order of the paintings may have significance, so we
are carefully reconstructing what we believe to be the original ordering of
the 23 chambers. If the sequence is an important factor, and we believe it is,
then we need to carefully assess the order in which these chambers were
originally created. Presently, we have eight possible sequence scenarios for
their creation, and we are working to narrow that to two or three if possible.

The factors and relevant variables in our analysis are the following (in no
particular order of importance):

The wall painting's apparent story

The wall painting's symbols
The wall painting's colors and relative shapes
The wall painting's star patterns
The wall painting's geographical landmarks
The wall painting's subject matter
The wall painting's relative size
The wall painting's relative order in the 23 chambers
The wall painting's position on the chamber wall
The wall painting's relative distance from each other
The possible relationship between the wall painting and the artifacts
in the chamber
The possible relationship between the symbols within a particular
wall painting and the pictographs and petroglyphs painted or carved
around the Ancient Arrow site.

Each of these factors is being weighted for their relative importance and
impact in the design of our translation indexes. One thing that seems quite
certain is that nothing has been constructed arbitrarily in the AA site. All the
chambers, wall paintings, artifacts, pictographs, etc. seem to be designed as
part of a master plan, and we're operating under the assumption that this
master plan is a time capsule or communication bridge of some sort.

We are three months into the development of our translation indexes, and
our programming is proceeding smoothly. Our only glitch arises from the
number of variables, which places our odds statistically speaking at about 1
in 6.5 million. As you know, these aren't good odds, even with our WSX
technology. But the weighting of the translation indexes will at least enable
a priority ordering which will provide the focus we have, to date, lacked.

From my past memo, you'll remember that most of our efforts these past six
months were directed at the restoration of the site to its original condition.
After a thorough cleaning, the wall paintings are remarkable for their
brilliant color and detail, probably due to the arid environment and the fact
that the paint materials themselves are chemical compounds our scientists
have never seen. Presumably, these paints have superior, molecular bonding
properties. We assume they're a derivative technology from the
WingMakers.

Now that site restoration is complete, our efforts are 100% focused on
developing the translation software. We expect to be finished in
approximately 45-60 days. Once the software is ready, we'll begin the
process of elimination and priority weighting for the translation indexes.
With a little luck, we'll be ready to test our first programs in early May.
We're optimistic that our tests will prove successful in unlocking the optical
disc.

One note of caution, however, if we are successful in unlocking the disc and
acquiring its contents, we should not assume that our translation indexes
will be effective inside the disc. It is our hypothesis, that the translation
indexes to acquire the content will be different from the indexes required to
read the content. Obviously, this is speculation at this time, but I want to
manage your expectations a little bit; this could be a long decoding process.

For whatever reason, the WingMakers have encoded all of their

communication and set-up technology barriers that make it virtually
impregnable. I can't imagine what more we could do to acquire the content
from the disc, but as always, if any of you have suggestions, please forward
them to me.

That's it for now. Hope this memo finds you all in good health.