Watch the video again, even though you have watched it a hundred times before. Ignore the end credits. This is a bootlegged copy claiming some of the footage is shot in Japan, a theory disproved ten times over.
This clip was uploaded five times a week, every week for two years to a YouTube account named cvuufsnpvtf. It was this frequent uploading that got it some attention in the first place. Who was this person, and why did they upload the same video again and again?
Those with enough spare time examineD every frame. Cvuusers (as the became known) identified in days that half the footage as Bristol Zoo in the South West of England. But the other half, containing jellyfish and whale sharks in huge containers, did not match any institution across the globe. No zoo, aqua park or conservation centre could be identified.
Some discussed of a secret military base, or a privately funded science lab. People claimed some of those fish had human eyes. Those with physics degrees and jobs in engineering pointed out that light bent in mysterious ways, and that the buildings shouldn’t be able to stay standing. Others said the penguins’ feathers went the wrong way. Sound engineers cut the sound file to the shreds, and found that although the same music played through the whole clips, there was a ringing, blooping noise in the unknown clip that was unidentifiable. Like an alien whale.
Video artists pointed out that the footage was shot on two different devices, There were all sorts of digital errors that made the file unplayable outside the original upload, and impossible to recreate. A few months in, serious people in serious positions in serious companies declared the footage was from another world.
Nothing had been proven, but the newspapers ran with the extraterrestrial angle. Everything exploded to where we are today. Why bootlegs fill the digital shelves, and why there are hymns written to the tune of the music. Mosaics of every shot created from fragments of Florentine tile.
But for all this talk of what, we still don’t know why.