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Markovian Parallax Denigrate is a series of hundreds of messages posted to Usenet in 1996. The messages, which appear to be gibberish, were all posted with the subject line "Markovian parallax denigrate".

The posts are often mentioned in conjunction with other bizarre and/or unsolved internet mysteries, such as Sad Satan, Cicada 3301, the Publius Enigma, and Unfavorable Semicircle. In 2012, Kevin Morris of The Daily Dot referred to the messages as "the Internet’s oldest and weirdest mystery". It has also been described as "one of the first great mysteries of the Internet".

In 2016, Susan Lindauer was mistakenly identified as a possible source of these posts; when contacted, she denied being the author. The Daily Dot article covering the event states that an e-mail account belonging to a University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point student coincidentally named Susan Lindauer was spoofed to cover the identity of the poster. Proposed explanations for the texts include an early experimental chatbot or text generator, an internet troll or prankster posting forum spam, or a programmer experimenting with Markov chains.

A later article on the subject published by The A.V. Club proposes the event only became a mystery due to later media coverage, having not been widely reported prior to the 2012 Daily Dot article. The same article notes that YouTuber Barely Sociable made a video about this topic in 2020, opining that the messages were most likely simple spam with no hidden message.

Example

This seemingly nonsensical message was posted to the board "alt.religion.christian.boston-church" in 1996:

jitterbugging McKinley Abe break Newtonian inferring caw update Cohen air collaborate rue sportswriting rococo invocate tousle shadflower Debby Stirling pathogenesis escritoire adventitious novo ITT most chairperson Dwight Hertzog different pinpoint dunk McKinley pendant firelight Uranus episodic medicine ditty craggy flogging variac brotherhood Webb impromptu file countenance inheritance cohesion refrigerate morphine napkin inland Janeiro nameable yearbook hark

See also

• List of famous ciphertexts
• Numbers station
• Webdriver Torso
• Unfavorable Semicircle

References

1. Dewey, Caitlin (2 May 2014). "Five of the Internet's eeriest, unsolved mysteries". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
2. ^ Förtsch, Michael (November 25, 2016). "Sieben ungelöste Rätsel des Internets" [Seven Unsolved Internet Mysteries]. Wired.de (in German). Archived from the original on 15 September 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
3. ^ Grundhauser, Eric (10 November 2017). "The Gibberish That Sparked One of the Internet's Oldest Unsolved Mysteries". Atlas Obscura. Archived from the original on 29 October 2020. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
4. ^ Morris, Kevin (November 2, 2012). "The Markovian Parallax Denigrate: Unraveling the Internet's oldest and weirdest mystery". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 11 September 2017. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
5. Privalov, Alexander (August 24, 2017). "Краткий курс истории спама". Popmech.ru. Archived from the original on 11 September 2017. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
6. ^ Paul, Andrew (12 March 2020). "Need a distraction? Help solve the Internet's oldest mystery, Markovian Parallax Denigrate". AV Club. Archived from the original on 25 October 2020. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
7. ^ Chris Brokerage (5 August 1996). "Markovian parallax denigrate". alt.religion.christian.boston-church. Archived from the original on 8 December 2021. Retrieved 5 May 2021 – via Google Groups.

• Usenet
• Works of unknown authorship
• Internet mysteries
• 1996 works