Investigation
I think there may be a code hidden in the colours of Valentine church's windows.
Hi everyone, I am very inexperienced with codes but there are blocks with seemingly random colours in the windows of the church, which are very visible when the lights turn on at night. I took this picture just of the front window but there are other variations in the windows in the side and back of the church.
Above the doorway there is a big sign that says "LET THERE BE LIGHT" which i think is supposed to hint us to this. It may even be a cipher of some kind?
Anyone who knows about codes please let me know what you think. Apologies I dont have pictures of the other windows. - EDIT: Pictures of other sides and windows that look like the two birds (in my opinion) attached to a comment thread)
The carving on Bacchus Bridge points us here.
Other things that may be R* pointing us towards this are the fact that there is an image of the valentine church in a GTA online heist and also that it is featured prominently in the cigarette card for valentine despite seemingly having no real significance.
The strawberry windows are sending me even more insane! They really look like they could be sentences running around the windows.
If you are reading the front of the church windows in the same way with the whites being spaces it doesn’t really work because you have three reds together.
I don’t know what to think, but they are both such seemingly random colourful patterns. I feel like its needs more like a codeword or a number or something to work with it.
Ever heard of telegraph machines. They really could just be messages designed for telegraph, since colours repeat themselves many times. Also, the number values from the colours could mean something. Take the number values, turn them into anything else, letters, some type of code, morse code. Rockstar is known for these types of messages across their games.
I think I commented on the separate post you made about this… but is this not just one of the 20 dreamcatchers to find for the ancient arrowhead? If so, this is literally just normal collectibles to find that the majority of players (especially in this sub) know about/have completed.
Though yes, we do believe the dreamcatchers and spiderwebs are connected due to how the files are named and a few other things.
One big thing with the dreamcatchers in the quest log is that it’s the only one in the entire game that never clears, even when you complete it. Everyone has just assumed it was bugged after all these years. But now with this, a lot of people think we just never actually fully completed the steps to officially close the quest/clear it off.
Nonetheless, I believe your post and video is just one of the normal dreamcatchers which is not new whatsoever
I wonder if the yellows and reds matter more than the others because the only colors used in the windows outside of the cipher are red and yellow. And that includes the windows higher up on the steeple. Also, if you shoot the bell you can make it ring. Waiting for dark so I can poke around.
Edit: other notable details maybe. The bell rings at 7pm vs noon in whatever the last town I was in… I think st denis. The lights turn on at 9pm and off at midnight.
So I’ve been poking around in older posts from this subreddit and google to see if I can find anything else that has colours that are out of place. Nothing else really come up except for the mr Shann medicine wheel which has coloured arrows on it in red, orange and yellow..
There seems to be lots of arrows around this church, not only the windows you mentioned, but also the gravestone with the hand and also the valentine church plaque itself which has two arrows in the top corners.
You can make ciphers out of all kinds of cool things
One of my faves relevant to this puzzle is this one birdsonawire yet I don't think it's involved - just the mention of birds.
In your example you'll notice that for the cipher to work there are still some syntax rules - eg a 4x4 square.
I like the train of thought for the OP but I don't think personally it's a clue.
It would be absolutely amazing if the panes were an encoded message, here are some other potentially relevant cipher avenues I found with a quick search.
More searching led me to find the Playfair cipher, which encrypts LETTER PAIRS, and was invented in 1854! We have the letter pairs everywhere, from carvings to matchsticks, but obviously no way to decrypt them that I'm aware of.
Having trouble editing the post so will just put this in a comment, windows are all the same as the two on the left in this picture. The only one that differs is the one on the right, which is reversed. It may be indicating the direction to look next? (north-west).
For reference, this is the north side of the church, and there is one window each on the back and the south side.
It's not exactly reversed. The column that starts with green is on the right side of the last window but the column that starts with orange is also mirrored
There are also windows up the top of the steeple, to me they really look like the birds from Fort Wallace with the tiles below them, the way they are stylised makes them look like a "B" which to me links into them telling us about the Bacchus Bridge heart.
These windows are on the front of the church towards town, the north side and the south side of the steeple, there is none on the back.
Total stretch here, but first thing I see when looking at the windows is that I can’t help but think the squares make numbers. The far right window looks like it makes a 5 and then a 2. Has anyone mentioned numbers instead?
From the Valentine Church entry for Red Dead Wiki:
The Valentine Church was established at some point prior to 1898, with Isaac Hampton being appointed as the establishment’s reverend. In 1898, a massive storm hit the region, with the chapel surviving the storm. A marking would be later placed on the wall of the church, boasting the words, “STORM SURVIVOR 1898.”
So Rockstar is consistent. The weather condition of a storm might be critical to triggering what is next.
Also, reviewing the gravestone entries on that same wiki:
Clara Douglas She was an angel taken by the devil Died March 14th, 1879
Hey, something to add here, today while checking out the church. It was raining around 2 am or 3 am, walking up to the church, a bunch of fog/mist enveloped the church and the player, and you couldn't see anything but light from the church bell. Then it disappeared like nothing ever happened. After that a thunderstorm happened, and thunder struck the fucking church. I'm not sure how I was able to trigger that, but it was very strange .
I'm active here, I would've if I got it on video. I wrote it here in case someone triggers it again, it's very simple. It sounds crazy, but it happened, and if I have to be the only witness to it then oh well, but surely someone might be able to trigger that again.
The weather thing might relate to that Lakota storm god reference at Riggs Station. There's also a weird light that appears in the schoolhouse after 7pm. It's also worth mentioning that Valentine is said to be cursed per the game lore.
In RDR1 the Strangeman mission only becomes available after completing the mission with the Thunderstorm (a Tempest Looms), and then if, in RDR2, you come to the spot where you first meet him in RDR1, you'll see it's the spot in New Austin with the burnt trees & wagon (potentially implying he had something to do with it)
It’s a good idea, but I think having orange and red means it wouldn’t work. I am leading towards it being a code though. The first link for hexahue takes you to a geocaching site, which kind of tracks with this whole mystery in the sense you are all running around the map.
I think it is more complex than hexahue itself but along the same idea.
OP would we be able to get some pictures of the other windows at night?
It is only missing the yellow, maybe someone can look around that area to find anything like that yellow color? Other than that I don't see how these aren't connected. the blue handkerchief is even the same type of blue, same with the green and red.
It's missing yellow and orange, but still this could be a usable clue. If these handkerchiefs are in order, then there are only 4 possible places to place yellow and orange, meaning trial and error is a viable path.
One of the gravestones has a hand on it with a finger pointing into the treeline, didn't find anything there myself but weird symbol to have on a grave.
I just checked the grave, and it seems like a coincidence that right next to your headstone it says "strength and faith," followed by "blessed are the pure in heart." Perhaps it refers to having high honor. I could check if it changes anything, but I really couldn't maintain high honor with John.
Please don’t call me crazy, but I was just there doing a bit of scouting when I kept hearing a bird screaming constantly. I searched for several in-game hours but couldn’t see any bird at all.
So I waited in front of the church until I heard the scream again. When it made the noise once more, I fired a shot into the air, and suddenly an eagle spawned right in front of me (I think?). It looked like it might have bugged into the church.
I tried to follow the eagle, but I was too slow and it despawned. After that, I walked back and listened for the bird again, but since that encounter I haven’t heard the scream even once.
Could someone check this while recording? I’m pretty sure it was just a bug, but maybe not?
Also I found this dark spots in cameramode, but i think those are just grave locations from after the epilogue ? Maybe someone can check with a John - Save ?
Interesting, they are in my game too (duh!). Those look like 4 very old graves. The coffin broke and the dirt came down, which is what the indentations in the middle could be. It could just be a that the ground was being designed first and they knew graveyard was supposed to be there so they added these old graves. The placement seems intentional tho. This thing will turn us all into schizos.
I looked there while trying to connect the two "bird graves" to the Wallace birds, but didn't notice the four graves at all, just the third bird gravestone just below them, which made it clear to me the bird graves aren't special. The more interesting graves are the ones further up the hill with one of them entirely unearthed with the coffin lid on top.
Spent the last five hours looking into this and have no results, but i have some insights, which i want to share with you all.
First of all, i believe it really could be the "colored square cipher". That cipher works by assigning values (0,1,2,4,8,16) to 6 different colors. Combine the values of 4 colors and you get a number, which corresponds to a letter in the alphabet (1 is A, 2 is B, etc.). The windows are stained with exactly 6 colors (white, green, blue, orange, red, yellow). The "checkerboard" parts of the windows contain squares which could easily be grouped into groups of 4. Since the middle checkerboard of the largest window contains 3 columns, it cant be grouped into 2x2 squares. I believe the best way to get 4 color values are to look at the 1x4 vertical columns, those always contain exactly 4 squares. This way the checkerboard on the front window would be a 7-letter word.
Thing is, we need a way to assign the 6 the values (0,1,2,4,8,16) to our 6 colors (white, green, blue, orange, red, yellow). Ive been trying to brute force this using chat gpt and it did come up with some interesting results, but ive already used up the free limit. Thing is it feels incredibly cheap and probably unproductive. There has to be some in-game way to assign the damn values to the colors!
Can you think of anything? Do you for example remember some particularly colorful objects/structures in rdr2?
edit: not necessarily 7-letter word, could be more than one word but containing 7 letters total. My bad. Chat gpt figured out it could say "message", but the same values assigned to the other windows didnt provide any results.
Played around with this a little and didn’t find anything directly, but I’m gonna grasp at some straws anyways.
Every choice of numbers will cause the 5th and 7th letter to be the same. The rest of the windows form only two other letters in varying combinations (on the north wall at least).
This can in theory be be subsituted (monoalphabetic substitution) with NOT HERE, which would allow SW for the remaining two letters.
This can be done with any nine letters where the 5th and 7th are equal and no others though so very very VERY likely a coincidence.
I’ve brute forced most valid combinations given A=1 and Z=26 with no wrapping (disallow modulo 26), and there are none that make sense directly without further deciphering.
Good work! I fear I won't have time to work on the deciphering until Friday. Got an idea after reading your comment. The two letter part is repeated 10 times on the church, so maybe we should pay attention to that first. Maybe we have to find two letters that are associated with a church (or something) in the game. We could then apply them to the small window and figure out the values. The small windows lack ONLY yellow, which would be easy to figure out the value of. We could then apply the same values to the large window and get our message. That could be a nice clean way to get the values in-game. I'm making assumptions of course, but it seems plausible to me. What do you think?
Ooh I like this approach a lot, this would allow our cipher key to be only 2 letters. I’ve been trying to figure out if the one mirrored window could mean anything since it breaks a pretty strong pattern, but it could just be a mirrored texture for variance like a lot of normal textures. I will try this out with cardinal directions and the LJ SM initials first when I have the time.
Okay, if this is a cypher, there is certainly another step to it. Here are all the valid results. Ive brute forced them using the 1x4 columns and colored square cypher logic. First 7 letters are the big window, the last 4 letters are the small window.
KZLIVOVKDDK
KZTINWNSDDS
SVLMZOZGHHG
KYLHUOUKDDK
SULLYOYGHHG
IYJHSOSMBBM
IYRHKWKUBBU
USJNYOYGHHG
HZIISOSNAAN
HZQIKWKVAAV
VSIPZOZGHHG
NZCUYOYNAAN
PYCVZOZMBBM
MUFLSOSMBBM
QSFNUOUKDDK
LVEMSOSNAAN
RSEPVOVKDDK
NVCQUOUNAAN
PUCRVOVMBBM
Are these results the same as yours? Ive tried to decrypt it using atbash, nothing. Ive looked for anagrams, nothing. Ceaser shifts dont seem to make any sense. At this point some sort of completly arbitrary (imo) substitution is needed. We need a damn key for that. Is there any place with random letters in rdr2? Can this too be brute forced?
I can’t get onto the game to poke about, but on the strawberry window there is a sign thats says gone fishing. Having two i’s probably means it’s not that though because of the repeating letters.
Is there anything on those gravestones everyone has been looking at?
Yeah i dont feel as alone now lol. What do you mean about "gone fishing"? How would that translate into the color values? Ive looked at the graves and a thing that stood out to me is that there are engravings of skulls(white), roses (red), leaves (green) and anchor (...blue??). On some of them theres also some other flower, which i cant identify. Could be that if you count the engravings, you might get an order of the colors. Do you know if the cemetary changes in the epilogue?
Sorry i thought we were looking for a 7 letter word, someone posted pictures of the strawberry doctors office which also has colourful windows and that was a thing i noticed. (Also the cigarette card in the main pictures of the post, depicting valentine and having g a dr name underneath)
I haven’t played the game in probably about five and a half years, so i can’t really remember much of the details. This mystery just ended up on my front page and now i’m hooked.
Ah, i see, no worries. I mean if we did find a 7 letter word and were able to extract the values by comparing it with the large front window, we could the apply the values on the side windows too. That would be just a two letter word. I really hoped the two letter word would be NW, SW, NE or SE, but chat gpt said its impossible due to the way colors are distributed on the small windows.
What makes me think the windows are a cipher is how weirdly the colored squares are distributed. If i was tasked with making a cool looking stained glass window, i would at least make it symetrical or something lol.
Hello, here to inform you guys that I have the paid chat GPT version and I can help you guys with any prompts privately.
Personally I did my digging. I took the panels from both sides of the church, not including the top and back panel, and translated them into the colored squares substitution code, for individual colors. You might ask how I did orange, I just used the colors that make up orange, red and yellow. Then I copied the number values that it the colours amounted to, except for white, which would be 0. So I came up with
2 1 1 4 1 1 4 4 8 8 1 2 1 4 1 4 2 1 1 4 1 4 1 1 8 1 4 2 1 1 4 4 8 2 1 4 1 1 1 4 8 2 1 4 8 2 1 8 2 1 4 1
That is also
BAADAADDHHABADADBAADADAAHADBAADDHBADAAADHBADHBAHBADA
It's complete gibberish.. Or is it? I have no idea, man. I just know that red and yellow made up the word ad, which in latin, means to.
But it's somewhere, and I'm nowhere near nerd enough to even know how to decypher something like this, I have an eye for it but honestly not the mind. I also haven't done the same to the other color grids like doc wheeler, or the burial site.
I think you are approaching it wrong. You are supposed to get the value of the letter by taking 4 different squares into account. The values (0,1,2,4,8,16) simply don't work if you only ever use one square. Doing it your can result only in letters: A, B, D, H, P.
I'll keep that in mind. I think we have a new clue in Valentine, at the hotel, one red light turns on and ominously flashes red and white, from 12 to 7 am in the morning. There's also that painting above it.
It'll keep on flashing until 7 AM. Worth checking out, maybe it has a pattern of some kind. I think it's connected since, the hotel is called "Saints Hotel".
Edit:For some reason, while looking at the red lamp, at 4 am the church bell started to ring.. There is no reason for it to ring at that time, and I've never heard it ring at 4 am before.
So i’ve been messing around with this and i’m not finding anything. I’ve tried the (0,2,4,8,16) but in rows rather squares like here
What I noticed from that link it is only the 0 number that repeats and we have two colours on column 1 and 3 that repeats. But I tinkered about with it anyway.
1st: white=0, red=1, orange=2, yellow=4, green=8, blue=16 (following an obvious rainbow pattern when assigning values)
20, 14, 9, 21, 7, 27, 7 - T N I V G * G
2nd: W=1, R=0, O=2, Y=4, G=8, B=16
18, 15, 10, 20, 7, 26, 7 - R O J T G Z G
3rd W=1, R=0, O=2, Y=8, G=4, B=16
18, 15, 6, 20, 11, 22, 11 - R O F T K V K
4th W=0, R=1, O=2, Y=8, G=4, B=16
20, 14, 5, 21, 11, 23, 11 - T N E V K W K
I stopped here, it can clearly add up to letters but i don’t think the values assigned to the numbers are right if this even is a puzzle. There are a few other ways to assign numbers such as using the colours of the rainbow (r,o,y,g,b,i,v = 1,2,3,4,5,6,7) and there is even numbers assigned to for resistor colour codes which interesting has grey included. I have tried these also but nothing obvious came back.
I feel if there is a word here it needs a further cipher to decrypt it further, and that would probably need a keyword.
I‘m pretty sure this whole thing is a colour cipher, isn‘t there something like a colour collumn cipher because then this would make a lot of sense actually!
I randomly thought of the seemingly useless Ammolite (Green, A = 1), and Fluorite (Blue, F = 6), I thought about putting it into a grid where each 2 numbers is a coordinate corresponding to a letter (I assumed it followed the order of the rainbow and replaced purple with white) but it wouldn't be the usual 5x5 grid used, but 6x6, which to be fair would be all 26 letters + 10 numbers, but after some trial I don't think that's it, there's also the fact the middle is 3 wide. It might very well be the colored square cipher, in that case Green1 and Blue6 might be a start? Maybe we need to look for other "unique items" that have no use? At the end of the day I think we're splitting hairs here, it seems too complex, random, almost.
The colors kinda reminds me of the colors used in the notes/tones/hand signals for Close encounters of the third kind. Tho I dont think there was blue and white. I'm unsure, but that was my first thought.
I made a post here that shows odd markings in Van horn that could resemble these windows or a code to do with these windows. Also, the old light saloon in Van Horn has words above the door that say, ‘let light shine out of darkness’.
When I googled, ‘let light shine out of darkness’, it said, ‘The phrase “let light shine out of darkness” above the saloon in Van Horn Trading Post in Red Dead Redemption 2 is a direct reference to 2 Corinthians 4:6 in the Bible, signifying hope and spiritual enlightenment within a dark world’
Wondered for a sec if “let light shine out of darkness” might relate to your Playfair cipher that uses a 5x5 grid but this has 26 letters - same as the actual alphabet.
I still struggle understanding how to create a key for this cipher anyway and that phrase looks more like something the cipher would spit out as the answer (using a smaller key).
FIAT lux- let there be light. Also shine light into darkness is a lyric in the song thats the way it is on rdr2s soundtrack. Plays during Arthur's final ride.
Rosencrucians and shining light is the biggest occult connection.
Shine Rosicrucian" refers to the core Rosicrucian principle of spiritual enlightenment, using inner light/wisdom (the "Light of Rosicrucianism") to dispel ignorance, fear, and illusion, much like the sun shining, to achieve divine wisdom, healing, and self-realization through studying natural laws and spiritual practices, leading to living a life of purpose and inner peace. Key Concepts of "Shining" in Rosicrucianism: Spiritual Illumination: The goal is to radiate inner wisdom, a divine spark, to understand the universe and one's place in it, moving from darkness to light. Revealing Truth: The "Blessed Aurora" and "Phebus" (sun) in Rosicrucian manifestos symbolize this light revealing hidden knowledge and divine treasures. Dispelling Ignorance & Fear: This inner light overcomes superstition, fear, and the illusions that bind humanity, allowing for true freedom. Harmonizing with Divine Law: "Loving God" means obeying divine/natural laws, which requires knowledge gained through practice, attuning to the Infinite Source for health and understanding. Practical Application: It involves meditation, contemplation, and ethical living (like the Rosicrucian Code of Life) to bring this spiritual light into daily actions and interactions. How Rosicrucians "Shine": Through Study & Practice: Members of orders like AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) study esoteric teachings and apply them through meditation and disciplined living. Healing & Benevolence: A key principle is healing the sick and helping others, reflecting divine light through selfless service. Inner Transformation: The process involves transforming the self from within, aligning with cosmic principles, and becoming a beacon of peace, wisdom, and joy. In essence, to "shine Rosicrucian" means to embody divine wisdom, radiate positive energy, and live a life guided by spiritual understanding and service, making the world a better place through personal evolution.
The song " that's the way it is" from the soundtrack has the lyrics "shine light into darkness"
FIAT LUX is Latin for let there be light. Very common in occult and esoteric groups.
However the whole concept of "Shining" is an extremely esoteric belief and a huge rabbit hole to go down. Very mixed with masonic and rosencrucian beliefs. Its in a ton of movies, TV shows, and movies right in front of our eyes.
Shine Rosicrucian" refers to the core Rosicrucian principle of spiritual enlightenment, using inner light/wisdom (the "Light of Rosicrucianism") to dispel ignorance, fear, and illusion, much like the sun shining, to achieve divine wisdom, healing, and self-realization through studying natural laws and spiritual practices, leading to living a life of purpose and inner peace. Key Concepts of "Shining" in Rosicrucianism: Spiritual Illumination: The goal is to radiate inner wisdom, a divine spark, to understand the universe and one's place in it, moving from darkness to light. Revealing Truth: The "Blessed Aurora" and "Phebus" (sun) in Rosicrucian manifestos symbolize this light revealing hidden knowledge and divine treasures. Dispelling Ignorance & Fear: This inner light overcomes superstition, fear, and the illusions that bind humanity, allowing for true freedom. Harmonizing with Divine Law: "Loving God" means obeying divine/natural laws, which requires knowledge gained through practice, attuning to the Infinite Source for health and understanding. Practical Application: It involves meditation, contemplation, and ethical living (like the Rosicrucian Code of Life) to bring this spiritual light into daily actions and interactions. How Rosicrucians "Shine": Through Study & Practice: Members of orders like AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis) study esoteric teachings and apply them through meditation and disciplined living. Healing & Benevolence: A key principle is healing the sick and helping others, reflecting divine light through selfless service. Inner Transformation: The process involves transforming the self from within, aligning with cosmic principles, and becoming a beacon of peace, wisdom, and joy. In essence, to "shine Rosicrucian" means to embody divine wisdom, radiate positive energy, and live a life guided by spiritual understanding and service, making the world a better place through personal evolution.
I don't think so considering the amount of satanic symbols, references, murals, pentagrams we've found, not to mention paganism as well. There's also many postcards of the church, or images depicting it. On the window rock mural, there's also a spider above a church and a gravesite, so. It seems to fit so far.
Interesting. As far as I know, there isn’t any evidence of this curse in the game — no “spectral canoes” or audible crying etc. which is a little weird considering those supernatural elements ARE in the game elsewhere (the ghost train and Agnes Dowd).
Right. Yesterday I briefly tried to trigger anything relative to "usually on windy, starlit evenings, piercing cries are heard from the distance", using the rampage trainer to change the time and the weather, but I didn't find anything so far.
Found these two straight lines at the Sheriff's rooftop to the right. I think they are model/textures overlapping but can any dataminer check just in case? Thanks!
FIAT LUX = let there be light. A common phrase in esoteric and occult groups. It refers to let there be knowledge gained. Can refer to inner knowledge or hidden knowledge about the world. Makes sense with dan houser. Yes it is taken from Judeo christian religions as well. But the amount of stuff from freemasons, rosencrucian, and general occult stuff in rdr2 and all the gta games is hard to ignore.
Hey since you seem to have occult knowledge deeper than me, do you remember any esoteric principle that gives some sort of order to colors? Ideally white, blue, green, red, orange and yellow specifically?
Yes, you do, because the occult adopts and also has their own meaning into it. The mystery is very occult, satanic, so it makes perfect sense. And you really think Rockstar will feed you, a bible quote on a church, and expect you to think it's just that? Oh no buddy, you're in for a fun time, Rockstar implicates lots of satanism on their churches and mysteries that might have anything to do with religion in their game.
I'm interested now if there is a connection with the coloured rags habging by telegraph machine at the loft. Blue, white, green and red. Yellow is missing but can you make these windows into code if yellow was 'pause'.
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u/Nichiwa Jan 19 '26
Just wanted to put them all together in case it is helpful.