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Residents Find Cryptic Flyer in their Mailboxes

by Guest Contributor March 19, 2018

by Guest Contributor March 19, 2018 19 views

Residents Find Cryptic Flyer in their Mailboxes

Photo by James Steid

By: Adam Baron

Upon opening their mailboxes, residents typically receive a barrage of flyers and advertisements along with their regular mail. However, one strange flyer caught the attention of many people when it arrived Friday, via the U.S. Postal Service and, in light of recent events, caused some to be alarmed.

The four-page glossy pamphlet introduces itself with the word “M A’YE T” in big red letters. What follows is an almost entirely incomprehensible string of words that are interrupted by the seemingly random placement of apostrophes, slashes and parentheses around individual letters that give an encryption-like quality to the message. The piece does have many decipherable words: Words like “love” and “heaven” can be recognized although spelled like”(L)O’ve)” and “h ea.ven” All four pages of the mailer is covered in text: oddly altered words forming indecipherable sentences and paragraphs. Every square inch covered – with nary a picture.

So far, residents in both Parkland and Coral Springs have shared on social media that they have received the mysterious piece.

John Bresset, a resident of Meadow Run in Parkland was befuddled: “It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. When I didn’t see my name posted on it, I just figured it was sent to me by accident.”

Bresset doesn’t know how it ended up in his mailbox. “You can barely make out the postal permit which is how it was paid for. Maybe like one of those Wednesday coupon mailers we get when it is addressed only to resident. Only this had no address.”

So who sent it and what does it all mean? Well, the author certainly left enough clues as to the “who” part of the equation. The “why” is a different story.

The bottom of the last page references several websites which shows that Portland, Maine resident Angela Cook is most likely the author. Like the pamphlet, the websites also features the same inscrutable writing style. The websites are a true hodgepodge of links that lead down a rabbit hole of bizarreness. Some repost emails of people threatening legal action or the imposition of fines. Other links recount her brush with the court system. Other links have clippings of dictionary definitions of words. All the pages, to some degree or another, have that same indecipherable writing style.

But why would somebody go through the time and expense to send a practically inscrutable pamphlet to hundreds of residents in Parkland? A visit to Cook’s Youtube channel “xubrnt” offers some explanation. With hundreds of videos, her channel features long, meandering videos of her talking to the computer. In the background, one can see the modest apartment she inhabits with her dog who seems oblivious to her musings. The videos, some well in excess of an hour range in topics from the recounting of mundane daily events to her more agitated commentary on current events like guns in the classroom, to lengthy ramblings that defy understanding. All throughout feature her unique breaking down of the English language and reassembling the words to create other meanings.

We reached out to Cook as to what she was trying to say the residents of the area. Unfortunately, her series of replies to us were written in the same incomprehensible manner. Perhaps she felt the need to reach out to Parkland and Coral Springs residents in light of the recent tragedy. The message, unfortunately, was so obscured by the dense and bizarre wording that its meaning was largely lost on the recipients.

Adam Baron is a resident of Parkland, Florida and is an attorney for the Law Offices of Adam Baron specializing in workers’ compensation and personal injury.