r/RDR2mysteries

I saw this video https://youtu.be/P3vCYDFrt1g?is=iJF-5jGQ5fm2fvgY and thought about doing this and this looks interesting sorry for the horrible quality

Four sidewire poles found so far. New Austin has not been checked as of yet. Keep watch

This is a specific marking/signature. The one on the mountainside is way NW out of bounds and the pole with the same markings is in bounds. I like it. Keep watch. The truth is out there way out there...

I was thinking what if the numbers Gertrude was saying was some type of Morse code ?? but encrypted that u put on the machine and lead u to another code with a secret message, I try using AI to make the 3 first line into a morse code, if anyone can try this out and see what happens I would appreciate, if there’s any updates please let me know

I was finishing a mission and I stopped to check a destroyed house that was there, I am curious, so I started to check it and saw that there were many things written and numbers, does anyone know what they mean?

This pile of rocks is found at the end of a path and are largely out of place. Do do not match the surrouding terrain and as you get closer, this happens.

Could the "Pareidolia" that people see, be a more subtle versions of this?

Maybe we all see different things, at different times, based on our equiped weapons and clothing... Making it nearly impossible for us to agree on what is seen and where.

Willy Wonka

The more I think about it, the more I think the Strange Man is basically Red Dead's Willy Wonka.

Not literally, obviously. But he's the guy who built the fucking place.

Wonka doesn't spend the whole movie chasing Charlie around explaining shit. He builds the factory, hides secrets everywhere, sets up a bunch of moral tests, then just sits back and watches people expose themselves. The factory isn't about chocolate—it's about character.

That's exactly what Red Dead feels like.

If the Strange Man is God, or Rockstar, or whatever the hell you want to call him, then the entire map is his chocolate factory. Every random encounter, every mystery, every hidden cabin, every morality choice—it was all built before Arthur or John ever showed up. He's not telling you what to do. He's watching what you choose to do when nobody's forcing your hand.

Even the way he dresses feels intentional. He's clean. Old-fashioned. Completely out of place. Like he walked in from another story. Wonka has that same weird energy where you can't quite tell if he's the nicest guy you've ever met or the creepiest motherfucker in the room.

And that's the Strange Man. He never threatens you. He never really helps you either. He just... knows.

Agent Smith

Then you've got Agent Smith.

Most people compare the Strange Man to Neo or the Oracle, but honestly I think Smith is the more interesting comparison.

Smith isn't just one dude. He's the Matrix defending itself. Any random person walking down the street can suddenly become Smith because they're all connected to the same system.

Now think about Red Dead.

Arthur and John are different because they're us. They're the player. They're the only people capable of questioning the world they're in. Everybody else is just running their programming.

The world is constantly pushing back against you like it's trying to keep itself stable. The Strange Man almost feels like the consciousness behind that system. Not because he's possessing people like Smith does, but because he exists above the rules everyone else is trapped inside.

He's one of the only characters who feels like he knows this isn't just another world. It's a game.

Christof - The Truman Show

Christof doesn't hate Truman.

He loves him.

He created his entire world.

Every sunrise. Every storm. Every actor. Every coincidence. Every obstacle Truman ever faced was placed there by somebody sitting outside the set.

That's exactly how I see the Strange Man.

He isn't John or Arthur's enemy.

He's the fucking director.

He's the guy behind the camera.

He already knows how the story ends because the story was finished before you ever picked up the controller.

That's why his conversations feel so weird. He's talking to Arthur and John like somebody who's already read the last page of the book.

If the Strange Man represents Rockstar themselves, then every time he shows up it's almost like the developers stepping into their own game for a minute to remind you there's somebody behind the curtain pulling the strings.

Inception and the Dream Quest

This is where the Dream Quest idea really started for me.

Dreams don't make sense while you're in them.

Your subconscious grabs memories, guilt, fears, symbols, random people you've seen once, and somehow mashes all that shit together into something that feels completely real until you wake up.

Red Dead works exactly like that.

The Strange Man shouldn't exist... but he does.

His painting changes by itself.

Arthur dreams about a stag or a coyote depending on who he's becoming.

People say impossible things.

You find cabins that don't really have answers, only more questions.

It's dream logic.

The game constantly asks you to stop thinking literally and start thinking symbolically.

That's how dreams work.

And if Red Dead really is a Dream Quest, then the Strange Man isn't just another mystery to solve.

He's the dreamer... or maybe he's the guide leading us through someone else's dream.

The thing I keep coming back to is that none of these comparisons have to be intentional.

Rockstar could've pulled inspiration from Willy Wonka, The Matrix, The Truman Show, Inception... maybe even other stories I'm not thinking of.

Or maybe they didn't.

That's almost beside the point.

What matters is that they all share the same archetype: the person outside the world who's somehow still inside it. The one who already knows the ending. The one who built the rules but almost never explains them.

Whether you see the Strange Man as God, Death, the Devil, Fate, or Rockstar Games themselves, they all are the same thing. And end up pointing to the same place.

He isn't just another character in the game.

He's the one who built the fucking board.

Right next to where the last question mark was found I noticed what initially thought was kinda bird shaped or more pterodactyl shaped but then once I looked at it for abit I then thought it also looks extremely similar to an arrow head maybe 🤷 just thought I'd share this incase no one else had caught this already

The second image is done with the camera mode in RED DEAD. There is no filter used.

There is a place in New Austin, at the right time of night, in the right weather, when you take out tbe camera it will automatically have this blue filter thing you see in the second picture.

Coincidentally, it can look a lot like this mural.

Update: This ended up being nothing, just a texture pattern, leaving the post for historical reference in case somebody questions if this is part of the mystery. Photo in the comments.

Asset name: roa_rock_03

Coordinates on map: 5.224, -0.884, 1.858

---

Original Post:

Chapter 6 mission "Icarus and Friends" you can see the carving in this video at 18:02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOc7CTrTFbQ . Location in the comments.

Hi! Continuing on from my earlier post here - exploring the idea that the "2 Birds" clue is a lot more abstract than leading us to exactly 2 birds in the game (or Two Crows, or 2 gravestones with birds on them, etc.). It's been about 6 months and no bird-related clues have seemed to lead to anywhere concrete.

When playing through Chapter 6 recently Dutch says this idiom while talking to Arthur -"Some good honest conflict between the army and the Indians might be just the distraction we need. Kill two birds with one stone." The use of the term in relation to the army (Fort Wallace) and the Indians (feathers, dream catchers) stood out to me.

The Stone Hatchet was a RDR2 promotional item in GTA Online, which can only be accessed in RDR2 by playing through some bounty missions, and then completing the 25 kills challenge. This will unlock the Stone Hatchet found at the Native Burial site and earn the player $250,000 (not sure if the numbers 2,5 or 25 are relevant here...)

I'm not a GTA Online player, so I'm unsure if this weapon is still accessible in GTA Online and can be carried over to RDR2 in 2026. If it is, I think we should try to acquire it and interact with the webs with it (throwing the hatchet in different patterns at the webs).

Other notes / thoughts:

• The Stone Hatchet was originally in the Compendium in RDR2, but was removed in in 2020 (Update 1.21)
• Some webs have 1 feather, while others have 2 (could represent the ones we need to hit). 2 Webs spawn at 2am.
• Hitting the feathers with a throwable allows you to easily find them on the ground.
• Madam Nazar also has a line in GTA Online which I think we all know by now is: ***"***I see a web, still tangled after years of unraveling. Will you be the one, I wonder?" - could connect this mystery to GTA Online further
• If the spider web mystery was originally revealed by a mysterious dev, could it be they started planting the seeds before GTA 6 was released, especially since this mystery is related to GTA Online?

TL;DR - does any have the capabilities to bring the stone hatchet into RDR2 from GTA Online, and test it out on the webs?

The last mission of chapter 1 "glitched", all the lanterns were unlit(no light). I have it on stream

I got to chapter 2 and its like theyre following me..?

(Still have the 🌟 next to "Story Mode")

In the mission A Rage Unleashed, Dutch says this to Arthur on their way to the horses on the Vanhorn boat:

"Some good honest conflict between the army and the Indians might be just the distraction we need. Kill two birds with one stone."

A reference to both the Indians and the army here is worth pointing out, as the Spider web "dream catcher" mystery leads us to Fort Wallace, with the two birds carving.

This mission also has interesting spawns - you will always ride by a fox overlooking a small ledge, and a man chasing 3 boars over a bridge.

Maybe something else is hiding within this mission, or should we maybe take Two Birds to = One Stone?

I was watching a video about all the choices you could make in the I Know You RDR1 side mission and I tought maybe the Strange Man are multiple souls or people in body, the Strange Man says things to John like he knows him from all over the place

(''I Know you from Mexico, and I know you from back out West I know you from all over!'').

This could mean that every singe person that John murders manifests into the Strange Man. This could explain why the Strange Man said that he cant remember his name, there is a lot of names, he cant die because he is already dead, he says he's an accountant, he accounts every soul John kills. He says that John doesn't remember Heidi McCourt's face and that he is forgetting about a lot of people, those people are the people murdered by John. He also said

''We have to stop meeting like this John''

( 10:40 of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Ky_9Ljpxo )

Dutch also says that in his last encounter with John before dying so this could make sense, Dutch's soul joined the Strange Man. He also talks to John strangely, he sometimes calls John

friend or old friend

many times which seems normal but if we follow this theory we could see that someone there who knows him very well is telling him this, he said

''You kill people so easily, yet you respect the vows of marriage. That's very curious''

which also looks normal until you see

''You kill people so easily''

representing all the souls trapped in Strange Man talking to John. The Strange Man is like a grim reaper but he keeps the souls. What if these souls are vengative souls

(John : I'll let the appropiate authorities judge my morality, friend

Strange Man : Yes, you will and they shall. )

they shall, these are the souls that will judge John's morality, Strange Man also say that John is famous from killing a lot of banditos, these banditos are Strange Man, Everyone whose death was provocated by John is the Strange Man. If you analyse the video

( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Ky_9Ljpxo )

you will notice a lot of these similarities. Those are vengative souls that took vengeance on John Marston after he shot the Strange Man 3 times condemning the life of Uncle, Abigail and Himself, John. He shot the Strange Man just where his grave would be. Maybe if John listened to Arthur's advice

(Revenge is a fool's game)

he could have reedemed himself, but instead he went to hunt Micah. Not knowing that he was hunting himself too.

About RDR2, as many people know there is a cabin in this game which is full of weird stuff and a painting, this painting will slowly evolve into a Strange Man portrait, that you can only see as John (I believe) and when this portrait is finished if you go into first person and look yourself into the mirror, the Strange Man will be there right behind you, you cant touch him, you cant shoot him, he is only a reflection, a reflection in John's back, a permanent reflection of every kill John will make from that point forward (since he killed Micah and got a revenge), this could represent that the Strange Man will start collecting these souls and watching every single step that John makes. And if you screenshot this cabin and look at the screenshot in Rockstar Social Club, the screenshot will be named

''Serial killer''

This is probably how all the souls inside the Strange Man look at John, as a reckless serial killer. The RDR1 side missions is called

''I Know You''

Because the Strange Man has been watching John for all those years, the Strange Man knows everything about him, because of the souls.

This is all I have to say for my theory, thanks for reading.

I found earlier this weird intersection point way outside the map bounds, where lines connecting pairs of interesting things intersect. The only common feature of these pairs seem to be that the other one is an incomplete version of the other one within the pair.

The lines are:

• Pike's Basin and Cotorra Springs (same shape, the other one has water, the other one does not)
• Limpany and Brush Fire (burned areas, the other one has buildings, the other one does not)
• Heart Carvings near Flatneck Station and Bacchus Bridge
• Cock weathervanes in Braithwaite Boathouse and Guthrie Farm (otherwise identical but the farm one is missing it's legs)
• Pair of Pagan Symbol Trees

After digging into my more recent idea of drawing a big pentagram on the map, I think I figured out the meaning of this intersection point and I also think that I have found all the pairs/lines.

I thought that this intersection point is the north corner of a pentagram (and it kind of is) but instead these five lines each reveal a theme for one of the actual pentagram corners we need to draw on the map.

There is another north corner for the pentagram below this one, and that will make the Pentagram look like the one you get by connecting the Butcher Creek outhouses with lines on the map : a pentagram with "a small head".

The themes that are already confirmed and I found the corresponding pentagram corners are:

• Fire (from Limpany - Brushfire). This is the theme for the North corner of the pentagram (this will explain the Furnace in the middle of Cumberland forest)
• Wood carvings (from Heart carvings). This is the theme for the Northeast corner of the pentagram (this is where the bird carvings will come into play, and it also seems to explain the fertility statues)
• Compasses (from the Pagan symbols, that apparently are compass symbols of sorts). This is the theme for the Southeast corner of the pentagram

The remaining corners (NW, SW) I have not found yet and I don't know what the exact themes are, but pretty certainly at least the weathervanes are very much items of interest and that's why I made the post for listing all weathervane locations.

I'll be writing more about the big pentagram stuff soon. I think this part is kind of close to complete so it made sense to me to write this in a separate post.

I noticed that in the drawing on the map, the guitar neck points toward the river, but if we look at it from above, the shape of the guitar points toward the mountain next to it, and that’s where I found this drawing. I don't know if it has anything to do with it, but I’m still investigating