#signalgate

~March 15, 2025~

this is a working theory, but stay with me for a moment. oxenfree the game was released on january 15 2016. 6 months later, stranger things was released on july 15th

oxenfree and stranger things share themes of losing/gaining memories, time loops with multiple endings, communicating with past/future selves between timelines, using radio frequencies as keys, to open doors, and friendships. the first game takes place on an island which has a military history going back to wwii i believe (fact check, its been a while since i played the game) and a ship full of vengeful soldier souls who died on a naval ship due to timeline fuckery, and who want to invade the new timeline. uss eldridge anyone….?

01/15 07/15

1+1+5=7

7+1+5=13

1+1+5+2+1+6=16 1+6=7

7+1+5+2+1+6=22. 22, double twos, puzzled starstruck event.

oxenfree 2: lost signals as released on july 12 2023. lost signals featured a teenage cult storyline who tried to open a rift in time to revive a girl’s parents, and featured also the same themes as oxenfree 1

7+1+2+2+2+3=17. 1+7=8, 8, kali’s number, the one of illusion, second game=second timeline?

the reason i bring this up is because the game was released by night school studio who were partnered with telltale at some point to create a stranger things game after oxenfree and even though this project was scrapped due to telltale’s failure to pay, night school studio was still acquired by netflix. its clear to see that even in 2016, the themes present in oxenfree were something that were also planted in stranger things. these are: time loops, exploring memories, forgetting memories, parallel timelines, timeline jumping, radio signals/frequencies, time loops… but none of those ideas (except intercepting radio signals) were explicitly explored in season 1,2, or even 3…. or were they?

the oxenfree game symbol has also changed recently to a radio frequency reading: 97.1 i think. in the uk, that corresponds to capital fm in wirral, liverpool. liverpool is on the west british coast and was a huge target during both world wars due to their status as largest importers for transatlantic goods and the presence of a military naval base. liverpool has a long history of relations with china, specifically shanghai, in importing goods, etc. liverpool has its own giant chinatown in its centre. i guess you could say that liverpool is where east and west meet in the uk. on the other side of the river mersey to it is wirral. wirral is home to a nuclear bunker and nuclear plants, opened in 1953, and is where naval ship HMS Conquerer was constructed. it was also a major concern that it would be targetted in the cold war for this reason. liverpool was later a major centre for the campaign for nuclear disarmament in the 1980s. (it is also home to the oldest, still-standing lighthouse in england… not sure how relevant that is for now, but the rest is clearly relevant.)

so: themes of maritime incidents, the year 1953, naval ships, cold war components, ww2 components, radio signals… very relevant to stranger things as im sure i dont have to explain

So you know how Dustin and Suzy are dating (through long distance) but due to Suzie being Mormon, they can’t talk through telephones?

Because of that they use walkie talkies and Dustin uses a cerebro which requires good signal to talk to the person on the other side. SIGNAL. SIGNALS? HE MENTIONED THAT THEY WERE STAR-CROSSED LOVERS TOO? Forbidden love and signals… reminds me of a certain ship. Now we also know season 5 is using signals as a way to signify love. So look here:

STARTS WITH WILL RECEIVING SIGNALS

Joseph Gedeon at The Guardian:

Pete Hegseth is facing the most serious crisis of his tenure as defense secretary, engulfed by allegations of war crimes in the Caribbean and a blistering inspector general report accusing him of mishandling classified military intelligence. Yet despite the long list of trouble and as lawmakers from both parties call for his resignation, Hegseth shows no signs of stepping down and still holds Donald Trump’s support. The twin crises have engulfed the former Fox News personality in separate but overlapping allegations that lawmakers, policy experts and former officials say reveal a pattern of dangerous recklessness at the helm of the Pentagon. Democratic legislators have reignited calls for his ouster after revelations that survivors clinging to wreckage from a September boat strike were deliberately killed in a “double-tap” attack, while a defense department investigation released on Thursday concluded he violated Pentagon policies by sharing sensitive details via the Signal messaging app hours before airstrikes in Yemen. The most recent controversy comes as the Caribbean campaign centers on the Trump administration’s extrajudicial strikes against suspected drug smugglers, which have killed at least 87 people across 22 attacks since September. Trump has justified the operation as essential to combating fentanyl trafficking, claiming each destroyed vessel saves 25,000 American lives, though factcheckers, former officials and drug policy experts have called this figure absurd, noting that fentanyl primarily enters the United States overland from Mexico, not via Caribbean boats from Venezuela.

The legality of the strikes came under intense scrutiny after the public learned that two men who survived the initial 2 September attack could been seen amid the wreckage when a lethal follow-up strike was ordered. While Hegseth initially dismissed the reporting as fabricated, he later confirmed the basic facts during a cabinet meeting this week, saying he acted in the “fog of war” but “didn’t stick around” to observe the rest of the mission.

Senator Patty Murray, the Democratic vice-chair of the Senate appropriations committee, called for Hegseth’s firing following a bipartisan briefing on the incident on Thursday. “Between overseeing this campaign in the Caribbean, risking US servicemembers’ lives by sharing war plans on Signal, and so much else, it could not be more obvious that Secretary Hegseth is unfit for the role, and it is past time for him to go,” Murray said.

The New Democrat Coalition, the largest Democratic caucus in the House with 116 members who describe themselves as fiscally moderate and pro-innovation, issued their own statement calling Hegseth “incompetent, reckless, and a threat to the lives of the men and women who serve in the armed forces”. The Coalition chair, Brad Schneider, and national security working group chair, Gil Cisneros, accused the defense secretary of lying, deflecting and scapegoating subordinates while refusing to take accountability. “Time and time again, the secretary has lied, dodged, deflected, and shockingly scapegoated his subordinates,” they said. “He is a disgrace to the office he holds and should resign immediately before his actions cost American lives.”

The strategic logic of the Caribbean campaign has drawn criticism even from those with experience in the US government’s counter-narcotics efforts. Jake Braun, who served as acting principal deputy national cyber director in the Joe Biden White House and as senior counselor to the secretary of homeland security where he helped design and implement the nation’s first counter-fentanyl strategy, questioned why the administration was focusing military resources in the Caribbean rather than on primary trafficking routes.

“I think the use of military force is justified – it just seems they’re about 2,500 miles away from the primary target in Mexico,” Braun said. “If they want to stop fentanyl, I would focus more on tunnels and drones in Arizona rather than boats in the Caribbean.” Emily Tripp, executive director of Airwars, a civilian harms watchdog that monitors military conflicts, called on the administration to be more transparent about the strike, saying the organization would like to know “what considerations are made around shipwrecked survivors, and why the use of force was chosen over search and rescue when as far as we understand the targets here are the drugs, not the people on board”.

The Pentagon mixed up its talking points, and struggled to provide clear answers about the chain of command for the strikes. While the White House initially suggested Adm Frank Bradley, commander of Southern Command special operations, ordered the follow-up strike in self-defense, Hegseth later said Bradley made the call with his authorization but had complete authority to act independently. Trump claimed to know nothing about the operational details, and even suggested he would not have wanted the second strike.

Compounding Hegseth’s bad week, the defense department inspector general report released on Thursday concluded that he violated Pentagon policies by using Signal to share precise details about upcoming airstrikes in Yemen, including the quantity and strike times of manned US aircraft over hostile territory, approximately two to four hours before the missions were executed on 15 March.

[...] Despite the inspector general’s findings, Hegseth claimed he was vindicated on social media, posting from his personal account that there was “no classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed.” Senator Roger Wicker, Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee, defended Hegseth’s actions as within his authority and called for better communications tools for national security leaders to share classified information in real time.

While the vast majority of calls for Hegseth’s resignation have come from Democrats, some Republicans have expressed their own concerns. Senator Rand Paul suggested Hegseth had lied about the September boat attack, saying the defense secretary either “was lying to us or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened”. The Republican congressman Don Bacon told CNN he had “seen enough” to conclude Hegseth was not the right leader for the Pentagon.

Hegseth’s tenure has also been marked by severe dysfunction inside the Pentagon itself, where his own aides earlier this year have been leaking against one another and informing on colleagues in what multiple officials describe as a paranoid and chaotic atmosphere. The defense secretary used a leak investigation – which the White House had reportedly lost confidence in – to purge three top advisers in the spring, with claims they were identified through what would amount to an illegal warrantless NSA wiretap. The episode raised fresh questions about Hegseth’s judgment and his ability to manage the department. Still, despite the twin controversies creating what those lawmakers have described as an untenable situation for the secretary, Trump has continued to back Hegseth publicly, with the White House expressing “the utmost confidence” in its national security team. Since the Senate is controlled by Republicans and Trump is maintaining his support, Hegseth is unlikely to face meaningful consequences.