The Skeleton of Jabal-Barez, Dragon

I ran a search and found no reference to this, so here it is. Sorry if it's already been covered.
Fossilized Skeleton of Jabal-Barez, Dragon

It would appear that an earthquake on Dec 26, 2003 unearthed what looks like a fossilized dragon. This fella Casper Shilling is supposedly working on digging it up.

I did find a reference of this being a possible case "viral marketing" for the game "Shadow of the Colossus."

This earthquake had uncovered what Shilling deemed to be an immense creature. Not taken into account by him was the fact that such large fossils never unveil themselves and jut the way his pictures show, nor are insufficiently bulky for their size. There was an "August 26, 2004" update by Shilling, where he spoke of appendages that resembled wings. (This, of course, resembles the flying colossus in the game.) To quote: "However, with a colossus of such size, and such a massive 'wingspan' — if they indeed are wings — would have made its flying capability close to supernatural."

Strangemag.com

If it's fake, it still looks pretty cool, I think.

It is indeed a viral ad for Shadow of the Colossus.

There is also this "giant" that got washed ashore in a tsunami.
kotaku.com... ow-of-the-colossus-gets-viral-131133.php

Here is another Viral ad for the game that shows a mysterious statue.
www.gameklip.net...

Yet another one of something in Antarctica.
www.gameklip.net...

It goes on and on with the ads. It is easy to understand why people would think these are real though. Without any information about what your looking at you have to draw your own conclusions.
It is kind of like the WTC helicopter UFO video that turned out to just be an ad for the Sci-Fi channel.

Upon more searching, I found this screen shot from SOTC: screenshot

The "dragons" head here looks remarkably similar to the sketch of the head on Shilling's site. Definitely looks like a viral campaign. Looks like you were dead on, Tiloke.

I wonder why, after the product has been out a few years, they don't take down the website?

Still looks cool, though.

Yes, just part of the viral campaign. In-game screen cap of the colossus in question:




Interestingly enough, subject x, the picture you posted is of a colossus that never made it into the game.

Originally posted by Thousand
Interestingly enough, subject x, the picture you posted is of a colossus that never made it into the game.

Huh, go figure.

What I don't get about the viral advertising thing is how the connection is made.
I mean, so you see the pictures of the dragon fossil on-line.
How does that make the consumer buy the game?
There is no connection on either the fossil site or the game site.
Do the game people pay folks to scour the internet forums for mention
of the dragon fossil, so they can post an answer like
"Oh, that's just a viral for this new game" ?

Seems kinda hit-or-miss for big business, to me.

Originally posted by subject x

What I don't get about the viral advertising thing is how the connection is made.
I mean, so you see the pictures of the dragon fossil on-line.
How does that make the consumer buy the game?
There is no connection on either the fossil site or the game site.
Do the game people pay folks to scour the internet forums for mention
of the dragon fossil, so they can post an answer like
"Oh, that's just a viral for this new game" ?

Seems kinda hit-or-miss for big business, to me.

that's exactly why this viral campaign was such a huge succes. TBWA made the advertising campaign for a game into a game by itself, by forcing consumers to discover what the ads mean and what they are endorsing - or just whether its an ad at all...
They won several awards for this campaign and made the sales for this rather unpopular game skyrocket. Google TWBA and colossus for more backgroundinfo. Like this one - btw, an effie award is not about creativity, it only looks at the results of the campaign. Which were huge in this case.
I saw a movie by TBWA about this but can't locate it at the moment, will post it when i find it

peace

Originally posted by subject x
Seems kinda hit-or-miss for big business, to me.

Above all, it led to sales that were 162.6% over goal.

Well, we see why I'm not rich, anyway.
Thanks for that link there, Mr. Jones.

They still surface! Even now!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I had had enough of them by that point. Each new post was about the skeleton discovered in the Arctic, or the one you posted or the underwater one or the flying one or the Incan one.
Viral marketing really hits the Crypto forum hard. The Diesel Fallen Angel marketing hit us badly too.

And yet I wonder... how many of you dedicated ATSers bought the game?

Hmmm... I wonder why that thread didn't pop up when I ran a search?

That would have saved some time and webspace.

Thanks for posting that link, Jack.