Mount Chiliad Mystery

About

The Mount Chiliad Mystery is a well-known video game myth in the 2013 action-adventure video game Grand Theft Auto V surrounding a series of enigmatic markings placed around Mount Chiliad, the largest mountain in th city of San Andreas, which are believed by many fans to contain clues for special in-game rewards.

Origin

Following the release of Grand Theft Auto V on September 17th, 2013, players discovered a large mural containing strange symbols inside the cable car station at the top of the Mount Chiliad (shown below). Following the discovery, many players began speculating that the mural was a map of the mountain itself and contained clues for discovering several in-game rewards, including a much anticipated jet pack item.

Spread

On September 20th, 2013, a page titled “Mount Chiliad Mystery” was created on the GTA Myths Wiki.^[4] On September 24th, the /r/chiliadmystery^[2] subreddit was launched for discussions and theories about the markings. On September 26th, YouTuber CVG uploaded a video titled “GTA 5 Conspiracy – The Incredible Mount Chiliad Mystery,” which explained various theories regarding the Mount Chiliad mural (shown below).

On December 5th, the blog TheChiliadMystery^[1] was launched for news and information about the Grand Theft Auto legend. On November 24th, 2014, the gaming news blog Kotaku^[3] published an article regarding the Internet discussions surrounding the mystery. On April 21st, 2015, Redditor Black_Hipster posted a theory that the Mount Chiliad clues were merely an elaborate prank left by game developers and did not have a solution.^[6] On May 13th, YouTuber CVG uploaded a video in which the narrators declared the mystery was “over” due to PC modifications that failed to find any secret Mount Chiliad locations in the game’s code (shown below).

Sasquatch Peyote

On September 23rd, Redditor rkRusty submitted a series of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots to /r/chiliadmystery,^[7] featuring the character Franklin eating peyote plants and transforming into a Sasquatch. Many speculated this may be linked to the mystery, as the Sasquatch character was rumored to be living around the Mount Chiliad.