Cryptozoologists uncover a colossal hoax
by Christopher Grant 
{ Dec 11th 2005 at 2:00PM }
Crypto-Pad, the "premiere site for the unexplained" has a post about the "discovery" of three different giants unearthed around the world that resemble the Colossi found in Sony's Shadow of the Colossus. The first was washed ashore during the tsunami earlier this year. Video footage is available here. The second giant was discovered by divers in the Sulu Sea and has been dubbed the "Sunken Giant." Tests revealed the giant was made not of stone, but of bone! The third giant was discovered in Iran, following an earthquake that struck the town of Bam. After uncovering the creature's skull, the above drawing was made to illustrate what it looked like.
This sounds like a pretty neat viral campaign, spread through innocuous looking websites. bob23 on Crypto-Pad
writes, "The fact the the company is more or less getting free advertising for making hoaxs which some people belive is
not right." Sure… and in unrelated news they are hosting a poll to determine who was most important in the study of
Dragons: Volodimir Kapusianyk, Uther Pendragon, or Igor Augashevetz. Uther Pendragon… duh!!!
Honestly, our BS meter is through the roof. This was submitted anonymously, the site's contents are pretty sparse, and
curiously all created yesterday. But we'll play along… the sites are pretty neat (and the video is a nice touch).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Agent X @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Although I missed it, I've read reports that the Giantology site was mentioned by George Noory on Coast to Coast AM a few weeks ago. George's guest then revealed that it was a tie-in to Shadow of the Colossus.
Imp @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I love cryptozoology and have never heard of that site.
Imp @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Or any of these giants for that matter
ryan @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
thts pretty sweet. go viral marketing!! and magic monsters from ancient times!!
Martez @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Didn't you guys already do a story about this campaign, linking to http://giantology.typepad.com/? Maybe I'm mistaken and thinking of another site...
Lutraphobic @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Same with me, I love crypozoology as well, and I have never even heard of these 'creatures' before. Want it to be real, but I doubt it will be...
Leet Leek @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
All I can say is...weird.
Andy @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
The pics look 'shopped and the video just looks... well, fake.
Nicely done though.
Xboxer @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I'm kind of pissed about this...i don't think Sony should pass out a viral marketing campaign using the very real Iran earthquake and the very real Tsunami as something to market their video game...
I live in Asia...and these two calamaties are no jokes here...OR cheap fodder for marketing purposes...
they should have the unearthing part changed to either fictitious natural disasters or associate them with something that happened e.g. decades back...
Rare Hare @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
yeah, attack of the show talked about these a while back.
yes, it's very obviously a marketing campaign, but a very cool one.
the biggest flaw is that everything is TOO amateur. the camera is too shaky, the sites are too clich?ldschool.
cool though.
Jeremy Wright @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Video doesnt' work for me ("site over bandwidth"). If it is an official viral campaign, seems pretty stupid to put it on some 5$ shared hosting plan...
Jay @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Sony are a bit sad. somebody should use their own disaster as fodder for a viral campaign. thats right! the PSP.
I bet they lost too many times on Mario Kart.
DNordbak @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Xboxer, if everyone used your logic, then there wouldn't be any movies about things like the Titanic, WWII, or ANY other event where mass amounts of people died. Especially given it is a natural disaster, where no one had any control over it, I don't think it is bad. However, if they were making money off of the victims of the earthquake/tsunami, then I would be on your side.
Einhanderkiller @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Somebody try Whois'ing the sites.
Rob X @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
DNordbak, they ARE making money off of victims of the tsunami and Earthquake by using those tragedies as an advertising vehicle. Usually as certain amount of time must pass before anyone would create a piece of fictional work around an event and even then, its stil pretty tasteless to use a tragedy for advertising. Imagine someone using 9-11 to sell clothes and candy bars.
bob23 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
"Imagine someone using 9-11 to sell clothes and candy bars."
I think some one did do some thing like that... but I think is was a 9-11 coin or some thing.
elle @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Uther Pendragon doesn't know much about dragons, except that Merlin kinda maybe used one (or a fog machine) to ride up into an enemy's castle and impregnate some chick, thus resulting in Arthur, King of the Britons.
Duh!!
DNordbak @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
you mean the movies about 9-11, the "we will never forget" car magnets/stickers, and all the like aren't making money? by having a viral marketing ad about something that happened due to NATURE, i don't think is a problem. they aren't harassing the victims of the tragedies, and it has no affect on them at all.
prooie @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I'm waiting for "Shadows of the two WTC Towers Falling" game and marketing campaign and see how many whiny bitches come running then ;o)
prooie @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
belittling families who lost loved ones due to a natural disaster does not affect them? what a tard are you exactly?
DNordbak @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
there is nothing in there that belittles the families!
Zero_ @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Do you guys seriously think this is a marketting campaign by Sony? LOL. Doubt it. It's just a bunch of dudes trying to stir some commotion.
Scythe @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
wait a dman minute so if that's ture that we should not make money off of a disaster then that means the movie twister should not have been made. A shirt that says Snipe Osama should not be made, a rist band that says support our troops should not be made. Titanic should not be made, tons of movies should not have been made.
unreal mccoy (formerly mat) @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
This is the real deal viral marketing. Those weird MS sites are cheap imitations...
Xboxer @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
all good points...
Scythe: twister was a fictional account...i'd be ok with this viral marketing if it would go like: colossus leg discovered during some fictional tsunami years back OR discovered during an actual tsunami 200 years back...
the fact that these tragedies happened no less than 2 yrs back and close to 200,000 ppl died altogether in this makes it a bit blatant on the company's part (again IF it's Sony...)
a good analogy would be if let's say Apple comes out with a viral marketing campaign which shows that when the twin towers went down, everything was destroyed except for their G5s and iPods and such...then later on cap that off with a shiny Powerbook on top of the rubble...
this is belittling...a relative of mine died in the tsunami and when i read about this campaign first, i looked back at the day thinking how he must have died and how someone is using the incident for MARKETING...
bottom-line: Marketing and recent natural disasters (especially to this extent...don't go hand in hand)...
R .U .N .V .US @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
so whats next? maybe a columbine high school game. or how about a charles manson fps. it would be great. you could break into the homes or middle class white people and brutally murder them.
what the hell is wrong with you. why would you defend something that is clearly done in bad taste
Rob X @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
"wait a dman minute so if that's ture that we should not make money off of a disaster then that means the movie twister should not have been made. "
If it's about a specific and particularly damaging twister then yes.
"A shirt that says Snipe Osama should not be made,"
I'm sure a relative of a 9-11 victim would agree with the sentiment so this would be ok.
"a rist band that says support our troops should not be made."
If a wrist band that says "Support Our Troops" and it does nothing to support our troops, then yes.
"Titanic should not be made, tons of movies should not have been made."
Titanic is far enough removed from the tragedy, so it is alright in my mind. Black Hawk Down would be a better example of profiting off of tragedy too close to the actual event (though I know people involved who were ok with making the film, they just have never been able to watch the whole thing).
Mark 2000 @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
This is a lot like when, after Semptember 11th and after most major hurricanes, my ex-boss at a photo place would sell giant prints of satellite views of the desaster (Nasa images are public domain).
I agree this is equally tacky and inconsiderate.
Scythe @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Come on people look at it this way how many WWI-II games are there? How bout Vietnam, as said before Black Hawk Down, How many war games are there? A lot and we keep making more, and more.
I was thinking how cool it would be to make a game called Natural Disaster and have it with certain areas like New Orleans or Florida Or other countries. I mean look if your stupid enough to live somewhere that the earth can swallow you up one day and someone makes a game about it who cares your not getting hurt by it and someone makes some money.
I live in Louisiana and I'm sorry but those people in NO was warned this could and would happen but no they didn't run until it was to late. Same with the People that the tsunami hit they hard warnings but didn't leave or listen to them. (Hey everyone the Tide just sucked out 200 yards lets go play out there.)
Now a game that involves the world trade centers that was caused by SOMEONE and not NATURE is wrong. This isn't hurting anyone it's kinda kewl to think about it. The Tsunami washed up Hidden Creatures it was kinda kewl when I first saw it. Also it doesn't say (The Tsunami was a blessing it revield this great tresure). It just showed that after the Tsunami there are strange fossils washed ashore. Did they say that with the Thousands on dead bodies washed up on the beaches the ones everybody is talking about is the giant fossil that was washed up.??? No they arn't so just enjoy some creative thinking and stop trying to make everything all Happy perky in a fantasy land that you believe in with faries and unicorns. That isn't going to happen, life has it's good and bad, you have to take both or you arn't living.
Hunty @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
I covered this two months ago:
http://www.invertedcastle.com/archives/2005/10/31/the-viral-marketing-campaign-that-would-not-die/
The main site, giantology, also has video of colossus #3 now.
skiltao @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
Okay... you are all using proper grammar, so I'm going to assume that all of you learned English as your first language AND are at least high schoolers. Except Lutraphobic, who I'm pretty sure didn't read the article.
Now - these videos do not "belittle" the victims of the Tsunami. To do that, the videos would have to insult the victims of the Tsunami or Earthquake, or otherwise imply that the victims were physically, mentally, or in some other way deficient. The videos have NOTHING TO DO with the disaster victims.
The videos are possibly in poor taste; I remember any fictional use of the Two Towers being censored from american TV for a while after the disaster. Sony probably shouldn't've started their campaign less than a year after the respective disasters.
HOWEVER, the videos are not crass. They don't use the disasters to illustrate how awesome their product is, and the videos do not suggest that the disasters were in any way good.
The videos mimic fairly inoffensive news stories about archaeological finds, the sort of finds which often happen after tsunamis and earthquakes. Using long-ago fictional disasters just doesn't jive.
All in all, I find the videos clever and tastefully done.
U R teh suck.
Scythe @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
One last thing if you want to see someone use a tragedy to make money look at Roger Moore, that is someone that took the war and the terrorest attacks and the public feeling and made a movie to make $$$$$$$. Yes that's right to make money, if it wasn't to make money then he should have offered it for free on Cable TV for the entire world to see rather then just a certain side that wants to see they're thoughts put into picture to make themselves feel better.
This ad hurt no one and it doesn't degrade anyone, so what's the problem?
DNordbak @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
also using this logic, a movie like "jarhead" should never have been made or shown. That movie involves a war that is currently going on, yet I didn't hear ANYTHING about there being protests to stop it.
C. Grant @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
#31, I think you mean Michael Moore not Roger Moore. And let's try to leave the politics out of it... poor Roger Moore.
Scythe @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
that movie is based on a war that took place before the current one it's not about this war.
Just like Black Hawk Down, and movies that show what goes on in a soldiers life is good it makes people remember why they fight for us.
boo @ Dec 18th 2005 9:13PM
If this video is from SCE then I'm sure they would have ran it by the proper people to see if it was OK.
What I don't understand is why it is OK to make money from disasters that happened over 200 years ago? Is this because there is no one to complain?