Pokemon 731: Psy Op?

Ok folks I browsed the forums but decided Urban Legends was the right place for this one, since the only evidence I can find is speculatory. I did a search here on ATS and didn't find anything either so this may be new to most of you.



The story is that there was a "glitch" in the original Japanese version of Pokemon green way back in the late 20th century that made children psychotic, and I don't mean like flashing lights causing seizures, I mean hurt yourself and others psychotic.

The story that Ms. Harue told me was that while Ken was sleeping, Mr. Nakamura put headphones on his son and played the Lavender Town and left. Eventually, their son woke up, and, due to the effects of the tone, cut the symbols into himself with a kitchen knife then attempted to attack the passengers of a nearby car.

It has something to do with a hidden pokemon numbered "731" in the game files, which is the number of Japans' infamous biological warfare unit from the great wars of the early 20th century.

Google searches yield nothing but speculation, however it is all speculation that seems like people are either trolling or seriously wondering the signifigance of this after witnessing it first hand.

"What is the purpose of this Pokémon? What is the significance of the number 731? Were the binaural beats comprising the "Lavender Town Tone" inserted into the music on purpose?"

"No #ing way... I played Pokémon Silver with a friend when I was like 10 Y.O. and suddenly that thing came up. My friend or who ever said it, said it was a form of Gastley. But this thing had something special. It gave me nightmares, I wanna know more about this mother#er."

Now i am listening the song and i am feeling depressed, but i already knew this song but this time there is something...... a strange thing in it....... and it is serious i am feeling bad now

An infographic which I stumbled upon is the only real 'evidence' to give the story some credence. It's a bit of a read and on top of that quite a stretch of the imagination, so like I said thats why it's here in urban legends.

NOTE *The Image is too big to fit in the limits here but I found a game forum that has it word for word here:
Lavender Town Tone

A snippet:

Ms. Harue has agreed to allow me to release a revealing passage from Mr. Nakamura's letter with the rest omitted due to personal reasons. It is as follows: "Dear Satou, (section omitted)...tonight is the eve of a new era for Japan, a new empire of which I am responsible. I cannot, however, linger to see my creation unfold within the coming months, visions of my father's work haunt me...(brief section omitted...Our dear Ken will be the first martyr for the empire, followed by many other children as our disgraceful society collapses, uprooted by its own young. A phoenix will rise from the ashes, the second Great Imperial Japanese Nation...(rest of letter omitted)"

In the meantime I'll be looking for an emulator that has this version of the game if it still exists. I never played Pokemon, & whether this is true or not I'm glad I didn't.

I'm way above the age that it says is affected by the tones, but even listening to the regular version of lavender town I feel queasy. But that's probably from all the coffee ha.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b80c545c50dc.png[/atsimg]

I think you're right, and I have video evidence of such an episode!

reply to post by whatukno


careful about the age and sensitivity to the tone assumption....i am turnign 34 and the tone for 17.5 khz teenagers and even those machines for raccoon/pest deterence drive me insane(hmmmm tried to look up the range says humans can't hear them, ummmm wtf I am human I think lol or am I LMAO....i am not talking i can slightly hear it....i am talking nails on a chalkboard sonic attack lol.

Anyway just be cautious do not assume you cannot be affected/hear because you are a bit older....

All instances of the video game being played with the "731" are played via emualtors, so my bet is that they are edited to do that.

LMAO!!! damn i wish i knew what that kid was sayin.... i only caught a few words. I think hes screamin at warcraft...correct me if im wrong.


Hey at least fat boy is getting a bit of a work out !

Get the silph scope and the wierd ghost turns into a marowak, at least in lavender tower or whatever the tower therein was called.

Im not sure what was up with the number 731 that was there though or why it showed up in regular grass ???

Originally posted by Akragon
LMAO!!! damn i wish i knew what that kid was sayin.... i only caught a few words. I think hes screamin at warcraft...correct me if im wrong.


Hey at least fat boy is getting a bit of a work out !

You do know that that is an actor?
It's from a television program in Germany.

seriously?!?!

So this show actually made it to TV? 5 mins of this kid screaming?

Worst show ever...

I always thought 731 referred to Unit 731, a division of the Imperial Japanese Army, who are infamous for their experiments on both civilians and P.O.W's.

Unit 731 - Wikipedia

Nothing to back it up, it's just what I first thought when I originally saw this.

Cheers
Shane

Actually, now I'm sure. Take a look at this pic



On the left is a grab from the game. On the right is Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731. They look very similar.

Two more to confirm it, both are related to Unit 731.





The rest all relate to human experimentation, and they're gross. Don't look up 731 on Google images... it's disgusting. I'm off to have an hour long shower to feel clean again.

So anyway, it's Unit 731.

Cheers
Shane

Wow.

This is evil.

I used to play Pokemon on Gameboys when I was a kid. I was probably obsessed with it. Initially the original yellow, red and blue versions (but not the Japanese release, obviously), and then the later versions that followed (like Gold and Silver etc.). And I don't remember ever using headphones, fortunately (you never know).

I do remember that whenever I would approach Lavendar Town in the original games, I would turn the sound down because the music from that place specifically would always creep me out - which I thought probably had more to do with the fact that there was a building housing dead pokemon nearby. I still can't really bring myself to listen to it; it actually upsets me. It is really creepy. My younger cousins own the updated versions of the Kanto region pokemon games and I have noticed that the sound differs dramatically within them, particularly for Lavendar Town. It is significantly less disconcerting.

I can't believe that I had no idea about any of this. Imagine if this had reached the shores of western cultures undetected? The son of a b*tch killed his own son..

I know the deal with binaural beats - you need to be able to isolate the separate frequencies in stereo sound to be able to hear the two tones, and thus, their effects. Although, and I wonder if this is at all related, but I suffer from tinnitus in one ear and I would become sluggish and outburst irritably when I was younger. I still have a filthy temper at times today. I also experience bouts of tension headaches which I am usually able to massage away. But I have never violently acted out or irrationally wanted to harm anyone else or myself..
This is an interesting correlate if nothing else...

Hundreds of Japanese children fell victim to these effects, many of them committing suicide eventually. As you can see, these binaural beats lead to many problems, including symptoms of brain hemorrhaging and violent actions against others.

This is insane! I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Surely these kinds of projects are still being undertaken and experimented with, if only to a lesser extent, in other games? It's difficult for me to believe that this hasn't progressed in some form or another..

Originally posted by shamus78
Actually, now I'm sure. Take a look at this pic

On the left is a grab from the game. On the right is Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731. They look very similar.


So anyway, it's Unit 731.

Cheers
Shane

Relax, guy. It clearly states that 731 is reference to the Japanese army unit that operated during WWII in the link in the OP.

Unit 731 was a secretive unit of the Japanese army under the Empire of Japan during World WAr II. It was dedicated to biological and chemical research, also delving into human experimentation. It is infamous for its many war crimes. It consisted of several divisions:

Division 1: Research on bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid, and tuberculosis using live human subjects. For this purpose, a prison was constructed to contain around three- to four-hundred people.
Division 2: Research for biological weapons used in the field, in particular the production of devices to spread germs and parasites.
Division 3: Production of shells containing biological agents. Stationed in Harbin.
Division 4: Production of other miscellaneous agents.
Division 5: Training of personnel.
Divisions 6-8: Equipment, medical, and administrative units.

Disgusting and creepy, indeed. That's probably an understatement.

reply to post by pretty_vacant


Sorry, Several other posters didn't understand what is stood for either, so was just clearing it up. I didn't find any proof that 731 was actually named after the Japanese 731, so I decided to provide some proof.

The OP stated the number was the same, but didn't cement the two together.

I'll step out of this thread, but I'm quite relaxed.

Cheers
Shane

... about twenty frames in it becomes a flashing series of low quality pictures... Figure 2 appears to be a man standing over a table upon which something hard to identify - a corpse, perhaps - rests. He has his hands on this unknown object and also has what may be a surgical mask over his mouth.

Lavender Town Tone Anecdote

Well, I found this picture which appears to match the static image that exhibits in the game:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f35a29344c12.jpg[/atsimg]

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/023a5748adc8.jpg[/atsimg]

Evil Human Experiments

The music in that area is awful, eerie, and hideous.

Not sure if it causes violent episodes or not, but it's awfully composed and grating.

Incidentally, i though binaural frequencies would only work through headphones?

Guys, avid Pokemon player and emulation enthusiast since 2000 here to debunk this.

The video was created using a program named 'Memory Viewer', which allows you to view and edit the hex data/values of ROM images. People have been using it to hack ROMs for years. Arguably its most popular use is to hack random encounter data into the Pokemon games. (usually to create fake videos of Pokemon from more recent games being 'discovered' in earlier generations). Just look up 'memory viewer pokemon' on youtube for examples.

The original videos created by hacking ROMs with this program came from a forum named Glitch City Laboratories, a site that's been running in various iterations since about 2003, dedicated to finding glitches and other oddities in the Pokemon games, -especially- the original generation games.

Over the years the members of the site have picked the ROMs clean - yes, even the original japanese releases of Pokemon Red and Green. And literally, there is no piece of code not yet discovered and dissected in those games any more, and there hasn't been for years now. In fact, they've created a full table of hex values. glitchcity.info...

You can check these out yourself with a Pokemon ROM image and any hex editor. There's only 255 slots for the read only memory (item, pokemon, attack, etc.), and the contents of every one of them has been explored and documented by many people. There is nothing left to discover about the inner workings of the original game any more.

And it should go without mentioning - the claim it's under hex 731 - in an 8-bit game? Obvious bull#.

Not only that, the original story that goes along with this video states that the '731' Pokemon can ONLY be found in one square of grass. This is bull - random encounter data in the games was allocated by area, not by individual squares. Data of what Pokemon resided in the location you were currently in, and the percentage chance of encountering each Pokemon was drawn up from the read-only memory as you entered the area.

Even if what was portrayed in the video had any basis in how the code of the game actually works, the sprites were still conversions of the first Google Images results of 'Unit 731'. . =/

As to there being a secret 'v1.0' version of the Pokemon games, there was only one commercial release of the original games, in February 1996. Later, a game named 'Pokemon Blue' was released in October 1996, with different graphics, and modified code (bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net...). This game's updated engine would go on to be translated into the American releases of Pokemon Red and Blue that we all know and love, released in September 1998. And that's it.

The reason they modified the code? To fix a game-breaking bug known as the 'Doko Kashira Door Glitch'. (bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net...) This could be exploited to allow the player to finish the game in about five minutes, among other adverse effects if a legit, unaware player accidentally activated the bug.

The ROM of the original Feb 96 release is pretty easy to find on the internet. Just download an emulator, get to Lavender Town, and compare it side by side with a ROM of the American Red or Blue. Or use your own Game Boy, if you have one. There is no difference in the music, nor will it give you seizures or cause you to go insane. That rumour originated from a fan fiction posted on 4chan's /x/, around July last year, and sadly it's been turned into a full blown urban legend by people who don't know what they're talking about.

Now, 'Electric Soldier Porygon', that's real deal. I'll let you have fun finding out about it on your own.

Thank you, and goodnight.