After 12 Years, One Of Grand Theft Auto’s Biggest Mysteries Has Been Solved

One of Grand Theft Auto 5‘s most enduring mysteries may finally have been solved. Myths and mysteries have almost always been a big part of GTA‘s open-world design philosophy – they really became part of the formula with San Andreas, where you had Bigfoot and Mothman walking around.

GTA 5 has tons of mysteries, but perhaps its most baffling is that of Mount Chiliad. A strange in-game mural near the top of the mountain has kept players guessing for a generation, but YouTuber Gator Keys claims to have discovered the answer.

GTA 5’s Mount Chiliad Mystery Has Finally Been Solved

What The Mount Chiliad Mural Really Means

The Mount Chiliad mystery begins with a mural painted on a wall near the top of the mountain itself. It consists of a series of interconnected pictographs: a flying saucer, a cracked egg, and a person with a jetpack, which are tethered, with various mazelike lines, to X symbols and what looks like an eye.

Gator Keys interprets the bottom part of the mural as an instruction: the player must go up high (with or without a jetpack) to see the various UFOs hidden in GTA 5. The egg represents the player; traveling upward in a straight line, we reach the all-seeing eye, paralleling the player’s progress from newcomer to expert.

But the eye symbol may also refer to the Mount Chiliad UFO, which can only be seen after achieving 100% completion of the game, and is intended to be the last thing the player does in a run of GTA 5. This connects to the inscription on the viewing platform where you see the UFO, which reads, “Come back when your story is complete.”

The five Xs refer to five glyphs hidden around Mount Chiliad; their positioning on the mural hints at their position on the mountain. These glyphs are intended to signal to the player what steps they have to take to get the UFO to appear, occasionally leading to other clues around the map, like the additional glyphs at Beam Me Up.

And, of course, if you do manage to spawn the Mount Chiliad UFO, you’ll find that the FIB logo is printed on its side, suggesting a much larger conspiracy. In that case, the all-seeing eye pictograph also refers to the FIB’s near-total control – in other words, they’re watching.

GTA 6 Will Likely Have More Mysteries When It Arrives Next Year

Give Us Something New To Explore

Everyone has their expectations for GTA 6, but what I’m most excited for is how it follows up on the Mount Chiliad mystery. I’m sure it has something else in store, be it some kind of swamp monster, or another alien invasion, or some kind of sea serpent in the murky depths.

Whatever it is, I hope it’s as obfuscating and difficult to solve as the Mount Chiliad mystery, or Cyberpunk 2077‘s FF:06:B5. I hope it keeps us guessing as long as Grand Theft Auto 5‘s greatest mystery did.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Systems

Released

September 17, 2013

ESRB

M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs and Alcohol

Developer(s)

Rockstar North

Engine

Rockstar Advanced Game Engine