In Space, No One Can Hear You Sing (MIT Mystery Hunt 2020)
| In Space, No One Can Hear You Sing | |
|---|---|
| MIT Mystery Hunt 2020 | |
| Spaceopolis | |
 | |
| Author(s) | Rich Bragg, Jesse Morris, Philip Dasler |
| Answer | Click to revealLOWER THE VEIL |
| Statistics | |
| No. solves | 48 |
| No. total guesses | 267 |
| Links | |
| Puzzle | Link |
| Solution | Link |
In Space, No One Can Hear You Sing is an interaction-based puzzle from the Spaceopolis round of the 2020 MIT Mystery Hunt. It originally required teams to send members to perform karaoke on a live stream, but with an added visual twist.
Puzzle Elements[edit | edit source]
Interaction (Karaoke) - This puzzle involved an interaction. To even start the puzzle, teams needed to either send two team members to a location on campus to participate in karaoke (upon which their team would be given a link to the livestream)...
Video - ...or wait until enough teams had done so that the footage was posted for remote solvers.
Identification (Music, Popular) - Singers were asked to sing one of a small selection of songs; when they started singing, an AR filter placed a mask over the singer's face, obscuring their identity. The first step solvers need to take is identifying the music being sung by the participants, probably taking note of the masks as they go. Collectively, they should realize that all of the songs...
Knowledge Required (Television, Reality) - ...were songs performed on the first season of The Masked Singer. Additionally, all of the AR masks are of the same animal/creature as the costumes worn during that season.
Mismatched Data - However, they should also notice that none of the songs are being sung by someone wearing the same mask as was used in the show. Instead, all of a particular mask's songs from the show are being sung by a different particular mask in the puzzle (for example, all of Alien's songs are being sung by someone in a Lion mask here).
Chains - Knowing that each of these pairs is consistent, solvers can actually chain the masks in a way that forms a complete loop. Specifically, solvers should start with Hippo and end with Peacock, as the "Host" says during the livestream.
Indexing - Seeing as each of the two judges provides a score for each singer (and these are also consistent between multiples of the same mask) solvers can then index into the singers to extract two letters each. However, many of the mask names are too short to be indexed into: instead, they need to use the celebrity that was under the mask. Doing do gives...
Final Clue Phrase - ...the phrase BALDWIN SIANO ROCK BAND, a fittingly musical clue for this puzzle.
