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“Diane... Entering the town of Twin Peaks.”

Easter Egg In “The Secret History Of Twin Peaks” Bears Major Warning For The New Series

Aaron Mento was the first to discover the genius Easter egg Mark Frost planted in The Secret History of Twin Peaks. Now that you've had enough time to read the novel, here's what you probably missed.
This post was published a while ago. Please keep its age in mind and if you find any errors, feel free to comment.

We’ve waited for 25 years, and now there’s just one more torturous week before Twin Peaks season 3 premieres on Showtime. Laura Palmer had a rough last seven days, so we really shouldn’t complain, but the burning hunger for answers is sure to create much garmonbozia (pain and sorrow). Does the good Dale escape from the Black Lodge? Has the bad Dale been wrapping girls in plastic? How’s Annie? When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. But while David Lynch has remained mum on details, co-creator Mark Frost has already given us a major clue in the form of a coded Easter egg.

Back in October, Mark Frost unleashed the intriguing novel “The Secret History of Twin Peaks” as an insight into the mythology and conspiracies tied to our favorite little town. Written in the form of a dossier, the novel is a collection of journal entries, testimonies, and case files all to be analyzed by the mysterious Special Agent Tamara Preston. Like many Twin Peaks fans, I digested the book in a matter of hours, combing the pages for any new information about the fate of Special Agent Dale Cooper. At first glance, there seemed to be almost no new information. But upon further inspection, a secret revelation on pages 236-237 almost knocked me out of my chair…Bookhouse Boys Easter Egg in The Secret History of Twin Peaks

“A secret revelation on pages 236-237 almost knocked me out of my chair.” Click to Tweet

The two-page spread shows a picture of a “special shelf” at the Bookhouse library, with the favorite members’ books on display. Each of the eleven books is labeled with a number, matching the book to its owner. There was something very strange about this picture. For one, why dedicate two whole pages to show off some books? Secondly, the use of numbers above the books felt like a classic cipher to a secret coded message. And finally, notes about the books included phrases like “Much can be learned in unexpected places” and “Good literature is a mirror through which we see ourselves more clearly.” Alarm bells were going off…

So, I did what any good Bookhouse Boy would do; I held the picture up to a mirror. And looking back at me was the secret to the code, clear as day. I had been wondering why Mark Frost chose to use the Roman numeral “I” instead of the number “1” throughout the novel, and I finally had an answer why. When reflected in a mirror, the Roman numeral “I” reverses perfectly, while the number “1” does not. The only number that does reverse perfectly is “8.” Therefore, book I, book 8, and book II all stand out from the other books, because only these three look uniform in the mirror. Now it was time to decode the message…

When using the first word of each book title, a frightening warning is revealed:

I. Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72
8. The Warren Commission Report
II. Double Indemnity

“Fear The Double.”

Bookhouse Boys Easter Egg in The Secret History of Twin Peaks

Whoa. Talk about some serious goosebumps. Major Briggs is the archivist of the dossier (as the novel reveals), and I believe that he coded this message to warn Special Agent Tamara Preston about the evil “double” Cooper. Maybe Preston will notice that Cooper is always avoiding his “double” in mirrors (to hide Bob)? Perhaps Preston will dream of Cooper trapped in the Lodge, and realize that the other Cooper is an evil doppelganger? Since book 8 (the only symmetrical regular number) belongs to Cooper, maybe the full warning is even clearer:

“Fear the Double – Cooper.”

Whatever the future holds, this dossier is much more than it seems (wait, so does Annie not even exist anymore?!) and more revelations are surely hidden within its pages. It is happening again. The owls are not what they seem. Fear the double. But we don’t have to fear that devastating cliffhanger anymore because we’re all going back to Twin Peaks this Sunday.

Mark Frost’s follow-up novel Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier will be out on Halloween 2017. You can pre-order it today.

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Aaron Mento is the writer/director of the upcoming horror comedy “Ugly Sweater Party.” Follow him on <a href="http://twitter.com/aaronmento" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a> and watch the trailer to “Ugly Sweater Party” <a…

What's your response to this?

37 comments

  1. Rob B. says:

    Wow, Aaron, wow! This is a great catch. Has your theory been confirmed by anyone involved in the production yet?

  2. The Cuban says:

    Good spot. A lot of typewriters models saved space on the keyboard by not bothering with a 1 as it was easily replaced by an I. Frost clearly likes his vintage type and went to lengths to use models that would be fitting for specific uses and eras.

    • Avatar photo Aaron Mento says:

      Thanks! There’s also been talk of the typewriter picture in the book being “off” in some way. Like the keys don’t match the model…

    • Avatar photo Aaron Mento says:

      I posted my findings to reddit before writing this article. So it’s coming from the same source, me. Thanks!

  3. Seattle Swede says:

    Aces! This analog thinking is where Twin Peaks lives!

  4. zen guerrilla says:

    aaron, i got shivers reading this, thank you!

  5. The > Art > Of > Robert > Motorcycle > Kill says:

    well, doesnt hurt to dream..

  6. Max says:

    Also the publisher of the stand and angle of repose is ‘doubleday’ !

  7. Some mighty fine detective work there Mr. Aaron!

  8. Enik1138 says:

    In my study of Secret History on my website, I point out that the photo of what is allegedly the Archivist’s typewriter is not the model Agent TP had earlier deduced, among a couple other strange things about it:
    “[The Archivist] provides a photo of his faithful Corona typewriter on page 344. It does not appear to be a Corona Super G as determined by Agent TP from the typeset of the dossier pages, though I’ve not been able to determine it’s model. It’s older than the Corona Super G. Oddly, the keys on the pictured typewriter appear to be German. Notice also that this typewriter has a “1” key on it, despite the fact that the dossier’s pages appear to use the uppercase-I in place of a “1”.”

    • Avatar photo Aaron Mento says:

      Yeah this is very interesting…Mark Frost is planting many seeds…

    • dh says:

      this typewriter shown on tshotp page 344 is a 1943 corona standard:
      http://typewriterdatabase.com/mobile/U3RhbmRhcmQ=.1397.typewriter
      however, it’s a german edition with the z/y keys in switched positions, which is normal on the ‘qwertz’ keyboard::
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ

      how did this come into the archivist’s possession? due to it’s age, i would guess via douglsas milford. although milford was a seargant in guam in 1944, he was, “brought up on serious charges of black market trafficking of stolen army property, primarily liquor and cigarettes.” (and possibly this german typewriter?). [tshotp page 78]

      so what’s the significance of a german typewriter? we know that the three books give the message: ‘fear the double’. what’s german about twin peaks? doppleganger! the evil, supernatural twin. briggs would know that someone in the fbi would be able to identify the typeset as a corona super g without seeing the actual typewriter [tshotp page 7 footnote 2]. therefore, intentionally showing us the wrong typewriter must be a clue. is garland briggs purposely showing us a 1943 german typewriter instead of the corona super g as a symbol, correctly equating nazism with evil? is this corona standard meant to be the doppleganger of the corona super g? is the clue here to simply be aware of the doppleganger?

  9. The Man Who Knew Too Much says:

    Fear the Double… timeline.

    Past is prologue in Twin Peaks as the past 25 years never happened the way it did when Coop comes back.

    • Avatar photo Aaron Mento says:

      I guess we’ll all know soon enough! Events being changed would be so mind blowing…

    • Meanwhile... says:

      I had that suspicion too, since that “Missing” posters of Laura.
      Actually, maybe Laura Palmer is alive.

      I remember Frost saying that “time would tell” if the differences between the original series and the book were errors (Norma’s past and other details were different, as pointed out by the readers).

  10. Flimmervielfalt says:

    “Fear the Double” is in my opinion the biggest discovery since the moment when someone realized that a little ape in FWWM was whispering “Judy”.
    Once known such Informations burn itself into the brain.

    Thanks!

    I think the message could mean something like “Fear YOUR Double, Cooper”.

    • Avatar photo Aaron Mento says:

      Thanks for that! Twin Peaks has an unmatched way of being truly haunting…

  11. The Man Who Knew Too Much says:

    I suspect we will see the grown child of Lucy and Dick Tremayne. In fact, we may have already seen him in the most recent trailer. Poor deputy Andy.

    • Meanwhile... says:

      We’ll see him or her, for sure (i dont remember if they tell the gender in the original). It would be a big miss if the child would simply dissapear as nothing happened. It’s a chance to include a new character.

      But, yes, could be that one. We know that the boy in the trailer is a character who never got near Shelly, since Mädchen asked “who’s that?” when reacting to the trailer. Also, that’s tipical of Lynch, not explaining the whole story for the actors.

      • Flimmervielfalt says:

        Maybe Ben Rosenfield (whoever his role is) is already dead in the trailer. He looks so lifeless to me, that I could imagine, we saw a picture of corpse. Maybe his lower self is splattered by Bob. So Shelly could Not even realize, who that Guy is. Maybe he acts in a completely different place, time or he is already dead.

  12. dh says:

    questions about that typewriter on page 344:
    1. why does garland briggs use a german typewriter?
    2. why have the ‘z’ and ‘y’ switched places?
    3. why does the number ‘4’ stand out more than the other numbers?
    4. auslöser means trigger (or release), and umschalter means shift (or toggle).
    5. three letter are missing from the word ‘corona’ (c/n/a), and three letters remain (oro – meaning ‘gold’ in spanish).
    does any of this mean anything to anyone out there? this what the archivist wrote with and there’s some strange things going on here. if the archivist is going to leave visual clues, it would be in the two seemingly inocuous photos of the typewriter and the books.

    • Flimmervielfalt says:

      Oh my Gosh. Dont try to make the mystery bigger as it is. Most of your questions are answered here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ

      So we could also overanalyze the Dirt under Bobs Fingernail, we could speculate if he had a Cutout Letter under each Fingernail and if thats the reason he is making his iconic painful faces. 😉

  13. John Thompson says:

    So why does 8 not reverse perfectly?

  14. Speaking of the double – I get the feeling that this IS cooper but the dark part of him, and dougie is the innocent naive good side. They will meet and like Dark Crystal merge into one and only then we will have Coooper back (even though it was said one must die and one must return)… Just a feeling I have…

  15. DayDreamer says:

    Maybe it was a message for Tamara Preston to fear the double ‘Diane’ – she sure was quick off the draw when doppelganger Diane flipped.

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