Almost 12 whole years after its release and around nine months before the launch of GTA 6, one GTA 5 detective is convinced we have the answer to the seemingly eternal Mount Chiliad mystery, but we might have known it all along.
The Mount Chiliad mystery is something that's haunted GTA fans for over a decade. Between a mysterious map-like mural, unexplained glyphs, and even the appearance of UFOs, it was always clear that something was going on. Over the years, there have been many theories, and last year, one ex-Rockstar Games employee even suggested that it might have been meaningless all along, noting that "as with all Easter eggs, sometimes you just put them in to mess with people. They don't actually do anything."
Now, though, in a new YouTube video, GTA sleuth Gator Keys is here with a "conclusion" that "puts an end to it before GTA 6 releases." The creator openly admits that this isn't a new theory, noting that "I'm not claiming that I'm the first person to come to this conclusion, I'm sure many other players did in 2013," but it certainly seems to make the most sense, and would imply that fans may have simply overanalyzed the whole situation without realizing they'd already found their answer.
Gator Keys suggests that the three main symbols on the infamous mural – a UFO, egg, and jetpack – are all hints to lead players to reach 100% completion and see the secret UFO at the top of Mount Chiliad, which is also symbolized on the wall 'map' by an "all-seeing eye." The jetpack appears to be a hint to tell players to fly up high to see the other two UFOs that can be found at 100% completion, while the egg – linked to one line that points straight to the top of the mountain – represents the player and their progress.
As Gator Keys points out, "it quite literally says it at the top of the mountain, 'Come back when your story is complete.' And by that they don't just mean story mode, they mean 100%."
Then we have the 'X' symbols on the mural. These, Gator Keys says, represent the different glyphs you can find, which themselves point to either locations or requirements for seeing UFOs. A couple of them suggest that you should look at night and in stormy weather, for example. This also ties into the mysterious red arrows found around the map, the YouTuber adds, with the purpose of pointing players in the direction of the flying objects.
Basically, the whole thing is to lead players to eventually find the UFO at the top of the mountain, which they can only see after hitting 100%. But why? "The reason they put a UFO at the top of Mount Chiliad is to show us the FIB logo spinning on the side of it," Gator Keys theorizes.
"This means the FIB created these UFOs. They are the aliens. They are the all-seeing eye. The government controls the people, and this is proved perfectly with the 'Beam Me Up' mountain. The FIB put a UFO over that location and the alien hippies literally built a shrine below it to worship the aliens who are in fact the FIB. So the Mount Chiliad mystery is a play on real life. The fact that the government, the people in power, control the population."
As one commenter sums up, "people just found the UFOs without ever using the mural as a guide, and then the guide stood there making people think it was a mystery of its own after it had been solved for years."
It's almost a bit of an underwhelming conclusion after so many years of investigation, to the point some aren't willing to accept it at all.
"We will not rest before GTA 6," declares Twitter account Cracking Chilliad, responding to the video. "We have a small year left to start, and hopefully, we will finish it."
