Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

They are mysterious markers

with bizarre messages.

Artists or pranksters

have been sticking these

plaques on roadways

and other places around

the globe for years now.

"Toynbee Idea

in Kubrick's 2001..."

... Resurrect Dead on

Planet Jupiter. "

I have no idea

what it means.

Maybe it's

a message from space.

The plaques were first

sighted in the early 1980s.

There are 130 known

plaques, most in the US.

Philadelphia, Baltimore...

New York, Washington D.C.,

Chicago, Saint Louis...

Plus, they have been

spotted in South America.

City officials we contacted

were not aware of

their existence.

It's anybody's guess what

the meaning really is,

or who's behind it.

So who is placing these

tiles all over Philadelphia,

and all over the world,

for that matter?

It's like a scene from

"The Twilight Zone."

I've never seen one.

Well, I have all these...

Toynbee tile photographs

and artifacts.

Here's one that

was in New York

on Fifth Avenue and West 34th

in front of

the Empire State Building.

This is from December of 1998.

Here's one from Maryland

and Meridian in Indianapolis.

Here's that D.C. one.

We don't have this one on

the website and it's in reverse.

It's in mirror writing.

These old New York ones

were so incredible.

You know, I always

had this idea, like,

someday maybe there could be

a museum

and I could get

each one of these photos

in a little frame or something.

The first time I noticed

a Toynbee Idea tile

in the street

was on South Street.

It was this tile,

like a floor tile or whatever,

embedded in the asphalt

in the crosswalk

that bears this message on it.

"Toynbee Idea

In Movie 2001

Resurrect Dead

on Planet Jupiter."

I started really thinking,

that's weird,

what's that all about?

Why was it there?

What did it mean,

who made it?

Me and some of my

friends lived in this squat

on Fifth and Bainbridge

at the time.

It was a chaotic squat

full of 17-year-old runaways

and, you know, people like that.

It just caught

my eye one day.

I started thinking about it

'cause I guess we were sitting

on that corner

and we were

looking at that tile.

And I said, "Hey, Vern,

isn't that weird?

"That there's

that thing in the street

that says, 'Resurrect the Dead

on Planet Jupiter'?"

A couple years later, I got

this job as a foot courier

for this company,

Kangaroo Couriers.

I began to notice more of these

cryptic street messages

all over the place...

you know, from

walking around the city

and looking down all the time,

delivering packages.

I would walk over the tiles

over and over

and over and over again.

So I'd think about them

every single day.

And, you know, I would

just constantly think,

like, "I wonder how

long they've been there?

I wonder what they mean?"

So I started following them when

I'd see them around downtown.

I would make sure

to take note of them

and I started to write down

where they were all at.

I had a little notebook

I would take around.

Around 1996, 97,

it became possible to go to

the Philadelphia Public Library

and get on the Internet.

So I thought,

"I can't wait.

"I'm gonna do an Internet

word search

on this Toynbee message."

So I actually

took off work the next day.

I called in sick to work

so that I could go to the

library as soon as it opened.

And I went to the library

as soon as it opened

and I ran up the steps.

"Toynbee Idea"

was the first thing

I ever typed into an Internet

search engine.

"Your search

returned zero results."

You've got to be kidding me,

there's nothing?

This term has

never been mentioned

on the Internet ever,

you know?

And I'm like, "Whoa.

You know, this is, like,

weird and kinda creepy."

I went back a couple

months later.

It might have even been

as much as a year later.

This time... I think I pulled up

about ten results.

Toynbee.net had

occurred and I was like--

it blew my mind.

I start to see listings

for all of them.

I'm like, "It's spreading!"

You know, I was,

like, just ecstatic.

Then-- this is what blew my mind

right out of the water--

I start going down

and it's Baltimore, Maryland.

This isn't just a Philadelphia

thing.

You know, these things are,

like, in New York, D.C., Boston.

And the person who made them

was a compete mystery.

I was like, "I've got to find

out who made these things."

I think one of

the best descriptions

that I've ever heard of Justin

is the "unstoppable force."

He's very stubborn once

he gets his mind set

that he's going to do something.

You know, he's just constantly

on the move and, uh...

he's at least trying to

take down everything in his way,

in his path.

He's manic when it comes

to that stuff

and he can't

stop thinking it,

he can't turn it off.

There could be an explosion

in front of him

and the fire

could be burning,

there could be people running

out of the fire,

like, screaming...

I got the Toynbee Idea flier

up there at all times, you know?

I see it every

night when I go to sleep

and I also keep these things

next to my bed.

I know he used to go

all over the city and...

you know, be like,

"There's one here."

And then he used to

take bus trips

with his girlfriend

and drag her along.

We were in New York City

and going to New York City,

to me, is kind of a big deal.

I was, like, elected to be

the Toynbee secretary

and it seemed

like an important job.

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