Strange power



The strange power was an event that occurred at about 19:48 UTC on 23 January 2010. All across Gielinor, a strange power was felt by nearly all the players online at the time. The effects lasted for about seven seconds, featuring a red mist-like effect encircling and levitating users. When the players stopped floating, they all faced a specific direction. All the players who experienced it received a message saying, "You feel a strange power unleash itself upon you."

There was plenty of speculation of what the strange power was, or its true purpose. The RuneScape Forums were flooded with threads in relation of the event. In one thread, a Jagex Moderator refused to provide any hints on the nature of the event. On the Jagex Twitter channel, a Jagex Moderator posted a hint saying that all will be revealed in time. On the same day, Mod MMH posted an anagram on the official forums for players to solve. The anagram was Acolyte Until. He also said that the answer was four words long and began with an I. Players quickly discovered that the anagram unscrambled to I can't tell you.

The strange power event corresponded with the release of Enakhra's Lament on 23 January 2006, exactly 4 years prior of this event.

Facts
Please help improve this section by adding more references.

After the initial event, all sorts of speculation and rumours had spread. Among hundreds, only a few were confirmed to be true, which are the following:

Jagex
 * Mod Calm confirmed on the RuneScape Forums that the phenomenon "wasn't a glitch or a bug."
 * Mod Emilee confirmed that the strange power had nothing to do with the Orb of oculus or the Rune Mechanics quest.
 * Mod Paul M confirmed that the strange power had nothing to do with the real life earthquake in Haiti.

The event
 * Members and non-members experienced the event.
 * The red mist effect lasted for about seven seconds.
 * After the event, all players were placed facing the same direction from different locations, which was north-east for anyone who was on the main plane of Gielinor at the time. (Other directions were only reported if players were in a cave or minigame area.)
 * All the players who experienced it received a message saying, "You feel a strange power unleash itself upon you." Strange power.png

NPCs
 * NPC chat dialogue that was added after the strange power:
 * Peer the Seer: Uuuh... What was that dark presence I felt?! Ahem, sorry about that.
 * Seers in Seers' Village: Uh, what was that dark force? I've never sensed anything like it... Anyway, sorry about that.
 * Sin Seer: My inner eye is clouded from a wave of darkness; give me a moment. What do you want?
 * While seers were affected by the strange power, other psychics (notably the Oracle and Gypsy Aris) gave no apparent reaction.

Unconfirmed information
Please help improve this section by confirming these statements with references.


 * The event was accompanied by a sound very much like the audio of the Quest point cape emote.
 * If a player was moving or performing an action while this event occurred, they would cancel the emote, but the red mist would still appear.
 * The red mist which was around the player was very much like the red mist appearing when player gets damage in the Fist of Guthix minigame with the Stone of Power in their hands. Red mist is also seen during Defender of Varrock when the player kills an armoured zombie.
 * The anagram Acolyte Until could be a hint at a new Temple Knight rank, as acolytes are listed after proselytes in White Knight ranking.

Video footage
So far, there are several videos on YouTube of which the power was captured. The videos cannot be remade so they are marked as historical.


 * Strange power unleashes itself on Runescape - ViIIandra - Smithing
 * Runescape 1/23/10 [Strange Power Jagex's Hint on a Hidden Update? MUST SEE ] - aquaman157 - Kalphite Queen
 * "you feel a strange power unleash itself upon you"+all runescape skillcapes at one moment - rsvideonl - Mega Skillcape
 * Strange power emote at great guard invasion 5 - Super Treeco - TreecoProductions - Great Guard Invasion
 * you feel a stange power unleash itself upon you? barbarian assault - EnemyNinja - Barbarian Assault