Does This Mysterious Website Tease the Return of a Beloved Cartoon Classic?

Gravity Falls‘ latest tie-in novel, The Book of Bill, has fittingly thrust fans back into code-cracking, cipher-hunting madness thanks to the book’s mysterious companion website. Let’s dive into the site that has sparked conspiracies and why some fans feel it’s a promising portent of Bill Cipher’s impending return to television.

The Chaotic Timeline of This Is Not a Website Dot Com

On July 23, The Book of Bill hit bookstore shelves with a URL directing to This Is Not a Website Dot Com hidden nearly inconspicuously on the bottom of Page 16. Except, nothing’s inconspicuous to Gravity Falls fans. Beneath a barcode on the page, the call to action “For More Bill Cipher Press fun, visit ThisIsNotAWebsiteDotCom.com” is scrawled alongside other characteristically sassy takes on standard publishing jargon.

However, readers seeking more Bill Cipher Press fun first had to circumvent the demonic triangle’s cybersecurity, as the original iteration of the website was password-protected. This password? Naturally, The Great Gatsby‘s T.J. Eckleburg. This passcode could likewise be retrieved by following a series of clues within The Book of Bill itself. In this sense, the adult-oriented The Book of Bill proved a perfect spiritual successor to required summer reading, as Eckleburg served as just one of many Gatsby-isms associated with the This Is Not A Website Dot Come Dot Com saga.

Once they sidestepped Cipher’s security, The Book of Bill readers were greeted with a countdown clock set to end on July 30th. However, when July 30th arrived, This Is Not A Website Dot Com ceased counting down and began counting up, with Mystery Shack employee Soos arriving to fix the website. This is when the conspiratorial side of the fanbase latched onto This Is Not A Website Dot Com, as Soos’ dialogue options ranged from charmingly characteristic to enticingly cryptic. Clicking on Soos provided a range of quips about fixing the countdown clock but also continued the website’s ARG quality by providing outside links to a PDF of The Great Gatsby and a brand new Gravity Falls version of the lo-fi hip-hop girl featuring Mabel Pines. A Bill-possessed Soos gifted fans yet another code to crack in a cipher that aptly translated to “SO! MANY! QUESTIONS!”

As Soos worked diligently on This Is Not A Website Dot Com, Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch took to social media to egg on the fandom’s now rabid quest for answers about the website. Finally, on August 9th, Soos completed his work. Soos only briefly stuck around to celebrate his accomplishment as the new timer counted down to later in the day. When this far less torturous countdown was completed, fans were brought to the current, no longer password-protected iteration of the website, which features an ominous work desk cluttered with prismatic objects and a copy of The Book of Bill.

In the weeks since this iteration of This Is Not A Website Dot Com launched, fans have tested several prompts on the desk’s retro computer from McGucket Labs. Words like “SPOOKY,” “FORD,” and “SORRY” provide fans with a collection of objects from around Gravity Falls, such as a medical file on Ford Pines. Charlie Day and “Weird Al” Yankovic even make their own fittingly bizarre contributions to the website that can be found by searching “CONSPIRACY” and “WEIRD,” respectively.

Many of the prompts contain meta-references to Gravity Falls. For example, phrases related to Hirsch, such as “ALEX,” redirect to a Google search for flannel and, in some cases, espouse a conspiracy theory that the showrunner “Died in Burbank in 2016 choking on a pen cap, while beginning to outline Season 3″.” This Hirsch result is not the only allusion to a potential continuation of Gravity Falls on This Is Not a Website Dot Com, with moments like Gideon humming “We’ll Meet Again” sprinkled throughout the site’s delightful rabbit hole.

The Disney short “How NOT to Draw Grunkle Stan” arrived on August 17, furthering theories that The Book of Bill and This Is Not A Website Dot Com were the first stepping stones toward a third season of Gravity Falls.

Will Gravity Falls Get a Third Season?

While it’s possible that This Is Not A Website Dot Com exists purely as an ARG for dedicated readers of The Book of Bill or the most elaborate episode of Ker-Prank’d with Justin Kerprank yet, many fans believe the site is a promising sign that Gravity Falls will return for a long-awaited third season. There is certainly evidence to support this claim beyond the realm of fan theory, with Deadline reporting that Disney had entered discussions with Hirsch about a potential Season 3 back in June. Though Pines twins Dipper and Mabel wrapped up their summer vacation back in 2016, the hype around continued explorations of the show’s universe found in projects like This Is Not A Website Dot Com proves that the series’ passionate fanbase never fully gave up hope that the duo would return to The Mystery Shack one day.

Whether or not Gravity Falls returns for a third season, one thing’s for certain: where others were having a Brat summer, Gravity Falls fans were having a Cipher one on This Is Not A Website Dot Com.