Linkin Park Launch Cryptic Countdown on Website - But What For?

Linkin Park have launched a cryptic countdown on their website that has a five-day timer earlier today (Jan. 27) at 3PM ET.

Not much has been heard from the band or its members in recent months, so any activity from Linkin Park on this scale feels pretty significant. And even though the countdown pages don't contain a whole lot of information, there's some huge clues that could perhaps lead fans to solving the mystery before the clock expires on Wednesday, Feb. 1.

What's on the website?

Not a whole lot. But enough to poke around and start asking questions about what this could be.

The welcome screen greets you with a photo collage and a pop-up window prompting you to click the OKAY button.

"DOWNLOAD A FREE COPY OF LiNkiNgPaRk-nUmB.exe," it says on the screen.

There's a couple things to note:

First, the file says "Linking" instead of Linkin and, most obviously, it appears to be about the hit song "Numb," off Meteora, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary on March 25 later this year.

Once you hit okay, the website tricks you into thinking a file is about to appear in your download folder, but things go awry and you're instead met with a blue screen.

On this screen is the active countdown timer (screenshotted below with four days, 23 hours, 27 minutes and 50 seconds left) as well as a message about that "Numb" file."

"DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION_LiNkiNgPaRk-nUmB.exe," the file title now reads with a series of "recovered links" directing you elsewhere on the site, one of them regarding Linkin Park's debut album "Hybrid Theory."

What is an .exe file?

We understand — there's a chance you may not even know what type of file you were so recently so eager to download.

An .exe file stands for "executable file" and, at its most basic, is described by Tech Target, as a file that "contains an encoded sequence of instructions that the system can execute directly when the user clicks the file icon."

Have Linkin Park posted anything about this?

Yup. Here's some DOS-lloking script (techies, please forgive us for being crude) that the band tweeted.

What are fans saying?

Mostly, recollecting how they downloaded sketchy files in the earlier days of the internet and ruined their family computer.

And how old they feel now that Meteora is turning 20.

One Twitter user suspects Linkin Park is plotting anniversary reissues/rereleases of either Meteora or the Reanimation remix album that came out in 2002.

Stay tuned as more information becomes available.