The title of this puzzle, He-Who-Hears Says, is a reference to the game Simon Says (as the name Simon means “he who hears”).
You were provided with 14 sound files that all had odd noises alternating with instructions given by Text-to-Speech voices. If you follow all the instructions provided in each file, your hand will move through a series of ASL letters, ending by forming the following:
- L
- O
- G
- S
- P
- E
- C
- T
- R
- O
- G
- R
- A
- M
Taking the final position of your hand after following each set of instructions, you arrive at the intermediate clue phrase LOG SPECTROGRAM. When you generate the log spectrogram of the sounds in each file, you find that there are images of two "speakers" in the sounds in each file - one Simon, and one non-Simon. The images both fall within some category. The following are the Simon/non-Simon pairs from each file (click on the name to see the original image):
File | Simon | Non-Simon | Category |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Simon Cowell | Paula Abdul | American Idol judges |
2 | Simon de Montfort | Jean-Baptiste Colbert | historical lawgivers with bas reliefs in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. Fun fact: this Simon is the one who "Simon Says" is supposedly named after |
3 | Simon Tam | Jayne Cobb | Firefly characters |
4 | Simon game | Rubik's cube | game toys named after people |
5 | Carly Simon | Carly Rae Jepsen | singers named Carly |
6 | Simon | Alvin | Chipmunks characters |
7 | St Simon | St Mary | Prominent saints |
8 | Simon (from Simon's Cat) | Jon Arbuckle (from Garfield) | owners of famous cartoon cats |
9 | Simon Bolivar | George Washington | American liberators |
10 | Simon the able seacat | Smoky the terrier war dog | wartime animal companions |
11 | Anne Simon | Dana Scully | X-Files affiliates |
12 | Lidia Simon | Caster Semenya | long distance runners |
13 | Simon phone | iPhone | smart phones |
14 | Simone Simon | Audrey Tatou | famous French actresses |
When you follow only the instructions that Simons say, you end each file forming the following letters:
- C
- O
- U
- R
- T
- R
- O
- O
- M
- S
- T
- A
- F
- F
(If you had trouble on some of the Simons, all of the Simons used the same TTS voice, and all the non-Simons used a different TTS voice) Again taking the final position of your hand after following the instructions of only the Simons, you arrive at the final answer: COURTROOM STAFF.
Fun facts: Spectrograms are typically used to analyze which sounds the deaf and hard-of-hearing can hear. ASL interpreters are part of the staff in a typical courtroom.