Fans Discover the Mystery Highway From the Cover of Radiohead’s OK Computer

Parlophone & Capitol Records
Parlophone & Capitol Records / Parlophone & Capitol Records

Connecticut may soon be facing an influx of disaffected-yet-diehard music lovers, as one Reddit user seems to have finally identified the mysterious roadway featured on the cover of Radiohead’s iconic OK Computer album.

Radiohead fans are already having a good year. In celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary, the band will soon release a remastered version, complete with never-before-seen artwork and three new songs.

Spurred on by music nerds’ mounting excitement, Redditor Jordan117 decided to sort out Stanley Donwood’s mysterious cover art once and for all, tossing the puzzle into the self-described “roadgeek” forum AARoads.com.

And just like that, the world—at least a very specific, agitated subset of the world—had its answer: The epicenter of numb dystopia is Hartford, Connecticut.

/ Mapmikey via Imgur
/ Mapmikey via Imgur

Roadgeek Mapmikey said cracking the code “took about 10 minutes.”

“The [green sign in the middle] has a two word control city with just a single letter as the first word,” Mapmikey wrote on Reddit. “The [sign] on the right has a two word city but two actual words. I figured that it was east of the Mississippi because of the (IMO) tight footprint of the interchange.”

The only site that fit all those criteria was the junction of interstates 84 and 91 in Hartford.

“I’m pretty decent at puzzles,” Mapmikey said.

[h/t The A.V. Club]