Lo chiamavano Herobrine

It happens eventually...  You are exploring and night is about to fall -- you check your Inventory and you realize that you do not have everything that you need to construct a safety cabin -- so, heart pounding in your newbie throat you rush around grabbing what you need!  You get the 8 Cobblestone Blocks, a stack of Dirt Blocks, and half-a-stack of Wood.  In the process of getting the Wood you snag an entire stack of Saplings so bonus!  You can use those as Furnace fuel!

As the sun kisses the top edge of the mountain on the horizon the music begins to play -- you quickly construct the outer walls, never mind the door you can place that after you make it!  Four blocks high, six in each direction, and you slap the ceiling in place just as you hear footsteps outside!  Your timing is amazing, but fear will do that to you -- and besides your Wooden Sword the only armor that you have is the Leather Tunic you made from the Cows you killed on your second in-game afternoon, and that armor has seen better days. 

The footsteps outside add to your fear but you can tell from the direction of the sound that whoever it is -- probably a Zombie right?  Well, whatever it is, it is on the other side of the building, so you quickly equip your Shovel, carve out the two blocks, step outside and turn to face your safety hut in one fluid movement, and place the door!  You just as quickly step back inside and close it, and out of the corner of your eye as you are doing that you see...  No, that cannot be right...

Even though you are certain you are playing your single-player map, you double-check anyway...  Yes, you are playing the single-player map -- you are not online or at least you are not online in the game any way...  But you saw it -- him -- didn't you?  Well?  Didn't you?!  The white eyes, the human shape, that was no Zombie you saw, it was another person!  But it cannot be?

As you stand near the door both hoping you will see whoever it is through the tiny and completely inadequate windows in it you find that you are also hoping that you do NOT see him -- the sound of the footsteps is moving along the side of your hut -- and now away from it!  You breath a sigh of relief and quickly move to the far wall, rapidly crafting a Crafting Table, and placing it in the corner, you open it to craft a Furnace and a pair of Chests.  You place those and your Safety Hut is now a full-fledged Line Cabin with the capabilities of crafting all but the most advanced of recipes and items.

 You need to make some Torches -- you do that -- and it would be an idea to replace the Stone Pickaxes too as you are down to just one with half of its durability remaining...  As you open the Crafting Table and place the first piece of Cobblestone you hear the front door open!

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Il buon, il difettoso ed il brutto 

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You spin in place faster than you have ever done before, your line-of-sight snaps onto the wall and...  The door is standing open, but there is nobody standing in the doorway -- not a man, or a Zombie;  and as you cross the room in a rush, poking your head outside where you see...  Nobody... 

Closing the door you head back to your Crafting Table, and then you remember the stories you heard sitting around the table in that Pub when you were visiting your mates in Cowtown -- the stories of a phantom, a ghost, the man who isn't there -- A Man Called Herobrine!

The first time you heard of him it was because of a screen shot that you saw on a fan site for the game Alan Wake; the image was taken while Alan was running past the float on the wide street, the hot dog trailer in the background, and you know he was on his way to the Church... And in the background as hard as it was for you to accept your eyes -- but poking out from around the corner of a building down the street and watching Alan is the image of a man that you recognize must be from Minecraft! 

You ask a few of your mates and even show them the screen cap, but they do not know -- until you think to ask the grizzled old Minecraft veteran who you always turn to for the hard questions because they always have an answer; they got you started in the game after all, and they have been playing it a lot longer than you have!  

You are sure they will know who that strange figure is, and how it is that it somehow manages to cross over into other games and into images on Facebook -- in fact since you first saw that horrible face you have been seeing it everywhere, and that includes places it cannot possibly have been in, like the mirror in you bathroom!  

You turn to that font of wisdom, the expert and veteran who has been to Hell and back, mastered the art of the portal and fears not The Nether -- your sister's 14-year-old boyfriend Ted -- and jerk back in outraged disgust as he laughs at the image on your notebook screen, raising one eyebrow in a gesture that really irritates you because you cannot do it  yourself -- and he says one word: "Herobrine!"

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Continuavano a chiamarlo Herobrine

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Is he just an Internet Meme?  Is he real?  Did you actually see Herobrine?  Or are you just imagining things?  What do we know for sure about the mysterious figure called Herobrine anyway?

Well, we know that he is a human entity -- that much is for sure -- and we know that he has glowing white eyes (we have seen them, after all),

Herobrine is known to secretly build random constructions such as pyramids and long 2-block-high tunnels -- but only when nobody is watching...  He is known to set fires -- and he likes to set trees on fire, but he is also known to cut the leaves from trees, leaving behind a forest of naked trees for the player to find on his Map.  He is known to enjoy the act of creating large and convoluted cobblestone-complexes deep underground -- which appear similar to dungeons, but are lit by Redstone Torches...  

He often appears at the edge of areas covered by fog, in a tiny render distance, and he is skilled at moving from shadow to shadow beneath the low-branches of trees in order to stalk and follow the player while rarely being seen.  

We know that occasionally a player will spot him, but when that happens, if they try to approach him to talk to him or they chase after him, he disappears almost instantly, leaving behind the tell-tale purple particles of a Teleportation Charge.   We know that if  he is angered be may begin setting traps for the player -- and when he is really angry he will break into player houses or dens and steal their stuff... 

During the recording session of Music The Disc "11" there is a scream near the end of that sounds like someone screaming "herobri..." but is abruptly cut off before they can complete the scream.

What have we heard?  We have heard that he is sometimes encountered as a body at the bottom of a mineshaft -- and sometimes he is seen as a dead miner wandering Zombie -like, an Iron Pickaxe clutched in one hand...   We have heard that at other times he has been known to stalk players, both on multi-player servers AND in single-player games...

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Appearances and Cameos

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In addition to the thousands of sightings in the game -- most often reported soon after a new world map is created, suggesting that either the game is haunted by this creature of darkness, or there is rogue code in there somewhere in the game...

His appearances in the game are widely reported, but there are also other appearances -- some using the controversy and mystery behind his legend while others appear to be Herobrine on his own -- including the following Cameo Appearances:

Herobrine has appeared in official Mojang images including the image for the Wedding Weekend standing just behind Notch's character, and he appeared in the official Minecon header on its site, as well as within the official Minecon video Trailer.

A diligent search of blog posts and forum posts that mention Herobrine reveal cameo appearances in a wide selection of other games, and in a number of wedding and honeymoon photos, suggesting that in addition to stalking Minecraft players in-game, he also likes to do so outside of the game as well!  A photo taken from video footage revealing Herobrine in the audience of the US television show The Tonight Show with Jay Leno suggests that when he is not active in the game, Herobrine likes to be entertained.

Perhaps the most disturbing of all are rumors that Herobrine may actually be reclusive actor and well-known gamer Johnny Depp.   Evidence recovered for scientific examination by professionals include the use of comparison screening software that is used to measure and compare facial features as part of the process for identifying suspects from video footage and photos.  An investigation to measure and compare the geometry of the eyes and distance between the tip of the nose and bottom of the chin undertaken by well-known forensic investigator Greg Sanders of the Clark County, Nevada Sheriff's Department resulted in a 99.994% match.  Depp was unavailable for comment when we tried to contact him through his agent to ask him if he was Herobrine...

Have you seen Herobrine?