By now you’ve most likely read at least something about Cloverfield, the code name for a mysterious new film from producer J.J. Abrams, his frequent collaborator writer Drew Goddard and director Matt Reeves, who also has worked with Abrams in the past. If not here’s the story so far:

In front of this past weekend’s debut of Transformers there appeared a trailer for a movie that no one knew the slightest thing about. It showed a group of young adults partying in a loft-type apartment and looked like it was shot from the point of view of someone with a digital video camera. The party was interrupted by reports of a strange occurrence elsewhere in the city, at which point everyone ran up to the roof to check it out. In the distance there appeared a glowing, fiery orb that shot out fireballs, which rained down on the city. We then saw the head of the Statue of Liberty rolling down the street as the partygoers understandably were wigging out. The screen went dark, save for “1-18-08,” followed by “From Producer J.J. Abrams.”

Shortly thereafter a teaser Web site was launched which contained nothing but a single image. The site bore the URL of that date that appeared in the trailer.

That was it. An information hungry film community then reacted with a healthy “WTF?!?!?!?”

Since then a few more stories have emerged, some of which shed more light on the project and some which present even more questions.

Variety tried contacting Bad Robot, Abrams’ production company (whose logo appears in front of the trailer) and got nothing. Whoever answered the phone acted like they had no idea of what the Variety writer spoke. The story does note helpfully that Abrams has a history of faking us out when it comes to promoting his work, having created a bunch of phony stuff to support his show “Lost.”

The Hollywood Reporter got a little more information. The project got the green light from Paramount roughly in February of this year, right around the time the studio was nailing Abrams down as the director of the next Star Trek installment. Casting was done under extreme secrecy, with potential actors simply being asked if they were in or out, Skull & Bones style. The studio decided to put a teaser in front of Transformers to take advantage of the huge audiences the flick was likely to attract. Cloverfield is reported to have a budget of about $30 million and just began shooting, meaning it’s operating on tremendously tight schedule if it’s making a mid-January opening day.

Now we have the appearance of two new websites that seem to be connected to the film.

The first is EthanHaasWasRight.com. The site is a puzzle of sorts, presenting visitors with a big mysterious ball that must be unlocked. Try as I might, though, I wasn’t even able to crack it, even with the clues that were emailed to me when I…well, I’ll let you find out for yourself how to get those hints. If you view the page source for the site you get the following text:

“…war came, no longer from the elemental nor from the star’s rain of fire. The world was again remade, and the glow was as the coming of the sun upon the Earth. The children of the gods were again too few, scattered and divided and among them walked the ancients and those whose thoughts were not as to the towers and the marvels, but to the End and the destruction of the Earth and to the fires from which nothing could escape.”

People who were able to finish some or all of the puzzle report seeing more videos and hints that August 1st will bring more information.

And if you’re wondering who Ethan Haas is you can get some background on the The Truth of Ethan Haas blog. The blog seeks to discredit Haas, who is labeled as a “prophet” of someone named Van Mantra. The site references Haas’ beliefs that fire will rain down from the gods and other such images that seem to play out in the trailer.

Google searches for “Van Mantra” and “Mezin Source,” the author of the blog, turned up nothing of use.

But now we get into some unexplored territory. One of the actors in Cloverfield is Lizzy Caplan, who previously starred on the now-canceled sitcom “The Class” on CBS. A co-star there, Jason Ritter, played a character named Ethan Haas. There doesn’t appear to be any connection between Ritter and the movie and he’s not mentioned in the stories about casting. But what are the odds something like this is a coincidence? Seems far-fetched to me.

So that’s the wrap-up of the ever-evolving story of the Cloverfield marketing effort. This could be a new case-study in the making if you ask me.

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