Window 5 Voice Recording Partly Released — 'It Sounds a Little Like the Shore Lullaby,' Says Ushio Kishiura

The TDA's Dimensional Survey Division released, to reporters only, roughly three seconds of the raw, pre-analysis recording of the "voice-like sound" captured before dawn on September 30 at Window 5, "the Sword Country," behind the No. 3 Appraisal Center in Kameido. Until now the clip had only been played internally, with its waveform described in earlier reports. A division official explained, "We held back on releasing it to avoid prejudicing the analysis, but we decided it was better to let people actually hear it than to let speculation run ahead on its own." There are currently no plans for wider public distribution; only reporters have been allowed to listen.

Before the formal release, on the evening of September 30, the division had informally played the clip for a few people outside the agency, hoping for first impressions from non-specialists. One of them was Ushio Kishiura, 74, a music teacher and the transcriber of "the Shore Lullaby." On the 2nd, Kishiura said, "I can't say for certain, but the way the pitch rises and falls — the phrasing, I suppose — feels a little like our lullaby." She quickly qualified herself, adding, "But I don't think it's something to leave at 'it sounds similar.' There are plenty of things in the world that sound similar to each other." Tane Kishitani, 101, the oldest living first-generation Drifter, offered a similar impression through the division: "It doesn't feel like an actual song, but it feels like something close to one." Neither woman pointed to any specific passage as the source of the resemblance.

The division has not moved from its earlier position: it cannot rule out that the sound came from some sound-producing organism, but there is nothing to confirm it as a human voice, let alone a song. An official said on the 2nd, "We respect Kishiura's and Kishitani's impressions as the first reactions of non-specialists, but they don't get ahead of any analytical conclusion. Feeling that something is similar and having it proven similar belong on different shelves." The division also disclosed that it had formally sent the recording to two domestic acoustics and musicology institutions, adding a new line of analysis — whether the sound has any melodic structure — beyond the earlier waveform comparison.

As previously reported, Window 5 has repeatedly shown a procession carrying tokens resembling the "ceremony" tablets of Lineage 7, "the Lit City," and the relationship between the two lineages remains an open question. On today's sound, an official repeated, "Lineage 7 has never yielded an actual recorded voice, so there's no basis for comparison in the first place." Combined with the still-"unidentified" classification of Window 5's two recovered drift objects — a clasp and a braided cord — one window keeper's log entry, disclosed today, described the window as "a place where the unknowns are slowly starting to take shape."

Etsuko Kajiura, the university professor set to chair the outside advisory panel convening in early November, offered a comment through the division: "What Kishiura and the others felt is a very human reaction, and I don't want to dismiss it. But for now, I'd like to keep the wish to hope for something and the work of verifying it on separate tracks." As previously reported, the recording becomes the panel's fourth agenda item, joining the splitting towers at Window 2, the boundary approach by the "Watcher" at Window 3, and the settlement's migration at Window 4.

Saku Miyai, who runs the café Tomoshi-Mado Saboh next to Window 1, said customers had been talking about the release even though it concerns a different window than the one his café overlooks. "People who come for Window 1 end up talking about the other windows too," he said. "Our café only looks out on the Lit City, but it's become a place where people who just love the windows gather." The division also said it would keep this kind of informal outreach limited for now, wary of feeding commercial speculation or the counterfeit "ceremony tablet" keychains previously reported.

Results from the outside institutions are expected to take several months, much like the ongoing Window 2 acoustic analysis. Until then, the division says it will not move from its position that there is no evidence the other side is aware of this one. But an official suggested a broader shift in approach, saying, "We released the non-specialists' impressions first because we think how the public receives this is also part of the record of this window" — a hint that the division wants to bring more transparency to how it conducts the inquiry.