RDR2 secrets: where to find the vampire, UFOs, ghosts and other easter eggs

Start with the writings. Five "Mysterious Writings" are scrawled on walls around Saint Denis: creepy lines about blood and immortality. Inspect them in any order and the protagonist copies each one into the journal.

Once you have all five, head to the old part of the city after midnight. In a dead-end alley a pale, bald man with pointed ears is drinking blood from his victim. He tells you to leave; if you stay or provoke him, he lunges with a dagger that can kill in one hit. Save before the encounter. After the fight, pick up the Ornate Dagger, a unique blade you cannot get any other way.

UFO #1. Hani's Bethel is a shack by a small pond northeast of Heartland Overflow in New Hanover. Inside lie the skeletons of cultists, and by the fireplace is a note called Mysterious Sermon about "the second hour under the half moon" and "our savior Kuhkowaba, voyager of time and galaxies". Come back at night, around 2 AM, and stand inside: green light pours through the gaps in the roof as a flying saucer hovers above. Run out fast, because it vanishes within seconds. GIGA says midnight, PowerPyx and the wiki say 2 AM, so 2 AM is the safer bet.

UFO #2. The seventh line of the note mentions "the peak of Mount Shann". The mountain sits northwest of Strawberry, and its summit has a stone circle sundial. At night, around 2 AM, a UFO appears there too. Rdr2.org suggests walking around the stone circle first, but the wiki does not require it: the only confirmed condition is being there at night.

Both scenes are a nod to Mount Chiliad in GTA 5, where Rockstar also hid a UFO and cryptic murals.

Agnes Dowd. In Chapter 4, Reverend Swanson tells the camp he saw "a woman in white" in the swamps. Nobody believes him, but the ghost is real. At night, wander the western part of Bluewater Marsh in Lemoyne and listen for a woman crying. Keep your distance: walk right up and she fades. Stay quiet and she tells a piece of her story: a forbidden romance, a father who killed her lover, and the tree where she hanged herself. There are several encounters, and in the last one Agnes hangs from that tree and calls the hero over.

Ghost train. A short, dark train with an eerie hum runs along the tracks near Old Greenbank Mill, on the border of Lemoyne and New Hanover. Wait between 2 and 3 AM. The wiki and GIGA agree it appears only once per playthrough, so a missed encounter is gone for good.

The Strange Man is the top-hatted figure from the original Red Dead Redemption who knows everything about John and shrugs off bullets. You never meet him in RDR2, but he left traces.

• Portrait in Armadillo. Herbert Moon's store in Armadillo has a small portrait of the Strange Man. John recognizes him in the epilogue; the owner says someone gave it to him.
• The Bayall Edge shack. In the Lemoyne swamps, northwest of Caliga Hall, stands an empty shack covered in writing about Armadillo and cholera. Arthur sees an unfinished painting there. When John visits, the portrait gets more complete each time, and the finished painting shows the Strange Man. Look in the mirror: he appears behind you for a moment and is gone when you turn around.

Some guides claim the portrait only finishes after 100% completion. There is no confirmation of that: most sources tie the finished painting to John's visits in the epilogue.

Francis Sinclair. A stranger near Strawberry asks you to find 10 rock carvings. Send them all and his cabin holds a mural of future skyscrapers and a baby with the same birthmark Francis had. Hence the popular theory that he is a time traveler. Route and rewards are on the RDR2 rock carvings page.

The serial killer. Three mutilated bodies lie near Valentine and in Scarlett Meadows, each with a piece of a map. The finished map leads to a burned-out shack southwest of Valentine, where Edmund Lowry Jr. waits in the cellar. This is the "American Dreams" stranger: you can start it in Chapter 2 and leave it until the epilogue. All strangers are listed on the RDR2 strangers page.

• Giant Remains. A small cave on Mount Shann holds a huge skeleton with an ox skull beside it. The protagonist writes that he is not sure it was a man at all. The way in is a path hidden behind bushes near the mountain's edge. TechRadar once named another spot (Clemens Point), but the wiki, rdr2.org and PowerPyx all agree on Mount Shann.
• The giant's voice. In Grizzlies East (Ambarino), behind a blocked cave entrance, someone tells you how big and lonely he is. A flock of birds leads you there. According to the wiki you can never see the giant: there is only the voice.
• The robot. Marko Dragic, a Nikola Tesla-style inventor, brings a mechanical "son" to life in Doverhill during "A Bright Bouncing Boy". A few days later Marko lies dead in his lab, and the robot sits on a cliff above abandoned Colter in Grizzlies West, mumbling "Papa".
• The wild man. In the woods of Roanoke Ridge a naked man runs and howls with a wolf pack. Scare him and he flees to his cave, where the wolves turn on you.

• Meteor House. A stone cabin in Roanoke Ridge, above Roanoke Valley, near Brandywine Drop. A meteorite crashed through the roof in the middle of dinner; the Meteorite itself sits in the hole in the floor. On a clear night around 2-3 AM you can watch a meteor shower over the nearby field.
• Witches Cauldron. A shack in Ambarino with a bubbling cauldron. Drink the "mysterious liquid" and the hero passes out and wakes up nearby. The wiki adds that all cores are fortified afterwards; GIGA noticed no effect.
• Red pentagram. Under a ruined shack northwest of Van Horn, a pentagram glows between 4 and 5 AM. The wiki links it to the Spider Dream mystery, which fans have not solved.
• Strange Statues. A cave in Ambarino with seven statues showing different numbers of fingers. The answer is the prime numbers, and it pays 3 gold bars. Walkthrough in the RDR2 gold bars guide.

• Calloway's Revolver from the legendary gunslingers line is engraved with "Canis Canem Edit", the European title of Bully.
• Mount Shann with its UFO and cryptic drawings echoes Mount Chiliad from GTA 5.
• The ghost of Agnes Dowd is, per rdr2.org and the wiki, another idea borrowed from GTA 5, which also has a night-time female ghost who vanishes when you approach.

• Zombies in RDR2: myth. There are none in story mode or Red Dead Online. The Night Folk in the swamps are people, not the undead. Zombies only exist in Undead Nightmare for the first game.
• Alien abduction: myth. Both UFOs just hover and fly off; there is no abduction scene and no reward.
• You can see Bigfoot: myth. The giant leaves bones on Mount Shann and a voice in a cave, but the game never shows the creature. PowerPyx says a Sasquatch "appears", but the wiki clarifies it is only a voice.
• The Strange Man portrait needs 100%: unconfirmed. John's epilogue visits finish the painting.
• You must circle the stones for the Mount Shann UFO: unconfirmed. Being on the summit at night is enough.