All right. It’s high time I shared a theory about Gravity Falls with you. Today, I am going to attempt to shed some light on one of the major questions of the series.

Who wrote the journals?

Wait, come back, I’m serious! No, I’m not a time traveler from 2012!

Let me explain what I mean….We’ve all seen this symbol before, right?

This symbol, or some variant of it, is scribbled on several pages of Ford’s journals. As is this one (or some variant of it.)

Now, there’s a lot of stuff in the journals that might just be random scribbles/mysterious looking symbols, but these two stamps show up way too often for me to believe they’re inconsequential.

I haven’t seen much speculation about what they might mean. The only thing I’ve seen anyone suggest is that they might be signatures of some kind–the squiggle one being Ford’s and the triangle one being associated with Bill. So I’m going to start from that point of speculation.

I guess my “who wrote the journals” question was misleading, since it’s likely that Ford was the only one to ever physically write down information in it. But given that Bill was Ford’s “research assistant,” the stamp might indicate not who wrote the journal entry, but who provided important information for it.

That would explain why some pages have multiple stamps on them, such as the example above which has the squiggle symbol, the triangle symbol, and a barely visible third symbol I’ll get into in a moment.

But wait!

If the squiggle symbol is Ford’s, then what the heck is this symbol doing here?

How could a six-fingered hand possibly represent anyone other than Ford? Clearly, if each stamp is supposed to be a symbol representing one researcher, this is Ford’s, not the squiggle.

So who could the squiggle be? Fiddleford? Well, that’s definitely possible. Let’s look at where it shows up:

Okay, portal schematics, diagrams about the portal, pages on the shapeshifter which also include info on the cryogenic chambers…all things that make sense for our favorite little engineer.

By contrast, the weirder, more supernatural entries (the hide-behind, the unicorn, the truth teeth and most notably the possession incantation) pretty consistently have the “Bill” stamp. (As does, interestingly, the Society of the Blind Eye page. Naturally Fidds didn’t consult on that one.)

Maybe the squiggle is Fidds’ symbol after all. There’s just one problem.

It’s also on the entry for Bill in Journal #2.

Now, that doesn’t add up, does it? In Ford’s memory in TLM, Fidds asks him “where are these ideas coming from? Who are you working with?” It implies he doesn’t know about Bill. That Ford was working with him in secret.

Now, I have a possible explanation for this–the stamp is surrounded by what appears to be an attempt to crack some kind of code, possibly the language written on the cave wall, possibly some other code. It may be that Fidds helped with that part and that part only.

Let’s keep digging. Let’s get back to that third (or fourth, really, counting the six fingered hand) stamp I mentioned earlier.

The other stamp is seen only on one or two pages. It resembles a circle containing an arrow and three dots.

With so little information it’s hard to speculate on who that stamp might represent. But for now, I find it interesting that we have four stamps–one that almost certainly references Bill (the triangle) one that almost certainly references Ford (the hand) one that may reference Fiddleford (the squiggle that shows up on so many engineering-related pages) and this one, which barely shows up at all.

There’s another excellent theory post here, speculating on the possibility of Blind Ivan having worked with Ford. I personally find it very convincing. Whether or not Blind Ivan worked with Ford, however, I am almost certain there had to be a third member of the research team (or fourth if you’re counting Bill.) The fact that the manual override involved turning three keys is enough on its own to convince me of that. That implies three members of the team, each trusted with a key. (Bill couldn’t have been the third member because he doesn’t have a physical body.)

It’s also interesting that the stamp on the possession incantation looks like it might possibly be a combination of all four symbols. The Bill triangle is in the center, an arrow with dots is to the left, underneath is a small squiggle that seems to resemble what I’m going to call Fiddleford’s stamp, and a space to the right which might have had some representation of Ford’s hand is obscured by a drop of blood/red ink.

In conclusion, of course Ford wrote the journals. But he didn’t do it alone. He had help from Bill, and from Fiddleford….and, it would seem, from a third person as well.