Due to the expansive open world nature of its games, and the satirical tones that are often packed into them, Rockstar Games has built up of a reputation for its collective love of a good conspiracy. From legendary reports of Bigfoot sightings in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, all the way to unconfirmed visitations of ghosts and aliens, players have learned to embrace the unexpected when they dive into one of the publisher's games. In recent titles like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 especially, they've even seen their suspicions come to life on a number of spooky occasions.
Keeping not only the context of the publisher's history in mind, but its game design style as well, it isn't all that shocking to hear that players think they've uncovered yet another unsolved mystery in GTA 5. Since the initial release of the aforementioned San Andreas on the PS2 all the way back in 2004, the introduction of Mount Chiliad and the retro-inspired jetpack have captivated fans for a number of different reasons. As it stands right now, only the first half of that curious combination is accessible in the modern Los Santos-based follow-up. If fans and the evidence they've found are right, though, things could change at an undetermined point in the future.
Mount Chiliad's Cryptic Mural
Referred to as both the jetpack and Mt. Chiliad Mystery by the Grand Theft Auto community, players have been captivated by the urban legend ever since GTA 5 debuted on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013. Around the time of the game's initial release, while many were tearing through the crime drama narrative that Rockstar had created, a handful of eagle eyed players stumbled upon one of the mysterious murals that the publisher had hidden away in Los Santos. Located in the cable car station at the top of the iconic mountain landmark, is a large map of the region that contains some tantalizing pictograms that were clearly scribbled onto the paper by an unknown source after it was printed.
This is where the jetpack part of the puzzle comes into the picture, as alongside a number of alien-looking symbols, potential tunnel structures, and the often Illuminati associated 'All Seeing Eye', is what appears to be a crude depiction of a horned creature flying the vehicle. At the time that the Easter egg was first uncovered by fans, many interpreted the mural as a sign that the jetpack was either already hidden away within GTA 5's map, or that Rockstar had plans to add it in via an update or DLC expansion. Considering the fact that a UFO can be seen here if players return to the location as instructed by another nearby Easter egg, upon reaching 100% completion, there was enough fuel available to light the metaphorical fire of speculation.
Investigating the Jetpack
Instead of waiting for acknowledgment from Rockstar Games itself, plenty of players at the time decided to embark on a physical scavenger hunt for the jetpack through Grand Theft Auto 5 themselves. Other Easter egg-based hints, like a well placed sticker in Lester's house that depicts an astronaut utilizing a jetpack, only added to the excited nature of the hunt. Despite the commendable amount of effort that people have put into uncovering the mystery, though, attempts to decipher the glyphs and pictographs that decorate the Mt. Chiliad mural have failed to produce a conclusion that's universally accepted by the GTA community - let alone produce one that's resulted in the unicorn-like single-player jetpack.
Still, one method that focuses on viewing the northern region of GTA 5's Los Santos map from above has generated some noteworthy results. Overlaying the Mt. Chiliad mural on top of the map from a helicopter-assisted elevated position, while lining up the mountain so it sits in the location it occupies on the paper, actually points to the confirmed in-game sunken UFO. The fact that the mural lines up perfectly in this vertical direction has resulted in some players theorizing that the jetpack was intended to be hidden at the location that it occupies on the combined map as well.
This idea has sparked debate amongst the GTA community, as some estimates suggest that would place the jetpack in the middle of Los Santos' eastern ocean. However inverting the mural horizontally, with a little bit of stretching, does point more promisingly to Fort Zancudo instead. In the early days of the jetpack mystery, uncorroborated and most likely faked reports did suggest that some players had found the vehicle here as well. One possible explanation for why the Mt. Chiliad mural is seemingly teasing this location could be that it's a reference back to GTA: San Andreas, and the role the jetpack undertook during its franchise debut. In that game, CJ first gets access to the vehicle via the US military base at Area 69, which bears a few design and gameplay parallels with the modern virtual government installation.
The Mystery's Current Status
Around the time that Grand Theft Auto 5 was updated via the 1.12 patch in early 2014, the section of the Rockstar community that had been searching for the jetpack had reason to believe that their efforts were about to be rewarded. Buried amongst the code for the update was the first official hint that the development team behind the game was working on the futuristic hovering vehicle. Frustratingly, it would take four more years for this discovery to actually produce playable jet-fueled fruit. In 2018, Rockstar finally unveiled GTA Online's Doomsday Heist missions alongside the Thruster, a jetpack that's still exclusive to the game's popular multiplayer mode to this day. While there's a distinct chance that the Chiliad mural was foreshadowing this release a remarkable five years in advance, some are still hopeful that the vehicle will make its way into the single player campaign.
With Grand Theft Auto 5's next generation release for PS5 and the Xbox Series consoles on the horizon, there's an outside chance that the jetpack mystery might crop up again with a more fulfilling conclusion. While Rockstar has cheekily teased that the incoming incarnations of its most successful game will be expanded, how the publisher intends to fulfill that promise has been left suspiciously up in the air. It could be a decidedly wild shot, but with delays having hit the ports, it wouldn't be the most shocking news in the world to hear that the development of new conspiracy-inspired content was partly responsible. Even if GTA Online's exclusive vehicles fail to make the transition over, though, the jetpack mystery has still earned itself a permanent place in the franchise's urban legend hall of fame.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is available on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions in development.