Published September 27, 2026
The Gravity Falls real-world timeline: Cipher Hunt, books, and the ARG
Every verified real-world Gravity Falls release in date order, 2016 to 2025, with what each one was and what it is not.
The Gravity Falls franchise has an unusually real track record: since the series ended in February 2016, its creator has repeatedly built things that exist outside the screen, on the internet, and in the physical world. Here is the verified sequence.
2016: the year the property left the screen
February 15, 2016. The series finale, "Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls," airs on Disney XD. Its final seconds show real-world footage of a stone statue in a forest, and it carries an encoded riddle about treasure "deep within the woods" and a statue "beyond the rusty gates." This is the seed of everything below.
July 20 to August 2, 2016. The Cipher Hunt, an international alternate reality game and physical scavenger hunt created and organised by Alex Hirsch. Thirteen locations across Russia, Japan, and the United States; ciphers including minus-3 Caesar combined with Atbash, hexadecimal, a cryptex keyword, invisible ink, and a final Polybius square; the statue found in a forest near Reedsport, Oregon on August 2 at 7:53pm PDT. Hirsch stated publicly that it was run at his own volition and funding without affiliation to The Walt Disney Company.
July 26, 2016. Gravity Falls: Journal 3, by Alex Hirsch and Rob Renzetti, Disney Press, ISBN 978-1484746691. A number-one New York Times bestseller.
August 2016. The statue is removed by local authorities over a property dispute, spends time in Reedsport's Bicentennial Park, and by August 20 has been relocated to Confusion Hill in Piercy, California, where it remains at approximately 39.919002N 123.764908W alongside the completed 2,000-piece puzzle.
June 13, 2017. The Journal 3 black-light Special Edition, limited to 10,000 copies, with a magnifying glass, a leather-textured cover with metallic pieces, removable photographs, and a signature from Hirsch. Sold out.
July 24, 2018. Gravity Falls: Lost Legends, the graphic novel follow-on to Journal 3.
July 24 and July 28, 2018. The complete-series DVD and Blu-ray box set from Shout! Factory, seven discs, all 40 episodes, including the unaired 2010 pilot and the Cipher Hunt deleted scenes. One Crazy Summer and The Hirsch Twins release as box-set exclusives on July 28.
2024: the return
December 2023. The Book of Bill is announced, the first Gravity Falls book not to carry the franchise name in the title, and explicitly aimed at an older audience.
July 23, 2024. The Book of Bill publishes from Hyperion Avenue Books, 208 pages, ISBN 9781368092203, "Adult" age range, with a Barnes & Noble exclusive edition adding sixteen pages of production art.
July 2024, alongside the book. The ThisIsNotAWebSiteDotCom terminal goes live, carrying the book's branding and linking to its retail listing. The main reference page covers what is verifiable about the site and what is only community-reported.
2025
September 23, 2025. The Book of Bill Limited Collector's Edition, with a glow-in-the-dark slipcase, ISBN 9781368117845.
Reading the timeline correctly
Two distinctions keep this from turning into fan fiction. First, the Cipher Hunt and the terminal are separate projects, three years and a full book apart, and conflating them is the most common error in popular coverage. Second, the Bradley Pic story is a 2022 account, not a 2016 fact. The signed Stan Bucks in the treasure chest were unexplained at the time; Hirsch told the full story on the Mystery Shack Lookback podcast in 2022, describing a Reedsport resident who found the statue eight days early by accident. Present it as a late recollection, as our companion site's Cipher Hunt guide does.