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In the Perfectly Pixelated Puzzling Plaza, some people were setting off fireworks. Being the puzzling fellows that they are, they couldn't bear to just set off fireworks for the sheer enjoyment of it (who would want that?). So they decided to hide a message inside one of the fireworks.

And sure enough, as the particularly perplexing firework had been set off and the the sparks started to fall, some noticed a message that had been woven into that firework.

Perhaps, from this photo of the firework exploding, you can see the message too.

don't enter an image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ @Tryth that looks like an Upside down Onion :-) $\endgroup$
    – kanchirk
    Jul 1, 2015 at 13:30
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    $\begingroup$ If I squint my eyes, I could just make out ET's head. $\endgroup$
    – Eli
    Jul 1, 2015 at 13:55
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    $\begingroup$ Can the answer be determined from a printed image? $\endgroup$
    – Aggie Kidd
    Jul 1, 2015 at 13:57
  • $\begingroup$ I spent a while playing with this but couldn't get anywhere, so I'll say what I've tried. I couldn't find any hint of morse or braille in either of the colours. The red colour on the edges is slightly different than the red used in the middle. There are vertical columns, each 3 blocks wide, separated by columns containing only red blocks. That's all I've got! $\endgroup$
    – Samthere
    Jul 1, 2015 at 14:45
  • $\begingroup$ Plus one for the nicely hidden hint. $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Jul 1, 2015 at 19:00

1 Answer 1

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Vertically compressing the pixels in each column (the clause "[as] the sparks started to fall, some noticed a message" implies a change in the relative vertical alignment of the pixels)

yields

- - - - # # # - # # # - # # # - # # # - # - # - # - - - # # # - - - - 
  - - - # - - - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - # - - - # - - - - - 
    - - # # # - # # # - # # # - # # # - # # - - # - - - # # # - - 
      - - - # - # - - - # - # - # # - - # - # - # - - - # - - - 
        # # # - # - - - # - # - # - # - # - # - # # # - # # #

where # represents orange and - represents red.

And this is a picture representing it (thanks to Cristian Marian who posted it in the comments):

enter image description here

Here we plainly see the word

"SPARKLE"

spelled out, which is presumably the message.

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  • $\begingroup$ If anyone can figure out how to put the contents of this response into a spoiler block, please do so. Your prowess in figuring out SE's bass ackwards style markup exceeds mine. :P $\endgroup$
    – COTO
    Jul 1, 2015 at 17:56
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    $\begingroup$ I've fixed the spoilertagging. I suggest you switch the "."s and "o"s to make the word stand out more, because it took me ages to spot it! $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Jul 1, 2015 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ Nice catch. When I saw the picture, I wanted to try exactly that, but you've been faster. Well done, +1 (And a nice puzzle nicely thematically "hinted") $\endgroup$
    – BmyGuest
    Jul 1, 2015 at 18:59
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    $\begingroup$ I eliminated the gaps between the pixels here $\endgroup$
    – Cristian Marian
    Jul 2, 2015 at 9:30

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