Internet sleuths looked for the singer of a mystery song for 16 years. They found her in Vancouver

Mysterious messages started appearingin Paula Toledo's inbox on Dec. 8, telling her to brace for an onslaught of people trying to get in touch with her.

The messages said internet sleuths had been trying to track down a song she recorded some two decades ago.

"I was not sure what was happening," Toledo said from her Vancouver home. "It sounded a little bit too surreal."

She wondered if she was being targeted by some sort of elaborate phishing scam.

The details, though, were too specific. How could scammers know about How Long,a song she recorded in Langley, B.C.,in the 2000s but never released commercially?

Then she noticed people started sending money to a website she set up to supporther music.

She asked her son to look into it.

He visited the online discussion website Reddit and discovered a forum, known as a subreddit,called HLWIT, a 1,000-member strong communitydedicated toa mysterious song they called How Long Will It Take after a line in the song's chorus or HLWIT for short.

Toledo's son told her a user figured out the song they were looking for was hers.

"He was like, 'Mom, this is legit. People have been looking for you for 16 years,'" Toledo said.

From Russian DVDs with love

Toledo then got a crash course in the world of "lost media,"also known as "lost wave" a corner of the internetdevoted to unearthingforgotten bits ofpop culture.

Users upload snippets of music stuck in their heads, and hope the internet hive mind can determine the song's provenance.

Toledo, 52, said she hadn't given How Longmuch thought since she recorded it around 2003 and licensed it to a TV show and TV movie. Online sleuths, meanwhile, had spent countless hours analyzing it.

She says watching a video essay about the HLWIT mysteryleft her flabbergasted.

"We were all watching it, my whole family, and we were just kind of moved to tears, to be honest," Toledo said.

"It was so incredible."

WATCH | Paula Toledo describes finding out her song hashundreds of fans:

International search for mystery singer ends in Vancouver

9 months ago

Duration 9:43

About 16 years ago, a mystery song with no known singer or writer somehow captured the attention of a group of Reddit users. The group's sleuthing eventually led them to Vancouver's Paula Toledo. Gloria Macarenko speaks to Toledo and the moderator of the Reddit group about the search and the singer.

Zach Winkler, a 32-year-old from Missouri whohelps moderatethe HLWIT subreddit,says the first online reference toHow Longdates back to August 2007.

Someone ona Ukrainian message board said theyheard it on a bootleg Russian DVD. Asnippet of the song played on a loop in themenu of unauthorizedDVDcompilations of animated films and TV shows.

Fans tried to solve the mystery on and off for 16 years, Winkler says. A new subredditdedicated to the song was set up in October.

Thecase was cracked whena user named "the-arabara"searched the database of performance rights organization SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) for any song containing the words "how long."

The discovery was met with jubilation onthe HLWITsubreddit.

"I had been listening to the song multiple times every day, kind of obsessed with it ... I felt like I was about to cry,"Winkler said.

'It feels like you've heard it before'

Toledohas no idea how her song ended up onRussian bootleg DVDs.

With its mix of guitar and Toledo'swistful vocals, How Longwouldn't seem out of place on modern adult contemporary radio or a movie soundtrack.

Winkler was in high school in the 2000s andsays How Longcaptures theera perfectly.

The song feels familiar, he says, which made the mystery around it more intriguing.

It's a common feeling amonglost media aficionados.

"People always feel like, 'Oh, I swear I've heard this,'because it capturesa moment in music history and it reminds people of when they were younger ...You can't put your finger on it. You know you didn't hear it, but it feels like you've heard it before."

WATCH| Russian DVD menus featuring How Long:

After learning about the HLWIT subreddit, Toledo released the original recording of How Longon Bandcamp, a music distribution platform,with plans to donate proceeds to charity. She hopes to release iton streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music.

She's still trying to figure out how to navigate the modern music industry, she says.

Toledo grew up in Montreal before moving to Vancouver to attend university. Shesays she put her music on the back burner to focus on family after her husband died and she becamea single mother.

Her love of music took her in adifferent direction. She earned a master's degree in applied positive psychologyfrom the University of Pennsylvania. Her studies focused onmusic's ability to fostersocial connections and stave offloneliness.

After studying how music can connect people, she says her long-lost songhas done exactly that.

Communities that hunt down lost musicbring people together, she says. She's heard from people from across North America, Europe and Latin America. One fan made a charcoal drawingof her and others have made remixes and cover versions of How Long.

"I'm just so overjoyed to be showered with so much love... from real people whoseheart and soulare connecting to the music and then they're making their own art through their own experience of this search," she said.

"It's really magical."