![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/kryptos.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nI thought this might be a good time to talk about a present day mystery \u2014 one that\u2019s a lot closer to my life than you might know\u2026.
Krypton is a sculpture located in the courtyard at the CIA\u2019s headquarters. The sculpture is a 12-foot tall, S-shaped copper scroll supported by a petrified tree.The scroll is made up of four panels, stacked and welded together. The bend of the S and the position of onlookers determines how lines are read \u2014 left to right, backward and forward. The four panels contain four encrypted messages \u2014 altogether there are 1,735 letters on the scroll.\u00a0
The sculpture is known as Kryptos \u2014 the Greek word for \u201chidden.\u201d The letters look like gibberish because it\u2019s a cipher. The sculpture was created by Washington native, Jim Sanborn. And it was his idea to place it in the courtyard at CIA \u2014 a very appropriate place considering CIA has some of the best cryptographers in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sculpture contains four encrypted messages. It was dedicated in 1990 by CIA Director William Webster and thirty three years later, only three of the messages have been decoded, or \u201csolved.\u201d NSA was able to decode the first three messages pretty quickly by using computers. Much more impressive is the fact that CIA employee David Stein decoded the messages by hand in 1999. He estimates that it took about 400 hours of painstaking, convoluted thinking to break the codes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something that isn\u2019t well known about Kryptos is that the scroll isn\u2019t all there is to it. Scattered around the courtyard there are shrubs, some polished granite formations, a koi pond, etc. \u2014 all part of Kryptos. Those granite structures can also be found elsewhere on the grounds \u2014 one has a Morse code motif, and another has a compass rose pointing at \u2014 the unknown?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now here\u2019s why I mentioned that I feel a bit of a connection to Kryptos \u2014 while Sanborn created the Kryptos sculpture, the task of writing the cipher fell to a CIA employee that I know very well, and served with on several assignments at various places in the world. We are both the same age and retired roughly about the same time. Sanborn contacted my friend and they met at secret locations in the Washington area and they wrote down almost nothing and didn\u2019t use electronic devices. To Sunburn\u2019s credit he was able to remember their conversations well enough to get back to his studio and hammer out the messages \u2014 that probably explains the few minor mistakes in the code on the panels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first three panels of the sculpture were designed not to last a long time, but with the fourth panel, the two wanted to \u201cmake it a challenge.\u201d If you\u2019re interested, you can find the encoded text of Kryptos on the Internet \u2014 including Section IV that ,as of today, remains a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The message of Kryptos, and a partial guide to its solution, is contained in the panels of the sculpture. The passages follow a theme of concealment and discovery \u2014 each more difficult to decipher than the last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first reads: BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION.\u201d (The misspelling was intentional, according to Mr. Sanborn, to make it more difficult to decode \u2014 or, as he put it, \u201cto mix it up.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second includes the location of the CIA headquarters by latitude and longitude and then asks: \u201cDOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS? THEY SHOULD: IT\u2019S BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION? ONLY WW.\u201d (The WW is a reference to William Webster, the head of the CIA when the sculpture was unveiled. It\u2019s said that Mr. Sanborn provided him with a key for deciphering the message.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The third panel paraphrases, again with a bit of misspelling, the account by the Egyptologist Howard Carter of opening King Tut\u2019s tomb: \u201cSLOWLY, DEPARATLY, SLOWLY, THE REMINS OF PASSAGE DEBRIS THAT ENCUMBERED THE LOWER PART OF THE DOORWAY WAS REMOVED. WITH TREMBLING HANDS I MADE A TINY BREACH IN THE UPPER LEFT-HAND CORNER. AND THEN, WIDENING THE HOLE A LITTLE, I INSERTED THE CANDLE AND PEERED IN. THE HOT AIR ESCAPING FROM THE CHAMBER CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER, BUT PRESENTLY DETAILS OF THE ROOM WITHIN EMERGED FROM THE MIST. XCAN YOU SEE ANYTHING? Q\u201d (The enciphered texts didn\u2019t include any punctuation \u2014 any punctuation was added after the text was deciphered.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fourth section is shorter than the others, it\u2019s just 97 characters. That fact could, in itself, present a decryption challenge \u2014 common solution methods rely on the frequency of the most common letters. The last passage also uses what is known as a masking technique, a further level of obfuscation.\u00a0
As I said, the fourth Section has not been solved. Over the years, Mr. Sanborn has offered \u201cclues\u201d to help unravel the mystery \u201a they are in the form of \u201ccribs\u201d that are words or phrases that appear in the decrypted text. In 2010, his clue was BERLiN. In 2014 he reveled the word CLOCK. His last clue was the word NORTHEAST.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jim Sanborn is now 74 or 75 year old. What if Section IV isn\u2019t solved before he dies? He has apparently decided that if the code is not broken when he dies, the secret will be put up for auction. He said the buyer could reveal the secret or perpetuate the mystery. The money raised would go to funding climate science. When asked why that particular cause, he said it \u201cseemed like a no brainer to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So maybe the fourth passage will turn out to be unsolvable, but probably sooner or later someone will figure out the plain text of that final passage. But \u2014 that won\u2019t be the end of the mysteries of Kryptos. The full text contains a riddle. There will be yet another mystery that the four passages together have a meaning that\u2019s greater than their individual pieces and there\u2019s something more to figure out. The sculpture is more than the scroll \u2014 there are scraps of Morse code scattered through the elements around the scroll, as well as a pillar of petrified wood, a swirling pool, slabs of granite \u2014 and more. The full mystery of Kryptos could involve the broader assemblage of pieces and their relationships to each other.\u00a0
So there\u2019s sill lots and lots to learn about the mysteries of Kryptos \u2014 the sculpture that just keeps on giving\u2026.\u00a0
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We get a monthly magazine from an investment firm and looking through the last issue, there was an article titled \u201cThe Mysteries of History.\u201d It had brief paragraphs about a lot of \u201cmysteries\u201d both past and present. It mentioned things … Continue reading