The Cipher Foundation

Voynich Manuscript

Here is a link to a palaeographic sample page, containing 1000×1000 swatches of writing from every page of quires 1 through 8 (“Q1” to “Q8”), i.e. the first “herbal” section.

Around 1885, a short pamphlet was published in Lynchburg, Tennessee: it contained a story about a young man called Thomas Beale who had allegedly deposited a sizeable treasure (worth approx $63m in 2011) in two deposits in 1819 and 1821. According to the pamphlet, Beale left behind three ciphertexts detailing where the treasure was buried Read More ...

Tamam Shud / Somerton Man

Early in the morning of 1st December 1948, a man was found dead on Somerton Beach in South Australia, not far from Adelaide. His body had no wallet, no ID card or other means of identification, and has remained unidentified throughout the more than six decades since. A couple of weeks later, police managed to Read More ...

d’Agapeyeff Cipher

Back in 1939, Alexander d’Agapeyeff wrote a small book called “Codes and Ciphers” on cryptography and its history. However, he wasn’t actually a cryptographer himself: rather, he had previously written a similar book on cartography for the same publisher, and seems to have been asked to tackle cryptography. On the very last page of the Read More ...

La Buse Cryptogram

Images of a cryptogram allegedly created by the 18th century pirate Olivier Levasseur (often called “La Buse”, the hawk) accompanied by sensational claims about hidden pirate booty have been circulating amongst the French treasure hunting community since at least 1934. This was when a book called “Le Flibustier Mysterieux” was published in Paris, written by Read More ...

Pigeon Cipher

Moustier Cryptogram

The story of the Moustier cryptograms first appeared in the September 1974 issue of “Cryptolog”, an in-house journal at the NSA. It described a pair of matching (but still rather curious) carved cryptograms to be found in a church in the Belgian town of Moustier. Professor Jean Connart spent many years writing a history of Read More ...

Ricky McCormick

Here are the two notes that were found on Ricky McCormick’s body, and which the FBI held for over a decade before releasing to the public in a (somewhat belated) attempt at crowdsourcing. Further reading: “Code Dead” by Christopher Tritto, from the River Front Times.

Scorpion Ciphers

Since 1991, John Walsh (best known as the host of “America’s Most Wanted”) has received a sequence of letters signed “SCORPION”: some of these contained cryptograms, more usually referred to as “The Scorpion Ciphers”. However, only two of these ciphertexts and a handful of pages of text have so far been released. The first Scorpion Read More ...

Rohonc Codex

Chinese Gold Bar Ciphers

The International Association for Cryptologic Research has a webpage describing a set of mysterious gold bars held by a “museum in the US”. These gold bars appear to contain text in English and Chinese, as well as some cryptogram-like text, along with a number of pictures. These claim that at National City Bank (later Citibank)’s Read More ...

Dorabella Cipher

In 1897, the composer Edward Elgar sent a short (and apparently enciphered) note to a young lady-friend Dora Penny – because his later nickname for her was “Dorabella”, this note has acquired the name “The Dorabella Cipher“. Though short, its connection to a famous composer coupled with its inability to be deciphered has led to Read More ...

Ohio Cipher

This cryptogram first appeared in the Lima Times-Democrat newspaper, on 3rd July 1916. The best scan we have was made available courtesy of Tom Rieder of the Ohio History Connection in Columbus, OH: i.e.: “At the request of a citizen of Lima, we publish a note written in cypher. As it is of the utmost Read More ...

Blitz Ciphers

“The Blitz Ciphers” were, according to their (rather reticent) owner, found by a relative of his just after WWII. They were discovered in wooden boxes concealed in the wall of an East London cellar that German bombing had exposed: the ciphers were first described in this December 2011 post on Cipher Mysteries, where they were Read More ...

Devil’s Handwriting

This cipher first appeared in print in 1539, on fol. 212v of Teseo Ambrogio Albonesi’s “Introductio in Chaldaicam linguam, Syriacam atque Armenicam et decem alias linguas characterum differentium alphabeta circiter quadraginta et eorundem invicem conformatio“. St John’s College in Cambridge has John Dee’s copy of this book, complete with Dee’s inscription on the title-page and Read More ...

Cylob Cryptogram

In 2007, British musician / DJ ‘Cylob’ (Chris Jeffs) posted to his blog that: In about 1995 or 1996, I was in a bookshop in central London, I’m sure it was the one that used to be called “Dillons Arts” but that later turned into a Waterstones. There was a pile of mysterious booklets next Read More ...

Anthon Transcript

Joseph Smith Jr claimed that the original version of the Mormon Bible was made by the (otherwise unknown to history) “Nephite” people. Using a language he called “reformed Egyptian”, they engraved it onto a set of gold plates, and then buried them underground. In 1823, the Angel Moroni revealed the location of these plates to Read More ...

Debosnys Ciphers

In the Spring of 1882, a well-spoken gentleman by the name of Henry Debosnys arrived in Essex County, New York on a yacht from Philadelphia. After a whirlwind romance, he married local widow Elizabeth Wells: however, when they went out on a picnic on 1st August, Debosnys’ new wife was found dead, apparently by his Read More ...