The sculpture contains four sections, each of encrypted text. In addition, Sanborn placed around the grounds of CIA headquarters several other pieces, including slabs bearing morse code, the pictures of a compass rose, and a duck pond. Misdirection? Kryptos itself was designed and executed such that it's not possible to photograph or view the entire piece at one time. The decryption of the messages contained in Kryptos have occupied a great deal of 'spare time' and a similar slice of 'computing power' of the greatest information-related organizations in the world, since Kryptos' installation in 1991.
Sanborn worked with a CIA employee named Ed Scheidt, Chairman of the CIA Cryptographic Center, to come up with the cryptographic systems used on the sculpture. Sanborn has revealed that the sculpture contains a riddle within a riddle, which will be solvable only after the four encrypted passages have been decrypted. He said that he gave the complete solution at the time of the sculpture's dedication to then-CIA director William H. Webster. Sanborn said, however, that he had not given Webster the entire solution. He did, however, confirm that where in part 2 it says "Who knows the exact location? Only WW," that "WW" was intended to refer to William Webster. Sanborn also confirmed that should he die before the entire sculpture becomes deciphered that there will be someone able to confirm the solution. How this will take place is unknown.
The ciphertext is in 4 parts/pages. The first three have at considerable effort been decoded. This was made more difficult because Sanborn disclosed that there had been an omission of a character which made the solution more difficult, and he subsequently provided that character.
The first three parts (including intentional misspellings) of the sculpture, when decrypted say:
Part I:
BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION
Part II:
IT WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE HOWS THAT POSSIBLE ? THEY USED THE EARTHS MAGNETIC FIELD X THE INFORMATION WAS GATHERED AND TRANSMITTED UNDERGRUUND TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION X DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS ? THEY SHOULD ITS BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION ? ONLY WW THIS WAS HIS LAST MESSAGE X THIRTY EIGHT DEGREES FIFTY SEVEN MINUTES SIX POINT FIVE SECONDS NORTH SEVENTY SEVEN DEGREES EIGHT MINUTES FORTY FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO
On April 19, 2006, Sanborn contacted the Kryptos Group (an online community dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle) to inform them that the accepted solution to part 2 was wrong. He said that he made an error in the sculpture by omitting an "X" used to indicate a break for aesthetic reasons, and that the decrypted text which ended "...FOUR SECONDS WEST ID BY ROWS" should actually be "...FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO".
The actual location listed in GPS coordinates is about 200 feet SouthEast of the sculpture itself
Part III:
SLOWLY DESPARATLY SLOWLY THE REMAINS 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 X CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING Q (?)
This is a paraphrased retelling of Howard Carter's comments on the orginal opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt. The question was posed by Lord Carnavon, to whom Carter replied, "Yes! Wonderful things!"
Part IV:
part IV - which Sanborn explicitly has said depends on the decipherments of parts I-III, has never been deciphered, despite the best efforts of the CIA, the NSA and all their computer resources. There is also a Yahoo Group of more than 2000 members (like the SETI project) who dedicate parralel time on their own computers toward the decipherment of this text.
This likely rates as the most interesting and important unsolved cipher in history.
Incidentally, the public cannot visit or view the sculpture, since it is in the Federally-resticted CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. Not even US Senators are permitted on the site: only those specifically granted clearance by the related agencies are allowed any access to the site at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment