Can You Crack the Code? by Ella Schwartz

Author:Ella Schwartz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681199894
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Now that you know the two keywords, “kryptos” and “palimpsest,” you can easily crack the cipher, right? Well, not quite. That’s just one piece of the puzzle. Next, you’d need to take the keywords and run them through a cryptography algorithm called the Vigenère cipher. Want to see the Vigenère cipher in action? Head on over to Camp Crypto at the end of the chapter to see how Kryptos part one was solved.

The suspense must be killing you! I know you’re dying to know the solution, so let’s cut right to the chase. The cipher decrypts to the following:

Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.

Huh?

What’s that supposed to mean?

You will notice that the word “illusion” is misspelled as “iqlusion.” People think this was done on purpose by artist Jim Sanborn, and it might be a key to help crack other parts of Kryptos.

We know this sentence was authored by the artist. There are several theories on what this sentence might mean. Many believe it is simply a poetic phrase; others believe it points to hidden messages. Your guess is as good as theirs!

To decrypt section two of Kryptos, codebreakers needed to find new keywords to unlock the cipher. It turns out the first keyword used is “kryptos,” just like in section one, but the second keyword is “abscissa.” What’s an abscissa? An abscissa is a mathematical concept involving distance on a plane. Cryptographers love their math!

Breaking the code reveals the following perplexing message:

It was totally invisible. How’s that possible? They used the earth’s magnetic field. x The information was gathered and transmitted undergruund to an unknown location. x Does Langley know about this? They should: it’s 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.

Well, that’s confusing, isn’t it?

The message is obviously designed to sound like a secret agent spy telegram, which would make some sense, given we’re dealing with the CIA.

To help understand the message, you can assume the x’s are sentence breaks used, just like a period, to mark the end of a sentence. But that helps only a little. You may have noticed the word “underground” is spelled incorrectly as “undergruund.” You can assume that Sanborn deliberately misspelled the word. It’s likely an important clue, but nobody has figured out why. The message also refers to something “buried out there somewhere.” Did Sanborn bury something somewhere on CIA headquarters grounds in Langley? It is definitely a possibility. Sanborn has been asked this very question by many reporters. He’s not talking (but he did share some details about his life and hobbies. Check out the sidebar here for some possible clues).

The decrypted message states that only “WW” knows the exact location. Who is WW? Most people believe the WW referred to in the decoded message is William Webster, the former director of the CIA.

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