During the period of their ascendency, the huge herds ranged across the great plains where prairie grasses were in abundance. I find it quite inexplicable that the Beale shooting party should travel so far west in the first instance, unless gold exploration was always part of their quest. If I had solved it, I would want the world to know I did it and give details to prove it. The unnamed friend then published all three ciphertexts in a pamphlet which was advertised for sale in the 1880s. Instead of a map, he created a set of ciphers to lead would-be treasure hunters to the content's location. The technique is based on the well-known method of cryptanalysis called "probable word." In this case, success depends on several factors: (1) whether B1 is genuine, (2) whether B1 is a book cipher, similar to No. (LogOut/ The Limits Of Evidence, Raiders of the Lost Past tackles the Beale Papers, http://ciphermysteries.com/2015/05/23/the-two-thomas-beales, Gladys May Webb and Leslie William Scott. I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. This is critical, because viewed as circumstantial evidence only, the residence document which is supposed to list the heirs to the treasure instead essentially says hey, weve all come back and removed our treasure and even paid taxes on it. Well, of what value is that for Beale to botherencoding, let alone give to someone in a cipher form to protect? Assuming the Beale Codes are real, it stands to reason the remaining ciphers are encoded like Beale Code #2. You will note FOOL on the corner - that is a reference to keywords that can be used to "open" this deecipher. There is no indicationof anything other than hand tools (sledgehammer, pick axes, etc) on the site or in the pictures. [24] In 1843 he used a cryptogram as plot device in his short story "The Gold-Bug". Interesting tidbits John. Morriss didnt open the box with the cryptograms for twenty-three years when it should have been ten. Instead, it contained sheets of paper covered with seemingly incomprehensible numbers. Apparently, Thomas Jefferson Beale was the typical rich plantation son turned derelict although quite the genius when it came to numbers, ciphers and devious plots who was amodel of manly beauty, favored by ladies and envied by men. Born in 1792 or thereabouts, named after neighbor Virginian Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, whose Poplar Forest retreat isnt too far from the treasures apparent location, Beale gave the three ciphers to his bud Robert Morriss in 1822 in a locked box and told him to hang onto everything and hed be in touch. Many are committed to the idea that this mystery has something to do with the writings of Edgar Allen Poe. I am not. They toiled in the gold fields to mine a treasure for two years. And the DoI does seem to have played a part in the construction of the (as-yet-undecrypted) B1 and B3 as well as of B2, even if we dont yet know what that part was. It could be that the discovery was an indication that the Beale treasure had been found long ago. Im not so certain that the beale papers actually direct anyone to a massive treasure of riches, as much as I think its going to lead to something gruesome. It was not until 1845 that Morriss opened the box. The pamphlet's mysterious author figured out that one of the three sheets was in a code based on the Declaration of Independence, and deciphered it. Heres a claimed solution to the Beale Papers (but press Cancel on the login popup, and if browsing there under Windows, I wouldnt advise installing the ActiveX control that pops up) which I didnt know about until very recently. ORIGINAL FINISHED DECODING: Sheet 1: OF CIPHER 3 : Sheet 2: BY MR. DANIEL COLE: Sheet 3 . Seriously, lets do this. The pamphlet's background story has several implausibilities, and is based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence and hearsay. (Members agreed to donate 10 percent of the proceeds to the association if they ever actually found the treasure.). Nothing above it, and apparently nothing below it either. That means there are two ways to solve them. It was made simple. I think this is a link to an image. Website! [29] One explanation for the difference between base 10 and the other ones is that the numbers were produced by a human in base 10, which would mean that the ciphers are fraudulent. associated withthe Beale Vault & ExcavationSitewithin Bedford County, Virginia. Answer: "If the numbers above mean anything to you, congratulations:2921 pounds of gold, 5100 pounds of silver, and $1.5 million of precious jewelstogether valued at approximately $60 millionare yours for the taking, because you just cracked a cipher purported to reveal the location of the trea. Within the following lines below I have posted the decoded message that was originaly intended for Morriss to read - . [5] He also is recorded as becoming a Master Mason in 1863.[1]. The Beale Ciphers are three typed pages of nothing but numbers, a code that supposedly details the location of a vast treasure hidden by a mysterious figure named Thomas J. Beale. But the lack of details which would allow others to duplicate the deciphering results they claimed to haveachieved not only createsthe potential for a lot of suspicion, but denies information to history that itrightly deserves. New information will be on display hereasas Required fields are marked *. Any treasure hunter in the world needs to keep people from knowing what they know as they pursue the treasure. ORIGINAL FINISHED DECODING: Sheet 1: OF CIPHER 3 : Sheet 2: BY MR. DANIEL COLE: Sheet 3 . Paper number {1 | one} describes the exact locality of the vault, so that no difficulty will be had in finding it. "Does the Beale Ciphers' Code of Numbers Detail Hidden Treasure?" Why do all this digging for something that is clearly empty? The probability that he had anything to with the events / places / times described in the Beale Papers would therefore seem to be close to zero, sorry. Many versions of the Declaration of Independence have been printed, with various adjustments to paragraphing, word inclusion, word changing, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. According to the pamphlet, Beale was the leader of a group of 30gentlemen adventurers from Virginia who stumbled upon the rich mine of gold and silver while hunting buffalo. Ive often speculated about whether the missing treasure featured in National Treasure is buried beneath The Lawn at UVA and would hint at this whenever I walk people around the Academical Village. to the Beale Vaultwere entirely decoded from this cipher and no other.Beale's use of landmarks, the location of the I find time to post additional pictures ordocumentation concerning our discovery and work. Incidentally There are many messages encoded into these texts, some maybe informative as to the situation to expect regarding the narrative of this story but they will not provide the answer to where this treasure is located or who was involved. I made a gothic window code! since carbon dated to 1421 (joking fellas). Whats the chance the eleven kept quiet about the treasure? There are two kinds of clerical errors made by Beale, clerical errors made in constructing his key (called counting errors) and clerical errors made in referencing the key while enciphering Paper No. And of course the brainiac rented a truck in the dead of night, bee-lined it down to Montvale, VA, collected the loot and has been living large in a clandestine sort of way, ever since. The group also instructed Beale to give some "perfectly reliable person" instructions on how to find the treasure, so that in the event they died during their adventures, their families could be given the fortune. 11 Beale cipher number two (Innis and Innis, pp. The pamphlet also mentions the American Civil War that started in 1861. Was located by Whats the chance they would contact Morriss to get cryptogram directions to the treasure? The Three Texts. After all, he thought Beales group were all dead? The second was made {December, 1821 | Dec. eighteen twenty-one}, and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold, and twelve hundred and eighty-eight {pounds | } of silver; also jewels, obtained in St. Louis in exchange {for silver | } to save transportation, and valued at {$13,000 | thirteen thousand dollars}. This would involve seeking out texts of the time period and comparing them to the ciphers. This websitecurrently offers a glimpse ofourdiscoveries And becausethe first document to be deciphered described the treasure and described what the two other documents contained, many people argue that the whole thing is a hoax. It was well known he placed notices of his abilities in the Philadelphia paper Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger, inviting submissions of ciphers which he proceeded to solve. Copyright 2001 SWN 81 18K views 7 years ago In November, of 2014, while investigating numerous cyphers and codes, Amateur Code breaker and Forensic Archaeologist James William Simpson (Eldorado Enterprises Inc.. Implausible as that all might seem, the mystery of the Beale ciphers has fascinated, even obsessed, numerous people over the past 136 years, when the story initially was published in a ponderously-titled 50-cent pamphlet, "The Beale Papers Containing Authentic Statements Regarding the Treasure Buried in 1819 and 1821 near Bufords, in Bedford County, Virginia, and Which Has Never Been Discovered.". Breaking the cipher(s) may depend on random chance (as, for instance, stumbling upon a book key if the two remaining ciphertexts are actually book ciphers); so far, even the most skilled cryptanalysts who have attempted them have been defeated. Before departing, he gave Morriss a box for safekeeping, "which, as he said, contained papers of value and importance," according to Kile. The lack of clear images of the original ciphers, combined with the large quantity of numerals, has led to numerals being misprinted or omitted in many sources. So what do you suppose all these people did during that time? The Complex Ciphers Have Been Decoded And Reveal Much More Than Many Thought Possible! No chance at all. Nickell argues that the tale is thus a work of fiction; specifically, a "secret vault" allegory of the Freemasons; James B. From 1970 to 1996, there was even an organization, the Beale Cipher Association, composed of people who paid a $25 annual fee for the privilege of receiving a quarterly newsletter and attending "periodical seminars and symposiums" on the mystery. I plan on plodding through it more, checking to see if there is some cohesion here. 11+2= 22= V THIS = 90, Here is another interesting coincidence,concerning the gillogy strings (No source given. Beale, of course, never came back. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Beale Papers - The Cipher Foundation Beale Papers 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. Last request of Thomas Jefferson Beale Keep on . [25] But with mounting debts, Poe left for Boston in April 1827. by way of review, james gillogly observed that when beale cipher no. If the modified Declaration of Independence is used as a key for the first cipher, it yields alphabetical sequences such as. It isa collection of three documents, each of whichcontained an encrypted message as a sequence of numbers. If your family will suffer in any way, dont do it. And that's a bit of a problem as all crypto subReddits (and both of those are crypto or crypto-related subReddits) have disinformation sown into then by various agencies of various governments that do not like private cryptographers. Yet contemporary records show he did not start in that position until at least 1823. [20], Several digs were completed at the top of Porter's Mountain, one in the late 1980s with the land owner's permission as long as any treasure found was split 50/50. The entire thing was to play people against greed and is likely intended to be a sort of F-You to the greedy people who were ultimately just desperate simple people needing money to get by and not be in debt. Our webpage linksare locatedat the top of It would be in an incredibly difficult place to get to also. Wikimedia Commons (CC By-SA 3.0)/HowStuffWorks Beale left the hotel in the spring of 1821 with a group of friends, and returned the following January, this time only staying for a couple of months. Video Clip The cyphers are actually very simple, you have all let your minds run away with yourselves, making this out to be more complicated than it actually is. I will concede that Daniel Cole possibly died before he could document this for the public, but he must have generated and assembled a lot of notes from his workat a minimum. To be precise, the Beale Papers comprise not one long ciphertext (putting the VMs thorny Currier A-B language continuum issue to one side) but three short codetexts, all allegedly dating from 1819-1821: part 2 was publicly announced in 1885 already solved (for its codebook, the encoder used a slightly mangled/miscopied version of the Declaration of Independence) but the directions to the buried treasure were in the undecoded part 1, while the shorter (and also undecoded) part 3 listed the people involved. Given the circumstances and the amount of information I have gleaned from a superficial examination of information contained within the beale papers, I really do think that I was the one expected to figure it out. You might have guessed it: he did not return. That document described the contents ofatreasure which had been buried and the description of the vault where it was buried. Of course, only someone who has broken the two remaining codes would know if all of this is true or not. You must comment with the transcription of the message. Beale registered simply as being from Virginia where exactly in the state, he didn't say and he never said anything about his family, or much of anything about himself at all. Other strong support for the Declaration to be the key for the remaining two elusive ciphers is an extreme anomaly found when it is applied to Beale Cipher 1. Based on geographical isolation and known historical/political fact pertaining to the old Spanish/Pueblo, Santa Fe trail region of Nuevo Mexico circa. The third cipher appears to be too short to list thirty individuals' next of kin. [10] Other questions remain about the authenticity of the pamphlet's account. The frequency of the solved cipher stays non-uniform. He pulled out a locked iron box and gave it to Morriss. So What Was The Point Of It All? Morriss was supposed to have received an envelope from Beales unknown friend in ten years, which provided the key to the treasure. -CAD, For those interested in further information on DeeCiphers and what else was hidden by Mr. Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) and The Beale Cipher we invite you to review r/DeeCiphers and r/MapTheory (Algebraic Map Theory evolved from our break of the Beale Cipher) - both of which, unfortunately, are partially masked and occasionally thread introduction or comment -corrupted/hacked by various agencies and groups that find it funny to do so, or in their interest (and not yours) to do so. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. After all, who would bring back a fortune in gold, silver and jewels from New Mexico and bury it somewhere in the rolling hills and ridges of central Virginia? That was an understatement. page turning. Or should I say 24-15-18-20-8-12-5-19-19, i.e. The others were not real. TheBeale Ciphers arewidely-known amongtreasurehunters. This thread has been locked by the moderators of r/codes. Bizarrely, the person who 60 years later solved the cipher just happened to have exactly the same rare version. area,construction details,talley ofthe pots plus contentsand thefinaldirections leading Most attempts have tried other historical texts as keys (e.g., Magna Carta, various books of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the Virginia Royal Charter), assuming the ciphertexts were produced with some book cipher, but none have been recognized as successful to date. Elonka Dunin, a video game developer, writer and cryptographer, and her colleague, German computer scientist and cryptographer Klaus Schmeh, are co-authors of the 2020 book "Codebreaking: A Practical Guide." There are warnings throughout Beales letter to Morriss about spending valuable time searching for the treasure. The differences are shown here as {alleged decipherment | actual decipherment}: I have deposited, in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford's, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles, belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number {3, | three} herewith: The first deposit consisted of {one thousand | ten hundred} and fourteen pounds of gold, and {three thousand | thirty-} eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited {November, 1819 | Nov. eighteen nineteen}. Recently, I discovered an apparently no-longer-maintained web site Beale Ciphers Solved which documented not only that the other documents in the Beale Ciphers were successfully deciphered (sometime in the late 1990's by Daniel Cole, now deceased), but showed what was found at the location described by the deciphered location document. Even if this was all valid and part of an elaborate hoax by someone to lead people to a vault that was always empty, history is being robbed of a great part of this story. Even though the dig that was carried out as a result of Coles decryption revealed an empty chamber (the website claims), the cryptographic details (ie, of how the codetext links with the plaintext) have yet to be released which is a tad fishy. As the value of these artifacts paid for time and equipment rental, the expedition broke even.[20]. 89+2=178 =V document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Press Enter / Return to begin your search. According to the pamphlet, Beale sent a letter from St.Louis in 1822. [20], Additionally, a Cheyenne legend exists about gold and silver being taken from the West and buried in mountains in the East, dating from roughly 1820. And more relevant, why not list the heirs only since that is of value if, as Beale claimed, he was leaving the information in case something happened to his party on their next expedition and did not return. 1; 2; NSA.GOV. Although a lucid message isn't given, a string of numbers within the coded page deciphers to a very suspicious alphabetical sequence. The Secret History of the Rosicrucians 4. They claimed to have been tracking a massive herd north in May about 250 300 miles from their starting point to a location near to where South Park of sitcom fame, is situated today, which is where they allegedly came upon their gold reefI cant imagine that buffalo (bison) of the numbers suggested would have been encountered anywhere within two to three hundred miles of the hunters location during any part of their trek. Ditto for the third page, which listed the members of the group and gave their relatives' names and addresses. The group wasn't sure exactly what to do with their newfound riches, but eventually, they entrusted it to Beale, who traveled back east and buried it in a cave near a tavern in Bedford County, "which all of us had visited, and which was considered a perfectly safe depository," according to the letter. The "information" that there is buried treasure in Bedford County has stimulated many expeditions with shovels, and other implements of discovery, looking for likely spots. The directionsto thevault . This content claimed to be from the deciphered Residence document is the most critical one for outside sources to validate. -CAD4TeamBeale, We note that Tunis is where St. Louis died, that the Beale Cipher was written by Mark Twain (reasons given in other threads: short note is that Samuel L. Clemens was the Spymaster in the West for the CSA, first biography notes his boast he was a Lt. in the CSA which he recanted later, but that was due to the fact the General Amnesty for the Civil War did not apply to spies, and that the Beale Cipher hid "The Richmond Stores" (other biographers note that he visited a known CSA spy in San Francisco if you need additional evidence, that many of his journals from the War are mentioned, and that he disappeared for Months and Months at a time - supposedly 'prospecting')- The Phoenix mentioned by Mr. Paul G. Stewart in his book referred to the Confederacy's future use of The Richmond Stores. The treasure location is traditionally linked to Montvale in Bedford County, Virginia. Canadian sourced hides would have been cheap as (buffalo) chips in Boston at that time, from what I understand and also hides not being easy to prepare for selling back east, should have been a deterant to any such consideration in the first instance. decoding secretly hidden directions located within Cipher One of the Locality Cipher. There has been considerable debate over whether the remaining two ciphertexts are real or hoaxes. In the second cryptogram, the original cipher errors are highlighted in red. The Beale hunters had supposedly set off from their winter quarters near Sante Fe in spring 1817, heading in a northerly direction through the Sangre de Cristos along the Rio Grande bearing to the west through mountain passes into South Colorado and beyond to mid state. to be precise, the beale papers comprise not one long ciphertext ( putting the vms' thorny currier a-b language continuum issue to one side) but three short codetexts, all allegedly dating from 1819-1821: part 2 was publicly announced in 1885 already solved (for its codebook, the encoder used a slightly mangled/miscopied version of the [23], In addition, a man named "Thomas Beall" appears in the customer lists of St.Louis Post Department in 1820. An aspect of this mystery that Im sure people are far to cynical to want to consider is, I believe all of this was created, perpetuated, and set out into the world by a single person. The Beale ciphers are a set of three ciphertexts, one of which allegedly states the location of a buried treasure of gold, silver and jewels estimated to be worth over US$43million as of January2018. I didnt mean that I thought it was the same Thomas Beall, I was thinking maybe the guy was using that as a clue to find a 2nd book to decipher other ciphers with just like the 2nd one is solved with the Declaration of Indepence, I think the 1st and 3rd have the exact same system but the hard part is finding what literature was being used to code them. In letter that he left behind, Beale explained that he and companions had ventured west to New Mexico in the late 1810s on a hunting expedition and while there, somehow had discovered a gold mine. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. His analysis of the writing style showed that Beale was almost certainly James B. The page of cipher with 700+ characters starts with the number 115. Was National Treasure loosely based on the Beale Papers? Something that has been hidden in the darkness of our countries past. In the early 1800s, an American adventurer named Thomas Beale buried tens of millions of dollars worth of gold and silver in rural Virginia. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. . The story of the three ciphertexts originates from an 1885 pamphlet called The Beale Papers, detailing treasure being buried by a man named Thomas J. Beale in a secret location in Bedford County, Virginia, in about 1820. each page so that no difficulty will be had in finding them. And the whole thing is a goose chase like moby dick. For reasons unexplained, Morriss didn't break the lock and open the box until 23 years later, in 1845. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. 1701+2=3402=V This is true for all three ciphers.[28]. I wonder what year this cipher genius might have accomplished this feat. The second cracked cipher outlines the contents of the buried treasure as follows: The Beale Papers definitely make me more curious about the mysterious elevator hiding in plain sight at the edge of Thomas Jeffersons Academical Village at UVA. Am I accusing the people who created the site of any deception. Just the math and cryptography knowledge alone would be a feat in itself. Perhaps it included the key to his locked box too. There are also several books, and considerable Internet activity. Chisum: that particular Thomas Beales book on whales was written in 1835, a fair few years later than the events described in the ciphertext itself, so it seems a little bit unlikely to have been used to encipher any of the notes. I believe I found where it could possibly be, but it means trespassing on federal land and a National Monument! 122 byDoI= F 122=5 MY KEY Almost two centuries later, the instructions remain unsolved, and the treasure is yet to be found. Book M, The Secret History of the Rosicrucians 7. I spent twenty years trying to identify where the Lost Dutchmans mine was, as I live close by in Mesa, Arizona. Additionally, as Schmeh notes, there are a few, slightly different versions of the Declaration of Independence. Learn how your comment data is processed. In 2014, the National Geographic TV show The Numbers Game referred to the Beale ciphers as one of the strongest passwords ever created. During spring through fall, the big herds would have been confined to the plains well to the east, gorging on the abundant, essential prairy grasses necessary to sustain their masses. Of course, Beale could have used a document that he had written himself for either or both of the remaining keys or either a document of his own or randomly selected characters for the third source, in either case rendering any further attempts to crack the codes useless. Within the following lines below I have posted the decoded message that was originaly intended for Morriss to read - . A Cipher's the Key to the Treasure in Them Thar Hills: A Treasure Buried Deep in Bedford County: Beale Treasure - Fact or Fiction: Beale, The Beale Papers: Has the Beale Treasure Code Been Solved? Include the text [Transcript] in your reply. Some would have at the very least, told the other twenty or thirty of Beales group. We just happen to be looking at this problem from different perspectives, so to speak. 120 byDoI = J 120=3+8+8=19=S The first letter of word 95 ("inalienable") is always used as a "u" ("unalienable"). Let alone the fact that, if by luck, any had they managed to hang onto their foolish scalps for the journey, the picky Spanish occupiers at the time, were unlikely to roll out any welcome mats upon doubtful arrival of any gringo, invaders of their territory. Thanks for your post, u/Elisha_Dushku! The first (unsolved) text specifies the site, the second (solved) text accounts for the treasure's content, and the third (unsolved) text provides the names of the treasure's owners. [20], In 2010, an award-winning animated short film was made concerning the ciphers called The Thomas Beale Cipher. Im not leaning towards it being real or a hoax I am considering anything possible pre the publishing of the Beall Papers 1885ish. . The page of cipher with 500+ characters starts with the number 71. The friend, then using an edition of the United States Declaration of Independence as the key for a modified book cipher, successfully deciphered the second ciphertext which gave a description of the buried treasure. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. In 1822 he entrusted the box to a Lynchburg innkeeper named Robert Morriss. Cryptography/Beale cipher. Not that Im not friendly, because I am. (LogOut/ In the words of one researcher "To me, the pamphlet story has all the earmarks of a fake . If you know the stories, Beales group was said to be thirty or forty men. the IRS) from thinking anything was found at the site. excavation site andhismethod of concealement for both the treasure and the cipherswereabsolutely ingenious. The above is securely packed in iron pots, with iron covers. A survey of U.S. Census records in 1810 shows two persons named Thomas Beale, in Connecticut and New Hampshire. The analysis is based on a permutation, Dr.Clarence Williams, a researcher at the Library of Congress, in 1934. Well done Thomas J. Make an official claim to it, pay any taxes, etc, so that ownership of the treasure is protected officially.
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