An odd thing happened on the way to Langley today...
 

Ok, so I was browsing the new posts and saw the one on "Did you know".

I saw this:
So I decided to google it and found the old TFP archives:
http://www.highiqsociety.org/img/gif...s/puzzle02.gif

I found a post by Cynthetiq that listed an out of date ABC article. There was a transcript of the coded message as it has been decoded so far.

The Hint of the day from the ABC site held a passage that reminded me of an old story, something about piramids and sealed chambers or something so I thought I might find a reference if I copied a portion and googled it.
This is what I googled:
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

Well, I thought I had googled it, but I'd put it in the url portion of the browser. Anyone would think that it would just return a no page found error. Instead it offered a download or open of a word document called Palimptest.doc.
Palimptest?

Opening the doc I found the following.
WTF? Note the bold portions, they make up the word PALIMPSEST. Is this a key?

I thought that maybe word had taken the quote from the url and turned it into a doc, but trying other parts of the hint of the day, it returned the expected no page found. Also, I had pasted a lot less than what appeared in the document. Where does the extra 'X' come from at the end?
What type of url returns a file like that?

I checked the doc's properties and it seems the author was a David Wilson, Xavier University. (Anyone have any info?)

Ah jeez.

I went and googled a portion of the unencrypted text and found this site:
Solving Kryptos.
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/batman/kryptos.html

Whaddaya know.
Palimpsest IS a key. It's also a word for something altered yet bearing traces of its original form.

KRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZ
1PTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY
2ABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOS
3LMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJ
4IJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGH
5MNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
6PTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY
7SABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO
8EFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCD
9SABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO
10TOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYP

FWIW, the DOC that you downloaded came from this site: http://www.geocities.com/eentweedrievier2000/index.html

It freaked me out too when I tried it and it worked, but on closer inspection it appear that (in Firefox, at least) entering a text string in the URL bar is the same as entering the text in Google and clicking "I'm Feeling Lucky". Try typing "Quoth the Raven", and you'll get taken to an Edgar Allen Poe site.

I don't know what it has to do with codes or anything, but I believe the passage was written by Howard Carter, about when he first entered the tomb of Tutankhamen.

??

I typed in "Quoth the raven" in Firefox and I didn't get taken to a Poe site..

Interesting. Strange how there's groups of 5 yet there's 1 instance of a single letter and 2 instances of double letters.

Its probably something like "If you can read this apply within." :P

True.

Yeah thanks DJMala. I figured that would be the reason too when I found the hosting site for the doc. Just really odd.

Yeah, the passage does come from Howard Carter's memoirs.

It's a very clever piece of art. I like it.

ok, so there's a Langley somewhere out there other than the one near Vancouver...

Langley, Virginia is where our CIA is based.

edit: and the quote that you googled is a transcript of what was said when King Tut's tomb was opened.

Yup, like there's a Paris out there other than the one in Texas.


On that line, why do the americans insist on it being "Paris, France" or "London, England"? Like anyone would confuse it with the Paris in Texas.

If you said "Paris, Texas" I could understand the need to differentiate for the listener's benefit, but just say "Paris" and people (in the real world know exactly where you meant and not mistake it for a village in Podunk.

So what's the deal with the CIA code then? Anybody got a reference link for it? Does it actually have anything to do with the Carter quote?

<B>lite campfire</B>, try the link in my last post. It has a bunch of links to some good sites. Or else Google for Kryptos. The gist of it is that nobody really knows the whole story yet, because the fourth and last part of the code hasn't been cracked yet. From the parts that have been decoded, it seems (at least to me) to imply that there's some sort of "treasure" buried on the grounds at Langley. There's a reference to a specific latitude and longitude, which seems to fall somewhere within the courtyard where the sculpture is. The Carter quote is actually part of the message that has already been decoded, and there are a few other references which seem to imply the existence of buried treasure. Of course, whether the CIA allows a bunch of geeks to go digging around their headquarters, once the last part of the code has been cracked, remains to be seen.

you wouldn't need to dig, just an ultrasound machine would probably be enough, just to indicate depth and density. I remember watching a show on the discovery channel where they pushed a trolley over a site where an old ship hull was supposed to be buried.. the machine noted depth and density then gave a 3D reading when it was finished.. quite exciting... :)

It's probably an ironic treasure, the coordinates are probably the statue itself and the treasure is that you figured it out. :)

That would suck, I want fast cars and beautiful women, not self-satisfaction

Well when I called the number listed the women on the other end said, "the chair is against the wall".