chalkoutline
Tenderfoot
- #1
Thread Owner
Like most Beale hunters, I started by trying to reproduce the Cipher 2 message using the Declaration of Independence (DOI) from the pamphlet. I created a decoder using Microsoft Excel but was disappointed the message didn’t readily appear. I found I had to shift the numbering as follows:
At position 157, I shifted -1
At position 246, I shifted +1
At position 484, I shifted +10
At position 509, I shifted -1
At position 642, I shifted +1
At position 806, I shifted +1
The message then appeared as I expected. At this point I wanted to know why these shifts were necessary and whether they were just mistakes or intentional.
The clue came from a statement made by the Valued Friend when he was deciphering the message…”With this idea, a test was made of every BOOK I could procure, by numbering its letters and comparing the numbers with those of the manuscript”. The key word being BOOK. I searched for DOIs published in a book and found an 1820 book: The Constitutions of the United States where the first document was the DOI. Here’s what I found:
At position 157, the DOI in the book added the word “a”: “Institute “a” new government thus the need to shift -1.
At position 509, the DOI in the book spelt “mean time” as two words thus the need to shift -1.
This didn’t explain the shifts required at 246, 484, 642, and 806. I then realized that there was not enough space above the words in the book to write numbers. This meant that Thomas Beale would have had to copy the DOI to a separate sheet of paper leaving enough room between rows to numbers above the words. This is when and where the errors occurred.
Between words 242 to 246 Beale skipped over 1 word when copying that sentence thus the need to shift +1.
Likewise he skipped a word between 621 to 642 and between 667 and 806.
I still needed to explain the +10 shift at 484. I attached the picture of that section of the book. It appears that Beale didn’t skip a word but a line. When he copied the two lines below he jumped from “for” to “be elected”.
“He has refuse, fora long time after such dissolutions,
to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative” thus the need to shift +10.
It became clear to me that I had found the DOI used to create Cipher 2 and the shifting needed to read the Cipher 2 Message was due to mistakes by Beale when he copied the text to a separate piece of paper.
Of course I was excited by this new discovery but my hopes were soon dashed. When I used the correctly numbered DOI with the Cipher 1 to decode the location of the treasure, I found at position 188 the 19 character alphabetical string: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, I, J, K, L, M, M, N, O, H, P.
Anyone who has spent time using different documents to decode the ciphers knows a document that produces a readable message with one document will produce pure gibberish with another document. By chance there may be an occasional readable word in the document (i.e., of, the, and) or even a short alphabetical string (i.e., abc, cfde) but it is impossible for a 19 character string from A to P in the correct order to appear naturally. This string was placed there intentionally using numbers from DOI/Cipher 1. This certainly casts doubt that the remaining numbers in Cipher 1 are real. They are mostly made up too!
I asked myself “Why would he intentionally place this string in Cipher 1” when I remembered the disclaimer of the Valued Friend:
“Before giving the papers to the public, I would say a word to those who may take an interest in them, and give them a little advice, acquired by bitter experience. It is, to devote only such time as can be spared from your legitimate business to the task, and if you can spare no time, let the matter alone. Should you disregard my advice, do not hold me responsible that the poverty you have courted is more easily found than accomplishment of your wishes, and I would avoid the sight of another reduced to my condition.”
It seems clear to me the Valued Friend created the Beale ciphers as a hoax and intentionally placed the alphabetic string in Cipher 1 to show the astute researcher that it is just that: a hoax.
At position 157, I shifted -1
At position 246, I shifted +1
At position 484, I shifted +10
At position 509, I shifted -1
At position 642, I shifted +1
At position 806, I shifted +1
The message then appeared as I expected. At this point I wanted to know why these shifts were necessary and whether they were just mistakes or intentional.
The clue came from a statement made by the Valued Friend when he was deciphering the message…”With this idea, a test was made of every BOOK I could procure, by numbering its letters and comparing the numbers with those of the manuscript”. The key word being BOOK. I searched for DOIs published in a book and found an 1820 book: The Constitutions of the United States where the first document was the DOI. Here’s what I found:
At position 157, the DOI in the book added the word “a”: “Institute “a” new government thus the need to shift -1.
At position 509, the DOI in the book spelt “mean time” as two words thus the need to shift -1.
This didn’t explain the shifts required at 246, 484, 642, and 806. I then realized that there was not enough space above the words in the book to write numbers. This meant that Thomas Beale would have had to copy the DOI to a separate sheet of paper leaving enough room between rows to numbers above the words. This is when and where the errors occurred.
Between words 242 to 246 Beale skipped over 1 word when copying that sentence thus the need to shift +1.
Likewise he skipped a word between 621 to 642 and between 667 and 806.
I still needed to explain the +10 shift at 484. I attached the picture of that section of the book. It appears that Beale didn’t skip a word but a line. When he copied the two lines below he jumped from “for” to “be elected”.
“He has refuse, for
It became clear to me that I had found the DOI used to create Cipher 2 and the shifting needed to read the Cipher 2 Message was due to mistakes by Beale when he copied the text to a separate piece of paper.
Of course I was excited by this new discovery but my hopes were soon dashed. When I used the correctly numbered DOI with the Cipher 1 to decode the location of the treasure, I found at position 188 the 19 character alphabetical string: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, I, J, K, L, M, M, N, O, H, P.
Anyone who has spent time using different documents to decode the ciphers knows a document that produces a readable message with one document will produce pure gibberish with another document. By chance there may be an occasional readable word in the document (i.e., of, the, and) or even a short alphabetical string (i.e., abc, cfde) but it is impossible for a 19 character string from A to P in the correct order to appear naturally. This string was placed there intentionally using numbers from DOI/Cipher 1. This certainly casts doubt that the remaining numbers in Cipher 1 are real. They are mostly made up too!
I asked myself “Why would he intentionally place this string in Cipher 1” when I remembered the disclaimer of the Valued Friend:
“Before giving the papers to the public, I would say a word to those who may take an interest in them, and give them a little advice, acquired by bitter experience. It is, to devote only such time as can be spared from your legitimate business to the task, and if you can spare no time, let the matter alone. Should you disregard my advice, do not hold me responsible that the poverty you have courted is more easily found than accomplishment of your wishes, and I would avoid the sight of another reduced to my condition.”
It seems clear to me the Valued Friend created the Beale ciphers as a hoax and intentionally placed the alphabetic string in Cipher 1 to show the astute researcher that it is just that: a hoax.
