It seems that humanity and bread do not feed, just give the opportunity to find something, explore and solve. But even today, in the age of technological progress and the latest technologies, there are still 10 mysteries that great minds have not mastered!
The secret is the first. Cryptos.
Here is a 4-meter-high sculpture made of copper, granite and a petrified tree in the form of an ancient scroll with a text of embossed 865 Latin symbols adorned by the CIA courtyard in Langley (Virginia, USA). She appeared there thanks to the sculptor Jim Sanborn, who managed to win the contest, announced by the Central Intelligence Agency for the best street composition in honor of the expansion of the headquarters.
Jim Sanborn
It is obvious that only the creative skills for creating a sign for the reconnaissance of sculpture Sanborn was not enough, and for help he turned to the former director of the cryptographic center of the CIA, Edward Scheidt. A year later, in the late autumn, the grand opening of the composition "Kryptos" took place. Then Sanborn handed the Director of the CIA and an envelope with a transcript of the text on the sculpture. Nobody looked into this envelope anymore.
William Webster, former director of the CIA
That's where the most interesting things began ...
The mysterious text did not give rest to the wise men of the whole world. For many years it was studied along and across. And even some results are already there! It turns out that the crypt is divided into four parts-a fragment.
The inquisitive minds of cryptographers found that the text in the first part (K1) was encrypted with the modified Vigenère cipher. Here's what they did:
"Between the shadow and the absence of light lies an illusion of nuance."
Sculpture location
Encryption of the second part (K2) was carried out with the help of letters on the right and a complicated trick - the symbol X between sentences. As a result of deciphering, the following text was obtained:
"It was completely invisible. How was this possible? They used the Earth's magnetic field. The information was collected and transmitted underground to an unknown place. Does Langley know about this? Must. It's buried somewhere there. Who knows the exact place? Only WW This was his last message. Thirty-eight degrees fifty-seven minutes six and a half seconds north, seventy-seven degrees eight minutes forty-four seconds west. Rows. "
Do you think this is a complete abracadabra? And here not! From this part of the text it is established that WW is William Webster, the then director of the CIA, to whom the sculptor handed the envelope with a transcript.
Well, with the numbers, everything turned out to be much simpler ... 38 57 6.5 N, 77 8 44 W are the geographical coordinates of that very CIA!
In the third part-fragment (K3) of the sculpture, a paraphrased entry was ciphered from the diary of anthropologist G. Carter, the same one who in 1922 opened the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun - "Can you see anything?" Or "Do you see anything?"
"Slowly, desperately slowly, the remnants of debris, which had been littered with the lower part of the passage, were removed. With trembling hands, I made a tiny slit in the upper left corner. And then, by expanding the hole a bit, I put the candle in and looked in. Because of the hot air coming from the inside, the candle flame trembled, but then the details of the room swam out of the fog. Do you see anything? "
Now get ready ...
The text of the fourth (K4) and the last fragment has not been deciphered to this day, and deservedly is one of the greatest mysteries of our time! It only 97 characters, but the sculptor Sanborn admitted that working on this part in collaboration with the above-mentioned Shade, he intentionally complicated the code.
On the twentieth anniversary of the opening of the "Cryptos", Sanborn took pity and gave the restless decipherers a little clue - he opened exactly 6 characters (from 64 to 69). It turned out that behind these letters was the name of the capital of Germany - BERLIN. In addition, the sculptor hinted that this word is "an essential key" and it is it that "globalizes" the whole sculpture! After 4 years, the author revealed 5 more K4 symbols - from 70 to 74. After decoding, it turned out that this word was CLOCK (clock).
However, the time goes by, and all is in vain ... Jim Sanborn, his assistant and WW are silent.
And suddenly this mystery remains forever unsolved ???