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Text File  |  1992-03-04  |  5KB  |  62 lines
  1.  
  2. ************************************
  3. *********** Explorations ***********
  4. ************************************
  5.            -CIPHERNAUTS-
  6.  
  7. The following is an excerpt from the
  8. May, 1987 issue of OMNI magazine:
  9.  
  10. The bait is buried treasure: a $14.7 million cache of gold, silver,and jewels
  11. believed to have been stashed somewhere in the state of Virginia more than 150
  12. years ago. The only clues to its where-
  13. abouts:three slips of paper covered with a hodgepodge of 1,901 numbers.
  14.     Some say it's a hoax, but the Beale Cypher Association (BCA) isn't ready to
  15. give up its quest for the loot. For 25  years the society, whose members range
  16. from IBM cryptographers and CIA spooks
  17. to metal-detector hobbyists, has strugled in vain to decipher the numbers that
  18. could reveal the directions to the cache. One BCA member, convinced that he had
  19. broken the code, rushed to the prospective treasure site in Bedford County, VA.
  20. ,surrounded it with formidable fences,
  21. hired round-the-clock guards,rented a
  22. bulldozer, and unearthed-lo and behold-
  23. a 1930s car. Other enthusiastic members
  24. have sneaked onto private property to
  25. dig under cover of darkness but were
  26. seen,shot at,and arrested for trespassing.
  27.    Carl Hammer,seventy-three,a former   director of computer science at Sperry
  28. Univac and a pioneer in using computers to analyze the statistical properties ofciphers has spent 10 years on the ciphers and isn't through yet.
  29.    Hammer himself ran extensive statis-
  30. tical tests on the distribution of the
  31. numbers in the undeciphered Beale papers and concluded, in a prizewinning paper,that the numbers are not random but
  32. defintely conceal a message. Most crypt-analysts accept this conclusion, but the mere fact that there is a message, 
  33. Hammer concedes, doesn't mean that the
  34. whole thing isn't a hoax. Who's to say
  35. that the message isn't something like,
  36. "You're the biggest sucker in the universe, dodo brain?" But as long as there's
  37. a chance that the treasure's really out
  38. there, Hammer and the others aren't
  39. about to give up.
  40. ------------------
  41. Here's Your Chance
  42. ------------------
  43.    Decode the numbers (below) that lead
  44. to the buried treasure...and buy yourself a shovel. The loot is yours if you
  45. can find it. The attorney general of the state of Virginia passed a ruling in
  46. the 1960s giving ownership of the treasure to whoever uncovers it, no matter
  47. whose land it's on.
  48. 71,194,38,1701,89,76,11,83,1629,45,94,
  49. 63,132,16,111,95,84,341,975,14,40,64,27,81,139,213,63,90,1120,8,15,3,126,2018,
  50. 40,74,758,485,604,230,436,664,582,150,
  51. 251,284,308,231,124,211,486,225,401,370,11,101,305,139,189,17,33,88,208,193,145,1,94,73,416,918,263,28,500,538,356,117, 136,219,27,176,130,10,460,25,485,18,436,65,84,200,283,118,320,138,36,416,280,15,71,224,961,44,16,401,39,88,61,304,12,21,24,283,134,92,63,246,486,682,7,219,184, 360,780,18,64,463,474,131,160,79,73,440,95,18,64,581,34,69,128,367,460,17,81,12,103,820,62,116,97,103,862,70,60,1317,471,540,208,121,890,346,36,150,59,568,614, 13,120,63,219,812,2160,1780,99,35,18,21,136,872,15,28,170,88,4,30,44,112,18,147,436,195,320,37,122,113,6,140,8,120,305, 42,58,461,44,106,301,13,408,680,93,86,  116,530,82,568,9,102,38,416,89,71,216,  728,965,818,2,38,121,195,14,326,148,234,18,55,131,234,361,824,5,81,623,48,961,19,26,33,10,1101,365,92,88,181,275,346,201,206,86,36,219,320,829,840,68,326,19,48,122,85,216,284,919,861,326,985,233,64,68,232,431,960,50,29,81,216,321,603,14,612,81,360,36,51,62,194,78,60,200,314,676, 112,4,28,18,61,136,247,819,921,1060,464,895,10,6,66,119,38,41,49,602,423,962,302,294,875,78,14,23,111,109,62,31,501,823,216,280,34,24,150,1000,162,286,19,21,17,340,19,242,31,86,234,140,607,115,33,191,67,104,86,52,88,16,80,121,67,95,122,216,548,96,11,201,77,364,218,65,667,890,236,154,211,10,98,34,119,56,216,119,71,218, 1164,1496,1817,51,39,210,36,3,19,540,232,22,141,617,84,290,80,46,207,411,150,29,38,46,172,85,194,36,261,543,897,624,18, 212,416,127,931,19,4,63,96,12,101,418,  16,140,230,460,538,19,27,88,612,1431,90,716,275,74,83,11,426,89,72,84,1300,1706,814,221,132,40,102,34,858,975,1101,84,16,79,23,16,81,122,324,403,912,227,936,447,55,86,34,43,212,107,96,314,264,1065,323,428,601,203,124,95,216,814,2906,654,820,2,301,112,176,213,71,87,96,202,35,10,2,41,17,84,221,736,820,214,11,60,760
  52.  
  53. This guy died in the 1800s so you know
  54. what manuscripts were available to him
  55. for this coding.
  56.  
  57. For more information on the code or about membership in the Beale Cypher Association, send $1 to the BCA at Box 236,Warrington, PA 18976.
  58.  
  59. -This article was written by:
  60.                              Deceiver X
  61.  
  62.