Over the years, the CIA has cracked many codes that were seemingly unbreakable. There is one code, however, that remains uncracked, and it sits in a corner of the headquarters courtyard. It’s called “Kryptos“.
“EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ”
That is the first line of the Kryptos sculpture, created by D.C. artist Jim Sanborn. The sculpture itself stands about ten feet tall, and is in the form of a copper made to look as though it was a long sheet of paper coming out of a computer printer. The sculpture was completed 15 years ago and code-breakers decoded the simplest pieces of the code without revealing their findings.
UPDATE: Jim Sanborn has dropped a clue as to the meaning of the final code.
Thus far, no one, including the Central Intelligence Agency, has been able to decipher the code.
Now, it has gained new attention thanks to “The Da Vinci Code,” which I’m sure you are familiar with unless you have been living under a rock for the last 10 years.
Dan Brown placed clues to what Kryptos means on the book’s dust jacket. The very first clue is a set of coordinates that indicate where to find the the sculpture.
Most recently, a game at www.thedavincicode.com hints that Kryptos itself is a big part of the theme for Dan Brown’s next book, “The Lost Symbol”.
The first three parts of the code, called K1, K2 and K3, have been cracked. Granted, it took seven years for that to happen and not “several months” as was initially expected.
It is the 2nd piece, K2, that sounds most fascinating. It translates something like this…
“It was totally invisible. How’s that possible? They used the Earth’s magnetic field. The information was gathered and transmitted underground to an unknown location. Does Langley know about this? They should: it’s buried out there somewhere.”
The section called K4 has yet to be cracked. James Sanborn intentionally made the K4 section much harder to crack than the first three sections.
Sanborn states that the mystery of the 4th code can be solved. He also hints that one clue overlooked so far is sitting in plain view.
“The most obvious key to the sculpture, nobody has picked up on.”
Care to take a crack at Kryptos? Just head over to the Kryptos website or visit the Kryptos Group…and good luck. You’ll need it.
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