The Undecipherable Kryptos Statue Found in the CIA Building

We are known for solving raids and events.Central Intelligence Agency” that is, the CIA is a non-state civilian foreign intelligence agency in the United States.

So how come it has been standing in front of such a serious and important intelligence center for 33 years? statue cannot be decrypted And it still stays there?

The statue of Kryptos is actually a 3.7-meter-long wave-shaped copper sculpture with 1800 letters on it, consisting of four different encrypted messages.

James Gillogly, a computer scientist, and several national security agency employees, visited the statue in 2010 and 2014. With two clues from its designer, they deciphered the sculpture’s three messages.

Although the designer gives clues about the last part of the sculpture, no one can decipher the last part, which consists of 97 letters.

So what was written in the deciphered messages?

While the designer of the statue carried out this project, the retired head of the CIA, Edward Michael Scheidt, was with him. While preparing the codes on the Kryptos statue, he stated that the first three parts could be easily deciphered, but they decided that the last episode should be a real challenge.

In the first part of the statue, which was deciphered, “Among the lies of shadow and light, there were details of dreams.” he is writing.

In the second part, which is deciphered, the coordinates of a location near the statue are given.

It also contained a reference to William Webster, who was head of the CIA when the work was first exhibited. In the cipher, there is something for the designer to decipher the code for him. It said he gave the key.

In the third part of the statue, which was deciphered, there is a section from the diary of Archaeologist H. Carter, who opened the tomb of the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922.

How did they decipher the codes on this “mysterious” statue?

Password crackers to decrypt the first two chapters based on Caesar cipher They made use of the Vigenère painting. In the Caesar cipher, the cipher alphabet replaces the plain alphabet letters with the third letter after it. The receiver of the ciphertext, on the other hand, replaces each letter with the third letter before it to obtain the plain text.

Vigenère encryption The difference from the Caesar cipher is that it is encrypted using multiple alphabets.. The logic is the same as the Caesar cipher.

So who is the designer of this mysterious Kryptos statue?

This man, who at first glance resembles Dahmer, designer of the Kryptos statue; Jim Sanborn known as Herbert James Sanborn. Kryptos is the artist’s first work. The artist graduated from Randolph-Macon College in 1969 with a double major in art history and sociology, and later earned a master’s degree in sculpture from the Pratt Institute in 1971.

Sanborn’s work has been featured in several prestigious museums, including the High Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Corcoran Art Gallery. Also Sanborn Apart from the CIA, he has also produced studies for various institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Another famous work by Sanborn: The Cyrillic Projector.

It was also Sanborn’s idea to place a cryptographic (encrypted) art installation in the courtyard of CIA headquarters.

Sanborn said it would be a fun intellectual activity and thought the passwords would be decrypted soon.

Sanborn gives clues for the last password, but no one can figure it out.

given by Sanborn first clueIt arrived in 2010. Accordingly, in the last section consisting of 97 letters, the letters from 64 to 69 are “Berlin‘ was the word. announced in 2014 second hint, between the 70th and 74th letters “Hour” he wrote. in 2020 on the last tip between the 23rd and 34th letters “NORTHEAST” was declared.

In the three years since Sanborn uncovered the clue, the puzzle is still unsolved. Already Sanborn states that the real mystery in the sculpture will never be fully understood.

Sanborn says the following about the ciphers on the statue:

“They will be able to read what I have written, but they will not be able to understand what I have written. your statue They have things to discover after the mystery is solved, there are things out there whose true meaning they will never discover. People will always ask the question ‘what did he mean by that’.”

In addition, the artist stated that the deciphering of the secret in the sculpture took longer than he expected. He says he is considering selling the secret at auction and donating the proceeds to a charity.