10 More Mysterious Ciphers and Languages

8/3/2019 10 More Mysterious Ciphers and Languages

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10 More Mysterious Ciphers andLanguages 57CommentsShare

byPatrick Weidinger

There are many examples of unsolved and mysterious writing systems,

codes, ciphers, languages and maps, which have yet to be deciphered and

cracked. This list will focus on ten that do not appear to be forgeries, and

are lesser-known than some of the more famous examples, such as the

Vineland Map and Voynitch Manuscript.

Maps, languages, codes and ciphers are cracked and deciphered all the

time, sometimes after years of painstaking research and calculations. A

recent development is in the use of computers to decipher previously

unknown and unintelligible languages. One recent success was the

decoding of the Copiale Cipher, a hand-lettered 105-page manuscript that

appears to date from the late 18th century. According to a recent New York

Times article, the deciphering of the first 16 pages shows the Copiale Cipher

appears to be a detailed description of a ritual from a secret society that

apparently had a fascination with eye surgery and ophthalmology. The

now deciphered text talks about making mystical signs and plucking a hair

from a candidates eyebrow, and swears candidates to loyalty and secrecy.

Here are ten more mysterious ciphers, maps and languages.

10British Library Ciphers


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In the British Library there are at least three books/manuscripts that are

written entirely in cipher. The first is titled The Subtlety of Witches,

authored by Ben Ezra Aseph, from 1657. The second has the very

interesting (and long) title of: Order of the Altar, Ancient Mysteries toWhich Females Were Alone Admissible: Being Part the First of the Secrets

Preserved in the Association of Maiden Unity and Attachment, from 1835.

The third has the very mysterious sounding title of: Mysteries of Vesta,

possibly from 1850. So all you ciphers with access to the British Library

get cracking!

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Unknown Peruvian Language


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The recent discovery of a 400-year old letter written by an unknown

Spanish author has revealed a previously unknown Peruvian language. The

letter was found in the ruins of an ancient Spanish Colonial church in El

Brujo, in northern Peru in 2008, but only now have linguists realized the

writing on the letter holds the clues to an entire new language. Written on

the opposite side of the letter are notes which appear to be translating the

unknown language into the Spanish language and Arabic numerals.

Though the new language may be borrowing from the Quechua language

still spoken by indigenous people of Peru to this day, it is clear that it is an

entirely new and unknown language. It is possible the language is one of

two mentioned in contemporary texts either Quingnam or Pescadora

which means language of the fishers. The language is probably based on

the Inca culture, since the translated numerals indicate they were using a

ten-based number system (Mayans used a twenty-based number system). It

is also possible the two are, in fact, a single language, and the clues on the


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envelope may help linguists and scholars translate the heretofore unknown

language.

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The Ptolemy Map Code

Not actually a code or cipher but a similar mystery that needed to be

decoded to answer a historical mystery of where ancient German towns,

that must have been encountered by the Romans, were actually located (in

comparison to modern German towns and geography). The Romans

encountered plenty of Germans and noted this often, but where were the

towns where the Romans met the Germans while the Romans were in

Germany? This remained a mystery as no one was able to match up the 96

towns listed on a historic map of Germany with a modern map.


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The famous 2nd Century Greek, Claudius Ptolemy, included a map of

Germania Magna in his Geographia. In AD 150, Ptolemy decided to invent

the first Google Earth and created 26 maps in colored ink on animal hides

that he said depicted the then known world. Though he never visited

Germany himself, Ptolemy must have used other accounts and documents

to draw his map. So there is a map, but no one could match the accounts of

the Romans and the 96 towns Ptolemy marked on his map, to actual

German towns and cities of today. That is, until now.

After working for six years, a Berlin-based team of academic surveyors and

mappers now claim to have finally worked out how to remap Ptolemys 96

German town coordinates onto actual coordinates. What made this possible

was the dramatic discovery in the Topkap Palace library in Istanbul,Turkey of an earlier copy of Ptolemys Geographia. The newly discovered

map, for example, shows a large number of cities such as the eastern

German city that is now called Jena, which Ptolemy called Bicurgium.

The modern German town of Essen was called Navalia and the town of

Frstenwalde in eastern Germany appears to have existed 2,000 years ago

and was called Susudata, a word derived from the Germanic term

sustain, or sows wallow. This is the only example in this list that

appears to have been completely solved.

7The Feynman Ciphers


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In the very early days of the Internet, way back in 1987, (before some

readers were born) someone who claimed to be a graduate student of the

brilliant physicist Dr. Richard Feynman, posted a message to an internet

cryptology list, saying that Professor Feynman was given three samples ofcode by a fellow scientist at Los Alamos, who challenged Feynman to

decipher them. The person who posted this claimed he was shown the

ciphers by Feynman. Feynman could not crack them, or so the poster

claimed. So the graduate student posted them on the Internet, hoping

others could. Soon after they appeared, one of the three was decoded by

John Morrison of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). It turned out to be a

coded version of the opening of Chaucers Canterbury tales in Middle

English.T

he other two remain unsolved. You can see the actualciphers here.

6The Anthon Transcript


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Just what are the mysterious Caractors that make up the Anthon

Transcript? The answer to that question might solve whether or not a

central point of the Mormon religion was proven. The Anthon Transcript

is, in fact, a small piece of paper that is reputed to be in the handwriting of

Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Mormon religion. On the paper, it is

claimed, are several lines of the actual characters Smith saw on The Golden

Plates (the ancient record from which Smith claims to have translated the

Book of Mormon) specifically the Reformed Egyptian writing that was on

the plates that Smith discovered, and which were revealed to him in 1823.

The papers get their name from the fact that, in 1828, the paper was

delivered to Charles Anthon who was, at the time, a well-known expert of

classical writing at Columbia University, so that he could authenticate and

translate the characters. Some believers of the Mormon religion claim that

Anthon independently verified the authenticity of the characters in a letter

to Martin Harris. Harris was an early convert to the Latter Day Saint

movement, and also served as one ofThree Witnesses who testified that

they had seen the golden plates from which Joseph Smith said the Book of

Mormon had been translated. According to Harris, Anthon claimed thewriting was Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic, and that they were

true characters. It was only after Anthon heard that the papers were from

Smith and the Mormon religion that Anthon ripped up his certification.

Anthon himself denied this and claimed he knew the writing was a hoax all

along.


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So just what are the Caractors?

According to Anthon, the marks in the paper appeared to be merely an

imitation of various alphabetical characters, and had, in my opinion, no

meaning at all connected with them. It is possible that the caractors are

merely random scribbling, but that does not appear to be the case. Most

likely, the caractors in the Anthon Transcript were borrowed from

multiple sources, perhaps a shorthand version of the Bible, with random

characters thrown in to give it the appearance of a true language. But then

again, it is also possible the caractors are what Joseph Smith claimed they

were. Until they are translated and deciphered, we do not know.

5The HMAS Sydney Ciphers


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One of the most fascinating unsolved ciphers may or may not actually be a

cipher, but a case of World War II politics. What is known is that the HMAS

Sydney was a Royal Australian Navy light cruiser on 19 November, 1941,

was involved in a battle with the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran. The

Sydney was a larger, more powerful, and more heavily armed ship,

compared to the Kormoran. Yet during the battle, the Sydney was lost with

all hands, 645 aboard, while the less powerful ship, the Kormoran, suffered

few casualties. The fact that the superior vessel, The Sydney, was defeated

by a lesser German cruiser is commonly attributed to the proximity of the

two ships during the engagement, and Kormorans advantages of surprise

and rapid, accurate fire. However, some feel the German commander used

illegal ruses to lure Sydney into range, or even that a Japanese submarinewas involved. The true events of what happened in the battle between the

Sydney and the Kormoran are now believed to be part of an elaborate

cover-up.


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And here is where the Sydney Ciphers come in. The Captain of the

Kormoran, Captain Detmers, was captured and sent to an Australian POW

camp after the Kormoran was sunk. Years later, in 1945, Detmers tried to

escape from the POW camp and was recaptured. When he was caught, he

was found to have a diary which appeared to have been written in Vigenere

code. Detmer had placed small dots under certain letters in his diary. The

diary was forwarded to Australian Cryptanalysis and their analysis

indicated that the diary was coded in the easily deciphered Vignere code.

The deciphered code, according to the Australian analysis, showed he was

trying to hide a description of the engagement between the Sydney and the

Kormoran. The problem with this stated position of the Australian

cryptographers why would Detmers use a code everyone knew was

already broken and easy to decipher?

The mystery deepens when it was later learned that other Australian

documents claim the diary was not in Vigenere code, at all, but an

unspecified WWII German code.

Still another deciphering of the so-called Detmer diary claimed it was coded

using a British system called Playfair code, another code which had been

broken by 1941. Why, again, would Detmer use an English code which heprobably had no knowledge of (and even if he did know the British code, he

would also have known it had been broken as far back as WWI). So why use

it?

Which is it? Did Detmers use the easily broken Vigenere code? Did he use

an unknown German code? Or did he use the British Playfair code?

One possible answer is that the diary was not encoded by Detmers at all,but instead, by British or Australian authorities who wanted to give it the

appearance of being coded. And by using any one of the three mentioned

codes, all of which had been broken, anyone who discovered Detmers

diary would easily be able to break the cipher. Thus, the decoding of the

document would produce a narrative meant to enforce the British and


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Australian descriptions of the events that allowed a more powerful warship

to be sunk, with total loss of life, by a lesser enemy vessel.

So the real mystery of the Sydney Ciphers may be can they show who

created it, and for what purposes?

4Bellasos Ciphers

In 1553, an Italian cryptographer, Giovan Battista Bellaso, published a

cryptography manual called La Cifra del Sig. Giovan Battista Bellaso. This

was kind of an early Cryptography For Dummies. He then published two

other editions, in 1555 and 1564. It was in these follow-up volumes that

Bellaso included some challenge ciphers for readers to try their hand atdeciphering. Bellaso wrote of his ciphers: they [the ciphers] contain some

beautiful things that are interesting to know. Bellaso promised to reveal

the contents of these ciphers if no one had deciphered them within a year,

something he failed to do. So, the seven challenge ciphers remained

unbroken until a reclusive Englishman named Tony Gaffney succeeded in


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cracking one of them, in 2009. What he found is that the cipher reveals an

unexpected link with Renaissance astrological medicine. His achievement is

all the greater given that he cannot read Italian.

Gaffney then followed up this amazing act by cracking Ballasos cipher #7.

This was even more remarkable because cipher #7 was a completely

different type used by Bellaso.

As far as I was able to determine, the other five Bellaso ciphers remain

unbroken.

3

Le Livre des Sauvages

Emmanuel-Henri-Dieudonn Domenech was a French abb, missionary

and author who answered the call for the need to develop the Catholic

Church in Texas, in 1846, and shipped off to America. He first went to St

Louis, completed his theological studies, then went to Castroville, Texas,

then back to France where he met the Pope, then back to Texas where he


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landed in Brownsville during the time of the Mexican-American war. He

then returned to France, back to Mexico, back to Europe (returning one

more time to America, in the 1880s) and spent the remaining years of his

life as kind of an ecclesiastical travel author.

Perhaps it was from too many Atlantic crossings or too much time in Texas,

but Domenech produced a very odd and mysterious document that was

rediscovered in the Bibliotheque de lArsenal in Paris. The book, known as

Le Livre des Sauvages was, according to Domenech, not his work but a

work of Native Americans a kind of curious Native American document.

This was quickly proven to be not the case, by German critics who noted

many uses of German language words and characters in the text. But the

book had more strange drawings. These German critics thought thecurious doodling and pictures, unknown symbols, and mysterious drawings

in the text were just the random scribblings of a child. But the stick figure

drawings appear to be the work of an adult, specifically, a very sexually

troubled adult. The drawings and figures are, to say the least bizarre. You

can see some examples here.

There are several hundred pages of this in the Le Livre des Sauvages.

However, the figures also include small slices of cipher material that may,or may not, be part of an overall cipher. But would anyone wish to decipher

what is being said with such sexual drawings?

2Ricky McCormick Notes


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On 30 June, 1999, 41 year old Ricky McCormicks body was discovered in a

field in St. Charles County, Missouri. An unemployed high school dropout,

McCormick was said to have heart and lung problems, lived on and off with

his mother, and was receiving disability at the time of his death. He hadserved time in jail for multiple offenses. His body was found several miles

from where he lived, and there was no indication of foul-play, nor was any

cause of death ever established.

Found inside his pockets were two hand written notes that appeared to be

encrypted. Were the encrypted notes clues to his death? The FBIs

Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU) and the American

Cryptogram Association both tried, and failed, to decipher the meanings ofthe notes. The notes and the death of Ricky McCormick are listed as one of

the CRRUs top unsolved cases.

Twelve years later, the FBI had changed its mind and now believed

McCormick may have been murdered. They also believed whatever was


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written on the notes might explain his death and lead to the killer, or

killers. On 29 March, 2011, the FBI asked the code-breakers of the world to

help determine the meaning of the coded messages. Within days of posting

the messages on the Internet, the FBI website was inundated with messages

from the public offering ideas, suggestions and assistance. According to

members of McCormicks family, McCormick had used encrypted notes

since he was a boy, but apparently no one in his family ever knew how to

decipher the codes. Now it is up to the public to try to help the FBI decode

these notes.

1Twin Language

One fascinating example of an unknown language, that mystifies those who

try to understand and decipher it, is unique in that only two people speak it.

Cryptophasia is a peculiar phenomenon of a language developed by twins

(identical or fraternal) that only the two children can understand. The word

has its roots from crypto meaning secret, and phasia meaning speech

disorder. Most linguists associate cryptophasia with idioglossia, which is


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the same, but cryptophasia also includes mirrored actions like twin-walk

and identical mannerisms. Little is known about cryptophasia.

Once thought to be a rare phenomenon, it is now understood that

cryptophasia is far more common possibly occurring in up to 40% of

twins. These autonomous languages are unintelligible to others and can

only be understood by the other twin. Though cryptophasia is common, the

unique language the twins invent soon disappears as they age.

It appears the twins adopt from, or utilize, an adult language, but only

partially. Often this happens when an adult is not frequently in contact with

the children. Typically, two or more siblings (usually twins but not always)

grow up together during the language acquisition phase and model, or

acquire, the adult language imperfectly. If the adult model is frequently

absent, then the children use each other as models. It does not appear the

children are inventing their own language, though they do create their own

words. It appears they incorrectly model the fragmented exposure to adult

language, utilizing the limited and constrained phonological possibilities of

young children. These words being hardly recognizable, the language may

turn out to be completely unintelligible to speakers of the model languages.

The best known examples of twin language occurred with Poto and

Cabengo identical twins (real names Grace and Virginia Kennedy,

respectively), who used a language unknown to other people until the age of

about eight. Poto and Cabengo is also the name of a documentary film

about the girls, made by Jean-Pierre Gorin, and released in 1979. They were

apparently of normal intelligence. They developed their own

communication because they had little exposure to spoken language in

their early years

Documents

10 More Mysterious Ciphers and Languages