In 1885, the US businessman James Ward published a booklet about an allegedly true story of a hidden treasure. According to the story, in 1823, a man named Thomas Beale hid several tons of gold and silver in a secret place and described the location of it in three encrypted messages. One of these messages was cracked, but it doesn't contain enough information to locate the treasure.

The two other messages are unsolved.
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Here is the solution to the cipher.

http://members.fortunecity.com/jpeschel/gillog3.htm

(Answer: it's a hoax unless a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 coincidence occurred)

Where is my 100,000 points?

(Answer: it's a hoax unless a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 coincidence occurred)

The matter is a little more complex:

• As you noticed, in 1980 Jim Gillogly pointed out that the Beale Ciphers are just nonsense (Gillogly, James: The Beale Cipher: A Dissenting Opinion. Cryptologia 2/1980).

• Carl Hammer noticed, that the nonsense theory is not necessarily correct (Hammer, Carl: Higher Order Homophonic Ciphers. Cryptologia 4/1981)

• Carl Hammer even showed that the Beale Ciphers might have several valid solutions (Hammer, Carl: Second Order Homophonic Ciphers. Cryptologia 1/1988)

• John King found more evidence supporting the nonsense theory (King , John C.: A Reconstruction of The Key to Beale Cipher Number 2. Cryptologia 3/1993)

At least, we can't be sure that the Beale Ciphers are meaningless.

hi

heute lief unten durch den ticker die meldung das die schriften gelöst wurden? stimmt das?

nach
Google

wurden die schon 2000 oder eher gelöst…

http://bealesolved.tripod.com/

gibt den angeblichen klartext der seit 1 und 3 wieder
und die darin verlinkten foren geben auch infos dazu

ich gebe zu das englisch nicht meine stärke ist, aber dachte das schon paar jungs es gelöst hätten

mfg Dano

It isnt too convincing I dont think. The guy from the site makes no mention of how he deciphered the remaining two ciphers (and as people on here probably know, such a large homophonic cipher can be made to decrypt to almost anything you want if you are clever enough in the words you use).

Then there is the matter of where the money went, if they went to so much trouble to write decipherable ciphers about hidden treasure, it should be likely that there is actual treasure to collect.

For all I know, the guy found that random opening in a rock and decided to claim that is was the right place.

I might have missed something in the story but I never understood how the second one was deciphered. It is quite a massive leap, even by todays standards with computers to check texts, that this guy knew to use the Declaration of Independence. It seems more likely to me that he was part of the hoax and was told to use that text by whoever.

I'm interested in participating in this site, but you have that 1 person has solved the Beale Ciphers, yet I have seen nothing in the news about this. I have some solutions for some interesting problems from your set of challenges, but I'm reluctant to contribute. Please clear this up.

Here 'tis – but even knowing the possible methodology makes it still slow going!

Know that start letters from the keywords(brute-forced), which change with every comma.

Write down the individual keyword letter at the beginning of each number group – like a bingo call.

Each number is actually a letter exactly "x" units away,added or subtracted, on an alphabet range (included below for covienience).

Keyword letters + number letters are both needed, in order, for plaintext.

Also each keyword changes with every row. Therefore you need the correctly spaced lines (not smushed together to save space) from the Project Gutenburg Internet Archive Pamplet, or you are sunk.

I am posting because while I seem to have have a definate method that works for both Ciphers 1 and 3, I do not have all the keywords. Also, this is a Level X challenge, so it was posted by admins in the forum that the rules of confidentiality about solutions run differently. If anyone wants to help me finish this nicely for the puzzle archives, I would be grateful, since admins stated that the credit will be shared.

ALPHABET REFERENCE LINE:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z-A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

(Beale 1 plays much like Kit Williams "Masquerade" – anyone with surveying equipment and a telescope handy?)

BEALE CIPHER 1 ROW 1 KEYWORD PHRASE "MAY ONE":

Row 1 Raw Numbers:

71, 194, 385, 1701, 89, 76, 11, 83, 1629, 48, 94, 63, 132, 16, 111, 95, 84, 341,

Matched with phrase:

M-71, A-194, Y-385, O-1701, N-89, E-76, M-11, A-83, Y-1629, O-48, N-94, E-63, M-132, A-16, Y-111, O-95, N-84, E-341,

Raw Plaintext:

Mtn, Az ke,Y be t, On io m,N vu,E x k,M ln, Aid, Y x ea q, O k w,Nw r, Ez b, Ml pk, Az u Y zx z, O ft, N v r,E b id

(Beale 3 seems to work so that each group of relatives has one line to themselves, with the family member from Beale's Group being their Keyword – but of course, this could change as I delve farther into it.)

BEALE CIPHER 3 ROW 1 Keyword "BEALE":

B317, E8, A92, L73, E112, B89, E67, A318, L28, E96, B107, E41, A631, L78, E146, B397, E118, A98,

Beau, Elary, Leo, Edd C, Bk, Selma, Cas, Lit, Evy, Babie Ada Uxb, L St., Edil, Beki, Eddy, Ari

BEALE CIPHER 3 ROW 2 Keyword "JAKOB":

J114, A246, K348, O116, B74, J88, A12, K65, O32, B14, J81, A19, K76, O121, B216, J85, A33, K66, O15,
J, kim, Acef, K hose, Oppi, Bif Jr, rAby, KepOlm Jr, kAb, j KreOn, m nB dav J, reAdd, Kee, Ont

BEALE CIPHER 3 ROW 3 Keyword "BILLY":

B108, I68, L77, L43, Y24, B122, I96, L117, L36, Y211, B301, I15, L44, L11, Y46, B89, I18, L136, L68,
Babj, Io, aLee, Lio, Yau B, add, IroL, mke, Li f, Yazz, Beb cImeL, mkL, Yue, ButI, hal, mor, Lrt