Outside the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, lies a mystery that has challenged the agency's most brilliant minds for 35 years.
It is an arched metal sculpture, known as Kryptos, created by artist Jim Sanborn in 1990.
The sculpture, consisting of a large copper plate engraved with 1,735 letters, hides four secret messages encoded with extremely complex methods.
While the first three parts have already been solved, the fourth part, known as K4, still remains unsolved – and only Sanborn knows what she actually writes.
However, one person now has the opportunity to join this exclusive club: the answer to this mysterious text will be put up for auction.
After 35 years as the exclusive keeper of the secret, Sanborn is selling the translated text along with all the coding tables he used to create it.
The expected auction value is between $300,000 and $500,000 (£223,570–£372,600), while the lucky winner will have the right to reveal the secret to the world – or keep it private.
In a statement about the auction, Sanborn said:
“The burden of knowledge passes from the artist to the bearer.”
When commissioned to create a sculpture for the new CIA headquarters, Sanborn wanted to include a code that would remain undetected for 5 to 10 years. He didn't create the codes alone, but enlisted the help of Edward Scheidt, the retired head of the CIA's cryptographic center, known as the "Wizard of Codes."
Together they created four progressively more difficult encryption techniques, all based on the theme of concealment and detection.
According to the CIA, the first three sections were encrypted with a well-known type of cipher, Vigenère Tableaux, which changes each letter of the alphabet based on an associated table.
The first part, solved by an NSA team, reads:
"Between light shadows and the absence of light lies the nuance of illusion."
The second part says:
“It was totally invisible. How was that possible? They used the Earth’s magnetic field X. The information was collected and transmitted underground to an unknown location X. Does Langley know about this? He must know. He’s buried somewhere out there X. Who knows the exact location? Only WW. That was his last message X.”
This message ended with the geographic coordinates of the CIA headquarters.
The third and fourth sections are significantly more challenging. The third section was solved after eight years by CIA analyst David Stein and computer scientist Jim Gillogly. It is a condensed version of Howard Carter's description of the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1925.
Although the code has been public for 35 years, no one has managed to solve the last part.
Sanborn has made some minor suggestions for possible solutions, but to no avail.
In 2010, he discovered that letters 64–69 formed the word "Berlin."
In 2014, letters 69–74 formed "clock".
In 2020, the final clue showed that the word "northeast" was hidden between letters 26–34.
This information can be used as a key to uncover the rest of the message.
On November 20, the original handwritten text of the K4 code, along with a letter signed by cryptographer Edward Scheidt, will be sold at RR Auction.
Sanborn currently charges $50 to review potential Krypto solutions — an activity that has earned him over $40,000 over the years. He recently stated that he is “tired” of the constant questions and wants to pass the Krypto legacy on to someone else.
Bobby Livingston, spokesman for RR Auction, told the Daily Mail:
“For thirty-five years, Kryptos has challenged the best minds in cryptography. Now, for the first time, the full text of the undisclosed portion of K4 will be revealed to the winner. He or she will learn directly from Jim Sanborn how to solve the mystery that has baffled the CIA and codebreakers around the world.”
However, Sanborn has suggested that decoding all four parts of Krypto may be only the first stage of solving the larger puzzle, called K5.
“Even when K4 is solved, the puzzles will continue,” he said.
So whoever wins the K4 solution, the mystery of Krypto will continue to live on for several more years. /GazetaExpress/
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