Beale Ciphers - Truth or Hoax?

Truth or Hoax?

There has been considerable debate over whether the remaining two ciphertexts are real or hoaxes. An early researcher, Carl Hammer of Sperry UNIVAC, used supercomputers of the late 1960s to analyze the ciphers and found that while the ciphers were poorly encoded, the two undeciphered ones did not show the patterns one would expect of randomly chosen numbers and probably encoded an intelligible text. Other questions remain about the authenticity of the pamphlet's account. In 1934, Dr. Clarence Williams, a researcher at the Library of Congress, said, "To me, the pamphlet story has all the earmarks of a fake . . . no evidence save the word of the unknown author of the pamphlet that he ever had the papers."

The pamphlet's background story has several implausibilities, and is based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence and hearsay.

• Later cryptographers have claimed that the two remaining ciphertexts have statistical characteristics which suggest that they are not actually encryptions of an English plaintext. Alphabetical sequences such as abfdefghiijklmmnohpp are both non-random, as indicated by Carl Hammer, and not words in English.

• Others have also questioned why Beale would have bothered writing three different ciphertexts (with at least two keys, if not ciphers) for what is essentially a single message in the first place, particularly if he wanted to ensure that the next of kin received their share (as it is, with the treasure described, there is no incentive to decode the third cipher).

• Analysis of the language used by the author of the pamphlet (the uses of punctuation, relative clauses, infinitives, conjunctives, and so on) has detected significant correlations between it and Beale's letters, including the plaintext of the second cipher, suggesting that they may have been written by the same person.

• The letters also contain several English words, such as "stampede" and "improvise", not otherwise recorded before the 1840s, implying composition no earlier than twenty years after their purported date; Beale's "stampeding" apparently first appears in print in 1883.

• The second message, describing the treasure, has been deciphered, but the others have not, suggesting a deliberate ploy to encourage interest in deciphering the other two texts only to discover that they are hoaxes. In addition, the original sale price of the pamphlet, 50 cents, was a high price for the time (adjusted for inflation, it is equivalent to $10 today), and the author says he expects "a wide circulation".

• The third cipher appears to be too short to list thirty individuals' next of kin.

• If the Declaration of Independence is used as a key for the first cipher, it yields alphabetical sequences such as abfdefghiijklmmnohpp and others. According to the American Cryptogram Association, the chances of such sequences appearing multiple times in the one ciphertext by chance are less than one in a hundred million million.

• Robert Morriss, as represented in the pamphlet, says he was running the Washington Hotel in 1820. Yet contemporary records show he did not start in that position until at least 1823.

There have been many attempts to break the remaining cipher(s). Most attempts have tried other historical texts as keys (e.g., the Magna Carta, various books of the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the Virginia Royal Charter), assuming the ciphertexts were produced with some book cipher, but none have been recognized as successful to date. Breaking the cipher(s) may depend on random chance (as, for instance, stumbling upon a book key if the two remaining ciphertexts are actually book ciphers); so far, even the most skilled cryptanalysts who have attempted them have been defeated. Of course, Beale could have used a document that he had written himself for either or both of the remaining keys, thus rendering any further attempts to crack the codes useless.