WEBVTT - Do the Beale Ciphers Contain Directions to Hidden Treasure? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:10.200 Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogelbam here. The story of the 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:14.520 Bell's Ciphers is a particularly peculiar mystery, and many people 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.480 who have researched it have concluded that it's probably just 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:22.079 an elaborate nineteenth century hoax. After all, who would bring 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.840 back a fortune in gold, silver and jewels from New 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.840 Mexico and bury it somewhere in the rolling hills and 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.840 ridges of central Virginia? And why would the person who 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.680 hid that treasure one Thomas J. Beale write down instructions 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.080 on how to find it in code on three sheets 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.960 of paper in trust a box containing those papers to 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:45.360 an innkeeper, and then never return for it. Implausible as 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:48.519 all that might seem, the mystery of the Belle Ciphers 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.880 has fascinated, even obsessed numerous people over the past a 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.080 hundred thirty six years, that being the length of time 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.960 since the story initially was published, and a ponderously titled 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:03.800 fifty pamphlet called the Beal Papers, containing authentic statements regarding 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.040 the treasure buried in eighteen nineteen and eighteen twenty one 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.800 near Buford's in Bedford County, Virginia, and which has never 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:15.000 been discovered. One reason that the mystery still attracts treasure 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.319 hunters is that if the buried fortune exists by now, 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.760 it's grown to approximately ninety three million dollars in value, 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:27.200 as journalist Buzz McClain calculated in article in Northern Virginia Magazine. 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.759 But even if it doesn't exist, the Beall ciphers, two 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.479 of which remain unsolved, have continued to fascinate both amateur 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.280 and professional cryptographers, to the point that the National Security 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.360 Agency actually has compiled a file of articles and reports 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:48.520 on the mystery. From nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety six, 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.760 there was even an organization, the Beal Cipher Association, composed 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.600 of people who paid a twenty five dollar annual fee 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:59.160 for the privilege of receiving a quarterly newspaper and attending 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:04.360 periodical seminars and symposiums on the mystery. Members agreed that 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.200 if they ever actually found the treasure, they donate ten 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.560 percent of the proceeds to the association for the article. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.959 This episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.600 Jenny Kyle. She's the author of the book Introduction to 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.400 Codes and Cipher's Plus twenty famous unsolved codes, ciphers, and 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:26.000 mysterious writings. She said, although some have slammed the door 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.400 and called it a hoax or merely a fun tale, 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.160 because the story has some inconsistencies and questionable actions, the 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.240 door seems never able to be tightly shuted. Those unanswered 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.600 details seem to always keep the door slightly ajar, no 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.040 matter how hard some slam it. It's amazing how the 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:49.080 story can't be conclusively determined to be all false or true. 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.160 Here's the story is laid out in the eight pamphlet, 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.880 which was written by an anonymous author and published by 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:02.560 a local newspaperman named J. B. Ward. So Supposedly, in 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.440 eighteen twenty, a Virginian named Robert Morris, who operated a 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.480 hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia, became acquainted with a long term 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.760 guest named Thomas J. Beale, whom he described the anonymous 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.600 author as being about six feet or just under two 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.400 meters in height, with jet black eyes and hair of 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.079 the same color worn longer than what was the style 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:28.360 at that time. Bale registered simply as being from Virginia. 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.360 Where exactly in the state he didn't say, and he 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.400 never said anything about his family or much of anything 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.200 about himself at all. Beale left the hotel in the 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:40.800 spring of eighteen twenty one with a group of friends 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:44.520 and returned the following January, this time only staying for 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.800 a couple of months. Before departing, he gave Morris a 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:52.440 box for safe keeping, saying it contained important and valuable papers, 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:57.000 which was an understatement in the letter that he left behind. 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.240 Beale explained that he and his companions had been stored 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.760 west to New Mexico in the late eighteen teens on 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.240 a hunting expedition, and while there somehow had discovered a 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:11.560 gold mine. The men abandoned their recreation and worked the mine, 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.000 extracting of fortune in gold and silver. The group wasn't 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.240 exactly sure what to do with their newfound riches, but 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:23.200 eventually they entrusted the horde to Beale, who traveled back 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.839 east and buried it in a cave near Tavern in 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.279 Bedford County, which, according to the letter quote, all of 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:33.400 us had visited and which was considered a perfectly safe depository. 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.880 Bale and his friends later returned and then moved the 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.559 treasure to a different location. The group also instructed Beale 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.279 to give some perfectly reliable person instructions on how to 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.880 find the treasure, so that in the event they died 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.040 during their adventures, their families could be given the fortune. 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.080 Bale later sent Morrise a letter from St. Louis instructing 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.719 him that if Beale didn't return after ten years, Morris 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:04.159 had permission to open the box. Beal, perhaps obviously, never 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:07.320 came back, and Morris never heard anything else about him, 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:13.359 living or dead. For reasons unexplained, Morris didn't break the 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.320 lock and open the box until twenty three years later, 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.080 in eighteen forty five. But it didn't contain a map 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.839 or simple instructions on how to find the fortune. Instead, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.080 it contained sheets of paper covered with a seemingly incomprehensible 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:33.000 slew of numbers. The pamphlet's mysterious author figured out that 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.839 one of the three sheets was in a code based 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.840 on the Declaration of Independence and deciphered it. It was 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.120 a message describing the fortune, which consisted of about twenty 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.599 nine hundred pounds or hundred kilos of gold, of fifty 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.919 one pounds or twenty three hundred kilos of silver, and 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.280 a quantity of jewels that had been obtained in exchange 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.160 for silver. The treasure was packed in iron pots with 0:05:57.240 --> 0:06:00.560 lids and buried in a stone lined vault, but the 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.760 exact location was on one of the other pages, in 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.159 a coded message that the anonymous author, conveniently for the 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.279 mystery wasn't able to solve. Ditto for the third page, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.680 which listed the members of the group and gave their 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:18.320 relatives names and addresses. How staff Works also spoke with 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.640 Alonka donn In, a video game developer, writer, and cryptographer, 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:26.040 and her colleague German computer scientist and cryptographer Klaus Schmay, 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.520 who are co authors of the book Code Breaking a 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.200 Practical Guide. They've studied the Bell Cipher's mystery in detail, 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:38.120 even traveling to Bedford County to scrutinize the area around 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.960 the former site of Buford's tavern where Beals supposedly buried 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:46.599 the riches. Aside from the basic implausibility of the story, 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.040 as Dunnan explains, there are plenty of clues that indicate 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.240 that the Beal Treasure is a hoax. The pamphlet is 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.839 the only source of the story, and the details in 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.719 it are sketchy. In addition, the originals of the letters 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.080 to Mores from Beal were conveniently lost, so no one 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.880 except the anonymous author got a chance to examine them, 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.720 and language experts who have examined the texts of the 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.800 letters and compared them to the pamphlet have concluded that 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:18.000 all were written by the same person. Additionally, as Shmay notes, 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.280 there are a few slightly different versions of the Declaration 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:24.800 of Independence, and it seems that Beale used a rare 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.920 or unique version for the first page of his ciphers. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.920 The anonymous person who sixty years later solved the cipher 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.840 would have had to have happened to have exactly the 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:40.200 same rare version. But the Bell ciphers still fascinate people 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:44.160 interested in cryptography, and the story still prompts amateur treasure 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.200 hunters to head to Virginia in hopes striking it. Rich 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.360 then and said, even after it's been pretty well debunked, 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.520 there's something in the human psyche, the finding a hidden 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.840 treasure of something no one else has been able to do, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:05.240 that keeps people searching for it. Today's episode is based 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.080 on the article does the Beal Cipher's Code of Numbers 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.440 detail hidden Treasure? On how stuffworks dot com, written by 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.920 Patrick J. Tiger. Brain Stuff is a production of I 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.280 heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot com, 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.160 and it is produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.200 my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:24.040 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.