Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogelbam here. The story of the
Speaker 1: Bell's Ciphers is a particularly peculiar mystery, and many people
Speaker 1: who have researched it have concluded that it's probably just
Speaker 1: an elaborate nineteenth century hoax. After all, who would bring
Speaker 1: back a fortune in gold, silver and jewels from New
Speaker 1: Mexico and bury it somewhere in the rolling hills and
Speaker 1: ridges of central Virginia? And why would the person who
Speaker 1: hid that treasure one Thomas J. Beale write down instructions
Speaker 1: on how to find it in code on three sheets
Speaker 1: of paper in trust a box containing those papers to
Speaker 1: an innkeeper, and then never return for it. Implausible as
Speaker 1: all that might seem, the mystery of the Belle Ciphers
Speaker 1: has fascinated, even obsessed numerous people over the past a
Speaker 1: hundred thirty six years, that being the length of time
Speaker 1: since the story initially was published, and a ponderously titled
Speaker 1: fifty pamphlet called the Beal Papers, containing authentic statements regarding
Speaker 1: the treasure buried in eighteen nineteen and eighteen twenty one
Speaker 1: near Buford's in Bedford County, Virginia, and which has never
Speaker 1: been discovered. One reason that the mystery still attracts treasure
Speaker 1: hunters is that if the buried fortune exists by now,
Speaker 1: it's grown to approximately ninety three million dollars in value,
Speaker 1: as journalist Buzz McClain calculated in article in Northern Virginia Magazine.
Speaker 1: But even if it doesn't exist, the Beall ciphers, two
Speaker 1: of which remain unsolved, have continued to fascinate both amateur
Speaker 1: and professional cryptographers, to the point that the National Security
Speaker 1: Agency actually has compiled a file of articles and reports
Speaker 1: on the mystery. From nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: there was even an organization, the Beal Cipher Association, composed
Speaker 1: of people who paid a twenty five dollar annual fee
Speaker 1: for the privilege of receiving a quarterly newspaper and attending
Speaker 1: periodical seminars and symposiums on the mystery. Members agreed that
Speaker 1: if they ever actually found the treasure, they donate ten
Speaker 1: percent of the proceeds to the association for the article.
Speaker 1: This episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with
Speaker 1: Jenny Kyle. She's the author of the book Introduction to
Speaker 1: Codes and Cipher's Plus twenty famous unsolved codes, ciphers, and
Speaker 1: mysterious writings. She said, although some have slammed the door
Speaker 1: and called it a hoax or merely a fun tale,
Speaker 1: because the story has some inconsistencies and questionable actions, the
Speaker 1: door seems never able to be tightly shuted. Those unanswered
Speaker 1: details seem to always keep the door slightly ajar, no
Speaker 1: matter how hard some slam it. It's amazing how the
Speaker 1: story can't be conclusively determined to be all false or true.
Speaker 1: Here's the story is laid out in the eight pamphlet,
Speaker 1: which was written by an anonymous author and published by
Speaker 1: a local newspaperman named J. B. Ward. So Supposedly, in
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty, a Virginian named Robert Morris, who operated a
Speaker 1: hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia, became acquainted with a long term
Speaker 1: guest named Thomas J. Beale, whom he described the anonymous
Speaker 1: author as being about six feet or just under two
Speaker 1: meters in height, with jet black eyes and hair of
Speaker 1: the same color worn longer than what was the style
Speaker 1: at that time. Bale registered simply as being from Virginia.
Speaker 1: Where exactly in the state he didn't say, and he
Speaker 1: never said anything about his family or much of anything
Speaker 1: about himself at all. Beale left the hotel in the
Speaker 1: spring of eighteen twenty one with a group of friends
Speaker 1: and returned the following January, this time only staying for
Speaker 1: a couple of months. Before departing, he gave Morris a
Speaker 1: box for safe keeping, saying it contained important and valuable papers,
Speaker 1: which was an understatement in the letter that he left behind.
Speaker 1: Beale explained that he and his companions had been stored
Speaker 1: west to New Mexico in the late eighteen teens on
Speaker 1: a hunting expedition, and while there somehow had discovered a
Speaker 1: gold mine. The men abandoned their recreation and worked the mine,
Speaker 1: extracting of fortune in gold and silver. The group wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly sure what to do with their newfound riches, but
Speaker 1: eventually they entrusted the horde to Beale, who traveled back
Speaker 1: east and buried it in a cave near Tavern in
Speaker 1: Bedford County, which, according to the letter quote, all of
Speaker 1: us had visited and which was considered a perfectly safe depository.
Speaker 1: Bale and his friends later returned and then moved the
Speaker 1: treasure to a different location. The group also instructed Beale
Speaker 1: to give some perfectly reliable person instructions on how to
Speaker 1: find the treasure, so that in the event they died
Speaker 1: during their adventures, their families could be given the fortune.
Speaker 1: Bale later sent Morrise a letter from St. Louis instructing
Speaker 1: him that if Beale didn't return after ten years, Morris
Speaker 1: had permission to open the box. Beal, perhaps obviously, never
Speaker 1: came back, and Morris never heard anything else about him,
Speaker 1: living or dead. For reasons unexplained, Morris didn't break the
Speaker 1: lock and open the box until twenty three years later,
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five. But it didn't contain a map
Speaker 1: or simple instructions on how to find the fortune. Instead,
Speaker 1: it contained sheets of paper covered with a seemingly incomprehensible
Speaker 1: slew of numbers. The pamphlet's mysterious author figured out that
Speaker 1: one of the three sheets was in a code based
Speaker 1: on the Declaration of Independence and deciphered it. It was
Speaker 1: a message describing the fortune, which consisted of about twenty
Speaker 1: nine hundred pounds or hundred kilos of gold, of fifty
Speaker 1: one pounds or twenty three hundred kilos of silver, and
Speaker 1: a quantity of jewels that had been obtained in exchange
Speaker 1: for silver. The treasure was packed in iron pots with
Speaker 1: lids and buried in a stone lined vault, but the
Speaker 1: exact location was on one of the other pages, in
Speaker 1: a coded message that the anonymous author, conveniently for the
Speaker 1: mystery wasn't able to solve. Ditto for the third page,
Speaker 1: which listed the members of the group and gave their
Speaker 1: relatives names and addresses. How staff Works also spoke with
Speaker 1: Alonka donn In, a video game developer, writer, and cryptographer,
Speaker 1: and her colleague German computer scientist and cryptographer Klaus Schmay,
Speaker 1: who are co authors of the book Code Breaking a
Speaker 1: Practical Guide. They've studied the Bell Cipher's mystery in detail,
Speaker 1: even traveling to Bedford County to scrutinize the area around
Speaker 1: the former site of Buford's tavern where Beals supposedly buried
Speaker 1: the riches. Aside from the basic implausibility of the story,
Speaker 1: as Dunnan explains, there are plenty of clues that indicate
Speaker 1: that the Beal Treasure is a hoax. The pamphlet is
Speaker 1: the only source of the story, and the details in
Speaker 1: it are sketchy. In addition, the originals of the letters
Speaker 1: to Mores from Beal were conveniently lost, so no one
Speaker 1: except the anonymous author got a chance to examine them,
Speaker 1: and language experts who have examined the texts of the
Speaker 1: letters and compared them to the pamphlet have concluded that
Speaker 1: all were written by the same person. Additionally, as Shmay notes,
Speaker 1: there are a few slightly different versions of the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence, and it seems that Beale used a rare
Speaker 1: or unique version for the first page of his ciphers.
Speaker 1: The anonymous person who sixty years later solved the cipher
Speaker 1: would have had to have happened to have exactly the
Speaker 1: same rare version. But the Bell ciphers still fascinate people
Speaker 1: interested in cryptography, and the story still prompts amateur treasure
Speaker 1: hunters to head to Virginia in hopes striking it. Rich
Speaker 1: then and said, even after it's been pretty well debunked,
Speaker 1: there's something in the human psyche, the finding a hidden
Speaker 1: treasure of something no one else has been able to do,
Speaker 1: that keeps people searching for it. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on the article does the Beal Cipher's Code of Numbers
Speaker 1: detail hidden Treasure? On how stuffworks dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Patrick J. Tiger. Brain Stuff is a production of I
Speaker 1: heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: and it is produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts
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