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Kryptos by Jim Sanborn, at CIA headquarters in Langley
Photo: Jim Sanborn (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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When you think “CIA,” the first thought that pops into your head usually isn’t “fun guys.” But the notoriously stern-faced organization must have some sense of fun (or maybe even a sense of humour?), since their headquarters at Langley is home to one unusual and perplexing work of art: the Kryptos sculpture.
Here at Krakit, we know that art and logic combine to highly fun ends—that’s our Vancouver escape room in a nutshell—and the Kryptos sculpture is testament to that.
Created by artist Jim Sanborn in 1990, the copper and wood sculpture features four ciphers, or coded messages. Composed of 2,000 letters in total, the ciphers presented a challenge not only to the codebreakers and logicians employed by the CIA, but also to the public at large.
It took five years for a group of clever clogs at the National Security Agency (NSA) to break the first codes (although this was kept secret), with the first member of the public, computer scientist Jim Gillogly, announcing his computer-aided solution a year later, in 1996.
However—only three of the four ciphers have been solved to this day.
The final cipher, a mere 97 letters, has yet to be cracked. Sanborn, one of two people who know the puzzle’s solution, has released two clues since the sculpture was unveiled. In 2010, he revealed that letters 64 to 69 spell “BERLIN.” Still, nada. So in November 2014, he doled out another clue: letters 70 to 74 spell “CLOCK.”
It’s been a year since the second clue was given—and 25 years since Kryptos was unveiled—and, still, even the CIA has yet to crack the code that sits on its grounds. (Or, at least as far as we know. They kept their solutions to the first three ciphers secret!)
The cherry on top of this most mysterious of artworks? Solving the final cipher isn’t the end of the puzzle: the code’s solution will complete a riddle, which will then also need to be cracked.
If you want to try your hand at being the one to solve the final 97 letters, the full transcript of the sculpture is online here, along with many other facts about the work, compiled by Elonka.
Here at Krakit, we know that art and logic combine to highly fun ends—that’s our Vancouver escape room in a nutshell—and the Kryptos sculpture is testament to that.
Created by artist Jim Sanborn in 1990, the copper and wood sculpture features four ciphers, or coded messages. Composed of 2,000 letters in total, the ciphers presented a challenge not only to the codebreakers and logicians employed by the CIA, but also to the public at large.
It took five years for a group of clever clogs at the National Security Agency (NSA) to break the first codes (although this was kept secret), with the first member of the public, computer scientist Jim Gillogly, announcing his computer-aided solution a year later, in 1996.
However—only three of the four ciphers have been solved to this day.
The final cipher, a mere 97 letters, has yet to be cracked. Sanborn, one of two people who know the puzzle’s solution, has released two clues since the sculpture was unveiled. In 2010, he revealed that letters 64 to 69 spell “BERLIN.” Still, nada. So in November 2014, he doled out another clue: letters 70 to 74 spell “CLOCK.”
It’s been a year since the second clue was given—and 25 years since Kryptos was unveiled—and, still, even the CIA has yet to crack the code that sits on its grounds. (Or, at least as far as we know. They kept their solutions to the first three ciphers secret!)
The cherry on top of this most mysterious of artworks? Solving the final cipher isn’t the end of the puzzle: the code’s solution will complete a riddle, which will then also need to be cracked.
If you want to try your hand at being the one to solve the final 97 letters, the full transcript of the sculpture is online here, along with many other facts about the work, compiled by Elonka.
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