[Aaron]

http://www.unmuseum.org/bealepap.htm contains the Beale Papers themselves, and http://www.unmuseum.org/beal.htm has the actual story behind them. Be warned, the validity of these papers is dubious, so solve at your own risk!

[pelican]

Having done a considerable amount of research on Thomas J. Beale and the Beale Papers, I found that the Beale Cipher was apparently solved by a man named Daniel Cole as recently as the past few years ago. The cipher and the vault weren't a hoax, and the vault had long been broken into and looted a long time ago, leaving only a few cursory artifacts for the discoverers. Now that the Beale, intriguing as it was to me, as I'm fascinated with the history of the colonial period, is over, I'll help focus on the Dorabella. For the record, I was actually onto a couple of the same leads and assumptions as the man who eventually decoded it, so I feel somewhat okay about it.

Chris

[Aaron]

Interesting, I didn't realize it was already solved. I guess the news wasn't very widespread due to there not being much left to take from the vault...

Ah well, I'll leave this section up anyways as an exercise if anyone else wants to try it out.

[scott]

Well what book was the last letter based on? was it the same type of code? if you know of a web page that says please let me know. thanks

[pelican]

Scott,

The site I eventually found is: bealesolved.tripod.com/index.html
The cipher was very similar to the one based on the Declaration of Independence.

Chris

[scott]

Thanks, too bad all the stuff was gone.

[Aaron]

Hmmm. that site doesn't explain how it was decoded...

And this one Tom guy rambling about 3d in the forum is a bit suspect... not sure what he's talking about, though the idea that there is more than one vault is interesting to say the least...

http://smd173.tripod.com/Beale/Solutions.htm shows other people who think they've solved it, apparently many people have different ideas on the locale of the treasure. Maybe it's worth a shot trying to solve it after all...

[Dutch]

All this time I thought that the whole thing was a fake.  So it really was for real.  I wish I knew what the key document was.  I had tried many documents in time past, but no success.

Dutch

[1002792]

Question: Does anyone have a pointer to the solution of "The Beale Papers?"

There was an article some time ago in the quarterly published by the crypto group that used to be based at Rose-Hullman (although I think they've moved) and the magazine was "Cryptologia," in which a paper appeared that demonstrated some very interesting "artifacts" of the cipher, and the claim was that it was broken. In particular, the decrypt showed the alphabet in order on one spot of the cipher, but much of the decrypt was gibberish. I believe the point was that the cipher was a hoax.

I'm in the process of moving and cannot locate the relevant issue but I would truly appreciate any pointers to any site that is an actual or supposed decrypt.

Thanks,
Michael (1002792)

[Dutch]

Do you know what the key text was to the Beale Ciphers 1 & 3? I have explored several sites but cannot get an answer to this question.

[Aaron]

I'm not sure, I've searched far and wide for that info myself...

Oh, and the most likely (I would think) would be the Confederate Constitution from before the official constitution...