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I’ll be honest – when I first saw this, I didn’t believe it. The Zodiac Killer’s 340 Cipher – but the deeper I dug, the more convinced I became that this is one of the most fascinating stories you’ll ever read.
51 Years of Failure
The 340-character cipher, mailed in 1969, remained unsolved for over five decades despite FBI, CIA, NSA, and thousands of amateur efforts.
The Breakthrough
In December 2020, Sam Blake, Jarl Van Eycke, and David Oranchak cracked it. The key: the cipher combined homophonic substitution AND transposition. Previous solvers tried only one.
But here’s where it gets really interesting.
What It Revealed
The decoded message read: ‘I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME… I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER.’ The FBI confirmed the solution in 2020.
Key Takeaways
- Cracked in December 2020 after 51 years.
- Found by amateur codebreakers, not government agencies.
- The FBI officially confirmed the solution.
History always surprises us when we think we have it figured out.
