It could be argued that the author of the Scorpion letters, which were mailed to John Walsh, presenter of the popular television show America's Most Wanted, was hinting he was once the infamous Zodiac Killer. In a series of cryptograms and letters sent in 1991, the headline text of "Hi, Remember Me" is fairly self-explanatory (see below). The wording used in the correspondence such as "you and your over anxious associates would try and nail me even if I used a P.O. Box for a return address" is interesting, because post office box keys were a feature of the Eureka card just a few months earlier, in 1990. The Atlanta letter, almost certainly mailed by the Zodiac Killer on March 8th 1981, contained the wording "I am not writing in the same hand writing". The Scorpion letters author wrote "My style of hand writing on these cards is very much altered". There is a distinct gap between "hand" and "writing" in both instances (rather than "handwriting" written as one word). The Scorpion letter also stated "I will soon start collecting bodies for you", replacing the word "slaves" used by the Zodiac Killer. 

These complex cryptograms are extremely difficult to solve because of the excessive ciphertext characters used in the encoding process. However, there are some possible openings. The Zodiac Killer mailed a 408 character cipher on July 31st 1969, a 340 character cipher on November 8th 1969, a 38 character cipher on December 7th 1969, a 13 character code on April 20th 1970 and a 32 character code on June 26th 1970, but not once did he use the "sun cross" or "number 7" as a ciphertext character. The 148 character cipher mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle by the Zodiac Killer sometime in May 1971, the 50 character cipher mailed to the Albany Times Union newspaper on August 1st 1973, and the 180 character Scorpion cipher mailed in 1991 (all bearing traits of the Zodiac Killer and not contemporarily published in the newspapers), all contained the "sun cross" and "number 7" as a ciphertext character. ​The "number 7" in the 1971 and 1973 ciphers, both decoded to the plaintext letter "A".

In the 148 character cipher mailed in 1971, the Zodiac Killer used the "sun cross" as a signature rather than his traditional crosshairs - thereby signing off his communication with the letter "Z" - because the "sun cross" descoded to the plaintext letter "Z" in the 148 character cipher. Bearing in mind that the Scorpion letter author headlined with the wording "Hi, Remember Me", it had to be considered that the pseudonym "Zodiac" may have been hidden somewhere in the cryptogram. Since the Zodiac Killer probably used the "sun cross" to represent the letter "Z" in the 148 character cipher, I took a look at the 180 character Scorpion cipher to see if any repeating ciphertext characters would mimic the pseudonym "Zodiac", using the "sun cross" to represent the plaintext letter "Z". Below are the examples I found beginning on row 2 and 14. To view the Scorpion letters and ciphers, please visit Science Blogs. 

On October 22nd 1969, the San Francisco Examiner newspaper published an article by Will Stevens, which laid down a challenge from Professor D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA) to the Zodiac Killer, attempting to coax him into revealing his name. The newspaper stated "Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name -in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".

It has been proposed that Dr. Marsh was invoking the name of Edgar Allan Poe to guide the Zodiac Killer down the path of creating a code featured in one of Poe's essays or journals. Just over two weeks later, on November 8th 1969, the Zodiac Killer mailed the recently solved 340 cipher. The scytale method of decryption, that can be used to reveal the message in Zodiac's 340 cipher, was featured in the opening section of Edgar Allan Poe's essay  A Few Words on Secret Writing. The final section of the revealed message in the 340 cipher almost mirrored one of Poe's poems, The final line of the 340 cipher was probably intended to read: "I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS DEATH. LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE". "To One in Paradise" was written by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was first published as part of the short story titled "The Visionary" (later retitled as "The Assignation"). The poem was also published under the names "To lanthe in Heaven" and "To One Beloved". The title "To One in Paradise" was used in the February 25, 1843 Saturday Musuem. This poem was written after the death of Poe's wife. He writes that she was his life and he lived for her and now he looks forward to the future where they will be together again in death.​ In the Zodiac Killer's 408 cipher, part of the message read: "the best part of it is that when I die I will be reborn in paradise and all the I have killed will become my slaves". The question has always been - what was the inspiration for some of the language he adopted? 

On of the overarching themes in the Zodiac correspondence was his plagiarized acts from The Mikado, a two-part comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan which opened to the paying public on March 14th 1885, and was hugely successful, running for 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre in London. The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese.

​The Zodiac would feature three acts from The Mikado in his July 26th 1970 and January 29th 1974 letters - leading many to believe the Zodiac Killer had an avid interest in the theatre, or quite possibly worked there. His Japanese style characters at the foot of the 1974 Exorcist letter could suggest an affinity to Japanese history or culture. 

Taken from Palladiummag.com: "The world of medieval Japan was one of division. The Emperor was, in practice, a distant memory; the shoguns had lost all control over their vassals. Even shrines and temples, once united in strengthening the state through prayer and ritual, now competed for believers and alms. Japan was divided against itself and circumstances forced its inhabitants to form new bonds to survive. Among the new alliances which this age produced were the Ikkō-ikki, a network of autonomous religious collectives that led major uprisings and controlled significant parts of Japanese society for nearly a century. Their final defeat at the hands of Japan’s warrior class set the stage both for a centralized Japanese state and the social hierarchy behind it. Nobunaga, head of the powerful Oda clan, conquered the capital city of Kyoto in 1568. In the years that followed, he made clear his intention to destroy the Honganji sect. The Patriarch Kennyo took him at his word and summoned all Ikkō-ikki from across the country to defend the faith with their lives. Despite graver circumstances than those faced by his predecessor Shonyo, Kennyo did not go as far as implying that those who fought for the Amida Buddha would be guaranteed rebirth in the Pure Land. Nevertheless, he threatened expulsion from the sect for those who failed to respond to the call and he did not crack down on those who raised the Ikkō-ikki’s now-famous banner of war: “Advance and be reborn in Paradise, retreat and fall immediately into Hell.”

​Bearing in mind the numerous plagiaristic references to The Mikado in his letters, along with the plausible connection between the afterlife poem To One in Paradise from Edgar Allan Poe and the wording chosen in the 340 cipher, was the Zodiac Killer influenced by the Japanese Ikkō-ikki’s banner of war “Advance and be reborn in Paradise" and an affinity for the country's culture and belief system, that ultimately manifested in part of his 408 cipher? Not so much a paradise lost, but a paradise found.​

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a very clever newspaper article on October 22nd 1969 challenging the Zodiac Killer to issue another cryptogram that would surely contain his name. However, they did this hoping that the Zodiac Killer would create a cipher down the path they had guided him towards. By dropping the name Edgar Allan Poe into their challenge, they were relying on the Zodiac Killer choosing a cipher technique described in the essays of the American writer and poet, thereby increasing their chances of solving it.

​The murderer of five not only responded by employing the first cipher technique described in Poe's A Few Words on Secret Writing to create the 340 cipher, but also inserted one of Poe's poems into the message. Here is a portion of the newspaper article: "Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name -in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".  

The first section of Poe's essay mentioned the encryption technique of using scytala to conceal a message. In cryptography, a scytale (also transliterated skytale), is a tool used to perform a transposition cipher, consisting of a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it, on which is written a message. This online scytale decoder can be used to unearth the message in the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher, which used a period 19 shift. Quite the coincidence that the Zodiac Killer would employ a similar technique from the very first portion of the essay 'A Few Words on Secret Writing'. This alone is not evidence of a connection between the newspaper article, Edgar Allan Poe and the Zodiac Killer, but the following observations may change your mind.     

Five months later, the Zodiac Killer would then mail the "My name is" cipher on April 20th 1970, apparently responding to Dr. Marsh directly, with "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is...."  In the essay 'A Few Words on Secret Writing', the second cipher technique described by Poe involves splitting the alphabet into two parts of 13, A to M, and N to Z. The Zodiac Killer's code this time contained 13 characters, beginning with A and ending with M.

But what is really interesting, is that the essay then suggests the notion of a perpetually shifting alphabet by creating two concentric circular pieces of pasteboard, with one placed inside the other and fixed, while the other can rotate. On each, the alphabet would be written (or random characters). By shifting the outer circle a certain number of spaces, different letters can represent others in the message. Bearing in mind the Zodiac Killer created three circled 8's, I considered the idea of placing Zodiac's 13 characters in two concentric circles with the characters aligned. In other words, A on the outer circle aligned with the A on the inner circle ,E on the outer circle aligned with the E on the inner circle, N on the outer circle aligned with the N on the inner circle, etc. Then I just shifted the outer circle 8 spaces clockwise, so that the 8's aligned with three new characters. Those characters were ME and the Zodiac crosshairs (shown above in the red boxes). 

Ordinarily, this would appear a little crude and unconvincing, if it wasn't for the fact the Zodiac Killer mailed the Exorcist letter on January 29th 1974, switching from his usual crosshairs equalling his victim total, to "Me" corresponding with his victim total. He often allotted SFPD=0, while giving himself the latest victim total (10 in the April 20th 1970 letter). If "Me" corresponds to a victim total and his crosshairs correspond to a victim total, then "Me" corresponds to the crosshairs (and Zodiac). The shifting of the 13 character cipher by a factor of 8 to create the message "Me (crosshairs), would be similar to the period 19 shift employed in the 340 cipher.

The Zodiac Killer must have known that by creating a 13 character code, he was making it practically unsolvable using standard cryptographic methods. By using this method, employing a simple "shift of 8" technique, we at least get a crude message that he used later in the Exorcist letter: "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is Me (crosshairs)"   

The Zodiac Killer likely mailed this communication knowing it would arrive at the San Francisco Chronicle offices on April 21st 1970, which tallies with the only date supplied in the essay 'A Few Words on Secret Writing'. The Chronicle stated on April 22nd 1970 that "in a letter received yesterday, Zodiac claims he has killed again". A letter dated April 21st was noted by Edgar Allan Poe after a challenge had been laid down in Graham's Magazine. The responder to the challenge stated "In the April number of your magazine, while reviewing the translation by Mr. Walsh of “Sketches of Conspicuous Living Characters of France,” you invite your readers to address you a note in cipher". This was reminiscent of the direct challenge given to Zodiac by Dr. Marsh, to encode his name in cipher form.  

The Zodiac Killer would almost certainly have been aware that Edgar Allan Poe was a poet, so it would be rather fitting had Zodiac incorporated one of Edgar Allan Poe's poems into one of his ciphers or codes. We had to wait 51 years to find the answer to this question. In December 2020, David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eykce cracked the 340 cipher, which ended with the likely message of "I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS DEATH. LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE". The moving epitaph to his recently deceased wife, written by Edgar Allan Poe, was delivered in the form of poetry and entitled "To One in Paradise". 

​Are all these connections to Edgar Allan Poe a coincidence?  

The point was made in an earlier article that the immediate murder with a Zodiac connection after the "latent homosexual" suggestion was floated in the San Francisco Chronicle, where the Bay Area murderer's pseudonym was found at the crime scene, was the murder of gay man, Robert Salem, on April 15th 1970 in San Francisco. The Zodiac Killer's 13-Symbol cipher was argued as being contemporary in nature, with his April 20th 1970 letter being mailed the same day this murder was published in the newspapers. Homosexuality and acceptance has been a continuing struggle for gay activists to this day, but the 1960s and 1970s were arguably more difficult times, with newspaper coverage on this topic less than acceptable. Many religious people were unwilling to accept individual rights, claiming that homosexuality was the mark of the beast, and was an abomination in the eyes of God. The writing in blood on Robert Salem's apartment wall stating "Satan Saves" must have had some meaning to the killer - so was it in any way connected to the sexual preferences of Robert Salem? This writing was accompanied by an Egyptian ankh, adopted by Coptic Christians as early as AD 200. If the 13-Symbol cipher was based on the murder of Robert Salem, one could argue that the writing on the apartment wall, along with the murder of Robert Salem, may have featured in this extremely short code.  

The only other time the Zodiac Killer mailed a cipher in connection with a brutal knife murder, was when he mailed the 148 character cipher shortly after the arrest and interrogation of Karl Francis Werner for the murders of Kathie Snoozy, Debra Furlong and Kathy Bilek on August 3rd 1969 and April 11th 1971. In the 148 character cipher the Zodiac Killer encrypted "I will skin three little kids and make a suit from the skin", and wrote "I will send a patch of human skin if their is some left over" in the message of the accompanying letter. Bearing in mind the killer removed Robert Salem's left ear and took it from the crime scene, I considered the possibility that the word "skin" may feature in the 13-Symbol cipher, alongside the word "satan" (or an extension of it), taken from the apartment wall. In other words, the encrypted message was related to the murder scene of Robert Salem. The dash after "My name is" in the April 20th 1970 letter, being the withheld name, with the 13-Symbol cipher being the message. 

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ASSOCIATED ARTICLES:
ANCHORS AWEIGH
ROBERT SALEM-A ZODIAC MURDER?
A CONTEMPORARY CODE ON APRIL 20TH 1970
THE ZODIAC KILLER-DRIVEN BY DEVIANCY     

The 408 cipher mailed on July 31st 1969 could be considered an introductory cipher by the Zodiac Killer, laying out his plans to collect more slaves for his afterlife and warning police of more murder to come. The 340 cipher, solved by eminent cryptographers David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke in December 2020 was contemporary in nature, and effectively called out Eric Weill who telephoned into the Jim Dunbar TV Show on October 22nd 1969, that initiated the response of Zodiac just over two weeks later, who stated "That wasn't me on the TV show". The 32-Symbol cipher was also contemporary in nature, threatening to detonate a bomb in San Francisco & Vicinity soon after the Zodiac Killer had referenced the Park Police Station bombing (on April 20th 1970) which killed San Francisco police officer Brian McDonnell. The Zodiac Killer also called out Karl Francis Werner shortly after his arrest and interrogation for the murders of Snoozy & Furlong on April 29th 1971, again encoding a contemporary message stating "stop listening to phonys". This message (plural in nature) was not only labelling Karl Francis Werner as an imposter, but included Eric Weill from the Jim Dunbar Show - and effectively bound the 340 and 148 character ciphers under the banner of one author.

This should make you think, when you consider the April 20th 1970 letter arriving after 121 days sf silence from the Zodiac Killer, mailed on the same day his Zodiac pseudonym was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle as being written in blood on the wall of murder victim Robert Michael Salem, stabbed to death in his 745 Stevenson Street apartment. Was this just sheer coincidence after four months, or was the letter a rushed response to the breaking news in the Chronicle newspaper on the same day (with an AM postmark)? If you play the odds, the chances that this was coincidence, may appear unlikely. If the April 20th 1970 letter was a response to the San Francisco Chronicle article, then the cipher and bus bomb diagram were literally created in a matter of hours. Of course, the 13-Symbol code could have been designed in advance and added to his letter - but if not - the message contained within the code could likely be a reaction to the latest news about Robert Salem, or at the very least, be extremely contemporary in nature if his other three ciphers are anything to go by.

In fact, if you believe the 148 character cipher and letter in 1971 as genuine Zodiac material (as I do), then there will never be any reasonable chance of the Zodiac Killer ever revealing his real name in any code or communication, because the Zodiac Killer comprehensively stated in the 1971 letter that "I will never give my name because you don't understand". The offering of an alternative name in the Z13 seems equally unlikely, because its lack of ciphertext characters lends itself to thousands of possibilities, rendering any alternative name a pointless exercise when it cannot be verified. There appears two ways forward: [1] either the Zodiac Killer fashioned a code based on the Robert Salem murder or its column inches, so contemporary in nature, that it would carry great significance when unearthed, or [2] It isn't necessarily contemporary in nature and the answer or key lies in subsequent communications. The Zodiac Killer would almost certainly have known a code of just 13 characters was practically unsolvable, so the notion of a solve so contemporary in nature as to cement its validity, appears a justifiable avenue to explore. 

LATEST UPDATE, INCLUDING POLICE REPORTS & PHOTOGRAPHS

On December 3rd 2020 David Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke unlocked the mystery to the 51-year-old 340 cipher, mailed by the Zodiac Killer on November 8th 1969. On December 7th 1969, the Zodiac Killer mailed a communication from Fairfield containing a 38 character code, yet to be broken. In recent years I have had little doubt that this letter was genuine Zodiac material, but the solving of the 340 cipher put to rest any lingering doubt regarding its authenticity.

​The author of the 38 character code prominently featured two sections of the 340 cipher, that included the beginning 4 ciphertext characters of the 340 cipher, and the last 5 ciphertext characters of the 340 cipher. The only logical reason for the Zodiac Killer to have done this, would have been to give us a clue to the solving of the 340 cipher. When the code key is applied to the 340 cipher before any period 19 (diagonal shift), the first 4 plaintext characters of the 340 cipher spell IRON. The last 5 plaintext characters spell DEATH. As previously pointed out, a hoaxer would have had to be extremely lucky to keep the beginning and ending of the 340 cipher intact, to the tune of 4 & 5 characters (when creating the Z38), that just happened to create two English words in these notable positions. One would have expected a lazy hoaxer to replicate ciphertext characters 333 to 338 in the 340 cipher, because these characters were close to the spelling of "Zodiac". But the author of the December 7th 1969 letter refrained from doing this, choosing to separate these 6 ciphertext characters, so as to form the word DEATH at the end of the 38 character code. 

After the solving of the 408 and 340 cryptograms in 1969 and 2020, there is a strong argument to be had, that the Zodiac Killer's remaining unbroken codes also contain a message, which includes the Z38 mailed just one month after the 340 cipher. I have attempted to tackle the Z38 code, but it needs an expert in code breaking to take a look at this encipherment, such as Dave Oranchak, who I believe could shed more light on this small code. The message beneath - at the very least - should provide a little more insight into the thinking of the Zodiac Killer during this crucial period. 

Did the Zodiac Killer create the 38 character code so soon after his November 8th 1969 offering as a prompt to the solution of the 340 cipher? I hope Dave Oranchak will take a look and possibly correct some of the incorrect assumptions I may have made. Thanks to Druzer, a regular contributor to both main Zodiac forums, for his assistance in this matter.
CLICK HERE FOR UNOBSTRUCTED VIEW OF CODE.

Professor D.C.B. Marsh told the San Francisco Examiner on October 22nd 1969: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name - in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".

​The Zodiac Killer responded on November 8th 1969 by using the scytale method of decryption featured at the top of Poe's essay A Few Words On Secret Writing. Or should I say, it can be used to crack the 340 cipher encrypted message, that contained the wording "one in paradice" just like Edgar Allen Poe's poem to his dead wife entitled "To One In Paradise". The next method of encryption in Poe's A Few Words On Secret Writing involved splitting the alphabet A to M and N to Z (two sections of thirteen) mirroring the Zodiac's 13 character code which began with A and ended with M - and because of the distinct lack of characters in this code - it has been considered unsolvable using standard cryptographic methods.

​The Zodiac seemingly didn't supply us with a key to this code in later communications, leading me to believe that the key or answer lies in the Edgar Allen Poe essay mentioned above. I believe the answer to the code is ​"This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is....Fk, I'm crackproof, in which each element of the phrase is begun by each of the circled eights, thereby creating an infinite circular cipher (hence the circled 8's which represent infinity and a new beginning). The Zodiac Killer may have supplied us with the answer to the Z13 code in the 13-Hole postcard on October 5th 1970 in which he configured the punched holes in an arrangement of 10 to 3, pinpointing the position of the three eights, and supplying the answer of Fk, I'm crackproof. Using Edgar Allen Poe's reasoning in A Few Words On Secret Writing, I can now place five letters in the correct position within the 13 character code, albeit not to my complete satisfaction.  

Here is a section of reasoning from Edgar Allen Poe's A Few Words On Secret Writing where A can represent N and vice versa, where B can represent O and vice versa, and where C can represent P and vice versa. But he also makes a point of saying A might stand for P (or vice vera). This is where I shall jump into the code using a trial and error approach. 

If A can stand for P, I shall place P above the A in the beginning of the Z13 code like so:

If A can stand for P, and P can also represent C, then A can also stand for C. So let us insert the letter C above A in the Z13 code.

If A can represent N and vice versa, B can represent O and vice versa, and C can represent P and vice versa, then E can represented R. So let us place R in the Z13 code.

Edgar Allen Poe stated that N can represent A, so let us place A above the second N in the Z13 code:

If A can stand for P, and P can also represent C, then A can also stand for C. This means that if M can stand for X, and X can represent K, then M can also stand for K (just like A stood for C). So let us insert K into the Z13 code:

If the K and M between the three eights are representative of themselves as I have previously surmised, then we have the beginning of the answer to the Z13 code. But without this assumption, we have five letters inserted that mirror the previous solution I have suggested - all reasoned from Edgar Allen Poe's essay. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

Beginning in 1991, John Walsh from the popular television show America's Most Wanted, started receiving a sequence of sinister letters and cryptograms that many have considered may have been authored by the infamous Zodiac Killer. The title of the fifth Scorpion cipher stated "Hi!, Remember me?", and was accompanied by a 180 character cryptogram. The implication being, we were supposed to infer it may have been the Zodiac Killer. But was it? The cryptogram had 155 unique characters, meaning any conventional technique of breaking this mystery was nigh on impossible. So I decided to take a look at previous Zodiac Killer encipherments and examine if any correlation exists between the Scorpion cipher and his solved cryptograms. In previous articles (visit links provided) a case has been presented to show that the 148 character cryptogram mailed in 1971 and the Albany letter mailed in 1973 are likely connected, as well as the 340 character cipher and 148 character cipher. [1] [2]. But let's take a look at the 148 character cipher and fifth Scorpion cipher. Below is the solved 148 character cipher, followed by the accompanying text that came with this communication.

This communication was signed with a "sun cross" rather than the usual Zodiac crosshairs, leading some to believe it was an obvious hoaxer. However, somebody prepared to mail a Zodiac communication complete with a 148 character cipher, is hardly likely to be ignorant of the Zodiac Killer crosshairs that adorned virtually every single communication mailed by the Bay Area murderer. This "sun cross" signature on the letter was also present in the cryptogram, in which it was determined to represent the letter "Z". Therefore, the author of this letter likely signed off with the letter "Z" to represent the "Zodiac", as he had done in the Halloween card on October 27th 1970. It was probably a clue to begin the decoding of the 148 character cipher. When the letter "Z" was used for the "sun cross" in the cipher, the inevitable phrase of "Zodiac Speaking" is revealed (see above). The "sun cross" is also twice present in the 180 character Scorpion cipher. If you take a look at the bottom of the 180 character cipher, the letter "Z" applied to the "sun cross" allows "Zodiac Speaking" to conveniently end the cryptogram. There is even room to place "The Zodiac Speaking" before the repeated letter "N" prevents further progress.       

The 148 character cipher had not been released into the public domain by the time the Scorpion ciphers arrived, but I have highlighted with a blue square the five symbols used in the Scorpion cipher that look eerily similar (and the same) as the 148 character cipher. The number "7" in both the 148 character cipher and Albany communications represented the letter "A". It is present in the Scorpion cipher also. Could the Zodiac Killer have teased us with the introduction of "Hi, Remember Me" and finished the message with "This is again the Zodiac speaking"?

Here are the other parts of the Scorpion cipher communications released Science Blogs.

On October 22nd 1969, the San Francisco Examiner newspaper published an article by Will Stevens, which laid down a challenge from Professor D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association (ACA) to the Zodiac Killer, attempting to coax him into revealing his name.

The newspaper stated "Dr Marsh told the Examiner today: "The killer wouldn't dare, as he claimed in letters to the newspapers, to reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts. He knows, to quote Edgar Allan Poe, that any cipher created by man can be solved by man. Zodiac has not told the truth in his cipher messages to the Examiner, the Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. Zodiac has not done this, because to tell the complete truth in relation to his name -in cipher code - would lead to his capture. I invite Zodiac to send The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name".

Professor D.C.B. Marsh was probably hoping the Zodiac Killer would employ a cryptographic technique featured in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, thereby making any future cipher mailed by the Zodiac Killer easier to crack. As it turned out, the Zodiac Killer's 340 cipher mailed on November 8th 1969 could be solved using the scytale method of encryption detailed in Edgar Allan Poe's essay A Few Words on Secret Writing in the very first paragraph. This was covered extensively in the article The Inspiration Behind the Zodiac Killer's 340 Cipher. We have Professor D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association creating the trigger, by inserting Edgar Allan Poe into the mind of the Zodiac Killer. The Zodiac Killer then created the 340 cipher that could be deciphered using the scytale method featured in Poe's A Few Words on Secret Writing. What are the odds that one of Edgar Allan Poe's poems would partially appear in the solution to the 340 cipher?

I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME - THAT WASN’T ME ON THE TV SHOW - WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME - I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE - SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH - I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH.   

"To One in Paradise" was written by Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was first published as part of the short story titled "The Visionary" (later retitled as "The Assignation"). The poem was also published under the names "To lanthe in Heaven" and "To One Beloved". The title "To One in Paradise" was used in the February 25, 1843 Saturday Musuem. This poem was written after the death of Poe's wife. He writes that she was his life and he lived for her and now he looks forward to the future where they will be together again in death. link.

This is the image supplied to us by the Zodiac Killer on the Phillips 66 Mount Diablo map on June 26th 1970. By placing the numbers 0, 3, 6 and 9 around the crosshairs, akin to a clock face, and instructing us that 0 is to be set to Mag. N, the Zodiac Killer is telling us that we have to travel a certain amount of degrees around the clock face from point zero (set to magnetic north, which was 17 degrees in 1970).

The Zodiac Killer realized that the information he provided in the Button letter was insufficient to discover where he was planning to set the bomb. He also realized it was insufficient to solve the 32-Symbol cipher. That is why he placed two crosshairs in his next communication on July 26th 1970. One of the crosshairs contained the radians value, while the other crosshairs contained the inches value. Zodiac wrote:

"P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians".

It was that simple, all we had to do was place the first crosshairs (shown on the right) over a compass rose. The center of the little black circle with SFPD next to it, landed exactly at 246 degrees, which is 4 radians and magnetic north. That is the answer to the radians value. The target was SFPD.

The second crosshairs had the phrase "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians" written over it. Why would the Zodiac Killer place an arrow pointing before the inches value, if he didn't intend for us to place a number here? The answer could only ever be 5 inches, because using the Phillips 66 map scale of 6.4 miles to the inch, only 5 inches falls over San Francisco (4 & 6 inches falls into the sea).
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The target of SFPD was therefore 4 radians and five inches from Mount Diablo. The target (to a 97.5% accuracy) was the Southern Freeway by Ingleside Police Station, explained in greater detail here.

Druzer and I have recently been working on the Mount Diablo map code solution, using the measurements of four radians and five inches supplied by the Little List letter crosshairs. Druzer came up with a solution to the 32-Symbol cipher that satisfied the three repeating ciphertext characters in the code, giving us an estimate of where the Zodiac Killer was threatening to "set his bomb". The target was the Southern Freeway alongside Ingleside Police Station, stated in a previous article as 4.08 radians (4 radians} and 4.84 inches (5 inches) from Mount Diablo, indicating that the Zodiac Killer was rounding off his values and giving us an estimate.

It has been stated on this site and elsewhere, that the 32 character code is unsolvable using conventional cipher techniques without the killer supplying us with a key. There are 29 unique characters within the code, making any solution practically unprovable. The solutions offered by using the 408 and 340 keys have produced less than convincing results, particularly when we consider that this code contains an "anchor" and "omega" symbol, not used in the 408 and 340 ciphers. Attempting to correlate the letters used in the code to written text in both the Button letter (June 26th 1970) and Little List letter (July 26th 1970) also produces negative results. Therefore, it could be argued, that a code containing 29 unique characters must have an alternative meaning, in accompaniment to the code solution of "estimate:four radians and five inches".

The Zodiac Killer gave us an estimate of 4 radians, but the actual figure (shown above) was 4.084 radians. That is, 4.084 multiplied by one radian value (57.3 degrees) to equal 234 degrees. When we add in the magnetic north which Zodiac instructed us to do (17 degrees in 1970), we get 251 degrees and the location of Ingleside Police Station. Could the 32 character code contain the value of 234 degrees, which once set to magnetic north, now identified the exact location of Ingleside Police Station? If we resort to basic numerology where A=1, B=2, C=3 etc, and add up the values of the alphabetical characters in the Zodiac Killer's 32 character code, we arrive at a total of 234 (or 234 degrees). When set to magnetic north, it gives us the value of 251 degrees, which when subtended from the peak of Mount Diablo passes directly over Ingleside Police Station and the Southern Freeway. "The map (set to 17 degrees magnetic north) coupled with the code of 234 will tell you where the bomb is set".

On July 26th 1970, the Zodiac Killer mailed the Little List letter with the important clues to the Mount Diablo mystery, stating "PS. The Mt. Diablo Code concerns Radians & # inches along the radians". The answer would be about radians and inches. With the northern section of the map crosshairs positioned at zero and to be set to magnetic north, the Zodiac Killer gave us the value of 4 radians and magnetic north (246 degrees) by the placement of the bold, black circle within the first crosshairs on the Little List letter.

The target was the San Francisco Police Department at Ingleside (SFPD). The second set of crosshairs on the Little List letter contained the hashtag (number sign) in the phrase above, with an arrow placed underneath, beckoning us to insert a number before inches. Only 4 radians and magnetic north, coupled with 5 inches could ever fall over San Francisco, constrained by its land mass. No other values can meet the requirement of targetting SFPD. To an overall accuracy in excess of 98%, the location of the bomb was to be set on the embankment of the Southern Freeway just 274 feet from Ingleside Police Station. For the full story, read The Answer to the Mount Diablo Code.

My solution to the 32-Symbol code in the above article did not marry up the ciphertext to the plaintext adequately, however, Druzer, an invaluable contributor to both Zodiac Killer forums, supplied a solution that married up the three repeating ciphertext characters with corresponding plaintext characters. His solution took "PS. The Mt. Diablo Code concerns Radians & # inches along the radians". into "four radians and five inches" that satisfied the requirement of the Zodiac Killer's Mount Diablo code. This would ultimately provide us with 24 of the plaintext characters for the solution, leaving us 8 ciphertext characters to decode. Druzer came up with the answer, but how was this achieved?     

The problem that materialized, was where to place "four radians and five inches" within the 32-Symbol array. We needed an entry point. The clue had to exist within the ciphertext characters themselves. Two of the most notable ciphertext characters were the Anchor and Omega symbols (the latter of which had never been used before), so possibly it was this symbol that held the key of where to insert "four radians and five inches".

The Omega symbol can be written two ways (shown on the left), with a quick search on Wikipedia revealing information on the radian per second. The radian per second (symbol: rad⋅s−1 or rad/s) is the SI unit of angular velocity, commonly denoted by the Greek letter ω (omega). The radian per second is also the SI unit of angular frequency. The radian per second is defined as the change in the orientation of an object, in radians, every second. 

Using this as the entry point in our ciphertext characters, the word "radians" was placed at the beginning of the Omega sign in the code, hoping that the 24 plaintext characters of "four radians and five inches" would travel to the end of the code. Inserting "four" before "radians", It fell into the code seamlessly (as shown below).

Now we can add in the three plaintext characters represented by O, C and ∆ to the three repeating ciphertext characters in the first section of the code, like so.

Ingleside Police Station is actually 4.08 radians (4 radians} and 4.84 inches (5 inches) from Mount Diablo, so the Zodiac Killer was rounding off his values and giving us an estimate. As can be seen in the above diagram, the word "estimate" fits perfectly into the first eight characters of the code, giving us the final answer to the 32-Symbol code of "estimate: four radians and five inches". The Zodiac Killer was informing us that the answer to the Mount Diablo code of "four radians and five inches" was just an estimate to the location of the bomb at Ingleside Police Station (SFPD). The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "estimate" as a rough or approximate calculation, which is exactly what it is.

Just over two weeks before the 340 cipher was mailed, Dr. D.C.B. Marsh of the American Cryptogram Association laid down a challenge to the Zodiac in the newspapers to reveal his name in a cipher, however complicated. The wording in the San Francisco Examiner on October 22nd 1969 invoked the name of Edgar Allan Poe, so possibly the designers of the article were hoping that the Zodiac Killer would invoke Edgar Allan Poe to give us his name, making any offering easier to crack. This appeared to influence the Zodiac Killer, because the first cipher mentioned in Poe's essay A Few Words on Secret Writing actually works in decoding the message in the 340 cipher. The second cipher technique in Poe's essay A Few Words on Secret Writing split the alphabet into two portions of 13 letters, so it was surprising that the Zodiac Killer's next code reduced dramatically to 13 characters just like Poe's design (beginning with A and ending with M). See here for essay.

Three years ago, it was suggested that the Zodiac Killer wouldn't again shy away from the challenge of giving us his name, having possibly given us it in an abbreviated format. That is why the cryptic reference of Fk, I'm crackproof caught my eye in the October 5th 1970 communication with 13 punch-holes in the fabric of the card. The punch-holes were separated into a 10 to 3 configuration, positioned in such a way that they mirrored the design of the 13-Symbol cipher. The only way to break the small code was to discover the entry point, and the three circled 8's seemed as good a place as any, especially when we consider Fk, I'm crackproof is split into three parts and fits around the existing K and M in the code. The crosshairs, anchor and Celtic Cross in the code are all religious symbols, with the number 8 representing rebirth, regeneration and a new beginning in Christianity. The figure 888 is also representative of Jesus Christ in Christian numerology. It was discovered that the first 8 began FK, the second 8 began IM and the third 8 began CRACKPROOF, which completed the circle of eternal life. The introduction to the April 20th 1970 letter was also completed, to "This is the Zodiac speaking. By the way have you cracked the last cipher I sent you? My name is Fk, I'm crackproof",

Anyway, this is to show that the Fk, I'm crackproof solution was found before the 340 cipher was cracked by Dave Oranchak, Sam Blake and Jarl Van Eycke on December 3rd 2020, along with its scytale links to Edgar Allan Poe's A Few Words on Secret Writing. This is extremely important when we consider the following. Edgar Allan Poe highlighted certain encipherment techniques in the essay regarding a split alphabet, which are outlined here: and, so placed, a might stand for n and n for a, o for b and b for o, &c. &c. This, again, having an air of regularity which might be fathomed, the key alphabet might be constructed absolutely at random. The next line was: Thus A might stand for P.

These examples can be summarized as;
[1] a might stand for n and n for a
[2] Therefore, r might stand for e and e for r
[3] Thus, a might stand for p (and vice-versa)
Using only these examples in the 13-Symbol cipher, I inserted the possibilities into the code, using the letters K and M as entry points, based on the aforementioned reasoning. The letters N, A and M (not boxed in blue) I have no explanation for. So the search goes on to discover whether the Zodiac applied something else to the encryption. Or whether a different technique was used entirely.

When you take into consideration that the Fk, I'm crackproof solution was suggested in 2017, before the scytale link of the 340 cipher to Edgar Allan Poe, coupled with the formation above using just Poe's examples shown in [1], [2] and [3], it shows a pattern receptive to the remaining letters in the solution. But the three remaining ciphertext characters would need explaining. 

The next encipherment technique described in A Few Words on Secret Writing were the two concentric circles (one fixed), where the outer wheel can be rotated around the inner wheel during the coding process. Here is a working cipher wheel.

On October 22nd 1969, Dr. D.C.B Marsh in alliance with investigators and the San Francisco Examiner, attempted to refocus the Zodiac Killer's attention toward creating a second major cryptogram and "reveal his name in the cipher to established cryptogram experts". Marsh would continue to press the killer throughout the article, stating "I invite Zodiac to send to The American Cryptogram Association a cipher code - however complicated - which will truly and honestly include his name". However, in order to crack any cipher the killer may send, it would have been wise to place certain triggers within the article to guide the Zodiac Killer into choosing a particular cryptographic technique. This may have been the purpose of dropping the name Edgar Allan Poe into the San Francisco Examiner article, thereby influencing the killer to choose a cryptographic technique highlighted by Poe in one of his essays. If the Zodiac Killer then responds with a second cipher, your first port of call would obviously be Edgar Allan Poe.

Although Dave Oranchak doesn't believe the Zodiac Killer used the scytale method of encryption in the recently decoded 340 cipher, this decryption tool does actually decode the message in the 340 cipher. If the Zodiac Killer responded to the prompt by Dr. Marsh and read Edgar Allan Poe's essay A Few Words on Secret Writing, he would have noticed that the first topic of discussion was the scytale cipher, which involves disguising a message by separation, avoiding the common left-to-right method of decryption. This is what the Zodiac Killer used in his 340 cipher. In further reading of A Few Words on Secret Writing, it became apparent that other encryption methods were discussed in addition to the scytale method, with the possibility existing that the Zodiac Killer may have adopted one of these techniques for his following 13-Symbol cipher on April 20th 1970. The most notable encryption methods discussed included separating the alphabet A to M, and N to Z, into two equal parts of 13 letters. This involved placing the alphabet into the following configuration.

Here is an excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe's A Few Words on Secret Writing: and, so placed, a might stand for n and n for a, o for b and b for o, &c. &c. This, again, having an air of regularity which might be fathomed, the key alphabet might be constructed absolutely at random. The next line was: Thus A might stand for P.

If we then represent the second ciphertext character N (11th position} with the plaintext character A shown in Poe's writing, we get the diagram shown below, with the circular Fk, I'm crackproof starting to emerge.

The relationship  between the remaining ciphertext characters of N, A and M, to the plaintext characters in the solution of O, C and K respectively, can be seen in the diagram below. These are never more than two apart in the alphabet. This is a work in progress.

In respect to the Mount Diablo code, the Zodiac Killer gave us two clues to where his bomb was to be set, in the form of two crosshairs on July 26th 1970. The first crosshairs contained a bold, black circle positioned at 4 radians and magnetic north around its circumference. Next to this circle, the Zodiac Killer placed SFPD=0, indicating the target was a San Francisco Police Department. The second crosshairs were overwritten with the wording "P.S. The Mt. Diablo code concerns Radians + # inches along the radians". The hashtag (recognized as a number sign) was positioned above a pointing arrow, beckoning us to insert a number value before inches. The answer is five inches, because this is the only value that falls over San Francisco from Mount Diablo using the map scale of 6.4 miles to the inch. The bomb was to be set alongside Ingleside Police Station, on an embankment bordering the Southern Freeway. For further explanation in simplified form, please visit here, or for more extensive coverage read the article The Answer to the Mount Diablo Code.

Footnote: Ordinarily radians would be measured counter-clockwise, but the Zodiac Killer gave us crosshairs superimposed over Mount Diablo with an arrow pointer set in the north facing position, "to be set to Mag. N". He allocated it a zero position, with a 3, 6 and 9 in the form of a clock face around its circumference. This was to instruct us to travel clockwise around the circumference of the crosshairs in this instance. Which is why it was no fluke that the bold, black circle fell exactly at 4 radians and magnetic north.

The Blast Estimate of Zodiac (Part Two)