We are fast approaching the 45th anniversary of the date the 340 Cipher was mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle on November 8th 1969, with no viable solutions uncovered by either man or machine. Many claim to have discovered its secrets, but invariably, it does not take long to see through the flaws of any proposed solution, which often involves the claimant looking at the 340 Cipher with preconceived ideas and forcibly extracting the result that suits their purpose the best. One such example was the Earl Van Best Jr case, when it was claimed by Gary Stewart that his father's name was present in each of the 13, 340 and 408 codes, which on first glance appears promising, but when you scratch just beneath the surface you realize it means absolutely nothing. The human brain searches for patterns and invariably you can find them if you look hard enough, for long enough. Dave Oranchak, from the Zodiac Killer Ciphers website, is probably one of the first port of calls you should make when it comes to deciphering techniques, and has posted many interesting articles on this very subject, including the Earl Van Best Jr topic, where he outlines the faults of seeking patterns, along with the use of anagrams to decode the various ciphers. To visit Zodiac Killer Ciphers CLICK HERE or read the standalone article 'The Most Pattern Seeking Animal of All' to understand this concept.
Simply dragging the two extreme Exorcist Letter symbols across the X axis and rotating the extreme right symbol 90 degrees clockwise, there appears a distinct similarity to the corrected portion of the 340 Cipher. Every visible symbol on the 340 Cipher has a close likeness to the Exorcist Letter configuration. Of course, like we said above, this is not a reason to claim that anything has been solved. At best we may have made a possible link, or at worst it may be a meaningless observation that was never the intention of the Zodiac Killer.
The easy part, is the insatiable desire to search for patterns, whereas the hard part is being able to stand back from your theory and view it with impartiality, something that is essentially impossible to attain.
We are the 'Most Pattern Seeking Animal of All', but up to now the big picture has eluded us and seems as distant now, as the day the Zodiac Killer crafted his masterpiece of evil, some 45 years ago. That is, unless you are one of the few that has declared 'The 340 Cipher solved'.
The easy part, is the insatiable desire to search for patterns, whereas the hard part is being able to stand back from your theory and view it with impartiality, something that is essentially impossible to attain.
We are the 'Most Pattern Seeking Animal of All', but up to now the big picture has eluded us and seems as distant now, as the day the Zodiac Killer crafted his masterpiece of evil, some 45 years ago. That is, unless you are one of the few that has declared 'The 340 Cipher solved'.
If a claim is made that a particular cipher has been solved, then almost without fail you know it hasn't. This overused term has to be treated with the utmost scepticism, as the claimant is invariably wearing very narrow blinkers, ultimately defending their claim to the death, even when confronted with the unpalatable truth that they have very little to nothing in the way of a solution. The article 'The Most Pattern Seeking Animal of All' by Dave Oranchak sums up perfectly the flaws in the techniques used, when pinning at least five murders firmly at the doorstep of Earl Van Best Jr, based on faulty reasoning.
Nevertheless, questions remain on whether the 340 Cipher is indeed a complete cipher, or has any links to any of the other Zodiac correspondence he sent us subsequent to November 8th 1969. There was the Jos Kirps theory, pointing out the Paradice and Slaves connection from the Halloween Card to the 340 Cipher. We took this one stage further, to place By Knife, By Gun, By Fire and By Rope in the four Zodiac quadrants of the 340 Cipher here. Albeit, several of the letters fall on the intersecting lines. Did the Zodiac Killer intend the 340 Cipher to be dissected into four quadrants? He did place at the heart of the cipher an addition or cross point, where the intersecting lines of the crosshair would have to pass through, as well as two dashes on the extreme edges of the tenth row, on each side, that may depict the outer edges of the crosshairs. The foot of the crosshairs, runs over the Zodiac symbol on the 20th line, in the 10th column. Are these deliberate actions on behalf of our killer, or a simple case seeing of things that were never intended.
Nevertheless, questions remain on whether the 340 Cipher is indeed a complete cipher, or has any links to any of the other Zodiac correspondence he sent us subsequent to November 8th 1969. There was the Jos Kirps theory, pointing out the Paradice and Slaves connection from the Halloween Card to the 340 Cipher. We took this one stage further, to place By Knife, By Gun, By Fire and By Rope in the four Zodiac quadrants of the 340 Cipher here. Albeit, several of the letters fall on the intersecting lines. Did the Zodiac Killer intend the 340 Cipher to be dissected into four quadrants? He did place at the heart of the cipher an addition or cross point, where the intersecting lines of the crosshair would have to pass through, as well as two dashes on the extreme edges of the tenth row, on each side, that may depict the outer edges of the crosshairs. The foot of the crosshairs, runs over the Zodiac symbol on the 20th line, in the 10th column. Are these deliberate actions on behalf of our killer, or a simple case seeing of things that were never intended.
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