User:Shāntián Tàiláng/Other stuff

A silly-ish idea about the Zodiac Killer ciphers

The 408

"I like killing people because it is so much fun, it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal of all. To kill something gi-
ves me the most thrilling experence, it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl. The best part of it is thae when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all th-
e I have killed will become my slaves. I will not give you my name because you will try to sloi down or atop my collectiog of slaves for my afterlife. ebeorietemethhpiti"

As mentioned at this site, the Zodiac Killer probably meant to write "...I will be reborn in paradice and all the people I have killed will become my slaves." That would have left only 12 unsolved characters, not 18.

But I don't think the final 18 letters were meant to say "I am the Zodiac Killer" or "Zodiac Killer", as that site says.

One hypothesis I found on a rather outdated-ish website is that the final 18 letters are allusions to (and misspellings of) four religious phrases (since he did, after all, mention an afterlife):

• EBE: acronym for "Everyone Be Enlightened" (or, possibly, "Everybody Become Enslaved", because of what he said)
• ORIETEM: the Latin phrase ad orientem, which was frequently misspelled as "ad orietem" even before the Zodiac Killer
• ETHHP: the Coptic word ⲉⲧϩⲏⲡ (properly transliterated ethēp) meaning "hidden" or "secret"
• ITI: the Sanskrit word इति, meaning "thus" or "in this manner"

The Zodiac's original plan was probably to write "ebe ad orietem" or "ad orietem iti", not "ebe orietem ethhp iti", but as he was neither good at spelling ("forrest", "paradice", "experence") or encrypting ("thae", "dangeroue", "sloi", "collectiog") (because of similar symbols—see here and here for why), he forgot the word "people" in the third section of the cipher, and the rest is history.

The 13

"My name is"

The 13-letter cipher

(WEED_S_H_REWH) (assuming same as 408)

He said in that same letter that "my bus bomb was a dud" because "I was swamped out by the rain". I wonder if the rain washed out his code key paper too, because then he would have confused his handwritten "e" (lowercase) with "o" (lowercase) in the key while trying to encode "Woody". If so, then his last name would appear to be "Syhyrewh"; I think there were definitely transcription errors (seeing how he misspelled "curious" as "cerous" in the same message). Maybe "Sytyvewn" or "Syegrawn"? Or even "Synyshyn"? (I think the first two letters are definitely "Sy", since he likely wouldn't have confused "s" with any other letter even if the paper was wet.)

Even if the "Syhyrewh" part is not his last name, it could be his middle name and surname, "Syh Yrewh" or "Sy Hyrewh". Maybe the "syh" part was meant to be "Syd".
But if we assume it's the same as the 340...
(DREA_A_O_LEAO)

Maybe his first name was actually Andrew (or Drew for short), and his last name was Leah or ended in "leah"?

The SFC cipher

The SFC cipher

Assuming it's the same as 340, it reads:
YNSETAILDOBP(Ω)AORT
RDFNOƮTIYRGAIWN

But using the 408, it reads:
cIFtLNIOWHDA(Ω)NGOA
OESNBXLTCETDIEI

That "A" and "O" in the last four letters of the first line...maybe "A" and/or "O" is the actual value of one of those 4 symbols?
He said that "The Mt. Diablo Code concerns Radians & # inches along the radians".
So maybe the word before the omega is supposed to spell out a number, like "Thirty-seven N" or "One-twenty-one [west]"?

The 340

That puzzle's been solved. I looked at the code key for that one, and I wonder how he managed to flip all the words (and not just the letter-symbol correspondences) around.
The correct order of the words as written (with coding mistakes highlighted) is:
IRONCAOOIIERGRTML
ECHETTATNWNNIAABW
EITEOHSRTWTWGTAIS
DCCLOAPAOYCAHHOAM
BNOHALPLEVFIHSEIU
CPOOFAASALYIFNMNT
TVHAUTTMSERTONAGE
TTMSBPTAHBENAHUGN
LIOHEHROMFEEIDDEA

SAASOHOSHACLIFEIS
SHOUVLRENNECEROAA
MIEAOSEAVREONHSEF
ADNDITHEEVFEETTPO
ATFEOBVMEENEOELHH
IERRATENYRNOSRVSH
EENYAEATACONBOUTM
OERHGRDYIHFAWEEWG
HHWWYAWEIADIRUTWC

EFILWILLEBNAEASYE
NONIECIDARAPDEATH
The first block, when properly rearranged, becomes:
IRONCAOOIIERGRTML
HETTATNWNNIAABWEC
OHSRTWTWGTAISEITE
PAOYCAHHOAMDCCLOA
EVFIHSEIUBNOHALPL
YIFNMNTCPOOFAASAL
ONAGETVHAUTTMSERT
UGNTTMSBPTAHBENAH
ALIOHEHROMFEEIDDE
or:
I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FAN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW WHICH BRINGO UP A POINT ABOUT ME I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAASE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADLCE ALL THE
In the second block, the Zodiac Killer accidentally shifted the sixth line by one space. Also, the remaining six letters must be left out of the first line. So it reads as:
SAASOHOSHAC LIFEIS
OUVLRENNECEROAASH
OSEAVREONHSEFMIEA
HEEVFEETTPOADNDIT
EENEOELHHATFEOBVM
RNOSRVSH IERRATENY
BOUTMEENYAEATACON
EWGOERHGRDYIHFAWE
CHHWWYAWEIADIRUTW
or:
SOOHER BECAUSE E NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORV FOR ME WHERE EVERY ONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I VNOW THAT MY NEW
The last two lines should be read as:
EFIL WILL EB NA EASY E-
NO NI ECIDARAP DEATH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oQLPRE21o
And the actual order for the words to be read is:
I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FAN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW WHICH BRINGO UP A POINT ABOUT ME I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER BECAASE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADLCE ALL THE SOOHER BECAUSE E NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORV FOR ME WHERE EVERY ONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I VNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH
On the plus side, a few individual words (such as "IRON" at the start of the 1st line, and "IDEA" at the end of the 9th) can be made out. Wonder if this was supposed to show a subliminal message...