From the “I’m not cut out to be an adventurer” Dept.

Well, the jig is up. For those of you who have never read this blog, there is a book that Jen, my girlfriend, gave me called The Da Vinci Code

Read about in it in the following blog archive: More Ciphers? A New Adventure

RECAP: I received the following cryptic blog message after posting about the“Is there no help for the widow’s son” message (a reference to the Free Mason’s and Mormon’s) hidden in the jacket cover:

“As the certified first person in the world to find the secret message on ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ I welcome you to the small circle of true code breakers. So far the members are Me, Dan Brown, and Jason Kaufman, who designed the dust jacket. You too could be next if you solve the remaining cyphers in ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ I’ve been google-ing ‘is there no help…’ waiting for another keen observer, and so far you are the only one. Good luck with the other cyphers.”

I was pretty excited. I went through the book again, but didn’t find anything. My first instinct was to take a look at the first word of each chapter. The book highlights the first two words in grey of each chapter. For me, this set off alarms because this seemed odd. (Don’t ask me why, but it just seemed that way).

String all 105 letters lead to a mess, so I abandoned that avenue—worked picked up again (DCX Powerplay project) and I soon forgot about this.

Wish I didn’t though.

Turns out that there were more ciphers—and I was damn close to one of them.

On the jacket there exists more hidden messages. Messages that were right in front of me. I saw them dozen of times, I just never put together the significance.

The first some weird writing. I must have glanced at a dozen times when looking at the cover.

It didn’t look like anything at the time, but when you reflect them (and expand them) you get this:

37º 57’ 6.5” North 77º 8’ 44” West

The second clue refers to my initial approach. There is a pin wheel on the jacket cover:

It has the following numbers:

20 11 11 68 1 10 11 61 15 5 8 73 11

Take the first letter of each chapter reference and you get the following:

E U U N R S U P I M L B U

What does that spell? Well, since there are pyramids with an eye located in the pinwheel design—it spells a very well known saying featured on the US one dollar bill:

E PLURIBUS UNUM

Out of many, one.

The coordinates yield an area near Langley, Virginia (home of the CIA). If you move degree North, you get the following reference to the KRYPTOS sculpture that stands on the grounds of the CIA headquarters; another great cipher of our times.

In the end, I feel kind of stupid. Apparently I was the first to find the “Is there no help…” message [June 03, 2003] and I he even hinted to me about the Jacket Cover.

I was speaking to Jen about this today on MSN Messenger.

I was lamenting on the fact that I had this enormous opportunity to figure out a puzzle that no one else really knew about it. My initial approach was correct too (at least with the chapter headings). That burns me up. I even saw the coordinates!!! But didn’t act.

Am I smart enough?

I told Jen not to count on me if the “Curse of the Inca’s” come knocking on her door.

I feel like a failure of sorts.

I tell myself that was just a game; I don’t see Jen dumping me because of it.

Oh well, you win some and lose some.

Cheers,

Tai