digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About
See the original image at chicagotribune.com

Decoders Still Trying to Crack Letter Sent to Fermilab

chicagotribune.com — The enigma began last year when a plain envelope with no return address arrived at the world-famous physics laboratory outside Chicago, addressed simply to "Fermilab." Inside was a single sheet marked by pen with a bizarre series of hash marks, numbers and alien-looking symbols.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 16, 2008

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

114 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • daspacepirate, on 07/15/2008, -6/+212The secret message is "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."
  • psysop, on 07/15/2008, -8/+73It says "your story is a duplicate"
  • variablek, on 07/16/2008, -2/+44There's no way that that extra "s" in "basse sixteen" is a mistake... it's a clue IMO.
  • bentrinh, on 07/16/2008, -4/+38N E V E R G O N N A G I V E Y O U U P
  • djqxero, on 07/16/2008, -1/+34Son of a bitch.
  • jserio, on 07/16/2008, -1/+28Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry writes down a note in the middle of the night and can't read his own writing. Everyone he asks has a different interpretation.
  • nevetssav, on 07/16/2008, -3/+30"F I N A L L Y. I T T O O K Y O U
    F O R E V E R T O R E A D T H I S

    -B O B"

    ***** down the hall sent a prank message again.
  • beerncheese, on 07/16/2008, -0/+26It is probably because physics PhDs are more likely to crack the code than Yale MBAs.
  • braveryonions, on 07/16/2008, -3/+27I'm going to mail a letter to Fermilab with completely random symbols on it that don't mean anything.
  • mrwells, on 07/16/2008, -7/+27Does Fermilab have a "Please send us your crazy letters" sign somewhere? Certainly this is interesting, by why always Fermilab? This would be more fun if it had been sent to the White House, with some smelly baby powder or something all over it.
  • therealfoz, on 07/16/2008, -2/+18A crummy commercial?
  • inactive, on 07/16/2008, -1/+17How do you keep a bunch of decoders in suspense?

    Draw random symbols that don't mean *****.
  • Totz83, on 07/16/2008, -4/+18"Urgent needed reply,
    Bank of Bukino Faso - Lottery Winning."
  • displaced1, on 07/16/2008, -6/+20FIRST TIME I HAVE SEEN IT SO ***** OFF.
  • antishow, on 07/16/2008, -2/+16And in Future News:
    Fermilab Victims of World's Most Epic Rickroll
  • shutaro, on 07/16/2008, -5/+18This reminds me of those stories they used to do every couple of months after Princess Dianna died -- X years later: Princess Di... Still dead. Like they were expecting her to turn up alive in Bolivia, somewhere, or to reanimate as a zombie.
  • gl77, on 07/16/2008, -3/+15it came from Publius.........
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Enigma
  • angusm, on 07/15/2008, -7/+19Buried as unintelligible.
  • windmarble, on 07/15/2008, -1/+13It is a receipe for toast.......duh.
  • IphtashuFitz, on 07/16/2008, -1/+13I wonder if there's a typo in the encrypted text that's preventing them from decrypting it properly. That's what prevented people from decoding the message on Kryptos, the statue donated to the CIA in 1990. The artist who created it finally recognized the typo and documented it in 2006, which helped those trying to decipher it.
  • sirbeta, on 07/16/2008, -4/+15Little do they know it means absolutely nothing and some guy is performing manic laughter of the evil variety.
  • rinpoche, on 07/16/2008, -4/+15I'm going to start sending gibberish in code to science labs all over the world just to see how much time and brainpower I can cause people to waste.
  • Banda, on 07/16/2008, -1/+10It sounds like a Richard Feynman joke that got stuck in the mail.
  • laserdog, on 07/16/2008, -1/+9Other things that are unimportant:
    * Crossword Puzzles
    * Video Games
    * Watching Any Sitcom

    No worse.
  • fuhcough, on 07/16/2008, -24/+32Bury me if you must but, while I didn't read the article, I would like to point out that of the 20some-odd stories I've read on Digg today...

    I have yet to get tired of the "stop stare flirt" blonde in the tube top -------------->

    Grrr baby... very grrrr. :)

    Oh, and "ohhhhhhhhh fuuuudddddddge".
  • wertach, on 07/16/2008, -4/+11Dump Judy Jackson and call Daniel Jackson!
  • Stoyanov, on 07/16/2008, -0/+7I agree, perhaps a hint at the significance of the undefined/leading "s" in the last three-letter line.
  • darny, on 07/16/2008, -0/+7perhaps he's referring to the fifth fish in a series of fish denoted with alphabetic characters.
  • Nickolassc, on 07/16/2008, -1/+8Looks a little like the futurama alphabet
  • baldboy7, on 07/16/2008, -0/+7hey it happened to Elvis...
  • inactive, on 07/16/2008, -1/+7You made me turn off my AdBlock and keep refreshing the page until that ad came up! And I did it another couple times and found the big one, too....

    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3038/2675538756_74e ...
    http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3261/2675547382_55c ...
  • Rotkiv, on 07/16/2008, -1/+7she's like flirting with me right now i can tell.

    we've hit it off great already.
  • TomSawyer, on 07/16/2008, -0/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos#2006_clarific ...
  • inactive, on 07/16/2008, -1/+7You made me turn off my AdBlock plus and keep refreshing the page until that ad came up. gg
  • jonaphin, on 07/16/2008, -0/+6How about converting basse to numbers:
    21005

    b -> 2
    a -> 1
    s -> 19 -> 1 + 9 -> 0
    e -> 5

    what do u think?

    Employee # would then be: 2100516
  • ostracize, on 07/16/2008, -0/+5It's the author of the message:
    http://www.npb.dk/
  • vinceislegend, on 07/16/2008, -3/+8"Sorry guys.

    --Xenu"
  • egthareal, on 07/16/2008, -1/+6Fermilab must've got a new PR person after they got those funds that "saved" them. Good job new PR person!
  • yikiad, on 07/16/2008, -4/+9"how to serve man"

    oh *****
  • wellyuk, on 07/16/2008, -3/+8It's just some l33t speak that non of us are uber-l33t enough to understand. This time next year, we'll all be writing like that.
  • CosmicJustice, on 07/16/2008, -0/+4This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
  • built2spill, on 07/16/2008, -5/+9Dear Richard,
    I hope this letter doesn't take too long in the hands of the censors. I am doing well and can't wait to see you,
    Love,
    Arline Feynman
  • inactive, on 07/16/2008, -3/+7The Cake Is a Lie!!!
  • Gndoab, on 07/16/2008, -7/+11right now the guy who sent that is laughing at all the people who spent a year trying to decode something he found on a cereal box.
  • Rikkochet, on 07/16/2008, -1/+5I think when this was posted last week the first comment said the same thing...
    "It happens when they change something."
  • phreakocious, on 07/16/2008, -2/+6Did this guy solve it?

    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192426
  • Lynxplus, on 07/16/2008, -11/+14this was front page like 2 weeks ago, what is up with he digg time machine?
  • saigumi, on 07/17/2008, -0/+3Yarf... old story.

    Solution: Frank Shoemaker would call this noise.

  • SanTe, on 07/16/2008, -0/+3Almost. It says,

    "Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come
    Corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody tuesday
    Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long
    I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
    I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob"
  • jellyfishes, on 07/16/2008, -1/+4Hey, I know it's bad practice, but I don't mind. I don't always see everything the first time around. I haven't yet devoted my life to digg (I only check it at work).
  • Fetching more discussions...
    Show 51 - 100 of 115 discussions

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.