Mystery

For more than 15 years, amateur and professional code-breakers have been baffled by Kryptos, a sculpture at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, VA, that features a nearly 12-foot-tall, copper scroll inscribed with four long, coded passages. The coded passages remained unsolved for eight years, until a CIA analyst cracked the first three in 1999. But the fourth passage is still a mystery.

Interest in solving the final part of the puzzle has soared after the publisher of Dan Brown’s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code posted a game on www.thedavincicode.com, which states that numerous encrypted messages on the book’s dust cover hint at the subject of Brown’s next novel. The clues, which were not recognized until the game was posted, include a set of geographic coordinates that roughly locate the sculpture. Brown himself has recently hinted that the Kryptos sculpture might play a role in his novel The Solomon Key.