It is one of the oddest-and frustrating- thing about the Zodiac case: the amount of information which is given, very precise information, yet not nearly enough to decode, whatever the intention of the letter writer is. One possibility (I have raised in another post), is there is indeed communication, of sorts going between between Zodiac, and the public-at-large? Another individual? Though the communications are official posted to the SF Chonicle, or one of its columnists (Avery), I remain unsure they are the actually intended forits recipient. In the late 60s, remember, there were still public phone booths (which Z., I hasten to add, used on at least one notorious occasion, to speak with an operator). It is an increasingly rare sight nowadays; yet, the further back one goes in time, the more complicated communications procedures were. Aroung the turn of the last century, there was cable telegraphy, then wireless telegraphy: one wrote a note, gave it to a wire operator (sender), then at the other end, a wire receiver (operator), to decode message, etc. No computers. No microwave ovens. No world wide web. We must not take for granted our instantaneous feed, 24/7 cable world, and project that back to the past. (Not that I think you are doing that! )

In every era, too, there may be things we see, right in front of us but do not perceive aright. (A notable example is the Fedex logo with the arrow in it-some see it, others have it pointed out to them. Sometimes we see just what we want to see.) The emphasis on the visual could be significant,though, because it follows a great deal of the content of Z’s communications. So, it might indicate something about the sender of the communication. That visual component is emphasized often, too often
I believe, to be without some kind of significance. The "wrong" spelling thus seems to reflect genuine intention (in large "cipher" communications only one letter is crossed out, suggesting "right" from "wrong" individual letter/symbols). Though
wrong spelling is a staple of many "poison" pen letters in fiction, amd Z. seems to recognizes this on one hand (hence, the poor othography). On the other hand, the Z. communications (letters, cards, ciphers) remain uncomfortable for the "receivers" (us, for example) because we presumably (!), can draw a straight enough line between how things actually are, and how we might prefer them to be.

This could explain, in part, the Lake Berryessa attack, and the scrawl on the Karman Ghia. We are dealing very likely with someone with a deranged mind, not someone for whom what is real and what is fantasy is stable, coherent, and not interchangeable. Thus the placing of a symbol, time and date is not a clue "we are able to put them together" as such, it is Z. who cannot keep reality and fantasy apart.

I think your correct about the visual aspect and how we, as pattern seeking human beings, will always look for pattern’s and consistency so that we can make sense of what it is that we see. As a species, we seek understanding in everything, we look for C to follow B and Y to precede Z because we know that makes sense to us. I quoted this elsewhere on a thread and it seems relevant to this one also so to re-quote Author & Intellectual Christopher Hitchens "We hunger for answers to everything. We look for patterns that we recognize and can therefore understand. That’s why a lot of people prefer a conspiracy theory to no theory at all".
He also commented on the mysteries in life and the people who discuss and try to solve them. "Mysteries are fine and I have no problem with them as long as people recognise that that is what they are. Anyone who claims they know the answer has, by default, just excluded themselves from the argument because they are claiming to know something that, by it’s very definition, they cannot know". That second quote needs to told to a few Zodiac sleuths.

And yes, todays technology in comparison with that of the technology that existed in 1969 it’s quite astonishing how far we have come in so little a time. The technology in 69, or lack thereof, was one of Zodiac’s best advantages to eluding capture. He could get away with using a payphone a block or two away from the police station itself to really stick the finger up at police because he knew full well that any trace of his call location would need to be done through the operator which takes time. Today, before I pick up the phone I know who’s calling, or at least the number, with Caller ID. A reporter was responsible for discovering one of the phone booth locations after he heard via his police scanner that a suspect had called in using a pay-phone. Nowadays you wouldn’t need to run a trace because the detection of the caller’s number and/or location is instantaneous.

As Pierre Bidou, who responded to LHR said "Under todays circumstances with the technology they have today that we didn’t have back then, they’d have worked that crime scene for 24 hours. If we could take the technology of today and go back then, i’m not sure he’d (Z) be able to beat that."

Thanks very much for bringing up these aspects of the case. First, they are unusal, non-contextual, symbols left hanging
in visual space for the receiver, (or at least intended receiver) to recognize. Yet there must be some concrete basis for
their choosing. I’m thinking of one of the last photographs taken of local beat artists by Larry Keegan (?), Ginzberg, McClure, in 1965, if one looks closely, at this picture, you can see the noted logo Y , (n.b. these letters , O B K R play a role in the Z. communications)which will be part of CITY LIGHTS BOOK STORE (after the Chaplin silent film,(remember the other silent films in the case The Red Phantom, Fantomas,and above that, window guards, which have an XXXXXXXXXXX pattern, which leave only one letter to take…..which may’ve come from some art-experimental film. (These were the days of filmaker Kenneth Anger and Scorpio Risingand so on.

As far Hitchens point is concerned, I readily agree. We all have a few, solid, but sparse facts. They cannot explain the crime,
so some tend to fill in the blanks with fantasy, rumor, innuendo, unsourced materials.The only thing to do then,is to remain completely disinterested, detached inquirer for a solution to the problem, because the solution to the problem is all that matters.

I think your correct about the visual aspect and how we, as pattern seeking human beings, will always look for pattern’s and consistency so that we can make sense of what it is that we see. As a species, we seek understanding in everything, we look for C to follow B and Y to precede Z because we know that makes sense to us. I quoted this elsewhere on a thread and it seems relevant to this one also so to re-quote Author & Intellectual Christopher Hitchens "We hunger for answers to everything. We look for patterns that we recognize and can therefore understand. That’s why a lot of people prefer a conspiracy theory to no theory at all".
He also commented on the mysteries in life and the people who discuss and try to solve them. "Mysteries are fine and I have no problem with them as long as people recognise that that is what they are. Anyone who claims they know the answer has, by default, just excluded themselves from the argument because they are claiming to know something that, by it’s very definition, they cannot know". That second quote needs to told to a few Zodiac sleuths.

And yes, todays technology in comparison with that of the technology that existed in 1969 it’s quite astonishing how far we have come in so little a time. The technology in 69, or lack thereof, was one of Zodiac’s best advantages to eluding capture. He could get away with using a payphone a block or two away from the police station itself to really stick the finger up at police because he knew full well that any trace of his call location would need to be done through the operator which takes time. Today, before I pick up the phone I know who’s calling, or at least the number, with Caller ID. A reporter was responsible for discovering one of the phone booth locations after he heard via his police scanner that a suspect had called in using a pay-phone. Nowadays you wouldn’t need to run a trace because the detection of the caller’s number and/or location is instantaneous.

As Pierre Bidou, who responded to LHR said "Under todays circumstances with the technology they have today that we didn’t have back then, they’d have worked that crime scene for 24 hours. If we could take the technology of today and go back then, i’m not sure he’d (Z) be able to beat that."

Sometimes what we see is just what it is. While there may have been some sort of clue in the underlining, I think the "sorry no cipher" is just that and nothing more.

I think Zodiac was smart offering the ciphers, etc. He knew LE would be looking at every little thing wondering if it were clues and following the clues whether real or not….as they should.

Oh what a tangled web he weaved…when he practiced to deceive! Take all the hoopla out and they might have caught him.

I do agree with Bidou with the fact that someone pulling off stuff like this today, has a lot more to consider. But…thanks to TV shows like CSI, they have a lot more help in understanding how to get away with it.

"Sometimes what we see is just what it is. While there may have been some sort of clue in the underlining, I think the "sorry no cipher" is just that and nothing more."

T as I just mentioned, I am more than aware that we humans will look for patterns, search for things that are consistent and satisfy our expectations. I’m also aware that if this fails, and we see no regular patter or fail to find what we expected to find, then we may, willingly or unknowingly, put things there that are not there because that way it makes sense to us. But even with that fresh in mind, I just can’t agree that ‘sorry no cipher’ is nothing more than what it appears because if that is true then he’d surely do it for every other letter that contained no Cipher. It would also imply tht Zodiac randomly states things which are completely obvious to us anyway but he just likes to waste his time.
Now if someone had said, prior to him sending that communication, "Oh I simply cannot wait for The Zodiac to send us another cryptic cipher with his next letter" then i’d understand his apologising for not enclosing one.
I mean if I wrote you a letter T and ended it with "Sorry, no coffee enclosed" would you think "Well that is not unusual in any way, he’s just telling me that because there is no coffee in the envelope?" Or would you read it and think "Ehh? Well I can see that anyway, so why is he telling me this?"

My thinking would be along T’s lines on this one.

He’s just stating there’s no cipher and it is relevant given that he might have imagined they had come to expect them from him. It could also be a way of saying that you’re not getting another one until you solve the last one/ones but more than likely he’d probably done with them for the very reason that LE or anyone hadn’t managed to solve them so it would be a waste of time. If they ever were solvable.

It also, I think, speaks to the almost camaraderie approach he takes when addressing people in his letters. As picked up by Dr Van Nuys.

What I find more interesting is that, in graphic terms, he employed a visual pun using a well known visual trick, for want of a better way to describe it. The trick being where you take words and intersect them through each other via their common characters. The pun part is that he used this method to create an X. A device that is commonly associated with NO or NONE, crossed out or cancelled. As opposed to a tick.

Is there something included? No the big X tells us so but it also tells what it is that isn’t included. "Sorry no cipher"

Ok, so when he wrote on Bryan’s door "By Knife", he appears again to be stating the obvious and it seems odd that he should write it. Was this just him stating the obvious? Did "By Knife" have no meaning? Was it just something he said? No! He writes a year later "By Fire. By Gun. By Knife. By Rope." So Zodiac writing "By Knife" on Bryan’s door wasn’t just something he’s telling us what he used and stating the obvious, it clearly had some meaning to it.

Ok then Trav, on the card itself he writes:

By Fire, By Gun, By Knife, By Rope. Which one of the four was the odd one out? By Knife. Why? Because he wrote the entire word vertically and the other three started with ‘By’ horizontally.

So, not only did he write ‘By Knife’ on Bryans door, which seemed in and of itself an odd and out of place thing to state because it was obvious what he’d used, but he again makes a point of drawing attention to ‘By Knife’ in the list of four above. Three of the four ‘by’ are written horizontal above the murder method, the only one that differs where the ‘by’ is vertical is in the ‘By Knife’.
I have no doubt that had Zodiac not sent this card, you’d say the same thing about the comment on Bryans car door that it was just him stating it as it is.

It’s just my opinion that’s all. I think his saying "Sorry, No Cipher" is probably because there is one. What is the object of a Cipher? To obscure a message by hiding it in seemingly random letters or symbols. Is there any evidence on the card that appears to show that he actually has encrypted something? Yes. By Knife being Horizontal.
If you want to believe one ‘By’ in ‘By’ knife is not meant to stand out, or he isn’t doing it to draw attention to it for some specific reason and that this vertical switch up is nothing more than Zodiac’s way of writing and it means nothing, then that is up to you and each to their own as they say. I can’t personally look at something that is just out of place, very odd or has no real reason for him saying it and conclude that it is just Zodiac writing something for the sake of using up ink as it has no other purpose to serve other than that.
Did he underline SLA in Paul Averly also because he just felt like it and it really didn’t serve any purpose nor mean anything?? No. Clearly it meant something to him and that’s why he underlined it to bring it to the readers attention.
And when it comes to things like spelling mistakes in his letters, such as the word ‘Paradice’ in this Halloween card, can never be proven either way if he’s doing it deliberately or not without him telling us.

I got to be honest, I am quite often stunned at the amount of people who seem to take Zodiac and his letters at face value like they’re written by your average person. This is a man who has already given us more than enough evidence that he loved playing word games and encrypting messages within Ciphers and yet when he makes a remark that seems rather pointless like ‘By Knife’ or ‘Sorry no cipher’ which are both self evident and unnecessary people are ready to accept that he’s just saying it for nothing and that he really is simply pointing out something that we will know anyway as if this man has no track record of loving to play word games?

It’s just my opinion that’s all. I think his saying "Sorry, No Cipher" is probably because there is one. What is the object of a Cipher? To obscure a message by hiding it in seemingly random letters or symbols. Is there any evidence on the card that appears to show that he actually has encrypted something? Yes. By Knife being Horizontal.
If you want to believe one ‘By’ in ‘By’ knife is not meant to stand out, or he isn’t doing it to draw attention to it for some specific reason and that this vertical switch up is nothing more than Zodiac’s way of writing and it means nothing, then that is up to you and each to their own as they say. I can’t personally look at something that is just out of place, very odd or has no real reason for him saying it and conclude that it is just Zodiac writing something for the sake of using up ink as it has no other purpose to serve other than that.
Did he underline SLA in Paul Averly also because he just felt like it and it really didn’t serve any purpose nor mean anything?? No. Clearly it meant something to him and that’s why he underlined it to bring it to the readers attention.
And when it comes to things like spelling mistakes in his letters, such as the word ‘Paradice’ in this Halloween card, can never be proven either way if he’s doing it deliberately or not without him telling us.

I got to be honest, I am quite often stunned at the amount of people who seem to take Zodiac and his letters at face value like they’re written by your average person. This is a man who has already given us more than enough evidence that he loved playing word games and encrypting messages within Ciphers and yet when he makes a remark that seems rather pointless like ‘By Knife’ or ‘Sorry no cipher’ which are both self evident and unnecessary people are ready to accept that he’s just saying it for nothing and that he really is simply pointing out something that we will know anyway as if this man has no track record of loving to play word games?

Even when his first cipher was solved, it said a whole lot of nothin’.

Just to be clear I do think he sent the HC.

People take things as they take them. I wouldn’t be that stunned at people taking Zodiac stuff at face value. It doesn’t all have to ‘mean’ something then again maybe it does. It”s good to have views from different angles because you can very easily get blinkered with this stuff. It’s easy to do given amount of it and the variation in the material. TBH I think that was always part of his plan a blitz attack through the media just like his actual attacks.

If there are ‘hidden’ messages to be found in the stuff that’s all well and good but until someone finds them then we can try and look beyond that smoke screen as well.

Many hands and all that.

A "No Cipher" was an old/other name for a Null Cipher!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_cipher
added by trav

…I still would like to get feedback on what people think about this. Why he wrote it (It’s not like Zodiac wrote Ciphers with every letter). Why he wrote ‘Sorry no Cipher’ on the inside of the envelope rather than in the letter itself. And finally, why in a criss-cross style that appears to form the letter X? (In the card itself he had wrote ‘By Fire, By Gun, By Knife, By Rope – Slaves Paradice’ in such a way that it appears to form a letter H).

Having bluffed about his name hidden in a cipher, quoting The Mikado, etc…I’d chalk that up to whimsy.

…If there are ‘hidden’ messages to be found in the stuff that’s all well and good but until someone finds them then we can try and look beyond that smoke screen as well.

Many hands and all that.

I think it’s damn interesting. I love a good puzzle. No doubt LE gave up a long time ago.

I just think it peaks OUR interest, but most know even if his other stuff is solved, it’s probably not going to clue us in on one tootin’ thing.

I’d like to think even if it didn’t point to anything specific, it could still clue us in in other ways. Unfortunately, if he was full of it (afterlife stuff, etc) all that did was offer fake clues as well. The guy was probably an accountant who wasn’t into any of that stuff. (sarcasm )

I’ve looked at all this stuff myself so I don’t mean to sound as if I’m discouraging anyone. Many, many interesting ideas have come from it.

…I still would like to get feedback on what people think about this. Why he wrote it (It’s not like Zodiac wrote Ciphers with every letter). Why he wrote ‘Sorry no Cipher’ on the inside of the envelope rather than in the letter itself. And finally, why in a criss-cross style that appears to form the letter X? (In the card itself he had wrote ‘By Fire, By Gun, By Knife, By Rope – Slaves Paradice’ in such a way that it appears to form a letter H).

Having bluffed about his name hidden in a cipher, quoting The Mikado, etc…I’d chalk that up to whimsy.

Hey, what’s that called when you criss-cross/combine words like like? I know it has a term all of it’s own.

…I still would like to get feedback on what people think about this. Why he wrote it (It’s not like Zodiac wrote Ciphers with every letter). Why he wrote ‘Sorry no Cipher’ on the inside of the envelope rather than in the letter itself. And finally, why in a criss-cross style that appears to form the letter X? (In the card itself he had wrote ‘By Fire, By Gun, By Knife, By Rope – Slaves Paradice’ in such a way that it appears to form a letter H).

Having bluffed about his name hidden in a cipher, quoting The Mikado, etc…I’d chalk that up to whimsy.

Hey, what’s that called when you criss-cross/combine words like like? I know it has a term all of it’s own.

I should know it but I don’t and I too think it has it’s own name. That’s why I called it a graphic trick because I can’t remember what it’s called or if it is called something. It’s probably got the prefix ‘trans’ in it…maybe.