Welsh Chappie, Subject: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:37 pm

According to Michael Kelleher, Robert Graysmiths ‘Solution’ to the 340 Cipher "Still remains as the only viable solution to the 340-character enigma"

Graysmith claims that the Cipher, when decoded, reads…

HERB CAEN: I GIVE THEM HELL TOO. BLAST THESE LIES. SLUETH SHOELD (SHOULD) SEE A NAME BELOW KILLEERS FILM. A PILLS GAME. PARDON ME AGCEPT TO BLAST NE (ME). BULLSHIT. THESE FOOLS SHALL MEET KILLER. PLEAS ASK LUNBLAD. SOEL (SOUL) AT H LSD UL CLEAR LAKE. SO STARE I EAT A PILL, ASSHOLE. I PLANT MR. A. H. PHONE LAKE B. ALL SSLAVES BECAUSE LSD WILL STOLEN EITHER SLAVE SHALL I HELL SLASH TOSCI? THE PIG STALLS DEALS OC (OF) EIGHTH SOEL (SOUL) SLAIN.

The above is Robert Graysmiths cracked 340 Cipher text. If this solution is correct, several things jump out off the page. The most obvious, is " I PLANT MR. A. H. PHONE LAKE B." What is this in reference to? His phone call he made ater the attack? Is he saying he planted something at the phone? If so, who is MR A. H?

" PARDON ME AGCEPT TO BLAST NE (ME). BULLSHIT. THESE FOOLS SHALL MEET KILLER." This Cipher arrived in Nov of 69, one month after the Stine murder. Is "PARDON ME AGCEPT TO BLAST NE (ME) " a reference to being stopped and questioned by the police that night and that he expected to get ‘BLASTED’? And "THESE FOOLS SHALL MEET KILLER." Is this line a reference to ‘FOOLS’ Fouke & Zelms for not arresting him that night?

If i am reading Graysmiths decoded message correctly, seems to suggest that Zodiac is indicating he was under the influence of drugs at the time of certain attacks. "AT H LSD UL CLEAR LAKE." This isn’t clear English and does not form a cohernt sentence, but the reference to LSD & CLEAR LAKE are clearly seen. (This one line may refer to Lake Herman). "SO STARE I EAT A PILL, ASSHOLE." This again could either refer to Zodiac watching his victims of Lake Herman, or Lake Berryessa.

"I PLANT MR. A. H. PHONE LAKE B." This is obviously a reference to Lake Berryessa. But, who is MR. A H?

doranchak, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Fri Mar 15, 2013 4:50 pm

Like the numerous other bogus solutions I’ve analyzed, Graysmith got as far as he could with the substitution, and then started applying anagrams to make certain words appear. This is a common trap.

For example, Graysmith solution says "BLAST THESE LIES". But those letters don’t appear that way in the decoded plain text using his substitutions. Instead, they appear as "BTSALTESEHLSE". With some imagination, you can see words pop out of that jumble of letters. It is the same part of your brain that can see faces in clouds.

In fact, since Graysmith permits anagrams, you can take those same letters, and rearrange them to spell the following:

STABLEST HEELS
BLESS ATHLETES
HE LABELS TESTS
SHE SETS BALLET
HE LETS STABLES
SHE BATTLES LESS

and on and on. So, to accept Graysmith’s solution, we have to accept his preference and bias for certain words and phrases, and ignore every other possibility.

Therefore, there is no point in reading into his solution, because it is like analyzing someone’s reaction to a Rorschach test.

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:06 pm

I don’t know anything about Cipher Codes other than the basics so i can’t say either way if Graysmith is accurate, close, or way off the mark. I posted this for people to read and make of it what they will. I just found it interesting that Kelleher refers to Graysmiths effort saying "Although Graysmiths translation is spotty and lacks the consistency shown in Zodiac’s first Cryptogram, it still remains the only viable solution to the 340-character enigma."

tahoe27, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:27 pm

So, to accept Graysmith’s solution, we have to accept his preference and bias for certain words and phrases, and ignore every other possibility.

Therefore, there is no point in reading into his solution, because it is like analyzing someone’s reaction to a Rorschach test.

That is my concern. I think we LOOK for words Zodiac has been known to use. Surely it’s what you should do. I just think it gets over done. It seems a bit too convenient that so many of those words are in Graysmith’s solution.

That said…

Mr. A.H. – Mr. Asshole. (SO STARE I EAT A PILL, ASSHOLE. I PLANT MR. A. H. )
Clear Lake – is a larger lake just Northwest of L.B.

doranchak, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sat Mar 16, 2013 8:43 am

I don’t know anything about Cipher Codes other than the basics so i can’t say either way if Graysmith is accurate, close, or way off the mark. I posted this for people to read and make of it what they will. I just found it interesting that Kelleher refers to Graysmiths effort saying "Although Graysmiths translation is spotty and lacks the consistency shown in Zodiac’s first Cryptogram, it still remains the only viable solution to the 340-character enigma."

Based on Graysmith’s liberal use of anagrams, it’s easy to see that his solution is likely to be way off the mark, since anyone can use his approach to develop different solutions. For example, take a look at http://zodiackillerciphers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page#Discredited_or_inconclusive_solution_attempts. Among those are several that use similar substitution+anagramming approaches.

I’m not sure how Kelleher justified his statement. Perhaps when he wrote it, he was not aware of other similar solution attempts, since only the Graysmith one was widely published, so it "won" by default.

glurk, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sat Mar 16, 2013 8:48 am

I believe that Kelleher actually retracted or at least backed off that statement in a public post on ZKF some time back. I’ll try to find it.

-glurk

EDIT: Found it. From Aug 2011. In fact, it was a response to ‘duckking2001’ and (sort-of) me:

http://www.zodiackillerfacts.com/forum/ … 7&start=30

Glad you enjoyed my book, for the most part. The Graysnith comments you mentioned are correct in your quotes but incorrect from my part. I also mentioned that one could interpret the code in a bunch of ways and even threw my idea in there. I regret all of this now. It seemed OK all those years ago but I have a different view today. In retrospect, I should have just ignored any solution, which would have been better for the reader.

doranchak, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:10 am

Ah, good. Now let’s see if we can get Graysmith to do the same!

doranchak, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:16 am

That is my concern. I think we LOOK for words Zodiac has been known to use. Surely it’s what you should do. I just think it gets over done. It seems a bit too convenient that so many of those words are in Graysmith’s solution.

Yes – it’s what you should do, if you are applying cribs to try to solve a cryptogram. But you shouldn’t do it to force words using a technique that allows thousands of words to be generated.

Granted, we still have to figure out what kind of encryption scheme the 340 uses. If Z really *did* use convoluted anagrams and poor grammar to piece together Z-like words into the plaintext, then it’s likely no one will ever discover the solution. For instance, one of us could author a similar plain text this way (using randomly anagrammed text that doesn’t follow a pattern), then apply substitutions, and challenge people to decode the resulting cipher text. I think it would be nearly impossible to recover the plain text.

Nin, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sat Mar 16, 2013 5:53 pm

Ah, good. Now let’s see if we can get Graysmith to do the same!

Like!

-Nin

tahoe27, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sat Mar 16, 2013 8:31 pm

Didn’t Graysmith "solve" this years later? Seems like it was around the time of the ’78 Toschi letter and I’m wondering if it was just after that.

Guess I’ll have to go look… :bball:

Welsh Chappie, Subject: Re: The Graysmith Cipher Solution.    Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:47 am

Didn’t Graysmith "solve" this years later? Seems like it was around the time of the ’78 Toschi letter and I’m wondering if it was just after that.

Guess I’ll have to go look… :bball:

In the book, Kelleher writer:
"It was some 10 years later that Robert Graysmith made some sense out of the puzzle"