The Zodiac Killer wrote in the Debut of Zodiac Letter on August 4th 1969 ‘ By the way, are the police having a good time with the code? If not, tell them to cheer up; when they do crack it, they will have me ‘. The Zodiac unfortunately was a master of misdirection in his rhetoric, to the point of almost being literal. He was not lying in the Debut of Zodiac Letter or the letter sent to the Chronicle on July the 31st.
Firstly he says ‘when they do crack it, they will have me’ and they literally did ‘have me’, on the cracking of the cipher the words ‘have me’ are visible in close proximity.

Secondly he states to the Chronicle ‘In this cipher is my idenity’, but he never says when the cipher is deciphered it will reveal his identity. There is a subtle difference. He is saying in the cipher (ie unbroken) is his identity .
Now the only name to have been possibly found in order,in the unbroken cipher, may be GYKE.
I don’t believe this to be the answer, but the Zodiac Killer, despite being a despicable human being, undoubtedly was a clever wordsmith.

Hello to all
All codes, despite the 340 undeciphered to this day, the map is the most important because of a margin location of any physical evidence, it seems fiction, but I think this was very vain infamous for he had done so many things and then nobody knew what he done. I also believe that all letters, figures, dates and contexts is that they give us something that we can conclude something, if not definitive, at least somewhat plausible, there is no possibility of numerous "coincidences" happen.
Marcelo

Happy 2014 to all

A lot of people have looked for an "identity" in the cipher. Of course we have "GYKE", but Richard Gaikowski never called himself that, he used GAIK, and IMO it appears to be a chance happening of four letters. Is his "identity" a hunter of man and a fan of the film "Most Dangerous Game"? Or is his identity somewhere in the last 18 letters that appear to be gibberish?

First he says "in this cipher is my identity", then he says "i will not give you my name." To me the possible emphasis is on the word "GIVE". As in, I am not going to just give it to you plain and simple, you will have to work for it.

Thus if you examine the unsolved 18, rearrange the letters, apply a Caesar shift of 0-3-6-9, you arrive at the name of a SF Bay area resident who was expert in codes and bombs and was a serial killer.

An analysis by Aquiman showed a low edit decison/closely grouped recovery like this would happen by chance less than 1% of the time. For most that is still too high and the recovery method has too many steps. I still think it is very likely correct, and so do some others, but is has not yet gained wide acceptance in the Zodiac research world or the cryptography world.

You can see more about the proposed solution and details here: http://unazod.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f … a&start=20

Too many names of popular POI’s come out of this cipher. I have to wonder what that alone tells us?

He will give us his name? If you believe that then you deserve to have…. (not really, just reminds me of something he’d say )

Too many names of popular POI’s come out of this cipher. I have to wonder what that alone tells us?

He will give us his name? If you believe that then you deserve to have…. (not really, just reminds me of something he’d say )

I don’t consider GYKE a name.

He said he would NOT "give" us his name.

I don’t consider GYKE a name.

He said he would NOT "give" us his name.

I too think that is a coincidence.

If it’s not a coincidence, then he:

– chose to put it in line 20 – not at the start, or in the filler (that would have been too easy)
– chose the end of the word "BECAUSE" to put it in (not an early 4-letter word such as "LIKE" or "THAN"
– used the word "BECAUSE" deliberately, three times, so it would fit the cycles of his substitutions
– managed the mis-spellings, to make sure he counted all occurences of A U S and E correctly.

Sensible conclusion?
It’s a coincidence.
Doh!

If it’s not a coincidence, then he:

– chose to put it in line 20 – not at the start, or in the filler (that would have been too easy)
– chose the end of the word "BECAUSE" to put it in (not an early 4-letter word such as "LIKE" or "THAN"
– used the word "BECAUSE" deliberately, three times, so it would fit the cycles of his substitutions
– managed the mis-spellings, to make sure he counted all occurences of A U S and E correctly.

Sensible conclusion?
It’s a coincidence.
Doh!

I’m gonna play devil’s advocate on ya, smithy.

First, we should acknowledge that GYKE is only a phonetic equivalent of a nickname Gaikowski used (Gaik). Nobody to my knowledge has ever found an example of him referring to himself as GYKE. That said, he didn’t have to put this any given place in the cipher. He could have and did (twice) choose other symbols to represent the word BECAUSE. Here’s why I find the appearance of GYKE in the cipher a bit more compelling than at first glance, although I still think it’s likely just coincidence.

The portion of the cipher where "GYKE" appears translates to the last four letters in the word BECAUSE when solved. Z also spells the word BECAUSE in part one of the cipher but uses different symbols for the "S" and "E".

You could also point out that GYKE appears just as Z is telling us in the solution "I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME…". Taunting?

The unwillingness to consider the possibility of coincidence by some always drove me nuts but I honestly find it one of the stronger cases for a "Ghost in the Machine" cipher identity.

I think it is very weak. Absolutely a coincidence. First, He never, ever refered to himself as GYKE. Not once. Secondly, three and four letter words appear by chance frequently. Thus, I don’t find instances of KANE, LEE or GYKE to be convincing. Give me an 18 letter name, or even a 9 letter name, will talk. For example, in the 408 as solved Doug and I noted the appearance of words like WAVE, TIDE, BELL. Even HAMMRER. Even a twisty TEDANDDAVE. Most people were not too impressed. In the raw Graysmith Proposed Solution there is – no anagrams – a diagonal LIST and BOMBS. And a vertical LEASH, BARS, TAKE, LOSE, SEAT, TIES. Coincidence? To me that is a lot more compelling than GYKE, but then I think evidence show Gaik was out of state for crucial Zodiac events – like Bates murder, Bates letters, LHR.

And few of the people who find GYKE so impressive care at all that KAC ZYN SKI appears in the unsolved 340. Just a coincidence they say! So, four letter words are not a coincidence, but a nine letter word is? Its because they don’t think much of Ted as a suspect and are focused on Gaikowski.

All the elements you cited are just the coincidence that produces those letters at that spot. I find no significance in them.

Is the following all a coincidence? Or does the 340 cipher reveal an "identity"?

This is the unsolved Zodiac 340 Code as it appeared in newspapers. I think there is a logic to a code maker putting his first name on the first line, middle initial on the middle of the middle line and last name on the last line or two.

You can see that the letters to make THEO (or even THEODOR) appear on the first line, J is on the middle of the middle line and most importantly and impressively there is KACZYNSKI on the last two lines, or KAZINSKI on the last line alone.

And here is a close up on the last two lines. The letters are there – KAC ZYN SKI. Or KAZINSKI on just the last line.

Kaczynski loved to play games with his name and hide it in things. He once wrote a musical composition (he played trombone, like the character in The Mikado) and told a friend he had "the 18 letters in his name" hid in the composition by putting one letter in the last line in each part. I can see him coming up with the name "The Zodiac" out of the letters in his name, and getting a thrill out of seeing his name on the front page of the paper, hidden in plain sight in the Zodiac code.

On the other hand MANSO appears in the last line.
But none of these things impress people much unless they think other evidence points to the suspect. You can get dozens of names from the raw 408 and 340 and cant prove or disprove intent.

Not advocating Gaikowski as a suspect, AK, or necessarily GYKE in the 408 cipher as relevant. I think its proponents would point out that it occurs visually, in left to right order, without any anagramming or rearrangement of letters. I’m just pointing out that its appearance COULD have been manipulated to appear that way and you could make the case that the sequences of letter substitution appear to be altered right around the point that it appears in the 408 cipher.

First, we should acknowledge that GYKE is only a phonetic equivalent of a nickname Gaikowski used (Gaik). Nobody to my knowledge has ever found an example of him referring to himself as GYKE. That said, he didn’t have to put this any given place in the cipher. He could have and did (twice) choose other symbols to represent the word BECAUSE. Here’s why I find the appearance of GYKE in the cipher a bit more compelling than at first glance, although I still think it’s likely just coincidence.

The portion of the cipher where "GYKE" appears translates to the last four letters in the word BECAUSE when solved. Z also spells the word BECAUSE in part one of the cipher but uses different symbols for the "S" and "E".

You could also point out that GYKE appears just as Z is telling us in the solution "I WILL NOT GIVE YOU MY NAME…". Taunting?

The unwillingness to consider the possibility of coincidence by some always drove me nuts but I honestly find it one of the stronger cases for a "Ghost in the Machine" cipher identity.

Another strange coincidence is that if you
Go to the 20th line on the 408 cipher, symbols 4 to 7 and transplant these four letters GYKE onto the 20th line, symbols 4 to 7 of the 340 cipher like so, to form GYKES ZODIAC or GYKEAUSEKEYS ZODIAC.

Thanks Entropy, but I don’t want anyone to play Devils Advocate on, with, or indeed for, me. Just agreeing with me would be best.

It’s possible that I’m going to win the lottery this week, sleep with Scarlet Johannsen on Friday, and that I’ll be voted Playgirl magazines "Man of the Year" on Monday. Great. But I’m not talking about if it’s possible, I’m trying to get across the fact that if Gaikowski killed all the Z suspects and more, if he also did Jimmy Hoffa and John Kennedy too, that even if he couldn’t spell his own nickname, the idea that he (or someone else) put GYKE in the 408 intentionally really aint all that friggin’ likely.

Saying "people will contend that it’s possible" doesn’t help. Yes, they already have. And they’re wrong. They’re deluded. They have an agenda. (AK Wilks was doing a nice job, then damn me, he had to go and muddy it up again with Ted. *Sigh*)

Now – if you want to create a 408-type cipher with your initials or your name (or reasonable intended facsimile thereof) on the 20th line, composed just like the original with cycling use of homophonics and with a couple of spelling mistakes in, that’d aid understanding all round, maybe.
Or maybe it wouldn’t.

Aww smithy. Maybe you won’t be so cranky after Friday. Points taken though. I recall Tom’s response to similar challenges was something along the lines of "It says Gyke right in the frigging cipher!" So at least I hope that I’m a slightly better devil’s advocate. Again, I’m really just suggesting that this is a better than average effort, requiring minimal manipulation to interpret because afterall… it says Gyke right in the frigging cipher.

I think I made the point in the "Ghosts in the Machine" thread that if just about everyone can find some secret clew to their own person of interest in a cipher, it kinda calls into question the method of looking for these types of secret clews. I somehow think that Zodiac, wherever he is, would have found profound enjoyment out of each and every suspect clew discovered.

I’m REALLY looking forward to Friday.