Hi Everyone,
I’ve been wanting to post this since late in November, but wasn’t prepared for how difficult it is to write for other people. Hoping this doesn’t sound too ridiculous.
Anyway, as I imagine most people have, I’ve wondered why there are so many plus symbols in the 340 cipher. They could represent stars, or even locations on a map, but they also look a bit like the registration marks used by a printer to align multiple image layers (the zodiac symbol, incidentally, is a pretty good representation of a registration mark). I’ve always thought that the two L-shaped groupings were supposed to align somehow, either by folding the cipher creatively, or by creating a grille. Several months ago I decided to create a grille and try it out, and when I did, I found a number of interesting things.
The first thing I noticed was that the L-shaped patterns could be aligned twice, once by rotating the grille clockwise (CW), and again by rotating it counter-clockwise (CCW). In both rotations of the grille, along with cipher characters, a pattern of 7 pluses are visible. This seemed significant because according to Z, at the time, his body count was 7. I was also amazed that the pattern was not only the same in both rotations, but it was rotated by 90 degrees, while the grille was rotated by 180. I unfortunately later discovered that symmetry is a natural part of this type of grille (I had been lazy in earlier experiments, and never had enough pluses showing through the grille to make it obvious). This was fairly depressing at first, until I realized that Z and his obsession with details and bizarre mysticism, might have found this symmetry interesting.
The next unusual thing relates to the non-plus characters that are visible through the grille. In the CW rotation, the first non-plus character is the one resembling a capital ‘I’ with a dot on its right side. In the CCW rotation, the first character is the reverse ‘I’ with the dot on its left side. In both rotations, the 14th character is the zodiac symbol. This zodiac symbol is the only character visible in both the CW and CCW rotations AND a third 180 degree rotation (which I’ll get to below). The only other character that’s visible in both CW and CCW rotations is the ‘X’. It made me wonder whether the 13 characters preceding the zodiac symbol were the actual cipher, or are symbols meant to be swapped in the larger text (there are a few extra characters after each group of 14, but it seems like they would be hard to remove, making it necessary to add the zodiac symbol to mark the end of each string).
There is also a third possible rotation of the grille, in which it is rotated 180 degrees from its original position. The center of rotation is not actually the central plus, but the ‘y’ down and over one character (if you put a pin through this point, you can rotate the grille to all 3 positions). This produces a new pattern of pluses, which resembles the spiral arms of a galaxy. In this third rotation, the zodiac symbol is visible through the grille, as mentioned, and is the only character visible through all three rotations. Playing around with the grille, it’s possible to find other symmetries and patterns, and that makes it hard for me to decide if there’s anything to this.
If the L-shaped pattern of pluses represents Mount Diablo, the other 4 pluses line up nicely, but not perfectly, with the 4 known attacks. This nullifies his 7 victim claim (unless Z actually counts survivors as victims), but is still worth mentioning. Z seems obsessed with maps, and I find the idea of the little L-shaped pattern representing a mountain really interesting. It’s made more interesting by the fact that a map is only apparent once the grille is placed over the ciphertext.
Also, if the grille can be interpreted as a map, the one visible zodiac symbol conveniently aligns with the Alameda Naval Air Station… which could be a nod to the Wing Walker boots Z was thought to have worn. When I showed this to a friend, her first reaction was that the zodiac symbol represented "his little place on the map," and I kind of like that idea.
Anyway, if this grille were part of the solution, it wouldn’t really solve the cipher, at best it might be a key or something. I’m not all that convinced this is a real way of interpreting z340, but I like the idea that he may have created an interactive puzzle rather than just a cipher, and that the solution starts with something like this.
I’m hoping the links below will be clickable:
full album of related images:
https://goo.gl/photos/rYxpMseo89zd1YXF8
grille and cipher:
https://goo.gl/photos/QffGfHvurnAScg4h6
https://goo.gl/photos/QEHtt8ffedDE4KRp7
grille rotated 90 degrees clockwise:
https://goo.gl/photos/re4mBsyyj8yZ5NPZ8
grille rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise:
https://goo.gl/photos/RV3fwTaiD92UqC2KA
grille rotated 180 degrees:
https://goo.gl/photos/4VBJkqNz3ayEUJjw7
grille map comparison:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nYS5lvWNXVwZJb0j2
grille text:
https://goo.gl/photos/4YUZDw4yoqJgFny16
z340 with 13 swapped characters:
https://goo.gl/photos/2Bgm7ZPG6vUkX5Pp6
Hey danielsan,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your observation.
It’s hard for me to say if you found something interesting or not. One inconsistency is that you changed the offset at which the "+" grille aligns itself with the 340 between the rotations. That could be a problem as it allowed you to slide the grille up and down through the 340 to look for higher counts. It will probably require an in depth look to get to the bottom of your observation.
The grille is aligned using the 3 plus symbols as registration marks – I’m not sure it can be aligned in any other way, so I’m a bit confused 
[EDIT} Okay, I see what you mean 
The 180 degree grille rotation doesn’t align with the top of the cipher text because the center of rotation is offset by one character down, and one to the right. The rotation point is found by aligning both instances of the 3 pluses that make up the L-shaped patterns, with the grille.
If you create a grille, line it up with the cipher text, then pin it to the cipher through the "y" that’s down one character, and to the right one character from the center plus symbol, you can then rotate the grille around the pin, and it will produce all 3 alignments (so there’s only one way to do it).
I’m on the fence, too – it seems weird that the two pluses representing Blue Rock Springs and Lake Herman Road wouldn’t be lined up perfectly, but the fact that there are 7 pluses visible when the L-shaped groupings are aligned, and that the zodiac symbol is the only one visible in all 3 rotations still interests me.
Thanks for having a look!
Link to rotation instructions:
I might be wrong but it seems that in between 1 to 2 "+" symbol occurances are to be expected in any alignment of your grille. You have 4, 4 and 6. This needs a closer look.
Thanks for taking it seriously enough to look!
Again, it’s not a perfect interpretation, because the crime scenes do not line up perfectly, but I really like the the association with stars and constellations.
If the pluses were to represent stars, you get a very cool sort of "star map," with the central "+" representing Polaris (the North Star), and the "y" representing the celestial pole, which Polaris and the rest of the constellations revolve around. It also implies that the murder locations are chosen by the location of stars in the sky, and that Mt Diablo might be represented by the L-shape pattern, which means Polaris could potentially be represented somewhere on a map of the Bay Area.
I’ve tried to find an association between pluses and actual stars, but there are potentially many matches, so it’s not easy.
Next, the fact that it’s sort of broken down into 4 quadrants, just like the actual signs of the zodiac, is very interesting. I’ve always thought that maybe the "By Gun, By Knife, By Fire, By Rope" note was also a nod to the quadrants of the zodiac (or else something to do with trigonometry).
{EDIT} for grammar and a few mistakes (I have a massive headache, so it’s hard to keep thoughts straight at the moment).
