I think this looks like a credible solve, would be good to have input from the cipher experts.

Thanks.
Here is a more friendly explanation of the solution: https://youtu.be/D7M4Suz_PG0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7M4Suz_PG0

At first I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t like the anagramming. You asked, what are the odds of making constructing an anagram that just happens to give a road name so close to Mt. Diablo? That’s not the right way to think about it. That assumes that there is a good reason to believe the location should be near to Mt. Diablo, there’s not.

The far better question is what are the odds that an anagram can be constructed with the remaining letters giving a coordinate that points with precision to the result of the anagram? That is a validating factor.

The issue is that none of us can check this validating factor for ourselves since there does not seem to be a convenient formula online to convert between magnetic and geographic coordinates. I was worried when you did not show the final converted geographic coordinates, since this is indisputably the single most important piece of information to provide. I am worried that these geographic coordinates do not align so very well with Alpine Road. Please provide a link, or the formula, or at the very least the converted coordinates so that we can judge for ourselves the degree to which they do, or do not align with Alpine Road.

If the resulting coordinates do indeed line up, to a high standard of precision, with Alpine Road, then it follows that this is the correct solution.

Sorry for the double post, but it’s really late and I have to say this more concisely before I go to bed.

Anagrams are problematic, because they’re easy to construct, but often cannot be verified.

What we appear to have is an anagram that is verified by the coordinates and coordinates that are verified by the anagram.

If I can take those resulting coordinates and put them in google maps and the little red mark is pointing precisely to Alpine Road, then this is the correct solution. I don’t want to see that red marker half a mile north, or 1.2 miles east of Alpine Road, I don’t want to see that red marker pointing 0.3 miles west of where Alpine Road was originally located 100 years ago. I want to see that marker on Alpine Road, not near it, on it. If it is, congratulations.

Regarding the conversion tool:
I struggled to find a conversion tool, this is the only one that I found : https://www.wdc.rl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wdcc1/coordcnv.pl
You need to type the year, which is 1969
What I don’t like with this conversion tool is that i reduces the precision of the coordinates (only 2 decimals)

The result I get is 38.11 -121.16 which is 3 to 4 miles away from Alpine Road
I have 2 assumptions regarding this gap.

Assumption 1: It’s a matter of precision of the calculation: eitherThe Zodiac (who did not have a GPS in 1969) made an approximate calculation, or the model that I used to convert coordinates is not precise. Altough anagrams are easy, the probability to find a road name in a 3 miles radius around the coordinates is very low.
Assumption 2: The cipher does not point ALPINE ROAD but the portion of Kettleman Lane between ALPINE ROAD and the coordinates (3 miles away) :

EDIT : After some reading on geomagnetic coordinates, I would favor Assumption 1. It seems very difficult to have a precise conversion to geographic coordinates. I’m not sure I got everything well, but it seems that :
– geomagnetic coordinates change over time (as the magnetic field changes also), so we are comparing a static referential (geographic) with a moving referential (geomagnetic), therefore we would need precise historical data
– the magnetic field might not be homogenous on the surface, therefore not only do we need historical data, but also local data

I have called the FBI to share my work, I hope they find it interesting enough to dig further

Zodiac used anadromes in the 340 so it seems plausible he would use anagrams as a layer of encryption.

Looks incredibly believable to me, especially the ALPINE ROAD. It definitely have the sense of correctness, because when you consistently exclude a set of letters and the remaining ones still can be constructed into a proper anagram which is related to the geolocation provided, then it looks very plausible.
At the same time, I believe that Z32 is not an anagram, and that there is a certain permutation rule here.
The idea of converting letter indices into numbers is also worth close attention.

Keep us posted.

I was joking a bit when I said I’d only be satisfied if it was less then meter off, but this isn’t really ideal.

Anagrams are plausible, I have no doubt Zodiac used them. That’s not the problem, the problem is that you can construct an unbelievable number of them, in which case it’s next to impossible to know which anagram solution is the right one.

I’m not so sure it’s unlikely to find a matching road name near Mt. Diablo. You’re thinking about the probability the wrong way. I’ll try to explain, if we start at the beginning and make no assumptions, the location could be virtually anywhere, therefore the chances of anagram matching a street name somewhere is infinitely high, when we do the next step and find our anagram and we find that that location is nearby we suddenly jump to taking that as some kind of confirmation, as if the fact that it’s nearby increases the odd, it doesn’t, it just appears to. Here’s a thought experiment, suppose the anagram matched a location in downtown San Francisco, we’d conclude that it is likely because it’s in San Francisco. Whatever anagram we get can probably be match with something significant in the San Fran region. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I still find it compelling. I don’t dislike the idea that the Zodiac may have been a little imprecise, he would have been using analogue tools, so he might have rounded things a little, but at 3 miles out, it’s not a good match yet. We need to nail down an accurate conversion formula.

Thanks for the valuable feedback. I guess I should be working on an alternate solution.
I’m following a promising path which uses the main principles.
I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have something to share.

Very, very interesting theory Mr Fayzr

By the way I was thinking about the note that zodiac made:
" PS. The Mt Diablo code concerns Radians"radians and # inches along the radians.""

This is a very old observation that I made, it is that the line made by z in the map (set to nort) over the mount diablo is exactly the size of the scale indication of the map in inches.
It would be interesting to have a similar map to work on your theory. I don’t know if it is available.
Unless we can make a virtual map equal and scaled with the original
anyway, congratulations !!
Marcelo

Interesting stuff. More so than anything else I’ve seen.

Thank you Marclean and CZ85, your comments are encouraging me.

Following multiple feedbacks, I have been working on an alternate and more robust solution, while using some of the principles of the 1st attempt.
I now have some possible solution that I wanted to share with you. It is not perfect, but it might be worth looking at, let me know what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK3PGBgmitU

Download PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cXZdNf … sp=sharing

I managed to have the location conversion to geographic coordinates more accurate, and it points on South Lake Tahoe Middle School:

There’s something about this that’s just.. idk, creepier than other results.