Yeah, I don’t make any claim as to what might be buried there. It is impossible to do so. It is why I reported the coordinates to the authorities, for the scan.
Initially, the vibrant green vegetation of the triangle, surrounded by the dry, brown dirt, made me think of the ammonium nitrate fertilizer he had mentioned relating to his “Death Machine”.
But that would have been rendered inert long ago.
It is not fertilizer that caused the vegetation contrast, but the fact that the triangle is a shallow depression. It collects water when it rains due to this construction, which creates the green triangle effect that we see in dry conditions. Luckily this is documented with satellite imagery evidence in the paper.
It seems the cows like to drink from this 100 ft equilateral triangle that points north, after it rains.
One Zodiac forum member had mentioned he believed the cows created the triangle, rather than the Zodiac, and they were pooping in this mathematical formation.
I have certainly heard some interesting theories!
Just to return to a question I posed earlier, @coder1987, given that you (quite rightly, in my view) reject the idea that the Z32 conveys any notion of angles in radian measure – you choose ‘hours’ – why do you feel the need to have some reference to ‘RADIANS’ in your algorithm?
In your code you have:
PREFIXES = ["", "IN", "AT", "TO", "BY", "GO", "ON"] RAD_UNITS = ["RAD", "RADS", "RADIAN", "RADIANS"] DIST_UNITS = ["", "INCH", "INCHES"]
DIR_UNITS = ["HOUR", "HOURS"] DIST_UNITS = ["INCH", "INCHES"]
X [DIR_UNITS] Y [DIST_UNITS]
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
@shaqmeister I made sure to include a section in the paper that specifically addresses it, but Zodiac misuses the term radians as we discussed. This insight came from the clock hours he explicitly drew on the map. Radial lines from an origin point (Mt. Diablo). Just measure inches along those radial lines.
Zodiac was a map reader with his own coordinate system, not a mathematician.
Also, about the OCLOCK mention. As the code is open source, I encourage others to try to find their own solution that may be even better, and let me know if they find anything interesting near the decoded coordinates, if it results in a new top ranked candidate. You might be able to find a better solution than IN THREE AND THREE EIGHTHS RADIANS TEN, and I certainly welcome you to give it a try.
Inches along the radians. By radians, he means radial lines.
I will concede that 0 is not 12. However, 3, 6, and 9, are in their correct clock hour positions. This is actually a pretty important hint.
I am glad you have taken a look at the code, as you have likely also noticed that the correct map scale of 6.4 inches, and the correct magnetic declination were used in my calculations. If those were off, it wouldn’t land by the triangle. All of hints the Zodiac provided had to be utilized to arrive here.
@shaqmeister I made sure to include a section in the paper that specifically addresses it, but Zodiac misuses the term radians as we discussed. This insight came from the clock hours he explicitly drew on the map. Radial lines from an origin point (Mt. Diablo). Just measure inches along those radial lines.
Exactly, and I think that is my point. Radial measure, no matter what units you use, comprises a radial line from an origin point going out at a defined angle along a defined distance. Along with the location of the origin and the reference direction, this is all you need. Your units of angle are ‘HOURS’ and your units of distance are ‘INCHES’. The word ‘RADIAN’, whatever its intended meaning, therefore is extraneous to any such coordinate specification. It won’t be present in any such solution.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
I will concede that 0 is not 12. However, 3, 6, and 9, are in their correct clock hour positions. This is actually a pretty important hint.
Indeed, I don’t doubt there is a very important hint here. Given that we have 0 and not 12, however, are you confident that the hint is towards the clock face? The figure numbered thus is undoubtedly that chosen to identify ‘The Zodiac’. The Zodiac (celestial) itself, of course, divides into twelve. Could it be argued that, in fact, the use of 0 rather than 12 is made intentially to have us think of something dividing in this manner other than a clock? Should we, then, be looking at our angular units being, perhaps, ‘SIGNS’?
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
@shaqmeister Yeah his confusion about the proper definition and usage of the word radians can be very confusing, for sure.
“The word ‘RADIAN’, whatever its intended meaning, therefore is extraneous to any such coordinate specification. It won’t be present in any such solution.”
I don’t agree with this part, as it is stated too definitively. He uses the word twice in his explicit hint that he provided.
Zodiac misusing the word aligns with other mistakes he has made (many of them), such as his error that had to be manually corrected during the Z340 decryption.
We can simply agree to disagree on this one.
GPR survey of the 100 foot triangular anomaly is a falsifiable ground truth test on the validity of this proposed solution.
If something is buried and it is connected to the Zodiac, it is solved. For now, it remains unconfirmed, and proposed.
@shaqmeister “are you confident that the hint is towards the clock face?”
Well, I will say that during my time, after decryption, I did run some analysis on the clock hour positions, relative to Mt. Diablo, of his crime scenes. All of his crime scenes in Vallejo fall within the 10 o’ clock hour sector.
The Paul Stine murder is less than 1 degree off from exactly 8 o’ clock, relative to Mt. Diablo.
Paul Stine was murdered on the 10th month, just before 10PM. My proposed solution falls exactly on the 10 o’ clock hour vector. That is just the way the math worked out.
The calculations for the clock hour positions of his crime scenes are in the verify.py script in the included code base.
If my tip is checked out, there is more findings that I would like to share, but I am holding them back for now. Not to keep anything interesting hidden, but rather it is a bit speculative currently and I need to perform further analysis before I share it. It is preliminary right now, but there are a few other interesting things about this that I have explored after decryption.
@shaqmeister Yeah his confusion about the proper definition and usage of the word radians can be very confusing, for sure.
“The word ‘RADIAN’, whatever its intended meaning, therefore is extraneous to any such coordinate specification. It won’t be present in any such solution.”
I don’t agree with this part, as it is stated too definitively. He uses the word twice in his explicit hint that he provided.
Then again, he also provides the word “INCHES” in his ‘explicit hint’, yet you don’t find that the same reasoning would strongly indicate its presence in the solution?
Even without any subsequent hint, no-one could have been doubtful of the fact that the code conveys a bearing and a distance in some or other units. What the hint primarily provides, then, is the map distance unit, inches. That’s all we need. He’s already given us, on the Diablo Map, the bearing units. These are – however you wish to interpret them – twelfths of a full circle, or 30 degrees.
We are, then, undoubtedly looking for ‘INCHES’ in our solutions.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
The pattern I’ve observed in this discussion — and I say this respectfully — is that objections tend to be interpretive rather than structural. “I think the Zodiac meant X” or “this feels like cherry-picking” are not falsifications. They are impressions. The paper makes specific, reproducible, quantitative claims. If it is wrong, it should be demonstrably wrong. So let me lay out, explicitly, what would constitute a genuine falsification:
- Show the code is wrong. The solver is public (github.com/dstampher/zodiac-z32-cipher). If the enumeration has a bug — if it skips valid candidates, miscounts survivors, or misidentifies the homophonic lock positions — that is a falsification. Two computer science professors have reviewed it and found no such errors. Anyone can run it.
- Show the lexicon is biased. If there is a plausible English navigational phrase that the 12 templates and 26 fraction variants fail to cover, and that phrase also satisfies all three constraints, that would weaken the claim of exhaustiveness. Identify the phrase.
- Show the map parameters are wrong. The projection uses a scale of 6.4 miles/inch (measured from the Phillips 66 legend) and a magnetic declination of 17°E for 1970 (from NOAA). If either value is materially incorrect, the coordinates shift. Demonstrate the error with a source.
- Show the triangular anomaly has a known mundane origin. If the feature at 38.1111°N, 122.1878°W is a documented irrigation basin, cattle pen, or geological formation, that eliminates the archaeological interpretation. Provide the documentation.
- Produce a competing solution that also satisfies all three constraints AND has independent corroborating evidence. There are 53 other survivors. If one of them converges with a different physical anomaly, a different geometric alignment, and a different body of corroborating evidence, that would constitute a genuine alternative.
None of the objections I’ve seen in this thread attempt any of these. Until one does, the paper’s claims stand unrefuted — not because they are necessarily correct, but because no one has engaged with them on the level at which they were made.
The appropriate next step is not more forum debate. It is ground-penetrating radar.
The pattern I’ve observed in this discussion — and I say this respectfully — is that objections tend to be interpretive rather than structural. “I think the Zodiac meant X” or “this feels like cherry-picking” are not falsifications. They are impressions.
Coming only from the standpoint of considering the result presented, the fact that it does not identify a location on a suitable slope immediately next to a road along which at least one school bus would travel is enough of a falsification for me. That would be like “I asked you to find my phone and you’ve brought me a steak knife.” This, in itself, makes it a No.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
This isn’t a falsification.
Your argument assumes the Z32 plaintext must describe the physical characteristics of the site (a slope, a road, a school bus route). But the cipher is 32 characters long. It encodes coordinates — an angle and a distance. That’s all 32 characters have room for, and that’s all the constraint satisfaction analysis finds. The Zodiac’s letters describe the bus bomb scenario. The cipher tells you where to go on the map. These are two different documents doing two different jobs.
Section 4.6 and the topographic analysis confirm the terrain matches the Zodiac’s own sketch. So even by your own criterion, the site fits — you just didn’t engage with that part of the paper.
Your steak knife analogy would apply if the coordinates landed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They landed 1.15 miles from a Zodiac crime scene, 254 meters from a triangular excavation anomaly that dates to the right time period, on a hillside next to a road. That’s not a steak knife. That’s a phone with a cracked screen, and you’re refusing to pick it up because it’s not in the exact room you expected.
I’ll also gently note: you appear to be the last person still actively arguing against this paper on these forums. The falsification criteria I laid out — buggy code, biased lexicon, wrong map parameters, documented mundane origin for the triangle, competing solution with corroboration — remain unaddressed. If the strongest remaining objection is “I expected the cipher to say something different,” that is not the paper’s problem.
This isn’t a falsification.
Your argument assumes the Z32 plaintext must describe the physical characteristics of the site (a slope, a road, a school bus route). But the cipher is 32 characters long.
No.
We have been given all the information we need as to what we are searching for and the characteristics of the location once identified. The cipher only needs to add the coordinates and, perhaps, a further hint (as the map is poorly detailed and inaccurately scaled.) All we have to do is read and understand the assignment and start limiting from there.
Rejecting any location that doesn’t meet the specification is absolutely falsification.
We’re looking for this …
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
Saying “no” isn’t an argument. We are looking for the plaintext of the cipher, which is coupled with this map.
As you can see on the map, the decoded location falls directly on Lake Herman Road — the very road where the Zodiac committed his first known murder. That’s not an interpretation. It’s visible on the Phillips 66 map the Zodiac himself provided.
You posted a sketch showing hills and a roadside depression. The decoded coordinates sit on a slope beside Lake Herman Road, with a drainage depression visible in both the USGS topographic profile and Google Street View imagery. The terrain matches what the Zodiac drew. The road matches. The bus route matches. The time period matches. The 254-meter offset is the width of a pencil line at the map’s scale.
This isn’t where I chose to look. It’s where the cipher pointed, after 2,044,224 candidate phrases were tested against three independent constraints. 99.9974% were eliminated. The coordinates landed here — on the Zodiac’s own crime scene road, next to a triangular excavation anomaly dating to the right era.
If you believe the site fails the specification, show your work. Name specifically what is missing from the location. Because from where I’m standing, you posted a picture of what we’re looking for, and the paper found it.
Section 4.6 and the topographic analysis confirm the terrain matches the Zodiac’s own sketch. So even by your own criterion, the site fits — you just didn’t engage with that part of the paper.
I could address that now, if you would like?
The features in the sketch provided require not just topographical similarity but also proximity. The bomb at A has to be close enough to hit the bus as it’s driving by, a matter of several feet or a couple meters at most. The sensor at B, which is introduced to avoid the bomb going off under simple cloud obscuration, must be close to A otherwise it would be subject to independent obscuration, which would defeat the purpose of the mechanism. The slope is therefore steep and right by the road, bottom to top, and somewhat higher than a school bus, but not greatly so. The sun must be in the appropriate direction in relation to the hillside otherwise, again, the set-up simply would not work.
“This isn’t right! It’s not even wrong!”—Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958)
