Good morning! 😊
I think you “telepathically” anticipated what I was about to share! 😄

One of the things I enjoy the most is digging through photographic archives, especially aerial photogrammetric ones.

As for Italy, the most important archive is the one managed by the Istituto Geografico Militare (IGM). For more recent imagery (roughly from the 1980s onwards), a lot of material is available online for free. For older photographs, however, you can usually request individual frames for a fee of around €20 each. In some cases, it’s even possible to find material from the immediate post-war period, provided the area was surveyed and documented.

For California, I found some interesting aerial photogrammetric images from 1965 and 1966. The quality of the versions available online is not very high, but I believe the original material likely exists somewhere in high resolution, either downloadable or available upon request.

One useful detail is that each frame has its own identification code, which should make it much easier to carry out a more in-depth search within official archives.

1966

1965

@lendor-77 

Hi,

We need the years 69 and 70.  You have shared images of years before Zodiac was active.

Imagery from 69′ and 70′ is available from USGS.  The problem is, they require orthorectification. That is how the HistoricAerials.com website works, a critical part of the service they provide.  They process that publicly available imagery and apply corrections to account for lens distortion, ect.  This process is complex and I encourage your own research into it.

Also, resolution does matter, and what you have shared would definitely not be sufficient for viewing this area. Some of the publicly available imagery of this patch of land from these years is simply too low in resolution, but I a few images may be viable after the complex processing I mentioned, which must be extremely accurate (accounting for tilt/sensor type of the specific camera that took the photography).  Still, thanks for sharing.

Posted by: @coder1987

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@lendor-77 

Hi,

We need the years 69 and 70.  You have shared images of years before Zodiac was active.

Imagery from 69′ and 70′ is available from USGS.  The problem is, they require orthorectification. That is how the HistoricAerials.com website works, a critical part of the service they provide.  They process that publicly available imagery and apply corrections to account for lens distortion, ect.  This process is complex and I encourage your own research into it.

Also, resolution does matter, and what you have shared would definitely not be sufficient for viewing this area. Some of the publicly available imagery of this patch of land from these years is simply too low in resolution, but I a few images may be viable after the complex processing I mentioned, which must be extremely accurate (accounting for tilt/sensor type of the specific camera that took the photography).  Still, thanks for sharing.

Understanding what existed in the years before the Zodiac letter could help identify any changes between 1965 and 1969/70. For example, if this triangle does not appear in 1965 or 1966, it could be a good indicator supporting your theory.

@lendor-77 

Yes, in my paper I mentioned there is no soil disturbance in 64′.  That is because this image was available in high enough resolution, orthorectified by HistoricAerials. 

This proves the triangle did not exist before this time.  It is visible in 82′, clearly.  There is a data gap between 68′ for the market leader in orthorectified aerial imagery.  If they don’t have those years, good luck getting them.  That is their entire business model, is to obtain as many years as they can to resell images after their processing has been applied.

Low resolution imagery won’t be of much use here.

I think precise orthorectification of high resolution imagery from 69′ or 70′ would still be the most valuable contribution to this thread.  The reason I haven’t tried to do it myself, is that I quickly realized it is very complex and a low margin for error to do it correctly.  Accuracy and precision matter, and there are many variables involved.  Still, photography would be evidence rather than opinion, and some might have this specialized skillset and software available to them.

A few other thoughts for this thread as it grows:

While we are on the topic of satellite imagery, it is very likely that the authorities will have access to far more images of this specific area, of sufficient resolution, than I have.  It will likely be pretty easy for them to see what was there in 69′ and 70′.  For random internet users, it will be a more involved process that is likely to go wrong.  Such imagery does exist on USGS, some of which may be of sufficient resolution, but it is distorted due to tilt, and you will not be able to simply type the decoded coordinates lat/lon into a search bar and view this specific area. 

You could eye ball it, but that is not precise.  With low res imagery, even eye balling it won’t work.

Adding a message to @DMW, @shaqmeister, and @Oliv92.

While shaq and DMW requested not to be discussed, if my solution is verified, I would still like to include your past attempts at this cipher, for the historical record, in the third version of the whitepaper.  There is educational value for the reader to learn from the past attempts.  I have spent the past few weeks looking into others that tried and came close, so I could integrate this information into the work.

I think Oliv came the closest, and I still am hoping to discuss this with them.  It actually bothers me their work was overlooked.

And so if @Oliv92 does come back, I am happy to make sure it is realized they came so close.  They deserve that.

People can sit around on the forums telling me the triangle was made for the cows, or whatever, but I am not feeling that explanation personally.  Radar scan is the proper approach.

A few more thoughts, although it is a bit of an echo chamber atm.

As mentioned, I have spent the past few weeks reviewing past attempts, and listening to the opinions about this cipher from legitimate experts.

I guess one concerning thing is a subjective belief that Zodiac did not bury anything, and this cipher was gibberish meant to lead nowhere.  I have no idea how these capable people are able to so easily jump to this conclusion, and it confuses me why some of them have proposed subjective solutions while simultaneously saying he didn’t bury anything.  

Also will mention I was banned from the Zodiac Killer forums for posting off topic in the Black Dahlia rumor thread, which people were far more interested in.  I view that rumor as clickbait meant to sell a Netflix documentary or book series.  If Zodiac was responsible for Dahlia, the authorities would have made this connection already.

I had positive interactions via private messages with some members of the Zodiac community, that were supportive of the work, but I will say there has only been one person that has indicated they think the 100 foot triangle that points north and matches the ciphertext symbol is worth checking out, which is interesting.  They’ve been following the case closely for decades, and so I appreciated  that they found it as interesting as I did.

The reception has generally been, silence, or the triangle is for the cows.  One PhD told me it isn’t a CSP.  It has been a ton of that kind of thing for the past 3 months.  Not fun, but I am still pushing for it.

Just made this video comparing the soil disturbance in ’68 to the next available image in ’82.  They are in the exact same location.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cVq0Q0AS3A

Pretty sure this cipher was solved back in December and it has just been a waiting game since then, which is fine.  People are entitled to their own opinions, mine is that Zodiac made that triangle with a shovel.  That makes the most sense to me, as I don’t understand creating watering holes of this shape and size, and proximity to the same road as the Zodiac’s first crime scene.

One of the first comments in this thread suggested it might be natural in origin.  A 100 foot triangle landmark that points north whose birth is bracketed in the years of Zodiac activity?  That would be a strange thing to occur naturally.  But maybe I am alone in this assessment

Just highlighting this article before bed:  https://zodiackiller.com/2025/the-old-buried-bomb/

I’ve come to learn that only one month before I shared my proposed solution pointing to this location, the forum administrator which banned me after initially sharing the findings had posted his own theory claiming the “Death Machine” was buried in Santa Rosa.  He even used aerial photography to prove his finding.  I will let the reader be the judge on if he found it or not.

He didn’t use the cipher at all.  He just said it is buried at this random location in a city with no known Zodiac activity.

Perhaps this is why he banned me, or at least played some role.  The ban felt petty as it was for an off topic post, perhaps the most minor of infractions possible.  I had otherwise been respectful towards the forum administrator (and this was not returned in kind).

Unlike this guy, I don’t even claim to know what is buried there.  He confidently points here and says “I found it”, writes up the blog article, and hits publish.  It isn’t that easy.

I also don’t like that he is running an unofficial tip line for this case.  Tips should go to the police.  

If this turns out to be correct, I am especially not so happy about all of that, and I guess I just wanted to mention it.  It has been an unfortunately aspect of this saga.  Was hoping he would have been more engaged with what I shared with his community, but he actually didn’t say a single word about it.  

Posted by: @coder1987

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I think the readers can see what’s happening here.

Helpful summary. You were at least listening. 👍