Nice morf! Here is a link to video – Chapter 6 starts around 1:33:25 – around 1:37 is when the Scorpion "speaks" (too bad they didn’t use a more taunting voice..lol).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bItmKww9aWw

Just in time for 46th anniversary of Lake Berryessa

The phrasing Scorpion uses is a bit different…It’s more like "this is the Scorpion,…speaking on behalf of the blah blah blah, blah blah blah….", but, it is there.

Nothing will convince me that letter writer is Zodiac, but that won’t surprise most.

The phrasing Scorpion uses is a bit different…It’s more like "this is the Scorpion,…speaking on behalf of the blah blah blah, blah blah blah….", but, it is there.

Nothing will convince me that letter writer is Zodiac, but that won’t surprise most.

I don’t think the writing looks much like Zodiac’s, but there’s that comic book connection again, and the phrase,and attire, reminds me of Z

Hmmm.

@morf13, cool finds!

Looking at the smaller cipher (named S1) .

– Shares many symbols with those that the Zodiac used. Including the crosshair.
– A mix of symbols and letters, including mirrored/rotated/flipped variations just like with the Zodiac ciphers.
– The loop inside the letter "R" filled in with black. Zodiac did the exact same thing with the letter "P" in the 340.
– A 2 stroke and 3 stroke letter "K" in one cipher, also happens in the 340.

Well I’m sure Cold Case Cameron’s reasoning for Scorpion being zodiac is bc his POI often utilized the term "amigo" when addressing people. It’s a smart catch I’ll give him that.

Those ciphers are pretty exact, but I can’t get over that crossed out line. Seems too messy and careless for a zodiac cipher to leave the crossed out portion. Then again I wouldn’t discount it either.

If zodiac he certainly seems more confident in himself given the tone of the letter. To think he had at this point gotten away with his crimes for decades if zodiac. Maybe he didn’t feel the need to prove himself by having the perfected cipher. I mean by 1991 Zodiac would have been a well known famous case and I’m sure the Zodiac would love to have a resurgence. Interesting to note that at this point ALA was seen as the number one suspect – maybe the Zodiac was attempting to help clear ALA and bring the attention back to himself.

I do agree with Glurk that it is odd the Zodiac would change his persona, but perhaps he was a precedent in that regard. If he did refer to himself as the red phantom as well per the red phantom letter then that would support the idea that he changes his name/persona.

Referencing morf’s post…

The timing fits for The Scorpion character from The Captain Marvel Adventures to have influenced Zodiac’s costume at Lake Berryessa. I’m not saying that it did but…

The Scorpion first appeared in the Republic Pictures serial in 1941, and afterwards in a comic book, The Captain Marvel Adventures No. 2 "Curse of the Scorpion", published the same year by Fawcett comics. Due to copyright issues, the Captain Marvel comics ceased publication in 1953, and were later resurrected by DC Comics in 1972. This means that The Scorpion character was available to the public at the earliest 27 years prior to the murder at Lake Berryessa and at the latest 16 (barring retrospectives of the serials or hand-me-down comics).

From the 1940s to the 1970s, the average age of comic book readers was 8-12. Assuming Z was quasi-normal in this respect, then his age at the time of the murder would be ~24-39, right in line with other estimates.

I’m not a comic book afficianado, so I was surprised to read that there were only 25 comic book stores in North America at the end of the 1960s.

BTW, in the movie, Billy Batson is a radio operator with the Malcolm Expedition and the secret identity of Captain Marvel. And believe it or not, from the 1930s-1950s, Captain Marvel was the most popular superhero character, surpassing even Superman. By issue #19 it had become the comic with the largest circulation.

Another comic featuring The Scorpion:

Edit:

Apparently there was a revival of old serials in the mid-1960s. Maybe Z caught a showing then.

There has been at least one really interesting find about these ciphers. I hate to give any credit to the somewhat insane OPORD forum, and the post seems to no longer exist, but the info here is interesting:

http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2014/05/ … on-ciphers

But wait! In May 2007, user “Teddy” on the OPORD Analytical forum pointed out that if you transpose S5 from a 12-column arrangement to a 16-column layout, shape repeats only ever occur within a single vertical column. In fact, every single 16-way column except one (column #5) includes one or more repeated shapes.

That’s kind of compelling. It just is. I haven’t spent ANY time on it, but it is a very good find.

-glurk

Thanks glurk,

Found this:

Does anyone have these ciphers in symbolic or numeric form?

Has Dave (or anybody else)ever created a cipher tool to try and take these ciphers apart?

What are the chances the cipher starts off, Dear Mr Walsh, or Mr Walsh, Dear John, or John, etc?

We have to indentify first what type of cipher it is. As glurk pointed out in earlier discussion, when treating this cipher as being homophonic substitution then chances are very high that no unique solution can be found (but perhaps a contextual). Meaning that about any message could be made to fit the cipher.

Looking at the picture a few posts up the cipher seems to be following a rule, a symbol will/can only repeat in the same column (if cast in a 16 column wide cipher).

My current hypothesis: the plaintext was encoded in a 16 column wide grid and that there was perhaps a basic form/symbol for every letter. Every time a new letter is encoded a new symbol or alteration of the symbol form is created unless a symbol of the current homophone set (for that letter) is already present on the same column, if so, that symbol is picked instead.

I wonder if it could be related in any way to a similar find in the 340 (but then with bigram repeats).

We have to indentify first what type of cipher it is. As glurk pointed out in earlier discussion, when treating this cipher as being homophonic substitution then chances are very high that no unique solution can be found (but perhaps a contextual). Meaning that about any message could be made to fit the cipher.

Looking at the picture a few posts up the cipher seems to be following a rule, a symbol will/can only repeat in the same column (if cast in a 16 column wide cipher).

My current hypothesis: the plaintext was encoded in a 16 column wide grid and that there was perhaps a basic form/symbol for every letter. Every time a new letter is encoded a new symbol or alteration of the symbol form is created unless a symbol of the current homophone set (for that letter) is already present on the same column, if so, that symbol is picked instead.

I wonder if it could be related in any way to a similar find in the 340 (but then with bigram repeats).

Jarlve, in your 1st post of this thread,you mentioned that you think this cipher was sent by Z. What are the reasons you came to this conclusion?

Jarlve, in your 1st post of this thread,you mentioned that you think this cipher was sent by Z. What are the reasons you came to this conclusion?

More or less it was my first impression (feeling/intuition) of the letters on a visual level. Zodiac slanted most of the stuff he wrote with some letters more slanted than others, the same is happening in the Scorpion letters though it appears to be in another "font". After making this thread I took a closer look at the ciphers and they are (possibly) the best match to the Zodiac ciphers I’ve seen. Sharing many of the symbols with the Zodiac ciphers and the set being of the same type, a mix between letters and shapes/forms that have slight alterations. On first glance some of the symbols used appear to be constructed in a similar fashion, there is both a 2 and 3 stroke "K" symbol in the S1 and there are hints that the circle shaped symbols are started in the same place as with the Zodiac ciphers, namely top right. I’d love to have very high resolution scans to compare the symbol construction with the 340 in detail.

It’s certainly not conclusive in any regard, but I think the idea comes first and then it remains to be seen how well it fits.