Seems no filler used on this one jarlve.

Can anyone validate that this is a correct transcription of the S5? Both Nick Pelling and glurk have it listed as a 155 symbol cipher while I’ve counted only 144.

Erroneous cipher removed.

Jarve-

You seem to be (mostly) correct. Until now, I never actually enumerated the cipher and just went with the info. that was already out there, and I guess Nick did too. But I count 145 myself. Can you look at your first repeat of symbol 81? I think that is the one mistake.

-glurk

Thanks glurk,

This should be correct:

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10  11  12  13  14  15  16
1   17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31
32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47
32  48  49  35  50  51  52  53  54  55  56  57  58  14  59  60
61  62  63  64  65  51  66  67  68  10  69  70  71  72  73  74
32  75  76  77  78  51  79  80  81  82  83  84  85  14  86  74
87  88  89  90  91  6   92  23  93  41  94  95  96  97  98  99
100 101 102 103 104 105 106 67  107 108 109 70  110 111 112 113
1   114 115 116 117 118 119 53  120 10  121 122 123 124 125 126
100 62  127 90  128 129 130 53  24  41  26  84  71  131 30  132
133 134 127 135 136 137 22  39  68  25  138 139 140 141 15  142
143 144 127 145

I confirm that this is the same encoding as I have too. Quite certain it is correct.

-glurk

– A 2 stroke and 3 stroke letter "K" in one cipher, also happens in the 340.

Can someone clarify where the 2 stoke K in the 340 is because I can’t find it. The backwards K’s seem to be two stroke, or thats what I refer to them as. But also they look like the construction of the translated letter P in the 408 that was encoded like the symbol for pi.

-m

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.

Zodiac slanted his writing, but not his code work–from what I see anyway. Another thing (for me at least) is when we find similarities, it is to be expected if someone is trying to copy another.

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.

Zodiac slanted his writing, but not his code work–from what I see anyway. Another thing (for me at least) is when we find similarities, it is to be expected if someone is trying to copy another.

So you think that Scorpion is a Z copycat? Why not call himself Z? I don’t think Scorpion’s writing looks like Z, but a copycat calling himself scorpion is interesting since the scorpion appeared in that show wearing Z like hood, and using phrase "this is the scorpion speaking"

IMO the letter in 74 was quite clear. Zodiac (his persona) plunged himself into a billowy wave. He killed that persona off with the exorcist letter. Didn’t even announce that he was the zodiac in that exorcist letter though he taunted with victim count and signed it with his cryptic "k" and unknown symbols/deconstructed letters. with that Exorcist letter and the letters following he did not announce himself any longer as the zodiac. In fact he gave us 2 different personas. A "concerned" citizen and a red phantom. IMO he was taunting while simultaneously devising new personas or characters for himself bc the zodiac persona had become possibly too risky for him to carry on with and perhaps he had also become quite bored with that persona.

I find it entirely possible that the zodiac did fantasize himself as a character in a narrative of good vs. evil in which he was the villain. This is a game for him. It is fun. I don’t believe he just stopped. He would either of had to die to stop murdering or be incarcerated – so the best way to successfully continue killing would be to change up persona, location, and MO which I believe zodiac was smart enough to attempt in order for him to carry on his obsessions with murder and gaining attention.

But one thing he can’t escape is that taunting tone. He can’t help but to taunt it seems, even inadvertently.

Depends on how we regard the killing part versus the letter writing/publicity craving part.

For me, the latter is what characterizes him – and what was likely most important to him. He wanted to be notorious, a recognized villain, so to speak.

If that assumption is correct, it doesn’t make sense – to me – that he would go on killing anonymously, or under different (but not notorious at all – certainly not compared to Zodiac) monikers.

Nor does it make much sense that he went on to write letters which completely break with his old pattern, as some sort of regular citizen. Either there’s a part of his pathology (or whatever one wants to call it) which we don’t understand properly at all – or there are reasons to question those letters.

We don’t know precisely why the likes of Red Phantom were considered interesting at the time. Could be anything, and it could be we would question or even dismiss the reasoning behind it, if we knew what it was.

As for Scorpion being a copycat – well, he doesn’t have to explicitly suggest that he’s actually Z in order to emulate him in one way or another. Z is the most notorious serial killer in history who was never caught – apart from JTR. And he was famous for his ciphers. If Scorpion is Z I find it odd, to say the least, that he would choose a moniker which is bound to be associated with THAT movie – a movie Z himself never bothered to say a word about, oddly enough.

morf: I didn’t mean copycat in the typical sense. Just that this person is behaving in the same way and mimicking Zodiac’s stuff, but (imo) very much NOT Zodiac.

Depends on how we regard the killing part versus the letter writing/publicity craving part.

For me, the latter is what characterizes him – and what was likely most important to him. He wanted to be notorious, a recognized villain, so to speak.

If that assumption is correct, it doesn’t make sense – to me – that he would go on killing anonymously, or under different (but not notorious at all – certainly not compared to Zodiac) monikers.

Nor does it make much sense that he went on to write letters which completely break with his old pattern, as some sort of regular citizen. Either there’s a part of his pathology (or whatever one wants to call it) which we don’t understand properly at all – or there are reasons to question those letters.

We don’t know precisely why the likes of Red Phantom were considered interesting at the time. Could be anything, and it could be we would question or even dismiss the reasoning behind it, if we knew what it was.

As for Scorpion being a copycat – well, he doesn’t have to explicitly suggest that he’s actually Z in order to emulate him in one way or another. Z is the most notorious serial killer in history who was never caught – apart from JTR. And he was famous for his ciphers. If Scorpion is Z I find it odd, to say the least, that he would choose a moniker which is bound to be associated with THAT movie – a movie Z himself never bothered to say a word about, oddly enough.

devil’s advocate – he, or the copycat, are being "cute" with the scorpion moniker, given the obvious connection to dirty harry.

I’d like to find clearer copies of these letters, along with the envelopes, and where they were postmarked from.

Somebody on Twitter messaged this:

"The Capt. Marvel film features an actor named Reed Hadley.. He was the radio voice of F. Harman’s Red Ryder.. His initials: "rh"

Obviously, there was a Red Ryder/Harman Ranch connection to Z somehow,so this may be worth looking at

Somebody on Twitter messaged this:

"The Capt. Marvel film features an actor named Reed Hadley.. He was the radio voice of F. Harman’s Red Ryder.. His initials: "rh"

Obviously, there was a Red Ryder/Harman Ranch connection to Z somehow,so this may be worth looking at

I would have to say obviously there was a "Red Mask" connection, but not necessarily a Red Ryder/Harman Ranch connection. The brand…damn close though.