- [Voiceover] Given enough time,
experts can generally crack ciphers.
However, every once in a while, a code comes along
that no one is able to solve, despite decades of study.
Are they hoaxes?
Or are they really just that good?
These are 10 codes that no one can crack.
Number 10 is the Voynich Manuscript.
The Voynich Manuscript first came to light in 1912,
and carbon dating puts its origin in the 15th century.
It contains 250 pages of illustrations
relating primarily to astrology and medicinal plants.
Those are logical contents for a Renaissance medical book.
However, the text is written
in an entirely unknown language,
and most of the plant species
discussed in the Voynich Manuscript
are either extinct or alien in origin.
This is because the plants
depicted in the Voynich Manuscript
have still not been identified to this day.
Number Nine is the Zodiac 340 Cipher.
In 1969, a serial killer calling himself the Zodiac
mailed a series of coded messages
to local papers in the San Francisco area
with a demand that they be printed.
Some of the Zodiac's letters have been solved,
but a cipher with 340 characters remains a mystery.
A handful of people have claimed to have solved it,
but none of their solutions
have been accepted as definitive.
The Zodiac Killer murdered at least seven people,
and attempted to murder two others,
but he has never been identified.
In his communications, he claimed to have murdered 37.
It's very possible that the Zodiac's coded letters
could contain his identity,
or the location of previously undiscovered victims.
However, until the 340 cipher is solved,
we will never know its contents.
Number Eight is the Phaistos Disc.
The Phaistos Disc is approximately 3,500 years old,
and was found on the island of Crete,
home of the ancient Minoan civilization,
who were an ancient Greek civilization
that were wiped out by a massive volcanic eruption.
The Minoans are already a bit of a mystery,
as we can't read their dead language,
which we call Linear A.
But the Phaistos Disc isn't written in Linear A.
It shares some symbols with the languages,
but it also includes numerous other complex symbols
that clearly do not belong in Linear A's alphabet.
Without finding more examples of this writing,
it's highly unlikely that any linguist
will ever be able to break this code,
because the Phaistos Disc is the only known example
of this strange language.
There just isn't enough material to work with,
and it's likely we'll never know the contents
or the purpose of the Phaistos Disc.
Number Seven is the Shugborough Inscription.
The letters O-U-O-S-V-A-V-V
are carved on the Shepherd's Monument on Shugborough Hill
in Great Britain.
Many people who attempt to decode the collection of letters
presume they are an acrostic,
representing the first letter of eight words,
although there's no agreement
on which eight words it might fit.
And the truth is, no one really knows what the inscription
is supposed to be communicating.
What is known, however, is that the inscription
is paired with some mildly disturbing and demonic faces.
Number Six is the D'Agapeyeff Cipher.
When Alexander D'Agapeyeff wrote
an introductory book on cryptography in 1939,
he included what is now known as the D'Agapeyeff cipher
as a practice exercise.
Then, according to him,
D'Agapeyeff forgot how to solve his own cipher,
and it was removed from later printings of his books.
To this day, no one has ever figured out
just what D'Agapeyeff forgot.
Number Five is the Dorabella Cipher.
The Dorabella Cipher was written
by composer Edward Elgar to Dora Penny in 1897.
It's composed entirely of a series of connected semicircles
oriented in different directions.
Dora claims to have never been able to read the code,
although she kept the letter for decades,
and remained friends with Elgar his entire life.
Number Four is the Beale Papers.
In 1885, James B. Ward published a pamphlet
including three cipher texts comprised entirely of numbers.
According to Ward, the ciphers direct readers
to treasure buried by Thomas J. Beale in the 1820s.
After buying the treasure,
Beale supposedly gave a box which contained the ciphers
to a local innkeeper.
It took 23 years for the innkeeper to open the box,
and decades more before he shared it with a friend.
That friend, never named,
tried for 20 years to decipher the text,
but succeeded with only one,
which described the contents of the treasure.
Many suspect the Beale Papers to be a hoax of Ward's.
One has to ask why there needed to be multiple ciphers
for what is really only one message.
It was convenient that the cipher
with the most tantalizing info, the treasure's contents,
just happened to be decoded,
and by an anonymous person, no less.
Number Three is the mystery of the Somerton Man.
In 1948, an unidentified man was found dead
on Somerton Beach just south of Adelaide, Australia.
He had no wallet, no ID, and no labels on his clothes.
He appeared to have gently died in his sleep.
However, after an autopsy, the coroner was convinced
that the man had been poisoned with something undetectable.
A scrap of paper in the man's trouser pocket
bore the words "tamam shud," Persian for "finished."
It had been torn from the final page
of a book of Persian poetry called
the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam."
When the specific book was eventually discovered,
a cipher was found on the rear page.
It consists of five lines of capital letters,
although one line is crossed out.
The cipher has never been cracked.
The man's identity has never been discovered,
and his murder has never been solved.
Number Two is the Chaocipher.
J. F. Byrne invented the Chaocipher in 1918.
The physical encoding mechanism
was meant to be small and easy to use,
yet produce an unbreakable cipher text.
Byrne even offered cash rewards
to anyone who could crack it, and no one did.
Then, a few years ago, Moshe Rubin made contact
with the widow of Byrne's son,
and she allowed him access to his materials.
Apparently, the encoding mechanism really is quite devious.
However, one error in coding would throw off everything
after the initial mistake,
making it difficult to use in the field.
Number One is Rick McCormick's encrypted notes.
In 1999, 41 year old high school dropout Rick McCormick
was found shot to death in a cornfield.
Although he had previously been troubled with the law,
police never discovered anything suggesting
that someone had motive to kill him.
The existence of the ciphers was not made public until 2011,
when the police reached out for help in deciphering them.
They were inundated by tips, but none of them panned out.
It's unknown whether McCormick wrote the notes,
or had them handed to him.
The police hope that
there is information pertinent to the murder
contained within, such as where he had been
or who he was with, but to date,
it remains an unsolved murder mystery.
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