Kryptos Unsolved

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Trish and Rob

This sculpture, called Kryptos, is located in the courtyard outside the entrance to the CIA’s New Headquarters Building in Langley, Virginia. It was created by artist Jim Sanborn in 1990. The main piece consists of four curving metal panels with eighteen hundred cutout letters and three question marks that contained four hidden messages.

The world’s top cryptologists went to work on the script, but it took years before the first three messages were deciphered. Below you can see the Kryptos transcript and try to imagine how someone would go about finding hidden messages.  But finally cryptologists at the NSA broke the codes.

You can look here to see how they did it. The first two messages are said to be straight-forward and supposedly can be solved by anyone with a a basic education in cryptology. The third one is more advanced. The explanation of how it was solved to me is mind-boggling. Frankly, I don’t know what they’re talking about. The fourth message is said to be near impossible to solve. To make matters more confusing, there are three words intentionally misspelled in the first three messages and one necessary letter was missing completely from the sculpture so it would remain aesthetically balanced.

Initially, the NSA geeks refused to reveal what the messages said. But eventually the first three messages were revealed. The first is a poetic line written by the sculptor. It reads: “Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.”

We could call that the Space Between. The second message is quite cryptic and who knows what phenomenon it could be about.

“It was totally invisible Hows that possible? They used the Earths magnetic field X
The information was gathered and transmitted undergruund to an unknown location X
Does Langley know about this? They should Its buried out there somewhere X
Who knows the exact location? Only WW This was his last message X
Thirty eight degrees fifty seven minutes six point five seconds north
Seventy seven degrees eight minutes forty four seconds west ID by rows”

The third one is a quote from archaeologist Howard Carter as he describes entering King Tut’s tomb. With a misspelling.

“Slowly, desparatly slowly, the remains of passage debris that encumbered the lower
Part of the doorway was removed. With trembling hands i made a tiny breach in the upper
Lefthand corner and then widening the hole a little i inserted the candle and peered
in. The hot air escaping from the chamber caused the flame to flicker but presently
Details of the room within emerged from the mist x can you see anything q?

Interestingly, the fourth and final message in the puzzle sculpture, which consists of the  97 remaining letters, has yet to be deciphered.  But a few years ago, Sanborn began to wonder if he would die before anyone figured it out. So he provided a clue: BERLIN

Considering that Sanborn was busy working on the sculpture in 1989, the year that the Berlin Wall fell many  at CIA and NSA—as well as amateur cryptologists—went to work on the puzzle with renewed interest. It was a matter of pride for the CIA since  NSA cryptologists had solved the first three.

However, no one came up with a solution, so in 2014,  Sanborn offered another clue, CLOCK. That twist left the Berlin Wall resolution in shambles. But there is a cryptic clock in Berlin, the Mengenlehreuhr—German for Set-Theory Clock. It’s the first public clock in the world that has no numbers or hands and tells the time by means of illuminated, colored beams of light. So possibly the arrangement of lights in that mysterious clock might have something to do with the arrangement of letters in the message. So far no one has figured it out, and there have been new clues for the past five years.

A mysterious postscript: Sanborn has revealed that the sculpture contains a riddle within a riddle, which will be solvable only after the four encrypted passages have been deciphered.

Kryptos Transcript

EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ
YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD
VFPJUDEEHZWETZYVGWHKKQETGFQJNCE
GGWHKK?DQMCPFQZDQMMIAGPFXHQRLG
TIMVMZJANQLVKQEDAGDVFRPJUNGEUNA
QZGZLECGYUXUEENJTBJLBQCRTBJDFHRR
YIZETKZEMVDUFKSJHKFWHKUWQLSZFTI
HHDDDUVH?DWKBFUFPWNTDFIYCUQZERE
EVLDKFEZMOQQJLTTUGSYQPFEUNLAVIDX
FLGGTEZ?FKZBSFDQVGOGIPUFXHHDRKF
FHQNTGPUAECNUVPDJMQCLQUMUNEDFQ
ELZZVRRGKFFVOEEXBDMVPNFQXEZLGRE
DNQFMPNZGLFLPMRJQYALMGNUVPDXVKP
DQUMEBEDMHDAFMJGZNUPLGEWJLLAETG ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD
AKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYP
BRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPT
CYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO
DPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOS
ETOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSA
FOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSAB
GSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABC
HABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCD
IBCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDE
JCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEF
KDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFG
LEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGH
MFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHI

ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIA
CHTNREYULDSLLSLLNOHSNOSMRWXMNE
TPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAE
WMTWNDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOE
TFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEYQHEENCTAYCR
EIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLB
TEEFOASFIOTUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTI
BSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGRIEWFEB
AECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORIT
RKLMLEHAGTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHE
ECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?OBKR
UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO
TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP
VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCA

RNGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
OHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL
PIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLM
QJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMN
RLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQ
SMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQU
TNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUV
UQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVW
VUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWX
WVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZ
XWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZK
YXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKR
ZZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD

If you’re wondering why I (Rob) am writing about this sculpture, it’s because it plays into the novel I’m working on, An expanded version of the novella, SPINNING OUT, that appeared in our new book of short stories, THE OUTLIERS. Kryptos, however, won’t be found in the novella. It’s something new that has crept in the story.

 

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Inktip and Scriptwriting

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Trish and Rob

I’m not sure how I heard about Inktip. But at some point after Hilary Hemingway and I had written a script for my novel, Ghost Key, we registered it with Writers Guild West, proof that the script is yours. I uploaded the script along with a logline, a synopsis, and a resume. The price is reasonable – $60 for four months on the site and every six weeks, you’re able to bring your script to the top of the viewing.

Their site is easy to use. You’re supposed to select the main genre for your script and the choices range from action and adventure, fantasy and horror to science fiction and thrillers and everything in between. There’s a large selection for sub-genres and elements that your script contains – like aliens, the paranormal – and you check all the ones that apply. Thanks to Blake Snyder’s book on script writing, Save the Cat, I played around with the logline and synopsis until I had something that felt right.

Since that first upload of Ghost Key, I’ve written three more scripts based on my novels that are also on the site. Skin Shifters, Black Water, and Shrouded (based on Out of Sight, which won the Edgar.) With these, I used Snyder’s recommended “beats,” which are incredibly helpful – whether you’re writing a script or a novel. I’m just giving you a taste here, the first several beats of 15. Whether you’re writing a script or a novel,  get both books.

Opening image: who is your character? What’s the opening scene of this person’s life?

Theme: What’s your script/book about? What’s the core idea, the core challenge for your character?

Setup: Introduce everyone who exists within your protagonist’s world. What are the protagonist’s flaws? What in the person’s life needs fixing?

Catalyst: Oops. This is where your character’s life and the plot take an unforeseen tone. They can do longer deny the quest (Campbell).

Debate: The plan. How will your protagonist (characters) get to where she/he wants to be in order to experience act 2, where everything is upside down from act 1.

Once you’ve got your perfect script, upload to Inktip and follow their easy, intuitive guidelines, And every day I assure you, you’ll be logging on to see who has viewed your logline. When an industry professional has viewed your synopsis, resume or script, Inktip notifies you by email. The site also has some other perks.

The weekly newsletter that lets you know what producers/directors are looking for enables you to pitch directly to that company. You pay for this service, but again, the fee is reasonable.

What I love most about Inktip is that it removes the middle man – the agent, manager, whoever – who stands between you, the writer and storyteller, and the producer or director who is looking for a good story. In today’s world, that’s a welcome  new paradigm.

@inktip.com

Here’s another script we have out there…SPINNING OUT.

 

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YESTERDAY, THE MOVIE

Posted on July 6, 2019 by Trish and Rob

 

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, drop everything you’re doing and treat yourself to a couple of hours of magic .

It’s one of the best and most uplifting movies I’ve seen in years. It’s also an incredible tribute to the Beatles.  The script is powerful and seems to follow Blake Snyder’s beats in Save the Cat.  The story has heart, is funny, sad, triumphant and perfectly illustrates the idea that as human beings, many paths are open to us.

The young protagonist played by Himesh Patel is superb. The friend/love interest, Lily James, is perfectly cast. The… hey, just go see the movie. If you don’t come out of the theater smiling, then I owe you a drink and I want to know why.

+ + +

There’s also a neat synchronicity in the movie related to the song Eleanor Rigby. In the movie,  Jack Malik, a struggling/failing musician  has an accident during a power outage and becomes the only person who can remember the Beatles. So he starts playing their songs and becomes super popular. However, he keeps getting asked what inspired different songs. Since he didn’t write them, that’s a problem.

To rectify the situation, he takes a trip to Liverpool, England—a trip that baffles his new agent— to become familiar with some of the material in the songs. He stops in the Walton section of Liverpool where John Lennon used to live and visits a graveyard where he finds a headstone that mentions Eleanor Rigby.

Of course the context is that Paul McCartney, who wrote Eleanor Rigby, must’ve wandered through this graveyard, saw the name, and decided to make up a song about someone by that name.

But it turns out that’s not true at all, and the existence of that gravestone in Lennon’s childhood part of town is a synchronicity.

I found that out recently when I listened to a video made a few years ago in which McCartney talks about the origins of his songs. I watched it after seeing Yesterday, and was fascinated when he talked about the origins of Eleanor Rigby. He recalled a childhood memory of seeing older women sitting around gossiping.  He said he enjoyed listening to them, and decided to write a song about one such person. The name Eleanor came to him right away, but he didn’t know what last name to use until he happened to see a barber shop named Rigby one day. “I knew right away that was the name: Eleanor Rigby.

Years later, he heard about the gravestone. Apparently, a fan  had been researching the Beatles, and discovered it. But it was news to him. Recognizing the Twilight Zone-type oddity, he says: “Dee-Dee-Dee-Dee, Dee-Dee, Dee-Dee.”

One other interesting note about the origin of Beatle songs, McCartney says he wrote “Let It Be” after having a vivid dream in which his deceased mother appeared to him. He was having some difficulties in his life, and his mother told him to just “let it be.”

(This 26-minute video would’ve been real helpful for Malik to learn about the origins of many of the songs,  but of course it didn’t exist any longer in his reality!)

 

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Mercury Retro Alert!

Posted on July 5, 2019 by Trish and Rob

 

On July 7, at 7:15 PM EDT, Mercury turns retrograde in Leo and won’t turn direct again until July 31, at 11:58 PM EDT, in Cancer. The last Mercury retro was from March 6-29, in Pisces.

During this period, miscommunication is often rampant, appliances and electronics break down, and it’s wise not to launch any new projects or to sign contracts, since Mercury rules contracts. Don’t submit new project either. Revise, review, and reconsider.

Since Mercury also rules moving parts, it’s smart not to buy a car or electronics during these periods. Travel can be iffy – plans go south quickly, itineraries change without warning. However, you may also return to that spot at some point in the near future. The other thing is that old friends may resurface.

Some years ago, we foolishly set a closing date for the sale of our house, the move, and the closing on our new house during a Mercury retrograde. Big mistake. It turned out to be a comedy of errors all the way around.

The buyer of our home was doing the final walk through and found some details he wanted taken care of before we closed – i.e., screws were missing on several of the hurricane shutters. Rob had to run to Home Depot to buy some new screws and meanwhile, the clock was ticking down to the closing time on the house. Since we were also closing on our new house that day, we had to call both title companies to let them know we were running late. We were afraid that we wouldn’t make the closing on our new place by 5 p.m. and would be homeless for the night with our young daughter and two cats and all our belongings.

During the closing on the house we were selling, things got a bit heated when the buyer and the Realtor who supposedly represented us tried to slip in some provision at the very end of the contract. We refused to sign. The title company intervened and the deal was finally culminated. By now, we had thirty-five minutes to make the closing on our new place. I called them and explained the situation and they stayed open past their usual closing time to accommodate us.

We finally got into the house, but I wouldn’t recommend selling your home or moving during a Mercury retrograde!

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”It’s real!”

Posted on July 3, 2019 by Trish and Rob

Tina Hines had just left her Phoenix home and was about to take a hike with her husband when she collapsed. Her heart stopped and she had to be resuscitated six times en route to the hospital.  She was dead for 27 minutes, and apparently had a near-death experience that made her believe that heaven was real.

When she finally was revived, she couldn’t talk, but gestured for paper and pen. She promptly scrawled the message above that seems to say, “It’s real.”

“It was so real, the colours were so vibrant,” she later said. She also said she saw a glowing figure she thought was Jesus standing near a gate. Many people have undergone near-death experiences. Some have religious-related experiences, such as Tina’s, while others describe a tunnel of light, and deceased family members greeting them.

But if you think these experiences are proof of the existence of life after death, think again, say mainstream scientists studying NDEs. Predictably, they say it’s all in the activity of brain synapses that they say are enhanced near the time of death. They’ve got proof by studying brain activity of rats just before they died.  You can read about it here. It certainly would be interesting to know what the rats are experiencing. Certainly not Jesus. But maybe the big celestial mama rat. Who knows.

More on the science from Dr. Jim’s Borjigin of the University of Michigan, author of the 2013 rat-brain study. “Like ‘fire raging through the brain’, activity can surge through brain areas involved in conscious experience, furnishing all resultant perceptions with realer-than-real feelings and emotions….However, for those instances where experiences may occur around the time of cardiac arrest – or beyond it – these new findings provide further meat to the bones of the idea that the brain drives these fascinating and striking experiences.”

Fortunately, there are also scientists who look beyond brain functions and are interested in studying evidence of life after death, rather than ignoring or denying it, which are common positions of neurologists. These outlier scientists say that experiences such as Tina’s are her interpretation of a real after-life experience. In other words, the afterlife is both real and subjective.

In fact, people who don’t believe in an after-life and have near-death experiences might experience just what they believe. Many years ago, I was present when the actor Cary Grant mentioned that he had a near-death experience. (He mentioned that after talking about his LSD experiences.) I asked him what it was like. Grant made it clear he didn’t believe in an afterlife, and said what he experienced was “nothing.”

That might be an initial experience. But Grant and others like him might eventually consider if there is nothing, why am I experiencing anything? At that point, they might start experiencing ‘something.’

Tina and Brian Hines. Below, Tina’s niece Maggie Johnson got a tattoo of the message.

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SOLAR ECLIPSE JULY 2

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Trish and Rob

The July 2, 2019 solar eclipse is in Cancer at 10 degrees and 37 minutes. These eclipses are like double new moons, and that means double the new opportunities and experiences. Solar eclipses involve outer events, lunar eclipses impact our inner lives, emotions and intuition.

This eclipse is total, but its path across the planet is narrow. Totality will be visible from the southern Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand to the Coquimbo region in Chile and Argentina. Quite often, the path of totality experiences something significant on or around the day of the eclipse. Keep an eye on the news.

There’s a lot of like about this one, which should be positive for all signs. Uranus at 5 degrees Taurus forms a wide, beneficial angle to the eclipse, a sextile, suggesting pleasant surprises that seem to come out of nowhere. The kind of surprise depends on the area of your natal chart where the eclipse occurs and where Uranus falls.

Neptune in Pisces at 18 degrees and 41 minutes forms a wide, but strong trine to the eclipse degree. This suggests that both spiritual and highly creative elements come into play.

Cancer, a cardinal water sign, is the sign of home and family and since this falls so close to the July 4 holiday, your barbecuing and fireworks may start early! The other three cardinal signs – Aries, Libra, and Capricorn – will also be impacted significantly by this eclipse.

Two weeks later, on July 16, there will be a lunar eclipse in Capricorn. We’ll post on that one around July 15.

In the meantime, the July forecasts are uploaded in the blog masthead and includes information specific to each sign about the impact of this eclipse for you. Happy July!

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Dr. Henry Jones’ Grail Diary

Posted on June 29, 2019 by Trish and Rob

 

Thanks to Dale Dassel for putting this incredible Grail Diary together with numerous inserts and sending it to me for my perusal and signature. Take a look.

 

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Global Synchronicities

Posted on June 28, 2019 by Trish and Rob

Here’s the global synchronicity that defines  this administration’s inhumane and blatantly cruel immigration policies:

Through mass events and the synchronicities so often associated with them, the universe speaks to us as a collective – as a people, a community, a nation, as citizens of the same planet. These types of synchronicities certainly illustrate connections to a deeper layer of existence, similar to what quantum physicists speak of when they refer to everything in the universe being intimately connected. As Michael Talbot put it in The Holographic Universe, “Our brains mathematically construct an objective reality by interpreting frequencies that are ultimately projected from a deeper order of existence that is beyond space and time – the brain is a hologram enfolded in a holographic universe.”

A commenter on Facebook recently took issue with a post entitled, Eagles Down!
about the death of a number of eagles, symbol of America. The birds are dying indirectly from bullets that killed other wildlife. To us, the death of large numbers of this protected species that represents America speaks of both of the gun issue and the overall state of American democracy. The FB commenter said:

Gun control? & Because a Liberal is not the President a reflection of our Democracy.? ..wow..not even connected at all…I thought it was the poisoning in the article mentioned below.. Opinions are not Universal Apply to all synchro.s … well personally to you obviously. So yes according to the 1st Shaman Principle. The world is what you think it is. The sky is falling!.. a synchro to Chicken Little.. turns out: just rain.

In an administration largely defined by lies, corruption, violations of the foreign emolument clause, a flagrant disregard for the law, possible obstruction, and an inhumane and cruel immigration policy, the deaths of so many eagles is an obvious global synchronicity.

 

 

 

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Eagles Down!

Posted on June 26, 2019 by Trish and Rob

 

It’s not a good sign to see all those dead eagles in the pic above. Eagles, of course, are the symbol of America and they are dying indirectly from bullets that killed other wildlife.

It’s illegal to shoot bald eagles, but that hasn’t stopped a large scale die-off related to eagles ingesting lead pellets from other animals shot by hunters. You can read about it here and here.

“Raptors are quite willing to be scavengers, so they scavenge,” says Lynn Tompkins, director of the Blue Mountain Rehabilitation and Education Center in Oregon. “They eat things that have been shot. Lead ammunition is the biggest source.”

The Raptor Center in Minnesota receive 120-130 sick or wounded eagles a year and 90% of these eagles have elevated lead in their blood.

It’s not the kind of synchronicity that we like writing about. But, to us, the death of large numbers of this protected species that represents America speaks of both of the gun issue and the overall state of American democracy.

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The Outliers

Posted on June 24, 2019 by Trish and Rob

Available now in paperback, $12.99; Kindle, $4.99

An outlier is something or someone that lies outside of the main group that it’s a part of. In this collection of short stories, the outliers are people who don’t fit into our consensus reality. They’re anomalies, weirdos, individuals whose experiences are vastly different from the rest of us. And yet, they are us in their humanity, their emotions, and in their curiosity that asks, What if?

The stories begin with a novella in which a paranormal investigator looks into a bizarre story about a secret federal law enforcement team that pursues their cases while out-of-body. It ends with the story of a First Lady who hold seances in the White House.

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