Beale Ciphers Analyses by Ron Gervais
Created: February 25, 2003 - Last Update: March 2023
Freeware, analyses, and links to websites presenting hypotheses of the Beale Ciphers, including a summary of their arguments.
If you are not familiar with this story, you should start by reading The Beale Papers booklet. It is here in text form, and here as a photographic reproduction.
If this is not your first visit, see the list of latest updates.
The full story is right here: The Beale Papers booklet was a dime novel written by John William Sherman, then editor of the Lynchburg Virginian newspaper. In his spare time he wrote plays and dime novels. The owner of the paper also owned Virginian Book and Job Print, the publisher of the booklet. Both businesses were located in the same building. Why Sherman did it, how he created the codes, and why it remained a secret is all detailed in these pages: Page 20 : The Lynchburg fire of 1883 and The Beale Papers personalities genealogy Page 24 : The author of The Beale Papers Page 27 : How Sherman created C1 Page 28 : The smoking gun Page 29 : C3: More typesetting wizardry? Page 33 : The signed confession Page 30 : Epilogue Other important information: Page 7: Main proofs that The Beale Papers is fiction Page 9 : James Beverly Ward's application for copyright Page 23 : The genuine booklet: The Beale Papers Page 10 : The discovery of the source for The Beale Papers version of The Declaration of Independence
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| Preface
An amateur cryptanalyst, retired from the computer and telecom industries, with a background in math, I am intrigued by this story. The objective of this website is to fill a void: a repository of serious efforts to study and analyse the ciphers. Also included are some personal observations, and free text-analysis software. |
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Background information
Page 1 : BEALE CODES -- WERE THEY A HOAX?
Page 2 : Dr. Carl Hammer
Page 3 : THE BEALE CIPHER: A DISSENTING OPINION
Page 4 : The Last Haunting of Edgar Allan Poe
Page 5 : Free text analysis software - A cryptanalysis tool for the Beale enthusiast
Page 6 : An interesting crypto observation on the codes
Page 8 : Notes on the Beale Ciphers
Page 11 : The Hart Papers
Page 12 : Suggestion for attacking C3
Page 13 : C3 and the signatures of the Declaration of Independence
Page 14: Special Acknowledgements
Page 15 : Links between The Beale Papers and The Declaration of Independence
Page 16 : The Freemasons and The Confederate Treasury
Page 17 : TREASURE magazine claims codes solved, treasure found
Page 18 : The Beale Cypher Association
Page 19 : What if... ? A collection of Beale code ideas
Page 21 : Benford's Law - A clue to the Beale ciphers?
Page 22 : Beale as Bamboozlement
Page 25 : Jean Laffite, Privateer, and the Beale treasure
Page 26 : Solutions! We have cipher solutions!
Page 31 : A treasure hunter's discoveries
Page 34 : A persuasive new Beale explanation
Page 36 : The Knights of the Golden Circle
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? : Ron Gervais
