Hidden Treasure Code | National Geographic

the story begins here in the Blue Ridge
Mountains of Virginia where between the
years of 1819 and 1821 mr. Thomas
Jefferson Beale and a group of friends
allegedly buried two loads of treasure
somewhere within a four-mile radius of
the town of Buford’s tavern the quantity
of treasure is enormous two thousand
nine hundred and twenty one pounds of
gold five thousand one hundred pounds of
silver and thirteen thousand dollars
worth of jewels build carefully notes
the secret location and sets about
making sure that no one can find it
he incises his secret in three separate
parts and gives it to the owner of a
local hotel mr. Beale then completely
disappears forever
the first coded message tells the
location of buried gold silver and
jewels the second the quantity of the
treasure and the third a list of names
to whom the treasure rightfully belongs
by the 1860s the ciphers are in the
possession of a mysterious unnamed
author who sets about cracking them he
guesses that it must be a code based on
a printed text but which text he claims
he tries every book he could lay his
hands on before the Declaration of
Independence gives him the clue he’s
looking for he starts by numbering the
words of the Declaration so that when
becomes one in becomes to the three
course four of five human six and so on
then painstakingly finding the words in
the declaration that matched the numbers
of the Beale ciphers he finally cracks
the code unfortunately this method only
deciphers one of the three messages the
cipher telling the quantity of treasure
the other two naming the shareholders
and more importantly the location of the
treasure remain unbroken almost 150
years later