Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogelbam here. The story of the Bell's Ciphers is a particularly peculiar mystery, and many people who have researched it have concluded that it's probably just an elaborate nineteenth century hoax. After all, who would bring back a fortune in gold, silver and jewels from New Mexico and bury it somewhere in the rolling hills and
ridges of central Virginia? And why would the person who hid that treasure one Thomas J. Beale write down instructions on how to find it in code on three sheets of paper in trust a box containing those papers to
an innkeeper, and then never return for it. Implausible as all that might seem, the mystery of the Belle Ciphers has fascinated, even obsessed numerous people over the past a hundred thirty six years, that being the length of time since the story initially was published, and a ponderously titled fifty pamphlet called the Beal Papers, containing authentic statements regarding the treasure buried in eighteen nineteen and eighteen twenty one
near Buford's in Bedford County, Virginia, and which has never been discovered. One reason that the mystery still attracts treasure hunters is that if the buried fortune exists by now, it's grown to approximately ninety three million dollars in value, as journalist Buzz McClain calculated in article in Northern Virginia Magazine.
But even if it doesn't exist, the Beall ciphers, two of which remain unsolved, have continued to fascinate both amateur and professional cryptographers, to the point that the National Security Agency actually has compiled a file of articles and reports
on the mystery. From nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety six, there was even an organization, the Beal Cipher Association, composed of people who paid a twenty five dollar annual fee for the privilege of receiving a quarterly newspaper and attending periodical seminars and symposiums on the mystery. Members agreed that if they ever actually found the treasure, they donate ten percent of the proceeds to the association for the article. This episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with
Jenny Kyle. She's the author of the book Introduction to Codes and Cipher's Plus twenty famous unsolved codes, ciphers, and mysterious writings. She said, although some have slammed the door and called it a hoax or merely a fun tale, because the story has some inconsistencies and questionable actions, the door seems never able to be tightly shuted. Those unanswered details seem to always keep the door slightly ajar, no
matter how hard some slam it. It's amazing how the story can't be conclusively determined to be all false or true. Here's the story is laid out in the eight pamphlet, which was written by an anonymous author and published by
a local newspaperman named J. B. Ward. So Supposedly, in eighteen twenty, a Virginian named Robert Morris, who operated a hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia, became acquainted with a long term guest named Thomas J. Beale, whom he described the anonymous author as being about six feet or just under two meters in height, with jet black eyes and hair of the same color worn longer than what was the style at that time. Bale registered simply as being from Virginia.
Where exactly in the state he didn't say, and he never said anything about his family or much of anything about himself at all. Beale left the hotel in the spring of eighteen twenty one with a group of friends and returned the following January, this time only staying for a couple of months. Before departing, he gave Morris a box for safe keeping, saying it contained important and valuable papers, which was an understatement in the letter that he left behind.
Beale explained that he and his companions had been stored west to New Mexico in the late eighteen teens on a hunting expedition, and while there somehow had discovered a gold mine. The men abandoned their recreation and worked the mine,
extracting of fortune in gold and silver. The group wasn't exactly sure what to do with their newfound riches, but eventually they entrusted the horde to Beale, who traveled back east and buried it in a cave near Tavern in Bedford County, which, according to the letter quote, all of us had visited and which was considered a perfectly safe depository. Bale and his friends later returned and then moved the
treasure to a different location. The group also instructed Beale to give some perfectly reliable person instructions on how to find the treasure, so that in the event they died during their adventures, their families could be given the fortune. Bale later sent Morrise a letter from St. Louis instructing him that if Beale didn't return after ten years, Morris had permission to open the box. Beal, perhaps obviously, never came back, and Morris never heard anything else about him,
living or dead. For reasons unexplained, Morris didn't break the lock and open the box until twenty three years later, in eighteen forty five. But it didn't contain a map or simple instructions on how to find the fortune. Instead, it contained sheets of paper covered with a seemingly incomprehensible slew of numbers. The pamphlet's mysterious author figured out that one of the three sheets was in a code based
on the Declaration of Independence and deciphered it. It was a message describing the fortune, which consisted of about twenty nine hundred pounds or hundred kilos of gold, of fifty one pounds or twenty three hundred kilos of silver, and a quantity of jewels that had been obtained in exchange
for silver. The treasure was packed in iron pots with lids and buried in a stone lined vault, but the exact location was on one of the other pages, in a coded message that the anonymous author, conveniently for the mystery wasn't able to solve. Ditto for the third page, which listed the members of the group and gave their
relatives names and addresses. How staff Works also spoke with Alonka donn In, a video game developer, writer, and cryptographer, and her colleague German computer scientist and cryptographer Klaus Schmay, who are co authors of the book Code Breaking a Practical Guide. They've studied the Bell Cipher's mystery in detail, even traveling to Bedford County to scrutinize the area around the former site of Buford's tavern where Beals supposedly buried
the riches. Aside from the basic implausibility of the story, as Dunnan explains, there are plenty of clues that indicate that the Beal Treasure is a hoax. The pamphlet is the only source of the story, and the details in
it are sketchy. In addition, the originals of the letters to Mores from Beal were conveniently lost, so no one except the anonymous author got a chance to examine them, and language experts who have examined the texts of the letters and compared them to the pamphlet have concluded that
all were written by the same person. Additionally, as Shmay notes, there are a few slightly different versions of the Declaration of Independence, and it seems that Beale used a rare or unique version for the first page of his ciphers. The anonymous person who sixty years later solved the cipher would have had to have happened to have exactly the same rare version. But the Bell ciphers still fascinate people interested in cryptography, and the story still prompts amateur treasure
hunters to head to Virginia in hopes striking it. Rich then and said, even after it's been pretty well debunked, there's something in the human psyche, the finding a hidden treasure of something no one else has been able to do, that keeps people searching for it. Today's episode is based on the article does the Beal Cipher's Code of Numbers detail hidden Treasure? On how stuffworks dot com, written by
Patrick J. Tiger. Brain Stuff is a production of I heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot com, and it is produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.