{{Short description|Set of three ciphertexts}}
{{For|the geographic code classification system|Beale code}}
{{multiple issues|
{{original research|date=April 2024}}
{{more citations needed|date=April 2024}}
}}
[[File:Beale Papers.gif|thumb|250px|Cover of ''The Beale Papers'']]
The '''Beale ciphers''' are a set of three [[ciphertext]]s, one of which allegedly states the location of a [[buried treasure]] of gold, silver and jewels estimated to be worth over $60 million {{as of|2025|1|lc=y}}. Comprising three ciphertexts, the first (unsolved) text describes the location, the second (solved) ciphertext accounts the content of the treasure, and the third (unsolved) lists the names of the treasure's owners and their [[next of kin]].

The story of the three ciphertexts originates from an 1867 pamphlet called '''''The Beale Papers''''', detailing treasure being buried by a man named Thomas J. Beale in a secret location in [[Bedford County, Virginia]], in about 1820. Beale entrusted a box containing the encrypted messages to a local innkeeper named Robert Morriss and then disappeared, never to be seen again. According to the story, the innkeeper opened the box 23 years later, and then decades after that gave the three encrypted ciphertexts to a friend before he died. The friend then spent the next 20 years of his life trying to decode the messages, and was able to solve only one of them, which gave details of the treasure buried and the general location of the treasure. The unnamed friend then published all three ciphertexts in a pamphlet which was advertised for sale in the 1880s.

Since the publication of the pamphlet, a number of attempts have been made to decode the two remaining ciphertexts and to locate the treasure, but all efforts have resulted in failure.<ref name=nickell/><ref>{{cite news |title=The Beale Treasure Ciphers |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |year=1999 |url=http://www.simonsingh.com/Beale_Treasure_Ciphers.html |access-date=2007-04-14 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061230080207/http://www.simonsingh.com/Beale_Treasure_Ciphers.html |archive-date=2006-12-30 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers |author-first=Elonka |author-last=Dunin |author-link=Elonka Dunin |date=2003-12-08 |url=http://www.elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html |access-date=2007-04-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070423224405/http://www.elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html |archive-date=23 April 2007 |url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers%20Disk3/Watertown%20Times/Watertown%20NY%20Daily%20Timers%201972%20May%20Grayscale.pdf/Watertown%20NY%20Daily%20Timers%201972%20May%20Grayscale%20-%200137.pdf |date=5 May 1972 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |title=Leading cryptanalysts seek to break secret code reported to tell of buried treasure in Virginia |author-last=Burchard |author-first=Hank}}</ref>

There are many arguments that the entire story is a hoax, including the 1980 article "A Dissenting Opinion" by cryptographer [[James Gillogly|Jim Gillogly]], and a 1982 scholarly analysis of ''The Beale Papers'' and their related story by [[Joe Nickell]], using historical records that cast doubt on the existence of Thomas J. Beale. Nickell also presented linguistic evidence demonstrating [[anachronism]]s—words such as "stampeding", for instance, are of later vintage. His analysis of the writing style showed that Beale was almost certainly James B. Ward, whose 1885 pamphlet brought the Beale ciphers to light. Nickell argues that the tale is thus a work of fiction, specifically a "secret vault" allegory of the [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]]; James B. Ward was a Mason himself.<ref name="nickell">{{cite journal |last=Nickell |first=Joe |title=Discovered: The secret of Beale's treasure |journal=The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography |date=July 1982 |volume=90 |issue=3 |pages=310–324 |jstor=4248566}}</ref>

==Background==
{{more citations needed section|date=April 2024}}
A pamphlet published in 1885, entitled ''The Beale Papers'', is the source of this story. The treasure was said to have been obtained by an American named Thomas J. Beale in the early 1800s, from a mine to the north of Nuevo México (New Mexico), at that time in the Spanish province of [[Santa Fe de Nuevo México]] (an area that today would most likely be part of [[Colorado]]). According to the pamphlet, Beale was the leader of a group of 30 gentleman adventurers from [[Virginia]] who stumbled upon the rich mine of gold and silver while [[Bison hunting|hunting buffalo]]. They spent 18 months mining thousands of pounds of precious metals, which they then charged Beale with transporting to Virginia and burying in a secure location. After Beale made multiple trips to stock the hiding place, he then encrypted three messages: the location, a description of the treasure, and the names of its owners and their relatives. The treasure location is traditionally linked to [[Montvale, Virginia|Montvale]] in [[Bedford County, Virginia]].{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

Beale placed the ciphertexts and some other papers in an iron box. In 1822, he entrusted the box to a [[Lynchburg, Virginia|Lynchburg]] innkeeper named Robert Morriss. Beale told Morriss not to open the box unless he or one of his men failed to return from their journey within 10 years.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} Sending a letter from St. Louis a few months later, Beale promised Morriss that a friend in St. Louis would mail the [[key (cryptography)|key]] to the cryptograms; however, it never arrived. It was not until 1845 that Morriss opened the box. Inside, he found two plaintext letters from Beale, and several pages of ciphertext separated into papers "1", "2", and "3". Morriss had no luck in solving the ciphers, and decades later left the box and its contents to an unnamed friend.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The friend, then using an edition of the [[United States Declaration of Independence]] as the key for a modified [[book cipher]], successfully deciphered the second ciphertext which gave a description of the [[buried treasure]].{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} Unable to solve the other two ciphertexts, the friend ultimately made the letters and ciphertexts public in a pamphlet entitled ''The Beale Papers'', which was published by yet another friend, James B. Ward, in 1885.

Ward is thus not "the friend". Ward himself is almost untraceable in local records, except that a man with that name owned the home in which a Sarah Morriss, identified as the spouse of Robert Morriss, died at age 77, in 1863.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=Lynchburg Virginian |date=21 May 1865 |title=Sarah Morriss |department=obituary}}</ref> He also is recorded as becoming a [[Master Mason]] in 1863.<ref name=nickell />

The images below, transcribed from the pamphlet, show the original line-breaks for easy comparison. In the second cryptogram, the original cipher errors are highlighted in red.

<gallery class="skin-invert-image">
Beale 1.svg|Beale's first cryptogram
Beale 2.svg|Beale's second cryptogram (the deciphered one)
Beale 3.svg|Beale's third cryptogram.
</gallery>

==Deciphered message==
{{original research|section|date=April 2024}}
The [[plaintext]] of paper number 2 reads:

<blockquote>I have deposited in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford's, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles, belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number three, herewith:

The first deposit consisted of ten hundred and fourteen pounds of gold, and thirty-eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited Nov. eighteen nineteen. The second was made Dec. eighteen twenty-one, and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold, and twelve hundred and eighty-eight of silver; also jewels, obtained in St.&nbsp;Louis in exchange to save transportation, and valued at thirteen thousand dollars.

The above is securely packed in clay pots, with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone, and the vessels rest on solid stone, and are covered with others. Paper number one describes the exact locality of the vault, so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.</blockquote>

The second cipher can be decrypted fairly easily using a modified copy of the [[United States Declaration of Independence]], but some editing is necessary.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} To decrypt it, one finds the word corresponding to the number (e.g., the first number is 115, and the 115th word in the Declaration of Independence is "instituted"), and takes the first letter of that word (in the case of the example, "I").

Beale used a version of the United States Declaration of Independence slightly different from the original, and made mistakes in numbering it.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} To extract the hidden message, the following five modifications must be applied to the original text:
* after word 154 ("institute") and before word 157 ("laying"), one word must be added. The pamphlet handles this by inserting "a" before "new government".<ref name="Beale Papers page 17">{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Beale_Papers.djvu/17|title=The Beale Papers, page 17|website=wikisource.org|access-date=22 April 2021}}</ref>
* after word 240 ("invariably") and before word 246 ("design"), one word must be removed (probably "a"). The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 240 and 250.<ref name="Beale Papers page 17"/>
* after word 466 ("houses") and before word 495 ("be"), ten words must be removed (probably "He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions"). The pamphlet has two labels for 480.<ref name="Beale Papers page 18">{{Cite web|url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Beale_Papers.djvu/18|title=The Beale Papers, page 18|website=wikisource.org|access-date=22 April 2021}}</ref>
* after word 630 ("eat") and before word 654 ("to"), one word must be removed (probably "the"). The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 630 and 640.<ref name="Beale Papers page 18"/>
* after word 677 ("foreign") and before word 819 ("valuable"), one word must be removed (probably "their"). The pamphlet's numbering has eleven words between the labels for 670 and 680.<ref name="Beale Papers page 18"/>

Furthermore:
* Words 78 and 79 ("self-evident"), shown hyphenated, are counted as two words.
* The first letter of word 95 ("inalienable") is always used as a "u" ("unalienable").
* Words 509 and 510 of the modified text ("mean time") are counted as two words, despite being shown as one word.
* The first letter of the 811th word of the modified text ("fundamentally") is always used by Beale as a "y".
* The first letter of the 1005th word of the modified text ("have") is always used by Beale as an "x".

Finally, in the decoded text there are six errors, probably due to wrong transcription of the original paper:{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}
* ... 84, 57, 540, 217, 115, 71, 29, 84 (should be 85), 63, ... ''consistcd'' ("consisted").
* ... 53 (should be 54), 20, 125, 371, 38, 36, 10, 52, ... ''rhousand'' ("thousand").
* ... 2, 108 (should be 10, 8), 220, 106, 353, ... ''itron'' ("in iron").
* ... 440 (should be 40), 370, 643, 466, ... ''uith'' ("with").
* ... 14, 73, 84 (should be 85), ... ''thc'' ("the").
* ... 807, 81, 96 (should be 95), 405, 41, ... ''varlt'' ("vault").

Additional Declaration differences affect paper number 1: word 210 of the modified text ("more") is shown as "now"; words 919 and 920 of the modified text ("fellow citizens") are shown hyphenated (also affects paper number 3); two extra words ("made" and "the") are shown in modified text positions 1058 and 1188; a word is removed ("of") after modified text position 1125. The other slight changes probably have no consequences.

Many versions of the Declaration of Independence have been printed, with various adjustments to paragraphing, word inclusion, word changing, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}}

The lack of clear images of the original ciphers, combined with the large quantity of numerals, has led to numerals being misprinted or omitted in many sources.

''The Beale Papers'' text, on pages 20 to 21, gives an alleged translation of the second ciphertext, but it has nine differences from the actual one. The differences are shown here as {alleged decipherment | actual decipherment}:
<blockquote>I have deposited, in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford's, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles, belonging jointly to the parties whose names are given in number {“3,” | three} herewith:
The first deposit consisted of {one thousand | ten hundred} and fourteen pounds of gold, and {three thousand | thirty-} eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited {November, 1819 | Nov. eighteen nineteen}. The second was made {December, 1821 | Dec. eighteen twenty-one}, and consisted of nineteen hundred and seven pounds of gold, and twelve hundred and eighty-eight {pounds | } of silver; also jewels, obtained in St. Louis in exchange {for silver | } to save transportation, and valued at {$13,000 | thirteen thousand dollars}.
The above is securely packed in iron pots, with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone, and the vessels rest on solid stone, and are covered with others. Paper number {“1” | one} describes the exact locality of the vault, so that no difficulty will be had in finding it.</blockquote>

===Value===
The treasure's total weight is about three [[ton]]s, as described in inventory of the second cryptogram. This includes approximately 35,052&nbsp;[[troy ounce]]s of gold, 61,200&nbsp;troy ounces of silver (worth about {{US$|96.3}} million and {{US$|1.8}} million, respectively, in October 2024)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kitco.com/gold.londonfix.html|title=Historical London Fix Prices Current Year&#124; Kitco|website=www.kitco.com|access-date=May 13, 2020}}</ref> and jewels worth around {{US$|220,000}} in 2017.

==Authenticity==
There has been considerable debate over whether the remaining two ciphertexts are real or [[hoax]]es. An early researcher, Carl Hammer of [[UNIVAC|Sperry UNIVAC]],<ref>{{cite news |author-last=Burchard |author-first=Hank |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=7 September 1979 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19790907&id=RP0jAAAAIBAJ&pg=6966,3100111 |title=Motley group gathers to solve ciphers to treasure}}</ref> used [[supercomputer]]s of the late 1960s to analyze the ciphers and found that while the ciphers were poorly encoded, the two undeciphered ones did not show the patterns one would expect of randomly chosen numbers and probably encoded an intelligible text.<ref name="Biggest Secrets">{{cite book |title=Biggest Secrets |last=Poundstone |first=William |author-link=William Poundstone |year=1993 |publisher=[[William Morrow and Company]] |location=New York, NY |isbn=0-688-11529-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/biggestsecretsmo00poun_0/page/127 127] |url=https://archive.org/details/biggestsecretsmo00poun_0/page/127 }}</ref> Other questions remain about the authenticity of the pamphlet's account, and its background story has several implausibilities, being based almost entirely on [[circumstantial evidence]] and [[hearsay]].

Items that raise doubt about the ciphers include:
* The second message, describing the treasure, has been deciphered, but the others have not, suggesting a deliberate ploy to encourage sustained interest in deciphering the other two texts, which would prove to be impossible. The second message even cross-references the first one, despite Beale supposedly wanting to send Morris a key to all of the three ciphers altogether.<ref name="Biggest Secrets" /> Also, the original sale price of the pamphlet, 50&nbsp;cents, was a high price for the time {{USDCY|.50|1885}}, and the author wrote that he expected "a wide circulation".
* If the modified Declaration of Independence is used as a key for the first cipher, it yields alphabetical sequences such as {{not a typo|''abcdefghiijklmmnohpp''}}<ref name=Singh>{{cite book |last=Singh |first=Simon |title=The Code Book |year=2000 |publisher=Fourth Estate |page=97 |isbn=1-85702-889-9}}</ref> and others. According to the [[American Cryptogram Association]], the chances of such sequences appearing multiple times in the one ciphertext by chance are less than one in a hundred million million.<ref name=Singh/> Although it is conceivable that the first cipher was intended as a [[proof of concept]] letting decoders know that they were "on the right track" for one or more of the subsequent ciphers, such a proof would be redundant, as the success of the key with respect to the second document would provide the same evidence on its own.
* Later [[cryptography|cryptographers]] have claimed that the two remaining ciphertexts have statistical characteristics which suggest that they are not actually encryptions of an English plaintext.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://members.fortunecity.com/jpeschel/gillog3.htm |title=The Beale Cipher: A Dissenting Opinion |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060126085231/http://members.fortunecity.com/jpeschel/gillog3.htm |archive-date=26 January 2006 |author-first=James |author-last=Gillogly |author-link=James Gillogly |work=[[Cryptologia]] |date=April 1980}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.myoutbox.net/blove.htm |title=The Beale Ciphers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420134206/http://www.myoutbox.net/blove.htm |date=20 April 2006|archive-date=20 April 2006 |author-first=George |author-last=Love}}</ref> Alphabetical sequences such as {{not a typo|''abcdefghiijklmmnohpp''}} are both non-random, as indicated by Carl Hammer,<ref name="Biggest Secrets"/> and not words in English.
* Others have also questioned why Beale would have bothered writing three different ciphertexts (with at least two keys, if not ciphers) for what is essentially a single message in the first place,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.angelfire.com/pro/bealeciphers/Graphics/Bamboozlement1.pdf |title=A basic probe of the Beale Cipher as bamboozlement |author-first=Louis |author-last=Kruh |work=[[Cryptologia]] |date=October 1982 }}</ref> particularly if he wanted to ensure that the next of kin received their share (as it is, with the treasure described, there is no incentive to decode the third cipher).<ref name="Biggest Secrets" />
* [[Stylometry|Analysis of the language]] used by the author of the pamphlet (the uses of punctuation, relative clauses, infinitives, conjunctives, and so on) has detected significant correlations between it and the writing style of Beale's letters, including the plaintext of the second cipher, suggesting that they may have been written by the same person.<ref name=nickell />
* The letters also contain several English words, such as "improvise", not otherwise recorded before the 1820s in English<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lEQ5AQAAMAAJ&q=improvise&pg=PA509 |title=Improvise |magazine=The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal |year=1824 |volume=12}}</ref> but used from French from 1786 in the New Orleans area,<ref>{{cite OEtymD|improvisation}}</ref> and ''stampede'' (Spanish) "an uproar".<ref>{{cite OEtymD|stampede}}</ref> Beale's "stampeding" apparently first appears in print in the English language in 1832<ref>{{cite book |first = Mary Elizabeth Wilson |last = Sherwood|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8REAQAAMAAJ&q=stampeding&pg=PA107 |page = 107 |title=Etiquette, the American Code of Manners|publisher = G. Routledge & Sons|date = 1834}}</ref> but was used from 1786 to 1823 in New Orleans in French and Spanish.<ref name=nickell />
* The third cipher appears to be too short to list 30 individuals' next of kin.<ref name="Biggest Secrets" />
* Robert Morriss, as represented in the pamphlet, says he was running the Washington Hotel in 1820, yet contemporary records show he did not start in that position until at least 1823.<ref name="Poundstone 127–28">Poundstone, 127–128.</ref>
* A common [[literary device]] of fiction is the story of finding a [[treasure map]] or other information that will, purportedly, lead to [[buried treasure]], from Edgar Allan Poe's "[[The Gold-Bug]]" to Robert Louis Stevenson's ''[[Treasure Island]]'' to Milton Caniff's ''[[Terry and the Pirates]]''.

There have been many attempts to break the remaining cipher(s). Most attempts have tried other historical texts as keys (e.g., [[Magna Carta]], various books of the [[Bible]], the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]], and the Virginia Royal Charter), assuming the ciphertexts were produced with some book cipher, but none have been recognized as successful to date. Breaking the cipher(s) may depend on random chance (as, for instance, stumbling upon a book key if the two remaining ciphertexts are actually book ciphers); so far, even the most skilled [[cryptanalysis|cryptanalysts]] who have attempted them have been defeated. Of course, Beale could have used a document that he had written himself for either or both of the remaining keys or either a document of his own or randomly selected characters for the third source, in either case rendering ''any'' further attempts to crack the codes useless.

=== Existence of Thomas J. Beale ===
A survey of records in the [[1810 United States census]] shows two persons named Thomas Beale, one in Connecticut and one in New Hampshire.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7613/?name=Thomas_Beale&name_x=s_1 |title=All 1810 United States Federal Census results for Thomas Beale |website=[[Ancestry.com]] |url-access=subscription |accessdate=August 1, 2025}}</ref> However, the population schedules from this census are missing for seven states, one territory, the District of Columbia, and 18 of the counties of Virginia.<ref name=troutt/> The [[1820 United States census]] has three persons named Thomas Beale, one each in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia—the one living in Virginia is listed with "K" as a middle initial.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7734/?name=Thomas_Beale&name_x=s_1 |title=All 1820 United States Federal Census results for Thomas Beale |website=[[Ancestry.com]] |url-access=subscription |accessdate=August 1, 2025}}</ref> However, the population schedules from this census are missing for three states and one territory.<ref name=troutt>{{cite web |url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~troutt/~troutt/Miscellaneous/MissingCensus.htm |title=Missing Federal Census Schedules|first = Linda Troutt |last = Murphy|date = 25 July 2006|website = Traut / Trout(t) Family|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090113022457/http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~troutt/~troutt/Miscellaneous/MissingCensus.htm |archive-date = 13 January 2009}}</ref>

Before 1850, the U.S. Census recorded the names of only the [[Head of household|heads of households]]; others in the household were only counted.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=National Archives and Records Administration |url=https://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1790-1840.html |title=Clues in Census Records, 1790–1840 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060719221317/http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/census/1790-1840.html |archive-date=19 July 2006 }}</ref> Beale, if he existed, may have been living in someone else's household. In addition, a man named "Thomas Beall" appears in the St. Louis postmaster's list of 1820; according to ''The Beale Papers'', Beale sent a letter from St. Louis in 1822.<ref name=Singh /> The 1820 census has 11 persons named Thomas Beall; seven in Maryland and one each in Georgia, Ohio, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7734/?name=Thomas_Beall&name_x=s_1 |title=All 1820 United States Federal Census results for Thomas Beall |website=[[Ancestry.com]] |url-access=subscription |accessdate=August 2, 2025}}</ref>

===Poe's alleged authorship===
Researcher Robert Ward and others have suggested [[Edgar Allan Poe]] as the pamphlet's real author.<ref name=McIntee111>McIntee, David. ''Fortune and Glory: A Treasure Hunter’s Handbook''. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 111. {{ISBN|978-1-4728-0784-7}}</ref> Poe had an interest in cryptography and placed notices of his deciphering abilities in the [[Philadelphia]] paper ''Alexander's Weekly (Express) Messenger'' that invited submissions of ciphers for him to solve.<ref>{{cite book |last=Silverman |first=Kenneth |year=1991 |author-link=Kenneth Silverman |title=Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance |publisher=Harper Perennial |location=New York |edition=Paperback |isbn=978-0-06-092331-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/edgarpoe00kenn/page/152 152] |url=https://archive.org/details/edgarpoe00kenn/page/152 }}</ref> In 1843, he used a cryptogram as a [[plot device]] in his short story "[[The Gold-Bug]]". From 1820, he was also living in [[Richmond, Virginia]], at the time of Beale's alleged encounters with Morriss. In February 1826, Poe enrolled as a student at the [[University of Virginia]] in [[Charlottesville, Virginia|Charlottesville]],<ref name="Poundstone 126">Poundstone, 126.</ref> but with mounting debts, he left for [[Boston]] in April 1827.<ref>{{cite book |last=Meyers |first=Jeffrey |year=1992 |title=Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy |publisher=Cooper Square Press |location=New York |edition=Paperback |isbn=978-0-8154-1038-6|page=32 }}</ref> One theory is that he left the Beale papers with his sister [[Rosalie Mackenzie Poe]], who gave out pieces of it along with other memorabilia related to her brother until her death in 1874.<ref name=McIntee111/>

However, research and facts debunk Poe's authorship. He died in 1849, well before ''The Beale Papers'' were first published in 1885. ''The Beale Papers'' also mention the [[American Civil War]], which started in 1861. [[William Poundstone]], an American author and skeptic, had [[stylometry|stylometric analysis]] performed on the pamphlet for his 1983 book ''Biggest Secrets'', and found that Poe's [[prose]] is significantly different from the [[Syntax|grammatical structure]] used by the author who wrote ''The Beale Papers''.<ref name="Poundstone 133">Poundstone, 133.</ref>

=== Statistical analysis ===
Another method to check the validity of the ciphers is to investigate some statistical aspects in different [[Radix|number base]]s. For example, one can investigate the frequency of the last digit in each number in the ciphers. These frequencies are not uniformly distributed—some digits are more common than others. This is true for all three ciphers.<ref name=wase>{{Cite book |last=Wase |first=Viktor |title=Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2020 |chapter=The Role of Base 10 in the Beale Papers |date=2020 |volume=171 |pages=153–157 |chapter-url=https://ep.liu.se/ecp/171/019/ecp2020_171_019.pdf |doi=10.3384/ecp2020171019 |isbn=978-91-7929-827-2 |s2cid=219488310 }}</ref>

However, if one considers a base that is [[relatively prime]] to 10, then the last digits of the numbers in the unsolved ciphers turn uniform – each digit is equally common. The frequency of the solved cipher stays non-uniform. This indicates a complex behaviour in the solved cipher as one might expect from an encoded message, while the unsolved ciphers have a simpler behaviour.<ref name=wase/>

Humans have limited abilities when it comes to [[random number generation]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wagenaar|first=W. A.|date=1972|title=Generation of random sequences by human subject: A critical survey of literature|url=http://wexler.free.fr/library/files/wagenaar%20(1972)%20generation%20of%20random%20sequences%20by%20human%20subjects.%20a%20critical%20survey%20of%20literature.pdf|journal=Psychological Bulletin|volume=77|pages=65–72|doi=10.1037/h0032060 }}</ref> One explanation for the difference between base 10 and other bases is that the unsolved ciphers' numbers were manufactured by a human in base 10, which would strongly suggest that the unsolved ciphers are fraudulent.<ref name=wase/>
[[File:Beale last dig.png|center|frame|Statistical analysis of the last digits in the Beale ciphers. The solved cipher (2) differs significantly from the uniform distribution in all bases, but this is only true for the unsolved ones (1 and 3) in base 10. This strongly suggests that the unsolved ciphers are fraudulent.<ref name=wase/> The analysis is based on a permutation [[Kolmogorov–Smirnov test]].<ref name=wase/>]]

==Search attempts==
Despite the unproven veracity of ''The Beale Papers'', treasure hunters have not been deterred from trying to find the vault. The "information" that there is buried treasure in Bedford County has stimulated many expeditions with shovels, and other implements of discovery, looking for likely spots.{{citation needed|date=April 2024}} For more than a century, people have been arrested for trespassing and unauthorized digging; some of them in groups, as in the case of people from Pennsylvania in the 1990s.<ref name=Singh />

Several digs were completed at the top of Porter's Mountain, one in the late 1980s with the land owner's permission as long as any treasure found was split 50/50. However, the treasure hunters found only Civil War artifacts. As the value of these artifacts paid for time and equipment rental, the expedition broke even.<ref name=Singh />

==Media attention==
The story has been the subject of multiple television documentaries, such as the UK's ''Mysteries'' series, a segment in the seventh special of ''[[Unsolved Mysteries]]''; and the 2011 ''Declaration of Independence'' episode of the History Channel TV show ''Brad Meltzer's Decoded''. There are also several books, and considerable Internet activity. The Beale Cipher Association published a newsletter from 1979 through 1996.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.angelfire.com/pro/bealeciphers/Page18.htm |title=The Beale Cypher Association |via=[[Angelfire]] |accessdate=August 1, 2025}}</ref> [[Simon Singh]]'s 1999 book ''[[The Code Book]]'' discusses the Beale cipher mystery in one of its chapters.<ref name=Singh/>

In 2010, an award-winning animated short film was made concerning the ciphers called ''The Thomas Beale Cipher''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thomasbealecipher.com/index.htm|title=The Thomas Beale Cipher: A Short Film by Andrew Allen|website=www.thomasbealecipher.com|access-date=May 13, 2020}}</ref> In 2014, the [[National Geographic (American TV channel)|National Geographic]] TV show ''The Numbers Game'' referred to the Beale ciphers as one of the strongest passwords ever created.{{citation needed|date=August 2025}} In 2015, the [[UKTV]] series ''Myth Hunters'' (also known as ''Raiders of the Lost Past'') devoted one of its season three episodes to the topic.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}} A February 2015 episode of the  series ''[[Expedition Unknown]]'' saw host [[Josh Gates]] visit Bedford to investigate the Beale ciphers and search for the treasure.<ref>''Expedition Unknown'' season 1, episode 8, "Code to Gold"</ref> In 2024, Dave Howard from ''[[Popular Mechanics]]'' wrote an article with interviews from a number of researchers who had been working to break the Beale ciphers.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Two Centuries. Three Puzzling Cryptograms. One Ungodly Fortune. |url=https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/a62954493/treasure-hunt-beale-ciphers/ |access-date=2024-11-23 |website=Popular Mechanics |date=22 November 2024 |language=en-US}}</ref>

In the film, ''[[The Imitation Game]]'', [[John Cairncross]] uses a Beale cipher to encode messages he sends to the [[Soviet Union]] about [[Enigma machine|Enigma]] intercepts at [[Bletchley Park]]. [[Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander|Hugh Alexander]] finds that the key is based on [[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 7:7: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

==See also==
{{Portal|Virginia}}
* [[List of ciphertexts]]
* [[Rennes-le-Château]] – a similar case where encrypted documents, discovered in a church in France, allegedly refer to a hidden treasure
* [[Oak Island mystery]] – an alleged undiscovered buried treasure on Oak Island in Nova Scotia
* [[William Kidd|Captain Kidd]] – a 17th-century pirate who is supposed to have left behind clues to buried treasure
* [[Treasure of Lima]] – another legendary lost treasure
* [[Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine]] – legendary lost treasure

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Viemeister, Peter. ''The Beale Treasure: New History of a Mystery'', 1997. Published by Hamilton's, Bedford, Virginia
* [[Gillogly, James J.]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20060126085231/http://members.fortunecity.com/jpeschel/gillog3.htm "The Beale Cipher: A Dissenting Opinion April 1980] ''Cryptologia'', Volume 4, Number 2
* Easterling, E.J. '' In Search Of A Golden Vault: The Beale Treasure Mystery ''( CD/AUDIO BOOK 70 min. ) copyright 1995/ Revised In 2011 . Avenel Publishing 1122 Easter Lane Blue Ridge, VA 24064.

==External links==
{{wikisource|The Beale Papers}}
* {{cite web |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Beale_Papers.djvu/1 |title=The Beale Papers on Wikisource}}, as text in separate pages, shown alongside images of the original.
<!-- * {{cite web|url=http://www.unmuseum.org/bealepap.htm|title=Another copy of the Beale Papers}} easily captured as text for offline use. A transcription, not an image. A copy of the key text, numbered (but not matching the working numbering printed in the original Beale Papers). Also, as text, the numbers in the unbroken ciphertexts.  [Has 2 errors in B2 (108->10,8 and 440->40), and 1 in B3 (154->151)] -->
* {{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1bf8vayUtk&list=PLB2v76AF3x0oyFEV-oOQ0eX01_QDPhHQ3  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211212/w1bf8vayUtk| archive-date=2021-12-12 |url-status=live|title=The Beale Papers|website=[[YouTube]] |date=29 March 2016 }}{{cbignore}} have been made in video format with audio for the whole pamphlet.
* {{cite web |url=http://www.criticalenquiry.org/beale/beale.shtml |title=The legendary Beale treasure}}
* {{cite web |url=http://www.bealetreasure.net |title=The making of "Mysteries"}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/540277/beale-ciphers-buried-treasure |title=The Quest to Break America's Most Mysterious Code&nbsp;– And Find $60 Million in Buried Treasure|date=4 June 2018 }}
* {{IMDb title|qid=Q123516947|title=The Thomas Beale Cipher}}
* {{Skeptoid | id=4301 | number=301 | title=The Beale Ciphers  | date= March 13, 2012 }}
* [https://www.nsa.gov/Portals/70/documents/news-features/declassified-documents/beale-papers/doc656726.pdf "Historical and Analytical Studies in Relation to the Beale Ciphers"]

{{Urban legends}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beale ciphers}}
[[Category:Bedford County, Virginia]]
[[Category:History of cryptography]]
[[Category:Treasure]]
[[Category:Undeciphered historical codes and ciphers]]
[[Category:Urban legends]]