Hidden Information in Carvings

This article is more about paying attention and thinking out side of the box than anything else. The majority of us have all run into a carving somewhere and scratched our heads thinking; “What in the world am I supposed to do with that?” Sometimes we can figure it out and sometimes we can’t. Most of the time the information we need is in the details.

I have posted a photo with this article of what most people would call a Thunderbird. This carving was small in size, with a wingspan of about eight inches and was carved on a rock bluff all by itself, nothing else around it. I looked at it at first as if it would be telling me something all by itself and finally came to the conclusion it wasn’t, it need to be worked in conjunction with something else. That something else was a carved map I found later as I was wondering around. This particular “bird” is related to a carved outlaw map and the map was only about one hundred feet from the location of the bird. Both were on the same hillside but different bluffs.

This carving was meant to be worked as a clue along with the map. If you were to start at the beginning of the map and follow the symbols that take you to this “bird” you would have gone through eight separate moves or steps of the map before getting to it. Remember, this carving was only about one hundred feet from the map but the mapmaker took you through eight moves in that one hundred feet. Once you get to the “bird” it is all about how you look at the carving and what you actually see and not what you think you see. One of my favorite quotes is “Is not what you look at, but what you see”. In this instance and in most cases of carvings, you have to see what is there and not what the carver is using as camouflage. In the instance of this “bird”, the only information that is useful in the carving is the line formed by the top of the left wing and the neck. The rest of the bird is there to camouflage those two lines.

If you look at the bird closely, and I will admit this isn’t the best photo, the line forming the top of the left wing and the neck is cut deeper into the rock than the rest of the bird and the corner is sharp and square where all of the other corners are rounded. This is shown better by the shadow than the carving because of the angle the photo was taken at but this will give you the idea of what I am referring to. After banging my head on the bluff for several days I finally realized that I only needed to be looking at the L shape or “90 degree turn” formed by the top of the wing and the neck. With all of the information that could have been imparted by this carving, all it was actually telling me was I needed to make a 90 degree turn off of the line I was just on. Because the left wing was pointed in the direction I just came from I also decided that when I made my turn the next “leg” I would travel would be short, probably half the distance that I just traveled to get to the bird carving. It turned out that the distance I traveled after I made the turn was a little less than half the distance. The leg to the bird was 45 feet and the leg after the turn was 20 feet.

This doesn’t always hold true but, in a lot of cases when you have lines drawn as this 90 degree turn was, the difference in the lengths of the lines can equate to distances because by traveling the first distance it gives you a known measurement to use to figure the second distance.

I have mentioned before the fact that some mapmakers, especially the really experienced ones, will put junk into a carving to hide the actual information. They will also camouflage symbols by making them look like something else but closer inspection will reveal lines that aren’t really connected or lines that are cut deeper than others just to name a few of the ways it can be done. Most mapmakers will establish a pattern of how they make their symbols or hide information in those symbols. Once you distinguish this pattern you will know what to look at and what to ignore.

I will caution everyone again that this isn’t always the case and sometimes things are exactly as they seem. These articles about different signs are meant to show you how they have worked at different locations so you can have ideas to mull over in your head at your own sites.

Something to look for in Illinois

Here’s something to look for if you are near Whiteside County, IL.

In the 1870’s there was a group or “gang” of counterfeiters that made a very good living printing their own money. The gang included a man known as “the most skilled of all counterfeit plate engravers” who’s name was Benjamin Boyd. Mr. Boyd was the son of a legitimate engraver and apprenticed with two other engravers, one of whom was a counterfeiter himself, before deciding a life of crime was easier than a real job. There was also “Big Jim” Kennally and another man known as Dr. Briggs. This “gang” operated from a farm near Unionville, IL that used to be known as the Abbott farm.

In 1875 the Secret Service caught up with Benjamin Boyd and Dr. Briggs and promptly put them in jail. It appears the Secret Service either wasn’t aware of the location of the counterfeiting operation and arrested them elsewhere or they did a very poor job of searching the place. The old Abbott farmhouse was later moved to a piece of land across the road from it’s original spot and during the move several bundles of funny money and the engraved printing plates were found in the basement. Now that would be a find!!

Local stories abound about several caches of gold coins, legitimate and funny money being stashed in the area of the Abbott farm by the counterfeiters but none have ever been found and it is not thought that any of the gang ever came back for them. It is said that the group also operated in the area of Fulton and Centralia, IL. And left a few caches of money in those areas also.

Why wouldn’t Big Jim Kennally dig up the caches and leave with his cohorts in jail? Well it seems Big Jim wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and wanted to break the engraver and apparently the brains of the group out of jail so they could continue their counterfeiting ways. In all of his wisdom Big Jim enlisted the help of two other not so bright individuals to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln, yes, that Abraham Lincoln, and they intended on ransoming the body for $200,000 and the release of Benjamin Boyd from prison.

So in November of 1876 Big Jim and his two helpers broke into the Lincoln vault, struggled to remove the lid to the marble sarcophagus and stood there trying to figure out how they would get the lead and cedar coffin out. They hadn’t planned very well ahead and for Big Jim, he didn’t pick his helpers very well. It seems one of the men, a man by the name of Swegles, felt it benefited him more by alerting the custodian of the Lincoln tomb who, in turn, notified a long list of law enforcement including the Secret Service.

All of these different agencies were waiting for the theives outside of the tomb when Swegles signaled them to make their move. Apparently there were some Keystone cops in the crowd because several shots were fired, all by law enforcement apparently shooting at each other. Nobody was enjured during the shooting but the bad guys made good there get away. Until ten days later when they were found in a local bar and arrested. This puts the entire group of counterfeiters behind bars for several years so there is a good chance soemthing is still out there.

You can’t find it if you don’t look for it.

Spanish Sun & Shadow Signs

Most everyone has read one or more treasure hunting books about Spanish sun and shadow signs. Some of these books can get out there on the fringe of things, in my opinion anyway, but some sun and shadow signs are real.

The Spanish liked to use sun signs to get your attention and draw you to an area. In this context of sun signs I am referring to what might be termed a reflector. This would be a large rock that contained a lot of quartz or white material so that the rock would “light up” during a certain time of the day. These were usually placed in areas up high like on the side of a hill or mountain or on the side of a valley where they would only catch the sun during a certain time of day. Most of the time these types of sun signs didn’t give any specific information, they were just there to catch your eye and make you want to go towards the light. No, not that light, hopefully not yet anyway. Think of it like a woman in a jewelry store, always looking for the big shiny rock! Sorry ladies, but it is a good analogy!

They used shadow signs to impart information about what direction to go, what you are looking for or what you will find in a specific direction, just to name a few of the things they could be used for. Don’t consider this to be absolute though; I have seen some shadow signs made specifically to get your attention or draw you to a spot just like a sun sign would be used. These types of shadow signs were used as double meanings. They first got your attention to bring you to where the shadow sign was and then you could see what was making the shadow and this “thing” would give you a piece of precise information like a direction and or what you were looking for. I will say I have only seen this once but it was pretty definitive.

It has been my experience that shadow signs are more prevalent than sun signs but that may be a location issue. I have seen more sun signs in the southwest than I have in places like Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri but I have seen more shadow signs in places such as Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri than I have in the southwest. It may all be relative to where you are looking.

The best time to find a shadow sign is usually between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. That would be actual time and not daylight savings time. Think sundial here and not a watch. There are exceptions to almost every rule so some signs may have been made to be seen a little earlier or much later. It’s also very possible that some shadow signs will last longer than that window of time but I am only speaking to the ones I have actually seen or talked about with other hunters who have found them.

The shadows of shadow signs can be just about anything. They can be a simple arrow or more elaborate like the bird pictured at the top of this article. The shadows in this photo form the bird’s head and highlight the wing. Without the shadow there is no head and therefore no bird. This shadow sign is at the base of a small valley and was telling us to go up the valley and look higher. Since the bird was on the north side of the valley and there wasn’t anything telling us to look anywhere else we continued to look on the north side of the valley wall. Another marker was found about 100 yards away at the top of the valley wall. As we got closer to the sign it could easily be seen as long as you were looking high on the valley wall. I should mention this bird was designed to be seen from a distance, specifically from the top of the opposite valley wall which was the trail into where we were going.

If you are hunting Spanish treasure, keep your eyes open!

Harmon County

This is a story told to me years ago by a good friend. Sometime during the 1950's an aged Comanche and his grandson stopped by my friends shop. The old man only spoke his native tongue and the grandson did the translating. After some small talk the old man got down to business. They had come to my friend since he was the unofficial local historian. His family had lived in the area long before statehood.

The old Comanche told my friend a story of how two braves many years before had attacked a stage coach as it had crossed one of the forks of the Red River. The coach was carrying a payroll which the braves took. They then hid the loot near a tree in a small graveyard somewhere in what is now known as Harmon County. The two men where later killed.

My friend was familiar with the stage crossing but didn't know of the graveyard for which they were searching. He did know of the area the Comanche men would spend their time racing horses and gambling while the women would go mine salt. This was part of the clues as well. As far as anyone knows this money was never recovered.

Now for some clues for you. The crossing was on the Salt Fork of the Red River right at the state line. The camp area is not far from there. There was stone cairns that marked out the race track, but these were knocked down years ago. The salt mines were near Erick further north. There are numerous old graveyards in the area and the one the old Comanche was seeking may not be visible today.

Confederate Cipher Disk

For those interested in these ciphers here is a photo of a replica Confederate States Cipher Disk. The original disk was less than three inches across and could be carried in a shirt pocket. It consisted of two disks, one smaller than the other with the alphabet going around the outside of each circle. The disks were made of brass and the smaller disk had three letters, CSA, in the center. This of course stood for the Confederate States of America. Just below the CSA were two more letters, S.S. It is not known for certain what the S.S. stood for however it is thought to have been for either “Secret Service” or “Signal Service”.

There are only five original Confederate Cipher Disks known to exist. Two of these are in private collections, one is in the Smithsonian Institute and the other two are in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, VA.

Finding one of these things while metal detecting would really get your heart going!

The Vigenere Cipher

As promised, here is some information about the famous, or infamous Vigenere cipher. A Vigenere Square or Tablet is shown here and is used to encode and decipher messages using the Vigenere cipher. The Vigenere cipher is actually a series of another cipher known as a Caesar cipher.

The Vigenere cipher has been around since the 1500s. A book was written about it explaining how the cipher worked in 1553. Even though the cipher was explained in the book, to the novice the Vigenere cipher was thought to be unbreakable. This proved to be a very big mistake for the South during the Civil War. Apparently the people in charge of their codes would be considered novices.

In an effort not to confuse anyone I have taken the liberty of copying the explanation of the Vigenere cipher from the Wikipidia page. This way I don’t screw it up!

“In a Caesar cipher, each letter of the alphabet is shifted along some number of places; for example, in a Caesar cipher of shift 3, A would become D, B would become E and so on. The Vigenère cipher consists of several Caesar ciphers in sequence with different shift values.”
“To encipher, a table of alphabets can be used, termed a tabula recta, Vigenère square, or Vigenère table. It consists of the alphabet written out 26 times in different rows, each alphabet shifted cyclically to the left compared to the previous alphabet, corresponding to the 26 possible Caesar ciphers. At different points in the encryption process, the cipher uses a different alphabet from one of the rows. The alphabet used at each point depends on a repeating keyword.”

“For example, suppose that the plaintext to be encrypted is:” ATTACKATDAWN

“The person sending the message chooses a keyword and repeats it until it matches the length of the plaintext, for example, the keyword "LEMON":” LEMONLEMONLE

“The first letter of the plaintext, A, is enciphered using the alphabet in row L, which is the first letter of the key. This is done by looking at the letter in row L and column A of the Vigenère square, namely L. Similarly, for the second letter of the plaintext, the second letter of the key is used; the letter at row E and column T is X. The rest of the plaintext is enciphered in a similar fashion:”

Plaintext: ATTACKATDAWN
Key: LEMONLEMONLE
Cipher text: LXFOPVEFRNHR

“Decryption is performed by finding the position of the ciphertext letter in a row of the table, and then taking the label of the column in which it appears as the plaintext. For example, in row L, the ciphertext L appears in column A, which taken as the first plaintext letter. The second letter is decrypted by looking up X in row E of the table; it appears in column T, which is taken as the plaintext letter.”

To symplify things in the field the South was known to use a Cipher Disk. This was a disk with the alphabet in a cirlce around the outside of the disk and a second smaller disk that turned on the inside with it’s own alphabet around the outside of the smaller disk.

To make all of this work you had to have a key word or phrase. The South was known to regularly use three key phrases. The first two, COMPLETE VICTORY and MANCHESTER BLUFF, were used continuosly during the Civil War. As the war got closer to the end and the South saw that they were in trouble they also began using the key phrase of COME RETRIBUTION. There was a fourth key phrase attributed to the South but I have not been able to verify that this phrase was actually used. That fourth key phrase is said to be JEFFERSONS FERRY.

As an added bonus for blog readers I am listing another key that was discovered by a college professor, and I believe it was discovered sometime in the 1990’s while he was looking at some old Civil War documents. This was a key word and not a phrase and was identified as BALTIMORE. This will be a news flash to more than one KGC researcher.

Here’s my thought for the day. The Knights of the Golden Circle was supposed to be a super secret organization with members so smart that they hid billions of dollars in treasure using a coding system that treasure hunters for more than a century haven’t been able to figure out, right? So who in that brain trust decided to use centuries old ciphers that were known to other code breakers to pass secret messages back and forth during the Civil War? If they couldn’t come up with their own ciphers to encode their most important messages, how did they come up with their own elaborate code to hide treasure?

More on the KGC and their Codes

Some of you are obviously unhappy that I pointed out the fact the Knights of the Golden Circle could have been involved in something that caused the South to loose the war, much less loosing millions of dollars. I guess that would have left them a lot less to bury in those elaborate “depositories”. The big believers in the KGC are all too happy to bend the facts around their own theories with no actual proof of what they are saying; except for the “secret documents” everybody seems to have but won’t show to anybody.

The last article I posted about the currency, plates and presses being identified and seized by the North due to the less than stellar performance by the South during the war is a true story, based entirely on fact. The South was very careless in how they sent their “secret” messages back and forth and chose to use at least two codes that were very old and known to several people, especially anyone who studied cryptography. Of course it wasn’t called cryptography during the Civil War but you get the idea.

The Rosicrucian cipher, also known as the Pigpen cipher was considered to be an “ancient cipher”, with its first use occurring before the 1700s. Besides the generals of the southern army using this ancient cipher it was also found to be in use by the Knights of the Golden Circle (actual fact). Several correspondences by the KGC were intercepted and decoded using the pigpen cipher. I have included a photo of the pigpen cipher at the top of the article so you can see what it looks like. In general, you substitute the shape around the letter you want to use for the actual letter. That would mean > would be a T and [ would be an F and < would be a U, etc.

Now for the fun part. It is a well-known fact that the Freemasons had been using the Pigpen cipher for a very long time. They used it so much that it was often referred to as the “Freemason’s Cipher”. I know, I know. The Freemasons you say? Yes, the Freemasons, but this doesn’t mean the KGC was part of, or an offshoot of the Masons. If you take the time to read a book written in 1864 by Felix Stidger entitled “Treason History of the Order of Sons of Liberty formerly Circle of Honor succeeded by Knights of the Golden Circle afterward Order of American Knights” you will see that the KGC had secret handshakes and greetings that they used, all of which were directly ripped off from the Masons. It would be my opinion that more than one of the forming members of the KGC were at one time Masons and decided they needed some secret stuff for their group so they took what they knew and used it. I do not think that the KGC is related to the masons or the Templars as some people think and there is no proof that they were. This is more supposition based on picking and choosing the facts to fit a theory instead of developing a theory based on the known facts.

The other widely used code by the South was known as the Vigenere cipher. This cipher has been around since at least the 1500s and requires a key word or key phrase to be used to decipher an encrypted message. It is said the South had four such key words/phrases. I have been able to verify three of those four key phrases and have been given a fifth key word that was just identified in the 1990s. In my next article I will endeavor to explain the Vigenere cipher and give all of the key word/phrases the South was known to use and the one they may have used.

If you are wondering why we would even discuss ciphers such as these you need to keep in mind that there was a lot of information moved around during the Civil War, including that of hidden items, most of this information was in code. These hidden items, no matter what they are, could be worth a lot of money today and you never know when you might run across an old book or letter with one of these codes in it.