Thread by @DavidZabinsky

Have any idea what these numbers mean?

Well, if you did, then you'd be the first in the world to crack this indecipherable code...a code that would reveal the whereabouts of $80 million worth of buried treasure.

Fact? Fiction?

To this date...no one knows.

Time for a story👇:

We start with some history.

It was the early 1800s.

Thomas Beale and 30 of his adventure-seeking friends headed west from Virginia on a boys' trip to go hunt some buffalo.

But buffalo wasn't the only thing they'd find.

They'd find gold. And silver.

Shitloads of it.

So Beale and his friends?

They started digging. And before they knew it, they had themselves a stack of precious metals.

Beale wrote:

"Every one was diligently at work with such tools and appliances as they had improvised, and quite a little pile had already accumulated."

But after their “little pile” grew into a massive one worth millions, Beale and his buddies had themselves a serious problem:

Where the hell would they safely bury all their treasure?

Some argued it'd be safest to keep it in the uninhabited west...outside of "the States" (remember...this was the early 1800s).

Others thought it'd be best to bury it back home in Virginia, where they’d have easy access to it.

And after endless deliberation, they agreed:

"It was finally decided that it should be sent to Virginia under my charge," Beale wrote, "and securely buried in a cave near Buford's tavern, in the county of Bedford, which all of us had visited, and which was considered a perfectly safe depository."

But once Beale and co. reached Bedford County with their treasure in tow, they realized their cave of choice was just too risky.

"It was too frequently visited by the neighboring farmers," Beale wrote, "who used it as a receptacle for their sweet potatoes and other vegetables."

So from there?

Beale and the boys found a "better place" to bury their booty, to where it'd be "safely transferred."

But Beale? He was paranoid.

What would happen to the treasure, he wrote, "in case of an accident to ourselves"?

That is, what would be their contingency plan?

Well, Beale had to come up with one.

Fast.

And so writing in mysterious code, he drafted three letters:

•One that would describe the treasure's secret location

•One that would detail the treasure's contents

•One that would list the treasure's owners and their next of kin

Beale then stored these letters in an iron box, alongside two plaintext letters that summarized his treasure-finding, treasure-burying experiences (as sparingly quoted throughout this thread), and handed them to a local Virginia innkeeper named Robert Morriss in 1822.

Beale's instructions to Morriss?

ONLY open the iron box if you don't hear from me...or any of my friends...for 10 years.

Oh, and to crack the three mysteriously-coded letters inside? Don't worry -- either I or someone else will send you an answer key shortly.

But that answer key?

It never came.

And after 10 years came and went?

Neither Beale - nor any of his friends - were to be seen or heard from again.

For Morriss, it was time to open the box.

And upon opening it, he found the three coded letters as Beale had promised:

Letter One - to describe the treasure’s exact location:

Letter Two - to describe the treasure’s exact contents:

Letter Three - to describe the treasure’s exact, rightful owners:

Morriss, quite naturally, had no luck deciphering any of these puzzling letters.

So in 1862, one year before his death, Morriss gave the letters to an unnamed friend, who then enlisted the help of a James B. Ward, who was able to - miraculously - crack the code of Letter #2.

How, you ask?

Well, by using the Declaration of Independence, of course!

For example, by taking the first number seen in Letter #2 (115), one would then locate the 115th word in the Declaration of Independence (instituted), and then use the first letter of that word (i).

In doing that, Morriss's unnamed friend and Ward were able to decode Letter #2, as translated below.

As such, Letter #2 revealed there were 2,921 pounds of gold, 5,100 pounds of silver, and millions of dollars worth of jewels buried somewhere in "the county of Bedford."

Ward then published his famous "The Beale Papers" in 1885 - a pamphlet of all three letters - and sold it for $0.50 per book.

And since then?

It's puzzled scientists, cryptographers, military officials, and NSA agents alike.

Now I know you're probably asking yourself loads of questions, like...

Well, can't we just apply the Declaration of Independence trick to Letters #1 and #3 to crack them, too?

Unfortunately not.

Using that method for Letters #1 and #3 just generates a bunch of gibberish.

And next, perhaps you're asking...

Ok...if the best codebreakers in the world can't decipher Letter #1 and Letter #3, how sure are we that ANY of this - Beale, Morriss, the unnamed friend, Ward, the tons of gold - is even...real?

Well...we're not.

But here's what we do know:

First, about Beale:

Researchers believe there were two Thomas Beales living in Bedford County, Virginia in the early 1800s.

We don't know much about Thomas Beale #1...but Thomas Beale #2?

He allegedly got in a gunfight with a James Risque and fled town...never to return.

James Risque, on the other hand, would stay put in Bedford County, raising a family that would eventually include a grandson.

A grandson by the name of...

James B. Ward

Aside from being known as the notorious author of "The Beale Papers", this James B. Ward is pretty untraceable.

One thing we do know, however, is that he owned a house...a house in which a woman named Sarah Morriss died in in 1863.

Sarah's husband?

A man named Robert Morriss.

So yes, there does exist a peculiar but existent triangle of sorts that would connect a Thomas Beale, a James B. Ward, and a Robert Morriss.

But how about the treasure?!

Well, Beales' dated letters would indicate that he and his friends found gold in current day New Mexico and Colorado "30 years before precious metals were discovered in that region."

Further, back in the early 1800s, that far west was deemed "foreign soil" amongst the States.

A gang of 30+ men wouldn't have been able to travel that far west without any type of formal documentation -- a formal documentation that just simply doesn't exist today.

But despite the skepticism, you ask:

Have folks nonetheless searched relentlessly throughout Bedford County in search of a few thousand tons of gold and silver?

Of course they have.

And to date, the only thing that's been found is a few Civil War artefacts.

So?

Is there really over $80 million worth of treasure hidden somewhere in Virginia?

Or...was James B. Ward just a conman who would have made a quick buck selling fabricated letters in the guise of "The Beale Papers"?

Well, you have folks like Dr. Carl Hammer, Director of Computer Sciences at Sperry-Univac, who said:

"Beale Cyphers 1 and 3 are 'for real.' They are not random doodles but do contain intelligence and messages of some sort. Further attempts at decoding are indeed warranted."

And then...you have folks like American investigator and author Joe Nickell, who wrote bluntly:

"If the Beale Papers are to be believed, American history should be re-written."

Our question still stands:

Is Beale's treasure buried somewhere in Bedford County?

Whilst most think...'no', the jury is still very much out.

So the next time you find yourself in Bedford County, Virginia, it may be worth carrying along a shovel.

You know, just in case.

Learn something new today? Enjoy this story?

Follow @DavidZabinsky for more threads like this one.

Like a good mystery?

Who doesn't.

Check out the one below, which highlights the Voynich Manuscript: "the most mysterious book in the world"...

https://twitter.com/DavidZabinsky/status/1471127116557258767?s=20

For one of the best sources on the subject, check out the article below, written by @LucasReilly1:

mentalfloss.com/article/540277…