Anyone catch this?

[blike]

"A little over a year ago, the Fermilab Office of Public Affairs received a curious letter in code (image here). It has been sitting in our files all that time and we haven't had much of a chance to look into breaking the code, nor are we particularly expert at this!"

 

Part of the letter was decoded about 2 days after Fermilab put it up on the internet. The first stanza decodes to "FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE", and the second stanza decodes to "EMPLOYEE NUMBER BASSE SIXTEEN". If I'm reading correctly, there's still part of the letter that has yet to be decoded. Now people are trying to figure out what it means. Frank Shoemaker is a physicist who worked on the main ring at Fermilab. There are questions about an odd break between "FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD" and "CALL THIS NOISE". People are also suggesting that "Basse" was deliberately misspelled and is some sort of clue

 

One slashdot user pointed out that Wilson Hall on the Fermilab campus is 16 stories and was inspired by a cathedral once occupied by the Basse Oeuvre. Apparently you need an employee ID card to enter the 16th floor. Another person notes that if you drop the extra "S" in "Base", and convert to base 16, you get employee number 252. Employee number 252 is Pierre Piroue, who teaches classes combining physics and music. It was suggested that the second stanza should be converted to music -- somehow. Still another user found a "Frank Shoemaker" on Amazon.com who has a book in his wishlist titled "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century".

 

An intriguing little puzzle if you ask me. There's a lot of brains working on this one. You can follow the story here: http://www.gmilburn.ca/2008/05/17/fermilabs-strange-letter-progress/

[ecoli]

cool... a real life "Da vinci code" type thing... except without all the trying to kill people thing, and an internet community to help crack. Makes you wonder why the protagonist didn't post on a forum somewhere... would've gotten done quicker.

[swansont]

Two words: Beale cipher

[Sayonara]

Reminds me of "Zodiac".