The Beale Papers Hoax

 

Author: Roger Grambihler (rogergrambihler@hotmail.com)

Created:  Oct 29, 2002.

 

 

"The Beale Papers" published in 1885 by J. B. Ward contains a set of three codes. Each of which is a set of numbers. According to the Beale Papers the first specifies the location of a vault where there is a fortune in buried treasure; the second talks about what the first and third code contains; and the third a list of names. Of the three codes only one has ever been broken which in the Beale paper’s its titled “No.2”. The author of the Beale Paper’s claims to have been the one to break the code based on converting the numbers to the first letter of the corresponding word in the Declaration of Independence.

If you haven’t read the original Beale paper’s I’d recommend reading the complete text of the Beale Paper’s which is copied at the end of this document. I would also recommend reading the following book.

 

Nobody has been able to break the Beale codes for either the location of the vault or the list of names. This leads to the question if the codes are genuine or a hoax. This document will show that there is strong evidence to suggest that the Beale codes are hoax and in the unlikely event they are not a hoax how attempts to decode the location of the vault or the list of names would be almost impossible.

 

The following reasons are evidence that point toward the paper’s being a hoax:

 

  1. Errors occurred encoding paper “No. 2”. There are both counting errors of the Declaration of Independence and differences in the Declaration of Independence published in the Beale Paper’s compared to the original Declaration of Independence. These errors had to either be known to the Beale Paper’s author and the author duplicated these errors when writing the manuscript but failed to mention them or the author was not aware of the errors because he was the one that made the errors when writing the codes.

 

  1. If you use the miscounted Declaration of Independence on the location of the vault suspicious sequences of characters occurred. For example, abcdefghiijklmmno.

 

  1. The letters n, v and e have the interesting quality of not being the start character of nearly as many words that contain these characters. Therefore, someone decoding the document would need to reuse words (code values) more often for these letters. “No 2.” Follows this statistic but the vault location and names codes do not.

 

Decoding “No 2”

 

According to the letter if you map original Beale codes based on the Declaration of Independence you get the following text.

 

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 one thousand and fourteen pounds of gold, and three thousand eight hundred and twelve pounds of silver, deposited November, 1819 The second was made December, 1821, 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 $13,000.00  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" describes the exact locality of the vault so that no difficulty will be had in finding it 

 

What you actually get if you map the numbers given in the letter is.

 

I Haie deposoted in the copntt ol bedoort aboup four miles from bulords in an epcaiation or iault six fest below the surlact of thh gtound ths fotlowing articiss beaonging joiotlt to the partfes whosl namfs ate giiet in number thrff httewith tho first deposit cottistcd of ten hptdred and loprteen pouetr of gold atd tsirtt  eight suodted and tweiie pounds of silier deposited noi eighteennineteen the second wat abds dec fighteentwenttonl and aonsisttd oh ninetffn huedred and seien pounds oo gold btd twelie hundted atd eightteight of silier aiso tewels obtained in st touit in epchange to sbis transportation atd dialuel aa thirteetrhousanddollars the aboie is secutflt packhd in ton pots wits wrot coigrs tht iault is rougslt lined wtts stone and the iesselr rest on solid stone and are coisrfd uiah othtts paper nuaber one descrialr thc opaat localitt oo tst iarlt to that no difoicultt will se sad tt finding it 

 

The discrepancy could be caused by one or more of the following: The Declaration of Independence text has changed; some of the code numbers were either originally incorrect or at some point copied incorrectly; or the counts into the Declaration of Independence are wrong. A quick look at the original declaration shows that the declaration hasn't changed which leaves the last two options.

To determine what mappings are incorrect we can line up the incorrect words with the results from the original letter. The majority of differences are spelling errors but there are a few places that a different amount of characters occur or the entire word is missing from the code. These differences are shown in bold.

I

I

have

Haie

deposited

deposoted

in

in

the

the

county

copntt

of

ol

bedford

bedoort

about

aboup

four

four

miles

miles

from

from

Bufors

bulords

in

in

an

an

excavation

epcaiation

or

or

vault

iault

six

six

feet

fest

below

below

the

the

surface

surlact

of

of

the

thh

ground

gtound

the

ths

following

fotlowing

articles

articiss

belonging

beaonging

jointly

joiotlt

to

to

the

the

parties

partfes

whose

whosl

names

namfs

are

ate

given

giiet

in

in

number

number

three

thrff

herewith

httewith

The

tho

first

first

deposit

deposit

consisted

cottistcd

of

of

one

ten

thousand

hptdred

and

and

fourteen

loprteen

pounds

pouetr

of

of

gold

gold

and

atd

three

tsirtt

thousand

 

eight

eight

hundred

suodted

and

and

twelve

tweiie

pounds

pounds

of

of

silver

silier

deposited

deposited

Nov

noi

Eighteennineteen eighteennineteen

The

the

second

second

was

wat

made

abds

Dec

dec

eighteentwentyone

fighteentwenttonl

and

and

consisted

aonsisttd

of

oh

nineteen

ninetffn

hundred

huedred

and

and

seven

seien

pounds

pounds

of

oo

gold

gold

and

btd

twelve

twelie

hundred

hundted

and

atd

eightyeight

eightteight

pounds

 

of

of

silver

silier

also

aiso

jewels

tewels

obtained

obtained

in

in

st

st

louis

touit

in

in

exchange

epchange