The Scorpion Cipher

America’s Most Wanted – The Scorpion Cipher

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Several weeks ago, the host of “America’s Most Wanted”, John Walsh, announced that in 1991 he had received a series of strange letters from an individual who called himself the “Scorpion”. Enclosed with the letters that were sent to AMW were a series of ciphers that contained very strange symbols and the ciphers had also remained unsolved since they were mailed by the Scorpion in 1991.

I have solved one of the ciphers that the Scorpion mailed to Mr. Walsh.

This is the cipher text for the cipher that I solved that the Scorpion mailed to Mr. Walsh with AMW’s cover letter:

This is the cryptogram that the Scorpion sent to Mr. Walsh:

What the Scorpion did when he created his cipher is to use symbols that have limited but changing patterns. If you have ever taken IQ tests, there are questions on those tests that show a series of pictures and then the test requires you to determine what image does not belong with the other three or so images. This is what the Scorpion did with this cipher, and it was a pretty tedious endeavor to crack it.

Now what I have done for the sake of law enforcement authorities is to recreate the Scorpion’s cipher table. This cipher table is what the Scorpion saw when he wrote the cipher, and it is pretty sophisticated and that is why the cryptogram went unsolved for so long.

The Scorpion created images that have 4 possible variations. My artist skills aren’t the greatest and I do all of this work by hand. Once the variations were locked down with tedious work, this is the Scorpion’s cipher table for this cipher:

What is pretty fascinating about the Scorpion’s cipher table that he created is the fact that he attempted to integrate revolutions in the patterns that he drew so that they would synchronize with other patterns in the table. For example, the second variable line under the “A” position is a half-moon circle with the darkened portion in the top position. Directly beneath that the Scorpion inserted his half-moon symbols on crosses, but the positions are moved one position clock-wise.

I won’t speculate as to the civilian education level of the Scorpion, but the cipher system that he created is indicative of higher intelligence.

I cracked the cipher by applying the symbols in the cipher from “A to Z” using the alphabet and 4 patterns per symbol that he submitted, with the exception of a few patterns that were self-explanatory. Where the Scorpion used letters, I applied them in groups of four like the patterns he drew. Two words appeared in the first line sequence: “Bael Provided”. Once I cracked the first two words, it was off the races, however again this was one very tedious and long process because the Scorpion changed the symbol patterns that he drew on each line that is decoded to make such deciphering very difficult.

With the cipher table complete, the following solution appeared. I recreated the cipher by hand to make room to add the solution:

The solution reads: “Bael provided them with new stories but what if I ask JW do I wax RTW bones age Z (26?) Jef X kon.”

Conclusion

The Scorpion sent the host of “America’s Most Wanted”, Mr. John Walsh, a cryptogram that contained a message encoded using symbol patterns.

After researching the word “Bael”, it was determined that Bael is a word that refers to a demon in hell, a disciple of Satan. The Scorpion may be fluent in Satanism or other ritual paganism discipline.

The message refers to “waxing” the bones of “RTW”, age “Z” (26?). Now the Scorpion’s “Z” in the cipher table was inconclusive because it is only used once. The “Z” could be a variable that the Scorpion inserted in the lower variable range, for example, “A thru J”. That would make the age of the individual that the Scorpion wants to wax their bones ages “1 thru 10”.

The deciphered message appears to be directed at Mr. Walsh himself.

In the Scorpion’s communications to Mr. Walsh, the Scorpion said that he lived in New Jersey. The Scorpion gives his name in this cipher, his first name “Jef”, which is probably “Jeff and Jeffrey”. The “X Kon” at the end must mean “X-Con”, which means that Jeff is an ex-convict and admits to that.

The Scorpion admits to committing hosts of crimes in his mailings to John Walsh, from arson to robbery for example, so there can only be so many ex-cons with the first name of “Jeff” residing in New Jersey in 1991 and law enforcement should be able to narrow down the search expeditiously.

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

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