CIA code unanswered for 35 years is finally solved by complete amateurs

A secret CIA code on a sculpture outside the agency’s Virginia headquarters has finally been cracked after 35 years. The fourth and final code etched into the Kryptos artwork was cracked by friends and amateur codebreakers Jarret Kobek and Richard Byrne.

Its first three codes had been deciphered for at least 25 years but the final one had continued to leave the world’s best cryptologists stumped. The friends managed to solve the mystery after going through a file of papers from Kryptos’ sculptor, Jim Sanborn, reports say. Mr Kobak, an author and journalist based in California, asked Mr Byrne to retrieve the file from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art in Washington DC, near to his home.

Mr Byrne took photos of the dossier and sent them through to Mr Kobek, according to The New York Times.

The code was cracked after coming across some scraps of paper which Mr Sanborn accidentally included in the files.

Two scraps of paper read “BERLIN CLOCK” — clues that Mr Sanborn dropped in a piece for The New York Times in 2010 and 2014 — and another which read “EAST NORTHEAST”.

According to reports, Mr Sanborn, who was being treated for cancer at the time he mistakenly inserted the scraps of paper into the dossier, had been preparing to auction off the final code, papers and artefacts next month.

It was expected to fetch approximately £372,000 and he hoped to use the money to cover his medical fees and fund programmes for others with disabilities.

Mr Kobek and Mr Byrne emailed Mr Sanborn early last month saying they had cracked the code, shortly after the auction had been announced.

This prompted Mr Sanborn to quickly instruct Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art to close the files for 50 years.

Mr Kobek and Mr Bryne have agreed to keep the code secret.

The auctioneers were otherwise prepared to sue for a breach of copyright, The New York Times reports.

The Kryptos sculpture was erected in the CIA headquarters courtyard in 1990.

Its first three codes — K1, K2 and K3 — were solved as early as 1999.