An unsolved encrypted document from Reddit

Rich SantaColoma

August 5, 2026 at 7:27 pm

Perhaps it is from 1917? At the very upper left is a character, then a four, then a 17. this could mean that the character is the first letter of, or an abbreviation for, the month. Then it is the fourth day of the month, in the year 1917.

If this were correct, then that character for the month would limit the meaning of that character to 9 possible letters.

BREAKER

August 5, 2026 at 7:46 pm

Seems like a few alphabets were used to encrypt it, as there are symbols/letters that don’t repeat throughout.

Most common symbol/letter used is the O

If Shorthand, only a few symbols/letters were encrypted, leaving a partial break from the translation of those known characters in Shorthand, and the rest decrypted with the variables left, possibly from the frequency analysis used afterwards.

It appears that the person had intended for it to rely on a key that had each character assigned its own letter, which probably repeat but are encrypted differently throughout…..like in a Homophonic.

The paper used has faint images of the same characters on it, so it either was removed and written over, or was placed in contact with another sheet of the same writing. You can see them better in a negative image of the photo, but they are still very faint/blurred.

Gerry Haynaly

August 7, 2026 at 6:59 pm

What if it is some kind of MASC where symbols only seem to be different? For example, if it is a “normal” letter, the text after the date could be DEAR, the / is the word delimiter, followed by a four char name (“2<hl"), which is repeated at the end of line 8 to line 9. Line 2 also starts with about the same four chars, maybe DEAREST. And // could be the sentence delimiter.

Jozef Krajcovic

August 10, 2026 at 3:09 pm

Für mich sieht das nicht nach einem Verschlüsselungssystem aus, sondern eher nach einer graphämischen oder phonetischen Umschrift eines bekannten Buches und eines Zitats daraus… Die Zeichen oben links lese ich als „L 4,17“… Ist das vielleicht Lukas aus den Evangelien?

Jozef Krajcovic

August 10, 2026 at 3:21 pm

Der anschließenden Diskussion zufolge stammt das Dokument aus der Sammlung des Richters Thomas Scott Buckham. Er genoss eine klassische Bildung und beherrschte Latein und Griechisch, sodass sein Interesse an Bibelversen durchaus wahrscheinlich ist…
https://www.reddit.com/r/shorthand/comments/1uq5or0/shorthand_c_1900_from_a_local_judge_minnesota/

Jozef Krajcovic

August 10, 2026 at 3:21 pm

Es scheint sich um einen Text aus der Bibel zu handeln, genauer gesagt um L 4,17, der in der phonetischen Schrift „Visible Speech“ niedergeschrieben ist, die von Alexander Melville Bell entwickelt und 1867 veröffentlicht wurde. Die Zeichen stimmen bis zu einem gewissen Grad optisch mit Bells Symbolen für die Stellung der Stimmorgane, die Stimmhaftigkeit und die Vokale überein.

Jozef Krajcovic

August 10, 2026 at 3:24 pm

Eine Übersicht über das von Alexander Melville Bell entwickelte „Visible Speech“-System: https://web.meson.org/write/vs-overview.php und das gesamte Buch im PDF-Format: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Visible_speech-_the_science_… _of_universal_alphabetics%3B_or_Self-interpreting_physiological_letters%2C_for_the_writing_of_all_languages_in_one_alphabet_%28IA_visiblespeechsci00bellrich%29.pdf

Klaus Schmeh

August 10, 2026 at 7:15 pm

Thanks Jozef! Apparently, this mystery is solved.