THE NIHILIST CIPHER, IS THIS THE KEY TO THE SOMERTON MAN’S REAL NAME? PART 2. THE NIHILIST CODE EXPLAINED AND THE CONCEALMENT REVEALED...

...THE NIHILIST CIPHER...

The 'Rote Drie' used a NHILIST cipher however they did make some modifications in its structure thanks to a very smart radio operator of the Swiss-based LUCY group who, incidentally, hailed from Liverpool. As you might expect, there is more than one twist to this story.

The operator concerned, known as (Allan)Alexander Foote, documented and later published the precise methods he used in constructing the messages he was to send to the Moscow Centre.

Very briefly, the Nihilist code originated in Russia in the late 19th Century, it was formulated by an organised group of people who held that Nihilism was the right way forward for not only Russia but for everyone.. They were totally anti-authority, anti-religion, anti-family in fact they were anti-everything that to their minds represented control.

Many of the supporters of the movement were harshly dealt with. The cipher though survived and was later to be adopted by the Soviets and as we have noted before, the mechanisms evolved over the years of its use.

The cipher is a ‘polybius’ cipher it is based on a matrix of 5 x 5 squares representing the alphabet which of course contains one extra letter that exists in this matrix. The letters 'I' was redundant. The other aspect of note is that this cipher had two keywords, the first was a word or set of letters normally 5 or 6 inserted at the beginning of a message. A second keyword was added to each message and it was how this keyword was constructed that piqued my interest. 

They formed this second keyword in this cipher using a book, then a page in that book, a paragraph on that page, the position of a letter within a paragraph, a line, and a word. Followers of this blog may recognise the method it being not only a book code but it is very similar to the DANETTA code found in the cases of 4 unusual deaths in Australia including George Marshall, Michael Goreloff, the Somerton Man and Tibor Kaldor.

To add a further level of security and complexity, two recognition groups were added

AN EXAMPLE OF A NIHILIST CIPHER USED BY THE LUCY SPY RING:

Thanks to Alexander Foote, the radio operator for the LUCY spy ring, 9Based in Switzer we have a very good example and a description of the cipher that he used in his time with the ring. He wrote a book about his experiences as a Soviet Spy.

Here are four screen grabs from Foote's book:

Step 1 shows the insertion of the first keyword 'PLAYER' You will note that it has six letters which were part of the directive given by Moscow Centre, six letters that were easy to remember but from here on it gets more complex

Step 2, here numbers are assigned to the letters, note that there is an @symbol which is inserted to signify a change in the ciphertext as in the ext will contain numbers and not letters or vice versa.:

Step 3.  part of the plain text is inserted into the message:

Step 4. This is now very close to the completed cipher text that would be transmitted by radio. Note that the third set in the first line is missing and the the third set back from the end is also missing, that's where the identifier or authenticator sets were installed. Whether that positioning was standard I do not know, they may have moved it for other messages but there is no record. However, the cipher text from the torn slip does have the letter X inserted in 4 of the groups and it also includes a spread of letters in the sets as well as numbers.

There are two more steps that I will leave out for now, the final set, step 7 shows the completed cipher text that was to be transmitted or received for that matter. It is the one shown at the head of this post. The identifier sets were inserted 3 into line 1 and 3 back from the last set of the text.

In the case of the torn slip from the Somerton Man mystery, that cipher text was concealed inside the letters of the word TAMAM SHUD/

1. Under magnfication

2. Concealment revealed::

 

Every letter in the words TAMAM SHUD contains cipher text. The fact that the concealment was within the shapes of the letters added another level; of complexity related to the sequencing of the groups of sipher text within each letter.

We Are Left With 4 Questions

1. Can the cipher text be decrypted 

2. Was the message to be sent by radio or had it been received?

3. Who wrote that text in microcode? (the characters are al sub .7 mm in height)

4. Will this ciphertext provide us with a name?

And there we have it, a proven cipher text identified as being a Nhiist cipher. That cipher was in use by the Soviets and the Rote Drei or ROte Kapelle groups in Europe during WW2. One more clue is that we can date it after 1942 which is the date that the specific copy of the Rubaiyat was published.

Please note that whilst Adelaide University examined the torn slip under a microscope, they were looking to confirm the type of paper used. They did not examine it for any concealment, that search was done by this blog with the results you can now see. 

(An explanatory note: The name ROTE KAPELLE was the Wehrmacht term for their team of investigators or project name, ROTE DRIE was the name given to the actual groups by the Wehrmacht.)

LINK TO CIA ACCOUNT OF 'ROTE DREI"