Not even the British spy agencies that inspired James Bond can solve the
mystery of a World War II secret message recently found on the skeleton
of a carrier pigeon in a house chimney.
FULL STORY
(CNN) -- Not even the British spy agencies that
inspired James Bond can solve the mystery of a secret World War II
message recently found on the skeleton of a carrier pigeon in a house
chimney.
UK spies unable to crack coded message from WWII carrier pigeon
updated 4:54 PM EST, Fri November 23, 2012
Hand-written on a small piece of paper labeled "Pigeon Service," the note consists of five-letter words that don't make sense.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- The skeleton of a World War II carrier pigeon is found in a man's chimney in England
- A red canister attached to a leg bone holds a coded message UK agency can't crack
- Meanwhile, a pigeon museum seeks clues in the bird's identification numbers
The meaning of the
encoded message apparently died about 70 years ago with the wayward
pigeon that David Martin found in his smokestack in Bletchingley, Surrey
County, England.
Martin recently
discovered the bird's remains with the surprisingly intact message
inside a small red canister attached to a leg bone.
The only hope appears to
be curators at the Pigeon Museum at Bletchley Park, who are now trying
to trace the origins of two alphanumeric identifiers for the pigeon that
were also written on the message, the UK intelligence agency GCHQ said
this week.
"If they are identified
and their wartime service established, it could help to decode the
message," the agency said about the pigeon's identity numbers.
To the casual reader, the message is indecipherable.
Hand-written on a small
piece of paper labeled "Pigeon Service," the note consists of
five-letter words. Those words don't make sense: The jumble begins with
"AOAKN" and "HVPKD." In all, the message consists of 27 five-letter code
groups.
Deciphering the message
requires codebooks and possibly a "one-time pad" encryption system, and
those materials "will normally have been destroyed once no longer in
use," the agency said. There is a small chance that a codebook survived.
"Without access to the
relevant codebooks and details of any additional encryption used, it
will remain impossible to decrypt," the agency said.
The one-time pad encryption gave the note added security. A random key is used to encrypt only one message.
"The advantage of this
system is that, if used correctly, it is unbreakable as long as the key
is kept secret," the agency said. "The disadvantage is that both the
sending and receiving parties need to have access to the same key, which
usually means producing and sharing a large keypad in advance."
Heightening the mystery
are three other issues: The message is undated, the meaning of its
destination of "X02" is unknown, and analysts can't identify the
sender's signature or his unit.
"Unfortunately, much of
the vital information that would indicate the context of the message is
missing," the intelligence service said.
The sender's sign-off
appears to say "Sjt W Stot," using an abbreviation for "serjeant," an
old-fashioned spelling for "sergeant," the agency said.
The use of "Sjt" links the message to the army, the spy agency said.
"If 'Sjt Stot' and
addressee X02 could be identified, it could give us a better idea of
where to look for the information," the agency said.
About 250,000 pigeons
were used during World War II by all branches of the military and the
Special Operations Executive, the UK intelligence agency said.
Flying from mainland
Europe to Britain, the birds heroically delivered all sorts of messages
through a gauntlet of enemy hawk patrols and potshots from soldiers.
"Although it is
disappointing that we cannot yet read the message brought back by a
brave carrier pigeon, it is a tribute to the skills of the wartime
code-makers that, despite working under severe pressure, they devised a
code that was undecipherable both then and now," said GCHQ, one of three
UK intelligence agencies. COPY http://us.cnn.com/
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