Study

[elevenaugust]

In this section, I will present my study, trying to find if there's any cryptographic pattern in the primer.

1- Letter Frequency

* English

The drone story takes place, for the most part, in USA. So the initial guess is that, if there's any code, it's written in English.
Therefore, my study will be made firstly in this language.

However, it would certainly be interesting to see what happens when the substitution is made in others languages, such as Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish, etc.... And I will try to do it in a second time.

While some special letters are used in some languages (�, ö, ç, ô, etc....), most of the languages are using a 25+ basically similar alphabet characters, which is the exact number of the whole "drone alphabet", including all the flipping and mirroring possibilities.
This can be considered as a clue for the primer to be written is a "human-made" language, or at least, built in the same way...

According to Wikipédia, here's the relative distribution of the letters in English:



That gives: ETAOINSHRDLCUMWFGYPBVKJXQZ

Notes that the order is not exactly the same of those of the Linotype Machine:
  "etaoin shrdlu" (eh-tay-oh-in shird-loo), was believed to be the twelve most common letters in the English language. The word came from linotype typesetting machines. The first, left row of six keys on a linotype machine produce the word "etaoin". The second, left row of six keys produce the word "shrdlu". The linotype machine keys are labeled: "etaoin-shrdlu-cmfgyp-wbvkxj-qz". The letter 'h' appears more often in every day speech and writing than it does in a list of dictionary words.

SOURCE

Some other variation could be made, such as the "letter frequency in press reporting", or "letter frequency in religious writings", etc... These frequencies are slightly different than in the common English language.

And here's the Digraphs frequency, based on a panel of 40.000 words:


SOURCE

* Drone language



And the digraphs distribution:

[elevenaugust]

2- Primer reference "sentences":

Here are the names and the details of the symbols of the "nodes" used as testing "sentences" for the substitution cryptographic tries:

- "Octal Switch n°2" (Second and third lines)

Total: 34 symbols

- "Diffuser"

Total: 47 symbols

- "Heavy state tri-switch"

Total: 80 symbols

- "Rotary Junction"

Total: 45 symbols

- "Compound Junction"

Total: 114 symbols

- "Octal Junction"

Total: 71 symbols

That makes a total of 391 symbols.

[elevenaugust]

3- Cryptanalysis methods:

Tries will be made reading the symbols both from left to right and from right to left (flipping the "words"), since we don't know for sure, if there's a hidden meaning, the right reading sense.

Here are the deciphering methods that will be tried:
I- Transposition cypher
II - Mono-alphabetic cypher
III- Poly-alphabetic cypher
IV- Tomogrammic cypher
V- Polygrammic cypher
VI- Modern cryptography

Details of each section will be detailed later.

.....to be continued.....

[elevenaugust]

4- Substitutions:

Now that we have both the frequency and digraph distribution, we can try to see if there's any interesting correlation between English and "Drone" languages.

At first glance, we could attempt to do a direct substitution such as:



But we have two parameters that could complicate this first try:
1- objective:
Looking at the digraph chart, the most common digraphs are:

with the common "drone-language" letter:


We also have the most common digraph pair with one single common letter in English:
"TH" and "HE" that cannot be compared to those of the "drone-language", since the order of the letters is not the same....

2- subjective:
Oddly, some "drone letters" (at least three of them) have both a similar shape to our letters (the "E" need to be mirrored, though; while the "A" and the "O" doesn't) and a very close general occurrence:


This was already noticed by some on OMF, two years ago and could be either:
- An attempt of the hypothetic hoaxer to makes the "drone alphabet" more credible (But isn't the symbols supposed to be translated in "human language"?)
- A clue left by this hypothetic hoaxer for facilitate any cryptographic study (give three of the most occurrence is a good start for any deciphering attempt)
- Coincidental
- Have to do with the significance of the "drone letters" and its "alphabet" codex.

.....to be continued....

[elevenaugust]

I- Transposition cypher
1- Spartiate scytale

"In cryptography, a scytale (/skɪtəli/ rhymes with Italy, and also transliterated as skytale, Greek σκυτάλη, a baton) is a tool used to perform a transposition cipher, consisting of a cylinder with a strip of leather wound around it on which is written a message. The ancient Greeks, and the Spartans in particular, are said to have used this cipher to communicate during military campaigns."



For each translation try, I'll use a Java script that is able to automatically write the translation according to both the original message and the key.

[JMK]

The discussions, including Ted's recollections and answers, are followed with much interest.

I was not previously aware of the curious 1991 Gransdorf crop circles, until I found it on youtube. I don't immediately see any mention of it in the droneteam archives, and in general there doesn't seem to be too much published about this somewhat obscure incident. Any further information on this?

See youtube, Alien artifacts discovered underneath crop circles:
Alien artifacts discovered underneath crop circles
http://www.satorws.com/curiosita2-eng.htm
http://www.cosmicchannelings.com/blog/those-mysterious-gold-plates-discovered-beneath-crop-circles-in-germany-which-have-the-same-design-on-them/94

The circles were investigated by Michael Hesseman who I think is fairly critical, as he has called hoaxes in cases where others were more accepting. What interests me about these in the first place are the crescents fringing the circles, some of which are connected by lines to other circles. Obviously they remind one of the crescents of differing widths that fringe the solid circles in the drone graphs.

Some additional interesting points gained from the links are the following:
* The crop circles were confirmed to have appeared overnight.
* Radiation on the figures themselves were significantly higher than on the adjacent field, and apparently remained so. One wonders if this may have anything to do with the "field" Isaac refers to.
* At the centre of each of three crop circles which had a fringing crescent was found a buried metal plate, two apparently consisting of precious metals. The less valuable two of these seem to be extant.
* The three metal plates were buried some feet deep, and I assume it would have been obvious if they were buried shortly before. Their presence was determined by metal detectors.
* On each metal plate was a replica of the whole graph, or crop circle.
* Not sure if the orientation of these plates were noted, but the crop graph as whole had an east-west orientation rather than aligning with the layout of the field.

JMK

[EVS]

Interesting case indeed!

Some more on it here:

http://mmmgroup.altervista.org/e-platesincrop.html

EVS

[onthefence]

... as you probably now. Dell´s Alienware pcs ...

I've summarized some points about the Alienware involvement here:

http://droneteam.com/drt/index.php?topic=473.msg7214#msg7214

[The Leviathan]

Of course it could be a lie, but I recently saw something very strange on an HP notebook being advertised.  Maybe it was a dream.

[onthefence]

... HP notebook ...

Yes, it appears that circles and curved lines are all the rage these days:
Compaq S1922a 18.5-Inch Diagonal LCD Monitor

[The Leviathan]

You might consider that a lie or untruth is very capable of taking on a life of its own and that the extension of a truth can be a hoax driven by an unnatural wind.