Picture this: you walk into an antique clothing store and buy a Victorian outfit, only to find that there is a tightly encrypted message hidden inside, which is simply impossible to decipher. We've all had that experience, right? Well, that's actually the reality of Sara Rivers-Cofield, an archaeology curator who bought a 19th-century silk dress at an antique store in Maine in 2013. For a whole decade, the code hidden in the dress had been uncrackable, but now, a researcher has not only succeeded in cracking the code, but has also found the exact date it may have been recorded.
According to Rivers Cofield's blog post, this copper-colored dress dates back to the mid-80s of the 19th century. But such a discovery is not uncommon for those who pursue antique clothing, and the key is that what is found in this garment is extraordinary. The dress was sewn with a secret pocket that could be accessed through "an inconspicuous crack in the skirt," as Rivers-Cofield explains, "and the pocket was completely obscured by the skirt, and to find the pocket, you had to carry the pleated silk to reveal the cotton underneath, and in short, the whole look was ruined." ”
Inside the pocket was a ball of paper with about two dozen lines of unintelligible text listed. For example: the words "Bismark Omit leafage buck bank" and "Paul Ramify loamy event false new event". It's obviously a password message, but what does it mean exactly?
For a decade, various detectives, amateurs, and professional codebreakers have tried to solve this mystery with no result. This haunting information, also known as the "Silk Dress Code", is listed as one of the 50 most unsolvable codes in the world. But now, someone has finally unwrapped the true face of this beautiful dress, and its secret has been revealed.
Wayne Chan, a computer analyst at the University of Manitoba in Canada, not only cracked the code, but also determined the exact date it might have been recorded.
When the code for the silk dress was first published online, speculation began to abound about the contents of these mysterious messages. Are they secret espionage messages? Are they related to illegal gambling?" Chen wrote in a recently published paper.
The answer may be more mundane than any guesswork, but it's still cool. It turned out that this message actually contained meteorological observations recorded by the telegraph code used by the US Army and the Meteorological Bureau at that time. Telegram messages are not cheap, and each word can cost several dollars, so it's a cost-effective way to deliver weather forecast information for cities.
"The meteorological observations decoded in the silk dress cipher represent an era in which the telegraph played an important role in facilitating actual weather forecasting," Chen explained. ”
Interestingly, this telegram code is only used by a small group of government officials to make a national weather map. The code was adopted in 1887 and developed by A.W. Greely, the chief letter officer of the British Signal Force, Chan said. This code enables users to convey the entire report in an average of six words, which is very efficient.
Chen also believes that "every few years, new books of meteorological telegraph codes are published, sometimes even with major revisions. Between 1888 and 1900, editions were published in 1889, 1892, and 1896, with the latter two code books being published by the U.S. Weather Service in 1891 when it took over the British Signal Force. ”
The code book can be browsed here, and anyone interested can solve the mystery on their own. However, while Chen's research revealed the content of the message, by examining national weather data from the United States and Canada, he also determined the date on which the message was most likely recorded: May 27, 1888. However, there are still many unsolved mysteries about this story.
For example, who is the person who wrote this message? Why do they hide the message in such a complicated way? Does the copper dress fit their skin tone?
These last two secrets may never be revealed, but Chen has already put a lot of effort into the first issue. At the time, the War Department telegraph room in Washington, D.C., collected weather forecasts for each place, and no women were recruited as operators. However, as clerks, scribes, typists, or sewing workers, they hold a number of other positions.
Chen's speculation is that "these clerical staff may have dealt with such cipher messages, and the owner of the dress may also be one of them." ”
The dress has the "Bennett" logo on it. According to the 1888 Annual Report of the Signal Service, Mary Brown of Fairview, Folton County, Illinois, was at the time. Mary C. Bennett was hired as a volunteer weather observer. So, is the mysterious owner of this dress her?
At the moment, it is impossible to know for sure, but Chen did find interesting facts. It turned out that the date of the meteorological observation described in this cipher message was actually Mary Bennett's birthday. It could just be a coincidence? Probably, but it's still fun.
The study was published in the journal Cryptography.