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A Top Secret Carrier Pigeon Message Discovered in 2012
Lee Sanders via The Telegraph
In November of 2012, Englishman David Martin of Surrey discovered the skeleton of a pigeon in his chimney. That part is pretty routine -- birds fly into chimneys all the time, because they are stupid. But this bird skeleton had a small red capsule attached to its leg. Holy shit, it's probably full of tiny gifts! It's the bird Santa Claus!
The truth was almost as strange: Inside was a coded WWII era message that had been sealed ever since it was written 70 some years ago (needless to say, this particular pigeon was a spectacular failure at its job). The letter contained 27 groups of 5 letters and was signed by a Sergeant W. Stott. After David Martin contacted the local media, the Government Communications Headquarters took a crack at decoding what was likely one of their own codes...and failed miserably. Seriously, they couldn't even get close to breaking it. After weeks, the code crackers had made no progress and the news media claimed that the code was unbreakable.
Lee Sanders via The Telegraph
"We've been through every breakfast cereal on the market! None of the decoder rings work!"
But in December of the same year, Canadian Gordon Young claimed to have partially cracked the code. Using a WWI era codebook, Young deciphered some of the message in less than 20 minutes. According to him, some of the message read:
"Hit Jerry's Right or Reserve Battery Here. Already know electrical engineers headquarters. Troops, panzers, batteries, engineers, here."
Sergeant Stott turned out to be a 27 year old paratrooper who had dropped into Normandy behind enemy lines to evaluate the size of the German Army in the area. Young claims that the rest of the code may be either unsolvable, or possibly fake to try and fool any Germans stationed inside the chimneys of cottages.
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"Claus, for the last time, get out of the damn chimney!"
Chris Sansone is a New York City based writer and television production freelancer. Check out his website at www.clichedcoincidence.com or email him at sansone.cracked@gmail.com
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