HOW TO SOLVE SANBORN'S KRYPTOS: PART 1 - K2 COORDINATES

The first in a series on solving various parts of the hidden messages in Sanborn's Kryptos.

So here is K2 where the coordinates are revealed. We are just interested in the coordinates so we can delete the rest.

So here are the coordinates by themselves.

We do this in order to make it easier to visualize the next steps.

The words in red are just filler used to obfuscate the real clue. We just want the numbers.

And this is what we have left.

We want to convert those numbers to digits.

We need a key to use with these numbers and for that we'll start with the alphabet. We'll number each letter in the alphabet from 1 to 26.

And we'll continue numbering two more times.

To use the key, start with the first coordinate number, look it up in the key, and find the letter corresponding to that number.

Continue until you have all the letters corresponding to the coordinate numbers.

Doesn't seem to make sense at first glance. But you should notice a pattern to the letters.

You have arrange them from the bottom up. Sanborn uses this 'reversed letters' technique in another part of Kryptos.

So here Sanborn is saying that there is something that ryhmes with the letter 'L'.

There are way too many possiblities so we need a way to narrow it down.

So here we see why it is misspelled.

When asked if 'WW' stood for 'William Webster' Sanborn replied in the affirmative. This is just to throw us off the path. To say 'No' would have provided us with another clue and he does not volunteer infomation.

These rules are not all inclusive. There may be other tricks up his sleeve to mislead us.

'K2 COORDINATES' is not the starting point for solving Kryptos. But it is a good way to show the techniques and methods that Sanborn uses.

In the next part, we'll see how Sanborn comes up with the word 'PALIMPSEST'.

Part 1 of the final solution can be found in Part 10 of this series.