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Kryptos is a sculpture by the United States artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.
Since its dedication on November 3, 1990, there has been much speculation about the meaning of the four cryptography messages it bears. Of these four messages, the first three have been solved, while the fourth message remains one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world. Artist Jim Sanborn has hinted that a fifth coded message will reveal itself after the first four are solved. The sculpture continues to be of interest to , both amateur and professional, attempting to decode the fourth passage. The artist has so far given four clues to this passage.
In addition to the main part of the sculpture, Sanborn also placed other pieces of art on the CIA grounds, such as several large granite slabs with sandwiched copper sheets outside the entrance to the New Headquarters Building. Several Morse code messages are found on these copper sheets, and one of the stone slabs has an engraving of a compass rose pointing to a lodestone. The ciphers' increasing "complexity" through the entrance into the courtyard is intended to be as if it "were a fossil". Other elements of Sanborn's installation include a landscaped garden area, a fish pond with opposing wooden benches, a reflecting pool, and other pieces of stone, including a triangle-shaped black stone slab.
The name Kryptos comes from the ancient Ancient Greek word for "hidden", and the theme of the sculpture is "intelligence gathering". The cost of building the sculpture in 1988 was (worth ~ in 2024).
The right-hand side of the sculpture comprises a keyed Vigenère encryption tableau, consisting of 867 letters. One of the lines of the Vigenère tableau has an extra character ( L). Bauer, Link, and Molle suggest that this may be a reference to the Hill cipher as an encryption method for the fourth passage of the sculpture, as with that extra L, the letters HILL appear consecutively down the rightmost column. However, Sanborn omitted the extra letter from the small Kryptos models that he sold.
| + The encryptions that were ascribed | Left side, as seen from the courtyardThe left-side encryptions are often divided into four sections: K1, K2, K3 and K4.
K1: "EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD" K2: "VFPJUDEEHZWETZYVGWHKKQETGFQJNCE GGWHKK?DQMCPFQZDQMMIAGPFXHQRLG TIMVMZJANQLVKQEDAGDVFRPJUNGEUNA QZGZLECGYUXUEENJTBJLBQCRTBJDFHRR YIZETKZEMVDUFKSJHKFWHKUWQLSZFTI HHDDDUVH?DWKBFUFPWNTDFIYCUQZERE EVLDKFEZMOQQJLTTUGSYQPFEUNLAVIDX FLGGTEZ?FKZBSFDQVGOGIPUFXHHDRKF FHQNTGPUAECNUVPDJMQCLQUMUNEDFQ ELZZVRRGKFFVOEEXBDMVPNFQXEZLGRE DNQFMPNZGLFLPMRJQYALMGNUVPDXVKP DQUMEBEDMHDAFMJGZNUPLGEWJLLAETG" K3: "ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIA CHTNREYULDSLLSLLNOHSNOSMRWXMNE TPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAE WMTWNDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOE TFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEYQHEENCTAYCR EIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLB TEEFOASFIOTUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTI BSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGRIEWFEB AECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORIT RKLMLEHAGTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHE ECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?" K4: "OBKR UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR" | Right side, as seen from the courtyard |
EMUFPHZLRFAXYUSDJKZLDKRNSHGNFIVJ YQTQUXQBQVYUVLLTREVJYQTMKYRDMFD VFPJUDEEHZWETZYVGWHKKQETGFQJNCE GGWHKK?DQMCPFQZDQMMIAGPFXHQRLG TIMVMZJANQLVKQEDAGDVFRPJUNGEUNA QZGZLECGYUXUEENJTBJLBQCRTBJDFHRR YIZETKZEMVDUFKSJHKFWHKUWQLSZFTI HHDDDUVH?DWKBFUFPWNTDFIYCUQZERE EVLDKFEZMOQQJLTTUGSYQPFEUNLAVIDX FLGGTEZ?FKZBSFDQVGOGIPUFXHHDRKF FHQNTGPUAECNUVPDJMQCLQUMUNEDFQ ELZZVRRGKFFVOEEXBDMVPNFQXEZLGRE DNQFMPNZGLFLPMRJQYALMGNUVPDXVKP DQUMEBEDMHDAFMJGZNUPLGEWJLLAETG ENDYAHROHNLSRHEOCPTEOIBIDYSHNAIA CHTNREYULDSLLSLLNOHSNOSMRWXMNE TPRNGATIHNRARPESLNNELEBLPIIACAE WMTWNDITEENRAHCTENEUDRETNHAEOE TFOLSEDTIWENHAEIOYTEYQHEENCTAYCR EIFTBRSPAMHHEWENATAMATEGYEERLB TEEFOASFIOTUETUAEOTOARMAEERTNRTI BSEDDNIAAHTTMSTEWPIEROAGRIEWFEB AECTDDHILCEIHSITEGOEAOSDDRYDLORIT RKLMLEHAGTDHARDPNEOHMGFMFEUHE ECDMRIPFEIMEHNLSSTTRTVDOHW?OBKR UOXOGHULBSOLIFBBWFLRVQQPRNGKSSO TWTQSJQSSEKZZWATJKLUDIAWINFBNYP VTTMZFPKWGDKZXTJCDIGKUHUAUEKCAR | ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD AKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYP BRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPT CYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTO DPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOS ETOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSA FOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSAB GSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABC HABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCD IBCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDE JCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEF KDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFG LEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGH MFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHI NGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL OHIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJL PIJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLM QJLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMN RLMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQ SMNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQU TNQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUV UQUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVW VUVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWX WVWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZ XWXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZK YXZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKR ZZKRYPTOSABCDEFGHIJLMNQUVWXZKRY ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCD |
Sanborn worked with a retiring CIA employee named Edward Scheidt to come up with the cryptographic systems used on the sculpture. Edward Scheidt stated that the difficulty of the encryption was around nine out of ten. He said that his intention was for it to be solved in five to ten years. He also said that there was an intentional "change in the methodology" of the encryption. Sanborn also suggested in a 2005 interview that should he die before the entire sculpture is deciphered, he had put in place a method by which a correct solution could be confirmed. In 2020, Sanborn stated that he planned to put the secret to the solution up for auction once he died.
In August 2025, Sanborn announced that the K4 solution as well as a prototype sculpture, encryption tables, and other related ephemera would be auctioned by the firm RR Auction later in the year.
In October 2025, the Kryptos auction was formally posted by RR Auction as part of the sale titled "Decoding History: Kryptos, Enigma and the Rosetta Stone", running from 16 October to 20 November 2025. As part of the same collection, a signed first-edition set of Howard Carter’s The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen was listed as running from 16 October to 20 November 2025.
Sanborn had stated that the sculpture contains a riddle within a riddle, which will be solvable only after the four encrypted passages have been deciphered. He has given conflicting information about the sculpture's answer, saying at one time that he gave the complete solution to the then-CIA director William Webster during the dedication ceremony, but later, he also said that he had not given Webster the entire solution. He did, however, confirm that a passage of the plaintext of the second message reads, "Who knows the exact location? Only WW.""WW" has been speculated to be a reference to William Webster.
The NSA claimed that some of their employees had solved the same three passages but would not reveal names or dates until March 2000, when it was learned that an NSA team led by Ken Miller, along with Dennis McDaniels and two other unnamed individuals, had solved passages1–3 in late 1992. In 2013, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Elonka Dunin, the NSA released documents that show these attempts to solve the Kryptos puzzle in 1992, following a challenge by Bill Studeman, then Deputy Director of the CIA. The documents show that by June 1993, a small group of NSA cryptanalysts had succeeded in solving the first three passages of the sculpture.
All previous attempts to solve Kryptos found that passage 2 ended with "WESTIDBYROWS". However, in 2005, Nicole Friedrich, a logician from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, determined that another possible plaintext was "WESTXLAYERTWO". On April 19, 2006, Sanborn contacted an online community dedicated to the Kryptos puzzle to inform them that he made an error in the sculpture by omitting an S in the ciphertext (an X in the plaintext), and he confirmed that the last passage of the plaintext was "WESTXLAYERTWO", and not "WESTIDBYROWS." In July 2025, it was noted that "LAYERTWO" correctly matches Page 170 of Carter's account of "what we may call the second layer" in reference to a painted treasure chest that posed a significant puzzle for the expedition team".
E E VIRTUALLY E | E E E E E E INVISIBLEDIGETAL E E E | INTERPRETATIT
E E SHADOW E E | FORCES E E E E E
LUCID E E E | MEMORY E
T IS YOUR | POSITION E
SOS
RQ
BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION
The word IQLUSION was claimed to be an intentional misspelling of ILLUSION by the creator, Jim Sanborn, which is reinforced by how it appears on the original coding charts provided by Sanborn himself.
On line 7, column 26 of the original coding chart, the keyword "PALIMPSEST" is actually misspelled with a C, whereas the word ILLUSION is correctly spelled out above it. When the KRYPTOS Vigenère tableau is used to encode the word ILLUSION into ciphertext with the keyword PALIMPCEST, the combination of the first L in ILLUSION and the C in PALIMPCEST renders a K in the ciphertext, which is how it appears on the original coding chart and is correctly transcribed onto the sculpture. If this particular instance of the keyword did not contain the spelling error, the letter K would encode to W instead. Conversely, if the plaintext word IQLUSION had been encoded with a properly spelled keyword, the resulting ciphertext letter K would accurately reflect what we see on the sculpture. This form of 'intentional' spelling error has also occurred in passage 2 with the word UNDERGROUND, but in this case the keyword and ciphertext all appear correctly on the coding chart. Whether it was intentional or not, a change occurred during the transcription phase of the ciphertext onto the sculpture.
Due to the previous issue of an omitted S that was later disclosed as error, it is unknown whether these artifacts were intended to be part of the puzzle, meant to simply throw people off, or were errors in the creation process. When Sanborn was questioned about the process, his response was “You could not make any mistake with 1,800 letters. It could not be repaired.” This is compounded by Sanborn's previous statements in 2005, claiming "most of my things are rife with mistakes on purpose."
IT WAS TOTALLY INVISIBLE HOWS THAT POSSIBLE ? THEY USED THE EARTHS MAGNETIC FIELD X THE INFORMATION WAS GATHERED AND TRANSMITTED UNDERGRUUND TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION X DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS ? THEY SHOULD ITS BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION ? ONLY WW THIS WAS HIS LAST MESSAGE X THIRTY EIGHT DEGREES FIFTY SEVEN MINUTES SIX POINT FIVE SECONDS NORTH SEVENTY SEVEN DEGREES EIGHT MINUTES FORTY FOUR SECONDS WEST X LAYER TWO
In section 6 of the original coding charts, the plaintext word UNDERGROUND is correctly spelled, and columns 20–27 of the tableau also contain the correct spelling of the keyword "ABSCISSA", with the corresponding letter E in the ciphertext directly under the O. However, when transcribed onto the sculpture, the letter E somehow became an R. When the KRYPTOS Vigenère tableau is used to decode this message, the combination of R in the ciphertext and S in the keyword renders a U in the plaintext. The coordinates mentioned in the plaintext, , have been interpreted using a modern Geodetic datum as indicating a point that is approximately southeast of the sculpture.
SLOWLY DESPARATLY SLOWLY THE REMAINS OF PASSAGE DEBRIS THAT ENCUMBERED THE LOWER PART OF THE DOORWAY WAS REMOVED WITH TREMBLING HANDS I MADE A TINY BREACH IN THE UPPER LEFT HAND CORNER AND THEN WIDENING THE HOLE A LITTLE I INSERTED THE CANDLE AND PEERED IN THE HOT AIR ESCAPING FROM THE CHAMBER CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER BUT PRESENTLY DETAILS OF THE ROOM WITHIN EMERGED FROM THE MIST X CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING Q ?
This is a paraphrased quotation from Howard Carter's account of the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun on November 26, 1922, as described in his 1923 book The Tomb of Tutankhamun. The question with which it ends is asked by Lord Carnarvon, to which Carter on page 96 of the expedition notes replied, "Yes, wonderful things".
Sanborn gave The New York Times another clue in November 2014: the letters "MZFPK", the 70th through 74th letters in passage4, become "CLOCK" after decryption. The 74th letter is K in both the plaintext and ciphertext, meaning that it is possible for a character to encrypt to itself. Sanborn further stated that in order to solve passage4, "You'd better delve into that particular clock", but added: "There are several really interesting clocks in Berlin." In 2025, Sanborn confirmed that the plaintext referred to the World Clock.
In an article published on January 29, 2020, by The New York Times, Sanborn gave another clue: at positions 26 to 34, ciphertext "QQPRNGKSS" is the word "NORTHEAST".
In August 2020, Sanborn revealed that the four letters in positions 22 through 25, ciphertext "FLRV", in the plaintext are "EAST". Sanborn commented that he "released this layout to several people as early as April".
In October 2025, the auction was formally posted by RR Auction as part of the sale titled "Decoding History: Kryptos, Enigma and the Rosetta Stone", running from 16 October to 20 November 2025. The catalogue included Sanborn’s Kryptos archive—comprising the K4 solution, a prototype, encryption tables, and related ephemera—alongside a signed first-edition set of Howard Carter’s The Tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen listed in the same catalogue. The Kryptos archive ultimately sold for $962,500 at the conclusion of the auction.
After consulting with the auction house, Sanborn requested Kobek and Byrne to sign NDAs, which they refused. Kobek and Byrne also allege that lawyers for the auction house contacted them and threatened the two with copyright infringement and interference with contracts, if they were to publicly release the K4 plaintext.
Kobek said he's heard conflicting information about how long the documents had actually been at the Smithsonian before discovery, ranging from 2010 at the earliest to February 2024, or approximately 18 months before the K4 plaintext was discovered. The date for the donation, as currently displayed on the Finding Aid for the Smithsonian site, is 2023.
Kobek and Byrne mentioned sifting through several other examples of Sanborn's work in the Smithsonian archives before stumbling across the K4 plaintext, as during an interview with Wired News in 2005, Sanborn was asked if it was important to look at his other works, before and after Kryptos, to understand Kryptos. His response was "For the student of cryptography it's always helpful to gather as much information as possible when zeroing in on and encoding a system." Kobek claims that in March 2019, a group of select members that attended an annual "Kryptos Dinner" had the opportunity to ask Sanborn directly about submissions regarding K4, claiming that Sanborn at that time said he "did not care" what method someone used to solve it.
In an open letter in August 2025, Sanborn confirmed the existence of K5, which will be revealed after K4 has been solved.
A small version of Kryptos appears in the season 5 episode of Alias "S.O.S.". In it, Marshall Flinkman says he has cracked the code just by looking at it during a tour visit to the CIA office. The solution he describes sounds like the solution to the first two parts. It was also mentioned as "Kryptos Donuts" in the sixth episode of The Recruit Season 1, "I.N.A.S.I.A.L.".
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