The Unsolved Secret Code at CIA Headquarters

An unsolved mystery has hidden in plain sight at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia. It has nothing to do with covert spies, double agents or state secrets. Not directly, at least. The mystery is contained within a work of art—a sculpture installation called "Kryptos."  

"Kryptos" was created by visual artist Jim Sanborn, who has been the sole keeper of its secrets since the sculpture was unveiled at the CIA headquarters in 1990. That’s because "Kryptos" is not a typical work of art. Beyond its visual appeal, the work contains an encrypted message—the word kryptos is Latin for “hidden”—that has stumped the world’s top codebreakers for more than three decades.  

“Kryptos" is one of the most famous unsolved codes in the world,” says Elonka Dunin, a cryptologist and de facto leader of the global effort to crack Kryptos.

“The main part of the sculpture is about 12 feet tall and 20 feet long,” says Dunin, one of few civilians to see the installation up close and in person. “It contains a big petrified log with a scrolling piece of metal coming out of it like printer paper. And on those metal sheets are about 1,800 letters that have been cut into it.”  

The letters on the copper scroll appear to be random nonsense—“EMUFPHZLRFA” and so forth—but with the right cipher or key they reveal four hidden messages. Three of those messages have been cracked by codebreakers at the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA).  

“The fourth part is at the very bottom of the scroll,” says Dunin. “It's only 97 characters, about four and a half rows, but we still don't know what it says.” 

After Watergate, the U.S. intelligence agencies came under fire from Congress. In 1976, the Church Committee released a scathing report accusing the CIA of spying on American citizens (including Martin Luther King Jr.) and assassinating foreign leaders. The CIA needed an image makeover.  

In the 1980s, the federal government commissioned original works of art for the CIA's new headquarters building in Virginia. Applicants were encouraged to submit work that “reflect[ed] life in all its positive aspects” and “engender[ed] feelings of well-being, hope.” 

Jim Sanborn decided to make a submission. The Washington, D.C.-born artist had never created art for a government building before, but he had read a lot of espionage novels by John le Carré.  

“At the time, what I thought of as typically CIA—as most people did—was spies and spying and certainly cryptography,” says Sanborn. “I only learned later that it was actually the NSA that was the cryptographic genius of the world. But I figured I would create something with a secret code, because it seemed so apropos.”  

For his proposal, Sanborn said he wanted to offer an “alternate reality” within the CIA headquarters—“a quiet space with the calming effect of water, a profusion of nature and importantly, with "Kryptos," something else for employees to think about.” 

Sanborn won the CIA commission in 1988 and spent two years making the sculpture, including cutting out each of the 1,800 characters by hand with a jigsaw. The artwork was installed at CIA headquarters in two separate areas: a stack of layered stones directly outside the building’s main entrance, and an interior courtyard with a small pond, stones and the piece of petrified wood with the copper scroll. Put those parts together and "Kryptos" contains a series of coded messages that are designed to be increasingly difficult to crack.

To create the hidden messages, he enlisted the help of Ed Scheidt, former head of the CIA’s Cryptographic Center. Scheidt presented several options for each encryption, and Sanborn added his own artistic twists. The first piece of the puzzle was meant to be easy. Sanborn etched Morse code into the rocks outside the CIA entrance containing fragments of messages. “I expected some of these military savants walking through the front entrance to get it immediately,” he says. “But then I also wanted the mystery to unravel slowly like layers coming off an onion. I didn't want the code all cracked at one time.” 

Mission accomplished. The 1,800-character code on the copper scroll in the CIA courtyard is divided into four separate messages. It took nearly a decade for professional cryptographers to crack parts one through three.  

“The first person to do it was a CIA analyst named David Stein,” says Dunin. “He did it in 1998 with a pencil and paper in his off hours. In 1999, a California computer scientist named Jim Gillogly solved it with a computer attack and was the first to go public with his solution. After that, the NSA also came forward that they'd also already solved those portions. The solution to the fourth section of "Kryptos," however, has eluded both professional and amateur codebreakers ever since.  

Sanborn's coded messages are cryptic and contain occasional spelling mistakes, which may be clues in themselves. For example, the solution to the first section reads: 

“Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion.” 

The second section, when decoded, contains the longitude and latitude coordinates of the CIA headquarters and a series of questions. The third section reveals a quote from Howard Carter, the archaeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922.

A question in the second section also holds a clue: “Does Langley know about this? They should Its buried out there somewhere X Who knows the exact location? Only WW” 

“WW” refers to William Webster, who was the head of the CIA when "Kryptos" was created and ran the FBI before that. On the day of dedication, Sanborn handed Webster a wax-sealed envelope containing the answers. He says Webster was the only other person to have access to all four solutions.

“When he retired a few years later, Webster went on the TV program Face the Nation and said that the 'Kryptos' secret was the hardest secret he had to keep,” adds Sanborn. Webster passed away in August 2025, and the whereabouts of the envelope are unknown. 

Though skeptics argue the fourth section is indecipherable, Sanborn asserts a solution does exist for what he refers to as 'K4.'

In the beginning, only a relatively small community of hardcore cryptology buffs knew about "Kryptos." But in 2003, author Dan Brown embedded snippets of its solutions on the U.S. cover of his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. In 2005, Brown announced that "Kryptos" would play a central role in his novel, The Lost Symbol.  

The sculpture leapt from an obscure work of art into the conspiracy-obsessed world of Dan Brown fans. For two straight days in 2005, "Kryptos" was the most-Googled object on Earth. People started calling Sanborn at all hours asking for clues. Some would even show up at his house with three-ring binders full of proofs. Sanborn tried to respond to the flood of inquiries, but it quickly became overwhelming.  

After almost 35 years fielding thousands of emails and spurious solutions, Sanborn is auctioning off the remaining “K4” solution to the highest bidder for charity. He hopes that the final secret will continue to be kept by whoever buys the solution. But even if they don’t, he's hinted that the riddle might not end there.  

“Honestly, after 35 years, I have to tell you that I have done my best to forget about what I said in 'K4,'” says Sanborn. “Because if I don't know what it says, then I can't slip up and accidentally give away the answer. So the less I know, the better.”