I would only ask why.
*start rant- deep breath*
There’s a fine line between totally cuckoo ideas and really intelligent pursuit, right? I think there has to be a verifiable reason to continue pursuing an attempt.
So lets just say you really wanted to figure out what those raised letters are all about, how would you go about it? The hardest part is we don’t know if we even CAN figure that out yet. Maybe they’re useful later on after we do some other sort of manipulation. There are a lot of “what if’s” in Kryptos, but that’s kinda the point of it. The fun part is to try anyway.
All kinds of things make sense when you’re guessing, but very little of what makes sense to one person is universally meaningful, intentional, or applicable. Red herrings are all over the place too- “a little twilight situation” as Jim called it. For example, I see the word HARD in plain text among the ciphertext, and this puzzle is hard, so that must mean something important, right? Wrong. It *could* be something important, but just because we recognize something doesn’t imply intent. That’s projecting, which is very hard to stay away from in these kinds of pursuits. The only way to gravitate toward what we *think* is correct is to verify. We can pick and choose what we use as verification as long as it justifiably comes from Kryptos. That makes things very difficult- but confined. Here. Let me show you.
YA R – is like a ray of light, but it’s backward. ABSENCE OF LIGHT
How can we turn that into light? Light is the key to peering in if we accept the general theme of Kryptos as a metaphor.
I INSERTED THE CANDLE
Flip the text around. All of it. That is the action associated with the metaphor, because now we have light.
CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING?
(verification) I see R AY as a flicker from the candle, which gives me confidence that this is what I’m supposed to do, but I was hoping to see a little more than that. Where do I look? How can I identify what I’m supposed to see?
***
And so this is the kind of thing we have to do. Get through the layers. I’m telling you things are re-used over and over in different ways, and it’s quite clever.
There are lots of small, deliberate, disparate puzzles in k4. That’s not a hunch or “feeling like I’m right.” Each step requires that verification. The ultimate verification will be plain text. That’s why when I see really complex, personal ideas about k4 without that verification, I cringe. I’ve done it myself before, and I know Kryptos causes this with it’s lure (k4 syndrome). The verifications are straightforward when you see them, and quite simple in hindsight, really. Finding them- the persistence is the hard part.
How do you like them cocoa puffs?