Be Puzzled No More! Mystery Cache

The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates.

Coordinates will be revealed as you complete the steps below.

This is put out for cachers who seem to shy away from puzzles. Hopefully this will make puzzle solving not so frustrating. We have talked to cachers whose puzzles this could affect, and they are 100% behind us putting this out.

Most cachers probably have their own strategies regarding how they attack a puzzle cache. The very first thing we do when we open up a puzzle is look for hidden coordinates or other hidden information in the form of messages or hints.

There are actually lots of places on a cache page to hide information, with one of the most common hiding spots being in the html source code. This is most simply done by including a comment line when preparing the cache page writeup, but there are also other sneaky ways to hide information in the coding for those who are more experienced with html, so always look at all of the user created coding, including any links (some may not be apparent on the cache page) and the names and locations of any images.

To view the source code for a cache page in Internet Explorer, right click and select "view source". For Chrome, right click and select "view page source". For other browsers, there are similar menu selections available to view the source code. When the source page opens, push "Ctrl F" and a search or find box should pop up. Type in "usersuppliedcontent". It will look something like this.



The information directly below that is the content supplied by the cache owner. Here you are likely to find hidden information if it is there. Give it a try and see what you find in the source code for this cache page.

Another common way to hide information on the cache page is to put some information in a white font, so that it can only be seen when highlighted. Highlight the area below that appears to be blank, and see what you find.
You found the hidden text! B=1
There are ways to hide clues in the text by having certain words or letters in bold or italics or in a different font size, etc. Some of these little changes can be very hard to see on the cache page, but become obvious when looking at the source code. Here is some sample text:

Hidden in this text is a message for you. It is not easy to see, but it is there if you know where to look. It is right there, in front of your eyes. Can you find it?

Some less common places to hide information include the background image for the cache page, any images on the cache page, other images available in the gallery, in the cache title, the listed cache owner's name, in the hint area, or in the listed waypoints (you may want to check the background now). Sometimes even the attributes are used to communicate information since the attributes are entered by the owner. Any place on the cache page where cache owners can enter information, they can hide information.

Also be sure to look at things like TBs and geocoins that are listed as being in the cache, but may actually part of the puzzle, and also look at the profile of the cache owner. In either location, puzzle information can be hidden in plain sight, or could also be hidden in the source code of owner supplied areas of the TB page or the cache owner's profile page or by using white text, etc.

Codes & Ciphers:

Lots of puzzle caches use various forms of codes and ciphers. A code can be something like Morse Code, Binary, or Braille. Foreign languages are also used. The ciphers can range in difficulty from cryptograms to much more sophisticated ciphers that use keys. You would be amazed at what some puzzle cache owners use as decoders. Some of them are very simple tools that people use every day. For example, look at the phone key pad, and you can decipher the fake north coordinates for this cache:

H1 1P.G1B

Or, use the top row of your keyboard to decipher the fake west coordinates:

See what you find.

Here is a site for converting hexidecimal to text.

Here is a site for converting from binary, octal, hexidecimal and other bases to decimal numbers base conversions.

There are also puzzles that could utilize barcodes and even more sophisticated matrix 2D barcodes. Barcodes can be used to code either numbers or text. Here is a link to Wikipedia that covers the basics of barcodes.

Many barcodes can be decoded using sophisticated cell phones, if they are Internet compatible and/or have the necessary apps.

Basically ANYTHING that has either number or text equivalents can be used as code in a puzzle cache, so there are many more options out there than what are listed here.

The use of foreign languages to hide information and coordinates is similar to coding. Use this link Google Translate for puzzle cache translations. Try using the site to translate the following from Swedish to English:

There are a lot of choices out on the Internet for language translations.

The most common cipher used in puzzle caches is probably just the ordinary substitution cipher or cryptogram, where one letter (or symbol) represents another letter, and that holds true throughout the cipher.

Here is one cryptogram solver.

If the cryptogram you are solving uses symbols, the symbols will have to be converted to letters first. If you find that there are more than 26 different symbols, some symbols may represent capitol letters or punctuation, in which case the on-line solver on above will not be able to handle it, and you will have to find a more sophisticated solver.

Try using the site above to solve the following cryptogram:

Xh djv uita fua pjcvfxjq fj fuxp nldwfjzlio lxzuf, djv kxcc sqjk fuif fua caffal Z xp ayvic fj fkj.

One specific form of a substitution cipher is called ROT13. Here is a ROT13 transformation site. ROT13 is actually the way that hints are scrambled on geocaching.com.

Similar to ROT13 is ROT47, which works the same way, but includes all ASCII symbols (not just letters). Here is a ROT47 conversion site.

Try using the ROT47 to decode the following:

%96 =6EE6C w :D @7 4@FCD6 6BF2= E@ @?6]

Some ciphers require a key word to solve them. The key will often be hidden in the text somewhere. There may be a seemingly innocent comment in the description such as “patience is the key to solving this puzzle” where what they are really telling you is that the word patience is the key word needed to solve the cipher. Other times, the key may be the title of the cache or some other item on the cache page such as the name of the park where the cache is hidden.

The most common keyed cipher is probably the Vigenère Cipher. Here is a solver for Vigenère Ciphers.

Try solving the following cipher using the above site, and remember “patience is the key” on this one.

Xf rwy huis tam vvili kxg abth, non emyn jxnw blnv xwe emxggv X il muhcp io hvi.

Some other ciphers that could be used in puzzle caches include Atbash, Ceasar, Bacon, and Playfair. Here is a site with a whole variety of cipher tools to play with.

There are a lot of cipher puzzle caches out there that just use symbolic fonts, which can often be downloaded for free from the Internet. Fonts can be found that are comprised of holiday symbols, ancient writing etc.

Another very common type of puzzle cache is the list. Most cache coordinates will be made up of 15 numbers. So, if you see a list of 15 items, it is very likely that each item can be associated with a single digit number.

Say I had a puzzle cache called “Yellow Submarine” and the puzzle was a list as follows:

• Sea of Monsters
• Pepperland
• Yellow Submarine
• Yellow Submarine in Pepperland
• Hey Bulldog
• Pepperland
• Only A Northern Song
• Yellow Submarine
• Pepperland
• Yellow Submarine
• March of the Meanies
• All You Need Is Love
• Pepperland
• All Together Now
• It's All Too Much

The letter J equals Pepperland

If you were to go to the following Wikipedia link for the album and looked at the track listing, you would find that, using the number for each track in the list, that the above list would reveal the fake coordinates for this puzzle cache.

The key to solving this type of list puzzle is finding the pattern among the items listed. One thing you have to go on to start your search for the necessary pattern is that, north of Kaysville to the Utah/Idaho border, the first two numbers will be a 4 and a 1. If the first item on the list is a person’s name, and among all the info you gather about this person you find that they were born in 1924 (a year ending in 4), and the second person on the list was born in 1951 (a year ending in 1) then it might be worth checking to see when the other people on the list were born. Or if the first person on the list had four kids, spouses, etc.

The puzzle list can contain less than 15 items, if some of the items in the list are a multiple-digit number OR if the cache owner is only looking for the last 5 or 3 digits of the North and West coordinates.

Most word puzzles, such as crosswords, word searches, anagrams, etc. are usually pretty straight forward as far as the rules, but that does not mean that they are all easy. Here are a few websites that may help you when trying to solve these types of puzzles:

Word Search Strategies
Crossword Puzzle Help
Anagram Solver

For word searches, there is often a hidden message in the letters that remain behind after the list of words are all found. That hidden message may not necessarily start at the beginning, and it may not read left to right.

Many word puzzles depend on converting the numerical value of a letter to a number (i.e. a=1 and z=26). If the first two letters on a puzzle in the Weber County area are DA (equivalent to 41), then you may be on to something.

Here are links to an online dictionary, an online thesaurus, and Wikipedia, which can all be very helpful with word puzzles.

Most math puzzles are also straight forward, but as with word puzzles, that does not mean that they are easy. Here are a few websites that contain a lot of common equations that may come in handy when trying to solve math puzzles.

Triangles
Circles
Area Calculations
Unit Conversions

The letter L is equal to the AREA of a triangle with a base of 4 and a height of 3.

The given information for a puzzle may be in different units than the answer, requiring conversion.

M is the number of miles equal to 316,800 inches.

Logic puzzles come in a wide variety of forms. Some common puzzle types falling in this category are Sudoku (in all its various forms), Kakuro, Nonograms, Hidato, and others. Then you have the old-fashioned story problem type of logic puzzle.

Here is a link to an on-line Sudoku solver. It solves traditional Sudokus as well as several other variations.

You will find N if you set the cage value at 15, operation *, 3 cells, 0 repeat, all numbers allowed. N= the smallest number in the answer.

The key to solving the old-fashioned story problem type of logic puzzle is to make an appropriate grid, as shown at logic-puzzles.org. Without using the grid, these puzzles can be very difficult to solve.

O= the number of letters in the word Logic, minus 2

Now, let’s see what you learned. This puzzle cache can be found at:

North AB CD.EFG  West HIJ KL.MNO