Beale ciphers

Imagine you have a secret message that you don't want anyone else to read, but you still want your friends to be able to figure it out if they need to. That's what Beale ciphers are all about!

A long time ago, a man named Thomas Jefferson Beale buried a treasure chest full of gold, silver, and other valuable things somewhere in the United States. But he didn't want anyone to be able to find it easily, so he made three secret codes to protect the location of the treasure.

Each code is made up of lots and lots of letters and numbers, and they're really hard to figure out if you don't know the secret key. It's like a puzzle that only Beale's friends could solve!

But even though the key to the Beale ciphers has never been found, lots of people have tried to figure out the treasure's location. Some people think it might be buried somewhere in Virginia, but nobody knows for sure. It's still a mystery that people are trying to solve today!