#kryptos

#kryptos

The 35-year-old saga of Kryptos, an enigmatic sculpture containing four encrypted messages outside the CIA headquarters, just took a bizarre twist. Though cryptographers broke the first three passages in the 1990s, just a few years after artist Jim Sanborn erected the copper monolith, the fourth, known as K4, remained a 97-character fortressthat is, until September 2, when journalists Jarett Kobek and Richard Byrne discovered the answer in the Smithsonian archives.

"I wanted to be of sound mind and body when it happened, so I could control it in some way," says Sanborn, who is turning 80 around the time the bidding will commence in November.