NOTE: THE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE IS FICTIONAL AND UNRELATED TO THE KRYPTOS SCULPTURE. (Aug. 2007) THE LETTER SIGNED JAMES SANBORN IS, HOWEVER, THE ACTUAL LETTER DISTRIBUTED TO AGENCY EMPLOYEES AS THE SCULPTURE WAS BEING INSTALLED.

Deep within the cyber headquarters of the Lunctis Viribus Facility, the Cheif of Operations is debriefing her staff on a letter to the CIA intercepted by a field operative on location.

"Rotvians," the chief somberly scrutinizes her men and women seated in front of a network of computer screens, "we are in possession of a document dated December 15, 1989 in which for sake of level security has been dubbed Non Mihi Solum.  ROT's top field agent, code named Alpha Busillis, is uploading visuals from the site as we speak."

Chief Dunin projects the decade-old Agency Letter on a massive screen, debriefing her team as they begin to take notes of the newly discovered material.  "Your mission is to download the visuals from our secure network and interpret their meanings.  This journey will be a difficult one, but I have utmost confidence in your specialized cryptanalysis training.  For the next several weeks you will work this code, you will eat and sleep this code with nothing but Non Mihi Solum on your minds."

Team members wait in anxious expectation of the clues the document may provide as details of the intercepted message begin to come to light:


Dear Agency Employees:

I am writing this letter to give you an idea of what I am up to at the Agency, and to explain those big tilted slabs of stone.

The stonework in the courtyard and at the entrance to the new building serves to [sic] functions:

First, it creates a natural framework for the project as a whole and is part of a landscaping scheme designed to recall the natural stone outcroppings that existed on this site before the Agency, and will endure as do mountains.

Second, the tilted strata tell a story like pages of a document. Over the next several months, a flat copper sheet through which letters and symbols are cut will be inserted between these stone "pages." This code, which includes certain ancient ciphers, begins as International Morse and increases in complexity as you move through the piece at the entrance and into the courtyard. Its placement in a geologic context reinforces the text's "hiddenness" as if it were a fossil or an image frozen in time.

An installation in the courtyard further explores this theme. On the paved surface, supported by a petrified tree, will stand a curved, vertical copper plate. Approximately 2000 letters of the alphabet are cut through this plate (a process which requires four months of work). The left side of the plate is a table for deciphering and enciphering code, developed by Blaise de Vigenere in 1570.

The right side is a text that can be partly deciphered by using the table and partly by using a potentially challenging encoding system. The text, written in collaboration with a prominent fiction writer, is revealed only after the code is deciphered.

My choice of materials, like code, conveys meaning. At the entrance a lodestone (a rock naturally magnetized by lighting [sic]) refers to ancient navigational compasses. The petrified tree recalls the trees that once stood on this site and that were the source of materials on which written language has been recorded. The copper, perforated by text, represents this "paper." I also use another symbol; water. In a small pool on the plaza, partly surrounded by the copper plate, water will be turbulent and provocative, constantly agitated into standing waves. In the other pool, located among trees in the courtyard and between two massive outcroppings, water will be calm, reflective, contemplative. Other materials around the site -- large stones, ornamental grasses, and small trees -- are designed to make the natural features surrounding the Agency more visually interesting and thought provoking.

My work at Langley is approximately two thirds complete. If you see me or my apprentices working, please don't hesitate to ask questions about the work.

Sincerely,

(signed)
Jim Sanborn