Wood Cryptogram 1950

The site is a single-purpose write-up by Colin Reilly that reconstructs the solving of a 1950 cipher left by Yorkshire solicitor T. E. Wood. Wood published 21 letters as a test of life after death, intending to return the key through a medium after dying. The page situates this puzzle within Klaus Schmeh’s Top 50 unsolved list, where it ranked 35th, and notes that the solution was confirmed by Schmeh on October 4, 2026.

The core of the page explains the Thouless method, a scheme devised by psychologist Robert Thouless in 1948 for creating messages that could only be deciphered with a secret key. It then shows how the key was identified as the opening of the Lord’s Prayer in a 1912 Luther Bible, and presents the deciphered passage alongside Wood’s initials and signature. A German-language version of the page is also linked.

The content will appeal most to cryptography hobbyists, readers of Klaus Schmeh’s unsolved-cipher lists, and anyone curious about historical attempts to test survival after death through ciphers. Because the page includes the full plaintext and key, it works both as a case study and as a reference for similar puzzle-solving efforts.

Readers should treat the page as a narrative account rather than an interactive tool; there is no solver or database here. It is best read in sequence, starting with the historical background before moving to the solution. The German edition is useful for bilingual readers or those comparing translations of the cipher text.