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The Beale Ciphers: A Buried Treasure, Three Codes, One Solved

The 1885 pamphlet that claims a fortune is buried in Virginia, and why codebreakers still argue about it.

Quick answer

What are the Beale ciphers?

The Beale ciphers are three coded messages published in an 1885 pamphlet called The Beale Papers, which claims that a man named Thomas Beale buried gold, silver and jewels in Bedford County, Virginia, in the early 1820s. The second cipher was solved using the Declaration of Independence as a key and describes the treasure. The first, said to give the location, and the third, said to list the owners, have never been solved, and many experts believe the story is a hoax.

Timeline

  1. 1819 to 1821According to the pamphlet, Thomas Beale and his party bury their treasure near Buford's tavern in Bedford County.
  2. 1822Beale is said to leave a locked box of papers with Lynchburg innkeeper Robert Morriss.
  3. 1885James B. Ward publishes The Beale Papers in Lynchburg, including all three ciphers and the solution to the second.
  4. 20th centuryProfessional cryptanalysts, including some from US government agencies, try and fail to break the first and third ciphers.

What is documented, and what is not

On the record

  • The 1885 pamphlet exists, and the second cipher really does decode using the Declaration of Independence.
  • The decoded text describes more than 2,900 pounds of gold and 5,100 pounds of silver, plus jewels.
  • No treasure has ever been found.

Disputed or unproven

  • Whether Thomas Beale existed is unproven.
  • Statistical studies of the unsolved ciphers and the pamphlet's language suggest a hoax, but this is not settled.

Common questions

Has the Beale treasure been found?

No. Despite more than a century of searching and digging in Bedford County, Virginia, nothing has been found.

How was the second Beale cipher solved?

Each number refers to a word in the Declaration of Independence. Taking the first letter of each numbered word reveals the message.

Is the Beale treasure a hoax?

Many cryptographers think so, citing word-use patterns and statistical oddities in the unsolved ciphers, but it has never been proven either way.

Read the record yourself

Links go to official archives, museums, agencies and published research. Search links open the archive's own search for this topic.

THE FICTION BUILT ON THIS RECORD · FILE 054 · VOLUME IXThe Gold Is Buried Near a Virginia Tavern. Two Codes Are Left.The most dangerous treasure maps are the ones that are partly true.Read the first pages free →

Last reviewed 2026-10-13. This page covers the public record only. Archive files are dramatized and always marked as files.

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