Cipher Mysteries

Following on from my previous post where I gave (what I think is) an Occitan reading of the marginalia on Voynich Manuscript page f17r "meilhor aller lucent ben balsamina", I've been looking for good sources on Occitan marginalia. My plan for this post is

I was reading about Hallermann-Streiff syndrome this morning, and was a little surprised by the huge gap between Aubry (who first discussed elements of it in 1893, though only partially and in the context of congenital alopecia) and Hallermann (1948) and

Nicely, all of this flapping around eventually managed to lead me to the site I was faintly hoping someone had built (but didnt actually know about). This turned out to be trobaretz.wordpress.com , which contains links to hundreds of manuscripts containin

Having just posted about Project NEPA (and now reading Alex Wellerstein's fantastic "Restricted Data"), something clicked in the back of my head about Nick Redfern's source "Black Widow" (in his book "Body Snatchers in the Desert"). According to Redfern,

I've been trying for a while to find a reliable insider account of the early days of Project NEPA. Helpfully, I found two accounts of Project NEPA written by Lt. Col. Clyde D. Gasser, the Air Force Engineering Officer for project NEPA in Spring 1947. Inci

My search for scientific balloon history 1945-1949 has just taken a sharp turn to one side. I've managed to locate a folder in the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama that has (or, at least, in 1986 had) information

Well, a bit of it, anyway. Over the last weeks, my Cipher Mysteries inbox has been inundated with AI-generated theories. But - and with my apologies to the genuine cipher theories that also landed there, which I promise I will get back to - I've instead b

As I noted last year, it's well documented that the round-ended capsule-shaped metal stratospheric gondola designed by Charles Burgess and Tex Settle (referred to as "The Flying Coffin") was approved by Rear Admiral Moffett, who died in April 1933 (on the

For decades, Roswell researchers have tried to gain access to Project Mogul documents. Most famously, UFO skeptic Robert Todd submitted numerous FOIA requests during the 1980s and 1990s to try to access some of them. According to the McAndrew US Air Force

I keep mentioning Project NEPA here, but it's not exactly well known. So, for a bit of fun I thought I'd draw out the lines connecting it with the Fallout game series' Vault Boy mascot. As you might guess, this whole story arc hasn't really got a happy en