Welcome to Episode 249: The Beale Ciphers Treasure Mystery"! In the 1820s, a mysterious traveler named Thomas J Beale left a locked box with a Virginia innkeeper, instructing him not to open it unless ten years passed without anyone coming to claim it. When the box was finally opened decades later, it contained three coded messages and claims of buried treasure worth millions hidden somewhere in Bedford County, Virginia. More than 200 years later, only one cipher has ever been cracked, revealing the treasure's contents but not its location. Treasure hunters have dug up mountains and cemeteries, cryptographers (and even reportedly the NSA) have analyzed the codes, and theories range from an elaborate hoax by entrepreneur James B. Ward to secret ties with President Thomas Jefferson or poet Edgar Allen Poe. Is the treasure still out there somewhere or has it already been found? Somebody call Nic Cage because on this episode of Let's Get Haunted, Aly and Nat break down the Beale Ciphers' history, codes, government intrigue, and theories.
