Grille Cipher

Turn the wheel to find a secret message. The message is written line-by-line. There is more than one message to find!

This type of code is called a “grille cipher”. Can you make a grille cipher of your own?

Can you devise your own way to send a secret message?

There are three main ways to send secret messages:

Codes turn words or sentences into other words or sentences, for example “attack at dawn” might become “black eagle”. Codes are like a secret language and need a code book so you can translate phrases.
Ciphers turn letters into other letters, shapes or symbols. For example, if we wanted to say HELLO we could replace each letter with the next letter in the alphabet so the message becomes IFMMP. Ciphers need a “key” so you know which letter becomes which in the secret message.
Steganography is a way to hide messages in plain sight. For example, in our exhibit, it looks like we have lots of random letters, but when you place the grille on top of the letters you can read a secret message. There are many ways to send hidden messages.