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| OTSH SH SHOTOTOT OTSH OTOTOT OTOTOTOT * OTOTOTOT OT OTSHOTOT OTSHSHOT OTOTOT * SHSH OT * OTOTSHOT OTSHOTOT SHOTSHSH   |
|                                                                                                                       |
|                                                *                                                                      |
|                                              *    \                   -T L                                            |
|                                            *       K                 V                                                |
|                                          /          O              N                                                  |
|                                        4             V            /                                                   |
|                                       *               Z         G                                                     |
|                                     ^                  H      V                                                       |
|                                    /                    V   O                                                         |
|                                   8                      \_/                                                          |
|                                 /                                                                                     |
|                               (                                                                                       |
|                              )                                                                                        |
|                             /                                                                                         |
|                            #                                                                                          |
|                           /                                                                                           |
|                         6                                                                                             |
|                        /                                                                                              |
|                      6                                                                                                |
|                     5                                                                                                 |
|                    $                                                                                                  |
|            ___    1                                                                                                   |
|           (* *}+                                                                                                      |
|           \||/                                                                                                        |
|            /\                                                                                                         |
|                                                                                                                       |
| SHSH SHSHSH OTSHOT OTOTOT OT * SH OTSH SHOTSH OT OTOTOT * SHSH OT * OTOTSH OTSHSHOT * OTSHSH OTOTOTOT OTOT OTSHOTOT OT|

That picture up there was taken the last time I shot my Boomerang. Alas, it never came back. But it left a message. Yes, they do that now and then.

Can you figure it out?

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  • 4
    $\begingroup$ I saw the title, thought of Mushroom Bang Boom, and came here with flags flying :-P $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Mar 30, 2017 at 14:33
  • $\begingroup$ @randal'thor Haha :-) :p $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Mar 30, 2017 at 14:35
  • $\begingroup$ My boomarang totally leaves me messages now and then. No, I'm not crazy. :P $\endgroup$
    – Ben Richards
    Mar 30, 2017 at 14:43
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, i won't even try this anymore xD $\endgroup$
    – Dr. Roggia
    Mar 30, 2017 at 15:21

1 Answer 1

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The message the boomerang left for me is:

Please let me go!

The first thing to observer ...

... are the top and bottom margins which are made up of the letter pairs SH and OT. The keen puzzler's eye identifies these as Morse code. The OT is the dot, because the word OTOTOTOT can only be an H, which has four dots. There's no English letter that has four dashes. And of course, this correlates with dOT and daSH. Wwe get:

    .- - -... .- ... .... / .... . .-.. .--. ... / -- . / ..-. .-.. -.--
    -- --- .-. ... . / - .- -.- . ... / -- . / ..- .--. / .-- .... .. .-.. .
It decodes to:

   Morse takes me up while Atbash helps me fly.

(The boomerang is thrown up from the ground, so the bottom line come first.)

Now the next step is ...

... to do as we're told. The boomerang itself is made up of letters, its trail is made up of other characters. Apply atbash to the letters of the boomerang. The Atbash cipher reverses the order of letters in the alphabet, so that A is Z and vice versa, B is Y and so on. We get: 

    \KOVZHV_/O V G /N V-T L   ►   \PLEASE_/L E T /M E-G O

But that's not all. The boomerang ...

... has also used the trace for encoding a message: The trace is made up of decimal digits and of symbols that can be typed on US keyboards with a digit while holding the shift key. The instruction says to use Morse here. If we treat a number as dot and a symbol as dash, we get: 

    .-.. . - -- . --. ---
which decodes to Let me go.

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  • $\begingroup$ @M Oehm - That's it. You caught me again. :-) Great work! $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Mar 30, 2017 at 16:10
  • $\begingroup$ +15 :) The title had only last two letters of message which hinted towards the ot's and sh's. But as always, you don't need hints :-) $\endgroup$
    – Techidiot
    Mar 31, 2017 at 7:31

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