44
$\begingroup$

One morning, a criminal was found all tied up in front of the police station. Next to him, this cryptic piece of paper:

TINOAQBPAKU  
OWZOFSCNUSG  
FHOWLEMIEAF  
IRBIURAPGDV  
DBYFNEIPIVB  
SEDETIACCET  
SOFLNQISRCA  
URWLZLEMUBO  
OVISUAWMAQP  
GNMNIYKTRMX  
EYHENJACTTN

Who arrested the villain?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
5
  • 21
    $\begingroup$ Having seen The Dark Knight a decade ago with a scene resembling this, I'm going to go out on a limb and say... Batman. $\endgroup$
    – Phylyp
    Commented Feb 14, 2018 at 13:11
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Isn't it a trope for most superheros? $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Commented Feb 14, 2018 at 13:14
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Phylyp ... so the message is: "Deliver this to Gordon". $\endgroup$
    – ibrahim mahrir
    Commented Feb 14, 2018 at 17:57
  • 21
    $\begingroup$ The police. Someone tied him up and left him at the station, and left that note, but he wasn't arrested until the police did so :D $\endgroup$
    – sirjonsnow
    Commented Feb 14, 2018 at 18:28
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @sirjonsnow That would be an answer, but sadly there is no lateral-thinking tag^^ $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Commented Feb 15, 2018 at 10:03

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
45
$\begingroup$

The text is an 11x11 square, which made me think to check the diagonals. From top-left to bottom-right reads TWOINIIMAMN, which means nothing, but from top-right to bottom-left reads USEPIINLINE - "use pi in line".

From there,

I took the 3rd letter of the 1st line, the 1st letter of the 2nd line, and so on, using the digits of pi. This gave me NOWINCOLUMN - "now in column". Repeating the process with the columns - the 3rd letter of the 1st column, the 1st letter of the 2nd column, and so on - yielded FIBONACCIAB.

Nicolas Budig and Schmalls, with a little help from the OP, found the next step:

Using the Fibonacci sequence, splitting the double-digit numbers into single-digit numbers, take the nth number from each row. The exact sequence is 1,2,3,5,8,1,3,2,1,3,4, and this yields TWOUPSFROME - "two ups from E".

This means we need to

Find each occurrence of the letter "E" and take the two letters immediately above it. This spells out SQUAREBRFIVDIAGONS - "square bottom-right five diagonals".

From there, spaniol6 and Joe found the final step:

Create a 5x5 square using the letters in the bottom-right corner, then highlight the letters on the diagonals, like so:

I S R C A
E M U B O
W M A Q P
K T R M X
A C T T N

Who are you, mystery hero?

"I AM BATMAN"

Thanks to everyone who helped crack this, and thanks Keelhaul for making such a well-constructed puzzle.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
29
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ If you take the first letter of the first row, the second of the second, the third of the third, the fifth of the fourth, and the eighth of the fifth, it says "TWOUP", or "TWO UP". Might be a thing, might be a coincidence. $\endgroup$
    – Nicolas Budig
    Commented Feb 14, 2018 at 18:23
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ If you do 1,2,3,5,8,1,3,2,1,3,4 (splitting the double digit numbers over each line (AB?)) you get TWO UPS FROM E. $\endgroup$
    – Schmalls
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 15:47
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ @spaniol6 just read left-to-right, top-to-bottom and only pick out the letters on the diagonals. It reads I AM BATMAN $\endgroup$
    – Joe
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 16:41
  • 8
    $\begingroup$ So In fact, Phylyp did found the solution. $\endgroup$
    – dna
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 17:07
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ Great teamwork! Always nice to see people chipping at the clues one by one in the comments :p $\endgroup$
    – Keelhaul
    Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 17:16

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.