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You find yourself trapped in a room with three painted doors; one yellow, one purple, one black. You know that only one leads out to safety while the others lead to your doom. You find a note. On it is written

Note

Being as obsessed as you are with riddles, ciphers and numbers, you are now confident which door to take. Which door is it?

Here is a more readable copy with some hintful puctuation:

"Last name" is the clue
A hint: from me to you
Once you're upon my name
A pattern I planned out
Will help you to get out
Now enjoy the game
- 3465 8127

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  • $\begingroup$ second line of punctuation will probably help quite a bit $\endgroup$
    – TrojanByAccident
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 6:19
  • $\begingroup$ Look at that hint and remember my tags $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 14:57
  • $\begingroup$ Steganography tag added $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 19:33
  • $\begingroup$ can we have an exact translation of the note? into text. pics wont show $\endgroup$
    – ALinuxLover
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 0:33
  • $\begingroup$ If you can’t see the image, it’s okay. Just the text is technically all you need to solve the puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 3:31

7 Answers 7

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Full Answer:

Following the major clues from commenter Caleb Devine...(thank you Caleb)

Starting from the "I" in the center of the chart use the Ulam Spiral counter-clockwise, highlighting the prime numbers. It will reveal the color :) enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ Welcome to Puzzling :) $\endgroup$
    – ABcDexter
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 17:46
  • $\begingroup$ Well done! Also good job to @Caleb Devine. Thank you all for playing at my first puzzle! $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 18:00
  • $\begingroup$ Nice job! Welcome to Puzzling $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 18:03
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    $\begingroup$ @GendoIkari i followed the simplified version of the Spiral here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulam_spiral . took a stab and started at what i thought was the center. turned out to be right $\endgroup$
    – tonicwater
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 18:17
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    $\begingroup$ Look very closely at the “I”. Notice anything? Or edit my question. Once you got to the start I figured you could figure it out. But most Ulam spirals I have seen follow this pattern. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 18:21
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Partial Answer:

"From me to you" is

"From E to U"

Since "Last Name" is the clue

Substitute E with U, rearrange by 3465 8127 to get the new name "Stan Ulam" , a famous physicist and Mathematician who worked on the the Manhattan Project

"A pattern I planned out" refers to

The Ulam Spiral. It's a pattern in prime numbers that you get when you put the prime numbers in a spiral. The interesting concentration of primes occur on the diagonals. Therefore I think we are supposed to put all the letters into a spiral, like the Ulam spiral.

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to Puzzling.SE! Well-spotted! Hope you stick around and keep contributing! $\endgroup$
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 15:03
  • $\begingroup$ I've tried putting all the letters in a spiral and taking a look at the primes + diagonals. Nothing has jumped out at me...yet. $\endgroup$
    – The Spartan
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 16:41
  • $\begingroup$ I've tried that too in several ways. Maybe it's not the right approach. Since the pattern is on prime numbers I tried looking at the letters in prime positions. Nothing obvious emerges $\endgroup$
    – Caleb
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 17:05
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Attempt at an Answer? A note that

if we assume the numbers map to positions in the puzzle, it’s signed by “STAN ELAM”.

Then, taking from “Last name” is the clue:

Last of “STAN ELAM” is M, take the middle door

Probably not that simple, but ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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  • $\begingroup$ You are “partially” there $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 2:52
  • $\begingroup$ hmm... interesting... $\endgroup$
    – TrojanByAccident
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 6:19
  • $\begingroup$ can this be done to all the lines? and then something like anagram maybe $\endgroup$
    – smriti
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 7:02
  • $\begingroup$ @smriti That would be neat, but not the right track. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 15:25
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    $\begingroup$ "last name" is an anagram of "stan elam", does that help? $\endgroup$
    – Jordan.J.D
    Commented Mar 13, 2018 at 20:03
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Found interesting that's why posting. Is it

The yellow door ?

Found this.

As OP has admitted Stan Elam (Figured out by TrojanByAccident) is on the right track, last name will be ELAM which means forever in Hebrew.

And the hint in the riddle

"A hint: from me to you" is a famous song by well known rock band Beatles.

From this two points

We get Beatles forever, which is an unreleased song by Electric Light Orchestra also know as ELO which is likely to say yellow.

And an intresting fact is that this song was intented to use in an album called Secret Messages.

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An attempt at a clue:

"From Me to You" denotes the Beatles song which came up in 1963. So using the same technique TrojanByAccident used, 1963 leads to lias which could be interpreted as alias. So an alias of Stan Elam maybe? S Elam?

An attempt at a clue Pt 2:

"From me to you" can be assumed as [i]=>[u] (me=I; you=U) which shows the sequence ijklmnopqrstu leading to 13 letters? Some cipher maybe?

"Maybe dumb or smart" attempt Pt 3:

The anagrams for elam are: alme, lame, leam, male, mela and meal.
So replacing me with "you" leads to: alyou,layou, youla and youal?!?.
Or replacing me with "u" leads to: alu, lau, ula and ual?!?

Answer attempt:

The door is purple?

Theory:
1) Based on my third attempt, finding the anagram for stan+alu leads to sultana
2) Searching for Sultana leads to Sultana bird which is a purple swamphen

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    $\begingroup$ Such a good attempt. But sadly not close. Though it’s true that “from me to you” is the part you need to figure out. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 6:26
  • $\begingroup$ With your second attempt, you’re getting warmer, but it’s much simpler. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 10:24
  • $\begingroup$ @user991003 Added a possible answer $\endgroup$
    – Nikhil Eshvar
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 12:27
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    $\begingroup$ So interesting. But no. The answer will feel more obvious when found. But don’t give up. None of your attempts so far are accurate, but attempts 2 & 3 are skirting the edge. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 12:31
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Partial Answer:

Looking further in the text,

Once you're upon my name
A pattern I planned out
Will help you to get out

This seems to imply that

if we know the name we will recognise some kind of a pattern.

Maybe the first step is to

figure out what pattern it is, and

then use either the numbers or the letter as a key to decode the other part.

The actual message can be the numbers part as well, as either of the three answers is smaller than 8 characters.

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Partial answer:

First line: The clue IS the word "Last Name" rather then Stan Elam, since this is wordplay. Second line: Perhaps its a literal words "me to you"

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  • $\begingroup$ Sorry that’s not the wordplay. “Stan Elam” is on the right track. $\endgroup$
    – tyobrien
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 3:06

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