MN0PQ6 Puzzle 6 Hints

The decoder wheel hints are referring to a specific date and time

[Progress: Got date and time, no message in stars—> Cut the decoder wheel out and match the date and time up and look through the trees]

[Progress: looked in stars with right date and time (october 28th at 3pm) but can’t find message—> Cut out the words that start with ‘B’]

[Progress: Cut out B-words, no instructions… —> Put the decoder back at the time position and look through the windows]

[Progress: Can’t find numbers in sentences…. —-> There is a number literally contained in the words of each sentence, sometimes within or across other words.]

[Progress: Got numbers for each sentence, don’t know how to find code words….—-> Match the decoder to the list position (the grey windows should match with ring 1). For each position, look through the windows for the key word (nth word in sentence).]

[Progress: can find target word, but not keywords —-> After finding the key word position, look at the Nth ring window to get the target word. There should be one target word per sentence, spelling out an instruction.]

SOLUTION: [Go to utility room locker number hundred forty three combination nine five three ]

[ So many places to start! The images themselves and their labels give a clue to the order. The first step is cutting out the wheel. Be sure to cut out the trees along with it, leaving them attached. The phrases on the wheel are all clues. The outer ring is an associative clue, to a generalized time. The other clues are all used to rule OUT months, days, times, often depending on lexical cues. It should be clear that the wheel can be fitted onto the star chart, and that rotating it can key in to specific dates and times. While it might be possible to rotate the wheel until the message is found, it is much easier going off of a specific date and time: October 28th at 3pm. Looking through the trees with the wheel in place at this time should reveal a message in the stars: CUT OUT WORDS THAT START WITH B This is a clear instruction… one can note that on the wheel, each sentence has one word starting with ‘b’. These should be cut out. If the wheel is once again placed on the star map, words appear through the windows that the ‘b’ words have produced. The phrase should hint at how to use the decoder: ‘each sentence has a number. nth word of sentence is key word. target is word at ring n.’ These instructions are cryptic and difficult. Note now that on the list of items, this puzzle itself is referenced: the wheel is the decoder top, the list (this) is the decoder bottom. Also, by reading the professor’s letter, he references a ‘convoluted encoding technique’. Additionally, one of the descriptions in the letter of tree ring dating is rather explicit, and appears to be a metaphor for the professor’s encoding technique. All of these clues together should give the process for decoding the letter. Each paragraph in the letter contains a number, lexically, sometimes hidden inside of or across multiple words. For each number and sentence, the numbered word of that sentence is the key word. Searching through the decoder for that word to find the decoder position. In that position, the word through the window of ring N (where N is the number for that sentence) is the target word. All of the target words form a message: “Hello there you are decoding the message correctly I left item at utility room locker number hundred forty three combination nine five three good luck” In the utility room is a locker, and the combination opens it. ]