BrianH
At the Start
After numerous rounds of: "We don't even know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in English, in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a strange, perhaps coded, message:
370HSSV-0773H
Dubya was baffled, so he emailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it so it went to the CIA, then the Treasury Department and finally to NASA.
With no clue as to its meaning, they eventually asked their allies to help and Mr Tony passed it to MI6. The analysts at MI6 could not crack the code so couriered it to GCHQ at Cheltenham.
Eventually it ended up on the desk of a 17 year old youth on the work experience programme who solved it. His boss at GCHQ cabled the White House: "Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."
Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a strange, perhaps coded, message:
370HSSV-0773H
Dubya was baffled, so he emailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it so it went to the CIA, then the Treasury Department and finally to NASA.
With no clue as to its meaning, they eventually asked their allies to help and Mr Tony passed it to MI6. The analysts at MI6 could not crack the code so couriered it to GCHQ at Cheltenham.
Eventually it ended up on the desk of a 17 year old youth on the work experience programme who solved it. His boss at GCHQ cabled the White House: "Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."
