Can You Crack The World's Toughest Spy Puzzles Set by the NSA & CIA?

The code-makers and code-breakers who work in signals intelligence (SIGINT) are the shooting stars who straddle the divide between art and science, but you don’t have to be Alan Turing to push boundaries.

SPYSCAPE has curated some of the world’s toughest spy puzzles - unique challenges so you can match wits with the sharpest minds in the universe. (Solutions are at the bottom of the page) 
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1. The NSA Sun Puzzle

Can you solve this NSA logic challenge (above, left) to help reattach the sun's rays? Due to bizarre and unexplained cosmic fluctuations, the sun's rays have fallen off and you must put them back on in the right way. Here is what you know: i) Each of the 10 rays is uniquely labeled with a number in the range 1-10. ii) The spots between the rays are marked with the absolute difference of the ray labels that are next to them. iii) There are four consecutive rays that have even number labels.

Following the above rules, label each spot on the sun with the number of the ray that goes there. Once the rays are correctly placed, add up the label values of rays that are directly opposite each other on the sun. Convert these values to letters using the substitution 1=A, 2=B, …, 26=Z and read them clockwise starting at the top to find out what the sun can do now that it has its rays again. (Answer below)

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2. ASD Interactive Codebreaker Challenge ‍

Click on the photo above or here to take on the role of a code breaker in this interactive game designed for puzzlers aged 10 and above. Decode the hidden messages about Australia’s history by matching symbols to the correct letters to uncover their meaning.

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3. GCHQ Find the Word

‍Madison, Saturn, Do, Nitrogen, Exodus. (Answer below)

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4. New Zealand Code Crackers Challenge

If you can crack this code and others like it there may be a job waiting for you at New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau GCSBspy agency. (Answer below.)

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5. NASA’s Coded Golden Records

Long before NASA’s Perseverance rover to Mars challenged the world to 'dare mighty things', the space agency created a secret language to communicate with aliens.

NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 blasted off in 1977 to study the outer solar system and planets, and the space probes are still out there. Each carries a Golden Record, a message to any extraterrestrial life they might encounter. The records offer greetings in 55 languages, recordings of birdsong and whales, and music ranging from Beethoven to Louis Armstrong’s Melancholy Blues.

A stylus attached to each record can be used to listen to the album from the outside inward. NASA didn’t know how to explain the stylus to aliens, however, so the space agency invented a coded language for the record cover, hoping it would be deciphered by any extraterrestrials that come across Voyager 1 or 2. Can you crack the alien code? (Answer below.)‍‍
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6. Canada's 'The Recruit' Escape Room

This challenge is for the more adventurous codebreakers as it will require travel for most. Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSEC) intelligence agency has helped build Ottawa’s The Recruit Escape Rooms for potential spies, a real-life challenge to break out of three locked rooms in 45 minutes. One enterprising group even formed a human pyramid to push through ceiling panels looking for (non-existent) clues. Only one person has so far fled the CSEC Escape Rooms - and they’re not giving interviews.
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7. The FBI Dot Code Challenge

The cryptanalysts at the FBI Laboratory are pros at code-cracking so don't expect an easy time cracking this dot code. (Answer below.)

Bureau wannabes may want to hone their skills with an FBI practice test, a three-hour exam focused on logic-based reasoning, figural reasoning and situational judgment - and that’s just the first test budding agents must take!
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8. The Netherland's Annual Puzzle

‍The Dutch are mad about puzzles. The General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) - The Netherlands’ equivalent of the CIA - has been designing the year-end challenge since 2011 and it is not for the faint of heart. The 2020 kerstpuzzel runs to 23 pages.

What started as a slow drip, attracting just 27 people in 2011, now draws hundreds - some years even thousands - of Dutch puzzlers. They don’t just compete to solve the problems, they race to find minuscule mistakes, finding joy in calling out the security service. 

AIVD gives competitors more than a month to submit solutions, and they need it. Some of the problems take hours, and some even days to resolve. Those who score more than 100 points (and no one did in 2017 or 2019) get to join the Club of 100, created to honor like-minded winners. Those who’d rather hold onto their answers and their pride can find a link to the 35-page AIVD Answer Sheet at the bottom of this page. Of course, it would help if you spoke Dutch but if you want to be a spy, learning a new language is all part of the challenge...
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9. NSA's 'Be Nice - Play Fair' Challenge

The US NSA challenged code-breakers to solve their puzzle with barely a clue: ‘Everything you need for the solution has been provided.’ The NSA also teased that the puzzle does not require a large cryptography or computer science background to solve - although we’re guessing that would help! Although the NSA doesn’t provide the answer on its website, the agency made an exception for SPYSCAPE readers. The NSA's answer is at the bottom of the page, but no cheating! 

10. CIA Twitter Challenges

‍The CIA are master puzzle-setters, regularly Tweeting out challenges including the one above from early 2020. (Answer below.)

There is one puzzle even the CIA can’t solve, however. SPYSCAPE has left the toughest for last, so you’ll need to be patient to discover what’s stumped the Agency’s best and brightest. ‍

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11. Britain's Annual GCHQ Puzzle

Anyone who’s heard of Bletchley Park and Alan Turing knows Britain’s code-breakers are among the world’s elite. The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) releases its annual brain teaser at the end of each year and the mind twisters live up to its billing as Britain’s toughest spy puzzle. Helpfully, GCHQ provides a few tips for less experienced code-breakers. 

From time to time, GCHQ also sets puzzles for the BBC and amateur competitors. GCHQ rates the puzzle below as four out of six on its Enigma Rotor Scale meaning the code is a meaty challenge, probably one where puzzlers may want to collaborate with others. Here's a clue: identify Samuel, Louis and Ludwik. There are links between them. (Answer below.)
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‍12. FBI Code Challenge

When the FBI set the coded puzzle (below) in 2009, the Bureau called it their toughest challenge to date. It remains as incomprehensible now as it was then - that is, unless you know more about the history of code-breaking in the US.

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‍Clue to the FBI's Puzzle 12

‍A US civilian came up with the idea of using the Navajo language as military code during World War II. By September 1942, the US government had recruited several hundred Native Americans to translate English words into the Navajo language. In 2001, 28 Navajo Americans were awarded Congressional Gold Medals, mostly posthumously. (Answer below.)

13. Kryptos

For three decades, the CIA’s Kryptos puzzle at the Langley, Virginia HQ has confounded agents, academics, computer scientists, and anyone else who dared to dream about solving it. The 12-foot copper statue, erected in 1991, seems to be a collection of random letters known as Kryptos (the Greek word for 'hidden') but it is a riddle for the ages. Only three of the four passages hidden on the sculpture have been decrypted. Can you solve it? 

Puzzle sculptor Jim Sanborn has offered some clues. Here’s the Kryptos transcript in full:

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The NSA’s methods and solution to the first three panels are at the bottom of the page, offering further hints for those who dare mighty things!

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