Projects / The pigeon message
The missing context may be the key.
A message found in a chimney, missing its code material.
The question behind The pigeon message
A pigeon skeleton found in a Surrey chimney carried a wartime message. GCHQ says the original cryptographic material is needed to decode it; the message is undated, and its sender and destination remain uncertain. Its account describes codebooks and possible additional encryption without proving that this particular message used a one-time pad. Archival context may matter more than another plausible-looking reading.
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The next attempt
Approaches are being prepared.
A source review, eligibility review and testable question come before funding or execution.
Sources and eligibility
Funding closedBounty history has not been reviewed for funding here. Any project that has ever carried a paid bounty is excluded.
- GCHQ: Pigeon takes secret message to the grave
GCHQ says the story originally appeared in 2012; this page is dated 15 December 2016 and marked reviewed 25 January 2019. Checked 2026-10-25. Image reuse rights were not verified, and no message image or transcription is reproduced here.
- Klaus Schmeh: Top 50, no. 20
Historical list membership, checked through indexed page text 2026-10-25; direct retrieval returned 502. Its D-Day suggestion is not treated as established history here.