Braille is a tactile writing system which was developed by Louis Braille in the 1800’s. Louis was a Frenchman who lost his sight at a young age and later decided to create a system allowing him, and others who were blind, to read and write.
This extremely beneficial system is made up of Braille Cells. These cells consist of a stylized grid of 3 vertical cells and 2 horizontal cells for a total of six cells. Raised dots are specifically positioned in these spaces to denote a letter, punctuation, or number. A person who is blind can then feel the dots and know what is being written.
The following is a graph providing the alphabet in Braille:
This known system, however, can be used to hide information by disguising Braille Cells as other things, and transmitting secret messages.
Consider the following image. It looks like stars in the sky above a mountain. But there is word hidden within the stars. By applying the Braille System, the red stars conceal the letters for the word CODE.
Unless you are aware of how this system can be used, it might be overlooked and considered just a curios arrangement of stars.
As you can imagine there are many creative ways braille could be used to hide messages. The person encrypting the message needs only to place certain items in positions that would correspond to locations of the Braille cells.
In the Armchair Treasure Hunt: The Art of Hidden Messages by Beth Hovanec, this method was used to cleverly hide the word POEM which was a hint for searchers to discover a Poem connective to the puzzle, and ultimate solve. The positioning of yellow flowers were used in its case. Do you see the word POEM?
Ideas are endless, since the items used to mark positions could be anything.
When noticing an unusual pattern connecting to a gridded rectangle of six spaces, be sure to consider the Braille System! You might find something interesting and not meant for ordinary viewers!
Best of luck with all that you seek! Always Treasure the Adventure!
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