Bradfordrant Secret Numbers

Did anyone else notice that the blacked out letters in the 'About' - contain numbers and letters?

http://www.bradfordrant.org/en/about_the_institute.html

Anyone yet crack that code?

31324a0d0a

and

363536303638

and

36393935393732

- I have some ideas about them but it sure looks like a puzzle to me.

They seem like hexadecimal but no one can seem to figure it out.

Actually they are ASCII with a carriage return linefeed after the first line.

The first is 12J

then the next 2 are numbers.

Someone figured it out:

I believe the numbers refer to Easter Island.

When the characters are treated as hex and converted to ASCII they translate as:
12 J CR/LF 656068 6995972 (where CR/LF indicates carriage return/line feed)

This matches the format of the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system. 12 J is the grid identifier, and the numbers are the location within that grid. When the numbers are translated into Lat/Longitude one gets -26.987370 -109.427297. This is near Easter Island, about 10 miles NW from the island. I suspect this is where we will find Rant, or perhaps the wreckage of a plane or boat.

from:
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=mf&gid=187192801514#/topic.php?uid=187192801514&topic=11417

yep, that was my hubby. Ooops I forgot to post it. LOL Glad you saw that. He went to MIT and mucho smart.

Cool, thanks for posting there here. I'm looking forward to the next puzzles.

Me too! I wonder what they mean.

Um, you wonder what what means?

The secret letters! Never mind now,i got it.

ah, these are the secret numbers that were on the about us page. Take a look and you will see that the message had blacked out parts, but if you looked over it, it had really numbers there.

A bunch of people were trying to figure it out on multiple forums and messages boards.

And through a bunch of math, my husband figured it out to be the latitude and longitude of Easter Island.

lindavz wrote:ah, these are the secret numbers that were on the about us page. Take a look and you will see that the message had blacked out parts, but if you looked over it, it had really numbers there.

A bunch of people were trying to figure it out on multiple forums and messages boards.

And through a bunch of math, my husband figured it out to be the latitude and longitude of Easter Island.

Who does LEGO expect to go out there and retrieve it? It's hundreds of miles out from Chile.

I don't think they expect that.

Check the page out here:
http://www.bradfordrant.org/en/about_the_institute.html

and you will see the black out areas and then highlight them you will see the numbers. Essentially people have wondered what they are, and what they mean. And through a series of calculations my husband did using HEX, Ascii and some out of date code, he figured it out.

But funny thing is that one of the paragraphs on the site says:

"A year later, Rant disappeared while on a scientific expedition to Easter Island. He was never seen again."

so we already had that answer - but he was challenged trying to figure it out. And wondered if it was a location in LU? A new location were Rant was 'hiding'? A location for the last POD?

He's the kind of guy that likes to figure things out that no one else can.

If I go to Lat and Long: 26.987370 -109.427297 in Maps.google or in Google Earth it does NOT take me to just by Easter Island. It takes me South of the Border all right, almost dead on top of a farm. Am I the only one who has mapped this and come up in a different spot?

I solved it and was confirmed by Bradford Rant. Here is what I wrote somewhere else and posting for you for convenience:

The original numbers are:

31324a0d0a

and

363536303638

and

36393935393732

I believe the numbers refer to Easter Island.

When the characters are treated as hex and converted to ASCII they translate as:
12 J CR/LF 656068 6995972 (where CR/LF indicates carriage return/line feed)

This matches the format of the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system. 12 J is the grid identifier, and the numbers are the location within that grid. When the numbers are translated into Lat/Longitude one gets -26.987370 -109.427297. This is near Easter Island, about 10 miles NW from the island. I suspect this is where we will find Rant, or perhaps the wreckage of a plane or boat.

------------------------------
then
------------------------------
I used the coordinate converter at http://www.bivouac.com/MultiConvert.asp to convert the UTM, then copied and pasted into google maps to get to a location about 10 miles NW of easter island itself.

I also used google earth with the underwater layers turned on to see if there was anything unusual there.. but doesn't appear so.

I'm adding one of these:
http://www.coolthings.com/super-falcon-winged-submersible-flies-deep-into-the-ocean/
to my christmas list so I can pack it when I go to Easter Island.

Meanwhile I need to go read the translation of pilot's 2 second message as I've been busy the last few days. (Did you know that if you concatenate the two sets of numbers following the 12J, factor into prime numbers, then google the largest of those prime factors you find a photo of a dodge caravan? And that Giacomo Como is a researcher at MIT that has written papers on Abelian groups... but his numerous published papers didn't seem to shed any light on Prof Rant's location?)
-------------------
thus
-------------------
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=-27.100699,-109.363403&num=1&t=h&sll=-28,-110&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&ll=-27.466851,-109.418335&spn=1.545012,2.90863&z=9

vrodkaraf wrote:If I go to Lat and Long: 26.987370 -109.427297 in Maps.google or in Google Earth it does NOT take me to just by Easter Island. It takes me South of the Border all right, almost dead on top of a farm. Am I the only one who has mapped this and come up in a different spot?

I think you are missing the negative in the first number.

jeebers, you're right, thanks!!!

Cripes! All of you have too much time on your hands

Michaelz wrote:I solved it and was confirmed by Bradford Rant. Here is what I wrote somewhere else and posting for you for convenience:

The original numbers are:

31324a0d0a

and

363536303638

and

36393935393732

I believe the numbers refer to Easter Island.

When the characters are treated as hex and converted to ASCII they translate as:
12 J CR/LF 656068 6995972 (where CR/LF indicates carriage return/line feed)

This matches the format of the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system. 12 J is the grid identifier, and the numbers are the location within that grid. When the numbers are translated into Lat/Longitude one gets -26.987370 -109.427297. This is near Easter Island, about 10 miles NW from the island. I suspect this is where we will find Rant, or perhaps the wreckage of a plane or boat.

------------------------------
then
------------------------------
I used the coordinate converter at http://www.bivouac.com/MultiConvert.asp to convert the UTM, then copied and pasted into google maps to get to a location about 10 miles NW of easter island itself.

I also used google earth with the underwater layers turned on to see if there was anything unusual there.. but doesn't appear so.

I'm adding one of these:
http://www.coolthings.com/super-falcon-winged-submersible-flies-deep-into-the-ocean/
to my christmas list so I can pack it when I go to Easter Island.

Meanwhile I need to go read the translation of pilot's 2 second message as I've been busy the last few days. (Did you know that if you concatenate the two sets of numbers following the 12J, factor into prime numbers, then google the largest of those prime factors you find a photo of a dodge caravan? And that Giacomo Como is a researcher at MIT that has written papers on Abelian groups... but his numerous published papers didn't seem to shed any light on Prof Rant's location?)
-------------------
thus
-------------------
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=-27.100699,-109.363403&num=1&t=h&sll=-28,-110&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&ll=-27.466851,-109.418335&spn=1.545012,2.90863&z=9

Hmmm, when I opened that link at the bottom of your post, it brought me to a forested area of Easter Island, not NW of it in water, did I understand this wrong? (It was very confusing.)

ok. On the Bradford Rant site, on the About Us page there are words about Bradford Rant. But, there are a bunch of numbers on that page also. There were alot of clues on the page, and the last line of the plane is that he was lost somewhere on Easter Island. So no one understood what the numbers meant, and my husband, michaelz, figured it out through a series of hex codes and old map codes. Essentially the answer is 'Easter Island', which is what the last line was anyhow. But it was kinda fun for those strange math people, like my husband, who had 'fun' trying to figure out what those numbers meant. So yes, Easter Island is the answer.

Ok, thanks for explaining, but what was the part about 10 miles NW Easter Island?

The way he translated 12 J CR/LF 656068 6995972
He translated them into the latitude and longitude of -26.987370 -109.427297
That is NW of Easter Island. But different converters don't get the same exact spot...

Seeing as Sloopofwar's solution to the message from the minifigs mentions Rant still being alive, this may actually have significance to the mystery of the site. I'm not sure how, but...

Interesting...I wonder if they are connected.