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A while ago (maybe even a few years ago) I was given a Bletchley Park mug that is black when cold. When it heats up (from having a hot drink inside it) it turns white and reveals a sequence of pictures and a message about Bletchley Park at the top.

It was given to me as a gift by my brother after he'd visited the Bletchley Park Trust/Museum some time ago (years but not decades). It was sold at the gift shop there. I never really looked at it in detail before but I brought it into work today and when I looked at what the heat revealed I noticed the code. To add context Bletchley Park is where the UK code breakers who cracked the German Enigma Codes during World War 2 worked.

At the bottom is a sequence of letters:

DBICE ENVSY FKJNZ WPFWU LW

This isn't a simple shift cipher (I checked for that) but the general letter combinations and suchlike look valid for it to be a coded message of some sort. It's been a long time since I did any code cracking and this sample isn't really long enough or containing any double letters for the tricks I vaguely remember to work.

It does seem suspicious that it is blocks of 5 characters in each "word" apart from the last 2 so the spaces could well be misleading.

Given the context of where the mug came from I wouldn't be surprised to find the phrases "Alan Turing" or "Bletchley Park" and/or "Trust" in the translated text somewhere.

Is anyone able to decipher it?

(Note that it is most likely in British English)

The mug cool: enter image description here

The mug hot

enter image description here

enter image description here

enter image description here

Tim B
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    None seem to be correct answers, but running the text through the crypto solver at rumkin.com gives some amusing results. Poor Edith. – Irishpanda Dec 07 '15 at 14:22
  • I'd say there are too many possibilities given such a short cipertext. – Carl Löndahl Dec 07 '15 at 14:31
  • Yeah, that was my thought too - which is why I put it out here to see if anyone had any ideas. – Tim B Dec 07 '15 at 14:41
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    Most likely an Enigma ciphertext, but without further information or context... well, not really feasible. – Carl Löndahl Dec 07 '15 at 14:48
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    @TimB Is the story true, or just created for the puzzle? – ghosts_in_the_code Dec 07 '15 at 14:57
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    @ghosts_in_the_code It's completely true. I don't even know for sure there is a solution although I hope they wouldn't just put random letters on it! – Tim B Dec 07 '15 at 14:58
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    maybe the rotors in the images are a clue as to the needed enigma settings? – Irishpanda Dec 07 '15 at 19:58
  • what is that written there in the third pic...above LW – manshu Dec 07 '15 at 21:19
  • @manshu It says M1322. – GentlePurpleRain Dec 07 '15 at 21:20
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    The M1322 is the serial number of the Enigma in the Bletchley Park Museum. An photo from 2014 shows the machine with the information that the rotors II, IV, V and reflector B were used. However, all this could also lead in a totally wrong direction. – Sleafar Dec 07 '15 at 21:25
  • Couple of notes about the cup. The top part "Enigma at Bletchley Park" look like the keys you press on an Enigma. The bottom part looks like the area of the Enigma that lights up after you press a button. I thought the bottom was just the ciphertext of the top, but there is one less letter.... – APrough Dec 07 '15 at 22:03
  • @APrough Yeah, bottom being cipher of the top was one of my thoughts too but it didn't match up. Considering it's a mug from a souvenir shop I doubt it's going to be super-complicated...unless GCHQ has put a recruitment link in it or something. There's all sorts of urban legends of that happening. – Tim B Dec 07 '15 at 22:06
  • http://www.counton.org/explorer/codebreaking/enigma-cipher.php look at the webpage...at the last you will find the code breaker....i dont know how to use it though...and i m not sure if it works – manshu Dec 07 '15 at 22:23
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    @manshu That site's implementation is not a "real" Enigma. It uses a much larger alphabet than the original (and therefore by necessity different rotors and a reflector); it also does not use a plugboard. – 2012rcampion Dec 07 '15 at 23:16
  • This implementation seems fairly accurate. – 2012rcampion Dec 07 '15 at 23:17
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    Splitting text into 5-character blocks for ciphering and deciphering was standard practice in the 30s/40s, so apart from confirming that it's intended to be understood as ciphertext there's no significance to the spaces. – Peter Taylor Dec 08 '15 at 11:09
  • @Raystafarian very unlikely coz these dates are correct – manshu Dec 08 '15 at 19:03
  • @Sleafar That could be helpful, but unfortunately, we can't see the how the plugboard is configured. The other two photos I found of the M1322 don't fully show the plugboard either, but they show enough to tell us that it has been displayed in different configurations at different times (no two photos show the same configuration). I wonder if the website once contained some clues or other needed information. – JTL Dec 09 '15 at 05:40
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    I feel like we're sort of all in agreement that we don't have nearly enough information to do anything beyond brute force the possible combinations. (Prove me wrong, Puzzling, prove me wrong) – question_asker Dec 10 '15 at 15:47
  • I've done some more research and it was actually my brother who gave me the mug...he also thinks it was about 3 or 4 years ago...and he also gave my parents one. I've asked my dad to check if his has the same code and asked my brother if he remembers anything. The museum shop on their website no longer shows it for sale. – Tim B Dec 10 '15 at 15:53
  • The photos show the rotors (surrounding the bombe, Turing and the Enigma machine) in slightly different positions, but since there's four of them, and the serial number M1322 is of a three-wheel Enigma, this probably isn't of use... Is there anything printed inside or on the bottom of the mug? – TripeHound Dec 10 '15 at 16:42
  • Bottom and inside of the mug are blank. The things I can see in or on it are the bits in the pictures. – Tim B Dec 10 '15 at 16:52
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    Your parents' mug would have the same code. It's the same code on the mouse pad Bletchley Park had for sale at the time, and it had the same pictures and text as on the mug. I found that using the Wayback Machine (sorry, I'm unable to access it now to provide a link) for the gift shop site, and the description for the mug just mentioned that there was a secret to be revealed.

    The place's slogan, "Britain's Best Kept Secret" fits the number of encoded characters, but it can't be the phrase if the code is a true enigma cipher because a letter can't encode to itself.

     – Mythi Dec 10 '15 at 19:57
  • @Mythi Yes, my dad just confirmed that it does indeed have the same code. The "secret to be revealed" could just be talking about the temperature reveal on the images...or does it hint that the code does indeed contain a meaning? – Tim B Dec 10 '15 at 23:22
  • @TimB I assume they meant the temperature reveal, too. The mouse pad didn't even have a description. – Mythi Dec 11 '15 at 15:58
  • The exact wording of the mug's description is this: "Watch in amazement as the secrets of Bletchley Park reveals itself when you make a cup of tea!" Certainly sounds like they're just talking about the temperature reveal :/ – dpwilson Dec 16 '15 at 14:47
  • did any message come? – manshu Jan 31 '16 at 08:01
  • See my answer below, I've not heard anything further since I posted that. – Tim B Jan 31 '16 at 11:13

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Over the weekend I emailed Bletchley Park to see if they could shed any light on it. Today I got this reply:

Dear Tim,

Thank you for your email which was circulated, we believe the letters are random. However we have sent your email onto our Education and Learning department for further information, until then unfortunately we don't have any further information. If there are any findings or developments will contact you in the first instance.

Kind Regards,

Bletchley Park Information

So it seems that there is no code to solve :( Very disappointing.

If I hear anything different I'll update. Sorry to have wasted people's time.

Tim B
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