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One morning, a criminal was found all tied up in front of the police station. Next to him, this cryptic piece of paper:

TINOAQBPAKU  
OWZOFSCNUSG  
FHOWLEMIEAF  
IRBIURAPGDV  
DBYFNEIPIVB  
SEDETIACCET  
SOFLNQISRCA  
URWLZLEMUBO  
OVISUAWMAQP  
GNMNIYKTRMX  
EYHENJACTTN

Who arrested the villain?

Keelhaul
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1 Answers1

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The text is an 11x11 square, which made me think to check the diagonals. From top-left to bottom-right reads TWOINIIMAMN, which means nothing, but from top-right to bottom-left reads USEPIINLINE - "use pi in line".

From there,

I took the 3rd letter of the 1st line, the 1st letter of the 2nd line, and so on, using the digits of pi. This gave me NOWINCOLUMN - "now in column". Repeating the process with the columns - the 3rd letter of the 1st column, the 1st letter of the 2nd column, and so on - yielded FIBONACCIAB.

Nicolas Budig and Schmalls, with a little help from the OP, found the next step:

Using the Fibonacci sequence, splitting the double-digit numbers into single-digit numbers, take the nth number from each row. The exact sequence is 1,2,3,5,8,1,3,2,1,3,4, and this yields TWOUPSFROME - "two ups from E".

This means we need to

Find each occurrence of the letter "E" and take the two letters immediately above it. This spells out SQUAREBRFIVDIAGONS - "square bottom-right five diagonals".

From there, spaniol6 and Joe found the final step:

Create a 5x5 square using the letters in the bottom-right corner, then highlight the letters on the diagonals, like so:

I S R C A
E M U B O
W M A Q P
K T R M X
A C T T N

Who are you, mystery hero?

"I AM BATMAN"

Thanks to everyone who helped crack this, and thanks Keelhaul for making such a well-constructed puzzle.

Joe
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F1Krazy
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    Or maybe the super-hero is Fibonacci. – Untitpoi Feb 14 '18 at 15:22
  • @Untitpoi I'm assuming the answer will be a well-known superhero. I'm also assuming that, since Keelhaul is online and he hasn't marked this as correct, I haven't arrived at the answer yet. – F1Krazy Feb 14 '18 at 15:26
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    isn't fibonacci 1,1,2... ? nevermind... i got it – dna Feb 14 '18 at 15:31
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    Could AB stand for 1,2, i.e., the start of the series? If so, perhaps you need to start after those, instead of at 1? Just wondering, and trying not to give away too much from the spoilers – Stilez Feb 14 '18 at 15:33
  • @dna Most of the things I tried wouldn't have worked unless I omitted the first 1, and I interpreted AB as a clue to do just that (similar to Stilez' comment). – F1Krazy Feb 14 '18 at 15:34
  • did you try with the golden ratio ? 1.61803398875 – Albino Feb 14 '18 at 15:35
  • @Albino See updated answer. I really thought you were on to something there... – F1Krazy Feb 14 '18 at 15:46
  • @F1Krazy we still have the "AB" which is now "BA" in the end. May be you're on the right path. I'll try my best to help – Albino Feb 14 '18 at 16:05
  • news : I don't know how you found TENLIEMMUBA with the golden ration (because of the presence of the zero) so I tried to add +1 to each digit. Then I tried columns and lines, I found these : "OOZSARATAQO"; "GCUMBRUNIVU"; "ICHGDELBATA"; "KSABBCSRIME". I repeat, I used the golden ration (+1 to each digit, so no zero), it may contains error.

    I don't know what to think. We can write "crime" with the last one, or we can read "A TABLE" starting by the end of the other one (which is a common sentence in french but pointless here, I think). Good luck I'm tired lol

     – Albino Feb 14 '18 at 16:23
  • @Albino For the zero, I took the tenth digit from the fifth column. I'll probably come back to this after work as well, I'm blanking hard now. – F1Krazy Feb 14 '18 at 16:25
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    If you take the first letter of the first row, the second of the second, the third of the third, the fifth of the fourth, and the eighth of the fifth, it says "TWOUP", or "TWO UP". Might be a thing, might be a coincidence. – Nicolas Budig Feb 14 '18 at 18:23
  • @NicolasBudig I noticed that too, couldn't make anything of it though. – F1Krazy Feb 14 '18 at 19:05
  • Could "AB" be referring to alphabet? (A = alpha, B = beta, where the word comes from). I don't know what that means, but... might be an avenue? –  Feb 15 '18 at 06:35
  • @NicHartley I was thinking that maybe it could refers to ABbreviation like in crosswords. But the abbr of Fibonnaci ? F ? 6th line -> We can write "DESSICATE ET". My work is done, Spielberg must be proud of me. – Albino Feb 15 '18 at 08:36
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    @Nicolas Budig is onto something... – Keelhaul Feb 15 '18 at 14:26
  • The two letters up from the 'P' in "TWO UP" are PI, bu given the first clue, I can't see that providing any new information – Dmihawk Feb 15 '18 at 22:42
  • Also, Two-Up is an Australian gambling game, but I can't find any numeric sequences related to it which might gives us the next clue – Dmihawk Feb 16 '18 at 01:09
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    Maybe someone didn't go far enough... – Keelhaul Feb 16 '18 at 09:39
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    I think OP's latest comment has to do with the "TWO UP" clue. In finding that clue, the Fibonacci numbers "1, 2, 3, 5, 8" were used so far, but there are more numbers and more lines. It may just be a matter of how to use the next numbers ("13, 21, 34, 55, 89") that will complete the "TWO UP" clue. But alas, each line is only 11 characters long, and "carrying over" the numbers to the next line produces more gibberish. – The Spartan Feb 16 '18 at 14:44
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    If you do 1,2,3,5,8,1,3,2,1,3,4 (splitting the double digit numbers over each line (AB?)) you get TWO UPS FROM E. – Schmalls Feb 16 '18 at 15:47
  • @Schmalls Nice one! I'm immediately stuck again, but hopefully we can keep chipping away at this. – F1Krazy Feb 16 '18 at 16:08
  • The BRFIV part doesn't seem to make much sense. But SQUARE and DIAGONS means we are almost definitely on the right track. – Schmalls Feb 16 '18 at 16:18
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    Could be Square Bottom Right Five Diagonals? If you take a 5x5 square in the bottom right of the 11x11 and look at the diagonals top left to bottom right reads "IM A MN". and top right to bottom left is "A BAT A". maybe it is batman? the extra A makes me think this isn't correct though. – spaniol6 Feb 16 '18 at 16:38
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    Oh but the A's could be markers for position of the full words, making IM BAT MN when you combine them. – spaniol6 Feb 16 '18 at 16:39
  • @spaniol6 I think you've just cracked it! – F1Krazy Feb 16 '18 at 16:41
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    @spaniol6 just read left-to-right, top-to-bottom and only pick out the letters on the diagonals. It reads I AM BATMAN – Joe Feb 16 '18 at 16:41
  • @joe that makes much more sense lol – spaniol6 Feb 16 '18 at 16:42
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    So In fact, Phylyp did found the solution. – dna Feb 16 '18 at 17:07
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    Great teamwork! Always nice to see people chipping at the clues one by one in the comments :p – Keelhaul Feb 16 '18 at 17:16