Crimo Cipher

Background

Case information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Park_parade_shooting

Robert Eugene Crimo III perpetrated a mass shooting event on July 4th, 2022 in Highland Park, Illinois. He is an aspiring rapper who posted music videos and violent content on social media.

He allegedly published an encrypted manifesto on Amazon. According to this Fandom page (formerly Wikia):

"Arcturus, or more formally known as 'Project Arcturus' is an archaic manifesto/book conceived by Robert Crimo (Awake). It was published on the 19th of February in the year 2021. It is 28 pages long and is composed entirely of an undeciphered sequence of numbers. There is a coinciding video to Arcturus on YouTube, which is composed of footage from the music videos to On My Mind, out.of.this.world, and Toy Soldier. The numbers 23, 47, and 115 seem to be of significance in decoding Arcturus, however, Arcturus remains an unsolved mystery." (Image)

Some people reported that the book's description on Amazon contained Morse code translating to "Hello Friend", which was the name of one of his music videos. In the video, a small building is shown while the camera pans slowly back while haunting music is played. Crimo's symbol appears to be mounted at the top right corner of the building. The scene then switches to a car with the number "47" painted on its side and a red zig zag pattern painted on the front. The haunting music is from the game Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, a piece titled "Comrade" by Jack Wall. (2:08 in this video)

Connections / Similarities

The Arcturus project, a seemingly unrelated site, describes a radio signal received from the star Arcturus in 1997. The signal is described as a binary sequence, and the site appeals to readers to help decode the mysterious signal. However, the task is a fiction constructed to challenge people to complete the decryption, which is a binary representation of an image containing a further message.

A book titled The Arcturus Code, by Randy Kovicak, is a story about a boy who discovers a mysterious code beaming from the star Arcturus.

Online discussions

• Reddit:
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/Decoders/comments/vrkmgj/highland_park_illinois_mass_shooter_manifesto/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/codes/comments/vru8o5/highland_park_shooters_video_hidden_messages_in/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/masskillers/comments/vtxrpo/the_two_puzzles_that_were_released_on_amazon/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/masskillers/comments/vttgbu/looking_for_anyone_who_obtained_a_copy_of/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/arcturusdecoded/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/vtp22v/why_isnt_the_highland_park_shooter_suspects/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/masskillers/comments/vrm5fv/this_book_was_written_by_samuel_bromley_a_pen/
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/masskillers/comments/vrjwg0/the_july_4_shooters_book_that_he_allegedly_wrote/
• 4chan:
  • https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/385746537#q385746537
  • https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/385764770#q385764770
  • https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/385715785#q385715785
  • https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/385585797
  • https://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/385602240
• Discord
  • Overt Operator Discord
    • Channel: #Robert Crimo III - Highland Park Shooting - Arcturus
    • Archive of Discord posts allegedly made by Crimo

Images

• Images of entire book
• PDF format:
  • Version 1
  • Version 2
  • Version 3 (a searchable transcription converted to PDF format)
• Word search book that was listed on Amazon by the same seller as the Arcturus book. There is speculation it could be a possible key. The book's author is listed as Samuel Bromley.
  • PDF format

Transcriptions

• Preview page that was posted on reddit
• Full book transcription
• https://pastebin.com/3L9hPdqP

Observations

• The book contains 27 pages of numbers.
• Only the first 9 pages are unique. The next 9 and last 9 pages are repeats of the first 9 pages.
• Each page has 38 rows, and 86 characters per row, for a total of 3268 characters per page.
• Each 9 page group has a total of 29412 characters (88236 for all 27 pages).
• The book's description on Amazon included the phrase "Hello Friend" encoded in Morse code. (Image)
• One additional book was listed under the same seller on Amazon. The title was Classic Large Print Word Search Book For Adults (Image). Being listed together with Arcturus led to speculation it may be a hint or key. PDF of the book is linked above.
  • The puzzles vary in size, such as 16x16, 18x18, and 23x23.

Unigrams

• Frequency count
• There is a backtick character in the bottom right corner of the 2nd, 11th, and 20th pages of numbers. The affect rows still have a length of 86.
• The cipher seems to have a bias against 9s (i.e., there are far fewer 9s than other digits).
  • However, 9s seem to cluster together. The average distance between 9s is lower than expected based on shuffle tests. This contributes to repetitions of sequences such as 9191, 9919, 1919, 1991, etc.
• There is evidence of multiple alphabets but with a wide span.

Ngrams

• Crimo emphasizes specific numbers in some of his online posts (such as in his videos depicting gun violence).
  • 23
  • 47
    • This could represent the date of his murders in reverse (7/4).
    • Crimo's bizarre fixation with the numbers 4 and 7
    • His Acura car with 47 painted on it (View of license plate) (View of car interior)
    • He had 47 tattooed on his face
    • A rapper called Capital Steez frequently references the number 47, and uses it in place of swastikas such as on this album cover.
  • 115
    • 115 allegedly is part of Crimo's home address
    • Crimo was a fan of the Call of Duty - Black Ops video game. In the game, Element 115 turns Nazis into zombies.
    • A user online claims: In one of his videos he has 1+1=5 written on a piece of paper.
    • Archive of his Twitter post containing 115 and other numbers
  • 333
  • One person suggested Crimo's symbol can be interpreted as a combination of copies of the number 4.
• Bigram frequencies
  • 76 is the most common. 23 and 47 are the 13th and 14th most common, respectively
• The cipher has high ngram repeats for n=3 through n=7 when compared to random shuffles.
• The number of ngram repeats for n=2 is indistinguishable from the quantity expected during random shuffles, but n-graphic IoC tests suggest the specific repetitions are significant
• The cipher has a very strong bias towards sequences of successive digits (23, 34, 45, 98, 87, etc).
• The cipher has a strong bias against sequences of doubles (22, 33, 44, etc).
• Digit sequence counts compared to expected

Cycles

• The cipher appears to demonstrate some cycling behavior.

Ideas for experiments to perform

• Pollux was ruled out. But what if he used a custom Morse alphabet?
  • Experiment: Ignore the standard Morse alphabet. Determine all dot/dash/space mappings that produce:
    • A sequence consisting of no more than ~26 distinct Morse-like patterns (units).
    • With valid use of spaces in between the patterns (i.e., only one or two spaces should appear between Morse units)
• What if he used Pollux but didn't use spaces? The Morse sequence would have many ambiguous interpretations.
  • Experiment: Polyalphabetic Pollux? I.e., symbol groups may have overlapping assignments: Dash: 0 1 4 3 6, Dot: 3 8 7 4, Space: 4 5 2 9 6.
• Run similar experiments to rule out Morbit.

Other Links

• Youtube fandom entry for Awake (archived)
• Awake Fandom (Wikia) entries from Google Cache and Wayback