A Challenge to Psychics

from the First Online Church of "Bob"

Here is a challenge for any person who wishes to test his or her psychic powers and prove to the world the usefulness of psychic abilities.

I have encrypted a short text file with Pretty Good Privacy, the famous encryption method that has withstood all attempts to crack it (at least at the time of this writing -- on September 25, 1998). This file is encrypted with a password. It is not encrypted with my PGP public key. This means that anyone with a working copy of PGP can decrypt this file...if you know the password or passphrase.

Will any person professing to possess psychic abilities be able to decrypt this file? All you have to do is successfully divine the password or passphrase, and make that password available for everyone to see. Anyone can then use the password or phrase to decrypt this file with PGP, thus proving that the password is correct.

Cryptology, the art and science of ciphers, has been employed in many different ways throughout the course of history. However, there have been no notable historical accounts of psychic abilities being used to crack passwords or passphrases. Apparently, the divination of security passwords is not an ability commonly possessed by many psychics. If this was a regular occurence, then certainly the larger corporations would long ago have hired their own professional psychics, to guard against psychic intrusion and to learn the secrets of their competitors?

With this in mind, I invite you to provide the correct password or passphrase. I am not a rich man, and I cannot promise you a large monetary reward if you can decrypt this file. However, if you are able to decrypt this file, you will have successfully accomplished one of two feats: 1) You will have presented a strong example that psychic abilities really do exist; or 2) you will have "cracked" the famous PGP encryption, which would be a noteworthy feat in itself.

Here is the encrypted file. Are you up to the challenge?

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: 2.6.2
 pgAABeYqcPOcuVX7TDb44lzGVYruinfBMms0vGVRvU76F/PsDIQF/vU5WEOEsSpg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=pOyZ
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Have you succeeded? Let us know! Announce your triumph on the newsgroup sci.skeptic, or sign the First Online Church of "Bob" Guest Book!


A Few Useful Links

Network Associates: the home of PGP
The most powerful free data encryption available!

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
Did you successfully guess the password? These folks will want to talk to you.

PSI-Test and Xtrasensory
Two more online tests for psychics. Why does everyone else want to use cards?


The following PGP file contains the password for the encrypted text file. This password file is encrypted with my PGP public key, so that only I can decrypt it. I am not asking to you try to decrypt this file; I am making this file public so that the password can be provided, if it ever becomes necessary to so so.

-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0
MessageID: AvmIPTq4SnMYzTa3QL3V1jwJsUC0r5RQ
 hQCMA5bQnhR51QN1AQQAor5Lbw0iJt7S0iZwWcKsVQhKw9P+q9QbNUXruzTyEWWY
Zx0E3hMCxI07j/Awp5MmA1iQSOCDwI1heOimr8i0d2gBtWocXdWF+bApQ6vliCPG
KId4/6Xdk0JLo+BErG5PJ6+y49NSImoT28zF+k8UlF7yu33wbPkzlPblLGaoifak
ez4nTNvwPM0F/7Ka8LWC7uopsLihm2j6zF5bHogPqtLTKz9vCMdPUAqn7LGK1Mch
+PahWjAVH50ED9L8YLyih5KCxpdBkng2for6C/8msLEHpR/SLKw42qVveL5q9OHz
1Xbow9gh2EKXCgSOu059byECsBFbKvrAma48zA==
=VEJ8
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Here is my PGP public key:

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: 2.6.2
 mQCNAzKWdz0AAAEEAKh1vhXDk6AVxsuJQxLkwbnRHkusCtwn4XCQAFL2rJu8qGlI
c0qwQzZytx3QvyQCTXM8rkeRDmYladSPFYXnU/8YVlnTmrZEv/7hvdLZz14guZUB
591APYAregL4+6HN0ZdTWnOgnx3CVKhDSNr0Ilc5GwKdXIwI+JbQnhR51QN1AAUR
tBpNb2RlbWFjIDxtb2RlbWFjQHRpYWMubmV0PokAlQMFEDKWd+iW0J4UedUDdQEB
cYcEAJy3UOA2616I2SA0hZjoRtrBLE7vTloPwASogR1CzjZ7I7QjL8naERLqePxH 2QFW2tB5t6BYm/+FdA9Ghv6Zpvgbp1fQ3QoCTYH9Oofdgu/q9K/UKnS/bru1DlLg
353Q7erbsl/FU4O+uagqrbF3crjTgWSApVUEQaSH6jId7n8q
=B1wV
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Send email to Modemac
Return to First Online Church of "Bob" home page