Pillar 6

Pillar 6 in daytime

Pillar 6 contains a grid of dashes and dots, a series of Enigma-style rotor scrambling wheels, two lines of alpha text and a series of numbers around its base.

Dot Dash Grid

If the dots and dashes represent Morse code characters (likely, given the use of Morse code during WWII use of the Enigma machines), this is not a trivial problem to translate the tract of dots and dashes into letters, without any obvious letter separator.

Large view of the Dot Dash Grid

.-...-....-.-...--..--.--..-.--..-..-..-.--.-..----- .--...-----...-...-.-----.......----.-......-.--.... ...-..........-.-.-.........-.......-...-...-....... .---------..---.-...-..--..-.--.-...-..--.---.-...-- ..----..--.--..-..-.......-......--.....-.-----.-.-- ............-.-.......-.....-...-.....-.-........... .-...--..--..----..-----..-..----.--.-..-.--..-..--- ..-----...-...-..----...-.-...-.-.-----.-...--..-... .....-......-.........-.-.-.-.........-...-.....-... ---.-.-.....-.-..--.-.-.-.------.--.....-...----.... .---..-..--.-.....-.-----.--..-.--.-----.-.-....-... .....-....-.-...-...........-.................-...-- .--.---..--.----..-..-.--...-..-...--.-..-----.--.-- ---...-...-......--.--...-.--...-..---......----.--- ...-.-..-.-.-.-.......-.-.....-.-.-.....-...........

Which, when represented as binary is

1010001000001010001100110110010110010010010110100111 0011000111111000100010111110000000111101000000101100 0000100000000000101010000000001000000010001000100000 1011111111110011101000100110010110100010011011101000 1001111100110110010010000000100000011000001011111010 0000000000000010100000001000001000100000101000000000 1010001110011001111001111100100111101101001011001001 0001111010001000100111100010100010101111101000110010 0000001000000010000000001010101000000000100010000010 0111010110000010100110101010111111011000001000111100 0011100010011010000010111110110010110111110101000010 1000001000001010001000000000001000000000000000001000 1011011110011011110010010110001001000110100111110110 1111000010001000000110110001011000100111000000111101 0000101000101010100000001010000010101000001000000000

A solution given by Glenn McIntosh on the Nkrypt Facebook page in the wee hours of 11 March 2013 is as follows:

Each character is encoded as a 2x3 array of bits, with low order bits at the top. The bit order in each 2x3 array is: 01 23 45 This gives a text output (though you have to traverse it labyrinth style): AMPILLEATSTONEBRANLYBRAUNC EKOOCOHWYADARAFRAYDARUOMED AILWEBERGINGSTURGEONTESLAV ROFREHTUAREMMEOSGNILLIHCSD MORSERUSSHENRYHERTZMARCONI The plaintext is a list of scientists and inventors, many if not all connected to electrical communications technology. Starting bottom left: "Morse, Rutherford, Schilling, Soemmering, Sturgeon, Tesla, Vail, Weber, Wheatstone, Branly, Braun, Campillo, Cooke, DeMoura, Dyar, Faraday, Gauss, Henry, Hertz, Marconi"

Rotor Wheels

The pillar has four Enigma-style rotor wheels, and one reflector wheel. Above the first rotor wheel is the alphabet. The four rotor wheels move freely between incremental stops. The reflector wheel is fixed in position. Each wheel (including reflector) has triangular markings that can be aligned, presumably to indicate a starting rotor position.

Rotor wiring was determined by visiting the sculpture and following each "wire" with a fingernail, and marking where it terminated. I was quite diligent to get it right, and I did run a few checks after typing it all out that seem to indicate that they're correct (no duplicates etc) - but there's always a chance I have it wrong.

Rotor 1 "wiring"

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ UDBCFGEJHILMKTSNOPQRWXYZAV

Rotor 2 "wiring"

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ BZCXWHIFGLMJKVUPSQRTONEDYA

Rotor 3 "wiring"

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ZADEFGCHMIJKLOPQRNWSTUVBXY

Rotor 4 "wiring"

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ BDFCEGIJKLSMAZNHOPQRTVXUWY

Reflector "wiring"

ABCDEFGJNOPSVW ZYVMLIHKURQTCX

Reflector "wiring" with duplicates/pairs

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ ZYVMLIHGFKJEDURQPOTSNCXWBA

Alphabetic code

There are two lines of text below the rotor wheels. They read:

DL BIOB AXQC NLPA MNXE SBNT FJLD KH JAWS FDHD MATX EJHM PVUJ XJOM

Base

A string of numbers run in a circular pattern around the base

10 10 11 12 11 13 14 15 30 3017 18 12 12 8 10 14 14 19 22 12 12 11 13 7 7 8 8 14 17