National Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, Maryland

My dad took my sisters and I out to the National Cryptologic Museum (run by the National Security Agency) in Fort Meade, Maryland, to give my mom some space to clean the camper (which isn’t easy to do with five other people around). One cool fact about this museum is that it’s right next to NSA headquarters.

When we entered, we were given the choice to complete a scavenger hunt in the museum. Since this museum was a cryptologic museum, the scavenger hunt included decrypting secret messages using a cipher wheel. My younger sisters gladly accepted the challenge and set off to complete their tasks. The first room we visited displayed the Caesar cipher, Cardano Grille, and an Ancient Greek cipher that used a leather belt with letters printed on it, which had to be properly wound around a spool of the correct size in order to read the message. Although most people have heard of the Caesar cipher, which requires shifting letters a certain number of places in the alphabet, not as many have heard of the Cardano Grille. The Cardano Grille, created by Girolamo Cardano, can be made by using a stiff sheet of material (like a thick piece of paper) and cutting irregularly-spaced rectangular holes in it – this is the grille. Next, the sender would place the grille over a piece of paper and write the secret message in the holes. After that, the sender would have to fill in around the message so that the secret message is hidden within the letter, but still makes sense within the context. The receiver would posses an identical grille to the one that the sender used, and would be able to decipher the hidden message that way. Not exactly a cipher I would want to use, but it works… as long as you can create a letter that fits around the secret message.

As my sisters and I tried the hands-on activities in that room, we were introduced to a former NSA agent who volunteered to give us a tour around the museum.

On the way to the next exhibits, my dad stopped to toy with the giant cipher wheel nailed to the wall. Since I’m quite familiar with that cipher, I quickly showed him how it works. In fact, you can try an online version for yourself here.

Other interesting hands-on activities in the museum included writing with invisible ink (my younger sisters even wrote down the recipe so that they could write invisible messages at home), creating a coded message using Jefferson’s cipher (invented by Thomas Jefferson), and using an Enigma machine. I was actually taught how to encrypt and decrypt words using an enigma machine (which had been used by Hitler’s Nazis during World War II) by a former NSA agent!

Since we’re on the topic of codes and ciphers, can you guess which cipher is my favorite? I’ve written it below in Caesar cipher, and you can decipher it to find the answer by shifting each letter in the alphabet 2 spaces to the right.

NJYXDYGP AGNFCP

Along with written codes and ciphers, we also learnt about different types of intelligence collection, like SIGINT and HUMINT. SIGINT stands for Signal Intelligence, while HUMINT stands for Human Intelligence. There are several more, but those are the two I can name off the top of my head. Our guide also gave us some examples of words the Navajos used to represent various military equipment, like how the Navajo word for turtle meant tank, and the Navajo word for a chicken hawk equaled a dive bomber. You can imagine why the Navajo Indians would associate a turtle with a tank, because of its hard protective shield; or a chicken hawk with a dive bomber, because of the way a chicken hawk suddenly dives when it eyes a target.

Although the Enigma machine was pretty cool, I especially enjoyed making coded sentences using the Jefferson cipher. I also realized that I could probably invest in a Jefferson cipher wheel of my own, whereas it would be a lot harder – and pricier – to get my hands on an Enigma machine.

Toward the end of our visit, my sisters completed their scavenger hunt, and we all received little prizes for their hard work.

The SPY Museum, Washington, D.C.

Parking in the city with a big car proved to be difficult. Although we were sure that our car wasn’t taller than the indoor parking height limit, according to city standards, it was. We ended up parking outside Washington, D.C. and took the Metro to the station closest to the International Spy Museum, also referred to simply as the SPY Museum. It was a few minutes walk from the station to reach the museum, which wasn’t hard to find judging from the size of the large letters, spelling SPY, which run down the side of the building.

Inside, before lining up to get our tickets checked, we quickly viewed James Bond’s Aston Martin and The Turtle, America’s first combat submarine. Believe it or not, I’ve never watched any of the James Bond movies, so I wasn’t as awestruck by it as some other visitors.

After our tickets were scanned, we rode an elevator up to the beginning of the museum. There, we each selected an Undercover Mission badge. This part is optional, but in my opinion, something you’ll want to do if you ever visit the museum. Eight Undercover Mission booths are laid out throughout the museum, requiring different espionage skills to complete. My favorite was probably creating a disguise so I would fit in with my surroundings. You only get a certain amount of time to put together your disguise, and once you do, you’re given a percentage on how well you did.

Next, we scanned our badges on one of the many Undercover Mission screens and received our briefing. This included our codeword and cover identity. My cover name was Alex Torres (not sure if I got the last name correct), a guy from Reykjavik, Iceland. I didn’t get to choose the gender of my undercover identity, nor did I get to choose my codeword: Guacamole. I weighed whether a code name of Buttercup or Guacamole would be worse, but didn’t come to a definite decision. My youngest sister, on the other hand, got the cool and composed codeword of Glacier. I didn’t have much time to think about our given codewords since I had more important items on my schedule – like attending a 30-minute briefing video.

After the video, we moved through the first exhibit, which displayed everything from stories about real spies and their trade craft to espionage devices and different methods of disguise. Interactive activities (along with the Undercover Mission stations) were dispersed throughout the museum, making it a fun experience for both children and adults. I especially enjoyed learning about interrogation and detecting lies. There was also a game I played which tested how well I payed attention to my surroundings. In the game, I had to keep track of which cup held the coin as a guy shuffled the three cups around. Simultaneously, other things happened in the background… like a unicorn walking down the stairs. At the end of the game,  I had to click on the cup which held the coin, and I had to admit to whether or not I’d noticed the different changes that had taken place at the same time. Another game tested how many words I could remember within a set time. Once I started the game, around 20 words were displayed on the screen, one by one. At the end of this game, I had to correctly answer which words had been shown and which ones hadn’t. Those games really tested my observation skills!

In another section of the museum (beside the exhibits on propaganda), there’s a bar which lifts you off your feet. Your goal is to hold on for as long as possible, but the longer you hold on, the harder it gets. For starters, the bar isn’t the same diameter as one you might find at a playground or a gymnastics meet – this one is thick. Second, the bar starts to twitch ever so slightly… and your hands begin to get sweaty – not to mention, you can only hold on to the bar a certain way. I’m not a hundred percent sure about the reason behind the activity, but I think it had to do something with a spy who held on to a bar like that for a total of one minute, so visitors get a chance to try to beat that record (which isn’t easy, by the way).

Just before you reach that physical interactive, the “Sleeping Beauty” is displayed in a large glass case. The “Sleeping Beauty” was a Motorized Submersible Canoe, meaning that it looked like a canoe, but could also be used underwater. There were so many other interesting exhibits, like how spy agencies tested laundry for explosive residue to catch bomb makers, or how a fake ghost army was manufactured and set up to sidetrack the enemy from the real operation at hand, but if I were to write about it all, this blog would take forever to read.

By the time we made it to the last Undercover Mission station, the museum was about to close. We quickly completed our last task and made our way over to the debriefing center, where we learnt of how well we performed on our individual missions and each received our top two spy skills.

Being a spy isn’t easy. It requires a life of lies. Secrecy. Possible danger. Biggest of all, the responsibility of defending your nation from enemies most people have never heard of. Not everyone is cut out to be a spy, living a life full of espionage. While at the museum, I heard many stories from past and present spies. Their lives weren’t easy. But they risked theirs to protect others.

Do you have what it takes to be a spy?

Dare to explore!

Vivienne