RIVERBANK LABS
From Shakespeare to NSA

FULL STORY HERE -

http://ionamiller.weebly.com/riverbank-labs.html

 

RIVERBANK LABS
Acoustic Alchemy
Pioneering Esoteric Lab & Think Tank
How Decoding Shakespeare and Levitation Led to NSA

by Iona Miller, (c)2010, All Rights Reserved

 How a Seemingly Failed Levitation Machine Led to the Founding of NSA & the Secrets of Ciphers

First Thinktank * First Privately Owned Research Laboratory * First US Decryptions * Genetics * Acoustics

Original US Esoterics Lab & Thinktank

"Some rich men go in for art collections, gay times on the Riviera, or extravagant living. But they all get satiated. That’s why I stick to scientific experiments, spending money to discover valuable things that universities can’t afford. You never get sick of too much knowledge." --Col. George Fabyan

"Less Noise; More Hearing": Geneva, Illinois. Riverbank Engineering Bldg.

Somewhere between a step pyramid and Tibetan architecture, The Villa, 40 miles west of Chicago, is now a museum that houses collections of photos and memorabilia of cotton-fortune heir Col. George Fabyan.  The Villa was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907.  In 1914, landscape architect Taro Otsuka designed Fabyan’s Japanese Garden. An imported Dutch windmill stands in another portion of the 600-acre estate. The garden was restored in 1971 and again in 1994, and is open to the public. 

Many different research activities occurred at Riverbank, including decoding and deciphering enemy messages during World War I, deciphering alleged secret messages in the works of William Shakespeare, research in the field of architectural acoustics, groundbreaking research in the field of cryptology, fieldwork in the use of hand grenades and military trenches, research and development of tuning forks, and studies of human fitness and anatomy. Teams of researchers lived and worked at Riverbank, devoting years of their lives to frontier science. Many scientists from around the nation and world have visited Riverbank and stayed at The Lodge. The United State’s military successes in World War I and World War II were supported by Riverbank, which is a direct lineal predecessor of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency.

As Friedman and his staff in the Riverbank Department of Codes and Ciphers worked on solving messages coming in from various federal agencies and foreign governments, they became the first unofficial cryptologic organization in the United States. It was still many months before Military Intelligence was formed as the nation’s first official cipher bureau. Friedman invented the words "cryptanalysis" and "cryptology", the first being code-breaking, and the latter being the overall term used to describe the science. In 1929, he became widely known as one of the world’s leading authorities on cryptology when the Encyclopedia Britannica published his article on "Codes and Ciphers." The Black Chamber was dissolved in 1929 and the Signal Intelligence Service was created with William Friedman as its first director. His first task was to set up an adequate program to provide training for officers in cryptology. The result was the Signal Intelligence School. He also wrote three textbooks on military cryptography for these courses. These comprise the finest, most lucid exposition of the solution of basic ciphers that has ever been published. The Black Chamber, otherwise known as MI-8 or Cipher Bureau, was the United States' first peacetime cryptanalytic organization, and a forerunner of the National Security Agency. The only prior codes and cypher organizations maintained by the US government had been some intermittent, and always abandoned, attempts by Armed Forces branches prior to World War I.

The American Black Chamber By Herbert Osborn Yardley
http://books.google.com/books?id=Y2GI32l-hXIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22The+Black+chamber%22&source=bll&ots=xg4UEBzEhn&sig=D4sT-ij1zkXbSmytjinLpUietnY&hl=en&ei=Kbe4TKPWPJDksQPH74D7Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CEQQ6AEwCg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Eventually, Fabyan’s estate grew to cover 600 acres and was the home to award-winning flowers,  livestock and other animals.  Fabyan imported scientists from the fields of plant genetics and acoustics as well as cryptography to his estate. The cryptographers were mainly there to prove that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays, but still ended up being the foundation for the NSA. Under the theoretical spell of Elizebeth Wells Gallup, Fabyan read in one of Bacon's works a description of a levitation device that allegedly worked on acoustic principles. He built one, but couldn't get it to fly, so he sent to Harvard University for some acoustic experts to help him. Revealed by the code, previously known only to the Rosicrucians, is an acoustical levitating machine. A huge drum with piano strings stretched along its surface is rotated within an outer casing with corresponding strings. As the strings vibrate, the outer shell is made to levitate.

It had been known for some time that Francis Bacon belonged to a secret society called the Rosicrucian Society. They believed in conducting scientific experiments that in those times was often considered witchcraft. Due to Bacon’s position with the Queen of England, he ran the Queen’s printing press, and had devised what was called a biliteral cipher utilizing wide and thin letters to represent the alphabet. Colonel Fabyan also believed in the Baconian theory. Mrs. Gallup believed Bacon was the real Shakespeare for two reasons: 1) Bacon had invented the biliteral cipher and used it in printed publications, and 2) the original printed folios of Shakespeare’s plays used a variety of different typefaces.

So goes the theory; trouble is, it doesn't work. Or, at least acoustic alchemy had not yet come into its own. Fabyan invited the famous professor Wallace Sabine to his estate to study the problem. The professor made a few calculations, and convinced Fabyan there would never be enough sound energy to lift anything. Might the old gentleman be interested in underwriting some genuine scientific research, such as a reverberation chamber?

So began decades of discovery: Sabine's formula for sound absorption is still used in many standard acoustical tests, and the unit of absorption now bears his name, "sabin." The wonders recorded included sound absorbers that seemed to absorb more sound than fell upon them; an acoustical consultant, never hired for a certain concert hall project, who was criticized for its poor acoustics (while another acoustical consultant was praised for the excellent acoustics of the very same hall); the standard color of sound used in an acoustical laboratory; the required height, weight and shoes for a lady floor-walker; and much, much more, equally exotic.

The Colonel died May 17, 1936; his wife died two years later, and the executors of her will sold Riverbank to the Kane County Forest Preserve for $70,500.  Various guests to the estate supposedly included Albert Einstein, P.T. Barnum and Wallace Clement Sabine (American physicist and pioneer founder of the field of architectural acoustics). The work in cryptology done there by William Friedman, work in acoustical research done by Wallace Clement and Paul (a distant cousin) Sabine, and Fabyan�s strange desire to prove that the works of Shakespeare were in fact not written by Shakespeare but contained Baconian ciphers. Elizabeth Wells Gallup studied Shakepeare’s First Folio to see if the differences in variations of type represented Bacon’s use of the biliteral cipher. One of the messages she deciphered was:  "Queen Elizabeth is my true mother, and I am the lawful heir to the throne. Find the Cypher storie my books contain; it tells great secrets, every one of which, if imparted openly, would forfeit my life. F. Bacon" They also worked unsuccessfully on the inscrutable Voynich Manuscript.

One of the scientific experiments documented by Sir Francis Bacon was a levitating machine. The machine was a wooden tube with metal strings attached to it, around which fit another wooden tube with metal strings attached to the inside of it. The center tube was supposed to spin and by sympathetic vibration cause the strings on the outer tube to vibrate. The resonance from the striking would create a force field, which would levitate the outer tube off of the ground. Colonel Fabyan hired Bert Eisenhour, an engineer from Chicago, to construct this machine at Riverbank. Though the machine was constructed, it did not work. Eisenhour was convinced that the strings were not tuned properly, and suggested they consult someone knowledgeable in acoustics. Decipherment from Shakespeare's first folioproduced the plans for the Baconian Acoustical Levitation Device, which Fabyan and his army managed to build. It was: A wooden tube with metal strings attached to it, around which fit another wooden tube with metal strings attached to the inside of it. The center tube was supposed to spin and by sympathetic vibration cause the strings on the outer tube to vibrate. The resonance from the striking would create a force field, which would levitate the outer tube off of the ground.

 

 

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Fabyan’s estate grew to cover 600 acres and was the home to award-winning flowers,  livestock and other animals.  Fabyan imported scientists from the fields of plant genetics and acoustics as well as cryptography to his estate. The cryptographers were mainly there to prove that Bacon wrote Shakespeare's plays, but still ended up being the foundation for the NSA. Under the theoretical spell of Elizebeth Wells Gallup, Fabyan read in one of Bacon's works a description of a levitation device that allegedly worked on acoustic principles. He built one, but couldn't get it to fly, so he sent to Harvard University for some acoustic experts to help him. Revealed by the code, previously known only to the Rosicrucians, is an acoustical levitating machine. A huge drum with piano strings stretched along its surface is rotated within an outer casing with corresponding strings. As the strings vibrate, the outer shell is made to levitate.

It had been known for some time that Francis Bacon belonged to a secret society called the Rosicrucian Society. They believed in conducting scientific experiments that in those times was often considered witchcraft. Due to Bacon’s position with the Queen of England, he ran the Queen’s printing press, and had devised what was called a biliteral cipher utilizing wide and thin letters to represent the alphabet. Colonel Fabyan also believed in the Baconian theory. Mrs. Gallup believed Bacon was the real Shakespeare for two reasons: 1) Bacon had invented the biliteral cipher and used it in printed publications, and 2) the original printed folios of Shakespeare’s plays used a variety of different typefaces.

So goes the theory; trouble is, it doesn't work. Or, at least acoustic alchemy had not yet come into its own. Fabyan invited the famous professor Wallace Sabine to his estate to study the problem. The professor made a few calculations, and convinced Fabyan there would never be enough sound energy to lift anything. Might the old gentleman be interested in underwriting some genuine scientific research, such as a reverberation chamber?

So began decades of discovery: Sabine's formula for sound absorption is still used in many standard acoustical tests, and the unit of absorption now bears his name, "sabin." The wonders recorded included sound absorbers that seemed to absorb more sound than fell upon them; an acoustical consultant, never hired for a certain concert hall project, who was criticized for its poor acoustics (while another acoustical consultant was praised for the excellent acoustics of the very same hall); the standard color of sound used in an acoustical laboratory; the required height, weight and shoes for a lady floor-walker; and much, much more, equally exotic.

The Colonel died May 17, 1936; his wife died two years later, and the executors of her will sold Riverbank to the Kane County Forest Preserve for $70,500.  Various guests to the estate supposedly included Albert Einstein, P.T. Barnum and Wallace Clement Sabine (American physicist and pioneer founder of the field of architectural acoustics). The work in cryptology done there by William Friedman, work in acoustical research done by Wallace Clement and Paul (a distant cousin) Sabine, and Fabyan�s strange desire to prove that the works of Shakespeare were in fact not written by Shakespeare but contained Baconian ciphers. Elizabeth Wells Gallup studied Shakepeare’s First Folio to see if the differences in variations of type represented Bacon’s use of the biliteral cipher. One of the messages she deciphered was:  "Queen Elizabeth is my true mother, and I am the lawful heir to the throne. Find the Cypher storie my books contain; it tells great secrets, every one of which, if imparted openly, would forfeit my life. F. Bacon" They also worked unsuccessfully on the inscrutable Voynich Manuscript.

One of the scientific experiments documented by Sir Francis Bacon was a levitating machine. The machine was a wooden tube with metal strings attached to it, around which fit another wooden tube with metal strings attached to the inside of it. The center tube was supposed to spin and by sympathetic vibration cause the strings on the outer tube to vibrate. The resonance from the striking would create a force field, which would levitate the outer tube off of the ground. Colonel Fabyan hired Bert Eisenhour, an engineer from Chicago, to construct this machine at Riverbank. Though the machine was constructed, it did not work. Eisenhour was convinced that the strings were not tuned properly, and suggested they consult someone knowledgeable in acoustics.

 

Decipherment from Shakespeare's first folio produced the plans for the Baconian Acoustical Levitation Device, which Fabyan and his army managed to build. It was: A wooden tube with metal strings attached to it, around which fit another wooden tube with metal strings attached to the inside of it. The center tube was supposed to spin and by sympathetic vibration cause the strings on the outer tube to vibrate. The resonance from the striking would create a force field, which would levitate the outer tube off of the ground.