How to Solve the Morse Code Cipher

A symbol cipher replaces each letter with a mark — a shape, a pattern of dots, a pair of flags. Nothing is scrambled and nothing is shifted, so once you have the key you can read the message straight off.

How to recognise it

You can see at a glance that it isn't letters. That is the whole tell, and it is also why these are the friendliest ciphers to learn: the difficulty is looking the marks up, not reasoning about them.

Morse Code Dots and dashes. A slash marks the end of a word.

The key, letter by letter

A worked example

Each letter has become a mark. Nothing is scrambled and nothing is shifted: find the key to the symbols and you can read it straight off. This one is Morse Code. Dots and dashes. A slash marks the end of a word. Match the first three marks against the key and they resolve to T R E. The answer was TREASURE MAP.

Working one out from scratch

Work with the alphabet table below open in front of you. Copy the marks out in order first and translate second — most mistakes on a symbol cipher are transcription mistakes, not decoding ones.