Save Samantha #1

Watch the video. Crack the code. Submit your solve.

Samantha provided three significant six-digit strings of numbers in this audio recording. The first was the list of numbers she read aloud (64 times!): 8, 13, 25, 41, 54, 59. Applying an "alphabetical ranks added" cipher yields 8, 5, 12, 16, 13, 5 -- which (with A=1) yields the message H E L P M E.

A sound effect marked the second six-digit string, occurring at the start of the following numerical cycles: 9, 10, 33, 35, 41, 56. This did not yield anything until the extracted string (9, 1, 23, 2, 6, 15) was "combined" with the first extracted string, yielding 17, 6, 9 (35-26), 18, 19, 20, or Q F I R S T. Curious that it spelled something, but what did it mean? Was it an instruction?

The third six-digit string was the most challenging to locate, but whether by ear or by spectrum analyzer, it became apparent that Samantha read the number "41" differently on six occasions. Specifically, it sounded more like "4-D-one" than "forty-one." She differentiated in the following cycles: 12, 28, 46, 49, 52, 62.

Again, the correct move was go back to the "base" message (HELP ME) and combine the two strings. But first, you had to correctly use the instruction from Part 2 - QFIRST. There were perhaps 2-3 rational possibilities here, but the correct one was to simply move the letter Q to the first position of the "new alphabet" (Q=1, A=2, B=3, D=4, etc.). If you did this properly, the addition gave you 20, 21, 4 (30-26), 19, 16, 15 -- or, using the "new alphabet," TUCSON.

Since Samantha had asked you to determine her current location, "Tucson" was indeed the final solve here.

NOTE: Prize money rolled over to Connections #1 since no users submitted a correct solve before the solve deadline.