<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skeptoid.com&#x2F;episodes&#x2F;4301" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skeptoid.com&#x2F;episodes&#x2F;4301</a><p>&quot;Indeed, the name Thomas Jefferson Beale suggests an inside joke. Thomas Jefferson was, of course, the author of the Declaration of Independence, the very document Ward claimed to have stumbled upon &quot;by accident&quot; (in his words) as the key to the cipher. The name Beale suggests Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who became famous when he crossed what was then Mexican territory in disguise to transport the first samples of California gold from the west to the east, 37 years before Ward&#x27;s book.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Edward_Fitzgerald_Beale" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Edward_Fitzgerald_Beale</a><p>&quot;In the late 1850s, Beale surveyed and built <i>Beale&#x27;s Wagon Road</i>, which many settlers used to move to the West, and which became part of <i>Route 66</i> and the route for the Transcontinental railroad.&quot;<p>Sounds like today naming the author of the code &quot;Michael Jackson Gates&quot; and giving for the second key the lyrics of &quot;Beat it&quot;?<p>But the wish for treasure was blinder. Skeptoid concludes:<p>&quot;After (the pamphlet&#x27;s) publication, Ward tried to downplay the tale, claiming that all remaining copies of the pamphlet had been destroyed in a print shop fire, despite researchers finding no newspaper records of any such fire. Only the first few pamphlets ever got out, and once they did, it appears that Ward realized he&#x27;d created a monster with a greater effect than he&#x27;d anticipated. Ward had been friends with the Buford and Morriss families, and it&#x27;s perhaps most probable that the unexpected attention changed his mind about promoting his fictional story at the expense of his friends.&quot;<p>But the wish is warmed up again and again.