The Decoy Effect

Throughout my years of study into the Zodiac letters, I have found myself irritated at times when I came across mentions by the public that, the Zodiac was a liar. I, personally, don’t think he ever was.

This whole liar thing starts with the July 31, 1969, letter, the Zodiac’s mention of the cipher containing his identity, and the Zodiac’s mention within the 408 that he would not give his name.

In early August of 1969, the newspapers reported the crimes, the three letters and the 408 cipher pieces. It was visually clear that the Zodiac had a hidden message within the cipher pieces. People viewing the cipher pieces would become naturally curious and would want answers to the unknown. The public would have worked the cipher pieces to uncover the hidden message and would have done so without the phrase “in this cipher is my idenity” included.

So why did the Zodiac add the phrase?

It is my belief that the Zodiac was not content with just a simple curiosity. He knows that the public, without the added phrase, would have had multiple theories as to what the message would contain prior to a solution. By including the phrase, and using the word identity, he intentionally reduces all interpretations down to a 50-50 split: a name and a version of self-perception.

In August of 1969, Donald Harden cracks the 408-cipher. The gist of the solution was unmistakably a version of self-perception. One would think that the 50% who believed in an actual name being part of the solution would have slapped their head, said “Oh. So that’s which definition he meant” and moved on.  One would think that, in the end, 100% of the public would have been on the bandwagon of a version of self-perception.

But that’s not what took place though.

Instead, we see in the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle dated August 10, 1969, that Vallejo Detective Sergeant John Lynch was “disappointed that the mystery man failed to give his name in the three coded pieces sent the Examiner, Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald as he had earlier promised.”

The Zodiac never made that promise.

We also see that on, August 12, 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle reported the public was contacting Vallejo Detective Sergeant John Lynch with their decipherment of the last 18 characters of the 408 cipher still unsolved. The public’s suggestion was that the last 18 characters were an anagram for “Robert Emmet the hippie”.

The public was still expecting and looking for a name despite the obvious.

Even today, when we have hindsight, when we are able to see everything the Zodiac had done in subsequent letters, we still have people who dissect the whole deciphered solution as well as the last 18 characters looking for a name. Why?

Why does the public become so insistent that the Zodiac meant a name?

The obvious answer is that the public took the Zodiac’s phrase “I will not give you my name”, found inside the solution of the 408-cipher, as an indication that the Zodiac had meant a name all along.  However, given the competing definitions for the word identity, I have to wonder why no one questions the reason behind the Zodiac making the statement at all - “I will not give you my name”?

The Zodiac seems to make an assumption that the bulk of public interpretation for the word “identity” would lean towards a name, even before, he mails the letter. This assumption he made was really an odd thing for him to do given the initial 50% split in definition.

I quit researching the Zodiac letters at this point and started digging into the area of cognitive psychology. I wanted to know what made people tick in terms of how they thought one thing even after another was presented. When I went digging into cognitive psychology I came across an article on a subject called “The Decoy Effect”.

The Decoy Effect is used in the field of marketing and is defined as:

“The phenomenon whereby consumers will tend to have a specific change in preference between two options when also presented with a third option that is asymmetrically dominated. An option is asymmetrically dominated when it is inferior in all respects to one option; but, in comparison to the other option, it is inferior in some respects and superior in others.” ~Wikipedia

An example of the Decoy Effect, as found at Wikipedia, goes like this:

Two MP3 players are put on the market. The first MP3 player (Option 1) has 30 GB of storage and a price of $400.00. The second MP3 player, (Option 2), has 20 GB of storage and a price of $300.00. There is a difference between the two of 10 GB and $100.00.

50% of the population viewing these items will want (Option 1) because it has the highest storage capacity of the two. The other half of the population will want (Option 2) for the $100.00 difference in price.

Now suppose a third MP3 player (Option 3) is introduced. It is more expensive than both options 1 and 2 at a price of $450.00. Its storage capacity is 25 GB and so it has less storage than option 1 but more storage than option 2.

Option 3 would pretty much be a no sale. The 50% interested in the amount of storage (Option 1) would not be interested in paying $50.00 more for an item with 5 fewer GB of storage and the 50% interested in price (Option 2) would not be interested in spending $150.00 more for something that will only net them an increase of 5 GB of storage.

Option 3 is a marketing decoy. It’s inclusion into the mix breaks up the even split between option 1 and option 2 with the sole purpose of making option 1 appear more attractive to consumers. Those previously interested in option 1 for the amount of storage will stay with option 1. Those previously interested in option 2 will now be swayed to option 1 after comparing option 1 with option 3.

How it relates to the Zodiac:

As stated previously, because of the included phrase “In this cipher is my idenity”, there was an even split right down the middle in public opinion. Half the population believed that a name would be found in the solution, and the other half believed in a version of self-perception.

Options 1 and 2, as it relates to the Decoy Effect, are the definitions for the word “Idenity”.

When the cipher is solved, we see a pretty straightforward talk of self-perception, but with the added phrase of “I will not give you my name”. The added phrase is a marketing decoy. A third option put in place to break up the even split and sway the public.

Option 3’s inclusion into the mix makes option 2 (a version of self-perception) look inferior to option 1 (a name) because of its use of the word “name” and reinforces option 1 (a name) as being the dominate factor in what the Zodiac wanted people to expect in the solution of the 408-cipher all along.

For what purpose though did the Zodiac have?

I think the manipulation of the public to a name causes another 50-50 split to occur. Here, half the population will believe the Zodiac to be a liar because a name was never given, and the other half will believe he is truthful with a name still to be found. We see that to be the case with Vallejo Detective Sergeant John Lynch and his belief that the Zodiac failed to give his name as promised. He appears to have viewed the Zodiac to be a liar and the public’s anagramming of the last 18 characters still unsolved paints the picture that they believe the Zodiac was truthful.

Those who reach a conclusion that the Zodiac was a liar will never trust anything he may say or do in the future. They will ultimately find themselves questioning every single thing the Zodiac ever says or does and failing to recognize any pattern because one can’t think beyond the Zodiac being nothing more than a liar.

Those who believe the Zodiac is truthful, that the 408 will reveal his identity in some fashion, will waste their days and nights pouring over a cipher that’s mostly been solved looking for little patterns that point to a name. When the future 340 cipher appears they will continue this pattern of wasting days and nights believing that, because it hasn’t been solved, he made it harder so that he could hide his name.

With this being said, no one ever considers that his inclusion of the phrase “In this cipher is my identity”, his manipulation of the public with the word “identity”, and then providing a cryptographic cipher, may have been nothing more than a misdirection to avoid capture. This would be a win-win for the Zodiac if true.

But one has to ask: If this is a misdirection to avoid capture then, what, is the Zodiac misdirecting from?

At the time of this writing, which was probably 10 years or more ago, I suspect that the Zodiac's field of employment is: Advertising (Editing, Publishing, Marketing)