Secret Code Generator
Type a secret message once and see it in Morse code, pigpen, the NATO alphabet and tap code. Print the Morse or pigpen version with its key for a class, a party or an escape room.
Make a secret message
Morse code
Pigpen cipher
NATO alphabet
Mike Echo Echo TangoMike EchoAlfa TangoTango Hotel EchoOscar Lima DeltaOscar Alfa Kilo
Tap code
- K is knocked as C, as on the grid.
All secret codes
Write it in symbols
3Spell it out loud
2Send it as sound or knocks
2Make it a game or lesson
2Which code should I use?
Pick the code by how your message will travel. For a note, a card or a clue taped under a table, write it in pigpen: to anyone without the key it is just boxes, corners and dots. Morse code works on paper as well, and it is the one to choose when you also want to play the message as beeps or flash it with a light. The Morse code translator does both, and it works as a secret code translator the other way too: paste dots and dashes and it reads them back.
To read a message out over a phone or a walkie-talkie, spell it in the NATO alphabet, or in the police alphabet that runs Adam, Boy, Charles. To pass it through a wall or across a quiet room, knock it in tap code.
None of these codes stops someone who already knows it. The game is that your reader has to find or learn the key, so hand it over with the message, or hide it as the next clue.
Frequently asked questions
About secret codes
Start with a code that already works, then change one thing only you and your reader know. Open the pigpen cipher tool and switch its key to Grid-X-grid-X or Alternating, and the same shapes stand for other letters. Or draw your own symbol for each letter, and keep the key safe.
The codes here each swap a letter for something else: a shape in pigpen, dots and dashes in Morse code, a word in the NATO and police alphabets, and two groups of knocks in tap code. Other ciphers swap each letter for another letter: the Caesar shift moves it a few places along the alphabet. This page does not make those.
In Morse code, I like you is .. / .-.. .. -.- . / -.-- --- ..-. In the NATO alphabet it is India / Lima India Kilo Echo / Yankee Oscar Uniform. In tap code, as row and column numbers, it is 2,4 / 3,1 2,4 1,3 1,5 / 5,4 3,4 4,5, with K knocked as C. Pigpen draws it as eight symbols. Select the I like you example under the box to see all four.
Print the message with its key. On the Morse code and pigpen cards, Print with key makes a sheet with the coded message, lines for the answer and the key along the bottom, then an answer key on page two. The NATO card prints the message with each letter’s code word, so it is a key, not a puzzle. For the key alone, print the Morse code alphabet or the pigpen tool’s key.
Prisoners of war have used three of the codes on this page. In 1966 Jeremiah Denton, shown on television by his North Vietnamese captors, blinked the word TORTURE in Morse code. American prisoners in Vietnam knocked messages through cell walls in tap code, and in the American Civil War, pigpen was used by Union prisoners held in Confederate prisons. The NATO alphabet was never secret: it keeps letters clear over a radio.
Morse code is the famous one here, and a code anyone can learn. It is named after Samuel Morse, one of several people who developed it for the telegraph. It was never meant to be secret, so anyone with the Morse code alphabet can read it. Start with SOS: ... --- ....
Identify the code by how it looks, then open its tool. Dots and dashes are Morse: paste them into Morse code to English. Boxes, corners and V shapes with dots are pigpen. Words like Alfa and Bravo are the NATO alphabet, and pairs of knocks or numbers are tap code. Each tool works as a secret message decoder for its own code, and the Read a message links under the maker open them.
Yes. It is free with no sign-up and runs in your browser, so nothing you type is uploaded. Open full tool carries your message after the # in the link, which your browser does not send to our server. The cards draw the first 140 characters of a message up to 5,000 long. Open full tool carries the whole message, apart from pigpen, which takes the first 500.