The above image isn’t the world’s most elaborate Christmas card – it’s actually a festive brainteaser created by Britain’s top spies.
And don’t worry, this article will not self-destruct in five seconds.
The Government Communications Headquarters is one of the country’s three spy agencies, specialising in gathering intelligence and protecting people from financial threats.
In other words, solving puzzles and cracking codes is very much part of the GCHQ job description – as is making brain teasers, too.
The agency releases its GCHQ Christmas Challenge every, well, Christmas, that is a ‘series of fiendish brainteasers and puzzles, designed by our very own team of codebreakers’.
‘It encourages children aged 11-18 to think laterally and work as a team, as well as showcasing some of the skills they might need to become a spy,’ GCHQ adds.
Yes, this puzzle is designed for schoolchildren. So, unless you’re up for auditioning for a reboot of Are You Smarter Than A 10 Year Old?, we advise you get cracking.
Released today as a downloadable PDF, the Christmas challenge is, in fact, the agency’s official Christmas card.
On the front is a map of the UK with famous festive critters like a robin, a, er, lobster and a dinosaur. Each one has been assigned four numbers that, we assume, aren’t cryptic in the least. Nope.
Looping around them all is the route that Santa Claus will be taking this holiday season that in way we, we think, looks like morse code.
Flip the card over and there are seven puzzles which lead to the name of a landmark.
‘Use the name of these landmarks and the front cover of the card to discover what people across all of our GCQH locations will be this Christmas,’ GCHQ says on the puzzle.
The quiz questions range from deciphering a cipher – a stubbornly hard code – and completing sentences that have a few blank spaces to a messy spiral of numbers.
So, in other words, no, we don’t personally know the answers. But if you’re just too stumped or don’t have a schoolchild on hand to help you, GCHQ stresses that you’re not meant to ace this quiz alone.
‘The puzzles are not designed to be solved alone, and each student will bring something different to the challenge,’ the agency says.
‘At GCHQ, we believe the right mix of minds enables us to solve seemingly impossible problems.’
However, if the puzzle is simply too tricky, GCHQ always releases the answers to its Christmas challenges sooner or later online.
But GCHQ’s puzzle-making isn’t just a Christmas-only thing. Earlier this year, the agency asked wannabe spies to solve a puzzle as part of a novel recruitment drive.
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