Morse code

How do you read Morse code?

Each letter is a short sequence of short signals (dots) and long ones (dashes). A dash lasts three dots. Between two letters comes a silence of three dots; between two words, a silence of seven.

In writing, letters are separated by a space and words by a slash. The most common letters get the shortest codes: E is “.” and T is “-”.

Example

“SOS” is “... --- ...”: three short, three long, three short. It is the best-known distress signal in the world, precisely because it can’t be mistaken for anything else.

A bit of history

Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail designed it in the 1830s for the electric telegraph. The international Morse code used today was settled in 1865. It served at sea and in aviation for over a century, and radio amateurs still use it.

Using it in an escape game

Morse hides everywhere: a blinking lamp, a sound in a video, long and short beads on a necklace, lines and dots in a drawing. Players get the idea fast; the real challenge is spotting the message.

Tip: offer the Morse alphabet table as a hint for teams that get stuck.

Frequently asked questions

How does the tool know which way to translate?

If your text contains only dots, dashes, spaces and slashes, it is read as Morse. Otherwise it is translated into Morse.

What does a “?” in the translation mean?

A run of dots and dashes that matches no known letter. Check the spaces between letters: two letters stuck together make an invalid code.

Does Morse have accented letters?

There are a few rare codes for É or À, but messages are almost always written without accents. The tool turns é into e before translating.

Turn your message into a puzzle

On In-Evasion you build a free online escape game: every puzzle has its code, each code found opens the next one, and your players solve it all together on a shared board.

Other tools

• Caesar cipher
• Vigenère cipher
• Letters to numbers
• Pigpen cipher