Dear Reddit, I work in NYC, and was dragged into a very curious situation today. I was taking the 1 train from midtown to the financial district and as usual, the train was pretty packed. I bumped into a raggedy dressed man as we got on and he shot me a quick smile. I though nothing of it until he went to get off at 14th street and he handed me a $50 bill along with a note. Before I could even open my mouth to ask him a question, he was gone. Below you find pictures of both the front and back of the note.

Front:

Back:

I’ve been looking at the note all day, and needless to say, I have no idea what it means. It’s handwritten on a 3X3 square piece of paper with no identifying marks and no watermarks. There’s a handdrawn grid and at a couple spots, the cells of the grid are combined. The note has random character written throughout it and the bottom quarter is filled with random shapes and numbers.

Maybe I’m just reading way too far into things, and he was just another crazy New Yorker, but I figured it would be neat to see if anyone has run into this similar situation. Do any of you have any idea as to what the note says if anything?

Just got to my friend’s house in Jersey, didn’t expect this post to take off, but I’ve managed to read some of the comments and see that most of you are saying that the letters on the back are the cipher. That was the first thing I tried and it failed; others said that the 50 may have something to do with it, the only thing out of the ordinary that I saw on the bill was a number written along the back of the bill, but the “7″ on the bill doesn’t match the one on the note. I’ve taken pictures with my phone:

Front:

Back:

There’s also some shading on the front of the bill that may mean something.

EDIT AS OF 10:38am 7/13 Received a phone call today threatening violence against me and my family, going so far as to name members of my family and their addresses, unless I delete this post. The caller also told me not to show up on the 19th and to inform anyone planning to show up on the 19th that nothing would happen. This will be my last message from this account before I delete it. I’ll also be changing my number later today. I am sorry if a resolution to this never happens, but I’m not willing to risk my family’s safety for a few extra dollars.

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