Fancy yourself as a secret agent? This brain teaser is used to recruit actual spies

Don’t lie to me and tell me you didn’t dream of being a spy once when you were a kid. Whether it was Spy Kids or MI High that inspired you, at some point in your life you fancied yourself as a spy. Well now, you can find out if you’d actually make the cut with a brand new brainteaser released by GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters.

Every year the GCHQ releases a brain teaser so people can see if they have what it takes to become an undercover agent. It encourages people who “think outside the box” and so if you can solve this puzzle you might be solving all the UK’s next mysteries.

Basically, you’ve got to find 13 hidden elements which represent letters of the alphabet. Once you have found them you’ve got to work out the hidden message that they spell.

So give this spy brain teaser a go to see if you could make it as an undercover agent:

The brain teaser features everything from GCHQ’s Gloucestershire office and Alan Turing to a helicopter carrying an old TV, a sheep and an undercover agent. And honestly, I reckon most of us will be sticking to our day jobs because this is HARD.

GCHQ’s Director Anne Keast-Butler said: “The world is getting more complex and we’re only ever going to stay ahead of those threats by bringing together the right mix of minds that lets us tackle the challenges ahead. For us, that means bringing in people with different backgrounds, different experience, different insights, different knowledge, and creating a team where all of us can play our part. For us, it’s clear that that diversity is mission critical.  

“So we’re on a journey to make sure that we reach out and connect to people who’ve never thought of working with us. And today we’re launching on LinkedIn as a way of starting to showcase a little bit more of the work that we do and some of the amazing people who work at GCHQ.  

“And as part of launching on LinkedIn, we are in true GCHQ style – and to try and help you think out of the box – launching a puzzle too. See if you can identify the letters contained in the picture and bring them together to form a message.” 

So if you’re struggling, keep scrolling for the answers.

Spoiler alert! Stop scrolling unless you want the answers revealed

The word that the spy brain teaser spells out is JOURNEY TO HQ. Here is where you could find all the different letters:

J – Juliet (from the phonetic alphabet) in the window
O – The bottle of water with the French flag (eau)
U – The ewe in the road
R – Romeo (from the phonetic alphabet) looking up at Juliet
N – The calendar represents the month of November (from the phonetic alphabet)
E – The pair of hands emerging from the building is displaying E in British Sign Language
Y – The red drums on the bombe machine in the TV represent Y in braille

T – The cup of tea in the café window
O – The highlighted dashes in the road represent O in Morse code

G – The golfer (from the phonetic alphabet)
C – The sea
H – The hotel (from the phonetic alphabet)
Q – The queue of cars

Giving up my spy dreams once and for all I guess!

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