The people that I WAS working with seem to use this same method. When I first received their "works", they only gave enough to get started and bits and pieces thereafter. They would never give me all the info they had. After 3 years of research and searching, I came to the conclusion they were on the wrong property. So I looked at it from a true historical perspective. The initial installment of their works was three pages. The one page concerning verifiable history was actually about 80% accurate. They just had names, times and dates mixed up. Once sorted out, that part made sense. The other two pages were primarily landmarks that no longer exist and actions by people for the most part do not show up in history. So, I worked on physical and geological aspects that should be relatively constant over the past 200 years. Research into land patents and warrants led me to a property that is described in their one correct paper. On this property we found many era correct items, a home site, and artifacts. Their theory is the treasure was located in a cave, which is my specialty. With a small excavator provided by land owner, we worked off and on for about a month before we finally found a hole that fit within their scenario. The cave entrance was covered by 20 feet of large overburden due a collapse that seems to have occurred in the early to mid 1800's (verified by local written history). At the entrance was found artifacts dating in the late 1700's when we made the break through. The cave is a large single room, 20-35 feet wide, 6 feet high and 165 feet long. It is a very people friendly cave. Nothing thus far within the cave was found pertaining to a treasure. But a human premolar was found about 40 feet from the entrance. In their decodings, they claim a very young Indian lad was laid to rest in a "bed" in the east wall of the cave. A natural bed is located about 10 feet in a small alcove from the tooth. The cave does have evidence of pack rats, so I am surprised we even found the tooth.
Well, back to the topic. Perhaps there is something to this "secret cipher".
Thanks for letting me share my experience.
Don Carns Jr.