Installed in 2006, the Semaphore’s code was cracked in 2007 by Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo, who found it spelled out Thomas Pynchon’s novel The Crying of Lot 49. A new message from 2012 was decoded in 2017.
Questions people ask
What did the San Jose Semaphore say?
Its first message was the text of The Crying of Lot 49.
Where is it?
On top of the Almaden Tower of Adobe’s downtown headquarters.