Solved cryptogram
The moon raises two tidal bulges, one facing it and one on the far side of the planet.
Earth Science Facts, sourced to NOAA.
What it means
The near bulge is easy: the moon pulls the water toward it. The far one confuses people. The moon also pulls on the solid Earth, and it pulls the Earth harder than it pulls the ocean on the opposite side, so the planet is drawn out from under that water and it is left behind as a second bulge. Two bulges is why coastlines get two high tides a day rather than one.
The claim comes from NOAA, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 67 letters over 19 different ones, graded medium.
- SourceNOAA
- CollectionEarth Science Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length67 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 72 letters
- NASAmedium, 74 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 78 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveyhard, 78 letters