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Programs
Codewords & Project Names
Trace historical program names, operation names, project aliases, and documented codewords to the records that define their meaning and period of use.
Available Now · Continuously DevelopingCodewords & Terminology Decoder
Recover the language hidden inside the record.
Nuclear-weapons records are filled with codewords, acronyms, aliases, material names, component numbers, organizational shorthand, project terminology, and changing administrative language. Rosetta decodes those terms only when documentary evidence supports the meaning.
TERM / CODEWORD → DOCUMENTED MEANING → DATE → ORGANIZATION → PROGRAM → FACILITY → RECORD
Research pathways
Decode without guessing.
This foundation creates a permanent public home for historically documented terminology and a separate place for terms whose meanings remain unresolved.
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Language
Acronyms & Organizational Shorthand
Decode agency, laboratory, division, office, contractor, military, production, and administrative abbreviations whose meanings changed across time and institutions.
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Materials
Material Names, Aliases & Nomenclature
Connect documented historical names for nuclear materials, compounds, source forms, accountability categories, and production materials to their archival context.
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Components
Component & Drawing Designations
Organize MC numbers, drawing identifiers, assembly names, part designations, and related historical component terminology without inferring function from a number alone.
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Contracts
Contract, Procurement & Shipment Codes
Decode contractor identifiers, procurement shorthand, accountability terminology, shipping designations, and other administrative codes when surviving records establish them.
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Archives
Document & Record-Series Terminology
Explain report prefixes, document series, office symbols, archival abbreviations, distribution markings, and other recordkeeping language needed to follow a source trail.
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Historical security
Classification & Declassification Terms
Provide historical context for classification markings and terminology only from publicly available or declassified sources. Public availability is not treated as proof that a record was formally declassified.
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Unresolved
Decoding Queue
Preserve unidentified terms, ambiguous aliases, uncertain component designations, and conflicting historical usages as explicit research questions rather than assigning unsupported meanings.
Explore unresolved evidence →Decoder evidence standard
A plausible meaning is not a documented meaning.
Rosetta distinguishes a term's appearance in a record from a verified definition. Meanings are tied to date, creating organization, program, facility, and source because the same abbreviation or designation can carry different meanings in different documentary systems.
How Rosetta evaluates evidence →Historical scope
Public and declassified history only.
The Decoder is intended for historical research. It does not attempt to reconstruct current classified terminology, infer protected meanings, or convert technical plausibility into a historical finding.
Where the evidence does not support a decoding, Rosetta will label the term unresolved.
Future public decoder
What every decoded entry should preserve.
Term / codeword · exact spelling · variant spelling · documented meaning · date range · creating organization · program / operation · facility · material / component relationship · document context · source citation · public / declassification basis · evidentiary status · related Rosetta records
A definition may be valid only for a particular office, facility, program, or period. Rosetta preserves that context rather than flattening terminology into a universal glossary.
“The vocabulary of the archive is evidence too. Decode the term only as far as the surviving record permits.”