G|R|E|A|T W|H|A|L|E S|O|N|G

The puzzle is presented as an audio file. Analysis of the file shows that it consists of 50 ms snippets of either a pure 1000 Hz sine tone or silence. A majority of this file consists of Morse code following standard conventions: dits are length 1 tones, dahs are length 3 tones, space within the same letter are length 1 silences, space between letters are length 3 silences, spaces are length 5 silences, and newlines are length 7 silences. However, several segments consist of dits or dahs that do not correspond to a Morse code character. There are also some length 7 tones, which can be transcribed as blanks. The following is a transcript of this file with any non-Morse written as raw dits and dahs:

This should be interpreted as three components:

• The flavor is flavortext.
• The grid is a crossword grid, where dots correspond to white squares and dashes correspond to black squares.
• The clues are a list of crossword clues.

The solved clues must be filled into the grid. However, the following differentiates this from a traditional crossword:

• Rather than filling in the grid directly, answers must be translated to Morse code first before being filled in (using “.” for dits and “-” for dahs). Furthermore, a “separator” character “|” is added between letters, matching how the title is written. As confirmation, the answers to the clues are in order by their Morse code length, with ties broken by Morse lexicographical order (- < . < |).
• Down words use “|” to denote a dash and “-” for separators; this is hinted by the flavortext, as dashes (sound) replace separators (silence).

The completed grid is shown below (TAU is placed twice in symmetric positions, where crosses cannot distinguish between the two answers):

Reading the intersections (highlighted in yellow) as Morse code yields the answer IM N LUV WIT A STRIPPER.

Authors' Notes