[HN Gopher] France's oldest treasure hunt has been solved
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France's oldest treasure hunt has been solved
Author : femtozer
Score : 166 points
Date : 2024-10-03 09:16 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (goldenowlhunt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (goldenowlhunt.com)
| lode wrote:
| Discussed here in 2023 at:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37647467
| wickedsight wrote:
| Seems to be hugged to death. Web archive has a copy for those
| interested:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20241003112400/https://goldenowl...
|
| Edit: Unfortunately, only the home page is archived, not the
| article it links to.
| beeb wrote:
| Here's a copy http://archive.today/qqWbx
| morsch wrote:
| Here's a BBC article, found via the Wikipedia page. Very little
| additional detail though.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvglkr4p578o
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_O...
| Iv wrote:
| We "chouettistes" are thirsty for more as well. There is almost
| a cult growing out of some hypothesis, we are waiting for the
| confirmed solutions a bit like the second coming.
| frereubu wrote:
| Reminds me very much of the Masquerade book in the UK:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)
| Rygian wrote:
| I initially confused the title with Maskerade:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maskerade
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| That's right. _Masquerade_ by Kit Williams [1] was a phenomena
| in 1979 - a book of weird illustrations that somehow contained
| a puzzle as to where a golden hare was buried.
|
| Even a fifteen year-old living in Kansas at the time was drawn
| to it, got caught up in it.
|
| The golden hare was found after a few years -- the whole story
| of the hare and its finding are well documented in the book by
| Bamber Gascoigne, _Quest for the Golden Hare_ [2].
|
| The account is a fun read: why Kit decided on buried treasure,
| how he went about creating the artwork/puzzle, the adventure of
| burying the rabbit.... But far and away the most fascinating
| bit describes the various treasure-hunters that then came after
| the hare.
|
| The party that solved the puzzle did not find the hare. The
| party that dug it up had not solved the puzzle.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)
|
| [2]
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1176887.Quest_for_the_Go...
|
| Short summary of the whole escapade here:
| https://youtu.be/3yaHBdhIsCo
| glimshe wrote:
| And here is a very well written summary:
| https://www.filfre.net/2016/05/kit-williamss-golden-hare-
| par...
| joncrocks wrote:
| Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplex_City
| haunter wrote:
| The actual post https://goldenowlhunt.com/the-golden-owl-is-won-
| after-31-yea...
|
| https://i.imgur.com/ecJeMB7.png
| Apocryphon wrote:
| How charming that this event organized in the early '90s is now
| on Discord.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Note that the ACTUAL organizer of the treasure hunt is not Michel
| Becker, but Regis Hauser (aka Max Valentin) who died more than 10
| years ago.
|
| Michel Becker only helped illustrate the book that is the support
| for the hunt and has taken over it when he passed.
|
| As far as I know this was quite controversial because he had not
| knowledge about the riddles or how to solve them, and was only
| able to take over because there was a notarized enveloped left
| behind by the original creator which explained everything.
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| Could you explain more because the author passed away and left
| the solutions to the riddles in a notarised envelope to a close
| collaborator who worked on another part of the book so the hunt
| could live on - the solution is finally found by an unrelated
| party a whole decade later - doesn't seem notably controversial
| to me?
| Naklin wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_
| Owl...
|
| There are more details on the french wikipedia article but
| basically Michel Becker did everything he could to make money
| out of the success of the treasure hunt, doing things that
| were either unethical or deemed contrary to the true
| creator's original intent. This included taking possession of
| the solution which wasn't meant for him to get, trying to
| sell the prize for himself and releasing new clues to renew
| interest in the hunt which he was still profiting from in
| different ways.
| dudul wrote:
| Damn! Just when I was getting back into it with my 9yo son :(
| k2xl wrote:
| Could o1 have helped the hunters finally reach it?
| arnaudsm wrote:
| I tried, it solved a few steps and was quite impressive! It's
| really good at riddles and associating random concepts.
|
| It got stuck when it had to calculate directions though.
| SeaGully wrote:
| My experience with using LLMs for things like MIT Mystery Hunt
| is touch and go.
|
| On most of them I've tried it doesn't seem to do much, but I do
| now use them to try and get crossword clues where I know bits
| that are often too abstract for crossword solvers.
|
| e.g. "a word that is six letters, is related to royalty, and
| has a state abbreviation in it" (this isn't a real clue, just
| an example of a clue that an LLM is much better suited than
| something like Nutrimatic or a crossword solver)
|
| I would be curious to hear if / how others us LLMs for abstract
| riddles/puzzles like that though.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| Not sure why you got downvoted.
|
| It is not crazy to imagine that LLMs could have helped explore
| the solution space.
|
| (not necessarily solving it directly)
| Pinus wrote:
| Unlike the Midsomer Murders plot, the organizer died from natural
| causes. :)
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > In 2021 Michel Becker became the official organiser of the
| treasure hunt, obtaining the sealed envelope containing the hunt
| solution from the family of Regis Hauser. Becker journeyed with a
| legal bailiff to check that the owl prize was still buried at the
| location revealed in the solution. He reported that when he dug
| at the spot he found the owl missing and instead found a rusty
| iron bird. He replaced this rusty bird with a new bronze owl so
| that the treasure hunt could continue
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Trail_of_the_Golden_O...
|
| Sounds like somebody actually had already solved it?
| _notreallyme_ wrote:
| The english version is weird. It was planned from the beggining
| that they would bury a bronze owl.
|
| The bronze owl was to be exchanged with the precious metal one.
| In the french news, they specifically mentioned that the bronze
| one was found.
|
| If you think about it, it makes more sense. The co-founder was
| given the rights to the original treasure hunt because he is
| the owner of the valuable owl. He is the one who financed the
| whole thing.
| supergarfield wrote:
| The French Wikipedia page doesn't talk about it, but the
| quoted text from the English Wikipedia page involving an iron
| bird (and not a bronze owl) is accurate. Here's the official
| report of finding it: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0511/
| 4586/7430/files/pv.co... (liked from https://editions-
| chouettedor.com/pages/documents-officiels).
| _notreallyme_ wrote:
| Oh, thanks for the links.
|
| What it says it that the statue should have been in bronze,
| but is instead in "ferrous metal" and must have been
| replaced around september 2005.
|
| Anyway, the idea was that the golden one was not buried,
| only a "pass-out" one.
| aredox wrote:
| No, what is means is that at the location, the stand-in for the
| golden owl was rusted.
|
| The creator of treasure hunt didn't bury the actual golden owl,
| to keep the artwork clean and to force the finder to reveal
| that he/she has indeed solved the puzzle, and not just stumbled
| upon it.
| kulahan wrote:
| Isn't gold pretty much the one thing you wouldn't need to
| worry about keeping clean if you buried it?
| card_zero wrote:
| That _is_ confusingly low on details. I added "speculated to
| be a replacement left by Hauser" (the creator), as the source
| says.
| kaffekaka wrote:
| Similar: the Forrest Fenn treasure
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenn_treasure
| SeaGully wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of Alkemstone. I went snooping about old games
| magazines from the early 80s and there was an advert for the
| prize for that game (it really is just a maze with a series of
| clues). The ultimate solution was to be a location of the
| Alkemstone (presumably a fake gem) which one would exchange for
| the prize.
|
| I think the guy who created it died long ago and the legal office
| which was meant to verify the prize is also maybe defunct (?).
| I'm also skeptical the "stone" would be wherever it was meant to
| be at this point anyways (similar to a number of the boxes from
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(treasure_hunt) are
| theorized to be now inaccessible or destroyed).
|
| Anyways, people are still trying to solve it. Last I heard
| someone claimed that they and their friends had paired all the
| clues in some way and were close to solving it, but they were
| very cagey about it. That was over a year ago I think.
|
| https://bluerenga.blog/2021/07/27/alkemstone-all-the-clues/
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| In the early 80s the RPG company Metagaming (Melee / The
| Fantasy Trip / SJG) buried a silver unicorn.
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170619201458/https://goodman-g...
| whiplash451 wrote:
| If true, this is huge.
|
| Some people spent decades and counting on this hunt.
|
| To some extent, it will be a relief to them that the hunt is
| over.
| kulahan wrote:
| I love these ongoing puzzles. For some reason, this brings Cicada
| 3301 to mind. I never heard many details about that beyond its
| existence and some theories behind what it meant.
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(page generated 2024-10-03 23:01 UTC)