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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 11:11:27 GMT -5
Hi Morpheus221-
Welcome to the Forum!
I think most of your comments are right on target.
A few thoughts:
I completely agree that connecting both colors to numbers and numbers to letters of the alphabet is critical. Indeed, these two relationships lead to the color-coded Polybius decoders I described in some detail at the beginning of this thread.
The ACADIA clue pretty clearly suggests relating numbers to letters.
As far as assigning colors to numbers go, I think that there are two solid strategies that both give the same answer. This is exactly why earlier puzzlers suspected that a Polybius code was going to be involved.
The simple way is to just read off the colors associated with the numerals 1-5 on page 40.
We get:
1-Blue 2-Pink 3-Orange 4-Yellow 5-Red
If you "connect the dots" going 1-5 you get a star, which suggests that the five-colored stars in the corners are important clues.
The second way is a little more involved:
When two star points of the same color are found that intersect on a particular page, they pick out letters that generate words or near-words:
B: NUMBERS P: OPE R: RIDDLE Y: TREUSRE O: HIDFEN
The letters that are missing or wrong are: F, A, N, and D. This corresponds to the first half of FANDANGO, suggesting that we look for “the other half,” another Polybius clue.
The most logical order in which to put the words is:
NUMBERS OPEN HIDDEN TREASURE RIDDLE
The corresponding colors are in precisely the same order as those generated by the 4x4 grid on page 40, once again suggesting a color-based Polybius square.
I think your comment about the colored piano keys implying that colors are "key" is exactly right.
I didn't have much luck with the mileage on the signs with the exception of "Owls Head" which is 69. The arrow points left to right and may suggest that it would be wise to assign 69 to the number of squares between the border corners on pages 19 and 47.
I also put 19 and 47 together, but just by adding them, getting 66. This of course, is the total number of stars in the book and, in my solve, the number of rows on each panel.
I know it is very long, but I do hope you go back to the initial post, read through it, and see what you think. If you have a problem or a disagreement with any of it, just post it!
Ralph
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 11:15:43 GMT -5
One last observation: The numbers assignments to the colors in the grid puzzle match the order of the message from the star puzzle: 1= purple = Numbers 2= pink = Ope 3= orange = hidfen 4= yellow = Treasure 5 = red = riddle I might also add the green could = 0 since there are no matching letters for what appear to be green star points in the star puzzle. This matching (from two different puzzles) could be a confirmer that these number assignments are correct (now only 19 more to go). Going one step further, the u blocks with all five pixels that are yellow would be the letter T, reds would Y, purple would be the letter A. Following this method, a single letter could be represented by various pixel/block combinations. This type of homophonic substitution would make the cipher text virtually impossible to crack without the key. Exactly right! I still think that we will be only working with the first five colors, though.
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Post by morpheus221 on Mar 2, 2019 12:07:18 GMT -5
I will take another look at it...one last clue speaking of the mileage signs: -the pixel on the back of the sign. How do the mileage signs (which are all uniquely colored) give us a number?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 12:21:38 GMT -5
I will take another look at it...one last clue speaking of the mileage signs: -the pixel on the back of the sign. How do the mileage signs (which are all uniquely colored) give us a number? I think that the main takeaway was always the color coding and the subsequent spelling out of first letters. So the first letters of the red signs spell out yellow, and the purple signs spell out red. If you're willing to ditch Nepal (an obvious outlier) the white signs spell book. Most puzzlers interpreted this to contemplate the red and yellow books on page 30. One is vertical and one horizontal. i think this was an early clue to assign colors to borders (again, see my first post) Ralph
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Post by morpheus221 on Mar 2, 2019 12:28:48 GMT -5
Agreed. Also “red-yellow” book could refer to the orange book in the bookcase with ISBN number we know is incorrect.
Orange comes up a few times as an outlier, including the missing croquet ball and the peg (“last in line, one of four”). Note the croquet colors are not standard.
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Post by morpheus221 on Mar 2, 2019 12:33:36 GMT -5
The letter “N” in Nepal/BOONK could be the other missing “N” in FANDANGO So we have N,F,A from star code and N from mileage signs. Are we missing one puzzle? need D, A, G, O.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 12:45:17 GMT -5
The letter “N” in Nepal/BOONK could be the other missing “N” in FANDANGO So we have N,F,A from star code and N from mileage signs. Are we missing one puzzle? need D, A, G, O. If you include letters that are missing and/or incorrect, you get F A N D. There are two features of the NEPAL sign that don't fit: the mileage (everything else is local) and the fact that it's missing the pointy end.
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Post by morpheus221 on Mar 2, 2019 12:51:19 GMT -5
Feel like the mileage signs are of significant importance. Wonder if new thread on them should be started.
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Post by catherwood on Mar 2, 2019 12:58:24 GMT -5
Glad to see so much discussion on this hunt. I tried (unsuccessfully) to decode the U shaped blocks many times which I firmly believe represent the ‘hidden treasure riddle.’ A few observations/thoughts: -each U block likely represents a letter ... a quick note: This thread should be used to discuss the first post's proposed solution. I still like the analysis about the U-blocks as a cipher, but I will take that disussion to another thread. (I'll copy the post from morpheus elsewhere shortly). I know some might be anxious to jump to the riddle which was extracted, but I personally want to verify the other steps which generated that chart first. I am spending time on the colors on those two borders because I cannot accept that they are random. I feel like it was not at all necessary to generate 660 "pixels" just to confirm the fact that there are 66 stars with 5 points each distributed across the paintings. It would be obvious to most solvers to create a chart of 66x5 to collect the data from those stars. I do not interpret the borders as an instruction to create two grids of 330 cells each, so I continue to search for other uses. I'm taking that thought process out of this thread for now.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 12:59:03 GMT -5
Hi morpheus221-
The primary intent of this thread was get some fresh eyes on the riddle because I cannot quite seem to crack it:
A GOLDEN HARPY PREENS
NOW A LARK FORGIVES ME IN KIND
PRAY PROOF IF SENT
I MAY LOOK BAD
WE SPY A PINK POSY
A separate thread on the mileage signs would therefore be good by me, although I'm happy to address any specific questions about how I got to the riddle.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2019 14:52:58 GMT -5
Agreed. Also “red-yellow” book could refer to the orange book in the bookcase with ISBN number we know is incorrect. Orange comes up a few times as an outlier, including the missing croquet ball and the peg (“last in line, one of four”). Note the croquet colors are not standard. Someone posted a solid solution to the "LAST IN LINE" clue some time ago, probably on the Tweleve web site. (There is an enormous amount of useful material on Fandango there, although most of the high-quality material dates back to the early days of the puzzle.) The outer borders of the pictures come in different colors. The border on page 17 (where LAST IN LINE is seen) is olive green. If you take the letters that end each of the four lines on all of the pages with an olive green border, they anagram to SEE RED, YELLOW NEXT.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2019 19:53:33 GMT -5
"The clock puzzle The clock in panel 3 reads 4:05:05. The clock in panel 14 reads 9:04:55. The difference in time is very close to 5 hours, suggesting that the fox spends 30 minutes in each panel, but there are only 9 panels to traverse, not 10. The second hand provides the solution to this conundrum. If the fox moves to the next panel at precisely 5 or 35 minutes after the hour, then this works. In panel 3, he had arrived moments before, and in panel 11, in which he arrived at 8:35, he was just moments from leaving. We have no reason to believe that the color switch is linked to the movements of the fox. If, on the other hand, the color change occurs on the half-hour, then the upcoming color switch will occur shortly before the fox departs a particular panel. This will be critical later." Hi Ralph, First off, thank you for the detailed solution you have presented, there is much to consider. I have a question about the clock puzzle you presented here. Is there any particular reason you chose to not include the other two clocks in the images? Specially, the clock on the "fire" page and Caddy Mack's watch. I am curious why you chose to leave these two clocks out of the puzzle. Thanks.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 6:47:16 GMT -5
"The clock puzzle The clock in panel 3 reads 4:05:05. The clock in panel 14 reads 9:04:55. The difference in time is very close to 5 hours, suggesting that the fox spends 30 minutes in each panel, but there are only 9 panels to traverse, not 10. The second hand provides the solution to this conundrum. If the fox moves to the next panel at precisely 5 or 35 minutes after the hour, then this works. In panel 3, he had arrived moments before, and in panel 11, in which he arrived at 8:35, he was just moments from leaving. We have no reason to believe that the color switch is linked to the movements of the fox. If, on the other hand, the color change occurs on the half-hour, then the upcoming color switch will occur shortly before the fox departs a particular panel. This will be critical later." Hi Ralph, First off, thank you for the detailed solution you have presented, there is much to consider. I have a question about the clock puzzle you presented here. Is there any particular reason you chose to not include the other two clocks in the images? Specially, the clock on the "fire" page and Caddy Mack's watch. I am curious why you chose to leave these two clocks out of the puzzle. Thanks. Hi ursalove, That is an excellent question that goes right to the heart of puzzle design. The challenge for a clue setter is to very precisely calibrate the difficulty of a clue in order that it not be too easy or too hard. In short, the other two clocks are red herrings, and there are three good reasons to think so. First of all, if they were absent, we would only be dealing with the other two clocks. This would make the overall clue too easy. Secondly, no matter how hard you try, there is no way to integrate the times on the four clocks in a logical way. Consequently, we would either need to throw out the whole clue or ditch something. This brings us to the third, and strongest, reason. The two primary clocks have three things in common: (1) they have hour, minute, and second hands (2) the minute hands are the same distance from 12, and (3) so are the second hands. This tells us that we should look at them together. The other two clocks lack these features. Initially, I was concerned about the fact that the other two clocks didn't "fit," but once I figured out the puzzle and saw how it worked, I was ok with it. Again, thanks for your question. When I originally posted back in February I was hoping to get more like it... Ralph
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Post by astree on Mar 29, 2019 10:24:56 GMT -5
. Im not sure what “panel 3 and 14” refers to in the post above, but here is another possible 3 1 4 pi and space-time relation, ralph, directly relaed to .... time.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 10:43:41 GMT -5
. Im not sure what “panel 3 and 14” refers to in the post above, but here is another possible 3 1 4 pi and space-time relation, ralph, directly relaed to .... time. Thanks for catching the typo astree. It should have read panels 3 and 12 (the one with Ms. Einstein).
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