Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2020 20:49:40 GMT -5
3) why “red yellow boo(n)k” as a clue? Red, yellow makes sense. Not sure how the books would help. [/quote]
I had an idea ~2 or 3 years ago on this but at the time it didn’t really fit well - now it fits more than I realized. At that time I noticed the four-point star in the back of the book (the back cover) and how it was the same as the one on the map but the colors were turned 90 degrees from each other. At the time - I thought there was some more to the 90 degrees, indicating a right triangle or something, and I kept addressing (in my head and maybe once on the message boards?) that the “Red Yellow Book N” might be meant to indicate the red and yellow compasses (four point stars) at the end of the book (N=end). Most people were convinced that it indicated the books on Harley’s shelf so I doubted myself and let it go. Now what I saw back then makes more sense now. Hindsight, right?
Fandango was the first hunt I ever worked on over the years. I started it in 2012; but my busy life does not afford me the time to be able to deep dive into these things like it seems others can; so it’s sort of reassuring that I had some things right while other things were WAY off (in my defense, I was trying to think outside of the same stuff over and over again). It’s another example of how doubting yourself can lead you down the wrong path, though I was kind of already on the wrong path with the 90 degrees thing - I wish I would have stuck to my interpretation of “Red Yellow Book N”. C’est la vie 🤷🏼♀️.
After reading the solution, I went over and over in my head - Does anything offer a hint to Hunter’s Cove? And the only thing I could come up with was Orion on the key page. But I don’t remember anything that would have made Orion stand out from the other constellations.
I do have other additional questions, though:
1) What were the numbers on the camera page? Were they another distraction?
2) Why is the American flag missing from the top of the flagpole in Ol Fop’s image? Was it just a mistake? I know the laws of flag display in America are not commonly known so maybe it was just a mistake?
3) And the infamous ISBN on Harley’s page - obviously not part of the solve so another distraction? What about all the “reflections” references? Or the different altitudes between the maps? All just distractions?
There are a lot of beautiful things in the pages of this hunt - I have to agree that maybe there were too many distractions for one hunt. I think a lessons learned could be that this hunt - with all the illustrations and their level of detail - could have probably been broken into a few different parts/hunts.
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zodd
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Post by zodd on Dec 3, 2020 1:44:06 GMT -5
I have to say I not very happy AT ALL with the resolution of this.
First, it's pretty poor form that the website followthefox.com was not updated, and I had to come here to find out about the solution. Will it ever be updated? Try some professionalism and respect for all the people who bought the damn book and spent who knows how many hours on this. I'm glad I at least did not end up making the trip to Maine from Illinois. I almost did. I would have spent over 500 dollars on the trip and come up empty. I didn't go because I didn't have a very specific solve.
The solution as written up here is just not remotely satisfying. After over 13 years (thank goodness I didn't put more than 10-20 hours into this), and the insane amount of numbers, letters, and details in the book to pore over, this seems just really irritating. I figured that most of the wording was devoid of clues. The "second reading" clue I guess I'll say is a nice touch. And I don't even mind the idea of tearing pages out the book to need to do folds to solve it. It would be nice if there was some hint that somewhere in the fox's path as told in the story would be a clue that it could be in that area. There's no indication he was ever in that area. But whatever. But to have the blue letters spell out PACE FORTY SOUTH and not even have the COURTESY to mention that? Why would you do that? You could at least acknowledge that you put it there on purpose, even if to say yeah sorry that was a total a red herring, if indeed that's what it is, and just... WHY? If that is a total red herring, WHAT IS THE POINT OF IT except to aggressively waste people's time? If it has meaning for the solution, we'd all LOVE to know! I mean I figured that the solution would be coordinates to a general area where something would stand out, and you'd have to pace 40 south of it. Well silly me!
But what about the COUNTLESS other numbers in the book? If numbers reveal the hidden treasure as the clue says, why should we think any numbers at all are red herrings? How in the world would we know? I thought the dates might be there just to get the reader to learn some history. Fine. But after all the other randoms seeming numbers, the final code contained two 1's that looked like random rectangles?! We were supposed to get that? Come ON! At least the 3 and 7 looked like something! The other numbers could have at least been recognizable (like 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 2 - anything but a straight line for 2 1's, you know - maybe ONE 1 to add a little uncertainty, considering some pages didn't even contain a clue after folding properly like the others... geez). I mean the poor bastards who got the fold solve correctly (NO small feat I'd say!) didn't get it. Two plain rectangle ones is just a little too much guys. No wonder at all that in 13 years no one got it! Not really fun, you know? Dropping a clue a year maybe might have been a good idea (like, for example, "1927614 means nothing!").
I sort of figured that page 11 was probably a total red herring because there was just way too much going on and you'd go insane trying to decipher anything concrete in that whole mess. But all the numbers on page 19? How is one supposed to ever think that 1927614 is not going to be relevant? Or the numbers on the bouys. At the end of the day this is just a needle in a monstrous haystack. I don't mind some red herrings, but they were just vastly, vastly overdone for a 13 year hunt worth only 10k. I just really feel bad for the people who spent waaay more time that I did on this.
Not to be totally negative, I'll say that at least this made me learn a bit of history and made me put Mount Desert Island on my to-travel-to list. And the actual solution isn't that bad if you remove a decade worth of search window and about 80% of the damn red herrings (and made an effort to explain why to include some of them). And at least it's not The Secret. I can't imagine a treasure hunt worth so little that is unsolved after 4 decades.
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Post by ronemund on Dec 3, 2020 9:16:26 GMT -5
I do have other additional questions, though:
1) What were the numbers on the camera page? Were they another distraction?
2) Why is the American flag missing from the top of the flagpole in Ol Fop’s image? Was it just a mistake? I know the laws of flag display in America are not commonly known so maybe it was just a mistake?
3) And the infamous ISBN on Harley’s page - obviously not part of the solve so another distraction? What about all the “reflections” references? Or the different altitudes between the maps? All just distractions?
Unfortunately, I think the answer is they were all red herrings. It pretty much solely comes down the the stars and the borders and that's all. It's actually pretty simple, after the fact, and not badly done, right up to the folding and the mess with the 1s, when it goes completely off the rails.
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Post by morpheus221 on Dec 3, 2020 9:47:53 GMT -5
Just a few more thoughts:
-yes, the number “1” could have been fashioned in a more elegant fashion using the pixels- three pixels along the base, three vertically, one at the top -still having trouble with the “numbers open hidden treasure riddle” clue. Numbers were critical to the solution, in fact, they were the solution. Many of us assumed that a numeric code (polybius, substitution) would yield another riddle/message that would need to be solved like Masquerade. The Clue should have been something more like “numbers open treasure location”
With that said, a great treasure hunt, many fun hours on this one.
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stones
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Arm Chair Treasure Hunter
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Post by stones on Dec 3, 2020 10:03:16 GMT -5
There's a video on the fandango Facebook page of a couple finding the location. Someone had beat them to it and had taken the souvenir rock and in its placed they put a tiny Tupperware with some pieces of shells and a note that said
Curse you Pel! With love from The Parting Glass
[quote
author="@fenndango" source="/post/56210/thread" timestamp="1607005865"]From Tweleve Forum:
"While I managed to navigate to the exact spot, all I found was disturbed soil. Monday's into yesterday's major rain event resulted in 3.85" of rain, at least according to my rain gauge here in Ellsworth, but you could still discern where the ground had been recently disturbed. Further digging in the area as described by Pel resulted in only loosening more soil. No souvenir was found, but a short stick stuck in the ground with orange survey ribbon, as well as a flat rock wrapped with more of the same ribbon was seen.
For anybody else that lives near enough to attempt locating this spot, please note the following. Position lies within ANP boundaries, between the eastern shore of Hunters Cove and the westerly side of Park Loop Road ANP rules apply - so if you're caught, it may cost you! Park Loop Road is closed for the season Hunters Beach Trail lies on the westerly side of Hunter's Brook and is accessed off of Cooksey Drive Nearly 4" of rain over the last 2 days has swollen Hunter's Brook making it difficult to ford"[/quote]
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Post by thedawailey on Dec 3, 2020 10:03:22 GMT -5
Is this true that it lies within park boundaries? And you had to dig? Also wouldn't this be considered geocaching which is not allowed in ANP? Think of what the Federal, State, etc. taxes on $10,000 would be. I wouldn't put it past them to seize the entire prize. Dorr couldn't give the park to the government at first, they rejected it. He had to have political connections to ram it through. Then the government let's Rockefellers carriage roads get overgrown and basically ruined. It took an act of God and again, inside connections, to restore them. Yet the government gladly takes our $$ and proudly displays the roads as a park feature one can enjoy. fenndengo,
I don't believe the Hunter's Cliff or Hunter's Beach Trails are in the park. This is from a recent article from the Bangor Daily News:
"Located just outside of Acadia National Park, Hunters Cliff and Hunters Beach are two breathtaking destinations on Mount Desert Island that are accessible by trails that are owned and maintained by the Land and Garden Preserve."
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Post by ronemund on Dec 3, 2020 10:35:01 GMT -5
And I don't believe for one second that this was the solution. Oh, brother...
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Post by ronemund on Dec 3, 2020 10:39:24 GMT -5
-still having trouble with the “numbers open hidden treasure riddle” clue. Numbers were critical to the solution, in fact, they were the solution. Many of us assumed that a numeric code (polybius, substitution) would yield another riddle/message that would need to be solved like Masquerade. The Clue should have been something more like “numbers open treasure location”
I think it turns out Pel was using "Master Riddle" to mean basically just the whole "puzzle", not one part of it. I guess that's why he meant by the master riddle having different parts to it.
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Post by astree on Dec 3, 2020 11:01:17 GMT -5
From the solution, There are two clocks showing the second hand. On page 10, on the yellowed clock, the secondhand points to 2. On page 40, the secondhand points to 57. should read, "on page 11, on the yellowed clock..." On page 40, I couldn't read the correct secondhand time, because the seconds are only divided into 4 sections, not the normal 5. The secondhand crossed the tic mark 2 tics before the XII, so could be 58? Or did I miss something? Or, is it actually meant to be 57.5?
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Post by phrabbott on Dec 3, 2020 13:31:19 GMT -5
On page 40, I couldn't read the correct secondhand time, because the seconds are only divided into 4 sections, not the normal 5. The secondhand crossed the tic mark 2 tics before the XII, so could be 58? Or did I miss something? Or, is it actually meant to be 57.5? The clock division for that second hand on pg40 is my only real gripe with the solution. We also had it as 58. But really it's 40 something haha. The 1's while iffy are really one of the two options available--The entirety of MDI falls within 1 and 2 for the tens position of the coordinate minutes... so we could have just extrapolated. And believe it or not, I can understand including a zillion red herrings that point to masquerade techniques.
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poe67
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Post by poe67 on Dec 3, 2020 16:28:35 GMT -5
Is this true that it lies within park boundaries? And you had to dig? Also wouldn't this be considered geocaching which is not allowed in ANP? Think of what the Federal, State, etc. taxes on $10,000 would be. I wouldn't put it past them to seize the entire prize. Dorr couldn't give the park to the government at first, they rejected it. He had to have political connections to ram it through. Then the government let's Rockefellers carriage roads get overgrown and basically ruined. It took an act of God and again, inside connections, to restore them. Yet the government gladly takes our $$ and proudly displays the roads as a park feature one can enjoy. fenndengo,
I don't believe the Hunter's Cliff or Hunter's Beach Trails are in the park. This is from a recent article from the Bangor Daily News:
"Located just outside of Acadia National Park, Hunters Cliff and Hunters Beach are two breathtaking destinations on Mount Desert Island that are accessible by trails that are owned and maintained by the Land and Garden Preserve."
Agreed. It is close to the NPS boundary, but there is a small section that is still Land and Garden Preserve on that side of the cove. Poe
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Post by dlester on Dec 3, 2020 20:57:14 GMT -5
And I don't believe for one second that this was the solution. If true, perhaps the minimalist solution keeps the deeper connections secret for a follow up hunt. Why divulge all by connecting every set of dots when they could be repurposed? If false (this was the one and only method of solve), the disappointment far outweighs the thrill of the chase. Suspect evidence without any solid confirmers was the most frustrating part of this hunt, even after we all went down the rabbit hole when the folding page = red/yellow compass rose technique was discovered. Although I have to admit, how much fun would it be to create a "treasure hunt" by making up a boatload of irrelevant clues just to see how people link a bunch of red herrings that have no real relevant connection? I guess all that time spent on Fandango was better than a sharp stick in the eye, so there's that. Now if only I can find out where Mary Ann stashed her golden key......
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Post by ronemund on Dec 3, 2020 21:57:38 GMT -5
Oh good lord, this is going to be an entertaining meltdown.
If you'll allow me to give my input, I think Pel might have been in cahoots with Forrest Fenn, another treasure hunt that was all a fraud. I think Forrest Fenn's treasure and Fandango was...drum roll...the same treasure! More so than that, I propose that Forrest Fenn and Pel Stockwell were...the same person! The proof? 3 syllables in both names - deny that, if you will. Where was the treasure supposedly found? The For(r)est? What was it supposedly Well Stock(ed) with? Treasure? Case.Closed.
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dalby2020
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Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it.
Posts: 212
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Post by dalby2020 on Dec 3, 2020 22:18:40 GMT -5
Well I'm moving on to Gargaphia and the Whistle Pig. Those seem simple and straightforward
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stones
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Arm Chair Treasure Hunter
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Post by stones on Dec 3, 2020 22:26:06 GMT -5
Oh good lord, this is going to be an entertaining meltdown. 🤣🤣😂😂🤣
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