Post by adrienloridan on Dec 4, 2020 7:37:14 GMT -5
I share with you an article from last July on treasure hunting that I love the most. I was followed on an expedition.
(google translate)
With the adventurers of the Golden Owl in Berry: they've been looking for it for 27 years
THE PARISIAN WEEKEND. In 1993, a certain Max Valentin buried a bronze owl somewhere in France.
To find it, you have to solve eleven puzzles. Passionate people are always looking for the treasure. We followed one of them.
www.leparisien.fr/societe/avec-les-aventuriers-de-la-chouette-d-or-dans-le-berry-ils-la-cherchent-depuis-27-ans-25-07-2020-8358528.php
By Stéphane Loignon
July 25, 2020 at 8:10 a.m.
We meet at the crossroads of three white stone alleys, in the heart of a forest in Berry. We had to promise not to say too much about the location of the meeting. Adrien Loridan, 30, does not want to put his rivals on the trail of the Golden Owl, which he has been tracking since he discovered on YouTube, a year ago, the existence of this very old hunt. treasure. "A video listed the ten most sought-after treasures in the world, one of which has been hidden in France for twenty-seven years", confides this tall blond with a solid build.
On the Internet, the Lyonnais then downloads the eleven puzzles imagined by one of the game's two creators, Max Valentin (whose real name is Régis Hauser). The solutions must make it possible to locate the bronze owl that the latter buried, one night in April 1993, somewhere in the country. Whoever finds it will receive the award: the original statuette in gold, silver and diamonds, estimated at 1 million francs at the time (150,000 euros).
No one would know his hiding place anymore
In the meantime, it remains in the custody of the co-organizer of the competition, the artist Michel Becker, who sculpted the molding and illustrated the riddles, initially published the same year in the book “Sur la trace de la Chouette d'or », Since reissued. No one, so far, has had the final say. No need to rely on its designers to unravel the intrigue. Régis Hauser died in 2009. As for Michel Becker, he swears: “I would have liked to please you, but I don't know where the owl is hidden! "
Like most of the 250,000 "owlers" who one day embarked on this quest, Adrien quickly solves the first puzzles, charades whose solutions - such as Bourges or Roncevaux - are consensus. But as the pages go, the answers become less obvious. In September 2019, after two months of deductions and clever calculations, he points to an area on the map of France where he can narrow down his research and leaves for Berry, by carpooling.
Three evangelists drop him off at midnight at the edge of the forest. “When they realized I was going to sleep there, they prayed for me,” he recalls, smiling. In the twilight, this unemployed computer scientist, more used to screens than to large spaces, crosses the woods, his shovel in his hand. “I found my mark and dug,” he says. Missed. He spends the night on the grass, under the stars, listening to the hoot of the owls. "The first time you sleep there, without a network, you freak out!" Adrien laughs.
Not to discourage him, however. Five times, in the fall and then in the middle of winter, the owl bird returns to check his new hypotheses. He also goes to Sélestat, Alsace and Corsica to confirm tracks, which all lead him back to his favorite place, where he is back at the beginning of July 2020.
Hiking bag on our back, compass in hand, it guides us through the undergrowth. At the foot of a stump in which an iron bar has been stuck like a sword, Adrien points to a hole he dug, then filled it up. It wasn't there. Further on, a century-old oak tree, the trunk of which was drilled to house a mysterious religious altar. Statuettes of Mary rest under a metal grid, screwed into the bark. The treasure hunter sees in it the key to one of the riddles, of which he recites the end: "Show your respect for Mother Nature, and, before you go away, close his wound."
At 2.64 kilometers from the tree, a distance that he considers relevant, Adrien determines a precise place, on a cadastral parcel whose number appears in the book. There, under a sun at the zenith, he gives a first blow of the pickaxe. "There is a 99% chance that she is not here," he tempers. Do we ever know.
Adrien Loridan tries to solve the puzzles published in the book “On the trail of the golden owl”. LP / O.C.
2.64 kilometers from a century-old oak tree he spotted, Adrien digs. In vain. LP / Olivier Corsan
The old guard views such attempts with caution. Airyn (his pseudonym of owl), lecturer in physics, started in 2005. “After a year of spending an hour there a night, I dug near Authun, in the Aveyron. Obviously there was nothing, ”he admits. Author of the book "The universe of treasure hunts", this enthusiast of the genre has put away his shovel but has not given up: "I now prefer the Dabo trail. "
This village in the Vosges, famous for its chapel perched on a hill, is the favorite area for most owlers. Mickey (again a pseudonym), a retiree from France Telecom whom his nieces nickname Tonton Chouette, has been scouring the place since the early hours of the game. One evening in September 1993, with two friends and journalist Florence Aubenas, then stationed at " Liberation ", he drove from Clamart to the Dabo rock" in a car so old that it was not worth the price of the toll ", he quotes from memory. "We were convinced that we were going to find it," he comments wistfully.
"Nice parties" between owlers
He returned there often, to no avail. Year after year, the former PTT has seen the game transform. There was the Minitel era, when Max Valentin, on 3615 MAXVAL, answered questions from participants. Then the beginnings of the Internet, blogs and forums which have given way today to groups on Facebook. For two years, Mickey has put his IGN maps and his notes in a plastic bin. "I'm waiting for a new click! »He laughs.
He defends his track during the “cool festivals”, organized every spring since 2003 by the A2CO players' association. “In the early years, some were wary or came to spy, now people are more humble, the meetings are nicer,” comments the president, Garp. The confinement canceled the 2020 edition, scheduled for Golfe-Juan, in the Alpes-Maritimes. Party postponed until next year. Owls are used to waiting.
Some, however, are weary of it. In 2017, a player, furious at having found empty what he considered to be the place of hiding, sued the heirs of Max Valentin (who would be in possession of an envelope of solutions) and Michel Becker. The complainant shouts at the breach of trust and demands that a bailiff verify that the owl has not vanished.
The bird has known, it is true, an eventful fate, between the bankruptcy of the publishing house of the book of enigmas, the disagreements between the creators of the game, the seizure of the original object by a judicial liquidator in 2004 , finally recovered by Michel Becker in 2009, three months before the death of Max Valentin… Not to mention the auction of the statue at Drouot in 2014, withdrawn from the sale at the last minute.
Its place is in a museum
Always keeper of the treasure, Michel Becker promises to reveal new secrets behind the scenes of the game in a future book. The artist also hopes to open, in the spring of 2021, his Golden Owl museum, in a former water tower in Rochefort, in Charente-Maritime. The precious statuette will be exhibited there, until an owl arrives with the countermark. Maybe Adrien Loridan? In Berry, his hands bleeding after twenty-five minutes to dig under the dodger, he ended up admitting his failure. For this time. "I will come back," he slips, putting away his equipment, "I will have a new idea in a few months. "
(google translate)
With the adventurers of the Golden Owl in Berry: they've been looking for it for 27 years
THE PARISIAN WEEKEND. In 1993, a certain Max Valentin buried a bronze owl somewhere in France.
To find it, you have to solve eleven puzzles. Passionate people are always looking for the treasure. We followed one of them.
www.leparisien.fr/societe/avec-les-aventuriers-de-la-chouette-d-or-dans-le-berry-ils-la-cherchent-depuis-27-ans-25-07-2020-8358528.php
By Stéphane Loignon
July 25, 2020 at 8:10 a.m.
We meet at the crossroads of three white stone alleys, in the heart of a forest in Berry. We had to promise not to say too much about the location of the meeting. Adrien Loridan, 30, does not want to put his rivals on the trail of the Golden Owl, which he has been tracking since he discovered on YouTube, a year ago, the existence of this very old hunt. treasure. "A video listed the ten most sought-after treasures in the world, one of which has been hidden in France for twenty-seven years", confides this tall blond with a solid build.
On the Internet, the Lyonnais then downloads the eleven puzzles imagined by one of the game's two creators, Max Valentin (whose real name is Régis Hauser). The solutions must make it possible to locate the bronze owl that the latter buried, one night in April 1993, somewhere in the country. Whoever finds it will receive the award: the original statuette in gold, silver and diamonds, estimated at 1 million francs at the time (150,000 euros).
No one would know his hiding place anymore
In the meantime, it remains in the custody of the co-organizer of the competition, the artist Michel Becker, who sculpted the molding and illustrated the riddles, initially published the same year in the book “Sur la trace de la Chouette d'or », Since reissued. No one, so far, has had the final say. No need to rely on its designers to unravel the intrigue. Régis Hauser died in 2009. As for Michel Becker, he swears: “I would have liked to please you, but I don't know where the owl is hidden! "
Like most of the 250,000 "owlers" who one day embarked on this quest, Adrien quickly solves the first puzzles, charades whose solutions - such as Bourges or Roncevaux - are consensus. But as the pages go, the answers become less obvious. In September 2019, after two months of deductions and clever calculations, he points to an area on the map of France where he can narrow down his research and leaves for Berry, by carpooling.
Three evangelists drop him off at midnight at the edge of the forest. “When they realized I was going to sleep there, they prayed for me,” he recalls, smiling. In the twilight, this unemployed computer scientist, more used to screens than to large spaces, crosses the woods, his shovel in his hand. “I found my mark and dug,” he says. Missed. He spends the night on the grass, under the stars, listening to the hoot of the owls. "The first time you sleep there, without a network, you freak out!" Adrien laughs.
Not to discourage him, however. Five times, in the fall and then in the middle of winter, the owl bird returns to check his new hypotheses. He also goes to Sélestat, Alsace and Corsica to confirm tracks, which all lead him back to his favorite place, where he is back at the beginning of July 2020.
Hiking bag on our back, compass in hand, it guides us through the undergrowth. At the foot of a stump in which an iron bar has been stuck like a sword, Adrien points to a hole he dug, then filled it up. It wasn't there. Further on, a century-old oak tree, the trunk of which was drilled to house a mysterious religious altar. Statuettes of Mary rest under a metal grid, screwed into the bark. The treasure hunter sees in it the key to one of the riddles, of which he recites the end: "Show your respect for Mother Nature, and, before you go away, close his wound."
At 2.64 kilometers from the tree, a distance that he considers relevant, Adrien determines a precise place, on a cadastral parcel whose number appears in the book. There, under a sun at the zenith, he gives a first blow of the pickaxe. "There is a 99% chance that she is not here," he tempers. Do we ever know.
Adrien Loridan tries to solve the puzzles published in the book “On the trail of the golden owl”. LP / O.C.
2.64 kilometers from a century-old oak tree he spotted, Adrien digs. In vain. LP / Olivier Corsan
The old guard views such attempts with caution. Airyn (his pseudonym of owl), lecturer in physics, started in 2005. “After a year of spending an hour there a night, I dug near Authun, in the Aveyron. Obviously there was nothing, ”he admits. Author of the book "The universe of treasure hunts", this enthusiast of the genre has put away his shovel but has not given up: "I now prefer the Dabo trail. "
This village in the Vosges, famous for its chapel perched on a hill, is the favorite area for most owlers. Mickey (again a pseudonym), a retiree from France Telecom whom his nieces nickname Tonton Chouette, has been scouring the place since the early hours of the game. One evening in September 1993, with two friends and journalist Florence Aubenas, then stationed at " Liberation ", he drove from Clamart to the Dabo rock" in a car so old that it was not worth the price of the toll ", he quotes from memory. "We were convinced that we were going to find it," he comments wistfully.
"Nice parties" between owlers
He returned there often, to no avail. Year after year, the former PTT has seen the game transform. There was the Minitel era, when Max Valentin, on 3615 MAXVAL, answered questions from participants. Then the beginnings of the Internet, blogs and forums which have given way today to groups on Facebook. For two years, Mickey has put his IGN maps and his notes in a plastic bin. "I'm waiting for a new click! »He laughs.
He defends his track during the “cool festivals”, organized every spring since 2003 by the A2CO players' association. “In the early years, some were wary or came to spy, now people are more humble, the meetings are nicer,” comments the president, Garp. The confinement canceled the 2020 edition, scheduled for Golfe-Juan, in the Alpes-Maritimes. Party postponed until next year. Owls are used to waiting.
Some, however, are weary of it. In 2017, a player, furious at having found empty what he considered to be the place of hiding, sued the heirs of Max Valentin (who would be in possession of an envelope of solutions) and Michel Becker. The complainant shouts at the breach of trust and demands that a bailiff verify that the owl has not vanished.
The bird has known, it is true, an eventful fate, between the bankruptcy of the publishing house of the book of enigmas, the disagreements between the creators of the game, the seizure of the original object by a judicial liquidator in 2004 , finally recovered by Michel Becker in 2009, three months before the death of Max Valentin… Not to mention the auction of the statue at Drouot in 2014, withdrawn from the sale at the last minute.
Its place is in a museum
Always keeper of the treasure, Michel Becker promises to reveal new secrets behind the scenes of the game in a future book. The artist also hopes to open, in the spring of 2021, his Golden Owl museum, in a former water tower in Rochefort, in Charente-Maritime. The precious statuette will be exhibited there, until an owl arrives with the countermark. Maybe Adrien Loridan? In Berry, his hands bleeding after twenty-five minutes to dig under the dodger, he ended up admitting his failure. For this time. "I will come back," he slips, putting away his equipment, "I will have a new idea in a few months. "
