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Post by Jenny on Jan 3, 2019 6:43:30 GMT -5
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Post by GeneticBlend on Jan 4, 2019 9:25:04 GMT -5
I can't believe this one hasn't been found yet. Is there anyone here from Virginia?
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jan 4, 2019 17:00:43 GMT -5
I can't believe this one hasn't been found yet. Is there anyone here from Virginia? Hi GB: just started looking at this an hour ago. Caught the lighter shaded VA in "reveal" right away, so assumed the location is in Virginia. Having grown up in Northern Virginia, I spent many summers in the Appalachians -- especially along Skyline Drive (which I note has 12 letters). Have also been to Luray Caverns many times -- 12 letters again. There is a garden maze right across the street from the museum ("not far to get lost"?) Wouldn't surprise me if the spot is in this general vicinity, but I'd prefer to solve it in the manner intended: the first 12 letters of the alphabet scrambled at lower right, twelve clusters of leaves with 2-14 leaves per cluster. GB: have you deciphered the 20 letters at lower left? That's what I'm focusing on at the moment... |
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Post by GeneticBlend on Jan 4, 2019 18:50:57 GMT -5
I believe the "not far to get lost" is refering to the "Lost Colony", or Roanoke Valley, in Virginia.
The EKG symbol could possibly be a MW for "Mysterious Writings", as Jenny has often posted such things before in previous puzzles. But of course it could be many other things as well.
There are a lot of 12s in the puzzle. First and foremost, we have the opening line of the poem, "twelve numbers you seek".
But there are also 12 branches with leaves, 12 lines in the poem, and the first 12 letters of the alphabet (scrambled). My first guess was that the 12 numbers could be a lat/long, but I'm not so sure about that.
The poem alone will not provide you with a location. It is too general. It is obvious that it is in Virginia. But beyond that, the poem could fit many places. You have to be able to solve the ciphers in order to pinpoint the "x marks the spot".
The 12 branches with leaves, I feel is a cipher, as are the letters in the bottom left after the "STOP" sign. The scrambled alphabet letters may just tell us how to order something, but I'm not sure.
I have some ideas for locations, but without the ciphers solved, that's all they remain, "ideas".
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jan 4, 2019 19:46:20 GMT -5
Hi GeneticBlend: another thing I noticed: in the 20-letter cipher at bottom left, 12 letters are excluded: E, G through N, and T through V. No repeated digraphs, and low incidence of coincidence (3.68%) means it's unlikely to be simple substitution. Based on Jenny's other puzzles, one of my first guesses would be code for picking off letters from either the poem or the title.
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Post by squirejames88 on Jan 4, 2019 22:06:35 GMT -5
I can't believe this one hasn't been found yet. Is there anyone here from Virginia? I'm in northern VA in fairfax county. Just discovered this hunt a half an hour ago though. Looks like fun. Awesome medallions. |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jan 4, 2019 22:28:56 GMT -5
I can't believe this one hasn't been found yet. Is there anyone here from Virginia? I'm in northern VA in fairfax county. Just discovered this hunt a half an hour ago though. Looks like fun. Awesome medallions. SquireJames: I grew up in West Springfield! Small world... |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jan 4, 2019 22:34:24 GMT -5
The lower right letter string = “Number Twelve” (after counting the letters in the poem/text and anagramming them ( Ebuvelrntmew). Uncertain how to proceed. Perhaps the 12th word in the poem (“discover”) will be used as some cipher key? Or, we decipher something using the alphabet starting with the letter L (the 12th letter of the alphabet)? Or, base 12 number system? Still unclear on the 20 letter sequence in the lower left. Molyn: no, that's not it. Jenny could have scrambled the letters in the lower right in any order and you could still anagram it to NUMBER TWELVE by this system because the first 12 letters of the poem are "Twelve number". In other words, if that was the answer, the order of the scrambled letters would be irrelevant. Might just as well have been ABCDEFGHIJKL. |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jan 5, 2019 0:30:51 GMT -5
Hi Molyn -- nothing to be ashamed of since obviously you weren't alone in this thinking (unless you're Tina?) I just checked Dal's for the first time since midday and I now see that GeneticBlend posted essentially the same thing. I resisted the temptation to do so over at Dal's earlier today because I self-exiled myself from there late last year.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Jan 5, 2019 1:51:32 GMT -5
Jenny is a very accomplished puzzle designer, so you'll definitely learn a lot just working her challenges. If you don't have her recent self-published book, I thoroughly recommend it -- you'll learn a lot about ciphers and puzzles and ongoing armchair treasure hunts, and it's a great resource for a huge number of Forrest's MW quotes over the last 5+ years. The book has over two dozen puzzles with a wide range of difficulties: something for everyone!
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Post by GeneticBlend on Jan 5, 2019 9:44:02 GMT -5
That was my FIRST post over there! I don't care for they way that forum is set up. The posts get more narrow as you scroll down the page.
Well,it is Saturday, and I wonder if someone will find it today.
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Post by squirejames88 on Jan 5, 2019 12:43:25 GMT -5
You are very generous Zappos, I still feel silly. I’m very new and have a lot to learn! We are a small forgiving group. I know i posted some things early on a few years ago in a hunt that probably sent some people on a wild goose chase to an incorrect location, but I was very sure of myself at the time:) |
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