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Post by Jenny on Jan 8, 2020 11:17:18 GMT -5
mysteriouswritings.com/components-needed-to-find-the-golden-key-in-the-fandango-armchair-treasure-hunt/In an early interview with Pel Stockwell (transcript in sticky here), mentioned the following: “There are multiple components so, and you may have already, you’ll come across different things, and by themselves they’re not going to reveal the treasure. But in conjunction with other components, they will.”He also stated, when asked if there were smaller riddles to make the Master Riddle: “Yes, oh yes. They are different components that all feed into the Master Riddle.”
So, what might these components be? And how are they put together to discover the location of the hidden treasure?
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Post by Jenny on Jan 8, 2020 11:19:35 GMT -5
Is there a similar process to follow in Fandango to find a Master Riddle, as there was in Masquerade? Do the components hint to finding this process, or are they themselves pieces of Fandango’s Master Riddle?
What do you think?
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Post by astree on Jan 9, 2020 6:46:55 GMT -5
. I think the master riddle is a simple phrase or sentence. I don’t think it’s a bunch of things and I believe this is consistent with what you posted. The most obvious thing that has been discussed in the forums is
PAEC FORTY SOUTH
As far as I can tell this is the most blatant and actionable riddle type phrase that is found in the book.
I’m curious if anyone has come across the phrase master riddle in any of the armchair treasure hunts that they’ve worked on besides this one
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Post by pumalion on Jan 10, 2020 11:26:43 GMT -5
The Masquerade summary on this website helps to identify the types of hints we might find in seeking the master riddle. mysteriouswritings.com/the-masquerade-armchair-treasure-hunt-and-solution/Hints in that book: 1) One of the main clues was a line on the opening page which stated, “To solve the hidden riddle, you must use your eyes, and find the hare in every picture that may point you to the prize.” 2) With the help of a numbered magic square on one page (Penny Pocket page), and matching the numbers to a colored square grid on another page (Isaac Newton page), searchers were able to deduce a sequence on how to draw lines from eyes of characters in the book’s images. 3) Lines from the Left Eye through the Left Longest Finger, Left Eye through Left Longest Toe, Right Eye through Right Longest Finger, and Right Eye through Right Longest Toe, to letters in the bordering frame of the images provided words or phrases from each image. Together these words formed the Riddle for Masquerade. The Christmas clue the Masquerade author published in the newspaper helped to emphasize the use of fingers and toes as pointers. I have also noticed that the color sequence is used in other places in the book (for instance, a sunset image in the last illustration). If the Fandango riddle is similar, it will be reached by identifying a system that uses the illustrations. Many participants in online discussions have zeroed in on the message that comes from systematic use of the points of corner stars, using a color code to identify which points are relevant. I've seen slight variations in the analysis and its extra or "wrong" letters, but the interpretation usually leads to "numbers ope hidden message" and "pace forty south." While I am impressed by those who solved and shared this message, a part of me thinks the current hunt would have avoided using a technique so similar to the technique used in Masquerade. Also, this message was discovered years ago and no one seems to be able to apply it in a way that leads to another layer of the riddle and/or to finding the treasure. Is it a red herring, or do we just need another part of the solution? In keeping with Masquerade's "use your eyes" line (number 1 in the list of hints, above) I suspect there will be an instruction in the text that will serve as our first hint. The early line about finding at least one key in every illustration (bottom of p. 4) occupied me for quite awhile but I came to think that was too obvious, too. If it is our hint, I think it won't require us to find a literal illustration of a key, but it might confirm that every illustration contains a piece of the solution - a "key" in the virtual sense. Another line that still intrigues me is actually in the back of the book - the instruction to "read a second time for good measure." An instruction is what a teacher would call an imperative command, I believe. To be fair, I have to admit that many of the border phrases are also instructions: count to three, chase a dream, follow the light, step inside, etc. There are so many of those that it seems unlikely that one of them would have been intended by the authors as a unique hint, although I could be wrong. The instruction to read a second time for good measure stands out to me as a unique line in terms of location and cryptic instructional quality. It could be meaningful. But there are other candidates: "You are my full-tailed, four-legged ship" seems like a clue (p. 14). I can't remember all of the others that have caught my interest over the years. Because Masquerade used a line through eye and finger or toe to create lines that picked out border letters, I have also questioned whether the Stockwells would use a similar method for Fandango. Wouldn't it be too obvious to copy that aspect of the Masquerade solution? What other ways could they use to pick out letters or to spell out a riddle or location? My current thinking focuses on a "wacky compass" method, but I don't yet know how the wacky compass might work. There are hints on many pages involving maps, direction, navigation, the north star and other celestial bodies (associated with navigation). Would this be too far outside the book, though? Requiring readers to have knowledge of longitude and latitude to decipher the compass? Maybe the wacky compass theory supports the use of the star points as ways to pick out a message from the border letters. Panhandle Sam does carry a message that emphasizes the importance of the highest point and the lobsterman seems to be a weather vane pointing to the north. I hope others will share their guesses about how to find the master riddle. We have to solve this thing!
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Post by catherwood on Jan 10, 2020 16:32:21 GMT -5
It's a good plan to return to basics to figure this out. I've always considered the real puzzle to be in the text (somehow!) because of that instruction to go back and reread the story, and also for a comment at one point that the puzzle will use both the images and the text.
Beyond that, i've got nothing.
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Post by thisjustin on Jan 13, 2020 17:52:22 GMT -5
Another line that still intrigues me is actually in the back of the book - the instruction to "read a second time for good measure." An instruction is what a teacher would call an imperative command, I believe. To be fair, I have to admit that many of the border phrases are also instructions: count to three, chase a dream, follow the light, step inside, etc. There are so many of those that it seems unlikely that one of them would have been intended by the authors as a unique hint, although I could be wrong. The instruction to read a second time for good measure stands out to me as a unique line in terms of location and cryptic instructional quality. It could be meaningful. There are two clocks within the book that have a second hand: p.11 = 04:05:03 and p. 40 = 09:05:58 "Read a second time for good measure" by reading only the second hands and measuring the angle between the two. The angle of 58 seconds = 348 degrees. The angle of 3 seconds = 18 degrees. The measure of the angle between the two = 330 degrees. 330 equals the number star points (66 stars * five star points) and (arguably) the number of paired colored bars on the inner borders of pages 19 and 47. This could confirm a polybius approach though I have always thought that likely too complex, certainly as it relates to the pixels on pages 19 and 47 given the number of color variations within those borders. Separately, it is interesting to note that the total time between those two clocks is 5 hours and 55 seconds corresponding to the page numbers of the first (p. 5) and last (p. 55) illustrations.
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Post by goldenchild on Jan 13, 2020 19:49:26 GMT -5
I always had the idea that the “read a second time for good measure” could be referring to the wrong altitudes on Harley Quinn’s map. Altitude is a form of measurement and the altitudes have to be wrong for a reason. The fact they have a map in the back of the book with the altitudes makes it unlikely those were random errors. And on the Cadillac page the reference to the highest point could be a nudge to get you to look closer at the altitudes in the two maps.
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Post by ILLUMINATINPS on Jan 13, 2020 19:52:00 GMT -5
I always had the idea that the “read a second time for good measure” could be referring to the wrong altitudes on Harley Quinn’s map. Altitude is a form of measurement and the altitudes have to be wrong for a reason. The fact they have a map in the back of the book with the altitudes makes it unlikely those were random errors. And on the Cadillac page the reference to the highest point could be a nudge to get you to look closer at the altitudes in the two maps. This x1000%
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Post by morpheus221 on Jan 23, 2020 22:49:45 GMT -5
I always thought that each U block on pages 14 and 47 (1947) represented a letter. When correctly deciphered, it would provide the master riddle. Color blocks, numbers are everywhere in this book. Could never put together a master key that would convert each pixel into a number.
Regardless, whether these border blocks represent the riddle or not, it would seem unlikely that the author went to such great lengths without it contributing to the puzzle in some way.
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Post by pumalion on Jan 24, 2020 11:45:41 GMT -5
I always thought that each U block on pages 14 and 47 (1947) represented a letter. When correctly deciphered, it would provide the master riddle. Color blocks, numbers are everywhere in this book. Could never put together a master key that would convert each pixel into a number. Regardless, whether these border blocks represent the riddle or not, it would seem unlikely that the author went to such great lengths without it contributing to the puzzle in some way. The "fold in" strategy uses the illustrations but is unique in the sense that it does not repeat the line-drawing solutions used in Masquerade. Somehow that makes it seem more legitimate to me in approaching a Fandango solution. You point out the pixels that seem to form new letters in the frame; there have also been posts in this forum describing corner stars that seem to create complete compass roses when folded to meet each other.
Maybe the finding of the figurative "key" for each illustration involves folding in the image to create a new image - sometimes it will involve elements within the frame (the gatehouse on p. 19 becomes a single tower, for instance) and sometimes it might involve a coded message in the frame around the illustration. Maybe some fold-in solutions will involve border letters. In some images, maybe there will be a combination - illustration, frame and/or border letters.
I agree that the author / illustrator went to some effort to create these hidden elements. They seem worth pursuing.
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Post by morpheus221 on Jan 24, 2020 20:45:13 GMT -5
I remember the “fold in” idea. Do you have a link to that post, it’s interesting. ...“there’s more here than the surfaces”??
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Post by thisjustin on Jan 28, 2020 12:55:43 GMT -5
I remember the “fold in” idea. Do you have a link to that post, it’s interesting. ...“there’s more here than the surfaces”?? Here you go
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Post by thisjustin on Jan 28, 2020 13:17:55 GMT -5
I always thought that each U block on pages 14 and 47 (1947) represented a letter. When correctly deciphered, it would provide the master riddle. Color blocks, numbers are everywhere in this book. Could never put together a master key that would convert each pixel into a number. Regardless, whether these border blocks represent the riddle or not, it would seem unlikely that the author went to such great lengths without it contributing to the puzzle in some way. The "fold in" strategy uses the illustrations but is unique in the sense that it does not repeat the line-drawing solutions used in Masquerade. Somehow that makes it seem more legitimate to me in approaching a Fandango solution. You point out the pixels that seem to form new letters in the frame; there have also been posts in this forum describing corner stars that seem to create complete compass roses when folded to meet each other.
Maybe the finding of the figurative "key" for each illustration involves folding in the image to create a new image - sometimes it will involve elements within the frame (the gatehouse on p. 19 becomes a single tower, for instance) and sometimes it might involve a coded message in the frame around the illustration. Maybe some fold-in solutions will involve border letters. In some images, maybe there will be a combination - illustration, frame and/or border letters.
I agree that the author / illustrator went to some effort to create these hidden elements. They seem worth pursuing.
I would like to think you are right; however, the fold in strategy, like everything else in the book ends up being ambiguous. I completely agree that the fold ins on page 19 and 47 are intentional. The similar approach for the other pages? Maybe. The alignments on the other pages aren't quite as perfect as they are for 19 and 47. If they were intentional they should be perfect like 19 and 47. If they are unintentional, then I would have hoped Pel would have been more careful to ensure that it wouldn't happen. After discovering my initial solve was incorrect I find myself going back to the things we know - the things that are unambiguous. These include: 1) C Masquerade IN HT 2) the star fold ins on p 19 and 47 3) Numbers open hidden treasure riddle 4) Red Yellow Book 5) PAEC Forty South If there are others things people believe are unambiguous clues, please list them. Items like the different heights of the mountains certainly seem like possible clues, but I have seen enough random discrepancies throughout the book to wonder if it is not simply an innocent mistake. Using the known, unambiguous clues above: 1) The hint in Masquerade was provided in a newspaper and required folding the page and reflecting it in a mirror 2) That suggests the fold in strategy that forms red/yellow compass roses makes sense 3) Assigning numbers to the colors could lead to a polybius approach, or it could be a simple letter substitution (a la the license plate on p. 44) to reveal the riddle 4) The orange book hints to identifying a GPS location 5) Once you find that location, pace forty south and do whatever the riddle tells you from there This seems like a reasonable, multi-step approach using just the clues we know are intended clues. Now I just need to figure out the riddle in step 3 that no one has been able to do for the past 12 years ...
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Post by astree on Jan 28, 2020 17:07:26 GMT -5
. I believe the p. 47 polybius was solved, and emphasized certain information already coded in other forms.
p. 17 ... im not sure that is polybius (even though it looks like it).
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Post by morpheus221 on Jan 28, 2020 21:13:40 GMT -5
Excellent post Pumalion! Completely agree with your list of unambiguous clues.
I think one more should be added (not mine, can’t take credit). It’s regarding the sentence that is found by adding each word directly in front of the fox’s nose in each picture. Basically tells you that the moon face upside down acts as a map (I am paraphrasing here).
Also, edit “RED YELLOW BOONK” - I only mention it because the letter “N” was probably not added by accident. Likewise “NUMBERS OPE HIDFEN TREASURE RIDDLE” it’s almost as if the N was meant to connect and complete the word “OPEN” like a crossword puzzle.
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