stones
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Arm Chair Treasure Hunter
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Post by stones on Dec 7, 2020 9:35:29 GMT -5
It wasn't hidden in the park, it was outside of it. It was close, but not in it. Sorry if this was mentioned above already (there are a LOT of posts) but the book specifically said that the answer to the puzzle was "both visual and verbal." So how could the text not be involved at all if it was supposed to be "verbal?" Also in the Rick’s Treasure World interview, he specifically said “You have to look at everything in the text.” And he said you don’t need to break any laws but it’s against the law to hide anything in Acadia. |
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theo
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Post by theo on Dec 7, 2020 9:45:22 GMT -5
Let me try to put all the text-related references in one place. From the "Rick's Treasure World" interview (with emphasis added in each case): - Pel: I'm having a ball doing this stuff. And you know everything in the... I think you have to look at everything in the illustrations and you have to — at the same time — you have to look at everything in the text. It's a... there's not... there's not any one sort of angle. In other words and I may not be phrasing this correctly but you don't have to be familiar with baroque art to solve this riddle. But I'm having fun putting stuff in the illustrations and we had fun putting things in the text and working everything together.
- Pel: You know it was... I don't know if it was either/or. It was everything that the text in the pictures and everything was... we plotted this all out together.
- Steve: Folks make sure you were listening, both the text is equally important as the pictures. Okay so that to me is awesome too because Stadler basically put it to us that, you don't necessarily need to have to read English in order to solve this puzzle, whereas yours you obviously need to read English in order to solve the puzzle. Unless the book is published in other languages, I don’t know.
Pel: Yeah. If you don't, if you can't read English unless you randomly come across the treasure I think it would be very difficult.
From the book (again, with my emphasis added):
- Page 3: "The location of the Golden Key is revealed in Fandango by means of clues both visual and verbal."
- Page 57: "Contained within the book, "FANDANGO," are clues both visual and verbal."
- Page 58: "If you solve the master riddle, then go and get the key and keep it and the treasure for yourself. But if not, then do not give up and read a second time for good measure."
- Back cover: "Read through the story, view the pictures and uncover the clues concealed in the pages of the book."
Let me add one more piece of evidence: common sense. The book is 60 pages long, but it only has 19 pages of illustrations. Even if the authors wanted to put each illustration on a separate piece of paper, they could still have made the book one-third as long and cut their printing costs and expenses in half. But, instead, they gave a big amount of space to this awkward, strangely-capitalized poem. And they told us over and over to read it. And they even went so far as to say that the puzzle couldn't be solved without the ability to read English! And now we're supposed to believe that the text was irrelevant filler and that the solution only consisted of the digits and coordinates of a system that is used around the globe by millions of people who don't speak English? Sorry, but no. I don't have any theories, conspiracy-oriented or otherwise, to explain what is going on here, but the solution that is being proffered on this forum is very obviously not the solution that was being described by the author in interviews and in the book. Someone is trying to put an end to the search without revealing the real way the puzzle was supposed to be solved.
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Post by kbellis on Dec 7, 2020 10:38:23 GMT -5
It wasn't hidden in the park, it was outside of it. It was close, but not in it. Also in the Rick’s Treasure World interview, he specifically said “You have to look at everything in the text.” And he said you don’t need to break any laws but it’s against the law to hide anything in Acadia.
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Post by kbellis on Dec 7, 2020 10:54:24 GMT -5
I'm still baffled how anybody could be expected to find a concealed key in a wooded area minimally covering 0.28 of an acre without benefit of a meaningful verbal clue. The verbal clue was TWO TOGETHER FOREVER HELD Wonder why that was not mentioned in Pel's Solution.pdf if "TWO TOGETHER FOREVER HELD" (painted text in border on page 55) in fact was overtly pointing to the two boulders as seen in Jennifer and her husband's Tuesday night video? |
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Post by thedawailey on Dec 7, 2020 11:08:09 GMT -5
It wasn't hidden in the park, it was outside of it. It was close, but not in it.
kbellis - Thanks for this. Interesting. I have a map from the 1970's of MDI and that area is not part of the park then. And this is from a Dec 2019 article in 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."
One of my concerns over the years has been the possibility that the ever-expanding Acadia park boundaries would overlap where they hid the key. I wonder when Hunter's beach became part of the park. If you look at the map at the back of the book, the beach is not in Acadia, so maybe that area was included in the park sometime after the key was hidden.
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Post by kbellis on Dec 7, 2020 11:22:50 GMT -5
When was this boundary created? That's an xcellent question! FWIW, it's literally a federal case changing park boundaries and it will require some research to answer your question. More on that later.
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Post by kbellis on Dec 7, 2020 12:20:00 GMT -5
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Post by kbellis on Dec 7, 2020 12:36:27 GMT -5
Back in February 2010, I thought that we had found Fandango's golden key, but we just couldn't get it out of the lock 
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stones
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Arm Chair Treasure Hunter
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Post by stones on Dec 7, 2020 13:59:10 GMT -5
I honestly don't think that's the case. I believe they simply did not know what they were doing. They said they worked on Masquerade as kids and that inspired them, but what else did they have for reference? He admits that he didn't realize the arm chair treasure hunting community was as advanced as we are. I'm paraphrasing. But he just had no idea that all the images that they put in the book would be considered clues, they put them in there to teach people about the island and its history. The text was probably just his attempt at creative writing and again didn't think it all would be scrutinized as it was. Visual and verbal to him meant the clue in the back of the book that said "read again for good measure", and the stars, clocks and folded ones. He saw it clearly so he assumed everyone else would too. He just didn't take in to consideration all the extra stuff. That is my humble opinion. When was this boundary created? That's an xcellent question! FWIW, it's literally a federal case changing park boundaries and it will require some research to answer your question. More on that later. For sure! But it seems obvious from the links you added that the key was inside the park. I agree about the 'verbal' and 'text' references. We wasted so much time on that weirdly written text, which in the end was completely irrelevant!
I've also wondered if Pel started this project without a specific location in mind and had to go to the island multiple times to check sites. So he worked a number of theories and methods into the images, waiting until he picked a spot to finish the details. This would explain why there seemed to be so many 'clear' paths, taken in combination with our imaginations, that lead to false locations.
Then he finally settled on this odd and poorly designed solution. The "master riddle" is misspelled. The 1's don't look like 1's. Why Red/Yellow AND Book? The instructions and hints dropped in interviews don't match the solution (no laws need to be broken, the text is as important as the images, etc.). And somebody a while back mentioned seeing a painted-over star in one of the illustrations which could suggest there was different plan at some point.
Why 6 pages of folded red/yellow stars when only 4 were part of the solution? Why the eye-nose = NOSE on page 5? Why the buoy/ colored border matches on pg. 23? Why ROSE as center border letters on pg. 19? Why ONE OF FOUR/ THE LAST IN LINE - that meant nothing? Why is the old lady pointing specifically to the Red Rose tea bag? Then there are the signs. I could go on and on about clues in the book that were dead ends. I think these were all parts of other ideas that he discarded as he put this together. In the end he settled on DMS location because it was easier than describing a place clearly without giving it away. But he left those hints in as red herrings. That's just my theory!
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Post by ronemund on Dec 7, 2020 14:15:32 GMT -5
I don't have any theories, conspiracy-oriented or otherwise, to explain what is going on here, but the solution that is being proffered on this forum is very obviously not the solution that was being described by the author in interviews and in the book. Someone is trying to put an end to the search without revealing the real way the puzzle was supposed to be solved.
I don't have any conspiracy theories, but here's a conspiracy theory.
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Post by ronemund on Dec 7, 2020 14:26:01 GMT -5
both visual and verbal
Yes, the sentence about NUMBERS OPEN are verbal
read a second time for good measure
Yes, they're going to tell you to look over the entire book. What do you think they were going to say, "By the way, ignore all the text stuff, just look at the stars and the border words"??
Read through the story, view the pictures and uncover the clues concealed in the pages of the book."
Right, and then try to figure out what's important to the solution
This is the absolute weirdest conspiracy theory I've ever come across. The puzzle wasn't solved, the hunt ended on the day it was supposed to, but then Pel, who I guess built in multiple "solutions" to the puzzle, for some reason then only revealed the 'bad' solution, for some reason. It makes zero, nada, nothing sense. It's really bizarre. Why wouldn't he reveal the 'real' solution. The hunt is over, who cares?
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Post by ronemund on Dec 7, 2020 14:43:05 GMT -5
Fine. Pel built multiple solutions into the book and, when it ended, decided to reveal the worst one, for some mysterious reason. The solution you were working on is the correct one, but Pel cheated you by falling back on his secondary solution, so you're vindicated. Feel better?
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Post by TxTH on Dec 7, 2020 15:31:41 GMT -5
It was a fun puzzle to work on and glad to see the final solution.
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theo
Full Member
Posts: 156
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Post by theo on Dec 7, 2020 17:45:36 GMT -5
Why 6 pages of folded red/yellow stars when only 4 were part of the solution? Why the eye-nose = NOSE on page 5? Why the buoy/ colored border matches on pg. 23? Why ROSE as center border letters on pg. 19? Why ONE OF FOUR/ THE LAST IN LINE - that meant nothing? Why is the old lady pointing specifically to the Red Rose tea bag? Then there are the signs. I could go on and on about clues in the book that were dead ends. I think these were all parts of other ideas that he discarded as he put this together. In the end he settled on DMS location because it was easier than describing a place clearly without giving it away. But he left those hints in as red herrings. That's just my theory!
Hmm...
Good questions. And your theory is possible, of course.
But... - wouldn't the authors firmly settle on the one definite solution they were going to use before they started creating all those dead ends?
- And if the authors were interested in an elegant solution, wouldn't they just keep working on creating one, instead of settling for something lame? It's not like they had an editor breathing down their necks about a deadline or something.
- Furthermore, if they decided to ditch the written component, why would they keep all those references to "both visual and verbal" clues in the book?
- And why would they specifically tell an interviewer — after the book was published — that "if you can't read English ... it would be very difficult" to solve the puzzle?
None of that makes sense.
Biggest puzzle of all: The book only mentions one single, official website for the hunt, followthefox.com. The authors own that site and have complete control over it but, as of this evening, that site doesn't mention anything about this supposed "solution" at all. All we've got is an unofficial statement on an unofficial website. Why? |
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Post by pumalion on Dec 7, 2020 22:04:27 GMT -5
Biggest puzzle of all: The book only mentions one single, official website for the hunt, followthefox.com. The authors own that site and have complete control over it but, as of this evening, that site doesn't mention anything about this supposed "solution" at all. All we've got is an unofficial statement on an unofficial website. Why? They forgot their password to the other site? |
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