Solution from Pel

[ronemund]

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?



It was a labor of love hobby thing that didn't turn out great and dragged on for 14 years - it didn't sell all that well and Pel realizes it was kind of a failure now, and now all twenty of the twenty people on earth that actually knew this thing even existed are all here on this forum anyway.
  We got the message.

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.


Who said they were ever interested in an elegant solution?? It was a lark that you took overly seriously.  It was a goofy treasure hunt for fun, and it's over

Good god, people, it's over..it's over...the guy that made the thing posted here and said he's sorry, it wasn't a great hunt, it's over, kids, it's over, move on with your life
.  He hasn't updated followthefox in over ten years.

It's over..let go of conspiracy theories...it's over...it's over

[theo]

As with any other forum on the internet, people who are interested in discussing the relevant topic should feel free to do so.  And people who feel that there is nothing to discuss should feel free to move on.

Participating in a discussion simply to argue that people should not participate in a discussion seems rather self-defeating.

[stones]

So very well said! 👏👏👏

Dec 8, 2020 8:17:35 GMT -5 theo said:

As with any other forum on the internet, people who are interested in discussing the relevant topic should feel free to do so.  And people who feel that there is nothing to discuss should feel free to move on.

Participating in a discussion simply to argue that people should not participate in a discussion seems rather self-defeating.

[susb8383]

Dec 7, 2020 9:35:29 GMT -5 stones said:

It wasn't hidden in the park, it was outside of it.
It was close, but not in it.

Dec 7, 2020 7:47:56 GMT -5 susb8383 said:

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. 

That’s good. I looked online and it looked like it was inside. I feel a lot better about that.

[susb8383]

Dec 7, 2020 22:47:41 GMT -5 ronemund said:

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?


I think it’s because Pel just checked out a few years into it. It’s the same reason why he never responded to emails, never sent any newsletter to subscribers, never posted annually that he’s checked and the key is still there. He expected this to be solved within a year and he had other hunts planned (He had registered other domains). He put a lot of time and money into it, and when it dragged on year after year, I think he just wanted to be done with it.

[Deleted]

Dec 2, 2020 11:04:57 GMT -5 ripple said:

This was an attempt to put together an illustrated story book incorporating a treasure hunt to make it fun and to draw readers in. I put this together in my spare time as a hobby. Clearly from the comments it did not live up to the expectations of some readers. I had hoped that someone would solve the riddle. As no one did, I accept that the hunt was a failure.


I thought I could incorporate some clues and patterns that would identify a location. And I tried to keep the riddle simple. On the other hand, I did try to keep hunters distracted and yes, as part of the hunt,  most of the book was meant to distract from the riddle. 

As for the ‘ones’, I thought that once folding the pages was uncovered the ones would become apparent - I guess that was because I knew what to look for. After reading comments, I do recognize that they were not so clear and I apologize for not making them more obvious.


In regards to helping anyone in their quest, I did not offer anything other than an “incorrect” to the solutions that were submitted. I provided no additional clues or direction. But I accept the comment that I should not have responded to anyone.


I do think using longitude and latitude were legitimate to use as a means of identifying the location.


As the hunt just ended, I am still in the process of donating the money. I will post the recipients on this site. But as of now, the Jessup Memorial Library and Open Table have received donations.


When I created the book, I was not aware of the extent of treasure hunting sites and groups. Should I do another book, I will consult with the community beforehand. I apologize to those who are disappointed. The intent was to create a story that readers could have fun with.

Beyond its emotional content, this post also struck me visually. The sentences are grouped in a way that unusually accentuated the leadoff letters of each paragraph. In the past, several puzzlers have explored the use of leadoff letters in various contexts, and so I took a quick look out of curiosity.

The leadoff letters are T I A I I A W.

Only four letters of the alphabet appear. They only spell one word:

W A I T. 

(If you do your best to read it as one word backwards, it will also sound like a drawn out WAIT)

Now for the fun part.

Under each letter write down the number of times the letter appears in the string of leadoff letters. You get:

1 2 3 1.     

The last day of the 2020.

It goes without saying that this is pretty far-fetched, but, like many of you, I was very disappointed and perplexed with Pel's solution. 

This bit of silliness raises the possibility in my mind, however unlikely, that what we have been given by Pel so far is just a tease, and that something more substantial is coming down the road. 

In any case, best wishes to all of you and your loved ones during these challenging times.

Liz

[ronemund]

Dec 8, 2020 8:17:35 GMT -5 theo said:

As with any other forum on the internet, people who are interested in discussing the relevant topic should feel free to do so.  And people who feel that there is nothing to discuss should feel free to move on.

Participating in a discussion simply to argue that people should not participate in a discussion seems rather self-defeating.

I apologize, 150%.  I was under the impression that this forum was about solving the puzzle.  That's where I went wrong, and I apologize, sincerely. 

[thedawailey]

Dec 8, 2020 22:52:16 GMT -5 @eliza said:

Dec 2, 2020 11:04:57 GMT -5 ripple said:

This was an attempt to put together an illustrated story book incorporating a treasure hunt to make it fun and to draw readers in. I put this together in my spare time as a hobby. Clearly from the comments it did not live up to the expectations of some readers. I had hoped that someone would solve the riddle. As no one did, I accept that the hunt was a failure.


I thought I could incorporate some clues and patterns that would identify a location. And I tried to keep the riddle simple. On the other hand, I did try to keep hunters distracted and yes, as part of the hunt,  most of the book was meant to distract from the riddle. 

As for the ‘ones’, I thought that once folding the pages was uncovered the ones would become apparent - I guess that was because I knew what to look for. After reading comments, I do recognize that they were not so clear and I apologize for not making them more obvious.


In regards to helping anyone in their quest, I did not offer anything other than an “incorrect” to the solutions that were submitted. I provided no additional clues or direction. But I accept the comment that I should not have responded to anyone.


I do think using longitude and latitude were legitimate to use as a means of identifying the location.


As the hunt just ended, I am still in the process of donating the money. I will post the recipients on this site. But as of now, the Jessup Memorial Library and Open Table have received donations.


When I created the book, I was not aware of the extent of treasure hunting sites and groups. Should I do another book, I will consult with the community beforehand. I apologize to those who are disappointed. The intent was to create a story that readers could have fun with.

Beyond its emotional content, this post also struck me visually. The sentences are grouped in a way that unusually accentuated the leadoff letters of each paragraph. In the past, several puzzlers have explored the use of leadoff letters in various contexts, and so I took a quick look out of curiosity.

The leadoff letters are T I A I I A W.

Only four letters of the alphabet appear. They only spell one word:

W A I T. 

(If you do your best to read it as one word backwards, it will also sound like a drawn out WAIT)

Now for the fun part.

Under each letter write down the number of times the letter appears in the string of leadoff letters. You get:

1 2 3 1.     

The last day of the 2020.

It goes without saying that this is pretty far-fetched, but, like many of you, I was very disappointed and perplexed with Pel's solution. 

This bit of silliness raises the possibility in my mind, however unlikely, that what we have been given by Pel so far is just a tease, and that something more substantial is coming down the road. 

In any case, best wishes to all of you and your loved ones during these challenging times.

Liz

Liz - Wow, so fun! You are probably right that this is just silliness, but still, I love the way your brain works. Always looking for that hidden message! Unlikely, but wouldn't it be great if there was a better solution revealed on 12/31, or better yet, that the hunt is still on and the key is out there. We all have Fandango fatigue, but I bet there are quite a few people who would jump right back on that wagon if your discovery is real LOL!

Thanks for this smile!

[astree]

Dec 8, 2020 22:52:16 GMT -5 @eliza said:

Dec 2, 2020 11:04:57 GMT -5 ripple said:

This was an attempt to put together an illustrated story book incorporating a treasure hunt to make it fun and to draw readers in. I put this together in my spare time as a hobby. Clearly from the comments it did not live up to the expectations of some readers. I had hoped that someone would solve the riddle. As no one did, I accept that the hunt was a failure.


I thought I could incorporate some clues and patterns that would identify a location. And I tried to keep the riddle simple. On the other hand, I did try to keep hunters distracted and yes, as part of the hunt,  most of the book was meant to distract from the riddle. 

As for the ‘ones’, I thought that once folding the pages was uncovered the ones would become apparent - I guess that was because I knew what to look for. After reading comments, I do recognize that they were not so clear and I apologize for not making them more obvious.


In regards to helping anyone in their quest, I did not offer anything other than an “incorrect” to the solutions that were submitted. I provided no additional clues or direction. But I accept the comment that I should not have responded to anyone.


I do think using longitude and latitude were legitimate to use as a means of identifying the location.


As the hunt just ended, I am still in the process of donating the money. I will post the recipients on this site. But as of now, the Jessup Memorial Library and Open Table have received donations.


When I created the book, I was not aware of the extent of treasure hunting sites and groups. Should I do another book, I will consult with the community beforehand. I apologize to those who are disappointed. The intent was to create a story that readers could have fun with.

Beyond its emotional content, this post also struck me visually. The sentences are grouped in a way that unusually accentuated the leadoff letters of each paragraph. In the past, several puzzlers have explored the use of leadoff letters in various contexts, and so I took a quick look out of curiosity.

The leadoff letters are T I A I I A W.

Only four letters of the alphabet appear. They only spell one word:

W A I T. 

(If you do your best to read it as one word backwards, it will also sound like a drawn out WAIT)

Now for the fun part.

Under each letter write down the number of times the letter appears in the string of leadoff letters. You get:

1 2 3 1.     

The last day of the 2020.

It goes without saying that this is pretty far-fetched, but, like many of you, I was very disappointed and perplexed with Pel's solution. 

This bit of silliness raises the possibility in my mind, however unlikely, that what we have been given by Pel so far is just a tease, and that something more substantial is coming down the road. 

In any case, best wishes to all of you and your loved ones during these challenging times.

Liz

And, for example, the last letter of each sentence. In the 4th paragraph

d n e

Last letter of first three paragraphs..

e e s

( by the way, last letters of last four lines first paragraph, p. 57 .... “see (r)” or “see End Date sooner ?”)

Lets say its coincidental... just like a puzzle that comtains So much information is going to produce many false solutions. Without a way to confirm which solution is correct, how can one expect to travel to Mount Desert Island, confident that they have the correct solution? I don’t see any strong suggestion to fold pages, and I’m not so sure that ripping pages out of the book would occur to most people. I m still having issues that someone would put something blatant like PACE FORTY SOUTH into a puzzle and have it mean nothing connected to the solution that is offered. There are a number of other strong “clues” ( e.g., C MASQUERADE IN HT ) that we’re not incorporated into the solution that we saw.

[Deleted]

Thanks astree.

As long as we're reading things backwards, I suppose we could look at the numbers as 1/3/21!

I always enjoy your posts.

Liz

[theo]

Dec 8, 2020 22:52:16 GMT -5 @eliza said:

Only four letters of the alphabet appear. They only spell one word:

W A I T. 

(If you do your best to read it as one word backwards, it will also sound like a drawn out WAIT)

Now for the fun part.

Under each letter write down the number of times the letter appears in the string of leadoff letters. You get:

1 2 3 1.     

The last day of the 2020.

It goes without saying that this is pretty far-fetched, but, like many of you, I was very disappointed and perplexed with Pel's solution. 

This bit of silliness raises the possibility in my mind, however unlikely, that what we have been given by Pel so far is just a tease, and that something more substantial is coming down the road. 

In any case, best wishes to all of you and your loved ones during these challenging times.

Liz

WHOA... 

   Seriously impressive work, Liz!  Even though I knew that capital letters are important in the book, the letters that you found still went right by me.  Like a lot of other people probably, I was so startled by the supposed solution that I let my guard down and didn't pay much attention to the note.  Lesson for all of us, right there: A good detective never stops looking for clues.

  So where does that leave us?  My guess is that the official puzzle ended on the scheduled date (11/26/20) but COVID restrictions prevented the authors from traveling up to MDI to retrieve the key.  So they came up with this contrived "solution" that would identify some insignificant area on MDI.  The idea was to stop the bulk of the searchers from continuing.  (And maybe they even had a friend go toss a painted stone in the area to add some "evidence."  Who knows.)  But their note included a wink toward the serious searchers, to acknowledge that the bogus solution was obviously bogus.

  People who think that FANDANGO has been solved should, of course, move on and apply their mental abilities to other, unsolved puzzles.  But those of us who are participating in this forum to try and solve this particular puzzle are left in a bit of a quandary.  Should we keep working even if Pel may be trying to put us off the scent?  Are we obliged to follow his advice and WAIT?  If we come up with a more plausible solution, should we post it here before 12/31?  Genuinely curious to hear what other people think about this.

[wgardner]

Dec 9, 2020 8:36:55 GMT -5 astree said:

(snip) I don’t see any strong suggestion to fold pages, and I’m not so sure that ripping pages out of the book would occur to most people.

(snip) There are a number of other strong “clues” ( e.g., C MASQUERADE IN HT ) that we’re not incorporated into the solution that we saw.

I interpreted C MASQUERADE HINT to refer to the newspaper hint for MASQUERADE that required folding the newspaper to read (e.g., as discussed here in 2014 by Genetic Blend and others). To me in hindsight, it seems like that could be taken as a hint to do the folding. And for what it's worth, I did manage to figure out that folding some pages with stars led to 4 pointed red/yellow compass stars and was intrigued that the folded page borders could hide encoded info in some way, but I was completely at a loss as to what the next step was (though I tried many many things with the resulting folded borders and pages). And of course, I don't recall anyone proposing using the seconds from the clocks in the GPS DMS coordinates.

That said, one of the issues with the book printing itself was that it fell apart easily. I didn't rip the pages out of the book so much as I had the pages fall out of the book after a moderate amount of perusal.

I do wonder what the PACE FORTY SOUTH part was. And if many other possible "hints" were intended or accidental (folded map, rose tea, the symbols on the treasure chest lock, anything and everything else on page 11, "red yellow book" on Cadillac mountain signs, the ISBN number in the bookshelf, the numbers on the camera lens, numbers on the pages with the fire, etc).

It would be great if Jenny and/or others might consolidate some of the final outstanding open questions we all have about the hunt and see if we can get Pel to answer them (ala the Six Questions series). Jenny, is there any chance you might be able to do that?

[Jenny]

Dec 9, 2020 11:00:10 GMT -5 wgardner said:

Dec 9, 2020 8:36:55 GMT -5 astree said:

(snip) I don’t see any strong suggestion to fold pages, and I’m not so sure that ripping pages out of the book would occur to most people.

(snip) There are a number of other strong “clues” ( e.g., C MASQUERADE IN HT ) that we’re not incorporated into the solution that we saw.

I interpreted C MASQUERADE HINT to refer to the newspaper hint for MASQUERADE that required folding the newspaper to read (e.g., as discussed here in 2014 by Genetic Blend and others). To me in hindsight, it seems like that could be taken as a hint to do the folding. And for what it's worth, I did manage to figure out that folding some pages with stars led to 4 pointed red/yellow compass stars and was intrigued that the folded page borders could hide encoded info in some way, but I was completely at a loss as to what the next step was (though I tried many many things with the resulting folded borders and pages). And of course, I don't recall anyone proposing using the seconds from the clocks in the GPS DMS coordinates.

That said, one of the issues with the book printing itself was that it fell apart easily. I didn't rip the pages out of the book so much as I had the pages fall out of the book after a moderate amount of perusal.

I do wonder what the PACE FORTY SOUTH part was. And if many other possible "hints" were intended or accidental (folded map, rose tea, the symbols on the treasure chest lock, anything and everything else on page 11, "red yellow book" on Cadillac mountain signs, the ISBN number in the bookshelf, the numbers on the camera lens, numbers on the pages with the fire, etc).

It would be great if Jenny and/or others might consolidate some of the final outstanding open questions we all have about the hunt and see if we can get Pel to answer them (ala the Six Questions series). Jenny, is there any chance you might be able to do that?

I will ask....

[ronemund]

It would be great if Jenny and/or others might consolidate some of the final outstanding open questions we all have about the hunt and see if we can get Pel to answer them



Unfortunately, I think we already got the answer



"On the other hand, I did try to keep hunters distracted and yes, as part of the hunt, most of the book was meant to distract from the riddle."

He over-engineered the red herrings and under-engineered the solution.  He's not an expert puzzle maker and he did it for fun and made some assumptions incorrectly because he knew the answers.  People may not like the answers but it is what it is.  There's a reason it wasn't solved in 14 years.

My guesses
PACE FORTY SOUTH - this was addressed in this thread. I think he probably meant 'about' forty paces,
not exact but then he said the solution would only get you to the general area
folded map - a nod to the folding solution.  Also I think the shaman was holding a map with the corner folded.
rose tea - red herring
the symbols on the treasure chest lock - this was addressed in this thread
anything and everything else on page 11 - 99.9% red herring, some zodiac duos to reinforce the 'two together', the apple to nod to Newton/Masquerade
"red yellow book" on Cadillac mountain signs - nod to the main red/yellow star solution
the ISBN number in the bookshelf, the numbers on the camera lens, numbers on the pages with the fire - red herring, red herring, red herring

[ILLUMINATINPS]

Dec 10, 2020 8:38:15 GMT -5 ronemund said:

It would be great if Jenny and/or others might consolidate some of the final outstanding open questions we all have about the hunt and see if we can get Pel to answer them



Unfortunately, I think we already got the answer



"On the other hand, I did try to keep hunters distracted and yes, as part of the hunt, most of the book was meant to distract from the riddle."

He over-engineered the red herrings and under-engineered the solution.  He's not an expert puzzle maker and he did it for fun and made some assumptions incorrectly because he knew the answers.  People may not like the answers but it is what it is.  There's a reason it wasn't solved in 14 years.

My guesses
PACE FORTY SOUTH - this was addressed in this thread. I think he probably meant 'about' forty paces,
not exact but then he said the solution would only get you to the general area
folded map - a nod to the folding solution.  Also I think the shaman was holding a map with the corner folded.
rose tea - red herring
the symbols on the treasure chest lock - this was addressed in this thread
anything and everything else on page 11 - 99.9% red herring, some zodiac duos to reinforce the 'two together', the apple to nod to Newton/Masquerade
"red yellow book" on Cadillac mountain signs - nod to the main red/yellow star solution
the ISBN number in the bookshelf, the numbers on the camera lens, numbers on the pages with the fire - red herring, red herring, red herring

Pretty much correct. I did reach out post hunt to see if any clarification could be made to what was specifically a red herring and what was not. I did get a response:

1)Symbols on the chest and indian=red herring

2) No hints were deliberately put in to fold the pages

3) All the numbers that were visible were red herrings

4) Old Fop was a character from the original draft. his name was Sumner Prescot Fairchild. When the draft was gioven to Jeff to re-do, the back story to hat charcater was removed, but the flag and SPF remained. In short, also a red herring

5) There were no deliberate clues to the boulders in the book

6) the keys were a red herring.

My take away is similar to whats already been said. Ill cut him some slack because it was the first puzzle he ever wrote. Do i think this would have ever been solved? My answer is: If it was solved it would have been by randomly checking one of many coordinate solutions because there really wasn't a way to know for sure you were right with coordinates alone and on top of that, you have several numbers to choose from in the book to form coordinates that also would have put you in the middle of the woods somewhere else on the island. Trust me, most of my solutions were just that. But as far as "knowing you've solved it before you got inside your car or on a plane"?, I personally would have never felt that with a solution like this.

The only thing I can compare a coordinate solution to is The Lost Skull, but the difference is, on that hunt you knew ahead that the solution WAS coordinates before you started the hunt AND he gave a verbal and visual  confirmation via a puzzle to the location of those coordinates. And of course, it made it easy for us to dig the prize up.

I think moving forward, both us and the author learned a great deal. As searchers, you really never know what your going to get in terms of "puzzles that make sense", and it may take a decade for that truth to come to fruition. For the author, Im sure he learned a great deal about puzzle making, advertising, managing, and the present day resources available vs what he had in order to put on another hunt.