Quest4Treasure Archives

I may have just stumbled onto something big while trying to disprove my good pal Cat & the rest of you with your Cleveland idea which may not only confirm your theory but also break open many of the other P's. Let check a couple of more things and I will post my idea (whether right OR wrong) about the P's before this weekend.  Just wanted to give you all a heads up......

ahh cmon, post it soon.  i really think im close to one of them, and i wanna know if im right or wrong before i make the journey there.

i noticed that too.  but thought it would be too easy, but then again, as with Blaines book:  "Also Thanks - rick Rubin" so who the hell knows.

Firstly, I never even noticed that robp.  I had tried to contact JJP thru snail mail some time ago in hopes of getting some sort of status on the hunt but never heard from him. Secondly, Where did you have in mind loph?  I hope this may be another confirmer for your location and we can finally find casque #2. & Thirdly.....let me begin by apologizing if this post rambles on and doesnt make sense.  I will try my best to explain my idea. ................................................................................ ... As stated numerous times, I had always believed P4 was leading to PA (keystone) and more precisley..Pittsburgh.  I had found numerous confirmers in the P including: the upside bldg in the trees I felt was the Heinz Chapel outside of the Cathedral of Learning (which now seems to be the tower in Cleveland).....a panther fountain/bowl at the entrance of the Cathedral of Learning (but has been matched better with a fountain in Clvlnd)  & the ball w/ triangle which I thought referred to the Tri state area or 3 rivers.  I had this P matched with V10 (the last line I thought meant Brunot Island)...The Cleveland folks seemed to always best me with matching items in the P so I turned to something that no one has been able to explain....the 2 dates: 1442 & 1881.  After surfing page after page of nonrelated happenings on these dates...I thought to myself..."maybe these arent dates at all".  Drop the first halves and you have 42 & 81.  Well, it just so happens that the lat/lon of Cleveland is 41*30 N (close to 42) 81*42W.  I think the dates are a lat/lon reference to get us to Cleveland.  Now.......moving on.... Let's look at P5 since we KNOW this is in Chicago....or...41*52N  87*38W.  It may be a stretch, but look at the top 2 portions of the windmill (which everyone was convinced said something but no one knew what).  The outermost portion of the top left looks like 87 and the outermost portion of the top right looks like 41.  Shall we explore more?....... P7 - most everyone concurs this is New Orleans...or..... 29*57N 90*4W.  Look at the dates on the clock  "29" & "90". Wahoo, are we having fun yet?  another logical P is P12 in NYC w/ Lady Liberty's face....NYC or  40*45N 74*W.  this one was a little difficult to find (& I have only found the 74).  Turn page slightly to the left and look in the light part of the water below Lady Liberty...is it just me or is there a 74? So, I think that each P has the lat/lon or one of the two hidden in the P that leads us to the correct city.  I havent found all of them yet but here are the rest I think I have found. P1 - because of the Chinese robe, thought to be San Francisco (chinatown) .. or .. 37*37N (almost 38) 122*22 W.  The 1st 3 roman numerals down her left side of the robe are "122" and everyone commented about the way she seems to be pointing.  Count the blue squares and you get "38" P2 - ?  seems to be a lot of numbers in the lions mane.  Most visible are 80, 33 & 36 or 38.  I am still under the impression this P leads us to New Mexico with the numerous confirmers I have found.  Which V? who knows...thought it was the Houston V.  Both 33* and 36* do cut through NM. P3 ?  hard to find any real numbers in this one. P6  still seems logically to be Florida but cant find any numbers P8 Houston?  In the trees you can see both 95 & 96.  Houston is 29*97N 95*35W.  anyone see a 29? P9  ?  in the flower there appears to be what looks like a musical note or a 76 combined.  Major cities along 76* include: Norfolk VA, Richmond VA, Washington DC, Baltimore MD, Harrisburg PA, Syracuse NY and extends up into Canada (where we know 1 casque is buried) into Ottawa, which happens to be Canada's national Capital.  I am leaning towards Ottawa with this P possibly linked with V5.  That V states "Of granite walls" and the Old Ottawa City Hall is made entirely out of granite.  This V is also the only one that mentions we need permission to dig it up. P10 ? P11  ?  could this be Salt Lake City Utah?  just a guess there.  There appears to be an obvious 112* in the flower to the right of the fairy and SLC is 111*53W.  Could the large scroll work on dress show an intertwined SLC?  not sure on this.  I always thought this went to St. Louis. Well, there you have it in a rather big nutshell.  It may just be a case of trying to make things fit when stuck on a location but I think there are far too many to be mere coincidence.  Maybe it needs more looking into?   I just hope that I will get a little of the credit when we start digging up casques left and right in the near future  8) Let's all solve this blasted hunt once and for all..........

ooops, forgot to mention one thing.  I have 2 of the V's possibly going to Atlanta GA & Boston MA but have not been able to find lat/lon #s in any of the P's. Atlanta - 33*65  84*41 Boston -  42*37  71*03 anyone?

well i DEFINATELY have a verse leading to boston, and i think ive got the pic for it, at least its the best pic that fits for boston and the verse.  im just having trouble placing a few of the visual clues. i have a good friend of mine looking out there.  hes doing an internship in boston so im having him take is digital camera out and take pics of some places.  once i get some good eveidence i'll be heading out.  im just having trouble finding the starting position, anyone have any ideas??

fox, GREAT find though.  i think the chicago one is definatley a confirmer that this method works. i was wondering what all those numbers are for.  i had thought that maybe they were lat/lon but i never could find enough to make it work.  also, there has to be someway to mark each number set as N,S,E,W right??  maybe by where they're found in the picture (i.e. split it up into 4 quads and label them accordingly)  i guess it wouldnt be too hard to jsut permute them all, thats onle 4*3*2 = 24 combinations to check, so thats not too tough.  but i also think that the lat/lon method wont work for every pic, as there are a few pics with no numbers big enough to be lat/lon in the US.

thanks for the kudos guys.  where are all of the other regular posters like Cat?  Havent seen them for some time.  I noticed that my thread has been read several times but you 2 are the only ones commenting. loph, V3 is most DEFINITELY Boston MA with the last few lines making mention of Paul Revere's last ride.  Which P do you have it linked with?  P10?  I remember others posting they thought this was the Boston P because of the celtic cane.  Other than that, I'm lost.  I am still trying to locate that castle thingy in the misty background.  Would love to hear some of your ideas on Boston.  Dont worry, I wont steal your thunder, a trip from NM to MA is way out of the way, even if I was convinced.  😀  It seems logical that the casque may be buried in or around Copely Square...but where? rob, I am still kind of leaning towards Ottawa for that P for now.  See what you can dig up about Syracuse and I will do the same in Canada...okay eh.  I too have noticed those numbers in P1 but everything else seems to fit San Francisco: chinatown, the caged rock in background (the rock Alcatraz) and the rocky mountains quite possibly being the Farallon Islands:  http://www.sfgate.com/getoutside/1997/sep/

sure, guilt me into posting As you know, Dan and I are both close enough to San Francisco to check out a spot when you have one narrowed down.  I'll go back to the verses with SF in mind.  I'll remain the resident skeptic about seeing numbers everywhere in the images, but that's just me.

Leave it to good ole Cat to rain on my parade  😉 .  C'mon Cat, arent you just a little intrigued with the numbers quite possibly being lat/lon? Do you at least agree that P1 seems to point to SF? I really think we are so close to locating some of these casques but just dont realize just how close.  Has anyone tried to contact BP lately to see if he may release some hints or clues? Oh well, back to banging my head on a brick wall.......

Fox, you might remember from my post a couple weeks ago that he confirmed his own personal existence, but refused to answer any questions about the Hunt whatsoever. wilhouse.

Fox, I went back to my post on Image 8, which Cat and I think could  be in Hermann Park, Houston I quote: "There's a clear 95, perhaps 951 or 957. Maybe even a 5 as a fourth number.  A stretch would be an 8 as a fifth number. A z or n the tree at the top, with a 30 below it." Hermann park's coordinates are 29*43N and 95*23W 29*43 is about 30, and there's an N.  There's also the 95. Further convincing me Pic 8 is Hermann Park.  I just wish I had a better idea of where. wilhouse

fox, check your messages

Yes, as Cat said, we are ready willing and able to go goofing around the San Francisco Bay Area together to help confirm leads. And my wife has a very nice digital camera.  🙂

A nice find, Fox.  It took awhile for me to be convinced on this, since it appears to be too simple, but looking at all the pics, the numbers match up very nicely.  Congrats.  Just to keep things organized, I will post the latitude and longitude info on the appropriate image threads.

thank you sir Egg !  The #'s do seem to be more than just coincidental to me.  I'm suprised it has taken 20 years to notice these.  Are we all just looking toooooooo hard?  :-/

Well, puzzles generally seem easy once you know the answer. 20 years ago, I had also thought of latitude and longitude, but the additional numbers in each picture threw me off.  For example, in Image 4, how would one think to just discard the first two digits of "1442" and "1881"?  I think we are at the stage now where we will slowly start to find all of the treasures.  Hopefully each of us will have a shot at getting one.  I revealed my Charleston find because I thought it was only fair, since you guys pointed me to Cleveland. Let's keep at it!

ok, time for me to start taking this seriously.  I have seen most of the numbers already pointed out.  I'll take the ones that are *obviously* inserted into the images, not random curves which might suggest numbers only if you go looking for them.  For the most part, the number theory is holding up for the latitude/longitude, and this is a good thing. No matter how much Hermann Park seems to be a bust, the fact that an image has numbers leading to Houston tells me to keep the faith.  Perhaps the zoo has undergone so much remodeling that the physical clues have been erased. (happy now, foxy?)  😉

thanks Cat  :-* I am with you with Hermann Park.  My 4 Corners theory has long since been packed away in the attic.  H Park HAS to be correct.  I am still a little leary with the orb/camel/rhino pillar P (hehe youve all heard that before  😀 ) but the V seems quite obvious. I think we should keep our heads up and continue to try to solve this V for at least 1 more month.  Then, if we keep coming up blank, we should ALL email B. Priess and say "We KNOW it is in the park but with all of the remodling and renovations, the clues just dont work."

Fox, I was so frustrated, I just did that today.  I emailed him about an hour ago, and asked him, without his admitting that the verse and picture go together, and without saying that they are in Hermann Park, could he just confirm that whereever Pic 8 and V1 lead to that the clues are still there. after all, a treasure hunt without clues is pointless. wilhouse

OK, good news and bad news.  Well, some good news at least. I emailed BP and have had a couple of email sessions with him.  He's not a very talkative type, by the way. He will not tell us anything about clues.  I asked him to confirm that the clues were still in existence in Houston, and here was his response (I quote): "after 22 Years all I can say is l ." Ok, I have emailed him 3 times asking him what this means and I got nothing. Now the good news. He does confirm that there is a treasure in Houston.  That is all he will say. He won't confirm which verse or picture corresponds to it (I pleaded with him to confirm or not whether there was a treasure in Houston so I could stop spending my weekends downtown.) Here is his quote: "there is a treasure in houston. that's all i can tell you ." Unfortunately, I am no closer to finding it than before. wilhouse

Wilhouse, it's nice that you got confirmation that a treasure is in Houston, but I don't think we needed that confirmation.  I think we all agree that it is somewhere in Herrman Park --- we just need to figure out the rest of the clues.  Just speaking for myself, it is more rewarding to find something by solving the challenge, rather than have someone just give me the answer.  If Byron Preiss told you exactly where it was, and you dug it up, I don't think you would feel as good as if you found it without his help.  Just my 2 cents.

Unknown: He will not tell us anything about clues.  I asked him to confirm that the clues were still in existence in Houston, and here was his response (I quote): "after 22 Years all I can say is l." Ok, I have emailed him 3 times asking him what this means and I got nothing. Hello All! Name's Jason, reletively new to the hunt (thanks Cat) and trying to play catch-up. Some may remember me as AkiraGod from Merlin Mystery. Enough catching up. I noticed this while reading today and wanted to point something out. Maybe he's given us the biggest confirmer of the lat..long. I'm sure it's generally accepted that the lat./long. are hidden in the pictures. I read BP's quote and wondered what the hell that last letter is. It could either be a 1, an L, or an I. In this and the other quote he uses all lower case. If that's a direct quote, then BP deliberatly chose to use an upper case I (he didn't use an upper case I in the other quote) here to differentiate it from the final character/letter. Which makes it an L. If that's all he can say, couldn't it be a big hint that the key is something to do with Ls? Latitudes and Longitudes? Anyway, just a pointless observation. Mostly just wanted to make a post. I'm in Florida for two weeks but will be in PA for the summer than in NYC afterwards. Let me know if any other seekers are in those states. Jason [email protected] AOL: Stageman97

Wilhouse, Did Byron Preiss get back to you quickly or did he seem annoyed at having to answer questions?

Egbert, I agree with you.  You just have to understand the frustration of being so close with seemingly no clues to guide you (akin to you showing up in Cleveland and finding that they had demolished your wall and put up a mcdonalds where it was...).  All I was hoping to get from BP was some indication that the clues we are looking for still, in fact, exist. I did not get that. However, for now, I will take the satisfaction of knowing that there is a treasure in Houston, and that I will keep looking for it until I find it. I have been looking at this book for 22 years, and can't believe I am in the same city with a treasure... bwayjace, welcome.  Yes, you are right, in every email I have from him he uses the small "i".  In this email, he purposedly used the capital I twice. Please note that in my email program, the capital I, which in this bulletin board looks like a vertical line with horizontal lines on top and botton, really looks like a lower case "L" or just a vertical line.  So he used an upper case Y in year and an upper case "i" twice. I emailed him one more time to try and get a response to what he meant, and he does not resond. As Egbert points out, we are on our own, which is fine. At least I can still look in Houston and not feel like I am wasting my time. wilhouse

In all honesty, what I don't want to do is harass this guy. He does not owe us any help, and if he was really interested, he'd seek out this message board and read along. Maybe he currently does that and we don't know.  🙂 But to have our digs and solution attempts taken seriously, I'd hope that we can keep communication with him to a minimum. The Secret is one of hundreds of books he's published over the years. That said, has anybody been able to track down the authors?

For myself, I promised BP that I wouldn't bug him again until I found a treasure. wilhouse

Was his response even a clue or not?  Who knows?  It was kind of odd and does seem to mean something (maybe we as treasure hunters tend to make everything a clue). In the 2 email responses I posted from him on another thread, he once again only used lower case letters and kept his response to a minimum. ------------------------------------------------------- Some time ago I tried to track down the authors, illustrators and everyone involved in this book.  In trying to track down Ted Mann, I received this response from a Mr. Colombo (not even sure why I found him...been too long) "If by Ted Mann you mean retired York professor Ted Mann, his address is 21 Elizabeth St. S., Apt. 203, Richmond Hill, Ont. L4C 3V5. Phone 905-787-9885. JR John Robert Colombo Colombo & Company 42 Dell Park Avenue, Toronto M6B 2T6, Canada Phone 416-782-6853  Fax 416-782-0285 [email protected] www.colombo.ca " I also tracked down John Jude Palencar by stating that I was interested in his work but chickened out when it came time to ask about The Secret.  Here is his response: "Just received a  forwarded email from the kind folks at the Columbus College of Art and Design .  You can contact me at the address or phone listed below . Thank you for your interest in my work . Warmest regards - John Jude Palencar John Jude Palencar 508 Floral Valley West Howard , Ohio 43028 Ph # : 740.392.4271  ( We are on eastern standard time )" the email address this response was from is : [email protected] i dont know how accurate this is because this was back in january of '02

There is a lot of stuff by John Jude Palencar on the internet. Sean Kelly apparently lives in Brooklyn, NY: http://www.marksverylarge.com/people/kelly.html Ted Mann, if I have the right person, is apparently dead: http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-10824/Ted_Mann/

think you have the wrong Ted Mann.  Your TM is from Wishick, North Dakota but our TM is a native of Canada.  Also, Mr. Mann of ND was born in 1916 (?) which makes him way too old 4 hour Teee Man.    😛

Unknown: Wilhouse, Did Byron Preiss get back to you quickly or did he seem annoyed at having to answer questions? Intrigued, I apologize, I missed your post.  Here is my best answer: BP is an enigma to me. He has to be incredibly busy.  But once I emailed him on a Sunday afternoon, and he got back to me within about 15 minutes.  Once I emailed him and it took him 2 days.  He has always been polite, and never "annoyed" per se, but to be honest, sometimes his answers are so brief to be amusing.  I sent him a long email with a place I thought the treasure could be and asked him if I should dig there and he simply responded "do not dig there". I once sent him an email trying to verify that he was indeed the BP of Secret fame and he simply responded "it is me". I would say that he has responded to about 2/3 of my emails (ie., 4 out of 6 total).  The two that he did not respond to were my lengthy one about the quest and how to collect the jewels, and my last one asking him what he meant in his cryptic response to my question about whether he had checked to see if the clues were still around for the Houston treasure. I'm posting this lengthy response to give people some insight into this fellow. wilhouse

Hey, I just noticed something about BP's response to me regarding the clues. When I look in my email, both "I"s look identical - they look like "l"s. That's why I could not tell the difference and the reason for my response above. But when I cut and paste the quote out of my email into this board, this is what happens: "after 22 Years all I can say is l ." It changes the first l to an I, and leaves the second one alone.  A "1" looks like that, so he really did mean to say "l" and not "I". read into it as you will or wiII. wilhouse

Thanks for the insight rob  😀

Correct me if this has already been discussed, but in the introduction and in the postscript i see 2 things that before confused me but now seem obvious... Intro-"A pair will lead you to the cask" Postscript-"Yet fairy secrets come in twos" Lat/Long? And also--isn't the symbol used to separate the 2 basically a "|"? I cant believe i never saw this before.  😮

Well, My book finally arrived! YEAH! Now that I have glanced at it I am probably more lost than I was before I saw it. I guess I will mainly be working on the NY clues seeing that I live here.. But the other day when I was in SAn Francisco, I did just briefly check out GG Park.. My feelings are that being the G.H. is backwards, that to me means that maybe the picture is also backwards.. Maybe the Panhandle is the tower that you are searching for. Like I said, just a hunch on my part but maybe something for all of you California Peeps to think about.. Happy Holidays all.

Unknown: Intro-"A pair will lead you to the cask" Postscript-"Yet fairy secrets come in twos" Lat/Long? I cant believe i never saw this before.  😮 It could be lat/long but I believe those quotes are referring to the pair of a verse & a picture which hold the clues needed.  I think it would be near impossible (or just darn lucky) to find a casque using just the V or the P.

I just noticed you posting, seems you keep some of the same hours as I do.  I'll click on the chat link at the top and see who shows up...

darn it, having troubles logging into chat...will keep trying

I found that you have to create a chat ID to work the chat. Using your bulletin board ID is not enough. wilhouse

That's right they are two separate pieces of software so you have to register twice Mark

Hey folks, There's been a lot of confusion over the past 10 years about what Byron Preiss wrote to Milhouse in 2004. The confusion is caused by the fact that the lower-case form of one letter looks a lot like the capital form of another letter when the text is viewed in a sans-serif font on a webpage. To try to clear up the confusion, I've copied the text from the Milhouse note and I've put it into Photoshop using one sans-serif font and one font that displays everything in capitals: As you can see, the final letter in the Preiss quote is clearly a lower-case "L." So all this talk about Ayn Rand and Anthem is totally a mess-up. Preiss was giving us a hint about the letter "L," not the letter "I." I know that several of you figured out the mistake right away and focused on "L" as a hint about latitude and longitude, but there have clearly been plenty of other people (including me) who misread and misinterpreted the quote. Hopefully this clears things up! (Tip of the hat to White Rabbit, who helped sort this out in an e-mail last night!)

It's Wilhouse, definitely NOT Milhouse.... well, interesting. I always just figured he accidentally hit send before he finished his email. He was a man of few words back then. I got several emails from him that were less than 10 words, including "it is me..happy searching! ." I put the period where he did, on the next line. There's some people who think the cask is not even in Houston. To that I say: "there is a treasure in houston. that's all i can tell you ." and here is the line in question: "after 22 Years all I can say is l ." According to my webmail program (I used nameplanet at that time), the font is "monospace 12 pt". WIlhouse

wilhouse wrote:: It's Wilhouse, definitely NOT Milhouse.... Apologies! I must have had the Simpsons on my mind. (At least I didn't call you "Wiggum.") If Preiss included his characteristic ending of a carriage return and a period, wouldn't that rule out the possibility of him accidentally hitting "send" button right after the "L"? I think he was giving a hint, but I have no idea what he was trying to say. The only "L" that I've seen in any of the pictures is the one below the flower (or bell or whatever it is) in Image 4.

I think the period was built into his signature line. He used AOLat the time and I think it was just stuck there. Note that he e tended to use a lower case i for"I". Also note that the L could have been a 1 as they were the same character. Honestly not sure I'd read too much into it. I had several emails from him that were incomplete sentences or completely undecipherable. .

wilhouse wrote:: Also note that the L could have been a 1 as they were the same character. wilhouse wrote:: Honestly not sure I'd read too much into it. I had several emails from him that were incomplete sentences or completely undecipherable. . You've lost me there. A "one" and a lower-case "ell" and a capital "aye" might all look the same in certain monospace or sans-serif fonts, but they definitely AREN'T the same character. They are recorded using different keystrokes and they carry different computer information. That's why I can copy the same text you pasted from the e-mail and see the letter "L" when I put it into a different font. Preiss clearly typed the letter "ell" on his keyboard and I think we should assume that he did so on purpose. I've heard of people misreading the "ell-aye-one" stroke when they see it, but I've never heard of someone typing "ell" as a way of typing "one." I agree. You're probably right about the period being an email signature, so he may well have hit "send" before he finished the word. The whole note is close to meaningless. My main point in posting the clarification was to finally put a stake through the heart of the Ayn Rand - Anthem connection. If I have spared one poor soul from having to read Ayn Rand, my work has not been in vain.

Oregonian wrote:: If I have spared one poor soul from having to read Ayn Rand, my work has not been in vain. Unknown: On the ground there were long thin tracks of iron, but it was not iron; it felt smooth and cold as glass. lol. I thought that was more about the "cold as glass" connection though? Not that I intend to read it myself...

WhiteRabbit wrote:: I thought that was more about the "cold as glass" connection though? AAUUGGHH! I tried to kill it and IT'S STILL ALIVE! I'd forgotten all about the "cold as glass" connection. I was just remembering the other one about the use of "I." (Apparently, the singular first person subjective pronoun was banned in the dystopian world of Rand's novel.)

or did he mean "I." as in Roman numeral/first chapter? I took the cold as glass line as meaning something metal, polished, possibly reflective, possibly something see-through, or something that looks all alone, the suggestion that one is cold without anything or anyone nearby.

erexere wrote:: or did he mean "I." as in Roman numeral But of course. "after 22 Years all I can say is L" -> "after 22 years all I can say is 50", giving 72, or 1972, the date of the Atropos key. Or more likely, he just clumsily hit "l" before pressing Send , turning his unhelpful "no reply" into a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Touche.

This is all my fault for posting one of of his incomprehensible emails. I have many more never posted that would make you wonder what he was thinking when he was typing. Apologies to everyone. wilhouse

I hate to say this, Wilhouse, but I think it would be helpful for you to post BP's emails for all to see and decipher. What is indecipherable to one person may make sense to another. Maybe start another thread on it?

Egbert if it was anyone else but you who asked I would just say no. I will look into my archives and see what's there. That stuff is pretty hard to dig up now as it's in an old type data base but I'll investigate and see what I can find. wilhouse

Oregonian wrote:: . I've heard of people misreading the "ell-aye-one" stroke when they see it, but I've never heard of someone typing "ell" as a way of typing "one." Obviously you learned keyboarding post typewriters. It was quite common while using a typewriter to substitute "ell" for the numeral 1. In my typing class in high school we learned that was totally acceptable. as not moving your fingers off the home keys helped you maintain your speed and it was all about speed. I suspect BP was of the age to have learned typing not keyboarding. Anyway that being said I just read that email as saying, yes there is a casque in houston, All I can say is look.

There is an "L" street in Houston and several avenue's and streets named "I", but I'm sure you've checked on all of that. Just things that came to mind, if he was giving you a clue specific to Houston.

Dudes the lower case L was the same character as a 1 in mono spaced font

For what it's worth, I've owned many vintage typewriters, and many of them simply didn't have a "1" key -- you were expected to use a lowercase "L."

FB, yes, my old manual typewriter was the same way! yes, I guess I just turned 120 jk wilhouse