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Do Not Resuscitate posted:Note the nearby Rose Garden, Japanese Tea Garden and Chinese Pavilion. Not pictured, but within these bounds is the Shakespeare Garden. I was part of a group that scouted GGP the other weekend and we found no matches in the Japanese Tea Garden, Chinese Pavilion/Strawberry Hill, or Rose Garden. The Shakespeare garden had an arched brick window but no bars and nothing else that triggered a match. The linked post includes a shitload of pictures, some of which I hope may spark some ideas in others. The biggest win was a firm confirmation that the table leg is a silhouette of the lamp poles in GGP, which was nice, but we're still left with over 1,000 acres of park. TheLastManStanding posted:the Cable Car (which is the outline of that table post). I'd enjoy seeing proof of that. 
ChickenOfTomorrow fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 03:51
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The legeater was a cast, possibly somewhat mass produced thing. It's not a sculpture. I'd be very curious to see if there's any others in Montreal, St. Louis, or elsewhere. One thing I will give people from Q4T is that they haven't given up on other locations. Some people still seem to strongly believe the "montreal" image is StL, and some believe there is one in Vancouver, or at least did. The picture I initially snapped of the 4 is from below and to the left, which I think is strongly accentuating the curve. It's above head height, it's above a door, so about 12-15 feet off the ground as memory serves (the door is up about 3-5 stairs, then the 4 is above it). The initial picture was taken to MMS to a friend, not for posting, so I think a better heads on look will remove some of the questions. Might as well wait until friday, I didn't manage to get any good pictures of the church with my iPhone 4. And yeah, the 4 is 'the 4' because goddamn a lot of clues line up there. There are probably other 4s that match up, definitely in the US, possibly in Boston. This is significantly more promising than Charlesgate, and considering the Legeater was matched 5+ years ago and literally nothing has come of it, I don't feel like there's any hyperbole calling this the best lead since then, visually speaking. xie fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 04:51
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If the 4 and 2 make 42, which is the longitude of Boston, then the 4 has already been accounted for and there's not even any guarantee that it will exist as a visual clue.
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Jun 20, 2013 04:54
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Volte posted:If the 4 and 2 make 42, which is the longitude of Boston, then the 4 has already been accounted for and there's not even any guarantee that it will exist as a visual clue. It's visually distinct from the rest of the photo in a very striking way. Everything else in the image is curvy and swoopy. Again, if were a 4 on some building 2 miles away that we were shoehorning the verse into, I'd be skeptical. Doubly again, nothing is solved. People in Houston (and FL) believe they have the park narrowed down and still have not found diddly squat. xie fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 04:56
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Ug. So if Preiss used 'wonderstone' to mean any drat jewel, that sets the Milwaukee clue back a bit. If it's amethyst, possible countries for 'wonderstone's hearth' would be Brazil, Greece, Austria, Russia, South Korea, and who knows where else Preiss referenced in '82. But that's just going off the 'two balls = February = Amethyst' conjecture, ignoring the blue qualities of the pictured gem. (Though no portrait has a purple gem, so I don't think the amethyst proposition is necessarily wrong.) Blue topaz is found in a buttload of countries, I'll assume the aquamarine was effectively taken out of the picture by the Cleveland discovery, and I'm pretty sure the one in portrait 6 is a star sapphire, taking that out of the picture.
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Jun 20, 2013 04:58
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AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2013 05:09
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Not a single one of those actually matches. If it were one or two, maybe.
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Jun 20, 2013 05:14
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I'll buy Alcatraz. The rest look pretty dodgy to me.
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Jun 20, 2013 05:15
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AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jun 20, 2013 05:40
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If you look at the front of a cable car (example) it has a decent resemblance to the outline in the illustration. It's not perfect, but it's a lot closer than any posts we've found.
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Jun 20, 2013 05:50
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Houston I took another walk through Hermann Park. I got some more good information about the area. When I got home, I figured out how to get the aerial photographs to work in Google Earth. Here's 1989:  Someone posted a screenshot of that before and pointed out the steam engine in the bottom right corner. I don't think anyone pointed out the built up area directly opposite of the steam engine. Something was there from at least 1953 until at least 1995. After that, the lake was extended, and that spot was destroyed in the process Here's 2002:  So why am I so concerned about this? Here's a horrible mock-up of my theory:  Start at the train, go through the "woods", step across the small bridge (the only one that was there at the time), go to this mystery area, get to the spot to dig. Where do you dig? "In the center of four alike" near a sign that has the three "winged" Houston Parks and Recreation Department leaf logo. Dig with your back to the steam engine, so that you can look back from the treasure ground and see it behind the water spout. I know I'm basing this on a ton of assumptions, including: 1. There was something significant in that spot, and 4 things that were "alike". 2. The HPARD logo been a three-part leaf since before the 1980s. 3. There was a water spout in the lake back then. I don't think it's in another park. Aside from the obvious 982 connection, the proportions of the sphere and the column match up exactly with the reflecting pool and the Sam Houston monument circle. I know this theory means that it's impossible to find it now, but it's all I have at the moment.
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Jun 20, 2013 06:04
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I've been working on Milwaukee for the past week or two, logging a zillion hours in Google maps and Wikipedia, trying to make sense of Verse 8. Is there anything beyond the mention of "Mitchell" that's making everyone think that Verse 8 is absolutely Milwaukee? Like, were verse 8 and Milwaukee image printed next to each other in the book? It's not that I have a better suggestion. Just second guessing after hitting an awful lot of dead ends.
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Jun 20, 2013 06:17
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Captain Morose posted:I've been working on Milwaukee for the past week or two, logging a zillion hours in Google maps and Wikipedia, trying to make sense of Verse 8. Is there anything beyond the mention of "Mitchell" that's making everyone think that Verse 8 is absolutely Milwaukee? Like, were verse 8 and Milwaukee image printed next to each other in the book? Not really, no. And to add to the frustration, both the Chicago and Cleveland finds were not 'simple' once they figured out the location; Chicago had to get a photograph from Preiss of the burial spot after they unearthed nothing but underground pipes, and in Cleveland the guy dug around for over 5 hours after thinking he had the exact spot pinpointed.
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Jun 20, 2013 06:29
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Abugadu posted:Not really, no. If this is true then maybe Preiss is a jerk-off that made his clues so badly that no one will ever find them without some hints from the author himself or tearing up a location with back hoes and bulldozers.
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Jun 20, 2013 06:34
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Abugadu posted:Not really, no. He told them that the casque was theirs after renovations ended. I'm not sure if they further drilled down the spot via photos, or this is the famous "asking for help" we refer to. Preiss also (in the book) said that you can send in a photo of your solution as well, so if they had the right spot they were following the rules as stated. Another interesting note about Chicago is that they mis-solved some of the verse. "Where M and B are set in stone" refers to Mozart & Beethoven on a building about a block away (confirmed by Preiss), but they didn't get that at all, and took it to mean "Man and Beast." They thought it was a statue, and in the Q4T thread the finder argues the point for a while.
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Jun 20, 2013 07:04
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Raccoon Leaf posted:Houston We have pretty well confirmed that there was not, in fact, a water spout in McGovern Lake in 1982 (I think somebody said it was added in the early 2000s or something).
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Jun 20, 2013 07:04
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Cask 11 - Boston I apologize if this has been posted before, or if it's a bit too much of a stretch, or if it's not important, but I keep seeing a 7 in the woman's hair.  Also, would it be helpful at all if I went through the thread and compiled all the visual clues that have been pointed out so far and overlaid them on the images side by side with the original? I feel like it can be a bit confusing seeing all these disparate references over 60 pages. I'll try to keep it limited to those with pretty high veracity.
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Jun 20, 2013 07:58
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I find it hilarious the most concrete clue I've seen so far, the matching 4s, is being disputed so readily. It's an established fact that the artist worked from polaroids and that the columns in one of the solved casks had an extremely similar visual margin of error. Meanwhile the "look at this aerial imagery of this footpath and *squint real hard*" are popping up all over (not just Smurf) instead of working on some common effort. I admit I somewhat did this with the Tranquility Park offshoot (though there were more visual clues), but I definitely want to see more recon at Hermann first. Perhaps someone could track down old blueprints and whatnot to get a better idea of what changes happened and when.
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Jun 20, 2013 08:13
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Anyone disputing the 4 doesn't understand perspective and foreshortening or thinks they do but doesn't. Like it may not actually BE a match, but I mean that would be because of coincidence not because its not a visual match between object and image.
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Jun 20, 2013 08:30
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Deteriorata posted:Her sleeve has a "1105" on it, with maybe a "2" above the hem of the fairy's dress. The same digits have previously been suggested as a reversed Boston zip code, 02115, seen by the flower.  This includes the Victory Gardens. Fenway Victory Gardens 15 Park Dr., Boston MA 02115 quote:The Fenway Victory Gardens in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest surviving victory garden in the United States. The Fenway gardens were established in 1942  quote:Let our land in truth be free, http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/amss/as1/as109860/001q.gif BJG fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 08:55
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Dr. Bit posted:Milwaukee I'm getting that now, after reading the introduction and more from the book scans (via flickr) seen above. I feel stupid, not having read the book so to speak. In doing so, I came to a great truth--there are *13* jewels from 13 countries involved here. The first 12 come from European countries (or made up old world counterparts like "Hellas" (Greece) and "Cathay" (China)) when out of the blue a mysterious contingent of 'Fair People' with a dragon show up with a pearl. That painting and verse ends up being #1 and #7--San Francisco. So each painting/verse ends up relating to a country, a birthstone and birthflower, a month, and a city in the New World that has been influenced by said country (think: Charleston, SC by African-Americans--Painting #2 Verse (possibly) #5). I'm sure early in this thread or another this was all addressed and I didn't see it. I'm beginning to feel that internet forum ideas are making this more complicated than it really was. I'll post all the matchups later by the criteria above, but essentially here is the problem--when all other paintings/verses are used up, there are two Country/birthstone-flower/months* left over which can belong to Painting 10v.8 -- both France and Germany. What bugged me here was the gemstone; everyone said "oh yeah, they must have colored it wrong but its supposed to be an amethyst". But it's not. If Milwaukee was heavily influenced by Germans and French alike (Solomon Juneau was French by way of Canada), and the birthflower of December of Holly/Narcissus looks suspiciously like Primrose of February--can't it be both? Could those juggling balls be red 'balls of holly' (falalalalah...)? In another appendix of the book, one of the "fair people" is the Maitre D'aemon based in Wisconsin (and D.C.), and in a newspaper interview Preiss confirmed this creature was spotted here. And the creature was French. **So..."A letter from the country Of Wonderstone's hearth." In the book, wonderstone is used as a term for gems the creatures cared about so much. All of these gems were made by Viking Elves. In Juneau Park, there is a statue of Leif Ericson--credited and posed as discoverer of the New World. As they say in Raiders of the Lost Ark--"they're digging in the wrong place" (?) blurradial fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 13:34
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blurradial posted:I'll post all the matchups later by the criteria above They were posted by Nesetril, and there's no doubt about them. Nesetril posted:CASK CITY MONTH GEM FLOWER MONTH FROM ...use the litany to get the country from the gem... quote:THE LITANY OF THE JEWELS There are only 12 gems. The 13th treasure is the Elven casques. Re: the wonderstone, the obvious interpretation is the amethyst, giving Germany as the "country of wonderstone's hearth" - this is what everyone has always assumed. The more interesting, cryptic interpretation is a reference to the rhyolite in Juneau Park, already a possible candidate because of the match with the Juneau statue. BJG fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 14:00
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Milwaukeeblurradial posted:In the book, wonderstone is used as a term for gems the creatures cared about so much. All of these gems were made by Viking Elves. In Juneau Park, there is a statue of Leif Ericson--credited and posed as discoverer of the New World. As they say in Raiders of the Lost Ark--"they're digging in the wrong place" (?) Wonderstone/Rhyolite generally is picked for use as a decorative polished rock because it has some beautiful striations as shown on this page. You will notice some similarities between those wonderstone samples shown and the texture in the robe. I have been looking for similarities in decorative stonework on various buildings downtown but so far have not found a match. But I haven't looked extensively. The two red balls that the woman is juggling has got me thinking too. If you are older you may remember the game of Jacks which usually includes two red rubber balls. Google it if you are unsure what I am talking about. Anyway, it is pretty commonly known and the first initial of Jacks is J for Juneau. Add the K in "key" for Kilbourn and the W in "walking stick" for Walker and you have the initials of the 3 founders of Milwaukee. Those are the first three things the juggler is juggling so there must be some significance. Maybe, but those clues don't seem to narrow down the location. They only provide a general indication. As with the Chicago picture clues, they narrow the location down in a very specific way. This is why I think the picture clues are very specific and are important. The image of the City Hall isn't just a general clue, it is a huge arrow saying "look nearby!", and the same goes for certain clues for the Pabst Theater. In the Chicago picture, the clues of the Art Institute, the Columbian Exposition statue and the fence post narrowed it down to a very specific area around Grant Park. Juneau Park is too far away from the Milwaukee City Hall unfortunately so I hesitate looking for answers there.
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Jun 20, 2013 14:06
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BJG posted:The same digits have previously been suggested as a reversed Boston zip code, 02115, seen by the flower. Took me a minute to see what was being considered a "5" in that zip code, but that's not a bad find. I don't think anyone's mentioned that in this thread yet. The "1942" is a stretch for me, since "42" is used for the coordinates.
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Jun 20, 2013 14:21
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Milwaukee If it really is verse 8, it calls for walking 100 paces SE over rock and soil. Depending on whether you use the modern "single-step" or traditional "every other step" for a pace (and how long your pace is), you need ~250 to ~500 feet of rock and soil to traverse in the vicinity of city hall.
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Jun 20, 2013 14:39
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blurradial posted:"Cathay" (Spain) China.
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Jun 20, 2013 15:14
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The Hadas of Iberia: Sapphire, shy as a wild field flower. ---- (P6) Did Preiss write that or was it one of the other writers? If he did, then I'd like to take a closer look. Does Hadas pertain to a scholar of Classical history? Does this refer to the Georgian and Ancient Greek named Iberia or the Spain Iberia? Iberia (Georgian — იბერია, Latin: Iberia and Greek: Ἰβηρία), also known as Iveria (Georgian:ივერია), was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgiankingdom of Kartli (4th century BC – 5th century AD), corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia. The term Caucasian Iberia (or Eastern Iberia) is used to distinguish it from the Iberian Peninsula, where Spain, Portugal etc. are located. Depending, this might have significant implications. Edit: next question, how do we take the meaning of "shy" in connection to a wild field flower? I wonder what kind of flower and if its a clue to a state flower. Urban Smurf fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 15:55
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Preiss surely wrote the introduction and litany, it's so closely bound up with the images and the whole puzzle. The National Lampoon guys just wrote the stuff at the end AFAIK.Urban Smurf posted:Does this refer to the Georgian and Ancient Greek named Iberia or the Spain Iberia? The introduction talks of "the Iberian Hadas (that is, the Spanish Fays)" BJG fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 16:00
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BJG posted:The introduction talks of "the Iberian Hadas (that is, the Spanish Fays)" Are you inferring Spain? How do exclude the older reference to Iberia Caucasian? Is Hadas a Spanish word or a fairy folklore reference?
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Jun 20, 2013 16:07
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I quoted exactly what it says... you can read it yourself if you click the link...
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Jun 20, 2013 16:10
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Milwaukeeblurradial posted:What bugged me here was the gemstone; everyone said "oh yeah, they must have colored it wrong but its supposed to be an amethyst". But it's not. I agree it's colored wrong, but I've looked through all the pictures and there are no purple gems in any of them, and yet he says specifically in the introduction that an amethyst is one of the jewels. So I have no idea what's going on there. But I think we can be pretty sure that the number of balls corresponds to February and the primrose to the February birth flower, and amethyst is unquestionably the February birthstone. Anyway, I think there's been a lot of focus on rhyolite being the "wonderstone," and this is the first I've learned that the 12 jewels were called wonderstones by Preiss (maybe I was the only one who missed that). In either case, the "country of wonderstone's hearth" is going to refer to Germany, since there's a ton of rhyolite specifically in Germany and the amethyst corresponds to Germany in the Litany of the Jewels. And if there's more meaning than that, then I think we should keep both stones in mind. Also, the "letter from Germany" may refer to a letter from the alphabet in Fraktur or Gothic script, maybe on the side of a building or something.
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Jun 20, 2013 16:17
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BJG posted:I quoted exactly what it says... you can read it yourself if you click the link... Okay, that still isn't enough to dismiss some minimal examination and begs the question why was he being parenthetical there and not elsewhere? Are you taking tthings at face value or just not willing to take the extra step in thought? Show the link that switches your brain to "take it up a notch", bud.
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Jun 20, 2013 16:32
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If Preiss were still alive, I can only assume he'd be as delighted to see people getting mad at each other over this as he would be that people are still interested.
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Jun 20, 2013 16:45
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Urban Smurf posted:Okay, that still isn't enough to dismiss some minimal examination and begs the question why was he being parenthetical there and not elsewhere? Are you taking tthings at face value or just not willing to take the extra step in thought? Show the link that switches your brain to "take it up a notch", bud. You're welcome to pursue the Georgian Iberia idea as far as you can take it. Let us know how it turns out. Good luck.
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Jun 20, 2013 16:48
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ChickenOfTomorrow posted:China. You are right, I mistyped in my early morning blurring. Plus the cat wouldn't shut up. My point was that there was 13 Nations in the book, with Asian folk coming with their dragon near the end. And to all, while I agree that the gem in the Milwaukee painting must be an amethyst and the flower a primrose -- neither clue help the search for the location. Just like the key -- even though it helps solve the 'rebus' Mill wheel+Walking Cane+Skeleton Key=Milwaukee (since no numbers are present like other paintings), there is a key present in several paintings, like the ceramic key that is in the cask itself. **So I think the most damning evidence is the pose of the statue, the shoreline/river in the cape (we can discount the neckline, which appears in several paintings), and the verbal clues which have us heading south from the Lion Bridges of Lake Park. The drat thing is somewhere in Juneau Park. At the southern foot of the figure on the flagpole? At the southern foot of Juneau? At the southern foot of Leif Ericson? At the southern foot of the Knights Rock? At the southern foot of the giant boulder? Argh. I don't even dare dig or sonar until autumn at this point because of all the gardening.
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Jun 20, 2013 16:49
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Deteriorata posted:You're welcome to pursue the Georgian Iberia idea as far as you can take it. Let us know how it turns out. Good luck. Anyone here should be as welcome to respond to a thought provoking question. I pointed out that there may be implications in this examination, if its simple than anyone might be willing to make an effort. I'm interested in answers not lame tossing and turning. Wouldn't you agree that its important to ask the right questions? Please, help the effort if it suits you. No need to beg only the question asker for the answer if you have the balls to think critcally. Edit: let me explain the basis for my question. Like the Viking elves that scattered the jewels, and we know the true history of the Vikings did scatter and propigate various cultural gleanings (mostly by theft and force), here there are Greek references scattered throught the verses and images, and it is true that ancient Greek references are also scattered everywhere we might go in language, art and architecture, and folklore. I see that one parenthetical reference as a ploy to make it easy for us to dismiss the more original Iberia reference, which is rooted in an ancient Greek or Classical setting. If you don't think Preiss is referencing ancient Greek things while also drawing focus from distinct cultures then I'm sure you have no concern with my question. The implication that we believe the cintent of the paranthesis for the Sapphire is that we might be deliberatly fooled by Preiss. Urban Smurf fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Jun 20, 2013 |
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Jun 20, 2013 17:00
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homullus posted:Milwaukee Just to clarify, the actual verses are: Walk 100 paces Southeast over rock and soil There is nothing connecting the two verses. They could very well be taken completely separately. As to your second point - "traditional "every other step" for a pace"? What? The "traditional pace" you mention ended with the Roman empire. I don't think we want to open up an argument about long dead interpretations.
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Jun 20, 2013 17:01
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Urban Smurf posted:Anyone here should be as welcome to respond to a thought provoking question. I pointed out that there may be implications in this examination, if its simple than anyone might be willing to make an effort. I'm interested in answers not lame tossing and turning. Wouldn't you agree that its important to ask the right questions? Urban Smurf, you getting a bit butt hurt because even the mods think you post too much whacked out poo poo? Sometimes your "theories" are a bit over the top that even Einstein would ask for clarification.
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Jun 20, 2013 17:09
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I don't understand how you can spend years trying to solve this and have such a poor grasp of how the puzzles work. I don't mean just getting things wrong, there's nothing wrong with throwing some stuff against the wall, but I mean trying to deconstruct them into some sort of geometry puzzle or weird tie ins to the Iberian peninsula or whatever the gently caress. It is incredibly, incredibly likely that almost all of the puzzles work the same way, even if some are more difficult than others. They are all very likely to be solved by matching imagery near a park, within a few blocks (10 minutes in any direction seems fair as a guesstimate). There may be other clues, the verses don't all seem to work the exact same way in each puzzle, but none of them require dissecting geometric shapes and copying and pasting baseball players onto a google maps overlay. There are direct image matches in 4 paintings (2 Solved, Legeater, Milwaukee). There is a "promising" one(s) in another [Boston]. The puzzles are likely to contain rebus type clues (Mill-walk-key/Bell-flower/Euclid triangle), but they probably don't go any deeper than that. I guarantee that all 12 of these will be solved "on the ground" either via a very clever verse solve (which will still likely reveal some matching imagery along the way), or via someone scouting likely parks and matching visual clues. Occam's Razor tells us this - he buried all of the casks in what sounds like under 2 weeks, flying around the USA with a shovel. He did not have time to work out complex mathematical solutions or geometric puzzles that require comparing the angles between various structures and using those to plot a foot path. They just don't work that way.
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Jun 20, 2013 17:11
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Urban Smurf posted:Anyone here should be as welcome to respond to a thought provoking question. I pointed out that there may be implications in this examination, if its simple than anyone might be willing to make an effort. I'm interested in answers not lame tossing and turning. Wouldn't you agree that its important to ask the right questions? It appears that Preiss was quite clear that he meant Spain. Consequently, I think your idea is nuts and am not willing to invest any time in it. If you think your idea has merit, do some preliminary investigation into it and convince me. I'm not here to do your work for you.
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Jun 20, 2013 17:18
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